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The Latest Gardening Apps for iPhone and Android
Since I joined the modern world in getting a smart phone last year, I’ve been on the lookout for great gardening apps that can help me explain landscape design ideas to clients, get plant ideas on the go, or just give me a productive way of killing time when I’m stuck in line at the…
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Book Review of Lawn Gone: Attractive Alternatives to Lawn
While I love having a minimalist patch of organic lawn in my backyard for the cats and chickens to run around on, as a landscape designer I am thoroughly “over” using lawn as the default option. It takes more maintenance, fertilizer, and water than just about anything else in the landscape, yet it gives nothing…
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Why Grow That When You Can Grow This?: The Book
“Let’s face it: the garden is a popularity contest. High school is a metaphor for life, and gardening is no exception. Step into our gardens and we find the prom queen and the star quarterback, the cheerleader and the rebel who cut class. Popular plants rule today’s landscapes the same way popular kids rule the…
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Cool Fall Reads: New Books, Old Faves, And Some Great Deals
The chilly air, fall wind, and damp everything have harshed my gardening mellow over the last few weeks. Luckily, the downturn in weather has coincided with a rush of new books and some great deals on old favorites, so I can enjoy a connection with the outdoors without actually having to, you know, go outside.…
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The Bottomless Planter Box from Outerior Decor
I’ve been lucky enough over the previous months to get an inside peek into the making of Amy Stewart’s cocktail garden to celebrate her new Drunken Botanist book, and have gotten to look at a number of clever products and construction techniques along the way. One of those clever products is the Outerior Décor series…
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Garrett Wade Professional Gardener’s Digging Tool
I’ve written a lot in the past about soil knives, because, well, they’re awesome. If you’re still gardening with a trowel or a dandelion fork, for goodness’ sake stop reading this post right now and go buy a soil knife. (Oh, wait – don’t stop reading yet, this is actually kind of relevant.) Soil knives…
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The Clarington Forge Rubber Rake: The Coolest Tool You Never Knew You Needed
Sometimes you come across a tool that solves so many problems you wonder how you went so long without hearing about it. The Clarington Forge rubber rake is one of those tools. “A rubber rake?” I hear you asking incredulously. “Really? WTF?” I’ll forgive you for asking, because if you remember our review of the…
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The Clarington Forge Rubber Rake: How To Change The Tines
This doesn’t need a lot of explanation, so I’ll get right to it: Here’s how to change the tines on your Clarington Forge Wizard or Merlin rubber rake.
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The Roo Weeding and Harvesting Apron
While I’m usually kind of a minimalist when it comes to new tools, I have to admit that my previous strategy for harvesting eggs, berries, squash, and apples wasn’t really working. For eggs, I would stick as many as I could into my pockets and my hands and try very hard not to smash or…
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Doofus-Proof Watering: Adjustable Sprinkler and Timer from Dramm
The initial plan for my home garden was to set up an automated drip irrigation system, but as my garden evolved, I realized how difficult it would be to make that type of setup work for me. Drip systems work best on gardens that have lots of individual shrubs and plants, and I have the…
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Hose Couture with Dramm’s ColorStorm Line
Why are most garden hoses so ugly? It’s as though twenty years ago, hose manufacturers decided to pick the most glaringly obvious shade of minty green for all their hoses, and never revisited that decision despite having ample reason to do so. I mean, that hose color is pale enough to show algae stains and…