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Monday Miscellany: DIY Holiday Gifts
Finally! Thanksgiving has passed, and I can talk about the holidays without incurring the wrath of Nordstrom’s and everyone else who is tired of seeing the holiday décor turn up in August. Woot! I don’t know about all y’all, but I’m feeling a major push towards simplicity and homemade gifts this year. I mean, a…
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The Visitor’s Guide to American Gardens
If your winter “gardening” is usually comprised of bulb and perennial catalogs, highlighters, and very little in the way of actual outdoor gardening, then I have a new tool to make your winter plotting that much more exciting. Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp has written The Visitor’s Guide to American Gardens, which is a beautifully-organized and…
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Evergreen Huckleberry in Oklahoma? Reader Q and A
Jack out in Oklahoma read about my native evergreen huckleberry, Vaccinium ovatum, and wondered whether it might grow in his area: “Will this actually grow in Oklahoma City area? Or is it a borderline plant for our state? Thank you, Jack” Jack, a little poking around online at the USDA website shows that the evergreen…
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Selling Your Home? Score Some Curb Appeal Fast
When selling your home, it really stinks to spend money on improvements that you may not recoup. However, it stinks worse to have your perfectly lovely home sit for ages, unsold, because that first impression isn’t all it could be. Recently, I wrote about a few weird tricks that are inexpensive but generate some serious…
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How Small Can I Prune My Shrub or Tree? A Rule of Thumb
This is a question most of us pros have come to dread. Not because we dislike answering questions, but because the subtext is so often, “I want a particular tree, but I don’t have room for it. May I have your professional go-ahead to hack the holy hell out of it to keep it to…
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Kindle Awesome: Free Gardening Books for Amazon Prime Members
I was delighted to read about Amazon’s new Kindle lending library for Prime members, where we can choose from 5,300 books to borrow and read on our Kindle. While the list of people who have both a Kindle and an Amazon Prime account may be small, if you’re on that list (like me!) I think you’ll…
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What’s Wrong With My Fern? Brown Leaves on Ferns
Does your fern have shriveled, brown fronds or a bleached, discolored appearance? We know that people are susceptible to sunburn, but we don’t think of plants as being able to get sunburned as well. It’s a common problem. When shade-loving plants like ferns are put into a sunny situation, their fronds shrivel around the edges,…
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Deep Dark Plants for Halloween and Beyond
Photo at left: Mackerel showing his love of Phormium ‘Black Adder’ October always makes me want to curl up with my gardening books and highlight the deliciously wicked black plants found within. But you don’t need to limit black and dark plants to Halloween. They can fit into pretty much any garden scheme, from English…
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Dark Designs: Black Foliage in the Garden
With Halloween around the corner, what more appropriate topic to tackle than darkness? Specifically, dark and black foliage. Black is dramatic. Unexpected. It’s all about contrast – between dark and light, living and dead. Like a glittered Day of the Dead skeleton, there’s a playfulness there, along with a somber dignity. Darkness in the garden…
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Fine Gardening Magazine: Four Quick Design Fixes (on Newsstands Now)
I’m absolutely elated to have my first feature article in this month’s Fine Gardening magazine. It’s about four quick design fixes that homeowners can make in order to have a more beautiful garden with minimal effort. There are five sets of “before and after” photos of gardens that I’ve worked on and designed, so each…
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Alpine Strawberries – Nature’s SweetTarts
Pictured: a normal strawberry, ‘Rugen Improved’ alpine, ‘Yellow Alpine’, and ‘Golden Alexandria’ berries Alpine strawberries. Seriously, have you guys tried these things? They’re like little red garden crackberries. They’re definitely one of my favorite things to grow at home, not the least because you can’t actually buy them in stores. Mine start going downhill as…