“A well-designed pool can be a restful, soothing, and sophisticated water element in a landscape,” says Scott Lewis of  Scott Lewis Landscape Architecture. Since launching his San Francisco firm in 1993, Lewis has worked on numerous pools and water features in his designs for residences, resorts, estates, and public institutions. “A pool needs to be part of a whole plan,” he says, “so we base the size, shape, and location on the specific project. We don’t use a formula.”

Read on for his 13 top tips on swimming pool design:

Photography courtesy of Scott Lewis Landscape Architecture.

1. Where should I put the swimming pool?

A pool is more than a place to swim—consider how it will look in the landscape. Ideally, the pool should sit in the property’s sunniest spot, and be attractive even when not in use—especially if it’s visible from the house, says Lewis. Consider a swimming pool to be a water feature in your landscape.

2. What is the best shape for a swimming pool?

“Most of the pools we design are rectangular, as that shape works well architecturally,” says Lewis, who recommends not getting too fancy with the shape. A freeform shape can be difficult to incorporate in the landscape—it tends to call a lot of attention to itself. A rectangle also is the best shape for accommodating a pool cover, and, of course, for swimming laps.  Round or square is a good shape for a spa.

3. What are other design guidelines for pools?

The pool’s intended use should dictate its design, says Lewis. If lap swimming isn’t a priority, consider making your pool look luxurious and inviting with a set of wide steps that descend into the water at the shallow end. Families might opt for a continuous underwater shelf, or pool bench, along one side to provide an area for congregating. If you’re water volleyball fans, construct a “sports profile” pool: shallow at both ends and only 5-6 feet deep in the middle. It’s also good for kids hanging out and for most lap swimmers.

4. How will people will get to and from the pool?

Says Lewis: Map out a circulation plan as part of the design, and think about how far away your dining or play areas should be. If your pool doesn’t need hard surfaces for circulation on all four sides, you can use plantings or grasses to delineate one or two of the pool’s edges.

5. What about a pool with an infinity edge?

An infinity-edge pool needs an appropriate setting. While it can be a striking design element, this type of pool works best on a site with a significant drop-off, says Lewis. You also want to make sure the placement of the infinity edge works with other elements of the space—perhaps helping dramatize a spectacular view.

6. Is running water a good design element?

Says Lewis: You can get dramatic effects with minimal effort by adding a water element to the pool, to provide a visual focal point and an appealing sound. There are numerous design guidelines to consider: the size of the opening, the force of the water, the amount of water, and the distance the water falls. (A water feature that spills into the pool must use recirculated pool water, so as not to introduce a new water source.)

For more on slot fountains and other water elements, see Hardscaping 101: Fountains.

7. What are the best materials for pool decks?

Choose deck materials for practicality. Lewis says the prime consideration for any deck or terrace material is that it must remain at a comfortable temperature under a hot sun. “We prefer neutral shades, so we often choose light gray or buff-colored limestone or sandstone, or light-colored concrete or precast pavers,” he says. “To judge the color properly, we look at the terrace material when it’s wet, and under different sky conditions.” If you’re going with wood decking, Alaska Yellow Cedar can be another option to the darker-colored Ipe, since it stays cool underfoot.

8. What is the best color for a pool?

Traditionally, the underwater surfaces of most swimming pools were white or very dark, says Lewis. But in the last few decades more color options have come on the scene, and it’s common to see pools with plaster tinted in various shades: light to medium gray, sometimes with added blue or green tones. These shades cause the water to range in color from slate blue to azure to green-blue. Deep blue or azure water color is achieved by using gray and blue tints in the plaster. The deeper the pool depth, the deeper the blue of the water. “We often create several mock-ups with variations of plaster color to get the ideal tone,” says Lewis.

The tile at the pool’s edge also has an impact. “Waterline tile that matches the water color and is laid in a running bond pattern is preferable to a band of tile in a contrasting color outlining the pool—which only detracts from the view of the water,” says Lewis. “We find excellent tile options at McIntyre Tile Company and Heath Ceramics.”

9. Where should I put the spa or hot tub?

Pools look best as a single, unbroken sheet of water, says Lewis: “We generally make the spa a separate unit and place it elsewhere in the landscape.” However, it is more efficient and less expensive to have the spa integrated into the pool.

10. What kind of pool furniture will I need?

A pool area crowded with furniture becomes less restful, says Lewis. “Depending on the intended look, we prefer pieces with classic, simple lines,” he says, citing Richard Schultz’s 1966 Lounge Collection for Knoll (“comfortable, low-maintenance chairs and tables that can be left outside”). Texture can also work well, such as Paola Lenti’s line of well-designed chaises.

11. Chlorine versus a natural swimming pool?

Lewis recommends consulting with a pool contractor and maintenance service before choosing a water system.

Chlorinated pools, salt-water system pools, natural (or chemical-free “bio”) pools, and ozone pools all have their own installation and servicing issues. “Chlorinated pools have advanced considerably over the years; an experienced maintenance team and modern equipment can keep chlorine at minimum levels so the pool will remain clean but won’t give off a heavy scent,” says Lewis. “Non-chlorinated pools often require special maintenance, while salt-water pools can have chemical corrosion issues if not properly cared for. Bio pools are a great concept, but require careful upkeep to keep the water sanitary.”

12. What are the best plants to grow near a pool?

Says Lewis: Avoid plants that attract bees, plants with spikes (such as Mexican Fan Palms and agaves), and trees with large leaves that can drop into the pool. Ornamental grasses are a good choice; they’re debris-free and look soft and billowy near the water. “Due to water-usage concerns we don’t use much lawn in our California projects, but we’ve found that a small amount of traditional turf grass or lawn around a pool can work well,” says Lewis.

13. Is it possible to live with a pool cover?

There’s no doubt that a 20-by-40-foot sheet of shiny blue vinyl is visually unappealing, says Lewis: “When safety codes require a pool cover (or a client asks for one), we specify a cover in a neutral color, rather than bright blue, so it will blend with the landscape—especially important in fall and winter when the pool isn’t in use. We also suggest locating a covered pool in a spot that doesn’t dominate the view from the house.”

N.B.: See more of our favorite projects by Scott Lewis:

• Vineyard Haven: A Napa Valley Garden That Belongs to the Land.
• Landscape Architect Visit: A Small SF Garden Transformed to Urban Oasis.
• A Jewel Box Townhouse Garden.
• Landscape Architect Visit: A Modern Makeover for a San Francisco Grande Dame.

Finally, get more ideas on how to integrate a swimming pool into your landscape or exterior home project with our design guide to Swimming Pools 101.

The garden looks as if it is doing fine without any help, thank you. Why do any chores in June?

The reason is August—when perennials will flop listlessly, whispering, “Help me, mommy,” with their last breath. Late summer may feel distant, but it is just around the corner.

With some prudent planning, we can get ahead of the problem—and defeat thee soul-sapping, flower-frying pitiless heat of late summer before it arrives.

To ensure that August doesn’t look like Armageddon, here are 10 ideas to try in June:

Container Champions

In addition to the usual suspects (succulents and annuals), you can pot up some hardy flowering perennials; come in August they’ll serve as reminders of what was blooming in the ground in early summer.

Pick healthy-looking specimens at a garden center or nursery and fertilize them to prompt fresh foliage and flowering.

Compost Crop

“Brown waste means twigs, desiccated plants, cardboard–even, for the obsessed, full vacuum cleaner bags and haircut sweepings. Bulky items keep the air circulating, and air, along with moisture, is the key to quality compost. It’s a good idea to break down bigger elements before you add them to the pile; an easy way to do that is to spread the garden waste on the lawn and mow over it.”

See Hardscaping 101: Composting Systems for more help.

Starter Shrubs

Use shrubs as container plants in summer to create a dense, leafy backdrop on a patio or deck. Come autumn, transplant them to a permanent spot in the garden.

Deadheading

Most gardeners know it’s a good idea to deadhead annuals–such as cosmos and other one-season flowers–to encourage re-blooming. But perennials also will benefit: my yarrows and salvias send forth more flowers after I deadhead them

See more in Landscaping 101: How to Deadhead Flowers.

Add Annuals

For continued gratification, add flowers that will keep blooming from now through fall. At the front of a sunny border, alyssum will be a starry white presence. In the middle of the border, consider cosmos and, behind the cosmos, some spiderwort. On the fence. passionflower will perform. See more at Landscape Ideas: 9 Flowers to Add Color to a Garden.

Rose Pruning

Some roses will bloom only once. But others—such as shrub roses and some climbers—can be persuaded to forth more flowers if you prune them. See more in Gardening 101: How to Prune Roses.

Weed Warnings

Prepare for an onslaught of new weeds. Use a sharp-edged trowel or hand hoe to turn soil and disrupt weed seedlings. For our favorite weeding tools, see Garden Tools: Which Trowel or Weeder is Best for You?

Staking a Claim

The time to stake plants is before they start flopping. Position teepees, bamboo stakes, and other supports now and train flowers to grow up and through them. See  more ideas in 5 Favorites: Garden Tuteurs and Plant Belles: Wire Supports for the Well Tamed Garden.

Herbs, Redux

As you harvest herbs, plant more. Add a second crop of mint, chamomile, basil, and dill to have at the ready through summer months. See tips to design and plant an herb garden at Herbs: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design and Everything You Need to Know About Herb Gardens.

Tomato Time

The last frost date is past; now’s the time to transplant tomato seedlings into the ground in a sunny spot. What’s the right tomato for you? To choose, see Everything You Need to Know About Tomatoes.

For more inspiration and ideas, see our curated guides to Garden Design 101, including our guide to Edible Gardens 101. More June flowers:

• The 7 Best Climbing Roses for Your Garden
• Foxgloves: Rethinking a Fickle Flower
• Everything You Need to Know About Roses
• Gardening 101: Peony
• 11 Ideas to Steal for a Moonlight Garden

Amsterdam’s great canals were built in the 17th century, prompting the city’s burgers to rush to build elegantly formal houses on narrow plots of adjacent land. Four hundred years later, the city’s canal house gardens offer ideas to steal for any townhouse garden.

If you have a narrow backyard, canal house gardens may offer a useful design template:  clipped hedges, symmetrical layouts and hardy perennials (roses, hostas, and hydrangeas prevail).

Here are 10 garden ideas to steal from Amsterdam’s canal houses:

Formality

With narrow lots and houses shoulder to shoulder, a canal house garden was designed to be viewed from a slightly elevated vantage. The ground floor of the house was designated as servants’ work and living spaces (including the scullery and laundry areas); the wealthy 17th century homeowner and family members looked down on the garden from windows on higher floors.

A formal layout, with symmetrical garden elements and neat paths, offers a pleasing geometry from view from above. If you have a balcony or deck overlooking your garden, formal elements can create patterns and forms that soothe the eye.

Water Features

A fountain evokes the ultimate water features of the city’s three main canals—Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht—in the canal house gardens of Amsterdam. In any city garden, the sound of running water is a welcome distraction from traffic noises. See Everything You Need to Know About Fountains for inspiration to design your own water feature.

Pelargoniums

All around Amsterdam you can see window boxes with bright red, pink, or white blooms. So-called geraniums are really pelargoniums (see Please Don’t Call Them Geraniums for more).

Add color to container gardens with scented pelargoniums; in cold weather bring them indoors to ride out the winter on a windowsill. See more at Pelargoniums: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design.

Buffer Zones

Tall, narrow canal houses block street sounds. In narrow city gardens, you can create privacy with a buffer zone—plant layer of vines or shrubs against a fence or wall. Buffer zones make a small space feel larger.

Hollyhocks

Juxtapose an unexpected casual element against the formality of a classical facade or in a garden bed. Here, hollyhocks breach a sidewalk in Amsterdam. They would look just as happy in a back garden, against a fence and behind a low clipped hedge of boxwood. See more in Hollyhocks: A Guide to Planting, Care & Design.

Brick Paths

“Whatever its color or shape, (brick) is the ubiquitous Dutch building medium, for the Netherlands is a country without granite mountains or sandstone deposits, and where nearly every flat rural water-logged hectare is devoid of stones,” writes Peter Eisinger in Michigan Quarterly Review.

Brick is a welcoming hardscape material which can be laid in a wide range of patterns. Brick is “hardworking, aesthetically versatile, easily maintained, and affordable,” writes our contributor, Ellen Jenkins. See more in Hardscaping 101: Bricks.

Plant in Patterns

With low-growing shrubs, you can create fanciful designs: mazes, undulating waves, boxes, and circles are some of the possibilities. See more in Boxwood Topiaries: 6 Tips for Trimming Shrubs from Niwaki’s Jake Hobson.

Clipped Boxwood

The ultimate shrub for shaping, boxwood is a versatile with many cultivars to choose among. See more in Boxwood: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design.

Trellises & Arbors

Add structure and support with an arbor, trellis, or pergola. See more in Everything You Need to Know About Arbors and Everything You Need to Know About Trellises.

Window Boxes

Many city townhouses, including canal houses, cover most of the lot with the building. Add a garden element to a front facade with window boxes. See more in Hardscaping 101: Window Boxes.

Looking for more garden design ideas? Start with our curated guides at Garden Design 101 if you’re planning a patio, path, or driveway. See more of our favorite Netherlands garden designs:

• 10 Garden Ideas to Steal from the Netherlands
• Steal This Look: Beach Cottage on the Dutch Coast
• 10 Garden Ideas to Steal from the Dutch Masters

Planters as sculpture: handmade clay vessels from Belgian-based Atelier Vierkant function as art for the garden.

In the US, the planters–which “explore the possibilities of organic minimalism in form and surface texture”– are available from Interieurs and at Outdoor Therapy in Coral Gables, Florida. To see the full range, go to Atelier Vierkant.

Above: The vessels are available in a range of organic shapes.

Above: The monumental RR80 Planter.

Above: A pair of Atelier Vierkant planters in situ.

See more Planters including our favorite High/Low: Glamorous Belgian Planters.

Garlic, Allium sativum

Pungent garlic is one of the most satisfying crops to grow. From a single clove planted the previous autumn comes a full, fat head of aromatically fresh summer garlic, quite different from the papery clusters you can buy day in, day out, at any supermarket. The flavor of the new garlic is also a revelation: milder, but fruitier and more complex than the hot, acidic punch of long-stored and much-traveled store-bought bulbs.

Right now in Brooklyn, where I live, my home-grown garlic is sending up lush leaves, as the fava beans begin to flower. Soon, I will pull some green garlic for rubbing on bruschetta or grilling whole.

Read on to learn how to grow garlic at home.

Photography Marie Viljoen.

I have planted everything from Brooklyn bodega garlic, to organic farmers’ market bulbs, to heirloom cultivars purchased online from a good grower.

Even irradiated Chinese bulbs seem to sprout. Store-bought heads are usually softneck garlic, which means that they have no hard stalks (the remnant of the scape) in the middle of the little fist of cloves. A benefit of softneck garlic is that it keeps longer than hardneck varieties.

Whatever garlic you choose, be ready to plant in early fall. You can plant later in fall and right up to winter, but the plants may not have time to set roots before the big freeze, resulting in small heads. You can also plant garlic in early spring, but it will be ready to harvest later, and again, the bulbs will be smaller; a winter underground gives the roots a chance to grow. For an extended harvest of fresh garlic, plant in both seasons.

I sometimes sow cold season peas or fava beans between my garlic rows, which allows me to make the most of my modest space while fixing nitrogen in the soil via the legumes. Apply a layer of mulch (preferably compost or shredded leaves) to help keep the soil at a more even temperature.

By late spring your plants are ready to harvest as green garlic—a spring delicacy. The cloves within the head of garlic are very soft.  They are now sweetly strong.

If you are using your crop immediately, wash the heads of garlic, otherwise leave the soil on while they cure.

Store them somewhere dry and well aerated, out of the sun.

Keep It Alive

• Grow garlic in full sun.
• The cloves can be planted in ample containers or in-ground.
• Make sure the soil drains well; clay won’t do.
• For pots, choose containers 12 inches deep or more and use a light potting mix or compost.
• Garlic hates to have wet feet.
• Plant garlic in early to mid fall to give its roots time to develop before a freeze.
• Fertilize garlic with fish or seaweed emulsion
• For best results, plant garlic bulbs from a reputable grower.

Seed Savers sells a smorgasbord of heirloom and organic garlic varieties.

Cheat Sheet

• Garlic can be planted in early spring but will yield a smaller harvest.
• If you live in a warm climate, chill garlic for three weeks prior to planting.
• Green garlic is immature garlic, while garlic scapes are the flowering stem.
• Don’t store harvested garlic in the refrigerator (it will sprout).

See more growing tips in Garlic: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design. Design your summer vegetable and fruit garden with our curated guide to Edible Gardens 101. Read more:

• Everything You Need to Know About Herb Gardens
• DIY: Alliums, Three Ways
• Everything You Need to Know About Tomatoes

After 13 years as head gardener of England’s world-famous gardens at Sissinghurst Castle, Sarah Cook may have been forgiven for putting her feet up when she retired to the beautiful Suffolk countryside. But instead of twiddling her thumbs, she has been on a 14-year odyssey to rediscover and collect Cedric Morris’s bearded iris. The Suffolk-based artist and plantsman introduced and named around 90 varieties during the 1940s and 1950s that caused a stir at Chelsea and have a painterly beauty all their own.

In her idyllic garden, the Cedric Morris blooms have their own patch while in another vast bed there are hundreds of other bearded iris all being carefully watched over. She shared her top five expert tips on how to nurture these elegant and statuesque beauties.

Photography by Clare Coulson.

1. Lighten Up Your Soil

Irises need to be grown on well-drained soil and tend to flourish in areas with lower rainfall. But if you have heavier soil, all is not lost. Sarah makes her beds slightly mounded to help drainage and also adds some grit. Most important, make sure that the rhizome is at ground level (often you may even see a happy rhizome above the soil). If this part of the plant is submerged and sitting in damp soil in winter, it may rot.

2. Choose Good Neighbors (Or Preferably None at All)

Irises do not like competition, which is why they are often grown in a separate beds or up against a sunny wall. They will not flourish in crowded herbaceous borders where neighboring plants will shade the sun. “They won’t flower if they are in a poor position and eventually they will die from the competition,” adds Sarah.

3. Divide Every Four or Five Years

As a plant’s rhizomes multiply and form congested clumps, an iris eventually will stop producing flowers. Carefully dig up the whole plant and break up each chunk of rhizome. These can then be replanted (each rhizome creates a new plant) and the leaves can then be trimmed back to a neat fan shape. This is best done in July. Some smaller rhizomes may not form new plants in the following year; they may need longer to settle in. For this reason Sarah advises planting some of the chunkier rhizomes close to some smaller divisions to ensure you always have flowers.

4. Don’t Forget to Feed

Irises may be happy on light sun-baked soils, but don’t neglect them. “They are quite hungry. They like being fed,” says Cook, who gives them her own custom mix of Grow More with extra sulphate of potash and some kieserite for extra magnesium (a mix she used on the roses in her time at Sissinghurst) around March and then again in July when they are putting on their root growth. And water in irises that have just been planted or newly established plants if there’s no rain.

5. Keep Them Tidy

When a plant has entirely finished flowering, Sarah advises neatly snapping off the entire stem directly from the rhizome—pull the stem forward to make a neat cut that will help prevent rot or virus. If the leaves look unsightly, then cut them back to a short fan and the plant will quickly make new foliage.

See more growing and care tips at Iris: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design in our curated guides to Perennials 101 and Bulbs & Tubers 101. Read more:

• Calling All Gardeners: A Quest to Save Rare Irises
• Bearded Irises: A Lost Generation of Flowers Has a Moment
• Shopper’s Diary: The Iris Fields of Woottens of Wenhaston
• Bearded or Stinking: How Do You Prefer Your Irises?

Wicker furniture is woven, and while the wicker sofa may owe its origins to ancient Egypt’s finely woven baskets made of rush, its look can be distinctly modern.

Whatever the material—bamboo, cane, rattan, or weather-resistant plastic—a wickerwork sofa has a light, airy look that looks right at home outdoors or in a breezy screened porch. Here are 10 of our favorite wicker sofas for outdoors and in:

Above: A wickerwork Pepe Sofa from design studio Tina & Pepe is woven of natural materials; for more information and pricing, see Expormim.

Above: For sunrooms, screened porches, and covered spaces only: Alexa spotted a Nest Sofa from Danish designers Foersom & Hiort-Lorenzen. Made of sustainable rattan, it’s $1,230 at Cane-Line. (The collection also includes the Nest Club Chair, Nest Lounge Chair, the Large Nest Footstool, and the Small Nest Footstool.)

If you like woven furniture as much as we do, you’ll love Alexa’s roundup of Rattan Furniture Made Modern (Plus 15 to Buy) on Remodelista. Keep your outdoor wicker furniture looking as good as it would if it lived indoors with Janet’s tips in Hardscaping 101: Wicker Furniture Care.

This year, winners in each of our Considered Design Awards categories will receive a $500 gift card to shop at Portland, Oregon–based Schoolhouse. (Winning projects also will get full profiles on Gardenista, Remodelista, or The Organized Home, and professional winners get automatic entry into our Architect/Designer Directory.)

To enter, visit our Rules & FAQs, and browse all contest details on our 2018 Considered Design Awards site.

We shopped online, and here are a few things we’d buy with $500 from Schoolhouse.

Visit the 2018 Gardenista Considered Design Awards to browse submissions and enter your own project in any of our six categories, including Best Amateur Garden or Best Outdoor Living Space. Submissions are due by midnight Pacific on Friday, June 22.

Lest anyone not know that hair stylist Justine Jeanin is also a #crazyplantlady, she has a tattoo on her forearm of a woman’s head crowned by a tangle of leaves. For many years, the 30-year-old Parisian kept her two passions separate: by day she cut hair and by night tended her 350 and counting house plants— and chronicled her passion on her blog and Instagram feed, Sweety Oxalis.

A little more than a year ago, she opened What the Flower, her verdant hair salon in Paris’s hip 11 ème off Rue Oberkampf. In addition to offering coiffure végétal (Justine uses only plant-based hair products, including tints and dyes), she matches her customers with the perfect potted plants and doles out advice, such as the best way to take pilea cuttings and how to keep your cats from eating the greenery. The dual venture has been such a success that she and her boyfriend/business partner, Martyn, are in the process of readying a twice-the-size new Paris location where What the Flower will move into this summer.

Join us for a look at the business that just might spawn a global movement of beauty and botanical hybrids.

Photography courtesy of @WhatTheFlower_Paris and @sweetyoxalis.

Of her hanging plants, she says,”The long hair waving down from the pots has a unique poetry.”

Asked to name her favorite houseplants, Justine responds: “Begonia maculata ‘wightii’, of course Oxalis triangularis, Monstera deliciosa ‘Variegata’, Monstera adansonii…and I’ll stop there or I’ll name all my plants.”

• Plant Swaps: How to Trade Houseplants, Cuttings, and Seeds
• Shopper’s Diary: Leaf Shop Végétal in Paris
• Chic Techniques: 10 Ideas to Steal from a Parisian Florist

When we discovered the charms of stepladder plant stands, we became secret admirers of all kinds of  foldaway display shelves. Fold-up shelving is particularly useful in the garden, where display needs change dramatically with the seasons.

In June, there’s pent-up demand for outdoor shelving—the houseplants want to sun themselves. Plus, the citrus trees that wintered indoors are desperate for better air circulation.  Here’s a solution: A weatherproof teak stepladder shelf that you can fold flat and store in a shed come winter.

See more ways to design and display potted plants and container gardens:

• Container Gardening: Sarah Raven’s 7 Tips for Perfect Flower Pots
• From the Gardenista Book: A DIY Planter on Wheels
• Container Gardening: 12 Shade-Loving Plants in My Backyard
• Plants for pots: design and growing guides for Nasturtium, Alyssum, Coral Bells, and Alpine Strawberries.

Oregano, Origanum: “Joy of the Mountain”

One of my garden clients came back from vacationing in Spain and gave me some oregano that he had smuggled into the States. Really, I thought? Smuggling culinary herbs? After all, I already had some perfectly fine oregano dried in my spice cupboard and growing in a pot out back. Or did I?

Maybe I didn’t really know oregano. So I went to the local nursery, scoured reference books, and (of course) Googled—and learned that oregano is a much more interesting herb than I’d realized. For one thing, I learned that sweet marjoram (Origanum majorana) has a milder flavor than the Origanum vulgare that grows wild throughout Mediterranean climates. The flavor of dried oregano also can differ dramatically, depending on whether you’re tasting a variety from Greece, Italy, or the Middle East. And beyond culinary oreganos, there’s a whole world of ornamental varieties to plant. Read on for everything you need to know about oregano.

Native to Mediterranean climates, true oregano is a highly fragrant, slightly woody perennial herb with rosy purple or white flowers. It can be used for culinary purposes, medicinal reasons, or as an ornamental plant. For culinary use, oregano has been used for centuries because of its robust scent and flavor. The ancient Greeks saw oregano’s purpose and value: The name translates into “joy of the mountain.” And oregano is more than just a way to spice a dish. Besides possessing a zesty flavor, oregano also has antiviral properties.

Spanish oregano, it turns out, belongs to the Thymus genus. But due to its herby, oregano-like scent, Thymus capitatus is often distilled into an oil used for aromatherapy. So basically my client brought back a form of thyme thinking it was oregano. Either way, I appreciated the gesture (and spicy aroma).

If your intention is to grow oregano for culinary use, choose a variety that best suits your recipe and taste. Here are a few of our favorites.

Italian Oregano

Italian oregano (Origanum x majoricum) is a delicious herb,  a hybrid of common oregano and the mild flavor of sweet marjoram. You can probably guess how it got its nickname (“Pizza Herb”). Hardy in USDA growing zones 6 to 9, it has delicate, lighter green leaves, white flowers, and grows into a mound.

Greek Oregano

Greek oregano is a peppery herb with a loose, open growing habit. At maturity, it is two feet tall, with small purple or white flowers and gray-green leaves.

Sweet Marjoram

Marjoram (Origanum majorana) is commonly used in Southern European and Middle Eastern recipes. Its flavor is similar to Greek oregano, but milder. Try marjoram with poultry, egg dishes, and potatoes.

Ornamental Oreganos

See some of our favorite varieties of ornamental oreganos:

• O. ‘Kent Beauty’ resembles hops when in flower, with pendulous rosy bracts. Long blooming and has lovely silvery foliage.
• O. ‘Hopley’s Purple’ is a fragrant ornamental plant that stands up well to heat and drought conditions. It’s also a superb cut flower and a lure to butterflies.
• Variegated O. vulgare with deep green leaves edged in ivory, has a low mounding habit and milder flavor than most oreganos. This attractive plant reaches heights of 12 to 24 inches and spreads to 24 inches.
• O. ‘Aureum’  is an edible variety with robustly creeping gold-colored foliage and smallish pink, lavender, purple flowers in early to late summer.

Cheat Sheet

• Harvest oregano’s leaves as needed but note that the most flavor-filled leaves are found before the flowers bloom. (This is also the best time to harvest leaves for drying.)
• Fresh oregano, unfortunately, doesn’t stand up well to prolonged cooking; add tender leaves as a final ingredient or use dried leaves for anything needing a long simmer.
• Oregano makes a good companion plant in the vegetable garden, repelling pests that commonly affect beans and broccoli. The flowers are also especially attractive to pollinators.
• Try growing oregano in pots where it happily spills over edges or plant it on a low wall. Oregano is also a unique seasonal ground cover or edger along paths.

Keep It Alive

• Considering its Mediterranean roots, it’s not surprising that oregano can tolerate dry soil—and requires loamy, well-draining soil to prevent rot and disease.  If any brown or spotted foliage appears, simply remove.
• Oregano is a sun worshiper; ensure that your placement offers a generous amount of sunny heat. This also boosts the flavor profile.
• Oregano does not require as much water as most herbs.
• Allow oregano plants to grow to roughly four inches tall and then pinch or prune lightly to encourage a bushier plant.

For more growing and care tips, see Oregano: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design in our curated guides to Herbs 101 and Edibles 101. Read more:

• 10 Ideas to Steal from Chefs’ Gardens Around the World
• Everything You Need to Know About Herb Gardens
• Garlic: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design
• 10 Things to Do in the Garden in June
• Thyme: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design
• Old Chaser Farm: A Seattle Chef’s Garden on Vashon Island, Washington

You don’t need to inherit an ancestral estate to make antiques look at home in a garden. Beautiful vintage stone urns, columns, and planters—or even new ones masquerading as old—can be used in almost any space, including tiny courtyards and small cottage gardens.

The trick is to make antiquities feel as if they’ve always been there, even when a home isn’t historic. There are country house gardens where the urns and planters are often as old as the property they adorn and add incomparable grandeur and atmosphere. And then there is your landscape, and mine, where those same classic elements can add a beautiful texture and intrigue when used cleverly.

Antiques dealer Will Fisher, the founder of London-based Jamb (who sold his vast collection at Christie’s in 2012, raising almost £4 million), knows how to use old accessories to great effect. His own antiques-filled London garden was featured in our Gardenista book (see a glimpse of it below). We consulted Will, who shared eight tips for how to incorporate antique pieces into any garden.

Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer, except where noted.

1. Play with scale

It pays to be playful with pots, so don’t presume that a larger pot is too big for smaller spaces. “It’s fun to play with scale, creating contrast between the diminutive and overscaled,” says Will.

2. Create clusters.

“I’m a big fan of the clustered pot. As with furniture, the key is to source ones with good color and surface,” he says. His favorite pots were made for Gertrude Jekyll by Compton (see, for example, a pair of Early 20th Century Compton Pots for sale for $8,890.52 on 1stdibs), but he also collects 19th-century terra cotta pots with good makers’ marks.

If you are buying new, you can source pots with beautiful finishes such as elegant urns and planters from  Anduze Poterie.

3. Mix materials.

Some materials mix better than others, but Will still advises trying to mix a few different types of finishes for the best effect: “The key is to keep a consistent palette throughout, using materials which age well and become muted and cohesive over time—such as Portland stone, terra cotta, lead, and my favorite, Coade.”

4. Spotlight the scenery.

Framing a view can be an especially effective technique if boughs of a tree arch gracefully around your chosen piece.

5. Soften stonework.

Greenery can soften the edges if you are using newer pieces. This can be easier at ground level where some plants will very quickly surround pots, spheres and urns. “I adore ‘Mind Your Own Business’ (Soleirolia soleirolii),” says Will. “It’s the most fabulous plant for softening stonework, looks wonderful amongst ferns and has the most unexpected reflective quality— throwing the light in an enclosed space.”

6. Build backdrops.

Alternatively set large pieces into foliage, against hedges or climbers, to make them seem an intrinsic part of the garden.

7. Stick with a subdued palette.

If you do want to use color, then stick with subdued shades in a limited palette. “I think its important to remain disciplined. Use color but in a considered manner, softening it with lots of greens.”

8. Wait patiently for patina.

But Will is not convinced by the applications (everything from yogurt to beer or buttermilk) that are thought to speed up the process of creating a patina. “This I think places a premium on authentic, old artifacts,” he adds. “I would always encourage the mixing of old and new and do so in my own garden. It’s interesting and important to observe the natural process of weathering as your garden matures.”

For more ideas for adding architectural elements to a landscape, see our curated guides to Garden Design 101, including Exteriors & Facades 101 and Everything You Need to Know About Fountains. Read more:

• See Will Fisher’s garden in An Antiques Collector at Home in London
• For more tips on selecting vintage planters and pots, see Ask The Expert: An Insider’s Guide to Vintage Planters from Stephen Block

What I love about warm weather: Guests show up at a moment’s notice. Sometimes it’s easier to feed them than to seat them, though, unless you have a secret stash of folding chairs–the weather-resistant kind that won’t punish you for absentmindedly leaving them outside when the party’s over. Let us help you with that.

Here are 10 of our favorite metal and wood folding chairs for outdoor entertaining.

Hosta, Hosta: “Plantain Lily”

My introduction to hostas came when I was the new owner of a 1920s brick row house in Queens, New York. Spring arrived and the tiny shade garden in front of the house revealed its past. The shrubs I thought were surely dead turned out to be two scrawny (but living) spirea bushes. Scraggly tulips and one or two daffodils showed up. And at the edge of the little plot was a row of plants as tightly packed as the mat of tangled wires in the cable box in my backyard. As they gradually unfurled to reveal nondescript, narrow dark green leaves, research revealed them to be Hosta lancifolia, described by one source as “somewhat plain in appearance, but reliable and hardy.”

Hostas have a reputation for being the workhorses of a shade garden. More recently I have come to appreciate hostas also as gorgeous specimen plants and components of richly textured woodland landscapes. As the American Hosta Society can tell you, there are more than 8,000 cultivars that you can find growing in cheerful clumps under trees and shrubs. They hide ugly bare spots with their sturdy, waxy foliage and in summer send up stiff spikes topped with tiny bell-shaped purple or white flowers.

Are hostas the right plant for your shade garden? Read on to see how hostas, with a minimum of attention and care, can solve a host of gardening dilemmas while providing style, interest, and even fragrance.

It seems that designers have moved far away from the plain and reliable members of the Hosta species and progressed with relish to the literally thousands of cultivars which provide a virtually limitless variety of colors, sizes, and forms.

Clumps of hostas need to be divided every few years. I discovered that during that first spring season in my garden in Queens that first year. As the Hosta lancifolia leafed out, the plants formed clumps with bald spots in the center. It turned out they were suffering from a condition known as center clump die-back (who knew?) caused by overcrowding. To cure the condition, I had to dig up the plants, pull them apart, and replant the separated sections.

Dividing sounds like a simple procedure. But my hostas probably never had been divided and were basically welded together. After I finally pried out of the soil (with an antique iron pitchfork, a crowbar, and a lot of sweat), they refused to be disentangled with fingers, screwdrivers, steak knives, or any other recommended stick-like tool. After much trial and error, a vigorously applied hacksaw produced the desired results. Once reinstalled in roomier quarters, the hostas thrived and even produced some modestly attractive lavender flowers in the summer. As you can tell from that story, hostas can take a lot of abuse without complaint.

Cheat Sheet

• Hostas are perfect companions for other shade plants such as astilbes, ferns, trout lily, and Solomon’s seal. With so many foliage colors and leaf forms, varieties of hosta also can easily be combined with each other to make an eye-catching mosaic of textures.
• Hostas are late to leaf out in the spring, which makes them perfect companions for spring bulbs. The bulbs bloom before the hostas appear; by the time the bulbs finish, the hostas unfurl to cover the unsightly dying bulb foliage.
• While hostas are known as shade lovers, those with lighter colored or variegated leaves do well with some exposure to sunlight (morning sun is best because harsh afternoon sun can cause leaf scorch). Blue and dark green varieties prefer deeper shade.
• Hostas are primarily thought of as foliage plants but some varieties produce summer flowers that are quite beautiful and often fragrant. Some gardeners prefer to prune away the flowers for aesthetic reasons (the blooms often fade quickly and can be untidy) or because they believe removing them helps to keep the plant more vigorous.

Keep It Alive

• Site hostas out of direct hot sun in USDA growing zones 3 to 8.
• Hostas are tolerant of most soils but prefer slightly acidic, rich, moist, well-drained soil.
• Water your hostas regularly (preferably early in the day) to prevent leaf tips and edges from scorching or turning brown.
• A layer of mulch added in the spring will help to keep your hostas from drying out.
• Hostas are readily propagated by division, which is most easily done in early spring before leaves have fully appeared.

Another lesson my first hostas taught me was that while these plants are generally quite easy to grow, they can be subject to a few vexing problems. Deer love them. That wasn’t a problem for me in Queens, of course, but the fact that they are also a favorite target of snails and slugs was definitely a concern. Snails and slugs and hostas all love moist, shady habitats where the gastropods are quite fond of munching away on hosta leaves and leaving slimy trails and tattered foliage in their wake.

There are endless theories and remedies for dealing with these slippery pests: Diatomaceous earth, copper mats, nematodes, garlic sprays, and keeping chickens or amphibians are recommended deterrents.

There are popular commercial products, such as Sluggo Snail and Slug Bait (a 25-pound bag is $69.99 from Grow Organic) and Escar-go Slug and Snail Control (a 5.5-pound bag is $44.99 at Gardens Alive).

An age-old DIY method is to bury small containers (cat food cans work very well) up to their rims in soil and then fill them with beer. Slugs apparently find the beverage irresistible and will slime their way into the cans for a taste. Sadly for them, they are not great swimmers and usually drown. I have used this method and it works very well… too well, actually. Eventually, I got tired of having to dispose of cat food cans full of stale beer and slug carcasses.

Read more growing and care tips in Hostas: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design in our curated guides to Perennials 101. See more of our favorite shade garden layouts:

• 10 Shade Garden Ideas to Steal from an English Woodland
• Beth Chatto’s Garden: Shade-Loving Plants for Year-Round Interest
• Native Perennials for a Shade Garden: 9 Favorites for Cold Climates

This week the Remodelista editors found design inspiration in Flanders, where some of the best designs have a flavor of both Belgium and the Netherlands. Here are five Flemish design ideas to steal.

Simple Sofas

White Faucets

Baseboards: Remodeling 101

Architect James Dixon helps us navigate the many arcane rules behind choosing and installing molding. In this week’s installment of Remodeling 101, we tackle baseboards. “All the trim should be part of the same family, with similar detail and proportions,” Dixon says. “While I love an 18-inch-high, elaborately carved baseboard, it won’t feel right in a tiny room with a low ceiling.”

Indoor-Outdoor Chairs

Designer Merckx’s ICO collection of furnishings and accessories includes a Profile chair (shown above), suitable for use outdoors or in—with a weather-resistant steel frame painted black and a perforated seat and wood armrest. See more of the collection at Elegant Household Objects from Belgian Designer Marc Merckx.

Reflecting Pools

During a remodel project, German designer Valentin Loellmann noticed that a curious effect occurred after a rainstorm. “The sun came out and there was this shimmering light throughout the entire house reflected from the water, so I figured we needed a pool,” he says. See more of this project in 100 Percent Handmade: Valentin Loellmann’s Historic River House in Maastricht.

Astilbe, Astilbe x arendsii: “False Spirea”

Astilbe is a perennial plant that the noted American garden writer Allen Lacy praised as “vertical pizzazz.” Not only is it gorgeous but also it’s easy to grow.

I learned this firsthand in the early 1990s. After spending several years gardening in a Manhattan apartment house on a sunny but acrophobia-inducing terrace so narrow it would be more accurately referred to as a ledge, I acquired an actual plot of land. It was located behind a tiny 1920s house that my husband and I purchased in Queens, New York. How thrilled I was to claim my very own acreage. I set about acquiring plants I knew how to grow and which had thrived with aggressive enthusiasm on my sunny terrace: tomatoes, basil, peppers, zinnias, lavender, etc. All classic sun lovers.

I planted them and then I waited. The first hint that things were not going to go well was when the next-door neighbor expressed great surprise that I was planting in the ground. He explained that he had to grow his tomatoes in tubs on wheels so that every day he could push them around to catch the few wan rays of sunlight that managed to drift halfheartedly through the leaves of the mammoth London plane trees overhanging our backyards. It seemed I had made a classic novice gardener’s mistake—I was trying to grow plants with total disregard for their needs.

Life became a quest for species that would grow in the low light of what was indisputably a shade garden. On the long tour up the learning curve I finally came across a lovely flower that would work with the nondescript ferns and hostas which, up to that point, were the only things I was able to keep alive. Thus began my love affair with astilbes.

My first astilbe was a tall plume in a plush shade of  fuchsia with deeply cut dark green leaves, and when I added it to my garden I suddenly had texture and color and hope.

Further proof of its worth: my first astilbe didn’t even succumb to the hordes of slugs that were waging war on the hostas.

Cheat Sheet

• Astilbes need plenty of water to thrive and are good candidates for waterside plantings, shady woodland gardens and boggy areas.
• Although mainly known as shade plants, astilbes will tolerate full sun if they are grown in rich acidic soil that is kept moist.
• There are literally hundreds of varieties of astilbe and they come in a limitless array of heights, from very short to quite tall. But they almost never need staking.

Keep It Alive

• Astilbes love cool climates but, with adequate watering and mulching, will grow in USDA zones 3 to 9.
• If plants scorch in summer drought, cut them back to the ground. Fresh regrowth will appear when the weather turns cooler.
• It may seem contradictory but moisture-loving astilbes cannot survive in soggy winter soil.  Make sure your plants have adequate drainage.
• Astilbes are clump-forming and will lose vigor if they are not divided every three to four years, preferably in early spring.

In an essay that appears in his 1992 collection, The Gardener’s Eye, garden writer Allen Lacy declared that he liked “astilbes very much indeed” and gave clear instructions on how to go about dividing them. “Using a sharp knife,” he directed, “cut their woody crowns into three or four pieces, each with three or more eyes.” He labeled this task a “chore” but pointed out that division produces more plants to enjoy in the garden as well as to share with friends.

Drawing on his experience of gardening in rural southern New Jersey, Lacey also suggested removing mulch in winter to avoid encouraging destructive voles and meadow mice to take up underground residence in astilbe rhizomes.

See more growing tips at Astilbes: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design in our curated guides to Perennials 101 and Bulbs & Tubers 101. See more ideas for designing shade gardens:

• How to Garden Like a Frenchman: 10 Ideas to Steal from a Parisian Courtyard
• Steal This Look: Shady Secrets of an Expert Gardener
• Coral Bells: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design
• Ask the Expert: Design Tips for a Shady Courtyard Garden
• Hostas: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design

Let’s decode the dovecote—the ultimate birdhouse and a quintessential element of English gardens. Where did these charming shelters for pigeons and doves originate? Would you like one for your own garden? If so, what is the best source? Read on.

Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer, except where noted.

First, a quick history lesson. Dovecotes have been attached to the facades of houses or constructed as entirely separate buildings since medieval times in England and Europe (although they are also recorded in Roman times and across Egypt and Iran too). Some of those early European buildings still survive: An ancient circular dovecote at Garway in Herefordshire, England (built in 1326 and resembling a silo) is still standing today.

Dovecote interiors are filled with nesting holes where doves or pigeons can nest and nurture their offspring. And while dovecotes—or pigeonniers as they are known in France—may seem like a romantic architectural accessory to country houses, these structures had pragmatic origins. Dovecotes filled with pigeons guaranteed a continuous food source. For wealthy landowners, birds were a source of food for the house. As the young birds had not yet flown the meat was tender, while older birds were not such an appetizing delicacy.

Dovecotes can be extravagant structures in their own right—architectural features within the grounds of grand houses. The round stone dovecote at Rousham, which is covered in verdant climbers and roses, is one of the Oxfordshire garden’s most recognizable features with its beautiful turret roof and louvered top. Some of these early brick or stone dovecotes on country estates have since been converted into buildings for leisure or, in some cases, even homes.

For a classic dovecote, consider a UK-made birdhouse from makers such as Mark’s Dovecotes (specializing in freestanding designs) or Dovetails (which offers a painted, wall-mounted model with five nesting holes for £275). For a made-to-order, hand-painted dovecote, see the bespoke collection at Robinson Gardens.

Twist some climbing roses around it and you also have a useful plant support.

If you want to add a garden element to benefit birds, pollinators, or other wildlife, start with our curated guides to Garden Design 101, including Everything You Need to Know About Fountains. Read more:

• 10 Easy Pieces: Bird Feeders
• Landscaping Ideas: 16 Simple Solutions for Sustainability
• Object of Desire: Bee Hotels

This weekend we’re wrapping up our Flemish Gardens issue. Up next? Our week on Postage-Stamp Gardens. For now, here’s what’s on our list for the weekend.

• The Gardenista Considered Design Awards are officially open to weekend gardeners, landscape architects, houseplant obsessives, garden-to-table growers, and everyone in between. Enter by tomorrow (June 10) and your project may be featured in an upcoming Gardenista post. (Have an interiors or organization project to submit? See the categories on Remodelista and The Organized Home.)
• Annie has long wanted to check out Swale NYC, a “floating food forest” on a mobile barge, where all the edible plants—from blackberries to peppermint to wild leeks to kiwi and hops (see the full list here)—are available for free. This weekend Swale also is hosting a series of free workshops, including a look at medicinal plants growing wild in the city.
• Speaking of mobile gardens, file this under: Only In Japan.

• Latest cookbook wish: Aska, by a Swedish chef with a garden-to-table (and Michelin-starred) Brooklyn restaurant.
• The greenest hotel we’ve seen: Margot let us know about the 60-story vertical garden on the facade of this hotel in Singapore (just named as the “Best Tall Building Worldwide” by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat).
• Just opened: a new, waterside Brooklyn park in Williamsburg, from a landscape architecture firm that also worked on the High Line.
• Next Saturday, June 16: a signing of Erica Tanov’s new book, Design by Nature, plus a fern sale (and rosé), at Flowerland in Albany, California, 3 to 5 p.m.
• You might be recycling wrong.
• What herbs are you growing for summer? Chime in.

• Today, June 9, in Brussels: a plant swap and terrarium workshops at @lepharedukanaal. More info here.
• Today in Gig Harbor, Washington.
• Today in Winnipeg, Canada.
• Today at the New York Public Library, main branch, in Manhattan.
• Tomorrow, June 10, in Great Falls, Massachusetts. (Plant swap at 11 a.m.)
• Plus, get your tickets now for Plant Swap NYC 2018 on July 15 (before they sell out).

Recently in Obsessions:

• Current Obsessions: Seaside
• Current Obsessions: Into Summer
• Current Obsessions: Royal Wedding

“A roof garden is the ultimate optimization of space in an urban area,” says Julie Farris, a landscape designer and founder of XS Space. “You can have a garden on top of your house without buying more land. If it’s done right, you’ll completely forget you’re in a city—and you don’t need to work that hard to maintain it.”

Julie created a magical roof garden for her family at their home in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn (you can read about it in our book, Gardenista: The Definitive Handbook to Stylish Outdoor Spaces, and see additional photos below).

Here are Julie’s 10 top tips for building a roof garden using beds or planters set on a roof. (N.B.: One of Julie’s projects that we featured last year is a finalist in Architizer’s A+ Awards contest. Here’s the link to vote: Greenwich Village Townhouse.)

Photography by Matthew Williams for Gardenista.

1. Make sure your roof can support the weight.

Gardens can weigh quite a lot—soil is heavy and wet soil is even heavier. So when you’re doing any kind of significant roof design, you must bring in a structural engineer, says Julie. Period. The potential risks to your home from roof damage far outweigh the cost of an evaluation.

An engineer will run calculations for various types of loads, including the weight of snow (depending on your location). If you’re planning to do significant planting, you’ll probably need steel reinforcement—and the cost can vary widely, depending on the condition of the roof and the size and scope of the garden. The only way to know is with a stamped engineer’s report.

Tip: Know the difference between a green roof and a roof garden. A green roof is partially or completely covered with vegetation, such as sedum, planted in a growing medium over a waterproof membrane. (For more, go to Hardscaping 101: Green Roofs. Green roofs are ideal for larger areas, and can help insulate your house, reduce water runoff, filter pollutants, and cool the air. “They also look quite beautiful. But the typical green roof covers the roof and isn’t meant to be walked on,” says Julie. “A roof garden, whether or not it has flowerbeds, is meant to be visited and enjoyed.”

2. Design with your climate in mind.

In terms of design layout, if there are no taller buildings around yours, the garden will be exposed to 360 degrees of weather 365 days a year. You’ll need a hardscape and plants that can deal with a lot of sun, wind, and freeze/thaw conditions. That means materials that wear well, and plants that are drought-tolerant and sun-loving.

“Few people feel like hauling to the nursery every weekend to buy replacement planting, so make sure the plants you select can survive tough conditions,” Julie says. For any extensive project, you’ll need to enlist a professional to design the project, get local approvals, and perform the work.

3. Design for the way you want to use the space.

How will your family use your garden? The context (that is, your specific site conditions) combined with your preferences will dictate the core of your design. If you love gardening, you’ll want more planted beds. If you don’t have the time or inclination, go for more hardscape with select planted areas.

Does your family include kids or a dog? If so, you’ll definitely want to make it safe for them—and provide a play area (if you have the space). If you plan daytime use, you’ll probably need to arrange for shade cover. Very few umbrellas can handle the wind conditions on a roof, so a more permanent element, like a trellis, is recommended.

The more logistical details you work out up front, the better. Do you entertain often? How many people do you generally have at a dinner? How will you get plates and glasses up and down? Do you want a bin for storing chair cushions and other essentials?

“Since we have kids, we set back our garden 12 feet from the roof edge for safety—even though it made our garden smaller,” says Julie. “We enclosed the space with an iron railing and put large planters in front of the railing. Your local building codes will specify the height requirement for roof railings; note that there shouldn’t be any horizontal structural members that kids could climb on.”

4. Get the right hardscape materials and a soil mix.

First, start with a high-quality waterproof membrane that’s well sealed. Never place anything sharp on the membrane—if it’s punctured and starts to leak, your entire roof can be damaged. A root barrier is another must whenever you’re planting directly on the roof surface, as are J-Drain drainage mats and a constructed edge to retain the soil. If the soil doesn’t drain properly, plants will not survive.

To lighten the load and help with drainage, add a two-inch layer of Styrofoam peanuts on top of the J-Drain mat. For planters, thin sheets of insulation on the sides and bottom will help with freeze-thaw conditions.

If you’re using pavers, they should be lightweight and elevated from the roof surface so water can drain underneath. (These are called Pedestal Pavers; you can find them specifically for rooftop projects.)

And yes, you need to buy a soil mix that’s specifically designed for a roof garden. These are generally made of shale, compost, light gravel, and sand; it’s difficult (and costly) to try to create your own.

5. Make it easy to get onto the roof.

“Spiral staircases are often used to save space, but I’m not a fan,” says Julie. “I find them dizzying, inconvenient if you’re carrying things, and troublesome for little kids. Besides, I don’t think they look good. I prefer a conventional staircase, even if it takes up more room.”

6. Choose the right irrigation system.

Most roof gardens should be watered twice a day, every day during the growing season. If you can’t do that, you need to install an automatic irrigation system. Drip-line irrigation (and drip heads for planters) is best, but to get it right, hire a company that specializes in roof gardens.

7. Don’t skimp on lighting.

You want lighting if you plan to use your garden at night. If you’re starting from scratch, you can make your lighting system a significant (and functional) design element. You might install recessed lights in a wall, or recessed pin lights along a walkway, or a wall-mounted fixture outside the door or over a grill.

If you’re retrofitting and don’t want to bring in an electrician, consider solar lighting. Be warned that you have to spend a bit more to get solar lights that are both stylish and functional, such as the Luceplan Solar Bud.

The easiest approach: lanterns with candles. “These can provide just the right light for entertaining, and they’re a great accent,” says Julie. “I really like the Ventana Teak Lantern from Restoration Hardware.”

8. Choose plants with care.

“My favorites tend to be the plants I see coming back season after season, despite the stress of city living and my daily neglect,” says Julie. Tried-and-true perennials in Brooklyn are grasses such as Miscanthus and Nasella, Monarda, Achillea, Calamagrostis, Clematis, Gaura, Dianthus, Phlox, Agastache, Nepeta, thyme, Molinia, lavender, tea roses, St. John’s wort, and Amsonia.

“To find out what will work best in your area, ask your neighbors and the experts at the closest nursery,” says Julie. “I’m lucky to have Four Gardens just down the street from me in Brooklyn; I never do anything plant-related on any project without the input of Four Gardens plant expert Julia Miller.”

For plants to attract pollinators or create habitats for birds, consult with your local nursery to find out what works best in your area. “I’ve sighted many hummingbirds on my roof, and I think they come for the Monarda (bee balm),” says Julie. “Asclepius (butterfly weed) is obviously a major butterfly attracter that’s lovely too.”

Bees are drawn to many native perennials that provide pollen and nectar, such as purple coneflowers, lavender, Nepeta (catmint), Coreopsis, salvia, and roses. Some other good additions are Calamintha, autumn-flowering clematis, and honeysuckle. Our Carolina Jessamine  (a Jasmine climber) is home to a nest of sparrows.

Tip: Avoid plants that prefer moist acidic soil; they won’t thrive on a roof. “I also avoid plants that require shade (assuming the roof gets full sun) and that bear fruit—they can make a mess,” says Julie. “Basically, most annuals require too much effort; I prefer a low-maintenance garden.”

9. Make a roof garden feel intimate instead of exposed.

Plants with some transparency are ideal for a roof garden—they give a sense of privacy without blocking the view. Tall grasses such as Calamagrostis and Miscanthus, which move gracefully in the wind, are perfectly suited to roof climates. Shrub roses are also a good choice—my English roses bloom twice a season.

10. Consider maintenance and upkeep.

Julie deliberately designed a low-maintenance roof garden for her family: “Someone from Four Gardens comes over for cleanups and replanting two or three times a year. The spring replant depends on whatever didn’t make it over the winter—usually about 10 percent of the plants. They also clean the mesh chairs, pick leaves and other debris out of the stones, and oil the Ipe wood decks. We power-wash and sand the wood every three years before oiling.”

Any last thoughts, Julie? “I should have installed a dumbwaiter! They’ve gone out of style, but we should bring them back for roof gardens. Getting things up and down would be so much easier.”

If you’re designing a new garden (big or small), get started with our curated guides to Garden Design 101, for tips on Decks & Patios 101, Gravel Gardens, and Privacy Fences. For more design ideas for roof gardens, see:

• A Manhattan Roof Garden with a Panoramic View
• Roof Garden: Cottages in the Mill Valley Forest
• Hardscaping 101: Green Roofs
• A Secret Roof Garden in Spitalfields

Without hydrangeas, would summer as we know it exist? From Tokyo to Nantucket, their big, blowsy blooms are synonymous with warm nights and lazy days.

But don’t take hydrangeas for granted. With more than 75 species, the cheerful flowering shrub in your garden could be anything from a variety of H. arborescens (such as ‘Annabelle’, whose white pompom flowers are commonly seen along the American Eastern Seaboard) to H. macrophylla (a mophead native to Asia), or H. paniculata, with showy, cone-shaped flowers. There is even a climbing, vining hydrangea (Hydrangea petiolaris), which you can train to grow up a fence in a shady spot.

Are you planning to add a hydrangea (or three) to your garden? Wondering how best to arrange your showy snowball flowers in a vase? Or trying to figure out how to change the color of your pink hydrangeas to blue? We can help. Read on for tips and tricks for cohabiting with hydrangeas:

Photography by Takashi .M via Flickr.

Planting and Care Tips

Depending on the species and cultivar (of which there are hundreds), hydrangeas can live more than 50 years if they’re happy in the spot you select for them. There’s a hydrangea that will thrive in your garden if you live in USDA zones 2 to 9. To find the right hydrangea for your climate and growing conditions, see Hydrangeas: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design.

Favorite Varieties

From mop heads to oakleafs and climbing varieties, hydrangeas are available in a wide variety of sizes, colors, and shapes. Bewildered by the vast selection at your local nursery? We asked the experts to share their favorites—for a complete list, see 10 Best Hydrangeas to Grow.

Change Hydrangeas’ Flower Color

Hydrangeas can change color from blue to pink (or vice versa) depending on the acidity of the soil.  (The more alkaline the soil, the pinker the flowers.) Would you like to make your hydrangeas change color? See Hydrangeas: How To Change Color from Pink to Blue.

Wild, Untamed Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas in pots or too near the house can “look constrained, too neat,” writes our UK contributor Kendra Wilson. Her advice is to let them free. For ideas to encourage the wild, untamed look see Landscaping 101: Wild Hydrangeas, 7 Ways.

Floral Arrangements

Hydrangeas make lovely, long-lasting cut flowers. For Justine’s tips on how to arrange them so they don’t look too fussy, see Bouquet of the Week: Hydrangeas Gone Wild.

How to Prune Hydrangeas

The question Barb Pierson, nursery manager at White Flower Farm in Morris, Connecticut, hears most often every year is: “When should I prune my hydrangeas?

The answer depends entirely on the kind of hydrangea you have. See our recent sponsored post for A Master Class in Pruning Hydrangeas from White Flower Farm.

Shrubs in the City

Hydrangeas are tough, hardy shrubs that will grow in urban gardens where more fickle plants fail to thrive. See a romantic purple and blue thicket in New York City in My Garden Story: A Secret Rooftop Oasis on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Are you looking for companion plants for your hydrangeas? See shade lovers Astilbes 101 and Hostas 101 in our curated guides to Perennials. And if you’re looking for other flowering shrubs, start with our curated guide to Shrubs 101. Read more:

• The “Anti-Trophy” Landscape: A Charming Country Garden in Columbia County, NY
• Lilacs: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design
• Container Gardening: 12 Shade-Loving Plants in My Backyard
• Get more growing and care tips at Hydrangeas: A Field Guide