Difficult Conditions

Gardening through hot, dry summers can be tough, but it’s not impossible – if you have the right plants. Here are a few tolerant beauties that can brighten up your spring and summer gardens year after year, even when Mother Nature turns up the heat!

Don’t let hot, drought-filled weather dry up your dreams of growing a productive, yet water-efficient vegetable and flower garden! A wise and seasoned gardener shares her secrets for enjoying a thriving garden with minimal maintenance and water.

You could choose Elaeagnus for its outstanding fragrance, fruit and foliage, but that’s just the beginning of a wonderful friendship. These large, tough, woody ornamentals tolerate drought, heat and cold, and they thrive in stressful conditions where others wilt!

If you live in an area that’s at risk for wildfires, this article is a “must read, must heed.” Not only can firescaping beautify your home, it may help reduce the damage from an encroaching fire.

The Southeast’s severe drought of 2007 has called for extreme measures. That means conserving the water you use outside, as well as in. Fortunately, a drought doesn’t mean you have to give up gardening completely – you just need to rethink how you do it.

It may be fall, but as long as it’s still warm and sunny out there, you and your garden need to play it safe. Learn how to keep yourself – and your plants – cool.

Things can really heat up in summertime, but can your garden handle it? Adding the right herbs and perennial flowers to your warm-season beds can bring color and beauty to your landscape year after year – even when Mom Nature sends a hot, dry scorcher your way.

When the weather outside turns frightful, and you fear the worst for your little shrubs, what’s a gardener to do? Understanding how plants react to sudden low temps and following a few simple tips might just help save your shrubs.

Four great shrubs for swampy spots are buttonbush, red-osier dogwood, Virginia sweetspire and pussy willow. Read up on the fine characteristics of each of these plants to find out which will work best in your wet site.

Although hardy cyclamen resembles its fancy cousins from the florist, this fragile-looking little plant is mighty tough – blooming and flourishing in dry, shady sites under large trees and shrubs.

Four great trees for very wet sites are sweetbay magnolia, sycamore, weeping willow and baldcypress. Each has unique characteristics that make it perfect for your marshy, problem spot.

Don’t let your dreams of having a beautiful garden slide downhill! With proper design and construction, your backyard slope can turn into a beautiful, thriving, terraced vegetable garden.

Trees are the foundation of a landscape, and water conservation is a top concern for our environment. So what’s a garden to do? Go water wise! Here are five great selections for the hot, dry Southwest, sure to enhance your garden, as well as help save water.