It’s a fair bet that I own my last Victorian house. Never again. In future, I intend to suffer only over pieces of architecture worth suffering over. Some people are Victorian house people. Not me. Dark, pokey, irrational, over-embellished. I invited a carpenter over this week to discuss my rotting front porch. He helpfully moved [...]
Read more in: Real Gardens, Shut Up and DigBody: posted by Holly Scoggins Of course we want to buy locally-grown plants! There are a gazillion sound reasons to do so. In a paper that may be f. […]
While reading the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens, I stumbled upon a new (to me) trend in outdoor living: Outdoor Televisions! Phew! It’s. […]
The winner of the Chelsea Flower Show 2013 Plant Of The Year was announced late on Monday. The award goes to Mahonia eurybracteata subsp. ganpinensis. […]
Way back in ’06 I wrote about Rich People’s Gardens and defended “checkbook gardeners” who pay other people to make their landscapes look gorgeous. Better to spend their megabucks on gardens than on fast cars! I urged the wealthy to go ahead and hire the best, as long as...
Read more in: Real Gardens
When a New York City-based P.R. firm sent me an invite to go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Buffalo to explore that city’s “passionate garden culture,” I must admit I had some hesitation. These trips are fun, but the fact that they’re underwritten makes them an ethical problem. It...
Read more in: Real Gardens, Uncategorized
Readers may be remember that I recently moved and downsized, especially in the size of the garden. Above is the “before” shot of my new front* yard – a lawn with a couple of oversized boxwoods and a few ungainly azaleas. While indoors is still a dirty, messy construction site –...
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Do gardeners want to put down deep roots, plant trees, and watch them ever so slowly become massive and still presences in the landscapes of their personalities? No, the people who do that are not gardeners. Do gardeners strive to take a slice of earth stuck in this noisy...
Read more in: It's the Plants, Darling, Real Gardens
These days most of my blog reading is off-topic to gardening (sites like Apartment Therapy and Houzz) but I do listen togardening podcasts and wish there were more good ones, like Margaret Roach’s – she’s the author of the excellent blog A Way to Garden and former garden writer/editor for newspapers and Martha Stewart. So...
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Didja see this slide show of the homes of Republican presidential candidates? Check them all out – for their sheer size, if not any landscaping of note. Only Newt Gingrich’s landscaping stands out – and not in a good way, to my taste. If our homes say anything about...
Read more in: Real GardensI've always taken a very relaxed approach to composting. If it's organic and it's not something the chickens find delectable, it goes in the pile. Ten years ago, a friend gave me a copy of Joan Dye Gussow's lovely garden memoir This Organic LIfe. Gussow is a longtime professor...
Read more in: Real GardensI recently visited Nashville for the first time and, like any avid gardener, made sure I saw its premier public garden while I was there. Without a doubt, that's Cheekwood Garden and Museum, a grand place that exists thanks to Maxwell House coffee money. My regular brand. On a...
Read more in: Real GardensKen’s garden before Hurricane Irene Ken’s garden during the Irene-caused flood Gardening on an island in a river in Northwestern New Jersey, Ken Druse is used to floods, which he stopped counting after the 12th. But Hurricane Irene was different. As Ken recently told the Annapolis Horticulture Society, Irene...
Read more in: Real GardensI recently attended the annual conference of America in Bloom, where I got to hang out with such long-distance gardening buddies as Joe Lamp'l and Paul Tukey – more about them coming soon. But a special treat for this local was my first-ever tour of the U.S.Capitol Grounds with...
Read more in: Real GardensBreaking news – to anyone who knows me and assumed I’d never, ever leave my garden – I’m selling it and the house it surrounds. Time to move on. Selling the Complicated Garden Any realtor will tell you that nice gardens may or may not be advantages in selling...
Read more in: Lawn Reform, Real GardensHere's something you've all seen a million times - the view of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello shown on the American nickel – and it's been preserved and/or restored to its condition at the time of Jefferson's death. What's changed are some of the plants, and even more so, how they're...
Read more in: Real GardensOkay, this will be a test of what happens when someone (me, the guinea pig) criticizes a garden – a beloved public one, at that. But come ON, all the gardenbloggers visiting the Bloedel Reserve during the recent Fling noticed the sprinklers going off while it was raining, and...
Read more in: Real GardensWhat did we DO before Google Maps and Mapquest? I have only vague memories of trying to read folding maps while driving, a chore that's now almost unthinkable (good thing, too – drivers are way too busy texting and calling to fuss with maps). But there's something I hadn't...
Read more in: Real GardensEspecially front yards along July 4th Parade routes. Here's a sampling of people-filled front yards in Takoma Park, Maryland yesterday morning. The weather was perfect. Note the swimming pools. Okay, this one is actually a front porch and balcony party. Even in a nonelection year, residents show their support...
Read more in: Real GardensUnder some of the most rigorous testing conditions possible, I have decided to try the mettle of some Ball FloraPlant starts against basement-grown seedlings provided by my neighbor Bob. Most of the Allentown street planters have been filled with Bob’s seedlings. I usually add in some storebought plants just...
Read more in: Real GardensI spotted this in Lake Placid last week. It's prominently placed on a building owned by the Golden Arrow hotel and there's a sign installed near the sidewalk that explains it to visitors. Keep in mind that it is relatively early in the season this far north, so the...
Read more in: Gardening on the Planet, Real GardensOver the past week, Ball FloraPlant has sent me* 4 big boxes of annuals, most of them brightly colored petunias, osteospermum, verbena, calibrachoa, and other sun-loving container plants. To test, I guess—but both the amount and (to some degree) the type of plants are inappropriate for my small, mostly...
Read more in: Real Gardens, Taking Your Gardening DollarHere’s a column in the Minneapolic Star-Tribute called Winter Interest, Yeah, Right. Interesting And I couldn’t agree more. There are many magnificent winter sights throughout Western New York, but my garden isn’t one of them. If I want winter interest, I’ll drive up to Niagara Falls to check out...
Read more in: Real Gardens
Commented on Plant Ideas Needed for Biodiverse Lawn { The next occasion When i understand the weblog, Lets hope that it doesnt disappoint us just as much as this place. I am talking about,... } – May 23, 12:55 PM
Commented on Got Gnomes? { I'm with the gnomes. Those plastic chairs were especially ugly. Maybe they were reacting to the buying-plastic-stuff-made-in-China over actually gardening and communing with nature? } – May 23, 11:01 AM
Commented on Cats in the Garden - Solutions Only { Except for the expensive elctronic contraptions, I have tried all those suggestions and more (coyote and cougar urine, a dog), and none of them work.... } – May 23, 10:45 AM
Commented on Got Gnomes? { It is very funny, and also a bit of an inside joke. There is a very funny book "Yew and Non-Yew" by James Bartholomew that... } – May 22, 11:44 PM
Commented on In Defense of Plant Critics { It's not worth going back to quote it exactly, but the crack in the article about the man who loved his impatiens, but didn't know... } – May 22, 11:03 PMWe are:
perfect
magazine
gardens.
Gardening
our
asses
off.
Having a
hell of a lot
of fun.
