Shrubs that Define Summer
Flowering shrubs take center stage in summer – and for good reason. While painting the garden with bold color and irresistible fragrance, they serve as living architecture in the landscape and strong allies in sustainable gardening. A food source for nature’s pollinators, and shelter for birds and wildlife, flowering shrubs anchor garden beds and soften…
Hardy Beauty in a Compact Form
Compact junipers are versatile, low-maintenance conifers that deliver four-season structure, beautiful color and interesting texture to home gardens and professional landscape designs. The hardy evergreens are prized for their dense foliage, graceful form and reliable adaptability, making them ideal selections for a variety of spaces, from rock gardens and foundation plantings to containers and low…
The Ever-Regal Rose
With its intoxicating fragrance, graceful buds and blooms and rich symbolism, the rose is perhaps the most beloved and culturally significant flower in human history. Rose plants are woven into folklore and, of course, love and romance. (“Will you accept this rose?”). Classified under the genus Rosa, these regal woody perennials have captured hearts for…
Hardy Varieties Lend Color & Style
Whether flowering perennials or shrubs, hardy varieties lend color, fragrance and style to landscapes and gardens – especially following a long, cold winter. We’re kicking off the growing season by highlighting a few of our favorite repeat bloomers at Loma Vista Nursery. National Beauty Azalea (Rhododendron x ‘National Beauty’) National Beauty Azalea Attracts: Butterflies, hummingbirds…
Look What We Have Growing On
A fresh growing season always begs the question, “so what’s new?” Every year, breeders launch hundreds of new plants, including in the perennial and shrub categories that we grow. While some, but not all, of the following plants may have seen a season or two already, all of these are new for the growing season…
Hardy Plants Make Their Seasonal Comeback
Hardy plants are “tough” choices for landscape designs because they stand up to a variety of environmental stresses and bounce back year after year with reliable color and form. From extreme temperatures and poor soils to drought, flooding, high winds and tricky light conditions, hardy plants are garden workhorses. Their ability to withstand environmental anxieties…
Supporting Thriving Populations
It is beginning. Populations of monarch butterflies, traveling from as far north as southern Canada, are beginning their 3,000-mile-plus winged journey southward to roost in the fir forests of central Mexico. They’ll stay there through our Midwest winter until spring, when they begin their flight back to us. And, hopefully, they will do so in…
Deer Resistant Plants, Please
It never fails. You plant a new flowering shrub. It’s one you’ve been wanting for a while now, and you dream of how it will look in a couple years, in that developing back border bed. With great care you dig it in so as not to disturb the nearby mixed forbs and other perennials.…
The Allure of Roses
With about 150 species of wild roses and another 30,000 cultivated varieties, the first rose described for science – Rosa hilliae – was discovered in 1883 by Charles Leo Lesquereux, a paleobotanist. Lesquereux’s rose was initially found by geologists in samples collected in 1877 from the Colorado Florissant Fossil Beds. While that’s pretty impressive, roses…
Conserving Water in Summer
Do you have an efficient landscape? You know, one that kicks in when temperatures soar and there isn’t a rain event in the forecast for days. As our climate changes, it’s more important than ever to conserve water into the soil so healthy plants can continue to grow and thrive. Healthy plants are the backbone…