Blog
January: Post-Holiday Outdoor Color
The color of springtime is in the flowers, the color of winter is in the imagination.” ~ Ward Elliot Hour Winter Color Cardinal Red Twig Dogwood Yellow Twig Dogwood Hellebores Harbor Dwarf PJM Rhododendron Japanese Maple (Sango Kaku) Crape Myrtle w/ Exfoliating Bark Mediterranean Carnea Winterberry (Malvern Public Library) Dried Flower Arrangement Plant of the [...]
November: Giving Thanks for Healthy Horticulture
Tassel Fern (Polystichum) Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.” ~ Rabindraneth Tagor Plant of the Month As winter begins to make its appearance again, we have selectedJapanese tassel fern (Polystichum) as our plant of the month. Native [...]
October: Avoid Cutting Back Which Plants in Autumn?
Goldenrod Little Lemon Goldenrod Lavender Caryopteris Buddleia Red Twig Dogwood Red Twig Dogwood–Cut Back “The goldenrod is yellow, The corn is turning brown, The trees in apple orchards With fruit are bending down.” ~ Helen Hunt Jackson Plant of the Month Goldenrod (Solidago) is just perfect for this time [...]
September: Defeating Dry
Perennial – Creeping Phlox Phlox subulata Shrub – Dynamite Crape Myrtle Lagerstroemia indica Tree – Eastern Red Bud Cersis canadensis Xeriscaping Another Example of Xeriscaping The summer night is like a perfection of thought.” ~ Wallace Stevens Plant of the Month We’re taking somewhat of a different approach to our plant of the month for August [...]
August: Garden Pleasure Planning
Daylilies (Hemerocallis) They’re Not Just Orange! When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.” ~ Chinese proverb Plant of the Month Our plant on spotlight this month is the Hemerocallis, or daylily. We have found that many [...]
July: Powdery Mildew, Be Gone!
Knautia macedonica How can you heal this plant? Here is the remedy for Powdery Mildew >> In summer landscapes … “As many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.” ~ Aldo Leopold Plant [...]
June: A Garden Tour for Summer’s Start!
Lonicera nitida ‘Baggesen’s Gold’ Lonicera pileata Then followed that beautiful season … summer … filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.“ ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Plant of the Month For May, we would like to highlight Lonicera pileata and Lonicera nitida ’Baggesen’s [...]
May: Outdoor Ornate
Outdoor Potted Plant, by Custom Gardens Shade Outdoor Potted Plants, by Custom Gardens Year Round Evergreens and Summer Plants We would like to wish an advanced Happy Mother’s Day to each of you who is a caretaker of gardens, children, or both. A gardener and mother nurture seedlings and babies alike with love–and [...]
March: Sweeps of Color Just Keep Sweeping
“Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.” ~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth In the News My class in the Horticultural Program at the Barnes Foundation entered the Backyard Deck category of the 2012 Philadelphia International Flower Show. We were absolutely delighted [...]
Flowering February
“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape–the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show. ~ Andrew Wyeth Plant of the Month February is a wonderful month to highlight kalanchoe. These tiny petaled little wonders display shiny, succulent [...]
January’s Tips – And YOU Decide Our Next Video
“Nature has undoubtedly mastered the art of winter gardening and even the most experienced gardener can learn from the unrestrained beauty around them.” ~ Vincent A. Simeone Custom Gardens, LLC welcomes you with an invitation to enjoy news, tips, and our monthly spotlighted plant! Plant of the Month January’s plant — the hellebore – is an [...]
December’s Helpful Hints and Gardening Tips
“The gardening season officially begins on January 1st, and ends on December 31.” ~ Marie Huston Custom Gardens, LLC welcomes you with an invitation to enjoy news, tips, and our monthly spotlighted plant! Plant of the Month When the freshness of spring, the warm rays of summer, and even the cool of autumn have passed [...]
Indoor Specialty Gardens and Videos
Click below to see videos of Ellen preparing her well-known, luxurious Indoor Specialty Gardens. These videos invite you into my home, for a few short minutes, to see me prepare and explain one of our Indoor Specialty Gardens. Hand designed personally by me, they are a very popular choice among Custom Gardens clients — for their [...]
November’s Hints and Gardening Tips
“November’s sky is chill and drear, November’s leaf is red and sear.” – Sir Walter Scott Custom Gardens, LLC welcomes you with an invitation to enjoy news, tips, and our monthly spotlighted plant! Plant of the Month We are busy helping clients put pansies in their landscapes for fall color. The pansy is an extremely versatile [...]
Fall is Full of Color
I love fall. It is one of my favorite seasons. The air is clear and the colors are bold. In many ways, fall reminds me of spring. In the fall, green foliage may turn red. In the spring new foliage may be red and then mature into green. One of the interesting features of fall [...]
October’s Helpful Hints and Gardening Tips
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” ~ Albert Camus Custom Gardens, LLC welcomes you with an invitation to enjoy news, tips, and our monthly spotlighted plant! If you like what you see, be sure contact us for more ways to beautify your life’s landscape. Plant of the Month We are [...]
Autumn Gardening – Perfect for Bulbs
“Faith sees a beautiful blossom in a bulb, a lovely garden in a seed, and a giant oak in an acorn.” ~ William Arthur Ward If you are of the mindset that as this cool weather encroaches, the planting season is over, entertain removing your shovel and gloves from the storage box and heading [...]
Planting Bulbs is a Reminder that Spring is Coming
I love planting bulbs in the fall. First there is the fun of pouring through catalogues, matching colors with clients’ preferences, looking for plants that are deer resistant, finding plants for sun or shade. Many plants, such as tulips and daffodils have different times for blooming in the spring and, of course, come in different [...]
September’s Helpful Hints and Gardening Tips
“My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view.” ~H. Fred Dale Custom Gardens, LLC welcomes you with an invitation to enjoy news, tips, and our monthly spotlighted plant! If you like what you see, be sure to visit us [...]
Dogs in the Landscape
We meet a lot of dogs in the landscape business and have gotten to know some of them well. Emma, Tara, and Oliver are rescue dogs, another expression of our clients’ personalities that make them so much fun to work with. As these clients give their landscapes a new lease on life, they do so [...]
After the Storm – Recovering Your Landscape
Hurricanes, much like blizzards or extreme weather of any kind, may cause outdoor trees, plants, and shrubs to suffer a good deal of damage. Is there hope? What to do? Before you hire someone to yank everything out, consider the possibilities. Storm damage is an exciting opportunity to renew and revitalize your landscape. Plants have [...]
August’s Helpful Hints and Gardening Tips
“Earth laughs in flowers.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Custom Gardens, LLC welcomes you with an invitation to enjoy news, tips, and our monthly spotlighted plant! If you like what you see, be sure to visit us for more ways to beautify your life’s landscape. Plant of the Month I was working with a client recently [...]
Garden Guests – Hummingbirds
Hummingbird shows us how to re-visit the past for the purpose of releasing it instead of being caught in a permanently backward flight pattern … It teaches us to hover in the moment, to appreciate its sweetness.” – Constance Barrett Sohodski Hummingbirds, of the family Trochilidae, are among the smallest of birds. The name hummingbird [...]
Garden Irrigation System? Rethink it.
Many homeowners install irrigation systems for their lawns; it makes watering the lawn easy. The homeowner sets the system for early watering, and no one is required to wield a hose. However, the same principle does not translate well for irrigation systems in garden beds. Yet more and more — including three times already this [...]
July’s Words of Gardening Wisdom
Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted. ~ David Bly Custom Gardens, LLC welcomes you into the heat of midsummer with an invitation to enjoy news, tips, and our monthly spotlighted plant! Plant of the Month Custom Gardens is pleased to present the begonia as July’s spotlighted [...]
June Tips and Helpful Hints
If, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, ‘Earth laughs in flowers’, then the genus Lychnis has got one hee-haw. ~ Ketzel Levine The heat of summer weather is upon us and our gardens. Custom Gardens, LLC welcomes you with an invitation to enjoy news, tips, and our monthly spotlighted plant! Plant of the Month We’ve selected [...]
Learning to Grow, an Ocean Away
“Landscape shapes culture.” – Terry Tempest Williams February was an eye opening month as my husband and I shared the wonderful experience of traveling to Europe and Asia. We walked and cruised with stops in Barcelona, Istanbul, Malta, Rome, Athens, and the ancient ruins of Ephesus. Taking in the experience on multiple levels, I had [...]
Welcome to Custom Gardens
“I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.” ~Ruth Stout Spring is often hailed as a time of rebirth. Custom Gardens, LLC welcomes you with an invitation to enjoy news, tips, and monthly spotlighted plants in our reawakened newsletter! Plant of the Month We’ve selected March 2011 [...]
The Allure of Orange
Colors are very personal. I have found that people have definite likes and dislikes about colors. One person loves pink and would be happy with an entirely pink garden. Another person “hates” pink and cannot ever imagine it in the landscape. Some people “hate” white because they find it boring, while others find white cool [...]
Measuring Success
Custom Gardens was honored this past week by the Main Line Chamber of Commerce. We received the first Growing Business Award. Growth was measured not just by numbers, but by services and other measures of success such as repeat clients. I have been thinking about how one measures success in very concrete ways and came [...]
It’s OK. My Mommy has a Washing Machine.
We had just started to work on a client’s property and I reminded him that the dogwood needed thinning in the area where we would be planting. He said he had used a tree company a few years ago and agreed that it needed work. I responded with, “It’s Ok; I have a chain saw” and we [...]
SPRINGing Along
Yes, it snowed today. The heavens may be a bit confused, but down on the ground plants are busy with new growth and flowers. Many people do not realize that all trees flower, not just the ones we usually think of like dogwood. Right now, silver maple and red maple have wonderful color that stands [...]
Spring is Coming!
It is starting to feel like spring. The days are longer, the air feels softer, and temperatures are no longer freezing. The earth is stirring with new life. Plants are starting to wake up and shrug off the vestiges of last year. See new green shoots at the base of perennials. Look at buds swelling on trees [...]
What’s Cooking in the Garden
Walking through your garden, notice the wonderful fragrances and scents. Create even more of a feast for the senses with a specialty herb garden. Try interspersing herbs in containers among the plants. Containers add height and winter interest to the garden when so much else has gone dormant. Containers make it easy to pick seasonings for [...]
Buried Treasure
Recently a client came home from vacation to discover that the entire property was overcome with vines. Everything was buried by them. We removed over 70 bags of debris and found a tree that had died and other trees that were severely stressed, with very few leaves. We rescued a climbing rose that was being pulled over the [...]
Seeing With Your Ears and Nose
It is winter – nothing pretty to see, nothing fragrant to smell, and no landscape to enjoy until spring. Step into your garden and close your eyes. Listen to the wind as it rustles through the grasses and hugs branches so that they brush together. Is the brook still babbling and gurgling? Of course. As [...]
All is Well at the Cole Wellness Spa
There was a lively and responsive group in attendance at the Cole Wellness Spa in Wayne, PA (www.colewellnessspa.com) last Saturday. We listened to reiki and acupuncture practitioners, a natural hair and color expert, a certified health counselor, and Custom Gardens. My topic was Specialty Gardening and the Role of Natural Surroundings in Your Health. [...]
Caring For Your Inner Landscape
Winter is a great time of year to explore new ways to nourish yourself and renew your inner landscape. I will be discussing indoor meditation and labyrinth gardens and will have examples of my work at the Cole Wellness Spa (www.colewellnessspa.com) Open House January 16 at 6:00 PM. The Spa is located at 101 N. Wayne [...]
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION
Here comes 2010. A new year for the world and business year number four for Custom Gardens. I did not make a resolution to start this business. Rather, it arose from years of dedication to outdoor gardens and landscapes, reading, garden tours, and the like. One could say that I grew into my business. So [...]
WELCOME TO THE CUSTOM GARDENS BLOG
I am delighted to welcome readers to the Custom Gardens Blog. My name is Ellen Covner and I am the founder and President of Custom Gardens. Our business is concentrated in the greater Philadelphia area. Our goal is to help clients realize their landscaping dreams, whether it is a rehabilitation of an existing landscape, creating [...]