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October 31, 2018

New Healing Garden Completed At Northwestern Medical Center

A new healing garden has been completed as part of the most recent renovations at the Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans, Vermont. The outdoor space was commissioned by the Medical Center to provide a location where patients and visitors can enjoy nature, feel secluded, and reflect outdoors.

We worked throughout the summer on this large involved project that includes a long ADA-compliant stone pathway, surrounded by native plants and trees, that brings patients to a seating area with a dry stream bed. Landscape designer David Burton says he wanted to incorporate a variety of landscaping details you see throughout Vermont, including a split-rail fence and a mixture of formal and informal plantings. “I wanted to provide the quintessential Vermont backyard for these patients,” he says. “I also wanted there to be interest year-long which we achieved through hardscaping as well as grasses and trees that stay beautiful throughout the winter months.”

Other features of the healing garden include:

  • Pollinator-friendly plants that help attract butterflies, bees, and other wildlife to the garden, including Echinacea, Sedum, Penstemon, Milkweed, and a variety of grasses.
  • Landscape lighting including path lights and accent lights on trees and boulders so patients can enjoy the garden in the dusk/evening hours.
  • A variety of large, flat patio areas where patients can relax and chat with family or friends.
  • The garden is just one of few healing gardens throughout the state and is innovative in its use of hardscaping, community planting, and natives to make it feel like you’re in a Vermont backyard.

We can’t wait to capture the beauty of the garden throughout the winter months and next season as all of the plants grow in.

September 25, 2018

Late Season Plants For Pollinators In Vermont

Although it’s important to plant habitat and nectar-rich plants for pollinators throughout the season, early spring and late fall are often the most important for bees and butterflies. In the late season garden, it’s vital to have plenty of flowering options for migrating Monarchs who are on the journey to Mexico, hummingbirds heading south, and bees trying to gather enough food to sustain themselves through the winter months. We’ll talk about easy-to-grow native and non-native varieties that you can add to your garden here in Vermont to help these pollinators in the late season.

Aster: Aster is one of the best late-season plants you can add to your landscape for pollinators. It’s native, easy-to-grow here in Vermont, winters over readily, and provides dependable color from September all the way through frost.

Verbena: This annual is a great source of nectar for hummingbirds and other pollinators. You can find it at most local garden centers in Vermont and if you deadhead and water regularly, it will keep blooming through frost. Add it to containers or in the garden bed for long-lasting color and a late-season food source for pollinators.

Sedum: Sedum offers up interest all season long with unique foliage and the blooms begin to open in September until frost. Bees can’t get enough of this perennial and it is a great nectar source for a variety of pollinators.

Mexican Sunflower: Also known as Tithonia, this fiery annual can be easily grown from seed or picked up as a starter plant at your local nursery. If planted in spring, it starts to bloom in the late season and if deadheaded will continue to bloom until frost. A favorite of butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.

Zinnia: Zinnia is one of the best annual varieties to plant for pollinators. It starts to bloom in summer and with proper deadheading will last all the way through frost, attracting a menagerie of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators to the garden. Extremely easy to grow from seed or starter plants from your local nursery.

Basil: If you’re the kind of gardener that likes to plant swaths of basil, consider letting some go to flower in the late season! These flowers are a great late-season source of food for pollinators.

Ornamental Grasses: Ornamental Grasses are a great source of habitat for birds and other pollinators throughout the winter. Keep your grasses up (don’t cut them down in fall!) for added height, interest, and to help birds with shelter throughout the winter months.

Echinacea: There are certain types of Echinacea varieties that last through the late summer and into fall, which provide an important food source for pollinators. Another great way to provide habitat and shelter for birds throughout the winter is to leave your Echinacea up through the colder months and cut them down in early spring.

Goldenrod: Also known as Solidago, this easy-to-grow perennial is an especially important source of nectar for honeybees in the late season garden. Other bees use the pollen to create nests and butterflies are also attracted to Goldenrod. As it readily spreads, plant Solidago where you can keep an eye on it and easily thin out plants each season.

As more and more gardeners are realizing the importance of adding pollinator-friendly plants to their gardens, many nurseries are following suit and making sure they clearly label these plants. When possible, try to purchase neonicotinoid-free plants and seeds to help give pollinators healthy plants to feed on.

Want to create a pollinator garden in your landscape? Contact our landscape designer today.

August 27, 2018

Gallery: Season-Long Color At A Home In South Burlington

When we first headed out to her home, this client had a great foundation for a gorgeous landscape. They had well-built rock walls and a patio in their backyard and a lovely brick path leading to their front door. We didn’t need to hardscape at their home, but they were looking to create big gardens throughout the property with color, color, color.

We created a variety of perennial beds in the front and back part of their property with varieties that bloom from spring to fall. We also go to their home each spring to plant long-lasting annuals to the garden beds to make them feel more full and to help extend that big color throughout the season. We went out there a couple of weeks ago to capture the beauty in the late summer. We hope you enjoy the gardens as much as we do!

August 14, 2018

Refreshing Containers In Late Summer

Once the full heat of summer hits, containers — especially those that were planted in the early spring — can start to look a little withered and sad. If you want to keep your containers fresh and looking healthy through fall, there are several steps you can take now to help.

Refreshing Containers – Watering

This is the most obvious and important step to keeping your containers looking healthy. While in May we can get away with watering just a couple of times per week, once summer is in full swing containers should be soaked pretty much everyday (or every other day) depending on the rainfall. Also, keep in mind that even if it rains, foliage in containers can be so dense that the rain may not reach the soil or roots of the container. Make sure to check the soil every day and if it feels dry, give the container a good soaking from the soil level.

Refreshing Containers – Fertilizing

In general, the more you fertilize your containers, the more vigorous the plants will grow. In summer, you should cut back fertilizing a bit as you don’t really want too much more growth (or the plants could get leggy). In summer you’re really looking to fertilize to help maintain healthy blooms and strong plants. Use a slow-release fertilizer that gives nutrients to your plants over a longer period of time instead of dosing them all at once. Also, use an organic and balanced fertilizer, like a 20-20-20 for an even amount of nutrients.

Refreshing Containers – Checking Sunlight

If the summer sun is drying out and frying your containers, consider placing them in an area with dappled or partial sunlight. You don’t want to take a sun-loving container and place it in a completely shady spot, but relocating it to an area with morning shade may help the plants last longer.

Refreshing Containers – Deadheading and Cutting Back

Deadheading is an important task that helps keep containers blooming throughout the season. As soon as a flower starts to brown, clip it off just above the stem break. This allows the plant to put energy into producing more blooms instead of going to seed.

If you’ve been deadheading and your plant still looks sad and overgrown, you may want to cut it back more aggressively. It may seem scary, but cutting varieties like Salvia back by 1/3 when they start to look leggy will help them maintain a good shape and healthy blooms throughout the fall. A good rule is if the plant is looking so bad you aren’t enjoying it anymore, try cutting it back by at least 1/3 as a last-ditch effort. If it doesn’t bounce back within a week or so, you may want to replace it.

Refreshing Containers – Replacing Spent Plants

As much as we put in the work to keep our annuals looking good throughout the season, sometimes plants just die. That’s ok — as gardeners, we’re used to it. But instead of ditching the whole container completely, you can replace the sad plant with something healthy and refreshing. This time of year, many local nurseries have their annuals at a huge discount (some even up to 80% off) and they’ve been working to keep the plants healthy for months. If you have the budget, head out and purchase several new annuals to fill in where your old plants didn’t make it. You’ll then enjoy a healthy container all the way through fall.

Containers are an easy and fun way to add pops of color in unexpected areas in the landscape, such as patios, porches, front entryways, and more. They can be changed each year with your style and with a little bit of maintenance throughout the season, can offer up blooms from spring all the way through fall.

July 23, 2018

How to Deadhead Plants to Promote Blooms All Season Long

This time of year our long-lasting perennials and annual plants can start to look a little sad, especially with the lack of rain we’ve been experiencing here in Vermont. To help give your plants a boost and promote blooming throughout the rest of the summer, it’s important to deadhead spent blooms on a regular basis and give plants a shot of organic fertilizer. We’ll talk about which plants to deadhead and how:

Why Deadhead?

The science behind deadheading is pretty simple. As a flower finishes blooming, it typically puts its energy into going to seed to regenerate for next season. If you leave the spent bloom on the plant, it will do just this and not produce any more blooms. If you pinch the spent bloom as soon as it’s finished, the plant will put that energy into producing more blooms. This is the case for annuals and perennials alike; so the more you can get out there and deadhead, the more blooms you’ll enjoy!

A simple way to remember where to deadhead is to pinch the plant (or use pruners) right above the leaf set of the spent bloom.

Deadheading Annuals

Most annuals that you get from your local nurseries to pot up in containers, windowboxes, or to fill in the front of your garden beds are supposed to be long-blooming varieties and will benefit greatly from regular deadheading. This list includes:

  • Geranium
  • Marigolds
  • Annual Salvia
  • Petunias
  • Cosmos
  • Zinnias
  • Canna Lilies
  • Begonias
  • Scabiosa
  • Snapdragons
  • Sweet Peas
  • Annual heliotrope

This is a list of the most common annuals that should be deadheaded, but if you have an annual growing that isn’t on this list, chances are it will benefit and bloom longer by cutting off spent blooms.

Deadheading Perennials

Most gardeners are familiar with deadheading annuals, but aren’t sure which perennials to deadhead. The philosophy behind deadheading is the same with perennial plants, although the list is a little shorter of which plants actually will put out more blooms after pinching spent ones. Some of the most common varieties to deadhead are:

  • Geranium
  • Coreopsis
  • Roses
  • Campanula
  • Blanket Flower
  • Yarrow
  • Bee Balm
  • Columbine
  • Delphinium
  • Lavender
  • Hollyhocks
  • Lupine
  • Daisies
  • Purple Coneflower

This is a list of the most common perennial varieties that may produce more flowers with regular deadheading. Deadheading can also be done to improve appearance on plants that won’t rebloom (to get rid of the brown, spent blooms) and can also be done the same way.

Just like with any garden task, the more frequently you get out there and deadhead the better the results. If you take an hour (or less) two times per week to check on your garden beds and containers, you can pinch spent blooms as soon as they’re finished and help keep your plant healthy and flowering all season long.

July 8, 2018

Summer Garden Maintenance

Summer in Vermont is always a mixed bag; either we have cool, rainy weather or (like this year) it’s unseasonably hot and dry. Despite the weather we’re given, there are several things you should always be doing in your mid-summer garden to help keep your plants healthy and growing strong. We’ll talk about some of the most important maintenance tasks for your summer garden.

Summer Garden Maintenance – Watering

Watering in summer, no matter what the weather, is extremely important. Here are a few tips to watering that will help keep your plants free from sunburn, mildew, and disease:

  • Although it may be tempting to set up a sprinkler in your garden, spraying the tops and foliage of the plants could result in them burning. The best way to water your plants is underneath the foliage right at the roots. If you’re looking for an automatic way to do this, soaker hoses are an affordable (and water-friendly) solution.
  • Water in the morning if possible. This lets any water that got onto the foliage dry before the sun reaches its peak in the afternoon. Watering in the evening is the second best option but if it’s extremely humid, this could cause root rot or your plants to become diseased.
  • Don’t water every day! This is a common misconception that gardens need to be watered on a daily basis. Many perennials are tough and don’t need constant watering. Check the soil in your garden beds and if a couple inches down the soil is dry, water. If it’s not, let it be.
  • Containers and raised beds should be monitored more closely than regular garden beds as water drains more regularly. Keep an eye on these parts of your landscape every day and check to see if they need a good water.
  • Water thoroughly. It’s better to soak your plants a few times a week than simply sprinkle them every day. A good soaking is important so the root systems get enough water, which means your plants will grow larger and more healthy.

Summer Garden Maintenance – Weeding

Many gardeners dread weeding, while others enjoy the monotony. Regardless of your feelings for this task, it’s extremely important to keep your garden beds weeded — especially in the summer.

Regular weeding helps create more airflow through your plants which helps with preventing disease. Weeds also can take water and nutrients from the soil that would otherwise be going to your plants, so that is another reason to stay on top of weeding in the summer months. Map out your week by sections of your garden so you’re not trying to tackle everything at once. If you spend 10 minutes a day on small portions of your landscape, it won’t feel so daunting and can be extremely manageable. If you really hate weeding, our expert gardening team can do it for you!

Summer Garden Maintenance – Deadheading

If you have annuals in hanging baskets, containers, or in your garden beds, deadheading is an important task to keep up on. Deadheading (removing spent blooms) helps the plant produce more blooms instead of putting its energy going to seed. If you continue to deadhead throughout the summer, most of your annuals should put out blooms all the way through fall.

Summer Garden Maintenance – Enjoy!

Summer gardens, especially here in Vermont, can be the most impressive of the season and it’s important to take time to enjoy the fruits of your labor and reflect on the beauty around you. And with a little regular maintenance in your gardens, your landscape will surely be a thing of beauty and color.

June 21, 2018

How To Attract Beneficial Bugs To Your Vegetable Garden With Flowering Plants

Many here in Vermont — whether you have a small property or acres of land — find joy in growing their own vegetables. This could mean setting up large pots with tomatoes on a porch in Burlington or building large raised beds in your backyard. With many of us trying to grow organically or as naturally as possible, one of the easiest ways to prevent harmful bugs and diseases in your vegetable garden — while also helping to attract pollinators — is to plant a variety of specific plants around your vegetables that help attract beneficial bugs to your garden.

What Is A Beneficial Bug?

First, let’s talk about what beneficial bugs are and what they do to help out your vegetable garden. Beneficial bugs are a variety of different species that help eliminate and control pests that can damage your garden and lawn. By attracting beneficial insects to your garden with certain plants, you can eliminate the use of insecticides and other toxic chemicals that not only wipe out these pests, but also the good bugs that you want in your garden.

We’ve put together a list of some of the most helpful and common beneficial bugs and what to plant to help attract them to your garden:

  • Ladybugs help by eliminating aphids, whiteflies, and potato beetles in your garden. You can attract them with Dill, Yarrow, Coriander, and even Dandelions!
  • Ground Beetles help by eliminating slugs, potato beetles, and cutworms from the garden. You can attract them with Primrose, Amaranth, and Clover.
  • Aphid Midges are a big help in controlling the aphid population in your garden. Any nectar-rich plant (like Dill, Fennel, Milkweed, and Zinnias) will help attract these beneficial bugs to your garden.
  • Green Lacewings prey on aphids, whiteflies, leafhoppers, and mealybugs. You can attract green Lacewings to your garden by planting Dill or Coriander.

Plant Marigolds Around Your Tomatoes And Other Vegetables

Another fantastic companion plant to add around your vegetable garden is Marigolds. Marigolds help your veggies in a big way by:

  • Attracting bees to the garden to pollinate your plants.
  • Marigolds have been shown to repel nematodes, slugs, tomato horn worms, and other garden pests from your Tomatoes and other plants.
  • They are low maintenance and don’t require any special attention or extra watering.
  • They are gorgeous! They add a nice pop of fiery color to the garden all season long and look great amongst your veggie plants.

As gardeners, we’re always looking for a way to grow smarter with less effort, cost, and negative impact on the environment. By adding a few specific (and cheap) plants around your vegetable garden in the spring or early summer, you’ll enjoy a pest-free, colorful garden all season long.

June 4, 2018

Our Favorite Shade Garden Plants For Vermont

With the wooded areas that are commonly found in Vermont, most of us have gardens that get partial to full shade. And although it can be frustrating to design an impactful, colorful shade garden that offers up interest from spring until fall, it doesn’t have to be! We’ll go over some of our favorite shade plants that thrive in Vermont and give the benefits of each.

Early Season Shade Garden Interest/Color:

With the long winters here in Vermont, having something that pops up in early spring is essential to the gardeners’ well-being. Some of our favorite shade plants for early interest and color are:

  • Bleeding Hearts: We all love the elegant, heart-shaped blooms of this classic shade garden perennial. It doesn’t only come in pink, though! Try different varieties in deep crimson, white, and more.
  • Ferns: A gardeners best friend, ferns provide interest all season long and make for great fillers in the garden.
  • Marsh Marigolds: This early-season perennial thrives in moist areas and is the perfect choice for an area with runoff or a rain garden.
  • Ajuga: This interesting foliage plant looks great planted with other Hostas but can spread readily, so don’t plant it where you don’t want it to fill in the garden bed.

Mid Season Shade Garden Interest/Color:

  • Coral Bells (Heuchera): Although these perennials may show up earlier in the season, their full beauty and blooms don’t come out until mid-season. This fantastic plant offers up unparalleled foliage beauty throughout the season and flowers in the summer months. The best thing about Coral Bells is there are so many colors to choose from to fit any garden style.
  • Hostas: Again, Hostas start to pop out of the ground in the early season but don’t show their full potential until the mid-season. A famous shade plant, Hostas provide season-long texture with their foliage and offer up pollinator-friendly blooms in the summer months. Bonus: they multiply each year and can be dug up and divided to move around the garden every several seasons.
  • Astilbe: The colorful plumes that Astilbe bring to the mid-season garden make them a shade garden favorite. Coming in all hues of pinks, whites, reds, and more, Astilbe adds texture and also makes for a fantastic filler in cut bouquets.
  • Lamium: One of the most elegant shade plants, Lamium starts to bloom in the mid-spring and will last throughout the summer. A great groundcover.

Late Season Shade Garden Interest/Color:

  • Hydrangea: Some varieties of Hydrangea thrive in the shade and offer up height, color, and privacy in the shade garden. Late season color typically lasts from summer through early fall.
  • Bugbane (Actea): This deer-resistant perennial is extremely cold hardy and thrives in moist, wet areas in the landscape. Dramatic foliage adds texture throughout the season and spiky blooms come out in the late season.
  • Toad Lilies: These shade beauties often bloom after everything else is done for the season, providing that last show of color before the frost hits.

To design a successful shade garden, choose 1-2 varieties from each of these categories and plant groupings throughout the garden bed. If you’re looking to create a living mulch, add in the groundcovers (like Lamium) throughout to create a bed of foliage that will help eliminate the need for weeding. All of the varieties we mentioned above are hardy in Vermont and don’t require much supplemental water or care — the easier, the better!

May 22, 2018

Planting Wildflowers In Vermont

Now that it’s finally May and it’s finally feeling like spring here in Vermont, it’s time to talk about an easy, low maintenance way to create pollinator-friendly gardens that add color to the garden all season long. We’re talking about wildflowers, of course! Many think of native varieties when wildflowers come to mind, and native varieties are important to our local pollinator population, but wildflower plantings can also include non-native, easy-to-pollinate varieties that add huge color and satisfy both the bees and the gardener. We’ll talk about when the best time to plant wildflowers is in the spring here in Vermont, along with some of the reasons why wildflowers may be a great addition to your landscape.

Why Plant Wildflowers?

As mentioned above, wildflowers are an easy, cost-effective, and low-maintenance solution to large garden beds, meadows, replacing part of your lawn, and more. We recommend skipping most of the seed mixtures found in the big box stores and looking for only mixtures that contain 100% seed. Many reputable seed companies formulate their own mixtures for different purposes (to attract butterflies, regional varieties, deer resistant varieties, etc) and these mixtures contain a dozen or so varieties that will offer up color from spring all the way through frost.

We’ve planted swaths of wildflowers in several client’s homes along their driveway, on sloped banks, and other areas to create that big statement of color with little supplemental watering or weeding. If you’re looking for a long-term planting, make sure to plant both annuals for color the first year (sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos) and perennials for color in the second and successive years (purple coneflower, lupine, black eyed susan).

When To Plant Wildflowers

There are two times here in Vermont to plant wildflowers: fall and spring. In the fall, spread the seed after there have been a few hard frosts and the seeds don’t have the chance to germinate until the spring. This method mimics the way wildflowers naturally drop their seeds in nature and results in earlier blooms.

In spring, plant your wildflower seed after there is no more chance of frost in your area. You can find your last frost date at the Old Farmer’s Almanac website. The last frost date for Burlington is May 10, so as long as you check the weather and don’t see any crazy lows in the near future, anytime after that date should be fine to plant your wildflowers.

How To Plant Wildflowers

Another big plus with wildflowers is how easy they are to plant. The most important step to ensuring the wildflowers grow successfully — and don’t get overrun by weeds — is to prepare the soil ahead of time. Clear all existing growth from the area (weeds, grass, etc) and either till or rake the soil. Wildflowers thrive best when planted on completely bare soil. Once your soil is ready, sprinkle the seed on top of the soil and either step on the area or use a seed roller to compress the seed into the ground. Give the planting a good watering and water every other day (if it doesn’t rain) until seedlings are a few inches tall. After that, as long as we’re having regular rainfall the wildflowers don’t need supplemental water. At the end of the season (or in early spring) use your mower to mow the area down and that will help annuals drop seed for next season. It’s really that easy!

We’ve been incorporating wildflowers more and more into our plantings and find that they are a great way to add pollinator-friendly plants to our client’s landscapes. Is this your year to try wildflowers in your garden? If so, please share a photo on our Facebook or tag us on Instagram at @DistefanoLandscaping.

May 2, 2018

Introducing Paul Pierce, Our New Project Manager/Safety Director

We think 2018 is going to be the best season yet for DiStefano Landscaping, in part due to our new Project Manager/Safety Director Paul Pierce. Paul comes to us with 27 years of site, civil, structural, and utility construction, with experience in site and wetland restoration as well as environmental construction. In Connecticut, he was the Project Manager of a $40 million project that was the largest wetland replication/restoration in the history of the state. A big part of that project was to replicate wetlands that had been disturbed by a recent highway construction project. So, it’s pretty obvious that we are beyond excited to have him managing our projects here at DiStefano and working to make sure our crews are safe.

We sat down with Paul to talk a little bit about himself and what he’s most looking forward to this season.

Where Are You From?

“I am originally from Cincinnati Ohio, having spent 12 years there, until my father relocated us to Holliston, Massachusetts, where I lived for about 20 years. I graduated high school there, and went to College at UMass Amherst, for Mathematics. I received my degree in Construction Management in 2014, finishing up online while traveling.”

Tell Us A Little Bit About Yourself.

“I enjoy golf, baseball, softball, and volleyball.”

What Is Your Role Here At DiStefano?

“My role here is Project Manager, overseeing the construction division here at diStefano, with a dual role as company Safety Director, in charge of making sure we are in compliance with OSHA and making sure everyone goes home safely every night!”

What are you most excited about for this season?

“I am most looking forward to a successful, profitable, and safe construction season, while helping to grow the business, foster existing relationships, and developing new ones for the company.”

We’re thrilled for this step forward in our company with Paul at the helm of safety and project management. If you see him around, be sure to say hello!

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