Here are the Top 20 “Thriller” plants to adorn your front entrance this fall. Decorate them for the holiday season and enjoy them all winter long!

If you have trouble with water runoff damaging your garden, or you just want to do your part to protect your local rivers, then you'll want to explore creating a rain garden.

Rain gardens are a beautiful and practical way to control storm water runoff. They are simply a garden planted in a depression at the base of a slope that collects and holds rainwater, allowing it to slowly seep into the ground, rather than flow into roads and waterways. These are not ponds or even swampy areas. In fact, a well-made rain garden is designed to drain excess water in less than two days (which is good news if mosquitoes are a problem).

They are so effective, and so beneficial for stormwater management and improving water quality, that some homes can earn tax breaks for creating one.

Benefits of Rain Gardens

The primary benefit is its ability

If your landscape has mature shade trees, faces north, or only receives direct sun a few hours a day, you're on the right blog post! Read on to discover how to design the perfect shade garden and fall in love with your low-light backyard again.

Think shade gardens are colorless and boring? Think again! A carefully planned full shade garden can be just as interesting as a sunny garden, with the added benefit of being enjoyably cool during warm summer days.

Garden design for shady spots can vary quite a bit, depending on the type of shade you have. You'll also need to understand the micro-climates found in your yard.

Types of Shade

Many of us struggle to grow a beautiful (but high maintenance) garden. Between work, family and other responsibilities, it’s simply hard to find the time.

Rather than let your garden fall by the wayside, consider making some small changes to save you time and hassle in the long run. Use these low maintenance landscaping tips, so you can spend more time enjoying your garden, and less time maintaining it.

Low Maintenance Landscaping Tips & Strategies

Use mulch

Mulch is a must-have for a successful, low maintenance garden. It looks great, and gives garden beds a nice, finished look, but it does so much more:

• Mulch helps prevent weeds
• Mulch acts like a blanket, insulating plants from extreme heat and cold
• Mulch keeps moisture i

Happy Pollinator Week!

It’s Pollinator Week, so we have put together a special plant collection of wonderful pollinator-friendly natives and nativars for you. Our horticultural team is  always on the hunt for plants that provide food and shelter for these critical insects and animals.  

If you’ve heard the buzz about declining bee populations, you probably want more information on easy ways you can help. At Nature Hills, we love plants of all shapes and sizes, but flowering and fruiting plants hold a very special place in our hearts.

To help celebrate National Pollinator Week, we’ve also put this informative article together for you. In it, you’ll find some easy ways you can improve habitat by creating gardens and landscapes that in

Tips to Prune and Train Espalier Fruit Trees

It's fun to grow healthy homegrown fruit on a sturdy trellis. The ancient technique called Espalier allows for a full harvest in a small space planting.

Espalier is now being done on Apples, Apricots, Citrus, Cherries, Figs, Nectarines Pears, Peaches, Persimmons, Pomegranate and Plums. There are few varieties of fruit that cannot be trained to grow flat. Citrus is ideal for espalier.

Watch as our High Density Backyard Orchard Culture Expert, Ed Laivo, walks you through the steps to prune and train a young pear tree growing as an espalier on a sturdy trellis.

You'll learn how far to trim back, how to tie down limbs to direct growth. You'll also see what kind of tools are required

LINK: https://www.naturehills.com/cooperative_extension

Nature Hills Horticultural Staff is always happy to assist you with your gardening questions and challenges. But sometimes, customers pose location-specific questions to us that we are unable to answer. We don't always have knowledge of the regional climate and soil conditions. We do not want to pass on incorrect information to you. In situations such as these, we always recommend the customer contact their local cooperative extension office.

The cooperative extension offices

These days, every region is becoming more aware of precious water resources. And, gardeners are busy people, so time is also something to carefully safeguard. Watch the video below to get the pros and cons of different techniques, and learn how to adjust automatic water systems as you need to. 

Water-Wise landscaping is here, and we don't think that philosophy is going away. This is true all across the country as people realize how expensive water bills are getting. Learn the finer details of using timer for watering plants and automatic watering system for plants. That means automatic sprinkler systems, too. 

Have a question? Email us at [email protected]!

Nature Hills sells all kinds of plants, including trees, shrubs, fruiting trees & plants, perennials, roses, vines, grasses - you name it! And every one of our beautiful and useful plants loves a layer of mulch to keep the weeds down and provide cover for their roots.

New and Existing Plants Benefit Greatly From a Layer of Mulch Over the Roots

Watch as Ed Laivo, one of our resident horticulturalists, breaks it down for you. See what kind of mulch is right for several applications around your landscape. Learn about the proper depth for new plantings and as an annual topping.

During the video, you'll understand the different types of mulch, and when to use them. You'll see when to use compost as a mulch. You'll get tips on how to apply (and re-apply) mulch as a top

#ProPlantTips from Nature Hills on Repotting Container Grown Fruit Trees

Let Ed Laivo, Nature Hills resident Fruit Horticulturalist, show you tips and tricks of repotting container grown fruit trees for the best results. 

What size pot comes next as you repot your fruit tree into a larger size container? You'll learn everything from the right potting soil mix to use to how to handle the roots of the plant as you repot it.

Growing fruit in containers is a wonderful way to produce delicious food, and gain a highly ornamental patio plant in the process. If you live in a cold growing zone, and must grow tender fruit - like the Australian Finger Lime - in containers, you'll definitely want to watch.