Last August I had the pleasure of touring one of the most delightful shade gardens I’ve seen. It gave me dozens of ideas for adding shade-loving plants to my landscape. Perhaps it will inspire you, too.

The towering trees that frame this stately Indianapolis property provide plenty of cooling shade in the summer…and offer plenty of gardening challenges. Instead of shunning the shade, the homeowners welcomed the opportunity to create a stunning landscape that didn’t take itself too seriously.

Gardeners know that planting in shade can be tricky because every shady spot is different. The key is to carefully match the plants to the site and to each other. This striking combination of chartreuse hostas and violet impatiens does just that.

The gardens featured more than just a nice selection of shade plants.  Marble statues, tall metal obelisks and other garden art added interest and even a touch of whimsy. I especially enjoyed the choice of ornamental grass to offset the stern expression on this planter’s face.

Even though I was a panelist at a recent summit on food justice, I’m still shocked by the statistics on hunger in this country. Thirty-three million Americans, including 13 million children, live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger.

It breaks my heart to know so many people, especially children, go hungry every day.

That’s why I’m redoubling my efforts to get gardeners involved in our local growing-and-giving program called Plant a Row for the Hungry.

Plant a Row (PAR) follows the long tradition of gardeners sharing their bounty with others. Even if you’ve never grown a green before, now’s the time to start.

Vegetable Gardeners Unite!

Plant a Row is a national program of the Garden Writers Association that began in 1995. Since then, gardeners across the country have donated more than 16 million pounds of produce to local food service agencies.

Do you love the look of a rock garden, but don’t have the garden space to create one? A simpler solution is to plant in a container that looks like a rock, but it’s not.

Hypertufa planters look like they’re made of stone or rock, but they’re lightweight containers made from cement mixed with other materials like vermiculite, perlite, peat moss and sand.

You can Google around to find instructions for mixing up your own containers or you can do what I did and let someone else make one for you. I bought my planter at a garden club plant sale, but I’ve seen these at garden centers, too. My planter is a rectangle 21″ long x 14″ wide and 5″ deep.

The most attractive miniature rock gardens include a variety of shallow-rooted plants in different shapes, sizes and colors. Some produce tiny blooms that add to their appeal. Succulents, alpine plants and various groundcovers do especially well in hypertufa containers.

Hanging strawberry pots meet gardening needs for growing up.

My third pick for a “Best Of” the new products at the 2012 ProGreen industry tradeshow is the Urban Garden Pocket Planter by NCV.

These light-weight plastic containers will make small-space gardening easier.

I can imagine a row of these clever pots hanging from a balcony container garden or a single one brightening a drab spot on the patio.

The pots can be planted to grow strawberries, but they would be great for other kinds of gardening, too. The company suggests planting them with themed herb gardens, like an Italian culinary garden with basil, parsley, oregano and thyme.

If you have a spot to hang a pot, you can fill it with herbs, baby greens, annual flowers, succulents and more. The top is open so taller plants, like peppers, can be planted there.

The planters are made of injected molded plastic and have a textured finish. They can be taken apart to make shipping and storage easier.

Another of my “Best Of” selections at the 2012 ProGreen tradeshow is a new idea for container gardening called Smart Pots.

If you’ve followed my blog, you know that every year I have a big container garden of vegetables. I’ve grown all kinds of vegetables and herbs and I’ve grown them in all kinds of containers.

But this year I get to try something new: a Smart Pot aeration container I picked up at ProGreen.

The Smart Pot is a foldable fabric container that’s said to be better than plastic containers because it releases heat from the pot, aerates the root zone and stops roots from circling inside the container. That’s because the container air prunes the plant’s root structure.

There are 4 different container sizes from 7 to 20 gallons. Gardeners can grow garlic, leeks, greens, herbs, beans and small annuals in the 7-gallon size; a 20-gallon Smart Pot is made to grow tomatoes, melons, pumpkins, sweet potatoes and winter squash.

My “Best Of” gardening selection at the 2012 ProGreen industry tradeshow is a new portable drip irrigation system called Watering Rocks.

There were a lot of new gardening products featured at ProGreen last week, but one of my favorites is a low-tech portable watering system called Watering Rocks.

Each Watering Rock is a self-contained drip irrigation system. Just place the rock in a part of the garden that’s difficult to water and fill the container with water.

Water will slowly seep from the rock into drip lines and adjustable drippers to water plants deeply. Watering Rocks are available in one-gallon, two-gallon and five-gallon sizes.

Gardeners fill the Watering Rocks by placing a hose in the holes at the top of the rock or they can connect an existing drip irrigation system for automatic filling. The amount of water can be adjusted to match plant needs.

Another handy feature is that liquid or soluble plant food can be added to the water for automatic fertilizing, too.

Even though my vegetable garden is covered with 15 inches of snow today, gardening season is just around the corner.

Gardeners who used plant protectors last gardening season outsmarted the rest of us who didn’t.

There was such a chilly start to last year’s vegetable gardening season, plant protectors helped gardeners in the long run.

If you want to get your garden going faster this year, there’s a new design in plant protection you might like to try that’s especially EZ.

In the past I’ve used plant protectors so I could plant earlier, but I disliked the process of setting up the plastic covers and filling them with water.

It’s downright uncomfortable to be standing in a cold garden with wet feet.

But  Debbie Shauer has invented a new product called EZ-walls Plant Protectors. Last year she sent me a free sample to try in my garden. I have to say it had me at how easy it was to fill with water.

My vegetable pick of the week: Red Mini Bell peppers.

One of my favorite vegetable plants in my container garden last summer was a crop of adorable mini bell peppers.

These miniature versions of red bell peppers made gardening (and eating) fun.

I selected mini bells to add to my other pepper selections because I haven’t had good luck growing full-size bell peppers. I blame that on having a short growing season combined with fickle spring weather.

But these minis meant sweet pepper success!

I started several miniature bell pepper plants from seed and waited until mid-June to transplant them into the garden. Night-time temperatures weren’t consistently warm enough for planting earlier.

Each plant grew to about 24 inches in containers in my small-space garden and took only 60 days to start producing peppers. Each pepper was only several inches tall and wide, but the flesh was tender, sweet, and quite flavorful.

I asked and gardeners answered. Here’s a list of their top tomato recommendations for planting this season.

Every year I plant a dozen or more new-to-me tomato varieties in my garden. But with hundreds of delicious tomato choices, I needed help narrowing my selections. So in November I asked gardeners on my VegetableGardener.com blog to help me decide by giving me a list of their favorite tomatoes to grow.

I asked for gardeners’ top tomato recommendations in three categories:

Best medium-to-large tomato
Best small or cherry tomato
Most flavorful tomato

Twenty-six gardeners answered the call and gave me plenty of tomatoes to think about. I thought you might like to see the list, in case you’re looking for some new tomato varieties to add to your gardening efforts this season.

The last Saturday in January is designated as National Seed Swap Day. You can celebrate with these ideas for making seed sowing simpler this season.

Many beginning gardeners fret about starting their garden from seed. I know, because I worried about every seed I planted when I first started gardening, too.

But the basics of planting seed are simple. Gardeners plant seeds in the ground, cover seeds with soil and keep soil moist until seeds germinate.

Seeds want to sprout and grow–and many do without our help.

But for as long as people have been planting seeds, they’ve been trying to make seed sowing easier.

Native Americans rolled their seeds in clay balls to protect them from sun, wind, birds, and other animals. The seed balls weren’t planted, but broadcast on top of the ground so when it rained, the clay would melt and start germination.