Summer hits on the Fantastic Lakes garden in June. There are garden walks, graduation parties and weddings in gardens full of blooms. The first goodies from the backyard are prepared to consume, but beware of diseases and bugs starting to appear too. Barbara Pintozzi June Blooms The June backyard is full of old-fashioned, romantic favorites:… Continue reading Great Lakes Gardener's June Checklist

When designing a backyard, we are encouraged to think of the foliage first. A powerful backbone of intriguing leaves in the garden will maintain a style together, even if flowering plants aren’t at their peak. However, we can quickly locate ourselves at a foliage frenzy, choosing exciting leaves in every color from purple and chocolate… Continue reading Fantastic Design Plant: Old Fashioned Smoke Bush

Imagine you’re the landscape architect for the street department. You are stuck for ideas for a new stretch of the interstate, which means you click your browser shortcut, go to and property on a cute-as-a-bug’s-ear window box agreement. Warning! Assuming the traffic engineers have done their job, the normal viewer would buzz beyond a window… Continue reading Is The Garden Minding the Viewing Speed Limit?

Okra enjoys the warmth. It grows best when daytime temperatures reach 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius) and night temperatures do not drop below 60 (15.5). It can manage humidity making it a favorite in the South. It provides height to a generally non-toxic vegetable patch, reaching 6 feet tall, and is 3 ft wide.… Continue reading Summer Crops: How to Grow Okra

Summer and sunflowers are a natural pairing. A row of sunflowers marking the end of a summer vegetable garden is a traditional appearance that has the additional benefit of attracting butterflies and birds. Sunflowers are a wonderful ornamental addition to your garden. However, if you are going to grow, why don’t you grow ones that… Continue reading Summer Crops: How to Grow Sunflowers

September brings a change in the air — it’s almost tangible. Cooler evenings have us searching for our favorite sweater again, heavy morning dew shows the cobwebs spun overnight by occupied spiders, and an indefinable fragrance tells us that autumn has arrived. Our gardens also begin to mellow as the sun arcs lower in the… Continue reading Fantastic Design Plant: 'Shenandoah' Switchgrass

Growing cauliflower can be a challenge. It requires the right climate, constant growing conditions and even some extra work if you want those genuinely white heads. In addition, you should watch for the crop to mature while fighting off diseases and pests. On the plus side, cauliflower isn’t only pretty in the garden, but it… Continue reading Cool-Season Vegetables: How to Grow Cauliflower

Is the perennial garden missing in construction? Consider the spike. Sure, it might not be the very romantically termed shape, but man, does it pack a visual punch. There are spikes for each and every season, but it’s always appeared to me that spiky flowers are particularly within early summer. Listed below are a couple… Continue reading Flower Spikes Nail Impact in Summer Gardens

When you find a place that you like, you always wonder: Do I tell everybody about it because it’s a great place, or do I keep it a secret so that it doesn’t become overcrowded? That’s how I really feel about Slovenia — a nation surrounded by Italy, Austria, Croatia and Hungary — and especially… Continue reading Relish a Garden's Romance