Nature, wildlife, and how gardening affects the environment.
Did you hear about the GREAT news from California? The legislature passed and the governor signed a law banning gas-powered leaf-blowers and lawn-mowers! (Also chain saws, weed-trimmers and golf carts.) [...]
The word “hallow” derives from the Old English halig, meaning holy. All Hallows Eve, the evening before the holiness of All Saints Day (November 1st) is the night when the [...]
One of the challenges horticulture faces in proving its importance is that it does most of its best work at the subconscious level.
William Cocke joins us this week to discuss Doug Tallamy's 2019 book Nature's Best Hope, oft quoted (and misquoted!) on the web and in Master Gardener circles nationwide. Cocke is [...]
On the label of an old painting, I came across a word we rarely see: “stooks,” meaning erect bindings of wheat or other sheaves dotting a field, ready for transport [...]
One of the major cornerstones of the modern environmental movement is that all of us (individuals, businesses, governments) must reduce what we throw away. Natural historian David Attenborough, in his [...]
By guest blogger S. B. Julian Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1933) is credited as one of the founders of England's lush, flower-rich, painterly cottage garden style of horticulture (she was a painter [...]
My (former) back yard in 2006. The Unlawning Begins It didn't take much research through my 15 years of posts here on GardenRant to confirm that my number [...]
This won't be one of those cutesy, fawning posts that all the shiny, happy cool kids seem to be writing on Facebook and in blogs all over the Western world. And don’t expect any facts either--just observations. My observations, and, yes, I fully admit that I'm nothing more than a very tired and intellectually lazy horticulturist who is living under a dome of cicadas for the fourth time.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about my fellow gardeners, it’s that they lean toward frugality on the micro level. On the macro level, they might be spending half [...]
We all deal with empty nests at some point in our lives. In the world of robins, that book opens as they create their nests in stages requiring hundreds [...]
Over the last two winters, I’ve been engaged in a curious pursuit which has baffled some visitors but thrilled others – precisely the way I love to garden. I’m building [...]
