Big blocks of hay have long been a staple of autumn garden décor, but the trend has never been bigger than it is now. Celebrity event planners who get paid millions to create season-appropriate settings for splashy events say that the rustic look is IN right now. Hay bales set the stage for a comforting, country-style vibe to your fall garden décor.

The blocks give you a chance to build upward, adding some height to your fall garden style, and potted mums and other fall flowers can be placed on the lower ‘steps’ of your hay architecture.

I talked with The Farm’s resident décor expert, Tim, about some smart steps to take before you start dropping those heavy hay bales all over your front yard. Tim says that you should try to avoid burning out your lawn beneath those hay bales. “If you can lay them on a bed of mulch, that will help protect the lawn beneath,” says Tim. “And if you have a wide sidewalk, you can place hay bales on that.” Of course, when the fall season is over, it’s easy enough just to pick up and remove any hay bales that do sit on your lawn or beneath your shade trees, sprinkle some grass seed, and watch your lawn recover from the very brief time it supported your fall-fantastic hay bale décor.

Other ways to display hay bales:

• Drape them with colorful autumn leaf garlands (also found here at The Farm)
• Set up a friendly scarecrow either sitting on them or standing behind or beside them
• Use them to hold silver tin buckets holding piles of pinecones that you’ve gathered from your property and put to good use
• Decorate them with potted mums and other fall flowers, with containers placed in front of the hay bale pile, as well as one or two containers placed on the lower levels of it.
• Never display lit candles on hay bales, not even ones in what you deem safe candle containers. Keep lit flames far from hay, wet or dried out.
• Insert inexpensive solar light stakes around the hay bale arrangements.
• Come in to The Farm to get inspired on how to display your hay bales and other fall décor items. Tim’s a master at setting a scene, so come see his newest, expert trends in fall garden décor.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

If you’ve vacationed on a tropical island, you know how beautiful those tropical plants can be, how they scent the air, and put you in a great mood. “Oh, I wish I could have tropical plants!” is a common thought among home gardeners who worry that it would be impossible for tropicals to thrive in their homes. But it’s not impossible at all. You just need the right spot in your home to provide these plants’ light and warmth needs. Here are some of the top indoor tropical plants that could add some island bliss to your home or office right now:

Orchids: These take some special care, such as watching their water levels and providing the right light at the right time. Orchid varieties such as phaleonopsis, miltonia, lady slipper, and nun orchids prefer low light while in bloom, and modern light when they’re done blooming. It’s a common beginner’s mistake to put the orchid plant in a bright, sunny spot and think it’s getting the light it needs. What’s more important with orchids is giving them the humidity they need, which might mean placing a gorgeous, arching orchid in your bathroom to capture that shower steam. The Farm’s plant experts can educate you about specific orchid needs, and you can ask for a printout of smart orchid care that gets into great detail. If you’re planning to give an orchid as a gift – which is very popular! – give a copy of the orchid care printout as well, so that your recipient can keep that orchid thriving.

Bromeliads: These tall, brightly-colored floral plants grow quite well indoors, since they don’t need the humidity that many other tropical plants need. You get the color without the humidity hassles.

Desert Rose: This succulent likes to star warm and well-lit in natural sunlight, and provides tiny pink flowers in a bonsai-type display. The sap is poisonous, though, so keep this one out of the reach of pets and small children. [Remember that tropical plants’ native environments have some dangerous predators, so their natural ‘arsenal’ often includes poisonous, non-edible elements, thorns and other plant-protectors.]

Tropical plants don’t come from cold-weather environments, so warm locations inside the home are a must. For instance, don’t place a hibiscus right next to an air conditioner or under a cooling fan, and keep them out of the bedroom that always gets the coldest air conditioning blast.

Where’s the Bird of Paradise that always reminds you of your honeymoon or favorite vacation spot? That one’s a bit of a challenge to grow indoors, since it needs the light and humidity levels most often found in a greenhouse. But of course if you have a greenhouse, this colorful tropical plant could be yours to grow and show off!

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

A fresh cover of mulch gives any garden a boost in appearance, providing a uniform cover and color and making your plantings look like new. If you’re planning to mulch now or in the fall, keep some important Do’s and Don’ts in mind:

DON’T create a mound of mulch around young trees’, shrubs’ and hostas’ crown or trunk. This volcano-shape of mulch causes water to run away from the plant’s base, keeping moisture from the roots. As a result, a new tree or plant’s root ball can actually shrink beneath the ground. Create an open ring or berm around plantings to let the water seep down where needed.

DON’T: Mulch too much around new or established trees and plants, since thick layers too close to the roots invite pests and disease.

DO keep mulch height to about two inches, especially around young trees. This is enough to discourage weeds from growing around the trees and in your garden. Water can seep down through this thickness, which provides enough cover to keep roots cooler in hot weather.

DO purchase quality mulch, made from fresh organic materials. It’s actually a mistake to try to save money by mulching your own wood, since you may not be aware if logs or cut-down trees, pulled-up shrubs or even tree leaves have any types of rot or disease. Fresh, pristine mulch is worth the investment, keeping your garden plantings safe and sound.

DON’T mulch before you test your soil’s pH levels. Your soil might need some doctoring with lime or other pH adjusters to achieve its healthiest levels before you cover it with mulch.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

Shade-loving plants add color, texture and beautiful scene-setting to those darker corners of your property…and as your trees have grown and gotten fuller, you might have different shady spots than you did when you first moved in.

We have some new shady circles beneath our mature trees, and an entire shady section in the back of our house, thanks to our neighbor’s new, tall fence. So instead of bemoaning our lost light, we see the opportunity to put in gorgeous shade-happy plants and flowers. Lighter-colored green plants (including more silvery hostas) brighten those shady spots better than deeper-hued plants, so keep color in mind.

Here are some of the top shade-loving plants you might wish to put in now, or keep in mind for next year’s garden design:

Astilbe: These feathery plants come in bright colors such as reds and pinks, and also in fall-friendly tans, adding some height and an interesting texture to your shade garden.

Brunnera: The shimmering silver foliage of the Brunnera adds nice color to a shady-spot, is known to grow well in tree root areas, and isn’t a favorite of deer.

Ferns: Ferns love the low light, and add soft, delicate texture to your shade garden. They pair very well with hostas. They need consistent watering, so watch out for drying leaves, and get that mister on them often.

Heuchera: One of the most colorful shade to sun perennials, this plant likes a little bit of sun during the day to bring out the shine in its foliage, but otherwise is used as a groundcover between larger plants. Chartreuse/ lemon – green colors prefer shade.

Hostas: Hostas provide large leaves with multiple variations of leaf colorings and striping, white or cream-colored leaf borders and lots of bang for your buck. They grow well under trees, but they do need really great drainage and good spacing to keep them healthy.

Hellebore: This shade plant provides year-round evergreen foliage that deer don’t like to eat, and you may get late-winter blooms from this plant as well.

Ornamental Grasses: Talk to The Farm’s staff about choosing the perfect grasses for your garden shape, so that you know which ones spread out and which ones grow taller.

Pulmonaria: This plant, especially in its Raspberry variety, provides fuzzy silver spotted leaves.

Tiarella (Foamflower): A slow-grower, this plant provides colorful leaves right through until winter, and works as a great groundcover.

Ideally, your shade garden will become a work of art, with a mix of color and texture, growing thick and lush through each season.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

I’ve just returned from San Diego and L.A., and one of the things I noticed is that Southern Californians love their outdoor fire pits…just like we do here in Morris County…and that many of the tall, arching organic flowers I admired out there are the very same ones gracing the grounds of The Farm. When you read home décor magazine features about ‘California living,’ it’s inspiring to know that’s the very same thing we’re all doing here.

We sat by chimineas and fire pits during the cool evenings, at cocktail parties and while visiting with friends, and the outdoor entertaining vibe was upscale and elegant, while at the same time chic and cozy. And we pulled out our Star Finder app to ID the many constellations above, even on a cloudy night – something I highly recommend for the whole family, especially during the later, wind-down hours of your backyard parties. Warmed by the fire, you can stay out there for hours, listening to the nighttime quiet and spotting planets and stars with guests young and old.

I was amazed by the variety of fire features during our week in California… portable metal ones, built-in concrete ones, southwestern rectangular ones, and Spanish-style chimineas in rustic reds and oranges, again the same as the ones we love here at home.

What’s your style of chimney or fire pit? If you have one already, tell us about it. If a fire pit is on your dream wishlist, which kind would you get? Not sure? Come to The Farm to check out our fire features, and talk to our staff about the best placement and securing, plus safety advice for ‘lighting up’ your summertime and fall evenings.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

Flying home from Los Angeles yesterday, I wasn’t worried about the turbulence, nor about the bumpy landing…  I was worried about my vegetable garden. Did the neighbor kids’ water it? Spray it with Deer-Off? Was I going to come home to the leftover mess of a garden buffet enjoyed by every doe, fawn and bunny in Morris County?

The answer is No. The neighbor kids did a great job with our watering cans and extra-long hoses, and they sprayed our deer repellants religiously. So my tomatoes are reddening, my cucumbers still on their growth spurt, my organic herbs on the rise. This called for a great reward, since the neighbor kids rescued our garden investment, and my dreams of summertime salsa and bruschetta. Since I’ve seen the kids working with their mom in their own garden, I’m giving these pre-teens a duo-gift – cash (of course) and a gift card to The Farm so that they can either pick out their own garden décor or garden supplies, or get a little floral something for their mom. With teens and pre-teens, the duo gift is the best of both worlds.

Who’s watching your garden or flower beds while you’re away on vacation this summer? When you get back, consider giving them a gift card to The Farm, and a little extra something for your duo-gift. Could be chocolates, could be a batch of your salsa when your safe landing brings you back home.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles

Our organic vegetable garden was gorgeous with its rich, deep, organic soil and bright green plants, but it needed a little something. That’s when it hit me: I can place some garden stones that are just like the ones we showcase in our landscaping. We have some gorgeous boulders placed by our Andromeda trees and by our Japanese maple, and we’re planning to create a rock garden in slate gray and bluestone tones to look like water. So we’re going to take some of those same egg-shaped stones and add them to the back corner of our vegetable garden. It’s a coordination of our home’s stone effect.

When you go to The Farm, you’ll see the pallets of stones for building borders, but there’s also a ton of boulders there, in all sizes. Smooth, majestic stones that can add a natural interest to your veggie garden as well as your flower beds. Or, like we plan to, build a faux riverbed of stones streaming through your garden’s empty corner, or even as a curving line through the middle of it.

When we host summertime parties, our veggie garden will be in full production, and the stones will give that magazine-style finishing touch to impress our guests…and no Zen garden is complete without stones or an eye-catching boulder. I thought they’d be insanely expensive, but no…and there’s no extra cost to grabbing a bunch of river stones from our rock garden supply and placing them in our garden.

If riverstones or borders don’t do it for you, how about a stone statuary? Maybe not the adorable 3’-high golden retriever statue I just saw at The Farm, but one of the cute little turtles or dragonflies or butterflies. Any stone element in a garden provides a terrific visual balance, and feng shui observers say it provides a more calming environment. Plus one less area to weed!

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

For so many of us here in Morris County, our gardens are our little piece of heaven. And I say that as a new veggie garden planter, blissful over my tomatoes and peppers and soon-to-be cucumbers. For longtime gardeners, it becomes a ritual to plant ‘the usuals:’ tomatoes, peppers, basil. You know right where they go, and it’s a rite of passage when you put them in the soil.

But since variety is the spice of life, why not add a little something new to your garden?

Choose a slightly different vegetable or herb, just to mix it up a little. For instance, while looking for my red bell pepper plants at The Farm, I was amazed to see how many different kinds of pepper plants there were. I’d never heard of a banana pepper, for instance. Same goes for the many types of beans I saw on the beds that day. I’ve never planted jalapenos, but given the fact that salsa clears up my allergies, I could use a hot pepper or two in my home-made salsas, which we eat and which I love to give as hostess gifts. No more canned, salty-tasting jalapeno circles from the grocery store. I’m going to grow my own.

Lettuces are one area I plan to branch off into next season, when I have my expanded garden bed. From salads to wraps to garnish on plates during my parties and book club meetings, the crisp and scented freshness of home-grown lettuce is a wonderful thing.

Which new plantings would you love to try in your garden bed? Trust me, you’re going to discover some amazing new varieties when you walk through The Farm’s collection of garden plants, with an open mind…not just zipping over to the basil plants you recognize. And keep in mind my garnish tip…any plate will look so much more presentable with a tuft of spinach and some julienned zucchini, or the bright red arches of jalapenos on it.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

Your vegetable garden and flower garden, as well as your flowering trees can make you the best neighbor ever. Not only for the beauty factor that impresses neighbors passing by, but because they make great gifts to bring over. No reason. You’re just sharing your bounty.

Last summer, my next-door neighbor popped over to give me a bag of onions that she had grown in her garden. She had way too many to use, and she knew that this Italian household cooks often with onions. It was a spectacular gift, a sweet offering, and we were beyond touched at her thoughtfulness.

Imagine how happy you can make your neighbors when you pop by with your extra organic tomatoes, peppers, thyme, or rosemary.

Make your gift pretty by packaging your goodies in a basket, and print out a recipe card for your favorite homemade treat. If you have kids, they can decorate a simple paper bag to hold those peppers.

We’re all so busy with our to-do lists, but it adds so much to nurture your relationships with your neighbors! What will you be growing in your garden this year, and who among your neighbors would love your thoughtful gift of some fresh and fantastic veggies or herbs?

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

You might not know that you can try out climbing vines in your garden plantings and landscaping before committing to climbers that will become an everlasting look in your plantings. I love the look of climbing vines trained up and over trellises, giving that English garden look, and if you have rock walls or fences, climbers can paint those blank canvases with natural greenery and color.

Here are some of the top annual climbing vines to plant now, and since they grow quickly, you’ll soon have lush greenery and flower-filled effects on many of your vertical garden elements:

Balloon Vine: requires plenty of sun, and grows quickly, producing tons of tiny white flowers.

Black-Eyed Susan: Normally considered a ground flower, there is a vining variety that also works as a ground cover. This flower isn’t known for growing up trellises well, but it’s a popular draper that grows in hanging baskets, cascading downward for visual interest.

Cardinal Climber: Will often grow up to 20 feet in a single season, blooming bright red flowers all summer long.

Climbing Snapdragon: Climbs up trellises and also cascades from hanging baskets or window boxes. Blooms in late spring through the summer, producing colorful snapdragon flowers.

Dutchman’s Pipe: Native to our region, this climber can grow to over 15 feet tall and 20 feet wide in a single season, which means it requires plenty of space of its own, so that it doesn’t crowd out other nearby flowers. Dutchman’s Pipe doesn’t produce showy flowers but it may produce mahogany and cream blooms and grows easily even in the shade.

Hyacinth Bean: The climbing variety of this plant is a fast-grower, often reaching 30-40 feet in a single season. This plant comes in many varieties and is a top choice for scaling trellises and fences. In summertime, you’ll get lots of white or purple flowers.

Moonflower: Interestingly, moonflower prefers less than perfect soil conditions and will not produce blooms in fertile soil. It produces large, white flowers that bloom during the night hours, and is a great grower.

Morning Glory: Owing to its name, the morning glory flowers greatly during the morning hours, and is available in varieties that bloom in different colors. It prefers a sunny location and does well in almost any type of soil.

Nasturtium: A preferred plant for growing and covering a trellis, arbor or pergola, since it thrives with very little care. It doesn’t require a lot of sunlight or moisture and will grow even in poor soil conditions. Blooms with colorful and fragrant flowers in summer.

Sweet Peas: Sweet peas are a popular climber, coming in many different varieties. In one season, it will grow to approximately 6 feet tall, providing colorful blooms all through the summer. It prefers cooler temperatures and lots of moisture.

Once you see how your annual climbing vines perform on your property, with your soil and light conditions and your hand at positioning, you might decide to plant perennial climbing vines for your garden’s lasting beauty.

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.