Poor little plants go through so much in their lives. They are coddled and grown in the cozy confines of a greenhouse where they get the perfect amount of light and water. And them BAM! they are are thrown into garden or a container and left to the whims of the weather and the gardener. Most plants can handle a ...
Funny how spring goes. One day you’re belly-aching about the horrible weather and wishing you could do more in the garden and then the next day you turn around and the garden has come alive, bringing with it all the good (flowers!) and bad (weeds!) bits. Silly me, I was feeling pretty good after two weekends of garden cleanup. I ...
When all else fails, at least there is this: It may be short in stature and damn near buried in an uncleaned garden bed, but the sight of this little hellebore (I don’t know which one it is, unfortunately) did wonders for my soul this week. The weatherman tells us it will actually feel like spring here and I can’t ...
A happy Friday to you all! There is indeed reason to be joyous this Friday. The painters were to come this morning to finish up a few last touch ups on the cabinets which means that I will spend a good part of the weekend organizing what I can while we wait for drawer fronts and cabinet doors. I can’t ...
First of all, if you’re finding this blog from Young House Love, welcome! I’m thrilled you popped over to see the blog and I hope you enjoy it. I tend to jump around topic-wise, ranging from renovations (currently we’re working on our kitchen) to gardening to DIY projects. If you like what you see, you might want to consider getting ...
Since it seems like so many people are dealing with less-than-stellar spring weather, I’m making a concerted effort not to spend too much time complaining about it. So instead of mentioning that there is still a 5-foot tall pile of snow in my yard, or that I’m behind on pruning things because I can’t get through the snow to actually ...
I think March must be the most challenging month in my neck of the woods. It feels like it should be spring. The stores are filled with pastel everything, magazine covers are fresh and bright and lucky friends who live even a little bit south of here are in the full-on throes of springtime. But it is not spring here. ...
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.
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 […]
