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Holland Bulb Farms is having a garden photo contest. And no, not getting paid to tell you this (I wish) just thought I entered so others might want to too. Go and enter your own, or just vote for mine. Please? Here are my entries. They allow you to upload as...
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair – The bees are stirring -birds are on the wing – And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I...
Extend the Harvest: How to Make Jam
This isn’t strictly a gardening post, strictly, but as I look outside and see the cold barren wasteland of Hoth I can’t really write much about gardening, can I? However, extending your harvest is something that is interesting and useful for all people who grow edible plants, which is a whole...
How to fix a tree with a split trunk from wind damage
Readers of this blog will know that my favorite tree is my forest pansy redbud, indeed the related posts you’ll find at the bottom of this missive will point to the other blog posts where I have mentioned it. I love this tree because it has spring interest, in the...
San Francisco’s New Composting Law
I just heard about this on the news. Apparently today a new law in San Francisco took affect, enacting the strictest trash ordinance in the country. Everyone either has to compost at home, or get a separate bin to put their compostables in for curbside pickup, or be fined with...
I love big mophead hydrangeas, they do really well in shade or part sun, and get big bright flowers on them. They don’t do well north of where I am, but I’m pretty much at the northern border of where you’ll reliably get blooms every year, so I can grow...
Holland Bulb Farms is having a garden photo contest. And no, not getting paid to tell you this (I wish) just thought I entered so others might want to too. Go and enter your own, or just vote for mine. Please? Here are my entries. They allow you to upload as...
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair – The bees are stirring -birds are on the wing – And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I...
Extend the Harvest: How to Make Jam
This isn’t strictly a gardening post, strictly, but as I look outside and see the cold barren wasteland of Hoth I can’t really write much about gardening, can I? However, extending your harvest is something that is interesting and useful for all people who grow edible plants, which is a whole...
How to fix a tree with a split trunk from wind damage
Readers of this blog will know that my favorite tree is my forest pansy redbud, indeed the related posts you’ll find at the bottom of this missive will point to the other blog posts where I have mentioned it. I love this tree because it has spring interest, in the...
San Francisco’s New Composting Law
I just heard about this on the news. Apparently today a new law in San Francisco took affect, enacting the strictest trash ordinance in the country. Everyone either has to compost at home, or get a separate bin to put their compostables in for curbside pickup, or be fined with...
I love big mophead hydrangeas, they do really well in shade or part sun, and get big bright flowers on them. They don’t do well north of where I am, but I’m pretty much at the northern border of where you’ll reliably get blooms every year, so I can grow...
The Occasional Gardener
These crocus were a lovely sight, a little patch that had spilled over beyond someone's garden in Mamaroneck. There were more in the garden under the trees albeit not quite as spectacular as the ones I saw in Brooklyn a couple of years ago. Nevertheless it was still uplifting...
Up in Mamaroneck, two things stir the gardening impulse. Bright green chive shoots emerge in the vegetable garden to kick the year off. Later in the year they will drive me crazy keeping them in check, but right now they remind me of how dependable a tenant they are here....
The tediousness of the left brain chores I am currently mired in, has my right brain parched. Circumstances don't help either- trapped in a seemingly unending winter, there's little outside that inspires - it's just grimy snow and salt frosted sidewalks. Last night I dug out some old footage...
Not the garden variety. I have a pair of abstract encaustic paintings titled Seed that I've appropriately decided to seed my new Etsy shop with. It will be a place for me to sell artwork and perhaps some things for the home, some vintage things - all with a nature...
While NYC dips into temperatures below freezing again, I continue to work on designs for Summer 2011 and thought I would share an interesting trend prediction from Li Edelkoort's recent presentation - water. Not just aesthetically as in color palettes drawn from rivers, reefs, pools, oceans, mermaids and the like...
I just got round to noting Pantone's color of the year for 2010 - Turquoise 15-5519. My first garden related thought about the color was- Kyles' pot. Kyle, an artist friend living in Rhode Island that I visited while on vacation this year had the most beautiful collection of ceramic...
These crocus were a lovely sight, a little patch that had spilled over beyond someone's garden in Mamaroneck. There were more in the garden under the trees albeit not quite as spectacular as the ones I saw in Brooklyn a couple of years ago. Nevertheless it was still uplifting...
Up in Mamaroneck, two things stir the gardening impulse. Bright green chive shoots emerge in the vegetable garden to kick the year off. Later in the year they will drive me crazy keeping them in check, but right now they remind me of how dependable a tenant they are here....
The tediousness of the left brain chores I am currently mired in, has my right brain parched. Circumstances don't help either- trapped in a seemingly unending winter, there's little outside that inspires - it's just grimy snow and salt frosted sidewalks. Last night I dug out some old footage...
Not the garden variety. I have a pair of abstract encaustic paintings titled Seed that I've appropriately decided to seed my new Etsy shop with. It will be a place for me to sell artwork and perhaps some things for the home, some vintage things - all with a nature...
While NYC dips into temperatures below freezing again, I continue to work on designs for Summer 2011 and thought I would share an interesting trend prediction from Li Edelkoort's recent presentation - water. Not just aesthetically as in color palettes drawn from rivers, reefs, pools, oceans, mermaids and the like...
I just got round to noting Pantone's color of the year for 2010 - Turquoise 15-5519. My first garden related thought about the color was- Kyles' pot. Kyle, an artist friend living in Rhode Island that I visited while on vacation this year had the most beautiful collection of ceramic...
Gardening Tips 'n' Ideas
The Changing Garden: Practically Speaking
Here's what I did to change our garden this weekend....
The Changing Garden: Practically Speaking
Here's what I did to change our garden this weekend....
Growing a Beurre Bosc Pear Tree
Here's ahow to grow your own Bosc Pear tree....
Growing a Beurre Bosc Pear Tree
Here's ahow to grow your own Bosc Pear tree....
What is the Best Grass for Dogs?
Finding the best grass for dogs is quite simple - just look for something that grows quick and could easily survive a nuclear holocaust!...
What is the Best Grass for Dogs?
Finding the best grass for dogs is quite simple - just look for something that grows quick and could easily survive a nuclear holocaust!...
Gardening Examiner
Time left over for life: A review of The NEW Low-Maintenance Garden
Related Articles Garden books for the beginner Uniquely American: Great American Gardens Pretty produce: Organic Crops in PotsReader's Digest All-New Illustrated Guide to Gardening There have been years in which I spent 20 hours a week weedin......
Uniquely American: Great Gardens of America
Great Gardens of America profiles 25 diverse gardens from coast to coast in North America.What makes American gardens ‘American’?That is the question author Tim Richardson seeks to answer in his stunning new book Great Gardens of Ame......
Indulge your interest in birds: Join Project FeederWatch
Mourning doves gather at a hopper and platformfeeder in winter If your gardening chores are winding down but you're still missing the great outdoors, get your fix while contributing to science by signing up for Project Feederwatch.The purpose of th......
Gardening Nude with Shawna Coronado's green-health philosophy
Gardening Nude is Shawna Coronado's metaphor for hergood-health philosophy. Related Articles Pretty Produce: Organic Crops in Pots The Ultimate Gardener Garden books for the beginner Historic Charleston: A photo tour Don’t mistake......
Gardening 101: How do you avoid garden pests and diseases?
Careful attention to garden hygiene isn't just abouthow the garden looks. It can reduce the possibilityof pests and diseases. Even professional gardeners discover sickening diseases and pests in their gardens with alarming regularity. But practicing......
Vegetables 101: How do I grow cucumbers?
Cucumbers are simple to grow as long as you respect their need for full sun, well-enriched soil and plenty of water. Although cucumber plants are widely available at garden centers, big box stores and even grocery stores, the selection is lim......
Plant Talk
Cuba and The New York Botanical Garden
A Century of Plant Exploration and Research Brian M. Boom, Ph.D., is Director, Caribbean Biodiversity Program, and Melissa Tulig, is Associate Director of the Herbarium at The New York Botanical Garden. The Orchid Show: Cuba in Flower in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory provides an excellent occasion to draw attention to the...
Free Open House and Career Information Session Saturday
Grow at the Garden Through Adult Education Courses Pursue your passion for plants and gardening or get started on a new career this spring. Come to Saturday’s Open House to discover how you can grow at the Garden through Adult Education courses.Meet program coordinators, instructors, and graduates; tour the facilities; and...
The Orchid Show Spotlight: Sugar Mill Ruin
Jessica Blohm is Interpretive Specialist for Public Education. Christopher Columbus first landed in Cuba in 1492, leading the way to the country’s being settled in 1511 by the Spanish, who quickly discovered how well suited the land was for growing sugarcane. The plant, which is from the South Pacific island of...
Tip of the Week: Repotting Orchids—Making a Mix
Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. For hands-on demonstrations and orchid tips, join her in the Conservatory’s GreenSchool every Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. throughout The Orchid Show. A few weeks ago, I spent a quiet afternoon at the Nolen Greenhouses with my colleague Fintan O’Sullivan repotting orchids. We...
Orchid Show’s Cuban-born Designer Recalls Native Influences
Jorge Sánchez, president and co-founder of the landscape architecture firm Sánchez & Maddux in Palm Beach, Florida, designed this year’s Orchid Show. For Sánchez & Maddux to be awarded the opportunity to design The Orchid Show: Cuba in Flower was, indeed, a feather in our cap. The fact that the show...
Spring Fever: Catch It Saturday!
Prepare for Gardening Season with this Special All-Day Program Carol Capobianco is Editorial Content Manager at The New York Botanical Garden. It may not feel like it, but spring begins this month. Gardeners—me included—are chomping at the bit for it to get under way and for that telltale whiff in the...
Backyard Gardening Blog
Holland Bulb Farms is having a garden photo contest. And no, not getting paid to tell you this (I wish) just thought I entered so others might want to too. Go and enter your own, or just vote for mine. Please? Here are my entries. They allow you to upload as...
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair – The bees are stirring -birds are on the wing – And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I...
Extend the Harvest: How to Make Jam
This isn’t strictly a gardening post, strictly, but as I look outside and see the cold barren wasteland of Hoth I can’t really write much about gardening, can I? However, extending your harvest is something that is interesting and useful for all people who grow edible plants, which is a whole...
How to fix a tree with a split trunk from wind damage
Readers of this blog will know that my favorite tree is my forest pansy redbud, indeed the related posts you’ll find at the bottom of this missive will point to the other blog posts where I have mentioned it. I love this tree because it has spring interest, in the...
San Francisco’s New Composting Law
I just heard about this on the news. Apparently today a new law in San Francisco took affect, enacting the strictest trash ordinance in the country. Everyone either has to compost at home, or get a separate bin to put their compostables in for curbside pickup, or be fined with...
I love big mophead hydrangeas, they do really well in shade or part sun, and get big bright flowers on them. They don’t do well north of where I am, but I’m pretty much at the northern border of where you’ll reliably get blooms every year, so I can grow...
Holland Bulb Farms is having a garden photo contest. And no, not getting paid to tell you this (I wish) just thought I entered so others might want to too. Go and enter your own, or just vote for mine. Please? Here are my entries. They allow you to upload as...
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair – The bees are stirring -birds are on the wing – And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I...
Extend the Harvest: How to Make Jam
This isn’t strictly a gardening post, strictly, but as I look outside and see the cold barren wasteland of Hoth I can’t really write much about gardening, can I? However, extending your harvest is something that is interesting and useful for all people who grow edible plants, which is a whole...
How to fix a tree with a split trunk from wind damage
Readers of this blog will know that my favorite tree is my forest pansy redbud, indeed the related posts you’ll find at the bottom of this missive will point to the other blog posts where I have mentioned it. I love this tree because it has spring interest, in the...
San Francisco’s New Composting Law
I just heard about this on the news. Apparently today a new law in San Francisco took affect, enacting the strictest trash ordinance in the country. Everyone either has to compost at home, or get a separate bin to put their compostables in for curbside pickup, or be fined with...
I love big mophead hydrangeas, they do really well in shade or part sun, and get big bright flowers on them. They don’t do well north of where I am, but I’m pretty much at the northern border of where you’ll reliably get blooms every year, so I can grow...
Home Gardening News
Home and Garden Show begins Friday
Thousands from throughout the Tri-State Area will descend upon the Serbian-American Cultural Center beginning Friday to get a reprieve from the winter....
Jamie Durie's a globe-trotting, jet-setting, celebrity horticulturist. Maybe the only one....
Jennie Garth - Garth Grows Her Own Vegetables
Health nut JENNIE GARTH has turned her front lawn into a vegetable garden, so her three daughters can learn all about the benefits of eating organic produce....
Keen gardeners may be despairing about their late daffodils but experts say that the chill that has delayed spring will bring the best magnolia displays in decades....
Do you ever wonder how some people manage to have such beautiful plants in their gardens? You may think they shop somewhere special you've never heard about and know deep gardening secrets, but you, too, can create an inspiring landscape and grow beautiful and healthy plants....
Gays on television are usually portrayed as good looking fashionistas -- not on Comedy Central's The Sarah Silverman Program where her next door neighbors -- Brian Spukowski and Steve Myron -- are big goofy stoner who play video games....
A Way to Garden — A Way to Garden
growing fancy-leaf begonias, indoors and out
IN LATE WINTER ‘YOU JUST TRY TO KEEP THEM BARELY ALIVE,’ Mobee Weinstein said the other day when we met at a professional event. I was lamenting my winter-weary collection back at home, and consoled to hear from a pro that I wasn’t abusing my begonias, plants that Mobee, longtime...
at last, a new beginning: first bloom of 2010
IT’S OFFICIAL: A NEW GARDEN SEASON IS UNDER WAY. Or so the winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis, told me today, once the fast-receding snow finally let it speak up. My official sentinel of spring, whom I have mentioned before, has reported for duty. Hallelujah. Related posts:the sunniest of bulbs: eranthis hyemalis I...
doodle by andre: beaten into submission
THAT ANDRE IS TURNING INTO A KEEN GARDENER. Now he’s using newspaper to kill weeds, like we all do. His take is, um, a little “different,” though. In Andre the doodler’s own words: “Reading as I always do, your ‘things to do list’ – please find attached doodle about thwarting...
a harvest of garden links from my recent travels
LET’S BE HONEST: WE ALL WEB-SURF, RIGHT? What better diversion is there while waiting until (what hopefully was) the last significant snow melts? The map of where I’ve been lately has pushpins inserted at a hodgepodge of pitstops, but that’s the fun: the ricochet that landed me a design for...
snowstorm aftermath: pruning, prayers, goodbyes
I OPENED MY MOUTH TOO SOON TWO WEEKS AGO when I said it had been an unremarkable winter here. Late February’s wet snows promptly pounded the Northeast region, and the garden. During the storm and since, I did a little triage—emphasis on little, since in many cases storm-damaged trees and...
This Garden Is Illegal
This weekend I am planting seeds, which for a gardener, is kind of like the first game of pre-season for baseball fans. The effort doesn’t really count towards the fruits of the season (after all, half the prospects in front of you will be tossed from the team, given away...
Hello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home? Come on, now, I hear you’re feeling down. Well I can ease your pain Get you on your feet again. Relax. I’ll need some information first. Just the basic facts. Can you show me where it grows? I am sorry. I abandoned you all....
Yellow Perfection Tomato: Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2009
Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2009 As far as yellow tomatoes go, well for me they are hit or miss. I have tried some really great yellow tomatoes, and others, well, not so much. The reason yellow tomatoes are so ambiguous on the flavor scale is the fact that...
Speckled Roman Tomato: Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2009
Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2009 This would be my freaky-deaky tomato of the season. It is a tomato that really, really wants people to think it is part of the very in hot pepper crowd. If you were not looking closely, you might mistake it for one. But...
Black From Tula Tomato: Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2009
Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2009 If tomatoes spoke, I imagine in my head that this one has a southern accent. Granted, according to its history, it would have a heavy Russian accent, but frankly, Tula does not sound like a cold Eastern Block city, but rather a warm and heavy...
Garden Blogs Directory
A blog devoted to a love of all things garden and home. For me gardening isn't a state of mind, it's a way of life. I love everything about it....
A dilettante's journey in gardening. Savoring the growing season in Illinois, with a warped view of voracious bunnies....
Tips and tricks, product reviews, seed selection and other information about growing heirloom fruits and vegetables in your backyard garden...
A blog about growing vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers for enjoyment...
Discover how two Canadian prairie gardeners makeover 400 feet of backyard into a Caribbean Oasis, with ponds, waterfall, perennial gardens and a sand beach....
Cold Climate Gardening
Choose locations to plant fall bulbs now
In January, the snowdrops in the Secret Garden looked like this: This Sunday just passed–March 7th–those same snowdrops looked like this: Such are the vagaries of an upstate New York winter. Since then, the temperatures have been mild and the sunshine brilliant, and the snow is receding. This, my fellow cold climate...
First Snowdrops: Status update
First snowdrops bloomed today *and* it got up to 61F. Yes, mud season is here!...
Forced Bulbs: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day February 2010
The bulbs that I am forcing have started to bloom. I put one hyacinth in a forcing glass into the basement on November 29th. I potted the rest up on December 5th. I brought them all up when I saw green tips emerging from the bulbs. I now realize this...
Cut Flowers Are a Frugal Luxury
I had long considered flowers from a florist to be a frivolous expense. You couldn’t plant them, and had nothing to show for it when they finally shriveled up and died. Spend the same amount on groceries, and at least you’ve fed your family, even if it still seems like...
Black Plants: 75 Striking Choices for the Garden by Paul Bonine is the kind of book that drives me wild. Seventy-five gorgeous plants and over half of them are not hardy for me. Wait. Maybe it’s just that half of the ones I want to grow aren’t hardy for me....
January Thaw Discoveries: Plants
The January thaw of last week provided me with an opportunity to “check under the hood”–or, in this case, under the snow cover. It’s always thought provoking, prompting me to think about how different plants respond to this cold season. This snapdragon looked perkier the last time I saw...
You Grow Girl: The Dirt
Click title to see full photo....
Click title to see full photo....
What’s on Your Windowsill? (Plus Giveaway)
A visit to Erika’s apartment a month back has inspired a new sense of excitement about my own windowsills. The morning after the tour, we experienced a rare winter treat here in Toronto: sunshine! While my windowsill has been transformed several times since, here’s what it looked like...
Heating up pears I poached and canned back in the fall [Flickr]
yougrowgirl posted a photo: ...
Click title to see full photo....
Click title to see full photo....
The Occasional Gardener
These crocus were a lovely sight, a little patch that had spilled over beyond someone's garden in Mamaroneck. There were more in the garden under the trees albeit not quite as spectacular as the ones I saw in Brooklyn a couple of years ago. Nevertheless it was still uplifting...
Up in Mamaroneck, two things stir the gardening impulse. Bright green chive shoots emerge in the vegetable garden to kick the year off. Later in the year they will drive me crazy keeping them in check, but right now they remind me of how dependable a tenant they are here....
The tediousness of the left brain chores I am currently mired in, has my right brain parched. Circumstances don't help either- trapped in a seemingly unending winter, there's little outside that inspires - it's just grimy snow and salt frosted sidewalks. Last night I dug out some old footage...
Not the garden variety. I have a pair of abstract encaustic paintings titled Seed that I've appropriately decided to seed my new Etsy shop with. It will be a place for me to sell artwork and perhaps some things for the home, some vintage things - all with a nature...
While NYC dips into temperatures below freezing again, I continue to work on designs for Summer 2011 and thought I would share an interesting trend prediction from Li Edelkoort's recent presentation - water. Not just aesthetically as in color palettes drawn from rivers, reefs, pools, oceans, mermaids and the like...
I just got round to noting Pantone's color of the year for 2010 - Turquoise 15-5519. My first garden related thought about the color was- Kyles' pot. Kyle, an artist friend living in Rhode Island that I visited while on vacation this year had the most beautiful collection of ceramic...
These crocus were a lovely sight, a little patch that had spilled over beyond someone's garden in Mamaroneck. There were more in the garden under the trees albeit not quite as spectacular as the ones I saw in Brooklyn a couple of years ago. Nevertheless it was still uplifting...
Up in Mamaroneck, two things stir the gardening impulse. Bright green chive shoots emerge in the vegetable garden to kick the year off. Later in the year they will drive me crazy keeping them in check, but right now they remind me of how dependable a tenant they are here....
The tediousness of the left brain chores I am currently mired in, has my right brain parched. Circumstances don't help either- trapped in a seemingly unending winter, there's little outside that inspires - it's just grimy snow and salt frosted sidewalks. Last night I dug out some old footage...
Not the garden variety. I have a pair of abstract encaustic paintings titled Seed that I've appropriately decided to seed my new Etsy shop with. It will be a place for me to sell artwork and perhaps some things for the home, some vintage things - all with a nature...
While NYC dips into temperatures below freezing again, I continue to work on designs for Summer 2011 and thought I would share an interesting trend prediction from Li Edelkoort's recent presentation - water. Not just aesthetically as in color palettes drawn from rivers, reefs, pools, oceans, mermaids and the like...
I just got round to noting Pantone's color of the year for 2010 - Turquoise 15-5519. My first garden related thought about the color was- Kyles' pot. Kyle, an artist friend living in Rhode Island that I visited while on vacation this year had the most beautiful collection of ceramic...
Digging
Picture This photo contest entry: Awakening
Over at Gardening Gone Wild, the theme for this month’s Picture This photo contest, judged by photographer Saxon Holt, is Awakening. We don’t get much of a winter here in Austin. But the garden still looks a little drab after our hard freezes this year. Enter gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida), my...
Go fer it with Gopher Plant, or Euphorbia rigida
A few years ago, I’d never come across gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida) in local nurseries. But now it’s everywhere. And with good reason. Euphorbia rigida’s pretty blue-green foliage is topped in spring with chartreuse bracts and yellow flowers. After the hottest summer on record and one of the coldest winters on...
Ghost plant looking gorgeous in late-afternoon light I’ve been working every spare hour on the sunburst patio around my stock-tank pond, and my back and legs are sore from moving so much stone, sand, and gravel. The fish are probably wondering what’s going on. All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging....
Creative paths & paving patterns for the garden
I’ve started paving the circular patio/path around my stock-tank pond, which for a year has lain fallow with a temporary layer of decomposed granite while I saved up for brick or stone. I enjoy making paths through the garden, and I thought it might be fun to look back through...
En garde with ‘Color Guard’ Yucca
Thrusting sabres. Clashing swords. Yellow-costumed fencers are dueling in my garden. It can be a blood sport if you’re careless. But while Yucca filamentosa ‘Color Guard’ is armed with sharp spines, its leaves are fairly flexible, not stiff, and so less dangerous. Brightly colored leaves promise year-round color, unlike flowers that come...
Let me just say, for the record, that I love Austin’s winters. For one thing, they aren’t summer. For another, they aren’t that cold. We often enjoy sunny days in the 60s, even 70s, mingled in with some 50s, and only the occasional hard freeze. It’s a great time to...
Native Sons - Plant of the Week
Geranium sanguineum 'Vision Violet'
Cranesbill. A robust ground cover selection of the every popular Geranium sanguineum featuring masses of violet flowers from early spring to summer. The fresh green foliage with redden with autumn colors in cooler interior gardens. Growing up to 18 inches tall and 24 inches wide, it is useful as a......
Ken Hartman barberry has a billowing upright habit to 6 feet tall that slowly forms a dense drift with time. The bright green leaves have a polished surface with sharply toothed margins. New spring grow is richly colored copper, reddish, and bronze and provides a stunning contrast to the clusters......
Festuca californica 'Scott Mountain'
Scott Mountain California fescue form a rigid mound to about a foot tall with elegant upright flowers to 3 feet tall. The blue-green leaf blades are smaller and stiffer than is typical with the species making it useful in gardens with limited space. It is an excellent choice for mixed......
Westringia fruticosa 'Wynyabbie Gem'
Wynyabbie gem coast rosemary is a versatile evergreen shrub from Australia growing to 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Lavender-blue flowers are present most of the year in coastal California and make a pleasing contrast to the airy gray-green foliage. It can be used in sun or partial shade......
Small finger-like leaves form a tight mat to 2 inches tall with an 8 inch spread on this appealing South African ice plant. Luminous silver-pink flowers cover the plants in early spring followed by sporadic flowering through summer along the coast. It is a superb choice for containers, rock gardens......
Flannel bush. San Gabriel flannel bush is a robust evergreen shrub to 20 feet tall and 40 wide. Fast growing, it will tolerate extremely dry conditions and hotter interior garden sites. It features a copious display of 2-3 inch yellow flowers from early spring to summer and a distinctive herringbone......
Sustainable and Urban Gardening
Our video’s up! “A Civic Center Comes to Silver Spring”
Here’s the class of six, plus teachers Adele Schmidt on the far left and Sam Hampton on the far right. My co-director, the talented Mario Starks, is second from left. The students are a United Nations of aspiring filmmakers, and a wonderful bunch who produced some great 3-4-minute...
Gardening this week: Filling up new borders
What do you do when you have large new borders to fill and would rather not A, spend much money or B, wait forever for them to look good? Steal like crazy from other parts of the garden – if you’re lucky to have an old garden that has plenty...
How a Boomer Gardener (tries to) Stay Fit all Winter
Feeling a bit sluggish about now, deprived of gardening for all these months? Me, too! But not as sluggish as I’d be feeling if I didn’t have THE PROGRAM. That’s what I call my ever-increasing compilation of exercises that a bevy of physical therapists has devised for me over the...
Read all about my lawn replacement in Fine Gardening Magazine
Jeez, I just noticed it’s been over a week since I’ve posted here – bad blogger! Well, my article in Fine Gardening finally arrived, so here’s a teaser photo. In the article, I cover a bunch of options for replacing turfgrass with similar-but-easier short groundcovers. Like? Thyme, mazus, creeping Jenny (where...
Hey, Universal Studio, time to nix your “all-you-can-eat” deal
Waaay back in June of '09 I had a whole day to kill in Los Angeles, with no family-wedding happenings til dinnertime. I'd already spent a glorious free day with Shirley Bovshow in her garden and being escorted by her around the Huntington Garden. I just knew that come wintertime,...
Film Production Team Tackles New Urban Space
My adventures in video continue! After all my troubles buying the wrong stuff, it came time to learn to DO something. My first grown-up move was to admit that when it comes to either hardware OR software, I'm not what you would call an autodidact. So I ignored the advice...
The Manic Gardener - An Organic Gardening Blog
Awards, accolades, aclaim, etcetera
The Manic has come for more than its share of praise recently. Last November, distracted by surgery and by a family emergency, I entirely failed to mention (or even to notice, till someone pointed it out) that Horticulture Magazine had......
Discount offer (& book review) for Growing Stuff
Blogging, like beauty, is of course its own excuse for being. However, perks are always appreciated, and surely one of the best that comes with blogging is free books. Case in point: Asked if I would link to information about......
Origin and Evolution of “You go sleep in the garage.”
This title will at least ring bells if you've read either of my previous posts (Nov. '08, yesterday) about our friend Abdoulaye, just returned from Mali for a new stint of study at MSU. It was fairly early in Abdoulaye’s......
Return of the potato specialist: Abdoulaye of Mali
Clap your hands and cheer: Abdoulaye has returned! Yes, my favorite potato specialist from sub-Saharan Africa is back in town. I know I already posted one photo of him dancing with my mother-in-law, but it seems to me a topic......
I took this photograph yesterday morning, as the deer proceeded quietly along the sidewalk across the street from our house. (That's our car in the lower right, proof that this is not out in the wild woods.) The deer did......
A New Low: cold snap in Montana
http://www.findlocalweather.com/weather_maps/temperature_north_america.html When I got up Tuesday, the temperature in our back room, where we’ve been sleeping since my surgery, was 39ºF, or just under 4ºC. Upstairs in the bedroom we’re not using, I hit the “on” button of an electric......