January 2006

Old Roses mentioned how she has trouble keeping jade plants alive. Heh. She must be too conscientious. This jade plant was started from a piece that broke off a still bigger jade plant that was recently given away. My guess is it's over ten years old. It grows in my bedroom and is neglected most [...]

Art in the garden. Just hearing that phrase brings to my mind classical statues reigning from alcoves sculpted into centuries-old hedges, or huge, abstract monoliths sitting on perfectly manicured lawns, both completely alien to my way of thinking and my way of life. But there is also garden art that is more casual, personal--eccentric, even--and [...]

I'm an expert, that is, if being quoted in the newspaper makes you an expert. Dean Fosdick writes regularly on gardening topics for the Associated Press, and contacted me for information on gardening blogs and other uses of the computer in gardening. He told me it would run around February 1st, but I just discovered [...]

Mia, the Nature Nut has just posted an entry on her blog. It doesn't say much, but gives one hope that things are on the upswing.

In your plant shopping of the recent past, have you bought a perennial labeled Jeeper Creepers, Happily Ever Appster daylilies, or Trophytaker daylilies? Then you've bought a plant that originally came from Heritage Perennials. So what? you say. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there are very few plant wholesalers that have such a [...]

Due to the prolonged January thaw I find that I am actually in the snowdrop race, limping along in last place. These are growing in the same spot as the blooming snowdrops of the previous post. This photo was taken January 12th. Since then, the cold has returned and we've even gotten a little snow, [...]

In my sitemeter stats I found this blog linking to mine. I know there are translation utilities available, but I don't even know what language this is. Can anyone help me out here? I'd like to contact the author and add his/her blog to my directory. I suspect the author knows English, but I can't [...]

So we got this new (meaning, we've never gotten this one before, the company's actually 9 years old) seed catalog in the mail the other day, and I've been elected to post about it. They're called Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and you can find them on the internet here. They're all about rare, organic, old, [...]

As I'm beginning to get started on my seed order this year, I remember that I meant to post on potatoes. Last year, due to the fascinating varieties offered by Fedco, I ordered my potatoes from them instead of Johnny's. Most of you probably know that Fedco is divided into several distinct branches; the seeds [...]