Small Space (or Urban) Gardening

Even without much space, you can still enjoy the delicious satisfaction of growing your own vegetables. Planters like the Urbanscape make it easy to create a vegetable garden in nearly any free space: a balcony, a patio or a deck.

What to grow?

The Urbanscape features growing holes for a hanging garden to grow below the large top planter. Any vining vegetable can be grown in a hanging garden. Tomatoes are the best known upside down vegetable and cherry tomatoes are the most manageable.

Peppers can also be grown easily upside down and any variety can be grown. Cucumbers are also an excellent choice, as well as beans and small eggplants. Not a vegetable, but certainly delicious – Strawberries can also be grown inverted.

The top planter of the Urbanscape is large enough to grow many other vegetables – Lettuce, Radishes, cabbage, zucchini, and herbs make excellent choices.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet

London Arbor

Sure our products would be just as attractive, durable and stylish with any name, but the best things have a story behind them; and our product names are no exception. Our oldest line of products were named after cities in New England: Springfield, New Haven, Waterbury, Manchester, Fairfield, Sturbridge. Some of those products are still around and some have evolved into newer, updated versions of their old selves. When our line of smaller arbors was launched, it took a decidedly more cosmopolitan turn: Vienna, Monaco, Florence, London.

When our Pergolas were introduced with names like Venetian, Bellagio and Riviera, the relaxing, resort-like inspiration is clear, but there have been other names that seem like anomalies, but have meaning behind them, indeed, are tributes of sorts.

The Livingston Arbor is in honor of a vacation to Scotland, The Kensington Planter Box with Trellis a nod to Kensington Gardens; The Versailles Raised Garden Bed to the Garden of Versailles.

Versailles Raised Garden Bed

And in our new products for this year, there is another tribute: Our new modern, aesthetic composite raised planter has been named in a nod to a group of modern aesthetes – The Bloomsbury Group.

We're also working on adding a product that our customers have been clamoring for  -  a potting bench! Which will be called the Burbank Potting bench, after Luther Burbank, a botanist and horticulturalist who developed more than 800 varieties of plants!

Products in the wild: NYC

A savvy spotter sent us this snap of a whole slew of our Windsor long planter boxes hanging out on the patio at the Battery Gardens Restaurant in the financial district (Battery Park) in NYC. Battery Gardens Restaurant features great view of the Statue of Liberty and Governors island and all of the boats in the harbor and we can imagine the view is just as nice from this angle in the spring and summer when all of these Windsor long planters are full of flowers in full bloom!

Photo Contest

We've just wrapped up our 2012 Photo Contest. We had many wonderful, creative and charming entries and among them were these three which placed

First

Second

And Third

Congratulations to all of the winners! and Thank You to all of the entrants!

Look up... waaaay up.

We love when our customers send us photos and notes about how they've beautified their yards with our products. Sometimes the results are too creative not to share.

Looking at this house in Winnipeg, can you guess where their new pergola is going to be installed?

Here's a hint:

To make the area useable, and to ensure the roof membrane wasn't damaged, the homeowners added recycled rubber pavers. They erected the Mirage Pergola to create a completely new area in previously unusable space, giving them an outdoor room for entertaining, or relaxing.

And it looks gorgeous!

Arbors in the wild: Vacation Edition

Because we manufacture such a distinctive looking product (it’s all that New England architectural style!) It’s easy to pick out one of our products in the wild- something our staff seems to appreciate – even when they’re on vacation.

We’re proud of our products and whether it’s Hartsdale, New York or Halifax, Nova Scotia we’re always glad to see them where they belong - helping our customers beautify their yards!

We see you!

Know your stuff: Plant edition

Our team here at New England Arbors, has some quite diverse talents, interest and knowledge; and as helpful as it is to know who played the Penguin in the 60’s Batman series, some staff knowledge is more all-around beneficial.  We’re lucky to have a  horticulture expert right here in our office and We've asked him to give some tips for which plants are best suited to each size of arbor:

These plants are well suited to arbors with a smaller post size (1.5 x 1.5 – 2 x 3.5)

• Fig-wort/Creeping Snapdragon
• Clematis
• Ivy
• Morning Glory
• Climbing Roses

These plants are better suited to arbors with a larger post size (4 x 4 – 5 x 5)

• Trumpet Vine
• Honeysuckle
• Bougainvillea
• Passion flower
• Grapes
• Japanese Hydrangea

You'd think with all of this on-site expertise our offices would be full of lush greenery, which is true to a degree, but most of the plants in our offices are faux. We do have a few that have been brought in for rescuing

Sideshow Bob has thrived.

This one might need a telethon.