As you’re planning your summer garden, don’t forget the foliage! Foliage plants are chosen for the beauty of their leaves, rather than their flowers. Some foliage plants have colorful leaves, such as coleus. Others have striking geometric patterns, like the canna lily (which also has showy flowers). Still others are selected because of their unique shape, such as cactuses or succulents.

Read on for three great ways to use foliage plants in your garden.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of teaching my Container Gardening Secret Sauce workshop to a group of lovely seniors at the Phoenixville Senior Center. They were a fun and engaging group. Several of the attendees approached me before the talk and shared how they had a large garden for years but now 'just couldn't do it any more.' Other folks had moved to apartments or assisted living and were attending the workshop looking for ways that they could grow a few plants indoors or on their patios.

I started The Relaxed Gardener to provide people with ways to spend less time working in their gardens and more time enjoying them. I also wanted folks to not feel like they had to completely give up gardening as they got older or perhaps did not have as much time as they had in the past. Rather, I wanted to help them find ways to pare back what they were doing so they could still enjoy gardening even if they did not have a lot of time or when some aspects just became physically impossible. (That's why all of our tools are designed to be ergonomic, comfortable and reduce hand strain.) 

Read on for 5 Tips to help you keep on gardening!

One of the best things that we’ve added to our exterior landscape was lighting. I love coming home and seeing the front of our house beautifully illuminated in a way that highlights the plantings and architecture of our house.

Read on to find out how we did it and how to get started.