Elizabethan GardensPosts

Our gazebo in spring. These woods are bending more toward the sun, the greens are starting to fill out each corner of the garden, and our Azaleas are an impressive group. We have white with peach edges, raspberry, pink, red, and orange Azaleas. We have some of our favorites cultivars for sale. We also carry a great group of flowering Azalea that repeat their bloom cycle in the fall. What a great plant! Come see what is new and exciting at the Elizabethan Gardens.

If you've visited our gardens recently, chances are you've seen staff pruning our crepe myrtles quite severely! Don't be shocked, this practice has a history and a purpose. Pollarding is a pruning practice that dates back past the Elizabethan era. It involves repetitively cutting back the thinner and taller branches of a shrub or tree. Over years of pollarding, the shrub or tree will maintain denser growth at a stunted height. In most cases, pollarding was instituted because of the resource it could provide: a steady supply of thin branches that could be used as kindling or for crafting. In decorative gardens, such as the Elizabethan Gardens, pollarding is implemented for aesthetic purposes. Cutting the crepe myrtles back in the winter will mean denser foliage and bloom in the spring