IvyGate Flower Farm Tour Welcome to the IvyGate Flower Farm tour. Conducted and filmed by IvyGate’s founder, owner, and operator, Cathy Allen, it offers a great behind-the-scenes look at how a master gardener with over 50 years of gardening experience turns her lifelong passion for all things blooming and growing into a brand new commercial
Buds The word “buds” is a deceptively loaded one. It’s short, but it can be useful in making sense of some of life’s realities and vicissitudes. By John G. Stamos I’ve written here many times before about the activity of gardening’s usefulness as a backdrop for many seemingly unrelated topics. Gardening, and the vast repository
Salvia ‘Mystic Spires Blue’ – A Question of Hardiness Salvia ‘Mystic Spires Blue’ is a gorgeous example of its genus and a true ornamental garden treasure. It was also proving to be hardy in my own zone 5B/6A garden. Until it wasn’t. By John G. Stamos How do you like your crow? I like mine
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First Garden Tour Welcome to the very first video garden tour to be featured here in The Renaissance Garden Guy’s new Sights and Sounds section. It’s also the very first anything to be featured in The Renaissance Garden Guy’s new Sights and Sounds section. (Inauspicious start to a great new part of the website? Damn right. Shame
Say Hello to Hellebores When it comes to spectacular late winter and early spring foliage and bloom displays, nothing delivers like a hellebore. Its thick, textured leaves and ethereal flowers turn a shady spot in a frosty garden into a true paradise. Without a doubt, growing hellebores is a really worthwhile and gratifying experience. And
Late Winter Pruning in the Midwest It’s time to engage in some late winter pruning here in the Midwest. Hit ’em while they’re still sleeping. In hardiness zone 5B/6A, your soon-to-awaken perennials will thank you for the axe treatment. By John G. Stamos Greetings, readers and subscribers, and welcome back. Got a helpful one for
Does a ‘China Girl’ Need a ‘China Boy’?: Love Among the Holly Bushes Does a ‘China Girl’ need a ‘China Boy’ in order for this gorgeous green holly to make those awesome little red berries (that everybody likes to dangle from their fireplace mantels during the holidays)? Sexual dimorphism notwithstanding, love among the holly bushes
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How Cold Hardy Are Gardenias, Really? How cold hardy are gardenias, really? The emerging answer is currently shivering its ass off in my garden. By John G. Stamos Table of Contents How Cold Hardy Are Gardenias, Really? An Introduction Welcome, readers and subscribers. Please accept my apologies for my recent hiatus. It’s been a rough
Autumn Leaves: Rake ’em or Forget ’em? “Autumn leaves: rake ’em or forget ’em?” That’s the question of the hour. When the trees are bare, but the ground is covered (and that includes the ground where your garden grows), what do you do with that brown and rustling terrestrial blanket? The answer depends on a
“What the Hell Is a Toad Lily?” My ornamental perennial garden has got some pretty good stuff growing in it. Well-known beauties like roses and hydrangeas share the territory with slightly more esoteric individuals like blue-flowered gentians and corydalis. But maybe the strangest (and among the prettiest and most exotic-looking) of my garden’s denizens are
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