It’s getting pret-ty darn chilly outside, and I don’t know about you, but most of my gardening activity in the last couple weeks has been planning, dreaming, and viewing my garden from indoors, thank you very much. Even my chickens are resting in … [Continue reading]
I don’t know about you, but the actual getting-gifts-for-people part of Christmas kind of crept up on me, and I’m scurrying to find or make just the right thing for everyone I love. Gardeners can be hard to shop for, because so many people give us … [Continue reading]
Christmas is my very favorite time of year! I begin singing Christmas carols in July, and by September it's all I can do not to annoy people with the minutiae of my Christmas plans. Creative and homemade is where it's at - I love Christmas … [Continue reading]
I am a huge fan of Geranium ‘Rozanne’. Here’s a plant that’s gotten tons of press in the last few years (tons of press for a plant at least!), winning all kinds of plant-y awards and generally being the plant world’s Paris Hilton. Except ‘Rozanne’? … [Continue reading]
If you’ve been finding the time to work in your garden in the last couple months, you probably have most of your fall trimming done – deadheading Lavender, Scotch and Irish Heather/ Heath, and Hydrangeas; and cutting back your Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, … [Continue reading]
If you’ve been following my Fall Planting Series, you’ll know why fall is such a great time of year to plant! This is also the perfect time to see where your garden is lacking in winter interest, and to add some year-round stars to perk things … [Continue reading]
Heathers are one of my favorite winter-interest plants. There are Ericas (Heaths) which bloom around November and December, Daboecia (Irish Heath) which bloom spring to late fall, and Callunas (Scotch Heather) which bloom in summer but often have … [Continue reading]
I read an inspiring post by Fern over at Life On The Balcony this week with some tips for how to enjoy container gardening with physical limitations. She covers some great ways of training your plants to suit your needs, reducing watering, and … [Continue reading]
If you’ve read a gardening magazine in the last ten years, you know how hot ornamental grasses are. We rely on them for a bold foliage accent, but so many go dormant in winter, just when we most want their striking foliage display. The … [Continue reading]
Have you ever read a plant tag and wondered just how much sun “part sun” is? Or tried to figure out if a plant wanting “full sun” would make it in the spot that you have? Plant tags and gardening gurus spit out these terms and assume that we’ll … [Continue reading]
While the twigs and branches of dormant shrubs have their own interest, if your garden doesn't have much variety in winter, things can be dull. A quick fix for those bare areas is to tuck a few winter-interest fillers in the foreground, to bring a … [Continue reading]