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Even more garden styles
Last week we looked at three kinds of gardens: modern, formal and cottage. Of course there are many other kinds, but I’m going to try to cover them in one fell swoop, rather than individually. N A T I V E G A R D E N S Contemporary Landscape by San Leandro Landscape Architects & Designers Urban Botanics Simply put, native gardens strive ...
Discovering garden styles part 3: Cottage gardens
OK, we’re back with another look at a garden style, and I suspect this one is a bit more relatable to most people: the good ol’ cottage garden. We’ve already looked at modern gardens and formal gardens, but now it’s time to loosen things up a little. C O T T A G E G A R D E N S The free-flowing nature of ...
Discovering garden styles part 2: Formal gardens
Yesterday in a little break-from-winter look at garden styles we took a look at modern gardens. Now we’re going in what you would think is the opposite direction, to formal gardens, but really these two styles share more in common than you might think. F O R M A L G A R D E N S Even if you’re not a fan of ultra ...
Discovering garden styles: Modern gardens
Damn this weather. Let’s talk gardening, shall we? I love studying garden design (that is, if you count looking at countless photos of gardens to be studying). I think it would be great to have a garden in every style if such a thing was possible to pull off (I think would require multiple properties or one really, really big ...
Questions I’d like to ask the previous owners of my house
I wanted to lay around and do pretty much nothing this weekend. The gravitational pull of the couch was particularly strong, so it’s a good thing I published that to-do list last week. There’s nothing like having to have something to write about on a blog to keep you honest. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I tackled the ...
A DIY magnetic chalkboard: Now you see it, now you don’t
I have to apologize, you guys. My disorganized method of managing photos has struck again. I kick myself for this. I work with professional photographers at work every day and I know that they all have a method for cataloging every photo they download, so why I never started doing the same thing is a bit of a mystery. I’ve ...
Taking stock: What’s on the agenda
Ahhhh. I’m back and so refreshed. Call it a massive rapid influx of Vitamin D, but sailing the Exuma islands of the Bahamas was certainly just what the doctor ordered. I feel refreshed and ready to jump into some great winter projects. Now that the holidays are over (and I am SO thankful that I put everything away before we ...
Flown the coop
It’s the same every year. The Christmas decorations come down and almost instantly my thoughts turn to the garden. This is problematic because the earliest I can start working in the garden is early April, and that’s if all the stars align and we have an actual spring (something that is almost unheard of in this part of the country). ...
Skinny trees for sunny spots
I saw a lot of gardening “trend” stories pop up around the beginning of the year. The concept of trends in gardening always seems a little off to me. I look at photos of gardens designed a hundred years ago and love them as much (or more) than one designed last year. But I know particular kinds of plants come ...
Think you’ve got Mother Nature figured out? Think again, sucka
Since most of the country (and Canada) is in the grips of the polar vortex I’ll spare you my tale of woe and the pictures from my cell phone of the thermometer on my car. School’s been cancelled due to the cold for two days now and one of our buildings at work is without heat but my main concern ...
Let there be (a not ugly) light
Happy new year, everyone! I hope you had a nice New Year’s Eve and a great first day 2014. I was happy to get the house completely de-Christmassed. As much as I like the decorations (and I really just got them up about a week and a half ago), it’s still nice to reclaim the house. Last weekend, when I ...
2013: A year in (blog posts) review
I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful holiday season. From a work perspective, this whole holiday-in-the-middle-of-the-week thing is for the birds, but I certainly enjoyed having a whole weekend in between Christmas and the new year with no social engagements. It was a fruitful weekend as far as projects and personal rejuvenation goes. But before I start telling you ...
Merry Christmas (and what it looks like at my house)
It’s Christmas Eve. What’s done is done and what is not done will not be. All that’s left to do at this point is enjoy the holiday. The last week and a half has been full of late nights for me as I tried to catch up on getting ready for hte holiday, so it’s no surprise that I was ...
A new take on an old mantel
Pretty much the whole point of having a big fireplace is to decorate it for Christmas, right? So it was a big relief when last night we finished (for now) a project that will actually allow me to do that. Yes, I know it’s December 20. I’m working on it! I’ve mentioned before that I have a real problem decorating ...
Simple swag
Posting on the blog has been so sporadic lately and I apologize for that. I have so many projects up in the air right now and it seems like it’s taking forever to finish any of them. I’m including things like “decorate the Christmas tree” and “hang up the garland outside that I bought a month ago and haven’t put ...
Orange you glad they are finally finished?
You know I always have several projects in the works at one time, but I think this one holds the record for longest in-progress project. Obsessed with cane chairs, I found a pair of them on Craigslist more than two years ago and picked them up for $30 each. This really wasn’t a good deal (I’ve since seen similar chairs ...
Letters from the Garden
Letters from the Garden
