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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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Grow Your Own Microbrew! How to Grow Hops
As an ornamental gardener, I’m used to growing hops as a summer screen for chicken coops, bare walls and other elements in the garden that can be unsightly. It’s easy to grow, but needs to be sited just right, as it has an eat-your-home style of rapacious growth that can be either exactly what you…
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Got No Pot? Grow Tomatoes Right in the Bag!
Here in Humboldt County, it’s time to plant warm-season vegetables like tomatoes, zucchini and more. But some of us don’t have a plot of land to work, and sometimes, there’s not enough cash to buy a pot. I mean, have you seen the cost of pots these days? Some of them can run pretty steep.…
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How to Plant a Hanging Basket With an Angel Moss Liner
Years ago, when I worked at a local independent garden center, one of my favorite winter activities was creating moss baskets to sell. We used loose sphagnum moss to line the baskets, and stuffed the sides and tops with lettuces, annuals and herbs. It was a blast! So when Discoveries in Gardening asked if I’d…
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Planting the Triolife Triangular Planter (Kitty “Helped”)
I’ll admit it: I’m bad with containers. I love planting them, placing them and admiring them. What I’m not so great at is watering them. So when Eartheasy offered to send me one of these stylish triangular Triolife planters to test out, I wasn’t feeling too confident that I’d be able to create an effect…
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Small Space Container Gardens by Fern Richardson
Longtime readers will know I’ve been a fan of Fern’s stylish blog Life on the Balcony for some time. Fern’s like an approachable version of Martha Stewart for container gardeners – while her photos and ideas are gorgeously inspiring, her projects are never so difficult or time-consuming that I feel I couldn’t possibly fit them…
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Planting in Tight Spaces with Smart Pots
Recently I had a client who wanted some plants tucked behind her waterfall. The waterfall had been built right up against her fence, so there was no real planting area – you can’t just pile up soil against a fence, of course. Enter the Smart Pots. Because the spaces were so cramped and oddly-shaped, there…
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Greenland Gardener Wall Garden Kit
If you’ve read Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet’s book Garden Up! about vertical gardening, you’ve seen the drool-worthy photos of succulent walls. You might have even thought about getting one of those flat wooden frames to make one of your own. The problem with so many of those succulent wall frames is they require patience,…
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Contained: Planter Ideas for Balcony Gardens from the 2011 San Francisco Garden Show
The San Francisco Garden Show had a ton of container plantings accenting the display landscapes, and standing on their own. The nice thing about displays of containers is that you can generally recreate them at home with little fuss. Here are some of the highlights from the show:
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Amy and Gen Tropicanna the Garden: a Giveaway!
***Giveaway below*** Outside of the garden, I’m attracted to cool, subdued colors, like purples, blues, blacks and greys. But lately, in the garden? Give me some color! Wild, exuberant color, that shocks the eyes and cheers the soul. So when the kind folks out at Tesselaar Plants offered to send Amy Stewart and I some…
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Monday Miscellany: Twitter, Container Ideas, and Garden TV
The garden blogging world seemed to take a short hiatus from posting cool stuff when spring first arrived, but now they’re back in force, with all kinds of new ideas, hot photos, and inspiration we can bring back to our own homes and gardens. The last couple weeks have seen some great lists of gardening…