Tips from the Pros

If you're looking to add fragrance and color to your landscape, attract butterflies and provide distinctive resources for crafting and home decorating, take a look at lavender as you plan your spring plantings. Lavender is a versatile plant that comes in nearly 40 varieties. Some are tall and some are short, but all add interest with their purple-blue-dark pink flowers and their silvery foliage. Both flowers and foliage are fragrant, and can be used fresh as cut flowers or dried for crafts, home decorating or household potpourri. Native to the dry, mountainous regions of the Mediterranean, lavender varieties have been developed that will do well in cooler and even humid climates. The key is to plant them in full sun in soil that will not get waterlogged (root rot is the biggest threat to healthy lavender). The ideal soil is a sandy loam that is slightly alkaline. In humid areas such as ours, lavender should be planted at least two feet apart to ensure maximum air flow, and it can help to place plants against foundations or stone walls to keep them on the dry side. Lavender will fit into any landscape design, and taller varieties can even be used to create fragrant hedges.  

Landscaping Trend  

Eco-Scaping Is Getting Attention, Indoors and Out

Every year the Garden Media Group releases a Trends Report that gives readers a heads up on what to look for in the coming months. This year, one of the trends to watch is eco-scaping. And not just in the traditional way of using conservation techniques and natural materials to enhance outdoor spaces. The trend to watch, the group predicts, is the way people start applying eco-scaping principles to indoor spaces as well. "Borders are blurring between indoors and out as nature becomes more important in our lives," said Bobbie Schwartz of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers in the Garden Media Group's 2012 Garden Trends Report. What that means, the report notes, is that eco-scaping is evolving "from rocks in the garden to rocks in the living room." Indoors or outside, the keys to eco-scaping are balance, spacing and the placement of natural materials to enhance a feeling of environmental cohesion. Picture water running over stones from a corner fountain, natural hearths or stone pavers in a living room, plants set off by pebbles in a corner of a kitchen or dining room. "Many people want their gardens and their homes to be sanctuaries of tranquility, reflecting their ideal concept of nature," Schwartz said.  

February is a fickle month in Philadelphia, sometimes warm, sometimes cold, sometimes snowy and often wet. But even with unsettled weather, it's a great month for getting your spring gardening under way.

• Order perennial plants and bulbs now for cut flowers this summer. Particularly good choices are phlox, daisies, coreopsis, asters and lilies.
• Check bulbs or tubers you're storing for summer flowers and get rid of any that are soft or appear diseased.
• Send off seed orders early this month to take advantage of seasonal discounts. Some companies offer bonus seeds of new varieties to early buyers.
• Plan to grow at least one new vegetable that you've never grown before. Dwarf varieties that use less space while producing more food per square foot may be better than what you're growing.
• Don't start your vegetable plants indoors too early. Six weeks ahead of the expected planting date is early enough to seed fast-growth species such as cabbage. Eight weeks is best for slower-growing types such as peppers.
• Have your lawnmower professionally sharpened and tuned now to avoid the rush later.
• Also sharpen and oil tools such as shovels, shears and trimmers and tune up gas-powered weed-eaters if necessary.