Featured Garden: English Garden in North Carolina

From the time that I helped my mother in the yard as a child, I began to love flowering plants. When I bought my first house, I dug flower beds and planted shrubs, perennials, and annuals.

Years later I studied Horticulture at Foothill College in California and managed a landscape maintenance and build company in San Jose. Everytime I walked through a property and marveled at the colors, textures, and fragrances, I was transformed into a sort of "paradise" feeling. I also do a lot of "macro" photography of the flowers and have hundreds of colorful photos.

I think my favorite plant is the rose. All colors and fragrances but my all-time favorites are "antique roses" because they don't have to be tended the same as hybrid roses. Even without much care they bloom, and bloom, and bloom.

I love the new walkway through my garden. It's made of antique brick that I found when a 1920s building was being torn down in downtown Burlington, NC.

My greatest challenge is time and heat. A few months after I bought my current home, I found out I had a mild heart condition and don't have the stamina to work the gardens like I have in past years. So, my gardens suffer because I cannot work them, weed them, and properly prepare them, and especially in the heat.

I spent 12 years gardening in Northern California where the summers were very mild, and I could garden nearly year round. Where I live now in North Carolina, we had over 60 days of weather over 90F last year with over 80% humidity!

Purchase one gardening book that explains about plants in shade versus full sun, and what the water requirements are. Go to a garden center, and read every tag to determine shade or full sun, and then place them together to see what the color combinations are.

My experience is the biggest disappointment for new gardeners is they put the wrong plants in full sun, or plant full sun plants in the shade and then wonder why they didn't bloom. Also, plants that require more water like Astilbe just cannot be planted with Moss Rose-Portulaca or other succulents that require much less water.