Yews have taken a beating among so called “serious” gardeners. They’re mocked for being pruned into little meatballs or flat-topped tables. They’re belittled for being ubiquitous and they’re considered down right boring. I beg to disagree. I think yews make excellent landscape shrubs. I even prefer them pruned, rather than au natural. They give a tidy, orderly look to a foundation planting or garden bed and some cohesiveness to the neighborhood. Prune them once a year and they remain attractive all season. They’re a glorious, shiny green all year. And they have cherry, bright red berries that persist into winter, until the birds feast on them. Speaking of birds, my yews are always home to at least one nest a season.

Don’t let the garden snobs talk you out of planting yews. About’s Landscaping Guide can help you brush up on your Yew knowledge so you can go shopping for just the right yew for you.

Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.

Mums have taken over the gardens. It is amazing the way they suddenly start popping up here and there, until finally every house you pass has its blanket of burgundy, yellow and orange at the front entrance. Mums must be very easy to force, because you don’t see other fall flowers lining the nursery shelves come fall, all set to bloom. It’s nice that the nurseries did all the pinching and growing for us, while we were busy with our summer blooming plants. We’re probably spoiled. Fall blooming flowers take a great deal of patience, not to mention a great deal of room for the many months they do nothing more than sit there waiting their turn. So it is nice to be able to freshen up your garden with very little effort on your own part. Half the time gardeners don’t even take the plants out of the pots. Mums have become disposable plants and that’s actually too bad because they’re pretty easy to grow and there’s greater variety if you grow your own. That’s right, there’s more to mums than those fall-toned pom-poms. So take a peek at how easy it is to grow truly hardy mums and then take the poll below and tell us if you buy disposable mums every year.

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Photo Courtesy of lauren stout / stock.xchng