I love garden tools. I can’t get enough of them, really. Every tool has subtle differences and I live playing around with them to see what works best for me. Troy-Bilt came out with a line of garden tools this year and I put them to the test. I noticed two things right off the bat: They felt light, but ...
I’ve put off an analysis of the this year’s garden long enough. It’s time for a little constructive criticism of my own work. At the same time, gardening is an imperfect art. Sometimes things do what you expect them to and sometimes they don’t. Mother Nature often decides the design of the garden as much as the gardener. And I ...
I spent most of Sunday in the garden, which was a real treat. It’s fun to garden at this time of year, because most jobs fall under the “pottering” category. I spent a lot of time with my compost, sifting five wheelbarrows full and top-dressing parts of the garden with it. I still have about half a bin of finished ...
In case you were wondering, I refuse to acknowledge that it is getting rather far into August. Please do not remind me. One of these days I’m going to take on the enormous project of making my basement into something other than a storage space (half of it is finished space and there’s a fireplace down there), and one of ...
I’ve been staying out of thrift stores for awhile now because I have instituted a rule of not buying something if I don’t have an immediate use for it (and will fix it up within a reasonable amount of time). But I am in a few rummage-type Facebook groups in our area and every so often something pops up that ...
I have never toured a garden and not taken something away from it that I want to put into practice or plant in my own garden. If you ever feel like you’re in a gardening rut, it is the single most inspirational thing you can do. The garden I visited a few weeks ago was one of the most impressive ...
I’m on a really good streak with books. I’m reading Dear Friend and Gardener: Letters on Life and Gardening and although I’m only halfway through it (I’m taking my time with it, savoring every page), I just know this is going to be one of those books I go back to and may become one of my favorites. It is ...
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.
Composting purists would not at all approve of the way I compost, but frequent readers of this blog know I appreciate the K.I.S.S. principle (even though that acronym reminds me of a bad kitty poster in my third-grade classroom). This means that I don’t overthink composting, and generally just throw the stuff in the bin, […]
Bet you’re surprised to be seeing a post here on Sunday. It might, indeed, be a first. But in addition to being a Sunday, it is also May 1 and I happen to have a fantastic guest here today. You might even say he’s a rock star. Michael Nolan is the co-author of a book […]
The rain continues here, making southeastern Wisconsin just one of many places with totally depressing weather this week. At least we’re not experiencing the storms and flooding that so many other areas are.Anyway, it’s putting a major damper on my ability to take some pictures of what is happening in the yard, so I thought […]
You know you have issues when you set out to just take the dogs to the beach for a walk and you end up 45 minutes later driving your lawn mower down the beach. But that’s exactly what happened on Sunday. This was the view from the lawn mower on Sunday. It’s way too early […]
Far be it for me to tell the producers of a successful PBS show how to do their jobs, but I think the people who make “P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home” are missing out on a golden opportunity. Turns out the guy is funny. Really funny. And trust me, after watching almost every episode of […]
Pruning is one of the most difficult thing for some gardeners to do. I think deep down inside we know it’s a good thing for our plants, but it’s still hard to cut away growth that we’ve worked so hard for. Last year I pruned my Hydrangea ‘Limelight’ down to about 4 feet tall for […]
Four gorgeous flowers on this ‘Red Peacock’ amaryllis. Zoom out a little and you see the bulb did this all on her own. It’s still in the paper bag it came in! For several years I’ve purchased amaryllis bulbs from the yahoo plant co-op I’m a member of, potted them up and given them away […]
I’m very excited to share a little Q&A session with talented garden designer Jack Barnwell. I found out who Jack was last summer after spending years admiring one of his designs without knowing who was behind it. I make it a point to visit the garden at the Hotel Iroquois on the island every year […]
First of all, sorry for the radio silence last week. Deadlines at my real job got crazy and when I’m writing fast and furiously for work, it’s so hard to come home and put together a couple sentences for the blog. The good news is that I have some exciting posts planned for this week, […]
Look what finally gets to see the light of day. This little boxwood (‘Green velvet’ I think) is such a trooper. When I planted it near the corner of the garden I never realized that it would be buried by snow plowed from the driveway every winter, but it is. How it manages to retain […]
I’m so excited and honored to have my little yellow lamp redo featured on one of my favorite blogs, Better After, today. If you’ve not checked out Better After before, it’s so worth it. You wouldn’t believe the inspirational stuff that people come up with. I’m honored to be in such good company.
If you follow The Impatient Gardener on Facebook or Twitter, you know that Mr. Much More Patient and I are having a, um, discussion about the future of the back yard. For years, he’s been bugging me to create a real path out to the detached garage so we don’t have to walk over the […]
You wanna garden? Oh yeah, I know you do. But ya know what? Working in your beds right now may be the worst thing you could do for your garden. Check out why on my guest post over at The Design Confidential.
You all know I have kind of a thing for Tim Wood, right? I certainly mention him enough here. Well, that’s not entirely true, even though he seems to be a very nice, intelligent and sort of funny guy. I really have a thing for his hydrangeas. (Honestly, Tim, I’m not stalking you … just […]
