Ilona’s Garden, on the Web Since 1998

I Write About Trees and Seasons as well as Perennial Flowers

The Sweet Cherry Tree In Autumn

Website Focus: How To Improve Your Garden

My garden website, on the web since 1998, is all about helping people make the most out of their home garden. Ilona’s Garden is geared toward every homeowner who wants to improve their own gardens in a personal way and there is plenty of information on deciding your style and growing your plants.

“You can become your own landscaper!”

is what I always say. I was always interested in designs, especially when it comes to perennial gardening, so I have written quite a bit about what I’ve learned on that topic.

The garden changes constantly, and I have changed too, although at a slower pace. Dealing with garden challenges, growing plants well, reflect that journey.

Ilona’s Garden, Now

The site is growing. My writing here inspires many articles I create elsewhere, especially in the Home and Garden category. I write on Substack now, with “Peace in the Garden”. Just this year, 2026, I decided to replace the “Garden Enthusiasm” newsletter with the publishing of the Substack site.

The Garden Librarian is still live, while I collapsed down other experiments over the years. Reviews for books and garden tools  are the main content.

Going Backwards

Want to know the story of the garden website that began almost 14 years ago?

That is my sweet cherry tree in the top photo, by the way. Don’t you love the autumn colors of its leaves?

• Landscaping 101, A Mini Course
  Start your landscape skills here with a mini course in the most important things to know about designing your own property.

Fine Gardening Inspiration – A Great Garden Magazine

There are so many garden books and magazines that you may feel there are just too many to try to choose from. With sites like mine delivering garden how-to and plant information instantaneously, why bother with buying a magazine?

If it is one like ‘Fine Gardening’, then the answer lies in the top quality photographs of the very best gardens, and a compact feature of expert garden advice rolled into a pleasurable read. I always get great ideas from reading the pages of articles about successful and inspired gardeners.

Discover Ilona’s Garden – Interested in touring Ilona’s Garden?

The more I wrote about gardening and plants the more I realized I had to focus in on my area, Central Ohio gardening. The topic of gardening is just too broad for most writers, even highly trained experts in horticulture, to cover well. And while I enjoy reading a “kitchen sink” type of reference book, what I usually need is specific advice on the situations and challenges my garden faces. So, I figured that is what others most need, as well.

If you are a gardener anywhere, then any of my design pages will be useful, since design concepts aren’t bound by climate or soil restraints. If you need plant suggestions for the Midwest, my site can help you with experienced advice and information.

Find what you are looking for in the Archives/sitemap

Photo of my driveway plantings

Pages you can find on my site

• Make a Fairy Garden: You will be enchanted- and it is a fun project for children.
• Flowers- Annuals and Perennials: growing annuals or perennials in the garden, general info, garden ideas, lists of favorites…
• Find Herb Garden and Herb Plants Info: design your herb garden or grow a certain herb plant, right this way….
• The Victorian Garden: Example of the history and description of a garden style. Have a Victorian home?
• Trees for Ornament and Shade: the best and most lasting investment in your landscape….
• Garden Tasks & Tips: Each month has chores and tips for growing a great garden….
• Garden Tools for the Beginner: you don’t need every tool available- good advice on buying tools
• The Prairie Garden: Few of us will ever see a true prairie like the pioneers of old had seen, but we still have the plants, and many of those are ideal for challenging conditions

An Old Photo Of My Garden

My garden, a decade ago

Who Influenced My Garden and the Writing?

Besides my Grandma

If you read my About page on the site you get the whole story of how I was inspired to love gardening from both sides of the family, but I think that certain garden writers had a great influence on me. One of the most recent is in the video on this hub, Tracy DiSabato-Aust. The interesting thing is that she has her home and personal garden not far from where I live. Her ideas of making a garden are what I am now using more in changing it from its labor intensive style.

The garden and my garden writing were both influenced by an author not many will remember, Helen Van Pelt Wilson. She was an American garden author with enthusiasm, experience, and a way of sharing her knowledgeable insights through her own garden; as in ‘Helen Van Pelt Wilson’s Own Garden and Landscape Book’. I believe that is what I now most try to do in writing the articles, even the rather dry plant and cultivation descriptions, which I try to enliven with personal opinions, anecdotes, and tips I found to be of use.

I read many English authors, as well. Penelope Hobhouse, Margery Fish, and the venerable writings of Gertrude Jekyll have all left their mark on my conscious desire to make and share the making of a garden.

Do Not Underestimate Your Neighbors

When I lived in the city, it became apparent how much my neighbors and I encouraged and inspired each other to create beautiful gardens. It is a synergy that has to be experienced! Not so much “Keep up with the Joneses” as a brainstorm of ideas, sharing of plants, and mutual admiration. I will always be thankful for that group of people at that time in my life.

We were a motley crew in a rundown neighborhood, trying valiantly to restore our homes and give civility to our neighborhoods. There was something of a golden age to it, but eventually we all moved on and the darkness won… it returned to a place of transient renters, and absentee landlords. Sad, but the time of our success as a group stays with me.

Time marches on and neighbors move….

I moved into the country, my favorite neighbors moved to Canada, the couple from California- who were always motivating for more community spirit and activism- moved on, and eventually we all did. For me, it was when a crazy with a baseball bat took to smashing cars, and an undercover policeman pulled out his gun, while we stared with disbelief from our porch swing one summer evening. Still, I believe that if people are proactive enough, they can be a source of optimism to raise the bar for the entire area they live in.

So here is a salute to those gardeners of my old neighborhood, who were inventive, hardworking, generous, and believing. We made our places better for each other and those who visited our street…. back in the day.

You inspired me and made my gardening better than it would have been without you.

Join Me As I Share Inniswood Public Gardens with You

Online Garden Information – Your Opinions Matter

Is it just me or do you believe that online information is a mixed bag?

What is your favorite way to get the answer you need to your garden questions?

Are garden websites meeting your needs?

• Most garden information online seems sketchy, I am not sure I trust it
• I am in a hurry. I usually choose from the first page of google searches
• I liked the garden websites before they became mega sites
• I love the mega sites and one-stop information portals<
• I like the sites of my Garden TV favorites
• I don’t like garden information online -give me a book
• I keep my favorite garden sites bookmarked, those I trust
• I wish someone would get me a list of great garden sites
• I love all kinds of garden sites

Create Your Landscape Plan – Easy to use software

Don’t let a lack of drawing skills prevent you from creating a visual plan for your landscape. There are many software programs to use. If you know how to make dream boards or collages, those, too, could be drafted to put your ideas into a visual plan for your plantings.

One Minute Garden Tip

Buy Good Quality Garden Supplies – Good tools + good books= good garden

OK- you need to throw in some hard work, but…

Buy from those you trust… and that means tool and book suggestions. Has the person offering you advice actually gardened, themselves? Do they know what it is like to have a poor quality tool break at the handle, or look for information in a book that is pretty, but pretty useless? One thing that really improves the level of advice is topical experience. I chose Smith & Hawken products here because I have used them personally for years. When I see that name I think of good design and good quality.

Many photos are from my own garden

What You Can Find On My Garden Page

The Main Areas of Information

Style and Design Pages – Descriptions of popular garden styles and their characteristics, features and plants of that style of garden, and some how-to tips are all important topics for gardeners. I try to cover all those interests.

Styles like “Cottage gardening”, “New American”, “English style”, and “French Potager” are some articles available.

Plant Highlights and Profiles– Pages for the main types of plants: Annuals, Perennials, Bulbs, Trees and Shrubs, with highlight pages on my personal favorites. Profile posts giving plant descriptions, growing information ( height, width, hardiness zone, propagation, companion plants, and fun facts). Plant and flower photos.

“Learn to Grow It” pages– how to grow a simple herb garden, a starter vegetable patch, list of the best propagation info, and urban gardening pages… all kinds of growing-knowing stuff.

How the Garden (Site) Grew

First came the experiment in blogging, “Ilona’s Garden Journal on Blogger, in 2003. As garden writing progressed, and Ilona’s Garden grew, I transferred the personal gardening journal blog to its own site:

Garden blog with Ohio related posts.

Then I felt like opening another site to hold the product and book reviews. This became The Garden Librarian.

A sample of reviews:

CobraHead® Original Weeder & Cultivator Garden Hand Tool – Forged Steel Blade – Recycled Plastic Handle – Ergonomically Designed for Digging, Edging & Planting – Gardeners Love Our Most Versatile Tool

One of THE best weeders bar none. The only one I like better is a Cape Cod Weeder, and this one goes neck and neck with it. I do occasional reviews of products I use, and hope to increase that part of my garden writing because there are so many tools and books out there.
Buy Now

How Did I Live Without A Leaf Vacuum?
I love trees and my yard has lots of them. But when autumn comes, all that leaf litter needs something besides me to do the clean-up job. I have an opinion on which leaf vacuum is best.

To help pay for things like hosting, domain name fees, template costs, etc I have affiliate links. Whether connected to reviews or within the garden information content, I have links to helpful products and useful books on Amazon.

Start a Garden Bookshelf and Tool Collection – Everyone needs good tools and good resource books.

My Personal Garden Recommendations

On Amazon

I’ve selected books that I think are worth putting into your garden library, and chosen tools that will help you garden well.

Examples can be found at this link: Garden Advice for an English Style Garden.

Why Have Sales Onsite?

A website has costs that are partially supported by readers who use the affiliate links to buy on Amazon. I pay yearly costs for the domain name, hosting, an attractive theme, and some of the plugins which add function to the site.

I also buy gear and software memberships to make graphics for it; Adobe and canvas are just two of these. (Garden websites, especially, need many photos and illustrations.)

What Type of Links Are of Value to Readers?

Besides books, I have always tried to include links to expert and useful information on other websites. But since the garden topic space is so full of books of varying quality I have tried to weed through to find the best ones for my readers.

For books, the authors I’ve chosen to highlight are those who have influenced me tremendously. I think other gardeners will benefit from their books, too.

The Well-Designed Mixed Garden: Building Beds and Borders with Trees, Shrubs, Perennials, Annuals, and Bulbs

This is a garden author who hales from Ohio and offers some of the best gardening information for all levels of gardeners. Her books are a MUST for the bookshelf.

 Buy Now

Recommending Garden Tools

The tools I recommend are those that I really have used in my gardening experience over the years.

And there is nothing like a good solid trowel to really dig into your own yard gardening adventure. Some I have reviewed, but most simply are linked in my writing.

How The Site Got Started

…once upon a time in Geocities…

A son needed something constructive to do with his interest in computers and the internet, so he was assigned the task of setting up a personal website for his mother in 1998. Divided into sections that mirrored her life experiences, the garden section became the most updated and evolving part of the site. No surprise, since gardening had been a passion of hers for many years. Thus, “Ilona’s Garden” flowered from the sprouts of a desire to share “over the fence” garden advice and enthusiasm.

How did it look back then? Check the wayback machine.

Eventually, in 2007, it was decided (by me, finally) that it was time for its own domain -to take this garden website writing seriously!

After moving the original pages to ilonasgarden.com, the detour into blogging made WordPress the obvious choice to use for continuing the site ( which is run, written and composed by one person, Ilona). Garden writing demands photo illustrations, so that is one effort that is seeing more development. Photos from wonderful sources such as morguefile and Flickr Creative Commons are a real boon, too.

Today the site is growing with special emphasis placed on getting plant profiles published of plants grown in Ilona’s Garden. Branching out into articles on Urban and Food gardening, the gardening of her roots is finding space, as well.

You are always welcome at Ilona’s Garden.

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