Garden Center Archives - Page 8 of 9 - Stephens Landscaping Professionals

Apr 26, 2022

How to Add Texture to Your Landscape

Texture is a defining feature of any beautiful garden. From soft and airy to bold and impressive, a variety of textures gives your garden another dimension of feeling. You can achieve this by growing an assortment of plants or using different materials in your landscapes. Here are some ideas to get you started!

How to Create Texture with Plants

Usually, when we refer to texture, we’re talking about the sense of touch. For example, some surfaces feel rough, while others feel smooth. When we’re talking about a garden, texture comes from how the plant looks, including the plant’s shape, the type of leaves and flowers, and how light interacts with the foliage.

Bold Texture

Plants with big leaves or prominent flowers bring a bold look to the landscape. They stand out among the other plants and draw attention, like hostas, peonies, and blazing stars. Too many bold plants in one area compete for the spotlight and create a cluttered look. To balance out the bold plants in your landscape, nestle them among plants with other textures.

Coarse Texture

Some plants bring a coarse look into the garden. They stand out by their spiky flowers, stiff leaves, or bumpy, veiny, or rugged foliage. Comfrey, rhubarb, and globe thistles are all examples of uniquely coarse-textured plants. Mixing them among fine plants creates a pleasing contrast and sense of depth in your garden.

Fine Texture

Fine texture comes from any plant with a soft and airy look; this often includes plants with clusters of tiny flowers, like yarrow, or those with soft, light, and thin leaves, like lavender and fennel. Soft grasses that wave in the wind also bring fine texture into the garden.

Medium Texture

Some plants may not be noticeably coarse, fine, or have any bold features. If their texture doesn’t stand out, we can call them medium texture. Many plants fall into this category, but that doesn’t mean they’re not important in the garden. They’re necessary to balance the fine and coarse textures. Plus, they may have beautiful color, scent, or something else besides texture to offer your landscape.

Creating Texture with Mulch and Stonework

Just as plants are not the only part of your landscape, they also aren’t the only components that create texture. Anything visible impacts texture, including mulch and stonework in your garden.

Texture with Bark Mulch

By the same token, smaller pieces of bark mulch also create a finer look than large pieces. Finely shredded wood or bark gives a softer and airier feel to a bed, whereas big nuggets of bark have a bolder and rougher look and many interesting colors, lines, and bumps.

Smooth and Coarse Rocks

Not surprisingly, rough, jagged rocks bring a coarse texture to the landscape. Crushed stones or volcanic rocks on a garden bed are good examples. They contrast the smooth look of river rock and pea gravel. If you look closely, you’ll also notice that smaller stones bring a finer look to the landscape than larger stones.

Boulders and Other Focal Points

Besides the mulch or stone you put on your beds, any boulders in the landscape or other focal points like wooden barrels, rustic benches, and art pieces also have certain textures. Once you start to notice the texture of an object, you have one more tool for creating beautiful visuals in your garden.

There are no hard and fast rules for interpreting texture. Once you start paying attention, maybe you’ll notice more nuanced categories than those above, or perhaps you will simplify them into coarse and fine categories. Whatever your approach, playing with texture in your landscape is a beautiful way to add depth, contrast, and vitality to your landscape.

For more gardening ideas, feel free to visit our garden center in Moultonborough, New Hampshire! Follow us on Facebook or Instagram for updates and featured products.

Apr 19, 2022

Perennials That Keep On Giving

Garden Center

Perennials are a must-have in any garden. They greet us every year with their bursts of flowers, and weave together our gardens into a tapestry of scent and color. Plant them once and they become lifelong friends. But how do we choose and where do we meet these beautiful companions?

Here are 7 new acquaintances that you can plant in your garden this year!

Salvia

These hardy perennials open towers of indigo flowers in the summer, and keep blooming right into the fall. Related to kitchen sage, they have a strong fragrance that attracts bees and creates a fresh aroma for your whole garden. They’re hardy, easy to grow, drought-tolerant, and reach heights of 18 inches or more, depending on the variety.

Coneflower

Another must-have for the bees, these daisy-like perennials open with a riot of color in late spring, and keep blooming throughout the summer. Also called echinacea, they give off a delicious herbal scent, but the main attraction are their radiant petals. Commonly bright purple, but also found in red, orange, yellow, and white, you’ll never tire of these beautiful flowers with a nectar-rich center.

Catmint

You don’t need to be a feline to enjoy these sweet perennials. While they do stimulate cats, the minty perfume of catmint is actually relaxing for humans. The lavender color of their dense bush of flowers is equally soothing. They first blossom in spring and, if you cut them back, will keep blooming all the way until the frost.

Daylily

A perennial garden is never complete without this bloomer of the late spring and early summer. They burst open on the scene for 4-6 weeks with a continuous show of new blossoms every day. The trumpet-shaped flowers bring loud colors of orange, yellow, red, or a combination thereof. Plus, they’re virtually maintenance free, disease-resistant, and display beautiful green leaves throughout the whole growing season.

Coreopsis

Coreopsis brings a mass of sunshine-yellow flowers into the garden in early summer, and blooms off and on again until the fall. A native flower in North America, they’re a must-have for anyone who wants to feed the bees in mid-summer, or simply enjoy their colors. These wildflowers enjoy bright, sunny spots, tolerate some drought once established, and are generally a breeze to care for.

Sedum

These are one of the rare succulents that can grow outside all-year-round in New England. Their low, fleshy leaves bring unique texture into the garden, and just when you thought summer was winding down, they’ll surprise you with clusters of pink, purple, or yellow flowers. They do the best in full sun, and must grow in sandy soils with good drainage.

Coral Bells

Coral Bells, also called Heuchera, are a must-have for any shade garden. These unique perennials have yellow, pink, purple, burgundy, or coral leaves that brighten any dark spot. Their foliage is impressive even without flowers, but as icing on the cake, they unfurl a delicate display of tiny bell-shaped flowers during the early or mid-summer.

Each of these perennials brings unique color, fragrance, and personality into your garden. Once you start knitting them together, you’ll have a quilt of complimentary blossoms that open at different times throughout the season. Best of all, they keep coming back to give you more and more flowers every year!

To see these plants in person, come visit our garden center in Moultonborough, New Hampshire! Follow us on Facebook or Instagram for updates and featured products.

Apr 12, 2022

How to Prevent Deer Damage in Your Garden

Garden Center

A garden is like a free buffet for deer; flowers, shrubs, grass, veggies, and tree bark are delicious treats. Sometimes thorns won’t even stop them! It’s just a toothpick before they carry on to ravage another backyard. We will cover the basics of identifying deer damage in your garden and how you can deter them.

How to Tell If Deer Have Been in Your Yard

If you haven’t managed to spot any deer in your yard, but you’re suspicious that they might be snacking, you can look for a couple of signs. If you notice jagged edges on your plants or missing leaves, especially on plants with high water content like hostas and rhododendrons, or your trees have stripped bark, this is likely deer damage. Even if they don’t eat everything available, they may trample your other plants, which can cause significant harm.

Deer-Resistant Shrubs

If you want to try and plant shrubs that will create a border to keep the deer damage to a minimum, we recommend giving these a try. Keep in mind that deer will eat nearly anything if they’re hungry enough, so we can’t guarantee that these will be damage-free, but it’s worth a shot.

Juniper – this plant is heavily fragrant, which tends to keep deer away since they don’t like strong smells.
Bayberry – this drought-tolerant shrub is native to eastern North America and has a strong fragrance that deer tend to avoid.
Potentilla – its lovely yellow blooms are gorgeous in your garden but deer don’t like the taste, making it a great option for your landscape.
Spirea – you won’t be sacrificing beauty for function with this shrub. It has great texture and beautiful blooms, but the deer won’t appreciate it as much as you will!

We recommend planting Achillea, Allium, grasses, Lavandula, Nepeta, Salvia, and Thymus in your flower beds or a spring container for their deer repellent properties. Peonies and sages are also good options as they have strong scents that tend to keep deer away. You can spray your plants with a repellent such as Plantskydd if you’re looking for some extra deterrent power.

Deer Deterrents

If preventive measures against deer damage are not working, here are some things you can try to keep the deer from causing more damage. The best strategies involve smell and noise.

Spray flowers and plants with deer repellent. Repellents usually have combinations of bovine blood, eggs, garlic, milk, dish detergent, and tabasco. The stinkier, the better.
If you’re looking for an organic option, we recommend Plantskydd, which is available at our garden center.
Add scented deterrents to the perimeter of your garden, such as spraying mixed rotten eggs with water.
Place soap or mothballs around your yard.
Place a radio outside and change the station every so often, or hang wind chimes or pie pans from your trees.
Cover your shrubs with netting.
Hang hair clippings in nylon stockings from trees. The scent of human or dog hair will keep the deer away; be sure to change them every couple of weeks.
Surround your garden with an 8-foot fence; it can be shorter if there isn’t a lot of space for the deer to have a proper ‘launchpad.’

While these solutions may not feel glamorous, a half-eaten garden isn’t very satisfying when you’ve dedicated so much time and effort to making your landscape beautiful.

How to Save Your Damaged Plants

You may not be able to save all of your plants from deer damage, but there are a few things you can do to encourage healthy growth and set your plants up for a successful recovery. Start by assessing the damage; if it’s a few leaves bitten, your plant will likely recover with new growth and a bit of time.

If the stems are looking a little mangled, you can prune the plant back to healthy growth and let it continue from there; however, we highly recommend applying Plantskydd or building a barrier to protect the plants from repeat deer-snacking. Fertilizer and water will help give your plant some energy to recover. If your plants are beyond repair, it might be best to uproot them and replant or make room for other plants to spread.

If you are looking for deer-resistant plants and deterrent supplies in Moultonborough, visit us at Stephens Landscaping Garden Center. We’d be happy to offer our advice and recommendations to protect your yard. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram for updates and featured products.

Apr 05, 2022

How to Design a Spring Container

Garden Center

Spring is the perfect time to fill your garden with luscious color! With our fantastic selection of annuals and perennials, you can create desirable spring containers that your whole neighborhood will appreciate! With this guide, we’ll get you started on choosing the right plants for your containers and how to plant them in a gorgeous arrangement.

Choose Your Plants

When choosing your plants, there are a few things you’ll want to consider. First, we typically describe plants as thrillers, fillers, or spillers. Thrillers are tall, stunning plants that catch your eye—they’re the prima donnas of the show! Fillers are the backup dancers, filling in the container with foliage and bright blooms. Spillers hang over the edges of the container, like a backdrop or curtain of a stage; they’ll create a natural overgrowth that will tie everything together. How many you’ll need of each depends on the size of your spring containers, but you can always group them at the garden center to make sure the ratio looks good before you buy.

The second thing you’ll want to keep in mind while designing your spring containers is your plants’ light and water requirements. Including one drought-tolerant plant with one that needs consistent moisture will make for some rather complicated care! Give your plants a quick check when you’re choosing them to make sure they have similar interests and will get along nicely.

Finally, choose plants that look great together! You can go for a monochromatic container with various shades of a single color, or, add in every color you can find for kaleidoscope spring containers. Whichever option you choose, look for a variety in shape, color shade, texture, and height for a visually interesting combination.

Gather Your Supplies

Before you get started building your gorgeous planters, it’s a good idea to gather all of your supplies. Having everything you might need on hand will make for a relaxing and fun planting experience. You’ll need:

A fancy new container! If you are looking for a fresh aesthetic, come see our selection.
Potting soil, which differs from regular soil
Fertilizer
A spade
A sharp knife
Gardening gloves
Your brand new, beautiful plants

Once you have all your supplies and plants on hand, you’re ready to get started!

Fill Your Container

Start by scooping some potting soil into the bottom of your container. The root ball of the largest plant you’re adding should sit an inch below the top of the container. At this point, place your nursery plants inside the container to arrange them and get an idea of how you want your finished planter to look. Leaving them in their original containers, for now, will make it easier to move them around and fiddle with your design until it’s just right.

We recommend planting your tallest plants in the middle and your spiller plants near the edges if you can see your container from all sides. If the container is by a wall or fence, plant the tallest ones at the back and your spillers at the front. In both cases, your fillers will do just that—fill in the gaps!

Once you’re pleased with the design, you can start planting. Starting with the largest plants, gently lift them out of their original container, squeezing the sides gently to separate the root ball from the edges. If your plant is rootbound, you can use a knife to loosen up the edges of the root ball. Be careful not to harm healthy roots near the center of the root ball.

Next, place your plant in the container and use handfuls of potting soil to help support it. Keep adding the plants, working your way to the edges of the container, and pack them in gently. Your soil level should stay roughly one inch below the edge of the pot. Now that they’re all settled, you can give them a hearty drink of water with some fertilizer.
You’re officially ready to kick off a colorful spring! If you have any questions or would like help with plant selection for your spring containers, feel free to visit us at Stephens Landscaping Garden Center. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram for updates and featured products.

Dec 01, 2021

Getting Into the Holiday Spirit

Garden Center

The holiday season is upon us! While New England can look perfectly picturesque under freshly fallen snow, you can add to the charm of the holidays and winter season by adding a festive touch to your home—both inside and out.

No matter what holidays you celebrate, you can add a cheery charm to your home by bringing a little bit of the outside indoors with thoughtfully designed pieces of décor and a comforting, warm glow through your lighting design. Home exteriors and landscapes can look beautifully luminous decked out with greenery and a mix of ribbon, berries, twinkle lights, with loose boughs or arrangements in varying sizes.

This time of year, when the leaves have fallen from the trees and there may (or may not yet) be snow on the ground, the lack of color can be a bit, well, dull. The easiest way to bring color and a bit of nature into and around your home this holiday season is to decorate with fresh greenery.

Decorating Outside

Wreaths and baskets on a front door are traditional holiday décor, but you there are many ways to customize these items to make it your very own, and better fit with your home’s design and surrounding landscape. Of course, you can match the ribbon to your door color, add a ribbon of your family’s tartan, hang a wreath or basket with your family’s name written on it or on the hanging ribbon, use two or three smaller wreaths or baskets instead of one large one…there are many possibilities!

The outdoor entrance lights installed next to the front door are great places to hang wreaths or garlands that match or complement the wreath on the entrance, as are any lamp posts that flank the walkways around your property. Adding large bows to the greens can add a nice pop of color to your outdoor space.

A beautiful way to illuminate your home for the season is to weave weather-resistant, battery-operated light strings into wreaths or garlands that are hung on the outside of windows. They’ll bring a festive glow to your home and the surrounding landscape for the holidays. Adding window boxes filled with mixed greens, red berries, ribbons, and tiny lights are another way to include your windows to your holiday decorating plan.

Indoor Décor

The holiday season is a social season. It’s the time of year when we spend the most time with family and friends, with many people hosting or attending parties and open houses. It’s the perfect opportunity to decorate your entire home from top to bottom, and the possibilities here are almost endless. Every room can get into the holiday spirit with a little greenery and accent lighting.

The kitchen and dining room are great places to incorporate some greenery-based décor. Garlands strung with lights and intertwined with fruit and berries look great on top of kitchen cabinets and laid out across tables, extending from holiday centerpieces. Sprigs of greens, berries, and pinecones tied to chair backs add a festive touch to a dining room. And, arrangements of all shapes and sizes can complement your aesthetic.

In other parts of the house, garlands surrounding artwork, mirrors, and fireplaces can add a pleasant focal point to a room. Small arrangements interspersed with statues and/or candles and lights, and thoughtfully placed on bookcases, tables, and bureaus add to the overall charm of your holiday décor.

Candles are an indispensable part of many holiday celebrations, and it’s easy to add a bit of greenery and colored ribbons to candelabras to match with your family’s observances. Candles create such a warm glow adding a holiday ambiance to a dark winter’s evening.

And finally, kissing balls are a traditional holiday favorite, and can be used in both indoor and outdoor designs—they look great hung on a doorway lintel, from a chandelier, above a fireplace mantle, in front of a mirror, and outside near a front door, on a porch, on a driveway light pole, or even on a mailbox.

Getting Creative

At our Garden Center in Moultonborough, we have greenery and arrangements ready for purchase. We’re also happy to work with you in designing something that’s just right for your home. You can also bring in your own planter or container, and we’ll create a stunning piece for you. If you’d prefer something already premade for your home or for gifts as you visit family and friends this season, we carry many beautiful arrangements of varying size and design from which you can choose.

Our new holiday hours at the Garden Center are: Monday through Saturday 9 – 5, Sunday 10 – 3 from November 22 – December 24. Please call the Garden Center at 603.677.9100 or reach out if there’s anything in particular you’re looking for or would like custom designed by one of our creative team members. And, of course if you’re in need of assistance preparing your landscape for the holidays or winter ahead, let us know. We’re here to help!