Here’s a guest rant from Kathleen McCoy. When I joined the Garden Club of Montclair, I got the official Handbook for Flower Shows and a toolbox. I was not excited about the requirement for new members to make two flower arrangements. It was the floral equivalent of eating a bland chicken breast. Then I met [...]
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and Schemes, Guest Rants
Body: Posted by Bert CreggLast week I posted about some horticultural disasters I witnessed in the Czech Republic. This week the chamber of horrors. […]
Biodiverse Lawn by Coalition Member Thomas Christopher Like other members of this group, I believe that the contemporary model of lawn has got to go.. […]
Body: Posted by Linda Chalker-Scott If you've been following us for a while, you might remember a post from August 2009 when I got cranky about a pot. […]
This is always a disconcerting thing to hear when you’re talking to people who spend most of their professional lives working in the horticultural field. But I’m almost getting used to it. The last time it happened was at the IGC show in Chicago this past week, as I...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and Schemes, Ministry of ControversyMany New York State parks strike me as monuments to the fear of litigation. The State destroys any lake it touches as a swimming experience with ropes and whistle-happy lifeguards. But I am very fond of the Spa State Park in Saratoga Springs. It's very civilized, a nice combination...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and Schemes…in the American gardening press, where it's all about laziness and snobbery. We have great gardens here in the U.S., too! Take a look around, you journalists, and consider reporting the evidence of your own eyes! And unless you happen to live in Portland, Oregon, there is relatively little...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and Schemes, Unusually Clever Peoplephoto by Les Hutchins The New Jersey town I grew up in was carved out of farmland in the 60s. There weren't a lot of older houses, and what older houses there were, were generally simple Victorian farmhouses. So, the one stylish 20s brick Tudor near a major crossroads...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesThere were a few moments early in the process yesterday when I thought “Why?” A friend had finally convinced me to spend an afternoon making hypertufa containers, which, as most of you probably know, are DIY planting vessels made from a mix of Portland cement, perlite, and peat moss...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesLast week, the New York Times took up a common gardening dilemma—what do do with the urban/suburban median/easeway/tree lawn/hellstrip, a spot which generally does not belong to the homeowner, but must be maintained. Writer Michael Tortorello discussed the general conditions to be found here (compacted soil debris, road salt build-up). ...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesIt’s always fascinating to read about this, the ultimate of garden shows. Chelsea makes such attempts on our side of the Atlantic look kind of ordinary—not that I think we should try to emulate them. I am including a few items that caught my attention—and here(1) are some links(2),...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesThis living/green wall concept seems kind of neat to me. I would go for a small unit of wall plants that I could hand water. It reminds me of when we were in Campania on vacation. Our apartment near Amalfi (in a smaller village called Atrani) seemed to have...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesI'd recommend this article in the NYTimes for the term "green bling" alone but it also does a good job of presenting what's good and bad about a hot new feature in the building world – vegetated walls. What's bad? The systems break down, they're heavy, people expect them...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesIt’s home design crack, pure and simple. I’m not quite an addict yet, but with a kitchen makeover looming later this spring, I have been known to lose an hour or two clicking through the images on Houzz. This has been called the “Flickr of design idea sites” and...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesCulture critic Philip Kennicott has a vision for the National Mall that I found shocking at first, then really wonderful. Though it'll never, ever happen. That's because it means no more massive political protests, no more Folklife Festival (now THAT I'd miss), and the retiring of war memorials after...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesThere once was a half city block in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland that was everyone's favorite place to hang out with the family. Toddlers ran around, teenagers flirted loudly. All that, and no danger of grass stains or those annoying insects – coz it was covered with artificial turf. ...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesIt would be nice to think that all the color advice we see in books and magazines are just solutions looking for nonexistent problems, but I know that there is such a thing as a garden planned for color. Don’t try this at home. I’ve just never seen one...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesOkay, I'm going out on a limb in saying any town could do this – just because my own town of Takoma Park, MD does it. But jeez, picking up residents' leaves and turning them into mulch for the community seems like SUCH a nobrainer – both environmentally AND...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesCB display garden (detail) And oh garden shows. I get more pleasure looking at the first spring ephemerals emerging in my front yard than I do from most garden shows, but Canada Blooms in Toronto is always a temptation. Measured by attendance, CB is one of the big ones,...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and Schemes, Everybody's a CriticWater is still big, as long as you don't have to take care of it We get a lot of gardening trend reports and I am sure many of you do too. But one I'm likely to pay a bit more attention to comes from the American Society of...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesFor Bloom Day I did my usual cheating and showed you bark and architecture in not my own but a public garden – cheating being great sport for us gardeners experiencing actual winter (as opposed to whatever Californians call their bizarre climate). But for great color no matter the...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and SchemesBut, as I am sure many of you have experienced, sometimes it can work all too well. Like when you wake up feeling like someone might have accidentally buried an axe in your head. In this case, it was my tazettas that had the hangover. For a few years...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and Schemes, It's the Plants, DarlingMore often than not lately, we haven't put up a Christmas tree. This is not some grand environmental statement (Christmas trees are, after all, a perfectly fine agricultural product and you can even buy organic ones in some places)–it's more a lack of time and organization and motivation. And...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and Schemes
Commented on Cats in the Garden - Solutions Only { Not to weigh in on either side, but if cats weren't controlling the bird population we'd have a different problem. At 500 Million a year... } – May 21, 3:20 PM
Commented on Cats in the Garden - Solutions Only { As I say, many animals poop in my garden. This is nature. I have found plenty of dog poop in my front yard. Shortly after... } – May 21, 3:07 PM
Commented on Cats in the Garden - Solutions Only { BTW - the coyote you see evidence of on your property is probably hunting your cat. Letting kitty go a-hunting might be what brings the... } – May 21, 2:32 PM
Commented on Cats in the Garden - Solutions Only { Not sure what predators are in your area, but with the coyotes, hawks, owls, and others here outdoor cats don't tend to last too long...... } – May 21, 1:56 PM
Commented on Cats in the Garden - Solutions Only { I've pretty much always had at least one cat. The current one is indoor-only and the few times he has gotten out the door he... } – May 21, 1:52 PMWe are:
perfect
magazine
gardens.
Gardening
our
asses
off.
Having a
hell of a lot
of fun.
