Style is Growing in the Garden

Style is Growing in the Garden

Pick up a copy of The East Hampton Press to read about
Style in the Garden or Read it Here!

If you are looking for Stylish Garden Accessories, 

visit us at The Best @ Dianne B.

The Best Garden Tool Belt

And for Stylish Garden Design, visit Dianne B Gardens.

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Spring is in the Air!

It is still cold on the East End but the sun is out today.

Are you gearing up for the gardening season?

Do you need some help designing a unique, stylish garden?

Visit Dianne B Gardens and give Dianne a call....

Dianne B Gardens

Do you have a Dianne B Best Peeping Stick?

This is the perfect tool for admiring hellebores or any
low-hanging bloom without getting down on the damp ground.  

Be the envy of your friends and order yours today!

Dianne B in the Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal likes Gardening with Style ~ 

Read all about it HERE!

You can purchase Dianne's Garden Tool Belt HERE!

No Winter Doldrums @ Dianne B

As a Garden lover,  it doesn’t take too very much to excite me:

These promising green shoots fill me with joy, 

not quite sure if galanthus or little iris or early daffodils or 

what…but who cares? 

  The reason I plant  more bulbs each year is to be in for those

scintillating little surprises.

The hold-your-breathiness of the first spotting of a thick

old patch of snowdrops.

The colors of these Leucothoe ‘Rainbow’ leaves are only this good

in the harshest of conditions.

Hellebores pushing through the ice make me happy.

BUT  the Most Exciting Treasure of the 2013 season

( so far, of course)

Is the tiny, but unbelievably exhilarating blooming of  cyclamen coum.

This is the first time I have gotten actual blooms in oh so many tries…

So hooray for  Edelweiss Pernennials…

Excerpted from DIRTIER: Volume 45.

Read it in its entirety Here.

Traceries

TRACERIES

When snow-laden, the brown old gnarly lifeless branches

make such pretty patterns, but without snow and few signs

of spring, well…they certainly lose their appeal.

But this peaceful Buddha seems to strike the right chord

whether snow-laden or moss-choked.

Excerpted from DIRTIER: Volume 32

HIMALAYAN PINE WHINE....UH OH

HIMALAYAN PINE WHINE .... UH OH

Oh dear……I suppose it is better to know than not to know.

When I tucked this soft, graceful, droopy tree into what seemed

 a perfect spot next to the new screened-in porch, never --- not ever ---

did I dream that it had the potential to reach 150 feet. …

It was so soft and small when we brought it home

from the great annual

Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons Plant Sale.

The cones have not yet reached 10 inches as they are expected, but what is this?  8 inches already???

Only bought 5 years ago and already topping the cupola!

Let the gardener beware...

My feelings are best described by a favorite quote from Gloria Steinem that happened onto one of Stephanie Brody-Lederman’s treasured collage calendars…

“The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.”

Excerpted from DIRTIER: Volume 32.

READ IT HERE!

Sign Up for DIRTIER HERE!

Rethinking Your Garden

FINALLY  - A NEW  GARDEN ZONE MAP

FIND  YOUR  ZONE

Go to the new USDA Zone Map and you will find a fabulous post-climate change site that shows you the country, the region,

the state, etc. and basically, has officially recognized that Yes! 

Things are getting warmer. 

We East End of Long Islanders are now on the record as Zone 7a.  Those west of us closer to Manhattan are Zone 7B. 

WOW – that’s almost Zone 8, where you can grow Agapanthus and all sorts of other things formerly restricted to California and other perceived warmer places.

Interestingly, note that the data  used to compile this newly sanctioned map was complete as of 2005.  Now, we all know that since 2005 it has become increasingly warmer…so this tidbit of officially compiled information is especially useful when…

 RETHINKING  YOUR  GARDEN

January and February are definitely the most delicious time to rhapsodize about Your Garden’s Immediate Future and to bury yourself in the astonishing array of mail order plant catalogues. 

Now, that it is decreed I am a Zone 7a, at least, garden…I will get riskier with that, i.e. $18 Farfugium ‘Kaimon Dake’ and that $22 woodland ginger

‘Dancing Crane’ (both from Plant Delights).

There are many great catalogues, which is why I was so dismayed to

read in the Southampton Press that

Andrew Messinger, a garden writer colleague and a devoted East End

gardener, was waxing  persuasively and endlessy about

White Flower Farm! 

As long ago as my book DIRT was published, I had already decided that the WWF catalogue was classic and nice but  “be wary as they are extremely computer driven and very expensive.”  My view has not changed, but also feel moved to add to my misgivings, that in my experience, they ship rather puny little plants.

Although once in a while, they do have things before anyone else.

The very best catalogues –sad but true – have no color pictures…

but what they offer and what you get are top-notch.

I wholeheartedly recommend :

Forest Farm  of Oregon – extensive list + great descriptions + shipping is expensive, but you get full-fledged plants and small thriving trees.

Broken Arrow Nursery of Connecticut – the crème de la crème of specimen gardening.

Niche Gardens of North Carolina – wonderful selection of mostly American plants and they ship in big pots

While these terrific catalogues are a compendium of

full-color pictures:

Rare Find Nursery of New Jersey – lives up to its name.

Klehm’s Song Sparrow of Wisconsin – they specialize in peonies but have extremely choice offerings otherwise.

And the irrepressible aforementioned Plant Delights,

also of North Carolina.

Excerpted from DIRTIER--Volume 31, January 2012.