Room Envy: This glass garden house in Marietta is a relaxing retreat
When Laura Gaby wants to take a mental health day (or hour), she need only step into her wooded backyard. There, her glass garden house serves as a year-round retreat for reading, napping, and enjoying nature.
Georgia forests and Japanese gardens inspire Brendan Butler’s elaborate modern landscapes
Atlanta’s gardens are typically associated with traditional Southern foliage like hydrangeas and magnolias, making the modern creations by landscape designer Brendan Butler all the more remarkable.
This Sandy Springs garden is “formal, not fussy”
Atlanta may be known as a city in a forest, but for gardeners, all those shady trees present a challenge. Back in 2009, when Suzy Smith and her husband, Ed, spotted this Sandy Springs home with a flat, sunny area, they were sold.
This transformed Peachtree Park backyard is the envy of the neighbors
For Anne Knutson, the highest praise arrived in a snarky blog post loaded with backhanded compliments. Her next-door neighbor, designer Sherry Hart, took mock aim at Knutson in her popular blog, Design Indulgence, after Knutson invited her to stop by and see the results of the prolonged landscaping activity Hart had been hearing through the bushes.
On the fence about seeds? Go ahead and start planting them indoors
Marigolds are a good pick for Georgia’s spring and summer. If the plant is destined for a pot, pick a short variety. Otherwise, pick any variety. They come in orange and yellow, from big and puffy to tiny and dainty.
Room Envy: A garden made for relaxing, even in late-summer heat
Gardens can get a bad rap in late summer—with wilting flowers and fewer blooms than in spring—but interior designer and author James Farmer added architecture and heat-tolerant plants so that his backyard excels even in August.
Space-saving techniques help a tiny cottage garden in Ansley Park live large
“This yard was nothing but concrete from front to back,” says Matthew Klyn, the garden designer who helped Ray Rubin and Jeff Shelton perform, by all accounts, nothing short of a miracle on their century-old bungalow in Ansley Park.
The kudzu of herbs: Why you should grow mint during the winter in Georgia
Winter has driven most plants to death or dormancy, but no Deep South freeze is bad enough to kill mint, the kudzu of herbs—and the gardening slack season is as good a time as any to start growing.
Create your own lush landscape—with the click of a button. Fred! Lawn Design Company is digitizing landscaping.
Greg Kawalek launched the local Fred! Lawn Design Company last year to digitize landscape planning. Kawalek believes Fred! is the first of its kind in the industry. Fred! handles projects from planting beds to hardscaping, firepits, fencing, and water features. A completely custom plan costs $99.
A coleus for all of us: How to grow the colorful plant in Georgia
On the sunniest Deep South day, wisely planted under the dark green backdrop of a shady tree, a clump of coleus will shimmer with most all the pinks and greens and yellows of other flowers—without a single bloom.
