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Homemade Christmas Gifts For You Procrastinators Out There
Wow, so here it is, almost Christmas, and you don’t have presents for anyone. Whoops! I guess that plan to learn to knit and make everyone personalized sweaters will have to wait till next year. But you don’t want to be a sell-out to materialism and just get a gift card for all your loved…
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Clarington Forge Rubber Rake Winner!
Becky V, congrats on winning the drawing for the Clarington Forge rubber rake! I hope you enjoy your rubber rake as much as I’m enjoying mine. Have fun raking at 6 AM!
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Monday Miscellany: Gardening for the Blind, Sunflower Sprouts Indoors, and Dining Alfresco
My recent post on how to design a landscape for a person with colorblindness got a lot of attention from people who are colorblind or have other types of vision impairment or differences, and really got me thinking. So when Nancy Peck over at Garden Club Salon told me she was going to visit the…
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The Garden Rant Cocktail Hour
… in which I’m proven wrong about the vileness of Pimm’s, Elizabeth of Gardening While Intoxicated tries to set fire to her newly-remodeled kitchen, and writer Amy Stewart shows off some spiffy English gardening tools from Clarington Forge (stay tuned for more on that next week!). Thanks to the ladies of Garden Rant for hosting…
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Staying Warm While Winter Gardening
It’s gettin’ cold out there, yet in my coastal climate, we garden all year round. After getting frostbitten toes one particularly nasty winter, I did some research to figure out how I could work outside even when it is C-H-I-L-L-Y out there! I share my tips in this video: Things mentioned in the video: Toasti-Toes…
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Monday Miscellany: Lime on Rhodies, Xeriscape Gardens and Wicked Bugs!
Don over at Singing Tree Gardens shared some new research with us this time last year – apparently, even though Rhododendrons are acid-loving plants and lime sweetens the soil, they respond very well to the added magnesium in the soil that comes from applying dolomite lime in fall: Adding dolomitic lime around the dripline of…
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Monday Miscellany: Salamanders and Fall Pruning
If you’ve been paying attention to the blogosphere lately you’ve probably noticed The Great Leaf Debate going on. While reading the pros and cons of leaving fall leaves, I wanted to do a bit of research on salamanders, who often live in fallen leaves. Wouldn’t you know it, one of the first articles I found…
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Floppy ‘Autumn Joy’ Sedum
Garden question from JohnOhConnor on YouTube: I have three mature (2ft x 2ft) Autumn Joy in my garden. By mid summer they have flopped over like a large animal had sat down in the middle of the plant. I guess this is normal for the plant or is there anything I can do to prevent…
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Why Gardening Matters
When I was in my late teens, I ended up in the hospital for over a month with lungs that kept collapsing. The glare of the fluorescent lights and the constant beeping and thrumming of the various machines invaded my consciousness, and seeing the great outdoors again after a month of sterility was overwhelming –…
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Monday Miscellany: Pruners, Leaf Litter, and Attracting Pollinators
Was absolutely delighted to get this awesome comment from Heuchera on my Hand Pruner Showdown post comparing the different types of pruning shears: Recently I lost my old Felcos and needed to find a new pair. I had owned a different model, so I decided to research the web to see if the No. 2?s…
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Monday Miscellany: Water Conservation, Snootiness in Pruning, and How to Become Popular Using Fruit
Blog Action Day came and went last week, leaving in its wake a number of excellent posts about how to be more eco with your water use. If you’re not in the know about Blog Action Day, every October 15th bloggers of every stripe are invited to post on the same topic, to try to…