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IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT GARDEN TOOL
Several years ago, my gardening life was changed. I discovered the hori hori aka soil knife. Instead of carrying around various trowels, pruners and weed extractors, I could garden with one tool. Hori horis pretty much do it all. They cut open bags of mulch or pieces of twine. They dig out weeds, they create trenches to plant seeds, they ...
FEATURE FRIDAY: GREAT GATES
I love gates in gardens. The sense of enclosure that they bring is so charming. I love gates that give you just a peek of what lies beyond or ones that frame a view perfectly. Here are some great garden gates. Traditional Entry by San Francisco Landscape Architects & Designers Suzman Design Associates Traditional Landscape by Seattle Architects & Designers ...
LIGHT AND BRIGHT: GIVING A DRESSER NEW LIFE
Remember when I bought this dresser? Oh, you don’t? Well that’s probably because I did that at least three years ago. I bought it because it was just sitting there in the thrift store and it looked so cool that I bought it. Without any plan for it. You will be happy to know that I have stopped doing that: ...
Redesigning the back yard
Like pretty much everyone, I’m anxiously waiting for spring to show up. But a girl can only paint so much stuff in her house before the paint fumes take over and you have to give in to the pent-up gardening urge. So, over the past couple weeks, I’ve been redesigning the back yard. First of all, it’s really the side ...
Feature Friday: An approachable approach to a casual landscape
For this week’s Feature Friday I wanted a more “normal” garden. That is, something approachable for the average gardener. The last couple weeks I’ve featured gardens that approach the dream category, but this one feels very real to me (even if the house suggests they probably hire a gardener to maintain it). I like that relatively ordinary plants have been ...
It’s time to prune! Oh wait, maybe not.
Don’t forget, dear readers, that late winter is the best time to prune many shrubs (but not anything that blooms in spring). I can’t wait to do a bit of pruning for health, shape and size in my yard. First off, that is not a black and white photo. Isn’t that sad? The whole world is still shades of gray ...
Happy workspace
I can think of nothing that makes Mr. Much More Patient happier than when I declutter something. Even if he took a rather active role in the original cluttering. He actually congratulates me when I fill up garbage cans or have him load up boxes to be taken to Goodwill. So when it came to getting a birthday gift for ...
Feature Friday: A famous designer’s own garden
There aren’t a lot of garden designers who people know by name. There are even fewer who people who don’t garden know by name. Arne Maynard is one of them. Thanks to articles in Vogue, Town and Country, Elle Decor, the New York Times and many others, Maynard is known to a lot of non-gardeners as well. I love looking ...
A little of this, a bit of that
This week I find myself in one of those places where I have a lot of things have finished but nothing really to show for it. And that’s how you end up with blog post about everything and nothing at the same time. My parents are currently soaking up a bit of sunshine in Florida and were nice enough to ...
Smooth operator
I am basking in the glow of a finished hallway, folks. After a weekend of painting and a few finishing touches, the hallway is looking so much better. It was a weekend of many projects (I hope to show you the others soon), but I felt like I was running from one thing to the next. At one point I ...
Feature Friday: A gorgeous potager
Boy, do I have gardening on the brain lately. March is such a cruel month because everything tells us it should be spring but for so many of us it is still very much winter. The garden design series I did a couple weeks ago was fun so why not continue the theme with some more looks at great gardens. ...
How to skim coat a lumpy wall
If you’ve been following the progress of removing the wall texture in our small hallway, you’ve probably figure out by now that the remaining texture in the house (in the downstairs bathroom and the den) will be professionally removed. This was a messy and time-intensive project. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that texture is not in my face every ...
An unfortunate case of the munchies in my yard
The world outside my door appears to be frozen. Certainly nothing is growing, but I didn’t expect things to be shrinking. Sadly, there are a lot of things shrinking in my yard. The deer are starving. This winter has been so snowy and so cold with almost no relent (we’re hoping for above-freezing temperatures this week which would be good ...
Oops, I broke that? Aw, shucks. 🙂
First off, thanks for all the thoughtful comments on the ugly bathroom post. You guys all had great ideas for further improvements in there on the cheap and I’ll definitely be putting some of them to good use. OK, time to fess up. Who has ever “fixed” something with the secret hope that you actually make it worse and you ...
The ugliest room in my house & randomly painting things
It never ceases to amaze me how one image can spur me in a direction I never realized I wanted to go in. A couple years ago it happened with a photo of a door painted black. Although I had never really given it much thought before, four hours later I was painting our back door black. I still love ...
What kind of garden do you (and I) have?
Now that I’ve run through some of the many styles of gardens, the natural question is, “What kind of garden do I have?” I think for me it’s safe to say that, strictly speaking, I have none the types of gardens I’ve talked about. And I bet that’s true for most of you. I think most gardeners tend to create what ...
Letters from the Garden
Letters from the Garden
