succulents. – MarvinGardensUSA

Succulent Spotlight: Echeveria

If you’re looking for a new plant to spruce up your garden, then succulents are the way to go. Succulents will provide your garden with an incredibly unique look, and they are easy to care for as well. There are plenty of gorgeous succulents to choose from; personally, we recommend checking out the Echeveria succulent.

Echeveria succulents tend to thrive in milder climates and can be found in California as well as the American Southwest. They are one of the more popular succulents among homeowners due to the fact that they boast a colorful foliage throughout the year. While they are sensitive to cold, they make for a fantastic container plant, which means you can just take it inside during the winter months.

While they don’t need to be watered often to survive, Echeveria succulents do look their best with moderate watering. They also need full sun, but give them some shelter from especially harsh summer sunlight. Additionally, they are also tolerant to drought and resistant to deer, which means you don’t have to worry about your succulent becoming an afternoon snack!

For more advice on succulent arrangements, contact us at Marvin Gardens USA.

Create Your Own Tabletop Garden for 2012

If you’ve spent much time with us here at Marvin Gardens, you know about our passion for bringing new life to old items and traditions. Though each object may begin with one role in your home, there is no reason why that role can’t be expanded and molded into something new over time. That’s why we wanted to share with you the concept of creating your own tabletop garden!

It’s true – gardens are often something we envision for our outdoor spaces or for sunrooms and windowsills, but there is much more that can be done with nature. Taking the colors, shapes, and textures of nature, and forming them into a tabletop garden can bring an inspirational element of nature inside.

Here's an example of one of our succulant and sedum garden arrangements.

What’s even better about using a tabletop garden in your home is that you are able to craft the setting in whatever way you choose. Selecting plants and potting tools that you love will inevitably create a space reflective of your own tastes. For ideas about what you can use in your arrangement, just visit Marvin Gardens on Facebook!

Marvin Gardens and Facebook

Did you know that you don’t have to be a member of Facebook to view “Public” pages? Marvin Gardens has a Public Facebook page where viewers can simply click on the famous blue icon and go directly to the page. Here, you will find current photographs of new arrivals, interesting plantings, inspirational plant and architectural combinations as well as installations at client homes, art structures and containers used in home and garden settings and much, much more.

Marvin Gardens posts mobile picture updates to Facebook on a frequent basis (many of these photos never make it to the website) – check it out soon to see what is up to the moment!

Succulents and Sedum

Are you familiar with succulents and how they can enhance your home garden?

Succulents have the unique ability to retain lots of water, which makes them great for dry soil or arid climates. Succulents come in many varieties too. In fact, Marvin Gardens recently featured a popular succulent called Echeveria at the world-renown Philadelphia International Flower Show.

Also featured were sedum, also known as “stonecrop”. Low-growing sedum is the perfect type of foliage to add to something like a rock garden at your home, whereas the higher-growing variety of sedum makes a great addition to a perennial border. Sedum is pretty easy to care for, attracts a lot of butterflies, and like other succulents, tolerates dry soil.

Succulents should usually be planted in the spring and depending on the variety should be spaced from 6 to 24 inches apart. It’s really a great garden foliage to have here in southern Connecticut with our many damp spring days complimented by dry spells in the summer. For more info on how to use succulents to accent your home, give Marvin Gardens a call!

4 Great Spring Gardening Tips

For landscape designers, April showers usually bring much more than just May flowers. They also invite us to think about best-practice gardening ideas, some of which can be universally applied pretty much any type of exterior design scheme.

Just came across a great article in The Epoch Times in which writer Mark Cullen outlines some great, and timeless, gardening trends to keep in mind.

Here are four of my favorite…

Native plants: Use of native plants in the landscape to reduce maintenance (fewer bugs and diseases), increase natural biodiversity cycles

Gardening in containers: Canadians are ‘pushing the envelope’ by mixing annuals and perennials together in containers, often adding vegetables and herbs for both a practical and decorative touch.

Color: Demand for annuals and perennials that produce a reliable abundance of colour for the longest possible length of time is on a steep rise.

Invest in your own outdoor ‘retreat’: Spend hard earned cash to improve your yard and garden rather than booking costly travel vacations or purchasing a vacation property.

Well, what do you think about these tips/trends? Do you have any of your own?

Marvin Gardens Awarded Blue Ribbon at Philadelphia Flower Show

The Philadelphia International Flower Show is strongly considered one of the premier gardening events in the world, in part because so many outstanding talents make their way to the Show each year the showcase their finest plants and design work.

So when it was announced this past Sunday that Marvin Gardens won the Blue Ribbon for Best Retail Exhibit, we were absolutely thrilled!

Since 1829, the Philadelphia has maintained a tradition of showing some of the most exceptional and unique plants and displays from around the world, so to be now listed in the Shows history as one of the best in class, well, that’s truly an honor.

The Philadelphia Flower Show continues throughout Sunday, March 13, and we plan to be around and take in as much of the scenery as possible. Be sure to stop back to the blot later in the week, as I’m sure there will be plenty more great photos to post!