Articles and Tips October, 2009
Don’t Throw it, GROW IT! Book Review
I enjoyed pilfering from the publishing table at Garden Writers this year. However, I always review books, often on multiple sites, so I feel less guilty, sort of. The book Don’t Throw it, GROW IT! is an adorable little gem, re-published in 2008 by Storey …
Wicked Plants, by Amy Stewart
Wicked Plants, by Amy Stewart, was published this spring or summer. I already forget when, because it feels like we’ve had this book around forever, or at least had Amy around forever doing PR for it. Her PR guy is a genius! If you’ve seen …
Vegetable recap 2009
If you read my blog posts early in the spring (around March/April), you saw that I was SUPER EXCITED to have my own vegetable garden again. My husband and I embarked on a gigantic re-purposing of our back landscape beds for vegetables. We put in edging, compost, and tons of veggie seeds. We moved …
Fantastic Plant Combinations
If the ground isn’t frozen solid where you live yet (SORRY CHRIS!), fall is a good time to nab some perennials on sale to fill out the garden and get a jump-start on spring. While at the Garden Writer’s Symposium I picked up the new book Perennial Companions by Tom Fischer with photos by Richard and Adrian Bloom. It is totally inspiring. (FTC disclosure: I guess I was “given” this book for free. If by …
Plant a Halloween Garden!
Halloween is coming! Fortunately for us gardeners, Mother Nature has several scary plant species worthy of boos and scares. From flowers shaped like eyeballs to grass stained with blood, you’re sure to find a frightful plant to set the tone of Halloween.
Are you ready? Here’s a little garden’s worth of spooky delights to showcase for your trick or treaters!
Spiderflower
Spiderflower, or Cleome, is a perfect start to the Halloween garden. What’s Halloween without …
Berries are for the Birds!
Fall in the garden is a time of over-ripe, worn-out, raggedy plants. It is also a time when plants from tiny perennials to giant trees put on a spectacular show of fantastical fruits. No matter where you live, there are native and exotic ornamental plants that put on a pretty show of berries that feed wildlife and are easy on gardeners’ eyes. If you’re going to plant berry-bearing trees and shrubs, check …
The Gen Y Gardener?
According to a recent talk I attended, there have been 7 million new gardeners entering our ranks this year. In a few years, Generation Y (people born between 1977 and 2000) will comprise 47% of the work force. (We are somewhere much lower than that now. I can’t find my notes.) If you listen to the mainstream media, we are portrayed as entitled, philanthropic, in want of instant gratification, constantly asking “Why?” skeptical of authority, …
