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The Impatient Gardener

easy wave petunias
Garden, Plants

The all-purpose annual that carries the garden

July 22, 2022

Thank you to Wave Petunias for partnering with me on this post.  I’m often asked a question that is perplexing to me: “Do you grow annuals or perennials?” I don’t fault the people asking the… [Continue Reading]

by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
6 Comments
Garden, Plants

Fill garden gaps for pennies

June 21, 2022

Nothing stops me in my tracks more than when I’m looking at a garden jam-packed with color and texture and come across a spot of bare soil. It puts a screeching halt to well-planned flow. … [Continue Reading]

by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
19 Comments
Bio dome planting system
Edibles, Garden, Plants

How to start a whole garden in one tray

March 31, 2022

Thank you to Park Seed for partnering with me on this post. As always, all words, thoughts and seed choices are my own. The hardest part of growing plants from seed is keeping the amount… [Continue Reading]

by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
9 Comments
seedlings
Garden, Plants

7 ways to start seeds

February 25, 2022

Is there any task that has so many rules and yet so many people tackling it in different methods more than growing plants from seeds? It can make the whole process even more confusing. Each… [Continue Reading]

by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
4 Comments
Garden design, Plants

New garden design: A painterly palette

January 29, 2022

There’s a well-established garden-making process around here: Every other year I make a new garden space. It is a lot of work, puts me behind in other areas of my arguably already too-large garden and… [Continue Reading]

by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
25 Comments
Plants

How to love and care for holiday houseplants

December 9, 2021

At a time of year when there’s no shortage of faux decor—faux trees, faux berries, faux garlands, faux mistletoe, for starters—it’s nice to have a few real plants around. The plants we typically think of… [Continue Reading]

by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
4 Comments
fresh turmeric
Garden, Plants

The beautiful oddball: Growing turmeric

November 4, 2021

Growing oddball plants—those plants that aren’t commonly grown in the area—is almost always rewarding. Since there is no real way to measure success, any sign of a plant doing what it’s supposed to do is… [Continue Reading]

by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
11 Comments
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About

The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Here’s a combo I’m totally digging this year: Wicked Witch coleus with Compact White Sunpatiens. I should have planted more Sunpatiens because they haven’t filled in as much as I expected in this part sun spot, but it’s a great look.
When you leave your garden in the middle of summer you know there’s going to be some clean up on the back end. It’s amazing how the little things we do every day in the garden, even when we’re not “working” in it—pulling a weed, propping up a plant, tucking tendrils into a trellis—add up to important jobs. And you don’t realize that until they aren’t being done. 

When I came home after 8 days away I was planning to whip the whole garden into shape and ended up spending all day in the vegetable garden where things went awry quickly. 

I was rewarded though with lots of cucumbers and zucchini and a few pretty bouquets to put around the house. This is Madame Butterfly Bronze with White (a name I don’t understand at because I wouldn’t use any of those words to describe the color) snapdragon and Apricot Shades strawflower. 

Check the link in the bio to see the whole video and what I found when I first laid eyes on the garden after some time away.
It’s a nighttime hunt in the garden and it’s the best time to find hornworms. You’ll need a black light and a tough gag reflex but you have to remove these guys from your tomato plants or they’ll be gone quickly. If you find a hornworm with white things that look like grains of rice in it, that is parasitic wasp larvae that will eat them from the inside (everything about this is gross). Remove those hornworms from your plants but don’t kill then as you’ll be aiding the beneficial bug population by allowing those parasitic wasps to hatch. For other hornworms you can kill them or feed them to chickens or put on your bird feeder. They do turn into beautiful, big moths but you want to make sure they can’t get back to your plants if you let the hornworms live.
When it comes Echinacea, @garden.evolution (aka Coneflower king) and I don’t often agree, but I think we both feel the same about Color Coded ‘The Price is White’ being an outstanding variety. The flowers are big and flat, hold their white color really well, are sturdy and, well, put on a great show. I’m loving them growing with Rock ‘n Grow ‘Back in Black’ too. Both are @provenwinners varieties from @waltersgardens

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