Gardening News and Miscellany

How Fabulous, Interesting and Unusual Plants Keep People From Becoming Gardeners

August 30, 2010
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Was reading a post over at The Blogging Nurseryman where Trey discusses what gardeners really want to see in independent garden centers. (Go read it, I’ll wait. You don’t want to miss Amy Stewart‘s rant on the topic.) She brought up that Garden Rant’s reader survey indicated overwhelmingly that passionate gardeners want to see more [...]

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The Snail Martyrs

August 20, 2010
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I often see statues of Buddha in people’s gardens, and every time I do, I have a small secret smile, because I know an old story about the Buddha that most people haven’t yet heard. It involves one of our most-hated garden pests and the sacrifice they made to further the cause of enlightened thought. [...]

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Monday Miscellany: Bawdy Hymenopteras, Beautifying Barbeques, and Brilliantly Bad Plant Names

August 16, 2010
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The ladies over at Garden Rant are having far too much fun again, first running a Bawdy Hymenoptera Limerick contest for the new Timber Press book Bees, Wasps, and Ants, then challenging the folks over at Timber to recite the winners on video for the gardening public’s enjoyment. I believe bee suits were mentioned in [...]

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Guest Post Over at Studio G!

August 7, 2010
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Rochelle over at Studio G has been on vacation this week, and so invited me and some fellow landscape designers over to guest post on our favorite things! Mine is here, and I had a blast ranting about the importance of good tools, the similarities between creating mosaics and designing a garden, and the mistakes [...]

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Monday Miscellany: Pacific Northwest Plants, Homemade Deer Deterrent, Book Rec’s, and MORE Garden Cocktails

July 26, 2010
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Great Plant Picks This week I’ve re-discovered a fantastic resource for Pacific Northwest Gardeners: Great Plant Picks. Plant info online can be hard to rely on – either nurseries are stretching the zones and touting a plant’s greatness so they can sell more of them, or home gardeners are giving anecdotal information that is useful, [...]

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Monday Miscellany: Strawberries, Succulents, Fellini Baby and Energy-Efficient Landscaping

July 19, 2010
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Loads of cool stuff kicking around the internet this week, from ideas of what to do with all your excess strawberries, how to create your own succulent container design, to some great podcast interviews. DIY Strawberry Jam – with Balsamic Vinegar and Black Pepper! Stevie over at Garden Therapy has a fantastic tutorial for those [...]

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Monday Miscellany: Crafts, Cocktails, and Snappy Repartee

July 12, 2010
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Summer’s here and you know what that means – summer cocktails, reading and lots of fun craft projects. At least that’s what it means to me! Gotta let the body rest from all the gardening we’ve all been doing, right? Simple Paper Flowers, DIY Birdbaths and Scanned Flower Portraits The DIY Wedding has a cool [...]

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Monday Miscellany: Twitter, Container Ideas, and Garden TV

June 14, 2010
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The garden blogging world seemed to take a short hiatus from posting cool stuff when spring first arrived, but now they’re back in force, with all kinds of new ideas, hot photos, and inspiration we can bring back to our own homes and gardens. The last couple weeks have seen some great lists of gardening [...]

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Monday Miscellany: Birds and Bees Edition

June 7, 2010
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As a happy chicken-owner myself (except when the ladies happen to lay a 6 A.M. egg and wake me up!), I’m always excited when I find some cool resources that help others learn to keep chickens. Really, they’re great pets, turn table scrapings into eggs and useful manure, and the eggs! Bright orange yolks and [...]

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Should Plant Nurseries Offer a Guarantee on Plants?

June 3, 2010
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I read an interesting post from my friend Debbie Roberts in Connecticut about her experience with a nursery that did not offer a guarantee on perennials, and it really made me think about the business of plant selling, how much responsibility us gardeners should take when we buy a plant, and whether offering guarantees on [...]

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