Last fall I discovered how to get a bird’s eye view of my yard via Google Earth and it was rather enlightening. I discovered that the bed on the north side of the house is all kinds of wrong. I already sort of knew that that area had issues. It never really felt right. It was too deep, and the …
I spoke at a local school’s career day yesterday. It was, um, odd. And then I looked around and found out that of the other people speaking at the career day, two were good friends a year older than me, and another two were two years old and two years younger than me. And I though, huh, I guess we …
Before there was a vegetable garden in my life there were tomatoes. I first grew tomatoes in 10-inch plastic pots in the first apartment I lived in after college. The pots weren’t big enough and the squirrels grabbed every fruit the moment it appeared. When I moved to my next apartment, I tried to grow a tomato in a north-facing …
I’ve missed Friday Finds two weeks in a row and I didn’t want to let this one pass completely so I bring you a rare Sunday post. I’ll dispense with the usual preamble and get right into it. Here’s some of the best of what I was loving on the web last week. New House New Home photo Heather shared …
I figured it was time for an update on our little office / back room project, but prepare yourself for the most unexciting update ever. Last I mentioned it, the drywall was up and the ceilings were painted and ready to be installed. That was ages ago. At least it seems like it. I think it was about two weeks …
I spent the weekend celebrating my birthday. It wasn’t a “special” birthday and the intention was for it to be very low-key, but things kept popping up, so I just kept eating and drinking and celebrating with friends and family. That was fantastic, but it pushed off me organizing my seed order for another weekend. And I have to say, …
It’s already the third week in January and seed starting is right around the corner. I feel like I’m behind this year, having only ordered a few sweet pea varieties from Floret Flower Farm‘s new store. I need to start making lists and ordering soon because nothing is more disappointing that not being able to find the varieties you want. …
The Impatient Gardener blog was started in 2009 and its library of posts includes practical how-tos, plant guides, favorite garden gear, successes and failures and much more. If you’re looking for something specific, the search function at the top of the page can help.
Growing containerized shrubs has been sort of a game-changer for me. There is something about them that is stately, and while I love containers full of annuals (like, a lot) shrubs add a little something different to the palette. The problem with growing shrubs in containers, however, is winter. You invest a bit of money […]
I’m not even going to look in the archives, but I’m willing to bet that every year around this time I’ve started a post by telling you I’ve done no Christmas shopping. I think we can all safely assume that short of taking advantage of a few cyber week sales for things we needed, there […]
FYI: I’ve posted an update to how this all worked out at the bottom! I am not a rose expert. In fact, longtime readers may recall that it wasn’t too long ago that I publicly swore that I would never grow roses again. The problem with making such declarations is that it’s difficult to hide […]
Dahlias have become quite the favorite flower. Dare I say they’ve even become a bit trendy? I hate the idea of a flower being a fad. I prefer to chalk up the interest in dahlias to a combination of access to lovely new varieties, more information available on how to grow them and social media […]
Well hello there! If you’ve made it here you’re officially on the new The Impatient Gardener site, the creation of which took a little longer than I expected and was probably poorly timed. But I think the effort was worth it and I hope you do too. My hope is that you’ll find the site […]
You might have noticed that I didn’t write much about the vegetable garden this year. That’s not because I didn’t grow vegetables, but it wasn’t my best year in the vegetable garden.It’s been my pattern to really let a garden slip after I’ve developed a plan in my head for how I’m going to change […]
Mr. Much More Patient and I spent a good part of the weekend dealing with the first round of fallen leaves at our house. Because we have a lot of trees, it works better to do it in two or three sessions rather than wait until everything is on the ground.And while some people bag […]
It has been a difficult few weeks to be a gardener in my area. The sun is setting early (and soon to be much earlier) so there’s no time for gardening after work and the weekends have been rainy. I appreciate this late season rain, as I believe that it is best for plants to […]
I tend to go on a bit here about taking stock of your garden so you can make changes next year, but that’s because I still think it’s one of the single best things you can do. Plus, I find it to be a very optimistic activity. In the middle of a season of decomposition, […]
This is a challenging time in the garden for me. We’ve not yet had a frost, so although things are looking a little ragged, there’s nothing that’s dead and looking terrible. Which means I’m faced with the conundrum of going against my gardener’s gut reaction to do everything I can to keep plants looking good […]
To my knowledge there is no garden task that strikes fear into the heart of gardeners so much as pruning. By my estimation, the two most likely explanations for this are: We’ve all been scolded and made to feel bad/silly/stupid for pruning incorrectly. We live in perpetual fear of killing plants by pruning incorrectly. There […]
It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Friday Finds, so I thought I’d pop in quickly to share some of my favorites for the week. First off, a bit of a programming note. I haven’t been posting a lot lately simply because it’s been one of those busy times in life. I was out of […]
For as much as I love plants, my relationship with houseplants is, as they say on Facebook, complicated. I love having them, because a house devoid of plant life would be depressing. But at the same time I don’t love the space they take up nor their neediness. And because of that it is only […]
Sometimes I am tempted to create more gardens (which I absolutely do not need) simply to create more garden paths. I don’t know why I have a love affair with paths, but I collect pictures of them and ideas for future paths with the same zeal that I collect garden ideas.My tastes in paths are […]
