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. ...
I’m doing all the painting the back room / office, which has been taking up a considerable amount of the time I normally spend gazing at seed catalogs. Fortunately, I’ve powered through the majority of it and in the process developed a pretty good method for painting wood ceiling planks. Having painted the wood ceilings in the kitchen (they were ...
Holy smokes, a whole week got away from me without a single post. Sorry about that! Busy week with a lot of late nights up painting. A quick update on the reno in the office before I get to the fun stuff. We had a little surprise early in the week when the drywall guy thought he was finished, but ...
It’s the first Friday Finds of the year, but first a quick update on what’s happening in the back room / office (I really need to just figure out a name for that room and call it that once and for all). Drywall is up, including on the ceiling, which was a surprise to me. Since we’re putting wood planks ...
Surprise! I’ve been talking about all kinds of projects, namely a bit of DIY in the basement and redoing the downstairs bathroom, but here we are doing a project (and by we, I mean the people we hired to do it) that I don’t think I’ve even mentioned. This is how stuff goes around here. And this is what I ...
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.
I got the most lovely e-mail message the other day. Brigitte wrote me to tell me that she was so inspired by the eating area in our kitchen, that she created her own. I thought that sounded pretty cool but when I looked at the photos, I was blown away. Brigitte did this all herself […]
Welcome to my first ever video post! This has been a long time in coming, mostly because I didn’t realize how much time was involved in making and editing a video. I actually kind of gave up on the process, which will be totally obvious when you watch the video which is an exercise in […]
Soil testing is one of those things you often hear you should be doing but few people do regularly. I can’t tell you the number of times that our master gardener’s class instructors harped on us to do soil tests. They aren’t hard to do: take a sample from a few inches down, put it […]
Another hairy deadline at work has passed (or will have, I pray, by the time you read this) which explains the lack of posts last week. It’s funny how what is normally a pretty laid-back time of year around here is so hectic this year because of the early spring. In the past I’ve actually […]
Cue the collective groan. Who can pass up a good “orange” pun? It’s just my way of telling you to make sure to catch my guest post at The Design Confidential about how to incorporate the Color of the Year (Tangerine Tango, but for purposes of gardening we’re calling it orange) into your garden. In […]
Most gardeners I know go to the nursery even when they aren’t looking for plants. They often buy things with no idea of where they are going to put them, just knowing that they NEED that plant. But people who don’t consider themselves gardeners who buy plants to pretty up their landscape don’t buy things […]
Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with a ton of vacation pictures (especially since I took very few), but for the one day it wasn’t raining I saw some amazing plants, and on the days it was raining (all the others) I saw some amazing wet plants. A few highlights: Remember my stick in […]
Even though it’s been a mild winter in Wisconsin, it’s nice to get out of the gray scene for while. So we did! Here are some of the colors I’ve been looking at this week. Much prettier than Wisconsin right now, even if it was 60 degrees at home yesterday. We’re in Maui on what […]
Today I’ll show you one more project related to the office spruce up. It’s not the last thing that needs to be done in the room but I’ve come to a fairly natural stopping point and anything else I decide to do in there after this is just gravy. If you’ve been following along with […]
I know that the whole world can’t get enough of talking about the mild winter that most of the United States has been experiencing, to the point that some people are getting a little cranky about it, but I know a good bandwagon when I see one and you know I’m on it! In all […]
Last Saturday I attended a garden seminar (I just love going to garden seminars and shows in late winter; it is so fun to dream) where Richard Hawke, the plant evaluation manager for the Chicago Botanic Garden was the keynote speaker. I’ve gone to a lot of seminars, speeches, talks, etc. for work and pleasure, […]
Having successfully spray painted a handful of odd things including a lamp (including the shade) and our wall-mounted stereo speakers, I’m far more inclined to at least give spray paint a chance to improve a situation before buying something new. And once again, spray paint has come through! As I’ve said from the beginning, it […
Hey it’s me. Remember me? Gosh I’ve been a bad blogger lately. I had a rough couple of weeks at work and then a cold and some trip planning and blah, blah, blah. Who cares right? Life sucks sometimes; get your crap together and write a blog post why don’t ‘cha? So I now take […]
