The Osage orange tree doesn’t have a large following but I have become a big fan. I love its beautiful, glossy green foliage and its yellow stained wood. And there’s something even more irresistibly loveable about the misshapen, softball-sized pale green fruit that looks like an alien’s brain. The timber is hard as nails, too. [...]
Read more in: Guest Rants, It's the Plants, Darling
Posted by
Allen Bush on October 25, 2012 at 7:55 am This post has 19 responses.
Dear friends, just as there is no hiding the fact that Professor Roush is a rose nut, there is also no suspense to the revelation that I am an entrenched bibliophile. My love of printed and bound material stretches far back into my childhood, to that happy time when I was still an only child and...
Read more in: Guest Rants, Ministry of Controversy
Posted by
James Roush on October 11, 2012 at 9:00 am This post has 27 responses.
Back in April I reported on the surprising blooms on a pair of semi-dwarf apple trees I’d given up for dead after a freak October snowstorm had ripped their roots out the ground, leaving the trees on their sides. I left the trees in the ground, not really expecting...
Read more in: Eat This, Feed Me, Guest Rants
Posted by
William Alexander
on October 4, 2012 at 5:42 am This post has one response.
The American Society of Landscape Architects recently announced the launch of The Landscape Architect’s Guide to Washington, D.C. – just the first of many across the country. It’s an online, mobile-friendly guide to more than 75 historic, modern and contemporary designed spaces in D.C., with 800+ photos and expert...
Read more in: Everybody's a Critic
Posted by
Susan Harris on September 25, 2012 at 8:46 am This post has one response.
I owe my love of pink flowers to Wilson Pickett. The rhythm and blues singer was my high school cosmic everything. Teenage boys often feel they are irrelevant. Or at least they once did. In the mid-60s, I played a white soul man to prove the point. When I...
Read more in: Guest Rants, It's the Plants, Darling
Posted by
Allen Bush on September 20, 2012 at 7:33 am This post has 8 responses.
… grow the YCGT campaign! Happy endings to stories that involve corporations vs. individuals are all too rare, so we’re very pleased to report that garden writer C.L. Fornari will be able to continue her “You Can Grow That” campaign without any opposition from Scotts Miracle-Gro. As she just...
Read more in: Ministry of Controversy, Who's Ranting About Us
Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on September 19, 2012 at 8:03 pm This post has 34 responses.
The ample rain two weeks ago was enough to green up the buffalo grass and provide some much needed relief to the perennials here in Kansas. It also brought some relief to area gardeners, not from the sweltering heat, which continues to stress my garden and its gardener daily, but it...
Read more in: Guest Rants, Taking Your Gardening Dollar
Posted by
James Roush on September 13, 2012 at 10:05 am This post has 14 responses.
Guest Post by Allen Bush Willie Nelson warns, in his song of the same name, “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys…” Then he offers a way out: “Make ‘em lawyers and doctors and such.” Willie, I have a better idea. Make ‘em gardeners and...
Read more in: Guest Rants, It's the Plants, Darling
Posted by
Allen Bush on August 30, 2012 at 7:18 am This post has 13 responses.
So here’s a new thing. FindtheData.com is a new site dedicated to gathering data in such a way that allows side-by-side comparisons to be made. And there’s a lot of plant stuff here. Let’s have a look, shall we? The Plants Database pulls data from USDA sources, but puts...
Read more in: CRRRITIC
Posted by
Amy Stewart on August 29, 2012 at 4:38 am This post has 6 responses.
Elizabeth introduced our new web design a few months ago by asking an interesting question that was raised at the Asheville Garden Bloggers Fling: Is garden blogging still viable? After all, why blog if you can post on Facebook or tweet? I have to say that as a news...
Read more in: CRRRITIC, Everybody's a Critic
Posted by
Michele Owens on August 24, 2012 at 1:11 pm This post has 16 responses.
Please welcome Bobby Ward, author of Chlorophyll in His Veins: J. C. Raulston, Horticultural Ambassador. Recently Amy Stewart commented on Clyde Phillip Wachsberger’s book Into the Garden With Charles, a gardening memoir of Wachsberger and his partner, Charles Dean. The late J. C. Raulston would have greatly appreciated Wachsberger’s...
Read more in: Guest Rants, Unusually Clever People
Posted by
Garden Rant on August 23, 2012 at 3:23 am This post has 17 responses.
…as we were the other day…what do you people think about window farming? Worthwhile? Silly? Is this a lot of effort for a salad or a few strawberries? Or is it revolutionary? \
Read more in: Everybody's a Critic
Posted by
Amy Stewart on August 22, 2012 at 4:25 am This post has 8 responses.
I usually start my day by for checking email and news of more gaffes by clueless candidates for office but Michelle Gervais, an editor of Fine Gardening Magazine, suggested I try subscribing to her morning emails of garden photos submitted by readers. I did and I’m already hooked. Michelle...
Read more in: Everybody's a Critic, Real Gardens
Posted by
Susan Harris on August 21, 2012 at 10:01 am This post has 10 responses.
Guest Rant by Billy Goodnick It was a dark and foggy summer night. Biff the Wonder Spaniel and I set out for our last neighborhood stroll, green poopy bag at the ready. It’s a good thing I didn’t have my nose buried in my iPhone, catching up on the...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and Schemes, Guest Rants
Posted by
Billy Goodnick on August 16, 2012 at 8:33 am This post has 61 responses.
A miracle has occurred on the Kansas prairie. I have, at long last, grown sweet corn in the Flint Hills. Praise God, and pass the butter and salt! This may not be an earth-shattering accomplishment to many of you from other climes, and perhaps not to any farmer in this area, but...
Read more in: Guest Rants, It's the Plants, Darling
Posted by
James Roush on August 6, 2012 at 7:56 am This post has 14 responses.
Guest Rant by Phil Nauta, author of Building Soils Naturally: Innovative Methods for Organic Gardeners Soil pH is talked about a lot in the gardening world, but most people don’t understand it, so it’s generally misused. I’m here to rant about it. To simplify what pH is, it’s basically...
Read more in: Guest Rants, Science Says
Posted by
Phil Nauta
on July 28, 2012 at 8:34 am This post has 121 responses.
Guest Rant by Lajos Szabo, London-based seed-seller, blogger and allotment gardener While one heat wave hits the USA after the other, here in the UK (you know that small place somewhere in Europe) the summer is a complete washout. We had the wettest June on record and looks like...
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Posted by
Susan Harris on July 26, 2012 at 8:48 am This post has 25 responses.
Guest Rant by Mary McAllister When I retired, a daily walk in the park became the high point of every day. Soon I began to notice that trees in my local park in the San Francisco Bay Area were “disappearing.” For the first time in my adult life I...
Read more in: Guest Rants, Ministry of Controversy
Posted by
Garden Rant on July 12, 2012 at 7:06 am This post has 111 responses.
Here’s another guest post from veterinary surgeon and master gardener James Roush/Garden Musings This morning, on a trip out of town, I innocently stopped at a large regional nursery about 60 miles east of Manhattan, Kansas. This nursery sells each spring, among other plants, the largest variety of potted roses...
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Posted by
Garden Rant on July 5, 2012 at 12:24 pm This post has 37 responses.
Hey, good news! Algonquin Books has picked a whole bunch of garden and nature ebook titles for $1.99 for the entire month of July. The list includes two books from Diana Wells–Lives of Trees and 100 Birds and How They Got Their Names–as well as three lovely escapist narratives: ...
Read more in: Books, CRRRITIC
Posted by
Amy Stewart on July 4, 2012 at 10:32 am This post has 6 responses.
