Tips & News
The Yardblog
A resource for helpful tips and sustainable ideas.
About the yardblog
The goal is to make this blog a resource for helpful tips and sustainable ideas. We create original content that shows projects in progress and the behind-the-scenes of installation.
Origins of the Dutch Wave
The Dutch Wave is a new movement in gardening to use perennials and grasses in ways that show naturalistic patterns and other characteristics. Two men have pioneered the movement. the first was Karl Foerster and the second Piet Oudolf.
The World of Weeds
Weeds are often defined as plants growing where they are unwelcome. What makes these plants so undesirable? What sort of problems can they cause? Can weeds be useful? Beneficial even? Let's take a closer look at the wonderful world of weeds.
Andropogon gerardii (big bluestem)
'Red October' is a show stopper with year-round beauty. Click here to read more about this amazing plant!
The Benefits of Native Plants
Native plants are those that are indigenous to a specific region, and have evolved to support the ecosystems in that area. These plants have formed symbiotic relationships with native wildlife over hundreds or thousands of years, and therefore offer the most sustainable habitat. Click below to read more about the benefits of these types of plants.
Support Nature. Plant Natives.
Native plants play a very important role in our ecosystems. They support local wildlife such as bees and butterflies - which pollinate approximately 75% of the worlds flowering plants and 35% of the world's food crops. Native species have evolved over hundreds or thousands of years for survival. So they tend to be more naturally adapted to local growing conditions and often require less fertilizer, water etc. for successful establishment. That means less maintenance and more time to enjoy your yard!.
PREPPING YOUR GARDEN FOR FALL
Prepping for fall is essential to ensure the health and productivity of your plants in the coming seasons. Read this blog to get our top 10 tips on how to protect your garden from the incoming cold weather.
Frost Flower (Aster)
When summer blooms begin to fade, these flowers put on a vivid display. Click hear to read more!
Texas bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis)
Texas Bluebonnets are a very low maintenance plants that are native to the United States. Click here to read more!
Prairie Dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum)
Silphium terebinthinaceum, commonly known as Prairie Dock, is a member of the Asteraceae family and is native to North America.
Know your Hardiness Zone
When people want to create a more contemporary planting design for a yard, they will need to use perennials and grasses that come back year after year. This means you need to pick the right species for the job. Only when you use the correct plants for your hardiness zone will you see them come back once the snow melts.
The Countdown To Crocus
Every year we get tons of requests to include crocus in our yard designs. A few autumns back, we actually planted over a 1000 of them in South Orange and Maplewood! Crocus is a genus of seasonal flowering plants in the Iris family comprising about 100 species of perennials growing from corms.
Should you plant a four season garden?
Even though summer and fall have gone - and with it all the colors and abundance that the warmer months have to offer - the beauty of nature continues to shine.
The beautiful bee balm
Bee Balm is a beautiful native flower that comes in an array of colors. They can take the cold winters in New Jersey as well as the hot summers. With the right care, they will grow up to 18inches high and spread about 2ft wide.
Invasive Species
Invasive plant species are a huge problem. They have overtaken giant expanses of the landscape. As they do, they erase the ability for native plants and animals to thrive, and there’s no easy solution to get rid of them. But there's still hope for our favorite natives to survive!
Native, Cultivar, Variety, Invasive..What's the difference?
There's so much to learn when starting your native plant journey and all of the terminology around plants can be overwhelming. You've got natives of course, but then there's cultivars, varieties or nativars and invasive species, just to name a few.
Garden uses for short-term perennials
Many popular garden perennials fall into the "short-lived" category, so you might be wondering whether or not you should waste time and money planting them, when you are not sure how long they'll last.
Plant Longevity
If you are a gardener or a plant geek, you've seen the categories of plants often referred to as either annuals or perennials. But what do these terms really mean? And how do these different kinds of species inform us how to use them in a landscape design?