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The goal of pruning is to improve the overall health and usefulness of a plant:

• Prune to correct broken or damaged branches.
• Prune to remove diseased portions of a plant.
• Prune to control the size and shape of a plant.
• Prune fruit trees to keep it easier to harvest the delicious fruit.

Pruning by the Pros

Plant materials grown by a quality grower will have been pruned correctly from the start, so you shouldn’t need to worry about corrective pruning for a while. A good example is shrubs. Plant nursery staff work to encourage branching lower to the ground, so the plants don’t have voids and aren’t "leggy". For trees, the nurseries prune for nice straight single leaders and uniform, open branching.

Tree Pruning Tips

After you plant your trees, you should pay attention to your plants as they

Before your fire up your weed eaters and trimmers and rampage through your yard cutting down and removing everything in sight this fall, stop! Take a step back. It’s time to reconsider your winter clean up protocol. 

Let’s take a look and change your perspective to see your winter landscape in a new way. You don’t need to cut everything down. Do you have any perennials or other plants that may offer winter interest if you left them untrimmed until after winter?

What Does Your Landscape Look Like in Winter?

Evergreens, ornamental grasses and hydrangeas definitely offer winter interest. Perennials can also add interest to the winter landscape, so don’t be too quick to cut them down. Study shapes, colors and form.

Not all dormant regions get dumped with snow. Some regions have lighter snowfalls that can highlight and sculpt the snow, cr

Have you spied the hottest new garden design trend in your neighborhood? It’s time to start changing out your container gardens to reflect the beauty of each season!

Transforming container gardens at your front door and your patio is easy and fun. Use featured, seasonal plant materials to help you celebrate every season at your home.

Seasonal Container Gardens Make Beautiful Memories

A few weeks ago, we gave you easy tips and tricks for the latest trends in container gardens for the height of the summer season.

How have your container gardens weathered the summer? Perhaps it’s time to do a bit of freshening up of your pots. Some annuals outgrow their space, leaving leggy growth with fewer leaves and limited flowering.

Now is the time to

Watch our "Fruit Whisperer", as Ed Laivo, one of America's top fruit tree experts, answers Jill Winger's question on how to best care for her new Dwarf Meyer Lemon Tree during the winter.

Planting, Managing Pests, Making the Move, Fertilizing & Watering

Ed has some really helpful hints for the home gardener in cold climates, like Wyoming (and let's not forget all the other hardy souls living in places like New York, Colorado, Minnesota, and our friends in Illinois!). If you want to grow Citrus Trees, but must bring them inside for the long winter - here's a video overview of what you need to know.

Dwarf Meyer Lemons are so much fun to grow, and they'll do well for you inside. Just follow along with Ed for the best practices.

Is it time to shake things up in your container gardens? After all, modern container garden trends have evolved, the same as modern foundation plantings and shrub borders.  Not only have the plant varieties changed, so have pots and soil mixes.

Now, people are using an enormous variety of plant materials, including improved cultivars. They are also combining plants together in exciting new ways.

Homeowners and renters alike demand the “curb appeal” that beautiful container gardens lend to their doorway, staircase, garage door. They want the “wow factor” on decks, patios and kitchen windows.

Today’s containers may include shrubs, perennials, grasses, annuals, succulents, evergreens, and even cactus or tropicals.  The mix of plants, colors and textures is endless.  Learn what does best in your area and pay attention to see if those favorites are grown i

We would be remiss if we did not mention that Boxwood have been used as trimmed hedges as far back as 4,000 BC, in the gardens of Roman villas.  Boxwood have been used in Italy, France, Germany and England - all throughout Europe because it makes incredible clipped hedges. 

Boxwood remain wildly popular today. 

Their popularity comes from the innate ability to train this plant into many different forms.  They were used to create English knot gardens, topiaries, creating pieces of sculpture in the landscape.  Boxwood can be easily sheared in to tight forms.  The small, rounded leaves are evergreen and remain on the plant year round. 

How to Use Boxwood in the Landscape

Not only do Boxwood make classic low hedges-- governing direction and movement through the landscape with the structure they bring – they do so year round because they

You know you love to get your hands in the dirt come springtime. Even before the weather turns nice, avid gardeners are out there finding jobs to do: winter cleanup, pruning your dormant oak or fruit trees, mulching beds, and most importantly, planning for all the new plants you want to try this year. We totally get it!

Now, in fall after a wonderful growing season spent enjoying your garden, you may find yourself not quite ready for your long winter rest. So, what can you do now?

Take a close look at your garden. Are there any late-blooming perennials that could be divided to fill in bare spots? Have you been thinking about adding a garden bed? Or are you tempted by some of the fabulous new cultivars on the market? Would you like to add more spring color?

The most important thing to know about deer is that when they are hungry, and food is limited, they may eat just about anything. Please keep in mind that deer tastes change with the season, with the region, and with what is available to them. 

Deer Resistant Trees

Deer Resistant Shrubs

Deer Resistant Perennials

Here’s How To Train Deer

We hear about it all the time …  a plant that is listed as deer resistant gets damaged by deer browsing on that plant.  What we have learned is that when you plant new plants a

Nature Hills fields a lot of calls from our customers who are looking for something to grow in a specific spot in their yard...and with the huge palate of plants offered, there is really no better place to call than Nature Hills Nursery to find something that will work for you.  

Use the Nature Hills Plant Facts listed on every product page to help you determine if a plant will tolerate the conditions of the spot you have in mind.  During this post, you’ll get an in-depth understanding of the most important factors to consider.

Use Nature Hills Plant Facts to understand exactly what a specific plant can tolerate.  The Plant Facts provide details about the specific conditions a plant needs to survive and thrive (which is what we want for your new plant!)

Study Your Landscape to Make the Best Plant Selection

As you research your Pl