Today In the Garden - ONCE UPON A CONEFLOWER

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.

Ordering Plants By Mail

A selection of print catalogs from years past

As the new year begins, piles of garden catalogs stuffed with all manner of flowers, veggies, seeds and bulbs start deluging our mailboxes. Those glossy photos look so tempting as we flip the pages and sip our tea. Whether we’re in a buying mood or not, it’s exciting to peruse new varieties and ponder others we still haven’t gotten around to acquiring but keep thinking about.

So you circle one here, dog-ear a page there… Finally you decide to commit your choices to the order form and hit send.

Or maybe not.

Maybe you just don’t trust mail order. Or you had a bad experience years ago and swore Never again. But mail ordering living plant material has come a long way. Let me lay out the pros and cons of gardening by mail.

A Feeder for Every Bird’s Taste

A pileated woodpecker using a tail prop to eat suet

With so many designs and styles to choose from these days, buying (or building) a bird feeder can be a bewildering experience. Should you get a “squirrel-proof” one with a wire that birds have to navigate? Will a simple tube feeder do? How much seed will that cute little plastic number hold?

Then there’s all those bags of food to put in the feeder. What’s in all those mixes, anyway? Are all those suet cake flavors necessary?