New at the garden center this year is one of those petunias that is a rare jewel of a color. It's one that catches your eye and stops you in your tracks; it is Supertunia Mini Vista Indigo. By all means don't let the mini throw you for even a second. This is the little indigo that could, or should I say does, deliver riveting beauty and maximum ...Read more

It may be called Poquito, which means a little, but I promise you in the case of Poquito Butter Yellow agastache it delivers color to the garden like a champion. In September, this new hummingbird mint won the prestigious Classic City Award in University of Georgia Trials.

The Garden Guy has been an agastache lover for well over 20 years and is...Read more

The day you look at a Wedgewood Blue Summer Snapdragon is the day you will get hooked and believe anything is possible with today's flowers. It looks as though each flower is a rare piece of hand-painted porcelain. Wedgewood Blue is part of the Angelface series of summer snapdragons, which represents nine different selections with pages of ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- People, get a grip. Yes, the Asian giant hornet, now famously known as the "murder hornet," is one huge scary wasp, capable of decimating an entire colony of honeybees and savagely stinging and possibly killing humans who get in their way.

But since last week, when it was reported that two hornets were spotted for the first time ...Read more

Each spring I wake to the sound of a bird purring in my neighbor's trees. Now, I know birds don't purr, but that's the best word I could come up with to describe the sound. It wasn't chirping. It didn't seem like a flirty mating song. It was a little like a throaty, thrumming hoot. Could it be an owl?

I finally asked a birding friend and felt ...Read more

Sunstar is the name of a new series of pentas debuting this spring and it is an understatement to say they are taking the world by storm. There are four colors in the series coming from Proven Winners -- pink, red lavender and rose -- and all have won awards from north to south.

When I say awards, I am talking about 78 of them already, and it ...Read more

Goodness, it is proving to be a "wonderfully wicked" year for coleus. In this case wicked is great and promises to add incredible color and texture to your garden. Wicked actually refers to two new colors or varieties in the ColorBlaze series of coleus. If you are like me you probably thought we had all of the coleus we could ever want 10 years ...Read more

The last few years, cordylines have seen a remarkable uptick in popularity. Cordyline is a funny name to pronounce, and if you go online, you'll find at least three different suggestions. The common names are also simply crazy: false dracaena, cabbage tree, and cabbage palm, to name a few. Lastly as you would probably guess, they are in the ...Read more

The winter was such that The Garden Guy's house has some of the most beautiful flowers ever for mid-April. There are echinacea, coreopsis, dianthus, and salvias galore. The first plant you would walk to however has no blooms yet; it is a shrub that for all appearances seems like "the burning bush."

Your eyes become fixated on the glow of golden...Read more

Horticulturists like The Garden Guy sometime struggle with capturing the beauty of flowers in certain blues and those that are a deeply saturated, fire engine red. Put the two together and the camera may just have a technical explosion.

Such is the case this spring with three cameras, four lenses and two unbelievable verbenas: Superbena Red and...Read more

Oh my, it's the bomb! To be exact, it is the Cherry Bomb an incredible mix that I've been seeing at garden centers this year featuring Superbells Cherry Star Calibrachoa, Supertunia Black Cherry petunia and the pristine white Snow Princess sweet alyssum.

This explosion of color should last all simmer on your porch, patio or deck. If you don't ...Read more

Now that we've been ordered to stay home, the surrealness of the global pandemic has set in. While many people are coming together virtually, now is a good time to tend to your houseplants. Does your Dracaena 'lemon lime' need dusting? Is your Chinese evergreen getting too much sun? Are you watering your plants too much? Or not enough? Below, we...Read more

Waiting is always hard, but when you're waiting for an unseen force that could, at any time, sicken or kill you, your family and your friends while devastating the global economy ... OMG OMG OMG ...

Well. As we said. Waiting is hard.

So take a deep breath, put down the remote and get busy outside. We've made a list of 10 garden chores that can...Read more

Americans have been showing their colors a lot since the coronavirus showed up as a special and surely unwanted spring guest. Just as red, white and blue stirs the heart and sends a message as Old Glory hangs from the door, your flowers can echo the theme throughout the landscape.

You may want to think of these floral displays as the victory ...Read more

Forced to shelter in place, most of us are coming down with a bad case of cabin fever. Instead of worrying about the future and whether that scratchy throat you woke up with this morning is something serious, plant a victory garden.

During World War II, those on the home front were dealing with food shortages and rationing, as well as fear and ...Read more

Shazam! All of a sudden everyone is thinking about growing a vegetable garden. Essentials disappearing from the local supermarket is at best a wake-up call. One thing for certain now that families are all together -- there is no better way to teach children a little horticulture, pollination and where food comes from than a vegetable garden. If ...Read more

The commercial landscape world is where the proverbial 'rubber meets the road' scenario. We can all gawk at flowers in trial gardens and get a good indication of how they will perform at home, but shopping centers and city streetscapes may be the best indicator of all.

In fact, I told my audience at the Spring Home & Garden Show in Charlotte, N...Read more

The calendar had not reached March this year and I already had my first blooms on the new Superbells Double Blue Calibrachoa. Your first thought is, "What am I doing planting so early?" The fact is, these are returning from last year's plants I was testing.

What a wild and wonderful ride we gardeners and professional horticulturists alike have ...Read more