Smart Garden

 The Biggest Garden Design Mistakes You Can Make Over the past 18 years designing gardens for homeowners, I've seen the good, the bad, and the downright unsightly. Most of the time, those same simple design errors are on the one hand sloppy, unplanned, or bland. From initial site selection to selecting plants and positioning them in the landscape, pulling off a beautiful garden requires little knowledge. Whether you're planning a pollinator garden in the Midwest, a formal garden in the Northeast, or a drought-tolerant landscape in the Southwest, the same design considerations apply. Before starting your project, here's how you can avoid the most common garden design mistakes. 1. Even the number of plants While natural things often come in pairs (two eyes, two legs, two wings, etc.), it's best not to combine or use a number of plants. While even and even numbers draw attention to the same space rather than designing a walkway or entryway, using odd numbers mo...

 Plant a succession of distinctive spring-blooming bulbs Take your garden from late winter to early summer with these underrated gems Planting spring-blooming bulbs in the fall is an easy way to bring joy to the garden next year. This group of plants brings tremendous excitement and early color. Regional knowledge is especially important for this type of plant when selecting individual cultivars for your garden . Unfortunately, plants that aren't the best choice for the Southeast are often distributed and sold in our region anyway. The Southeast has unique growing conditions, and bulbs don't always respond as well here as in other parts of the country. Most of us are looking for plants that grow. This doesn't mean you shouldn't give unproven plants a chance. Experimentation should be encouraged and small amounts of fun. However, the following bulbs have proven to grow well here. These are unique, lesser-known bulbs and bulb-like plants (geophytes) that bloom...