Down2Earth Landscape Design

🌿 Have you considered adding native ornamental grasses to your garden?

On this week’s Down the Garden Path, Joanne looks at Big Bluestem and Little Bluestem, along with standout varieties like Standing Ovation, Blackhawks and Red October.

👉 She also discusses one of her favourites: Karl Foerster, an ornamental grass (not native!) that she recommends to her clients.

🎧 Listen to the full episode on your favourite podcast app, or watch it on the Down the Garden Path Podcast YouTube channel, and find out what you can still get done in the garden this fall.

Looking for a hydrangea that gives you plenty of colour without taking over your garden?

This week on the podcast, I share three dwarf hydrangeas I've grown successfully in my own garden: Fire Light Tidbit®, Little Lime Punch® and Invincibelle Limetta®. Learn more about how each one grows, where it performs best, and why these smaller varieties can be such a good fit for today’s gardens and smaller spaces.

🎧 Listen to the full episode on your favourite podcast app, or watch it on the Down the Garden Path Podcast YouTube channel, and find out what you can still get done in the garden this fall.

With just a few days of summer left, take a walk with me in my September garden 🍂

Wondering what you can still get done in the garden before the season wraps up?

🍂 This week on Down the Garden Path, I explain why fall is still a great time to add compost, plant new perennials, divide and move existing plants, and even start a brand-new garden bed. I also share an easy, low-maintenance way to create a new garden using cardboard, compost and mulch so you can be ready to plant when spring arrives.

Thinking of buying mums for your fall garden?

🌼 Before you fill your porch or garden beds with them, Joanne invites you to consider whether asters might be the better choice.

In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne takes an honest look at fall mums—their appeal, their maintenance needs, and what happens when you try to grow them as perennials. She also introduces asters as a beautiful, lower-maintenance alternative that can provide late-season colour while offering valuable food and habitat for pollinators.

🌿 Check out this amazing Nuage wall planter I got for my birthday!

The patented, organic nesting form cradles each plant, providing ideal moisture, airflow, and root development for thriving growth.

It's crafted in Canada from upcycled post-consumer plastic. Each NUAGE rescues the equivalent of 50 shampoo bottles from entering our landfills, oceans, and natural ecosystems — transforming waste into life.

👉 Find them online at nuage.eco.

🌿 Want a healthier, more biodiverse garden?

🦋 Butterflies are more than beautiful visitors. They’re part of a thriving garden ecosystem, helping support pollination, birds, and other beneficial wildlife.

🎙️ In this week's episode of Down the Garden Path, learn how planting for butterflies is one simple way to create a garden that feels more alive, balanced, and naturally resilient.

🎧 Catch the full episode on your favourite podcast app, or watch it on the Down the Garden Path Podcast YouTube channel!

🏡 Gardens don’t happen overnight. They grow, change, surprise us, and sometimes completely ignore the plan.

Join me as I take you on this garden’s journey from 2016 to 2026, from the “before” to the first planting, to a garden beginning to fill in, and finally to where it is today.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as a landscape designer is that gardens need time and permission to evolve.

Plants will grow into each other, and that can be beautiful.

Some plants will thrive beyond expectations. Others will struggle. And some will suddenly die after years of looking perfectly happy, as the Bloodgood Japanese Maple did in this garden. That doesn’t mean the garden failed. It simply means there’s an opportunity to try something different.

And if a plant survives but you realize you don’t love it? You’re allowed to change that, too.

A garden isn’t a finished picture. It’s a living space that changes with the seasons, the years, and with you.

Gardens evolve and sometimes, patience is the most important thing we can plant. 🌿