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Monday Miscellany: Tuesday Edition
Yeah, so I’m a day late to hit Monday Miscellany on an actual Monday. But you wouldn’t have had me miss out on the Labor Day sunshine, would you? Anyway, let’s jump right in to some of the cool stuff happening around the web in the last week. The North Coast Almanack Amy Stewart, best…
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The Ten Best Native Plants for Coastal Northern California Wildlife by Peter Haggard
On the heels of our recent Garden Designers Roundtable on Inviting Nature Into the Garden, I wanted to share a resource that I’ve been finding incredibly helpful in recent months. While we all know that planting natives is a good way to attract more life into our gardens, if we only have space for a…
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Plants to Love: Dwarf Fleeceflower (Persicaria affinis ‘Dimity’)
This low-maintenance perennial forms a slowly spreading mat of thick green foliage, and at the end of summer bursts into bloom with a multi-colored show. The buds start out pale pink and fade to deep rose, eventually turning a rich rusty brown for fall. The foliage too gives a fall show, getting a bronzey-red tone…
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How Fabulous, Interesting and Unusual Plants Keep People From Becoming Gardeners
Was reading a post over at The Blogging Nurseryman where Trey discusses what gardeners really want to see in independent garden centers. (Go read it, I’ll wait. You don’t want to miss Amy Stewart‘s rant on the topic.) She brought up that Garden Rant’s reader survey indicated overwhelmingly that passionate gardeners want to see more…
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Book Review of Lavender: The Grower’s Guide by Virginia McNaughton
Lavender: The Grower’s Guide is a thorough and easy-to-use encyclopedia of the lavender varieties most common in production today. Virginia McNaughton begins the book strongly by discussing how to grow lavender, how to prune it, the special requirements of lavenders, which ones grow well in containers, and the pests and diseases that can strike lavender…
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Plants to Love: Snowmound Spirea (Spirea x nipponica ‘Snowmound’)
‘Snowmound’ Spirea (USDA Zones 4-9) is a lovely thing, with deep green leaves, reddish stems, a graceful arching habit and rounded form. It loses its leaves, but doesn’t make a mess about it, and the white flowers in spring make you forget that you missed it all winter. ‘ Snowmound’ needs full sun to do…
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Attracting Wildlife: Simple Things You Can Do
Recently I was talking with a native plant aficionado, and she was telling me that the turning point for her in going native was when she looked around her gorgeous landscape, and realized it was barren of animal life. She had a garden simply brimming with flowers and beauty – but very little of the…
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Plants to Love: New Zealand Wind Grass (Stipa arundinacea/ Anemanthele lessoniana)
New Zealand Wind Grass is a stunning low-maintenance grass that keeps its glowing orange foliage all winter long. I occasionally have to prune out some dead bits here or there, which I do by grasping a small clump of dead foliage and cutting it out at the base so you don’t notice it’s been pruned.…
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The Snail Martyrs
I often see statues of Buddha in people’s gardens, and every time I do, I have a small secret smile, because I know an old story about the Buddha that most people haven’t yet heard. It involves one of our most-hated garden pests and the sacrifice they made to further the cause of enlightened thought.…
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Plants to Love: Rozanne Hardy Cranesbill (Geranium ‘Rozanne’)
Geranium ‘Rozanne’ (USDA Zones 4/5-9) is a lovely tumbling plant that gets between 4 and 5’ around, and about 2’ tall. She’s been the darling of the landscape designer crowd since being introduced a few years back, and even though we all plant her all the time, we’re sticking our fingers in our ears and…
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Monday Miscellany: Bawdy Hymenopteras, Beautifying Barbeques, and Brilliantly Bad Plant Names
The ladies over at Garden Rant are having far too much fun again, first running a Bawdy Hymenoptera Limerick contest for the new Timber Press book Bees, Wasps, and Ants, then challenging the folks over at Timber to recite the winners on video for the gardening public’s enjoyment. I believe bee suits were mentioned in…