Dear Gardening Friends, Take a look at this picture. Don’t do this in your garden. Now, it’s not that I have anything against gnomes. They can be cute in their own stumpy, strange way. But why burden your beds and borders with–dare I say it? ugly statuary—when you can have a beautiful garden instead? Say [...]
The catalogs, that is. In January, my mailbox is stuffed with gardening offers, and today brought a fantastic catalog from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I’m still shaking my head at how expensive it must have been to produce and mail, because it’s oversized, with glossy, magazine-type pages. And it’s packed with so many intriguing flowers, [...]
Have you noticed that the stores are already putting out Valentine’s Day gifts? Hard to believe, since I’m still putting away Christmas lights, but it reminds me that florist shops will soon be bursting with gorgeous tulips in (almost) every shade of the rainbow. Sadly, I’ve never had any luck getting tulips to come back [...]
One of the most attractive features you can add to a garden is water, whether it’s in the form of a pond, fountain, or man made brook. Water sounds so soothing when it gurgles and trickles and bubbles. Even the backyard birds can’t resist it; they’ll often drop by for a quick drink or bath. [...]
Maybe you’ve never heard of NOAA, so let me introduce you. NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, pronounced like No-ah, or Noah, the guy who built that big ark when it rained. NOAA is part of the U.S. government’s department of commerce (commerce? Yep. Apparently its mission to protect lives and property and [...]
Okay, I’ll admit: you won’t find any trashy talk here today, no matter what my heading says. But we are going to talk about trash, because today’s blog is about compost. As you probably know, compost is simply a mixture of decaying vegetation and well-rotted manure. You can make it by putting your kitchen scraps [...]
Happy New Year’s Day! If you’re like me, you’ve been oohing and ahhing over the fantastic floral designs and floats in the Tournament of Roses Parade. I needed all that splashy color now that we’re in the gray days of winter. Makes me yearn for spring. But spring is still some time away, so instead [...]