I’m loving the new east side of the house. The trim (only on the top roof so far) really helps it all come together and I love the windows. So, this update comes with the old good news, bad news scenario. The good news is that things are still progressing nicely, although I’m extremely anxious for insulation and drywall. It’s …
When even the plants are dirty. My Hakonechloa ‘All Gold’, Heuchera ‘Blackout’, and new witch hazel all got a heavy coating of dust when the masons were out fixing the chimney. Guess I’ll have to wash my gardens this weekend since rain isn’t predicted for awhile.
We’ve moved into a phase of the house renovation project that doesn’t have as many big changes so it feels like things have slowed a little, but in reality I think we’re moving along at a pretty good pace. Since the last update, they put on the soffits and the shingles started going on Monday morning. The project (not in …
I hope I’m not boring everyone with construction updates, but I promise to keep them to no more than a couple a week and only if there’s something worth reporting. Last week was full of lows and highs as far as the project went. On Monday they started ripping off the top of the house. By Wednesday they were building …
Monday was the big day for the renovation: the day they pulled the top off half the house. Up until now they’ve been doing a lot of preparatory work getting ready for the tear-off. I swung by at mid-day to see just how it our house would look as a ranch. Hopefully we’re all done with demo now and from …
Yesterday I was feeling a little bit like I had betrayed our old home. Like somehow I was telling it it’s not good enough for us. I actually felt a little guilty. I realize this is crazy but I adore this house and want desperately to do right by it. Today, I almost feel like our house said, “It’s OK. …
The long-awaited house remodel is finally underway. It’s amazing to think that this was a project we wanted to do from when we bought the house (eight years ago) and seriously started talking about a year and a half ago and all of a sudden it’s here. It’s actually rather shocking; I spent so long not allowing myself to believe …
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When the world was busy panic-buying toilet paper, I was busy panic-sowing. As it became clear that the novel coronavirus pandemic was going to change life, at least for awhile, I was in the middle of my regularly scheduled indoor seed starting. I had made a quiet promise to myself that this year, for once, […]
As you probably know, I live in the land of the delayed spring. So when I started getting questions from a couple people asking about why their tulips and other bulbs were short I didn’t think much of it. Maybe they planted them too deep or had something funky going on with the bulbs they […]
In a very random Instagram moment over the weekend—a hastily shot story made while practically running past the compost as I dashed around trying to get a few jobs done before it rained—I showed an exciting compost-related development: a second bin! OK, very few things related to compost can possibly be classified as exciting, but […]
Hi there, homebodies! I feel obligated, as I do from time to time when I disappear for a few weeks at a time, to apologize for being a bit scarce. There was a reason for it a couple weeks ago and then, well there wasn’t and now in this new world we live in I […]
Do I dare? Do I dare even get my hopes up that we may indeed be having an early spring and trust that we will roll right into a warm spring and a “normal” summer? You know the answer to that. I absolutely should not do that and yet I will. I am. This year’s […]
Last spring a trip to Pennsylvania provided inspiration that I continue to draw on now, especially on these cold winter days. I consider my visit at Chanticleer Garden to be the most influential garden tour I’ve ever taken, but just the day before I was at Longwood Gardens and it was no less inspiring. In […]
Annual vines are some of the hardest working, best problem solving plants in the summer garden. And with a grow habit so vigorous, when warm days turn to hot days and warm nights, you can almost watch them grow in front of your eyes. Vines are great for screening the less attractive bits in our […]
After you garden for awhile, you start to get a pretty good idea of what kind of gardener you are. Your style and approach to garden tasks becomes pretty clear. And after two decades of gardening in some form, I think my weak point is clear: restraint. As much as I know that restraint is […]
This post is sponsored by Jung Seed Company but, as always, the words and opinions here are my own. Is it just me, or are more people into growing plants from seed? In the past couple years I feel like so many people have asked me about seeds or shared their seed-starting tips and stories. Whether […]
I don’t often talk about houseplants here, and on the rare occasion that I do, it’s done reluctantly. I’m just not all that comfortable with them, and I certainly don’t have the passion for them that I have for all the great things that grow outdoors. I have a few houseplants that get special treatment […]
I have to admit something. I cried watching a gardening television show. Not during the reveal of some kind of makeover for a deserving family. Nope. I cried watching Monty Don talk about American gardens. Let me back up a bit. For those who are unfamiliar, Monty Don is perhaps the most well-known gardener in […]
Well I’m predictable, that’s for sure. Every couple years, almost without fail, I take on a really big garden project. I cannot explain what compels me to follow this arbitrary yet somehow predictable schedule, but I do. And so, since I spent much of 2018 building the dream vegetable garden, and part of last year […]
Most winters, I make it until at least January before I start ordering plants for a gardening summer that might as well be a light year away, but this year I got a head start. It wasn’t my intention to start buying when I should have been Christmas shopping for other people, but the early […]
In what has become something akin to a tradition around here, we’re just days away from Christmas and the outside of my house is fully decorated (at least as fully decorated as anything gets around here), and the inside has a long way to go. I’ll be honest, I have a lot more fun doing […]
