-
Monday Miscellany: Book Review Excitement
Loads of exciting book-related things happening lately, from new entries to the Five Books meme, to book launch parties for The Edible Front Yard and Garden Up!, plus our friends over at Garden Rant becoming regulars at Kirkus Reviews! Starting us off, I want to share a garden book review blog called Gardening by the…
-
The Fiskars UpRoot Weeder: An Organic Way of Getting Dandelions Out of Your Lawn and Garden
When I heard about this tool, I knew I had to have one. As an organic gardener, I find it extremely hard to keep dandelions out of the lawn. The herbicides that can be used in lawns are so nasty that I can’t bring myself to use them. But the constant up and down, bending…
-
Fiskars PowerGear Lopper: Video Review In Which The Buddleja Gets It
Ever since a Buddleja gave me a six-month long sinus infection a couple years back, I’ve taken every possible opportunity to convince people to kill the darn things. After all, they’re invasive in my county as well as in parts of Oregon and Washington, and yeah – if you’ve ever stood beneath one and tried…
-
Fiskars PowerGear Pruning Shear: Rolling Handle Pruners That Don’t Kill Your Pocketbook
One of my most popular posts has been a Hand Pruner Showdown in which I compared and contrasted Felcos, Coronas, and Bahcos. One of the first comments on that post was a Fiskars fan, saying essentially – “OMG! Try the Fiskars pruners – they’re inexpensive AND ergonomic”. And so they are! Now that I’ve tried…
-
Fiskars Cuts + More Scissors: For Gardeners Who Enjoy a Cocktail
Even in winter, at a certain hour of the evening I feel drawn to the garden to check on things and putter about, snipping a few stems of chard and some herbs for dinner, watering this, weeding that. There’s very little that could improve a peaceful half hour of puttering in the garden. You know…
-
Five Books: for Beginning Gardeners
Newbie gardeners are greeted to the gardening book section by thick encyclopedias on Crocus, for example, or how to design in specific styles. But when I was a new gardener, I didn’t know what style I wanted to design in. And I was still working my way through the common, easy-to-grow plants – I think…
-
H. Potter Wardian Case: A Study in Kitties
When H. Potter first sent me a Wardian case to try out, I was thinking of it as a pretty way of making small seasonal displays, and possibly a nice way of also rooting cuttings while having things look attractive. Little did I know that its highest and best use is as a kitten-safe decorating…
-
Five Books: If You Want to Turn Your Passion for Gardening Into a Career
So many of my fellow landscapers came to it after an unsatisfying career in another field. While turning your passion into your career has a lot of pitfalls (what do you do for fun when you’ve been working 60-hour weeks at your hobby?), landscaping is a fantastic career just because there are so many directions…
-
Five Books: for Pacific Northwest Gardeners
Carrying on with the Five Books meme, here are my top favorites for Pacific Northwest gardeners: The Sunset Western Garden Book If by some magic or miracle you haven’t yet got a copy of this, go out right now and get it. This is the “duh” addition to the list; it’s usually the first book…
-
Book Review of Energy-Wise Landscape Design by Sue Reed
Reading this thorough design primer is like getting to chat with a knowledgeable and friendly expert for a few hours about how to create effective windbreaks, conserve on your heating and cooling bills through landscaping, create new energy sources to reduce your dependence on the grid, and generally preserve and conserve at every step in…
-
Five Books: Essential Reads for Gardeners
I recently found the website Five Books: The Best Five Books on Everything, where they ask experts to name the five books in their field that everyone should read. (EDIT Jan 20: Looks like FiveBooks.com just got purchased by TheBrowser.com, but there are still links to the Five Books articles up.) I love to read.…