Adrienne - ONCE UPON A CONEFLOWER

Small Conifers for Tight Spaces

Korean Silberlocke fir needles, close up.

Who doesn’t love conifers, those graceful needled trees and shrubs that stay beautiful year round for almost no care? We admire their proud outlines on our walks, or laden with lights at the holidays. Just the word “conifer” brings to mind twisted pines, stately spruce and snow-covered fir forests. Yet as much as we covet them, our properties are often too small for more than one or two of these beauties, if that. They take up waaayyyy too much space– or so we tell ourselves.

Luckily there are some terrific smaller choices on the market which provide all the benefits of standard-size conifers (except shade) without compromising space. Think of “dwarf” conifers as you would any other small to medium-sized shrub.

Plant Life of the Grand Canyon

Since our gardens are fast asleep this time of year, I thought I’d deviate from my usual subjects and take you on an armchair mini-tour of some of the plant life at the Grand Canyon. The Southwest and the Grand Canyon in particular are favorite vacation destinations of my husband and myself.

Drawing on photos from our rim-to-rim hike in 1989, a 9-day rafting trip in 2008, and a 2013 return to the North Rim, I was able to pull together a collection of images that illustrate some of the plants found there, as well as a few amazing canyon vistas taken from the Colorado River.

Revisiting these photos, I once again feel the sun on my shoulders as the rasping caw of a raven riccochets off the canyon walls. Oh, to be back there right now! So let’s go…put on your virtual hiking boots and come along.

Making A Modern Meadow Garden

Helenium, daylilies, alliums, and coneflowers mingle

What is a “modern meadow garden”?

According to several sources I consulted, the term came into use to describe a relatively recent trend in gardening and to differentiate it from genuinely wild spaces. A meadow garden is deliberately created as a “naturalistic” planting, usually consisting of indigenous plants that mimic a wild meadow. A modern meadow garden incorporates a much wider selection of cultivars than would ordinarily coexist in nature, greatly expanding the concept.

I would describe the characteristics of a such a garden as informal and open, often grassy, with an unforced blowsy quality we identify with unmown fields, glades and prairies. The overall impression is one of soft movement and harmony framed by the larger landscape.

Traditional meadows filled with natives have been around for a while, but they never really caught on in a big way. With the world now yearning to connect more with nature, this modern interpretation has brought the meadow squarely into the public eye, popping up in parks and gardens and private properties all over the world.