In the interest of keeping it real, I sometimes feel obligated to fess up to my shortcomings here. And today I will show you what happens when I’m not thrilled with how a container turned out. The poor thing gets forgotten about. The container plantings I did at work this year were not great. The coleus grew too well and …
And just like that, it’s August. It’s almost impossible to fathom that we’re at the beginning of what I once considered the last month of summer. The weather, though, is changing from what it was like in my childhood, and since I’m not personally tied to school schedules, more and more, my idea of summer continues right through September. We …
So many things have been happening in the garden and I’ve not had to time to show you any of them, so I thought it was high time to take a few peeks at what’s happening. Not much is blooming yet, but in a matter of weeks I expect the yard to be a riot of color. There are moments …
After a lot of talking about planting window boxes, the weather finally (if briefly) improved enough to actually do it. This year I aimed for a slightly more restrained color palette (blue/purple, lime green and a touch of orange) and fewer plants. In the past I’ve jammed so many plants in the window box that I think they had a …
Someone just pointed out to me today that Monday is the beginning of June. I can hardly believe it. I feel like I have been complaining, or at least commenting on how busy life has been every time I write a post, so you won’t hear that from me today. I’ll just say that I have high hopes of getting …
Designing containers is one of my favorite parts of gardening. There are so many options and there’s so much less commitment than designing a garden: You get to redo it every year. Pretty much everyone knows about the thriller, spiller, filler method of designing containers and although this isn’t the only way, it’s a pretty fail-safe method. Except when it …
There was a time when Renee Shepherd’s business was mostly about flowers. But these days she’s thinking about rutabaga and celeriac more than zinnias and cosmos. Shepherd has been in the seed business for more than 25 years and has owned Renee’s Garden since 1998, so it’s safe to say that she has a good idea about what is going …
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’m coming to the conclusion that public gardens may be among the most under appreciated spaces on the planet. That’s not to say that they are not appreciated, just that they are not appreciated enough. I’m delighted every time I go to a public garden and I always enjoy it more than I expected to. […]
I have written thousands of words on this blog about deer: plants deer avoid, ways to fend off deer attacks, homemade deer spray, complaining about deer. Lots of complaining about deer. And a lot of you reading this have deer issues too. I know because not only do you commiserate (particularly with the complaining), but […]
You have gifts to buy and I’m here to help. There’s a lot of gardening stuff out there geared toward gift giving and to be honest, a lot of it is not great. Quality matters and sometimes cute just doesn’t cut it. Gardeners are, generally speaking, a practical bunch, and most of the gardeners I […]
There are two possible explanations for what’s been going on outside here lately: Either the weather is completely off its rocker or I’ve forgotten what this time of year is like. After several decades of experiencing fall into winter in this particular part of the world you would have thought I’d have it down by […]
I suppose the answer to the question posed in the title starts with “What plant?” Sure, there are plants that are special (we all have favorite plant children whether we admit it or not) that many of us would go to some length to protect. But what about replaceable plants? There was a time where […]
This post is sponsored by 3-IN-ONE® Brand, but all opinions are my own. I also take full responsibility for any messy garages that may be featured. There’s nothing like an abrupt change in seasons to get yourself in gear. Just a week ago I was sitting back, enjoying a beautiful fall day and feeling pretty […]
I might whine about winter and therefore autumn, which is guilty by association, but last weekend we had one of those magical fall days. The sun was bright and warm, the sky was that deep sapphire blue you only see in the last quarter of the year and every bit of foliage seemed to be […]
Fall cleanup used to be more about making sure the tools were put away, the leaves were off the lawn and the pots were cleared out of the way to make sure they won’t get in the way of the snowblower. I’m not sure when it happened but somewhere along the line I started collecting […]
Whew. Life has been a whirlwind lately. Right around June life always starts getting busy. There’s the usual busy-ness of summer and I managed to add to that by having a group of master gardeners tour my garden in August. And just when I thought I’d get a breather, work got busy. Somehow here we […]
There are gardeners who eschew new plants, and although they may have some valid arguments (among them that they are hybridized to a point where they are no longer of use to pollinators and the species is just fine), I’ll never get sick of trying new plants in the garden. I enjoy the challenge of […]
The last day of summer came and went in the most depressing way possible: with an all-day downpour that kept me out of the garden. This summer-loving gardener is not pleased. It is my sincere hope that we have a lot more summerlike weather ahead because as usual, it feels like summer has absolutely flown […]
Everything was going fine until it rained. And rained. And rained. Our weather station temporarily went on the fritz last week when a night of lightning took out the power, but we got somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 inches of rain in about four days. That much rain at this time of year is […]
These are the onions I grew this year. I harvested them this weekend and they may be the single best argument for trying new things in the garden.I can’t give you poundage because I just pulled them and they are curing but I can assure you I’ve never grown more onions before. And here’s where […]
I can tell you the exact moment that summer started at my house: 12:27 p.m. September 2. You read that right. That is the moment that summer started. Reports of summer’s death have been greatly exaggerated. And in this house summer starts the moment that I take the first bite of BLT featuring a giant […]
