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Gardeners and their Gardens

Living in the heart of our city, I had wondered what the reaction was going to be when we killed the grass and replaced it with a prairie. Many of the homes in this older, established neighborhood (including hers) sport traditional landscapes with perfectly balanced foundation plantings, precisely edged sidewalks and lush, well-manicured lawns. 

Last week we promised you a look at some of our favorite fluttering beauties. After some serious thought and lively discussion, here are our top ten choices...and one runner up. 

Keeping a healthy, robust butterfly garden throughout the fall is an essential tool in not only maintaining our current butterfly population, but also to hopefully increase it. Here are just a few suggestions Embassy designers suggest to their clients.

If you’re like me, there are always holes to fill in the garden  --  a bare spot here that needs to be filled or a suffering plant that needs to be put out of its misery and replaced. In the past, I tended to pop in annuals for their cheerful bursts of color. This year, after seeing the impacts of a region coping with a long-term drought, my goals for my garden have changed. Instead of being seduced by  water-guzzling beauties, I am going to search for plants that give me water-wise beauty and sustainability.

In the best of times, keeping a summer garden fresh and appealing is a challenge. This year, with half of the lower forty-eight states experiencing unusual heat patterns and moderate to severe drought, the challenges are even greater.  There are, however, environmentally friendly ways to keep your garden blooming throughout the dog days of summer. 

I added some Hens and Chicks to my succulent garden today. Pulling back an inch of gravel mulch, I nestled their roots into the soil underneath and then immediately watered them in. The whole time I worked though, my mind kept heading back to the desert, seeing the tiny Clustered Pincushion and the massive Saguaro cacti rising out of the bone dry landscape of sand and rock. On one hand, it is almost inconceivable to me that any plant life can exist at all in that harsh environment, but on the other hand, the old adage of Right Plant in the Right Place rings true. 

After spending some time in the middle of that starkly beautiful wilderness though, I not only started to appreciate what I was looking at, but realized that the landscape of the desert has much to teach the rest of us in this time of rapidly changing climate. While parts of our country are being drenched by non-stop onslaughts of rain, almost half of the continental United States (46.5%) is suffering from years of on-going drought conditions. Many aquifers across the country are nearly depleted and will need years of consistent surface moisture to be replenished. According to the U.S. government’s Drought Monitor, 93 million people and 78 million acres of our crops are experiencing the effects of water shortages. Taking cues from the desert landscape, we can learn to manage our water consumption and still have stunning landscapes.

Daffodils may herald the coming of spring, but lilacs assure us that spring is here! The iconic lilac, once thought of as a throwback to grandma’s garden, is once again finding the place of honor it deserves in today’s gardens.