While the aftermath of cold weather in a garden can be disheartening, many plants have a remarkable ability to bounce back with the right care. Here's a guide to post-snow and freeze plant recovery.

You might have heard some misconceptions about planting in the summer heat, but we believe that with the proper plant selection, bed preparation, and garden management, you can enhance your garden's beauty any time of the year. Below are a few simple tips to ensure your summer planting is successful.

The new landscape design of the unique 2 1/2 acre site was conceived as a part of a larger transformation of the home inspired by the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens. We worked in collaboration with the architect and interior designer to create gardens integrally tied to the home's architecture. A strong axis was created through the site from the front pond to the series of 'outdoor' rooms extending into the native planting beyond.

The pool was repositioned back into the garden to allow for the creation of a new raised courtyard, expressive of the English Country Garden style. This elevated garden terraces down to the pool and out to the lawn beyond. Close to the house are a series of outdoor rooms connected by curvilinear reclaimed cobblestone pathways often flanked by clipped and loosely relaxed plantings. Specimen trees were planted to call attention to different sections of the garden.

The goal was for the home to appear as if it had always been there. To soften the rough limestone exterior and to knit the home into the landscape, climbing vines were added to soften the connection to the lush plant masses on the ground plane.

Rustic timber gates reinforce the countryside theme while flowering star jasmine vines encapsulate the fencing resulting in a natural clipped hedge aesthetic.

The fall season is upon us and with it brings the opportunity for extraordinary seasonal color. Fall’s seasonal color comes in an array of shapes, sizes, and textures suitable for any garden style. Depending on your garden, these versatile plants can fill your beds, borders, and containers with rich hues throughout the season.

See our Garden Management team’s top seasonal color selections that will make your garden extraordinary this autumn.

Firmly Rooted & Growing Daily At Our "Green" Certified LEED Gold Building

As a contributing member of the sustainable construction and landscape design community, McDugald Steele values green-friendly practices in all aspects and operations of the company. In an effort to reduce our environmental impact and carbon footprint, our primary office building — once an abandoned furniture showroom — was redesigned and renovated to become a healthy, high-performance workplace. The eco-friendly updates and optimizations, now completed, allows our office to run seamlessly on a system that utilizes 25% less water and equally reduced quantities of overall energy consumption. In addition, our decision to use the existing building significantly reduced the average environmental impact that accompanies all new construction by 30%. McDugald Steele is proud to be a top-tier landscape architecture firm that also operates out of a certified LEED Gold building, whose status was awarded in 2015 by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).