garden-design 101: help for fine-tuning your yard (win gift certificates for plants!)

Needing to fine-tune your garden's design, but not sure how to begin? I'll be writing more about DIY garden design this year, by asking for advice from experts, starting now:

My friend Katherine Tracey, a nursery owner and designer, helps us take a virtual walk through our home landscapes. She suggests clever tactics like looking through a camera lens to learn to frame better garden moments; creating a holding bed for onesies that just aren't working where they are; and putting bluestone landing pads for colorful, changeable pots in key spots. Plus: win a $50 nursery gift certificate! Click here to get all her advice (and enter the giveaway). 

some tactics i use in planning my own planting

• I am no garden designer over here, but like Katherine, I know I want good views out my windows, so going indoors and looking out strongly influences where I plant what. Like this. 
• Underplanting, beyond just massing one boring groundcover in a large swath, is a process I call Making Mosaics, and it can help your key garden pictures gel. (Includes a video how-to.) 
• Sometimes, especially in outer areas of the garden, you just need masses. Favorite groundcovers I rely on (in case you've got your nose in plant catalogs at the moment).

miss it last time? pollinator-friendly gardening

Our gardens and farms -- our lives -- depend on pollinators like bees, and gardeners can help them have what they need to thrive. The full story.