Recently I read an article on Sunset’s website, suggesting that we all rush out and buy those discounted perennials to plant for fall. We all know by now that fall planting is a great idea, but is fall really the best time to plant everything, even perennials?

Many perennials don’t actually live all that long (I’m lookin’ at you, Gaura!), and some are sensitive to frost or the coastal Pacific Northwest’s rainy winters, so coddling them through the cold season can be an exercise in waiting and hoping, or if you really care about them, covering the tender ones in a protective frame of some kind.

The article suggested planting Salvia leucantha/ Mexican Bush Sage, Aster x frikartii, Echinacea/ Coneflower, Gaura lindheimeri, Gaillardia, Rudbeckia/ Black-Eyed Susan, Salvia elegans/ Pineapple Sage, and Eryngium/ Sea Holly now – all of which can die in our winters even when well-established.

Avoid planting this frost-tender Salvia leucantha/ Mexican Bush Sage now

Here’s the deal:

Anything short-lived, frost-tender, or that molds in the rain is best planted after frost in spring, so the plant has time to develop a healthy root system before being asked to tolerate uncomfortable conditions. If their tops freeze next year, they’ll still have a year’s worth of root growth underground to spring back from.

This golden Cryptomeria and blue Ceanothus are great to plant now

In the rainy/ chilly Maritime Pacific Northwest, DON’T plant these in fall:

Tibouchina urvilleana/Purple Princess Flower – frost-tender

Citrus Trees – Lemons and Limes bear well in winter, but they often lose the outer two feet of foliage to frost damage each year.

Loropetalum chinense/ Fringe Flower – frost-tender

Tree Fern/ Dicksonia antarctica – frost-tender (usually survives first winter but looks sorry for itself!)

Mallow/ Lavatera – frost-tender

Coleonema/ Breath of Heaven – frost-tender

Daphne's a good choice for fall planting

Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’/ Purple Fountain Grass – frost-tender and doesn’t care for rain, so give it good drainage!

Passiflora/ Passionflower Vines – frost-tender

Salvia/ Sages of any kind – the culinary sages seem the most tolerant of winter, but all the ornamentals are tender enough it’s best to let them establish a year. If they grow big the first year, the outer foliage can protect the inner stems in case of a bad frost.

Pelargoniums/ Grandma Geraniums (Hardy Cranesbills/ actual Geraniums are fine to plant now) – frost-tender

Creeping Rosemary – they’ve been getting a disease which has been killing off selected branches in the wettest parts of winter, so I’d let them get large all summer first

Fuchsias - frost-tender (I have had some luck in planting the tiny-flowered Fuchsia thymifolia under protected eaves for winter color, but I wouldn’t try that with the big froofy hybrids!)

Abutilons/ Flowering Maples – frost-tender (once again, under a protected eave they can sometimes attract hummingbirds through the winter)

Persicaria/ Fleeceflower – frost-tender

Calla Lilies (the huge sturdy white ones that grow everywhere are fine (Zantedeschia aethiopica), but don’t bother with the fancypants hybrids right now) – frost-tender

Cosmos atrosanguineus/ Chocolate Cosmos – frost-tender

Agapanthus/ Lily of the Nile – frost-tender

Scabiosa, Rudbeckia, Ginger, Delphineum, Gaillardia, Echinacea, Asters (great for a fall display, but may not live over), Coneflower, Sollya/ Australian Bluebell (hates wet), Gaura, Eryngium, Kangaroo Paw, Kniphofia/ Red Hot Poker, or any other flowering perennial or shrub which you suspect may be either sensitive or short-lived.

Heathers, Ornamental Grasses, and Conifers are great to plant now

DO plant these:

Hardy trees and shrubs, including Grevillea, Red-Twig Dogwood, Hydrangea, Tea Tree, Rhododendrons, Star Magnolia, Ceanothus/ California Lilac, Japanese Maple, Camellia, Pieris, Daphne, Huckleberry, Spirea, Conifers

Hardy edibles including bare-root fruit trees, Blueberry, cane-growing berries like Raspberry and Loganberry, CA native currant Ribes sanguineum (Bare-root plants arrive in January)

Heaths and Heathers

Most ornamental grasses including Miscanthus, Stipa arundinacea, Nassella tenuissima, Phormiums/ Flax, Chondropetalum, Hakonechloa/ Forest Grass, Acorus (Check out this article for winter-interest grasses)

Bare-Root Roses (arrive in nurseries in December/ January)

Sturdy perennials and small shrubs including Astilbe, Shasta Daisy, Lavender, Culinary Oregano, Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, Hellebore, Hardy Cranesbill/ Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and others, Nepeta faassenii/ Catmint, Euphorbia, Heuchera

If you found this post helpful, check out these articles with my favorites to plant now:

Unusual Rhododendrons for the Pacific Northwest

Showy Trees for Winter Interest

Trees to Attract Birds

I always wanted to be a goth girl -  wearing all black, dying my hair purple, and listening to moody music while pondering the deeper mysteries in life.

Sadly, I had three strikes against me:

I’m a total wuss, so piercings were out,

I’m ridiculously cheerful,

and since I started my landscaping business when I was 17, I made certain concessions to fashion so that sweet old Mrs Jones would feel comfortable calling me to plant her Bright! Pink! and Red! Petunias!

No matter – once I really got into gardening, I realized I suddenly had an outlet for my subversive ways. The first garden I designed had these beauties – a ‘Brunette’ Snakeroot (seen below with an Oakleaf Hydrangea), ‘Plum Pudding’ Heuchera, and a number of bright purple flowers throughout. Who needs purple hair when you have the garden as your palette?

Since my first garden, I’ve seen a lot of dark foliage, and it’s become quite the trend lately, between the new Black Plants book that Timber Press just published, and all the new black plants coming out (a black Ceanothus!! Whoa!).

You really notice a dark silhouette against a bright green, and many burgundy and purple-leaved plants make silvers and chartreuses look like they’re glowing. To me, that means you shouldn’t overdo it with the darks – use ones with a bold shape or form and either have them be the star, or set them just in front and to the side of an even stronger element with a lighter color – either a plant, an interesting wall with a fountain or statuary, or have them direct the eye along a meandering pathway.

Here are a few of my favorite Plants From the Dark Side:

Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’ – It’s an annual in colder, wetter climates, but it grows fast each year and is well worth re-planting. This one’s in a McKinleyville garden designed by Soil Seekers Landscape, on a well-draining mound so it actually lives over each year.

Loropetalum ‘Razzleberri’ is a lovely evergreen weeping shrub that gets about 5-6’ tall in time. It’s a bit frost-tender, so while it’s great here on the coast where we get to about 25 degrees, it dies back further inland.  It’s not one of those lumpy-looking weepers – the new sprays of foliage arch upward and then weep down after a few months.

This ‘Gold Lace Black’ Primrose has such a lovely contrast in a part-shade container or garden bed. They look great in drifts in a woodland setting if you can afford a bunch. Just protect them from snails!

I confess I don’t know the name of this succulent, which came unlabeled in a mass of other purple, bronze, and red-hued varieties. But there are so many hardy succulents with great foliage that you should really tuck a few in between rocks or at the base of statuary. This one’s been doing great for three years despite getting overhead water from an overly enthusiastic lawn sprinkler – usually a death knell for drought-tolerant succulents!

This Heuchera ‘Crimson Curls’ looks particularly cute with Phormium ‘Tricolor’, whose burgundy stripes harmonize nicely with Crimson Curls’ color. This combo is in a windy seaside garden in about 5-6 hours of direct sun a day and as you can see, they’re quite happy even with the salty wind.

And lastly, this fragrant Acidanthera bulb will be coming to the stores at the same time as the other forms of Gladiolus, and they are well worth purchasing. They don’t seem to care for my rainy climate, diminishing in numbers every year, but they made such a gorgeous show and scent for almost three months this summer!

I tried planting some black Glads next to them to pick up on the centers, but the Glads were mislabeled and came up a horrible clashing orange, which I promptly cut and gave to a friend who likes those kinds of colors. <shudders>

Anyway, if you’re as much a fan of burgundies and blacks in the garden as I am, check out the new Black Plants book I mentioned. It’s by Paul Bonine, who I have long admired for his writing on the Xera Plants Nursery website. His descriptions of the plants, and the photos that were selected definitely make me want to try some new chocolates in my gardens!

The book isn’t exhaustive  – I’d love to see more discussion of great plant combinations and how to design with dark colors – but for what it is – a drool-inspiring look at 75 gorgeous black plants – it is excellent. Just in time for winter reading!

Readers – what are your favorite dark plants?

A client came up with this pretty container planting idea for summer and fall.

The spiky Phormium/ Flax Grass makes a vivid centerpiece, then she used red Coleus and orange Impatiens to pick up on the Flax’s colored stripes. Last, she used some purple trailing Petunias to cool down the combination and spill over the edges.

This is a textbook Thriller, Filler, Spiller combination – as Fern from Life on the Balcony explains it::

A thriller is a pretty self explanatory; it’s a gorgeous plant that is the focal point of the container. Fillers highlight or compliment the thrillers and fill up the pot so it doesn’t look bare. Spillers cascade over the side of the pot to add interest and soften the edges of the container.

Of course, everything but the Flax will die down for winter, so if you had this combo going through fall, you’d want to pop in some Paludosum Daisies, ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss Chard, ‘Zeolights’ Calendula, or other winter annuals and greens to cheer up your Flax Grass as the flowers die back.

Need more fall and winter container inspiration? Check out these ideas:

Winter-Blooming Annuals for the Pacific Northwest

Asian Vegetables for Cool-Season Gardening

Small Accent Plants for Your Winter Garden

Anne Asher, a movement specialist from The MOVE! Blog,  has been kind enough to answer some common questions about how professional and/or passionate gardeners can reduce the strain that comes from repetitive gardening tasks. Here’s this month’s installment:

Dear Anne,

Fall is a great time to plant shrubs and trees, because plants can get their roots established and be watered in by the winter rains. Do you have any tips for digging large planting holes without strain?

Hi, Gen!

There are two points to think about with digging and shoveling.  First, they are what I call one-legged activities.  One foot is on the spade, which means both knee and hip joints will be bent for a good part of the time.  The other leg will be straight and should be “planted” into the ground to stabilize your digging actions.

Many of us are what I call “accidents waiting to happen”.  What this means is that because of strength and flexibility differences on either side of, or between front and back of the pelvic structure, we may be closer to a back or hip injury than we realize.

Add to this the fact that most people favor one side or the other when doing routine tasks, and you can see how it’s possible that one day you may be doing the same thing you always do, but something gives and you get injured.  It’s like the “straw that broke the camel’s back”.  Not that you will break your back, but the use of one leg for one part of the task and the other leg for the other part of the task over and over again results in some muscles getting really strong while others get stiff and weak.

So two suggestions here: First, try to include some kind of core strengthening and body alignment work at least once per week.  Yoga and Pilates are great!  Feldenkrais, while not a strengthening program can help you rediscover your natural pelvic and body balance.

The second tip is, and I want to emphasize that you should really get started with the first tip before trying this, is to switch out the sides from time to time.  So if your right foot is usually the one on the spade, then try the digging action with your left foot and “plant” the right for stabilization.

The other thing to remember is that with a heavy task such as this, you want to find ways to avoid muscle and joint strain.  Explore how you can use your body weight as leverage.  For example, when the foot is on the spade, instead of pushing or thrusting the shovel into the ground, can you lean your weight in towards the ground? If you’ve ever done Tai Chi, this is Tai Chi in action.

Another time to use your body weight is once you’ve gotten the dirt onto the spade and you are ready to lift it out. Can you lean back with your body weight, and with the help of your foot, leverage the dirt out from the ground?

Finally, when you dump the dirt, try to get out of the habit of throwing it over your shoulder, which inevitably twists the spine.  Research has shown that it’s very easy to herniate a disc by lifting and twisting at the same time.  You have to train yourself at first, but walk the shovel around to where you need to dump the dirt.  In other words, turn your whole body, not just your spine.

With my last thought I’d like to bring you full circle, back to the beginning.  Preface your digging activity by establishing a relationship with your shovel. Plant it lightly into the soil right in front of your body.  Ideally the spade will be level and parallel with the (imaginary) line going across your two front hip bones.

***Do you have any areas that hurt you when you garden? Let us know in the comments, and Anne can answer your questions in future articles.***

Anne Asher has been in the bodywork and holistic health field for over 20 years.  She has worked in chiropractors’ offices, physical therapy clinics and in her own business.  She taught Pilates based exercise to people with chronic musculoskeletal pain for 5 years in Humboldt County.  Anne is now the Back and Neck Pain guide on About.com.  About.com is a New York Times web property.

If you like this post, you may also enjoy:

How to Weed Without Strain: Effortless Gardening with Cathy Butler

Your Gardening Body: Using Loppers Safely Without Strain or Pain

Calluna vulgaris ‘Sister Anne’

In all the time I’ve been designing gardens, I have never had anyone tell me, “please, no heathers!”. Thank goodness, because heathers are my secret weapon for extending any season’s interest.

By the end of summer many perennials have stopped blooming, but the winter bloomers and fall colors haven’t started in earnest to continue the show. If you’ve got some autumn bare spots in your garden, how about tucking a few heathers into the foreground? They even work in seaside or deer gardens.

Scotch Heather/ Calluna

Most of the Scotch Heathers are amazing from August to October, so if you need some late summer/ early fall interest, you can choose just about any Scotch Heather/ Calluna.

Some favorites are ‘Japanese White’, which not only blooms white but also brings some spring interest with bright white new-growth in spring (‘Spring Cream’ is similar); ‘Sister Anne’, a low-growing pinky-lavender bloomer with a particularly nice foliage color; and ‘Velvet Fascination’, a feathery grey-leaved one with white flowers that I love to pair with other greys and silvers in the garden (it looks fantastic with ‘Silver Frost’ Lavender nearby!).

To extend your blooming season further into the fall, Calluna vulgaris ‘Finale’ (click photo to see larger) is one of the last Scotch Heathers to bloom, going in October and November. It gets to 2’ by 2’ and has really pretty deep green foliage and pinky-lavender flowers.

Bud-bloomers like Calluna vulgaris ‘Roswitha’ have a much longer blooming season since  their buds never actually open! The buds are prettily colored and hold their color much longer than flowers do, giving you a great display through fall.

(If you want to search for more bud-blooming varieties, the Heather Society has a search interface that allows you to search via attribute, so you can search for flower type – bud-bloomer, and see your options.)

Heath/ Erica

Most of the Heaths/Heathers in the genus Erica are either summer or winter-bloomers, but these three in particular should carry you through mid to late fall:

Erica darleyensis x ‘Darley Dale’ starts in November and keeps going through February,   with pinky-white flowers and a compact habit.

Erica x griffithsii ‘Heaven Scent’ is a more upright heather which blooms July through December with lightly fragrant pink flowers.

Erica darleyensis x ‘Ghost Hills’ is a relative of ‘Darley Dale’ with richer pink flowers and  creamy white new growth tips in spring. ‘Ghost’ blooms from November to May.

Irish Heath/ Daboecia

My local Heather guru Maria Krenek gave me the tip that many Daboecias (pronounced duh-bee-shuh) can be encouraged to extend their blooming season later into the fall with a mid-summer shearing.

Daboecias begin blooming in spring and keep going till early fall, but she says that in mid-summer when they begin looking a little shaggy with all their deadheads, we should shear off the dead flowers and trim into the foliage just a bit, and they’ll be back to finish out the season with more cheer.

There are lots of awesome varieties of  Daboecia ranging from crisp white to pinks and lavenders. I love how their blooms are larger than the blooms of most heathers, and they have such a good long season.

Daboecia cantabrica ‘Waley’s Red’ is one nice choice, with Bright! Pink! Flowers! that look great perking up a garden bed.

I’m also a sucker for the rich green with white of Daboecia cantabrica ‘Alba’, an easy-to-find Irish Heath that mingles well with other plants.

Heather Fans

If you love Heathers too, you should definitely check out the new book by Timber Press called Gardening with Hardy Heathers. Maria told me about this book in spring and I was so glad to find out about it, because I’d been struggling along with some well-intentioned but not very good heather books before this one came out.

You might also enjoy my video post on How to Prune Your Scotch (and other) Heathers.

Special thanks to Don Wallace of Singing Tree Gardens nursery for use of many of the photos on this page.

At Costco recently, I was happy to see some acquaintances coming out of the garden section, until… what in the WORLD was in their cart? It looked like bags of mulch, but… wrong somehow.

They patiently explained to this landscaper that recycled rubber mulch is the newest thing and would look very pretty in their garden beds.

I was speechless. Over the years I’ve prepared a number of gardening speeches to help my hapless friends make better gardening decisions – “Why that cute little redwood won’t do under the eaves”, for example, and “Please stick the ivy in a pot”.

“Why putting ground-up old tires on your garden bed is a bad idea” is one I never expected to have to deliver. I mean, recycling old tires is a great idea, but… they don’t break down, do they? And what about all the chemicals?

After sputtering some shocked words (“Think of the earthworms!”), I went home resolved to research the issue more thoroughly and find out if the stuff is really as bad as it seems. Heck, maybe there’s some cool new processing trick that removes the chemicals and turns the rubber into fertilizer-holding goodness for your soil. Perhaps I was jumping to conclusions?

I was relieved to find that Linda Chalker-Scott, author of The Informed Gardener and one of the leaders in bringing a scientific approach to the often superstitious practice of gardening, had just written a piece on this subject.

I found that rubber mulches are indeed made with dyed, ground-up old tires. They aren’t processed or treated in any special way to remove the harmful chemicals – they’re just, well, tires.

But what’s wrong with using them as mulch, you may ask? Linda says:

• It’s not effective: Studies have shown that organic mulches such as wood chips and straw are more effective at holding down weeds than rubber mulches.
• It’s toxic: Not only is it toxic to aquatic life when the runoff leaches into water, but the high concentrations of heavy metals such as zinc in tires can harm or kill your garden plants. Not convinced? Chemicals found in tires are also hazardous to human and animal health, so your rubber-mulched garden beds might not be the safest spots for your kids to play.
• It’s a fire hazard: Tires have some very flammable compounds in them, and prove difficult to extinguish once ignited. Turns out rubber mulches retain that same quality and are more difficult to extinguish than any other mulch.
• It stinks: When the sun heats rubber mulch, it stinks. (And I don’t even want to hear it about compost stinking. That’s not the same and you know it!)

I’ll add that part of the point of using a mulch is that it slowly breaks down and enriches the soil, encouraging earthworms and other good things to flourish. Rubber mulch does none of those things.

Go on over and read Linda’s article, and if you like, you can check out the more scientifically-worded paper she wrote for the Washington State Research and Extension Center.

photo credit: www.ericcastro.biz on Flickr

I’m a big fan of ornamental grasses because they add so much motion and life to a garden. If you use multiples, they’re an easy way of bringing a sense of continuity to a busy or scattered-feeling garden, because the effect of their foliage is so soothing.

Miscanthus is a favorite because it grows so fast, it’s bulletproof (just give it sunshine), and it always looks so exuberant and healthy. The downside to its enthusiastic growth is that late in the season it can start taking up more space than we imagined and begin flopping onto its neighbors.

I’ve seen people take out their frustration with their Miscanthus Grass by taking their electric hedgers to it and just shearing off an entire side of the plant, so the poor thing loses the graceful movement it had and simply sits there looking shorn and attacked. Please don’t do that!

In this video I’ll show you a quick way of pruning your Miscanthus Grass to make it smaller and less floppy if you are having that issue, and nobody will be able to tell you did anything except for the fact that the Miscanthus will now be smaller AND still pretty.

Of course, if you’re having to summer-prune the grass every year, it might be time to either divide your Miscanthus this winter by digging it up and replanting just a smaller portion (I do this every 5 years or so), or maybe you have chosen a grass that is too big for the spot, and a more dwarf variety of Miscanthus like ‘Yaku Jima’ (4’+) or ‘Little Kitten’ (3’+) would be a better choice.

I’ll add: if you love ornamental grasses the way I do and want more ideas on how to use them in your garden, you’ve GOT to get Nancy Ondra’s book Grasses: Versatile Partners for Uncommon Garden Design. Saxon Holt’s photography is simply gorgeous, and Nancy’s suggestions on how to use each grass gives me new ideas each time I read.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy learning how to winter-prune your ornamental grasses.

I love Bigleaf Hydrangeas (H. macrophylla), the traditional garden Hydrangea with either big mophead flowers or the subtler lacecap flowerheads. Most gardens have a Hydrangea or two tucked in, and why not? As long as they have composty soil and get watered regularly, they make a fantastic show of blooms with very little effort on our part.

It’s coming up on the time of year to prune them in warmer climates where it doesn’t snow (right after they finish blooming is best), and I made a video and took some photos to show you how (if you live in a colder climate, you use the same technique to prune, only you’d do it in mid-spring to protect against frost damage).

Why prune? Scientific studies have shown that Hydrangeas that are pruned properly flower more than plants that are left unpruned. Pruning also encourages a fuller habit for the shrub and stimulates the new growth that keeps the plant healthy.

The video shows you how to do it, but here’s the basic idea:

Before pruning cut is made – look for swollen buds	After pruning cut is made, just above swollen buds

When you are ready to prune off your dead flowerheads, look along the stem for a pair of swollen buds at the base of each leaf. The first set of leaves below the flower rarely has these swollen buds, but often the second and third pair of leaves do.

Prune off every dead flowerhead to just above these swollen buds, taking care to leave the buds unharmed when you cut. Once you’ve cut off every dead flower to a part of the stem that has these swollen buds, stand back from the shrub and notice whether there are any shoots sticking up above the rest of the plant. Feel free to prune any of the other, non-flowered shoots to their own sets of swollen buds to give the plant an even, rounded shape.

After you’ve pruned the entire shrub in this way, you can look inside the shrub to see if you want to remove any of the oldest branches which are least likely to flower. If you remove one quarter of the oldest, woodiest branches each year by pruning them out as far down as you can, it keeps the plant rejuvenated and ready to put out fresh young stems which will flower more for you.

You can also prune out any stems that are so spindly they wouldn’t hold up a flower, and any stems that are dead with no leaves. I love to do this kind of regenerative pruning at the end of the summer when you can still see what stems are alive. Once the plant loses its leaves for winter, it’s harder to tell what’s dead.

If you’re a fan of Hydrangeas like I am, you might enjoy Michael Dirr’s book about them. Hydrangeas for American Gardens profiles the most common types of Hydrangeas available, and shows off some unusual varieties as well. Some of the language in the book is a bit stiff and scientific, but Dirr keeps his sense of humor, too. I love this sentence where he’s discussing watering:

Hydrangea macrophylla, more so than any other species, will signal when drought-stressed, with leaves drooping like a scolded dog.

So true, Michael!!

If you’ve found this pruning tutorial helpful, check out my articles on how to prune Scotch Heather, which is also finishing up its bloom now, Alstroemeria, and Hardy Cranesbills/ Hardy Geraniums.
Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

(Photo inspired by Luke of Callus and Chlorophyll, below!)

Daffodil Planter, one of the funniest new writers on the garden blogging scene, tagged me to write a list of seven things about myself. Not wanting to hog the spotlight, I instead decided to shine the light on seven of the gardening articles I have read and re-read over the past year.

Margaret Roach of A Way To Garden tickled me with her reader-contributed list of Garden No-No’s – scroll down and read the comments for more hilarity. When I’m having one of those days where everyone seems to want red and pink petunias, together, to frame their red lava rock and garden gnome display, I go read this list and feel better.

Alexa over at Invisible Bees wrote a charming post about Letting Go of Perfectionism in the garden. She’s inspired by one of my favorite books on writing, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and this article helps me take back that pure joy and pleasure in gardening and designing. My favorite bit is this: “the plants are perfections in and of themselves”. Yes!!

Town Mouse and Country Mouse thrilled me to my socks with their Myth Buster about how California Natives Don’t Need Water (which, if you don’t yet know, is wrong wrong wrong!!). Natives can be wonderful low-maintenance choices for the garden, but they still need a loving start and many will need supplemental water all their lives to do well in non-natural garden conditions.

Iona from Garden Lust Journal wrote an article back in “oh-my-gosh-the-deer-are-eating-EVERYTHING” season about how to repel deer. While my clients have had better luck with the Scarecrow Sprinkler than her neighbors had (I think the Mendocino rabbits may be more persistant than our Humboldt deer!), Iona shares some fantastic home-brew recipes for deer repellant.

Fern over at Life on the Balcony has a number of articles I refer to often, but my favorite is this list of gothy Black Plants for Container Gardens. Black is the new, well, black, and I don’t know about you all, but I’m so inspired by Amy Stewart’s Wicked Plants garden that I want a goth garden of my own.

Gayla at You Grow Girl writes beautifully about the Joy in Hard Work. If you love to garden and find yourself going outside to pull just a few more weeds before dinner, then her thoughts on this will resonate with you as they did with me.

And finally, Luke of Callus and Chlorophyll cracks me up with his mad ravings about his experiences as a garden professional. Read about the plight of poor ‘Lawrence Flatman’, relegated to a life in the shade, and his horror when he realized that his own childish joy in flamethrowers and other such manly gear has disappeared with overuse of his professional weed torch. My favorite part:

The next time you reach for a tool, look for its inner badassness. Fend off an alien-vampire with nothing but your Felcos; tame a John Deere velociraptor and ride it around with an extendable pruning saw as your lance; come on people, those fancy Japanese pruning and weeding tools are just asking to be part of a ninja’s arsenal (you are a ninja, aren’t you!?).

Yeah, I’m inspired, Luke!! (see my photo above!)

As a bonus, let me tell you about three of my favorite articles by Daffodil Planter (it was tough choosing, too!).

That Rose Campion – She Seemed Like Such a Nice Girl! The title really says it all! I don’t believe I planted any of my four Rose Campions, but – perhaps I’ll let her stay, just till she’s done blooming…

Are You One of Those Difficult Garden Center Customers? See if you recognize yourself – I blushed to realize that perhaps it was not very thoughtful of me to go tree-shopping in a thunderstorm. Sorry, nursery friends!!

Daffodil also carries a lot of breaking political news on her blog. See here for the latest on the Sheep for the White House Lawn. LOVE. IT.

Go visit these great writers, and in the comments below, be sure and tell us about some of your favorite articles – either ones you have written yourself or favorites from another blog.

And if I featured your article here, consider yourself tagged as well! If you haven’t yet, and would like to participate, here are the rules:

• Link back to the person who gave you the award.
• Reveal seven things about yourself (or, changing it up here, a list of seven garden-related things).
• Choose seven other blogs to nominate, and post a link to them.
• Let each of your choices know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.
• Notify your tagger that the post is up.

I shot this video in December, when this Salvia was at the end of its blooming season and just starting to think about going dormant, but the advice for how to deadhead and prune it is still great for summer.

Right now, many of the Mexican Bush Sages in the gardens that I maintain are just starting to need deadheading or trimming back out of pathways and other plants.

If you need to trim your Salvia to make it smaller, the most important thing to remember is only trim it back as far as it has leaves – unless you’re removing stems altogether by cutting them out at the base, in which case just don’t leave any big bare spots.

The next thing to remember is that if you’re trying to trim it back out of a pathway or another plant, don’t just trim it on the one side that is overflowing – trim the entire bush if you’re going to trim one part, as otherwise the lack of tumbling blossoms on the trimmed side looks very obvious from afar.

If you enjoyed learning how to prune your Mexican Bush Sage, you might also like to learn how to prune Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and other Hardy Cranesbills, Alstroemeria, and Scotch Heather.