With school buses making their final rounds for the school year and last weekend’s short heat wave, my mindset is shifting to enjoying summer in the Pacific Northwest. Our region boasts some of the most gorgeous scenery and comfortable climate you’ll find anywhere in the summer, but one thing it’s not: the tropics. Whether you’re staying home this summer and want to make the most of your backyard spaces or [...]
My Grandma Vos—long-time owner of Vander Giessen's and gardener par excellence—often advised her customers that “God’s colors don’t clash” when picking out flowers. Her point in offering such advice was to encourage customers to plant what looked good to them; after all, gardening is meant to be fun, so why stress over what plants “work”? Whether you like bold, saturated colors in your containers or prefer the muted elegance [...]
As with the selection of Proven Winners annuals we carry each year at Vander Giessen's, we're proud to grow and sell a wide selection of Proven Winners perennials, our preferred brand for unique selections, resistance to insects and disease, and overall performance in your garden year after year. Our selection we're growing for 2025 encompasses nearly 50 varieties, including the items listed below. In addition to those varieties we [...]
At Vander Giessen's, we're proud to grow a wide selection of Proven Winners annuals, our preferred brand for unique colors, plant health, and overall performance where it matters--in your garden! Our selection for 2025 includes nearly 80 varieties, including the items listed below. Please note that this list does not reflect current stock on hand but does encompass the entire selection of varieties we will be growing throughout the [...]
When our son was three, he used to get excited when he would hear a “fever bird”—chickadee, to the rest of us—singing its spring melody. With a call that to the anticipating ear does sound like a sweetly-spoken “fee-ver,” the chickadee’s song reminds me now each spring of the excitement I feel as the new season arrives. As spring begins, let’s consider a few of the tasks to get started [...]
Gardening is an exciting hobby if for no other reason than no two days spent outside are exactly alike. Although the changes from day to day are incremental, go away for a week and you’re sure to notice how much things have changed the minute you pull into your driveway. Likewise, the shift from summer to fall brings sweeping changes to the landscape and to the rhythms of this hobby [...]
We gardeners are always on the lookout for plants that have that special characteristic: unique foliage, multi-colored flowers, unusual growth habit, or some other eye-catching trait. In today’s world of dozens of options on the shelf even for toothpaste, it takes a lot to stand out from the crowd, which is why so many of the new plant introductions are released specifically for their “wow” factor. As you plan and [...]
Charles Dickens once wrote of sunny March days as “summer in the light and winter in the shade.” With the promise of sunny, warmer weather arriving in the coming days, the chilly late winter we’ve been experiencing lately may begin to shift to real spring, when even the shade isn’t so wintry. As we gardeners excitedly get outside to feel the sun on our skin and work the soil in [...]
Hydrangeas are incredibly popular plants, and with good reason: they're easy to grow, are available in varieties well-suited for sun or shade, come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, and offer colorful flowers throughout the summer months. At Vander Giessen's, we offer a wide variety of hydrangeas, and we've just gotten in our biggest selection ever--nearly three dozen unique varieties! While we have several hundred plants available, many [...]
We Pacific Northwesterners are a fickle people. If you need proof, just look at the last few months. March? Too cold. April? Too rainy. May? Too warm. If you have friends in the Midwest, you know they might experience all three of those extremes in the span of a week—or even a couple days. And while we gardeners might complain, it’s for good reason; after all, we want only the [...]
