I think Inula Magnifica would be a great addition to my new garden, that hasn’t been created yet. It’s one of Digging Dog Nursery’s 10 favorites. You can order yours for $6.00 each at Digging Dog.

Inula Magnifica grows to be 7-8′ tall and 4-5′ wide. That is a lot of giant, yellow daisy awesomeness. Hardy to Zone 5.

A friend of mine has a garden that she spends a lot of time in, in fact gardening is her hobby and passion. Since it’s that time of year when a lot of us have gardening or outdoor living on our minds, I thought you might like to see pictures of a garden in real life.
Some of the plantings in this particular garden are pretty mature including the trees which are 10 years+. You can see that the caretaker prefers perennials. She reminded me that she has lost of a lot of her plants to voles, which she battles furiously every season.



This Agave is thriving in the intense sun, it blooms every 10 years, the stalk is currently over 15 feet tall and can be as much as 30 feet high


Citron Heuchera doing great in part sun in a big urn.

There is an amazing pergola that is covered in wisteria, it is at least five degrees cooler under there.


An arbor covered in Lady Banks Rose marks the entry to a path that leads from the pergola to the deck

Dwarf evergreens make great container plants, and with these little guys you can keep the green during the dormant winter months. Most of these have a mature height of 3 feet.


Some perennials this gardener recommends for the Southeast/NC Zone 7-8:
- Echinops-Globe Thistle
- Crocosmia
- Perennial Geranium
- Baptisia
- Kniphofia- Red Hot Poker
- Hypericum-St. John’s Wort
- Sedum
- Salvia
- Platycodon
- Agapanthus
- Alstromeria-Peruvian Lily