Yes, I live in the boonies. My fellow Humboldt County peeps know - it's like pulling teeth to get anyone to visit here because of that extra plane ride or seven-hour drive from San Francisco's airport. So you all can imagine my delight when I … [Continue reading]
Newbie gardeners are greeted to the gardening book section by thick encyclopedias on Crocus, for example, or how to design in specific styles. But when I was a new gardener, I didn't know what style I wanted to design in. And I was still working my … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
When H. Potter first sent me a Wardian case to try out, I was thinking of it as a pretty way of making small seasonal displays, and possibly a nice way of also rooting cuttings while having things look attractive. Little did I know that its … [Continue reading]
So many of my fellow landscapers came to it after an unsatisfying career in another field. While turning your passion into your career has a lot of pitfalls (what do you do for fun when you've been working 60-hour weeks at your hobby?), landscaping … [Continue reading]
Carrying on with the Five Books meme, here are my top favorites for Pacific Northwest gardeners: The Sunset Western Garden Book If by some magic or miracle you haven't yet got a copy of this, go out right now and get it. This is the "duh" addition … [Continue reading]
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! … [Continue reading]
Reading this thorough design primer is like getting to chat with a knowledgeable and friendly expert for a few hours about how to create effective windbreaks, conserve on your heating and cooling bills through landscaping, create new energy sources … [Continue reading]
I recently found the website Five Books: The Best Five Books on Everything, where they ask experts to name the five books in their field that everyone should read. (EDIT Jan 20: Looks like FiveBooks.com just got purchased by TheBrowser.com, but there … [Continue reading]
"A rubber rake? Seriously?" That was Amy's reaction when we opened the carton of English gardening tools from Clarington Forge. My reaction? "YES!!! IT'S A RUBBER RAKE!!!" I'd never seen a rubber rake before, but I was immediately taken … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]