July 2008

I have been re-reading People with Dirty Hands: The Passion for Gardening by Robin Chotzinoff for the Garden Bloggers Book Club. Just like last time, I am amazed by her ability to ferret these eccentric gardeners out, and in awe of her willingness to drive hundreds of miles to talk to total strangers, some of [...]

Every year about this time, the Juneberry bed looks like this: This photo was taken last July, but gives you the general idea: milkweed, musk mallow, lambs' quarters, and a weedy form of evening primrose all detract from the daylilies that are supposed to shine here. Being a detail person, in past years I have [...]

After complaining about the lack of bloom on my 'Endless Summer' hydrangea last year, I thought I'd better put in a good word for this shrub now that it is living up to expectations. It is growing vigorously and has a lot of flowers on it. What I did differently As I mentioned earlier this [...]

There is a lot in bloom right now. A lot. I had to make two columns on my sheet of paper to list them all. I thought it would be a good time to test the gallery feature again. Linda sent me a template that helped me get the gallery feature working better. When you [...]

My neighbor's rose With our neighbor's permission, my daughter dug up a piece of this rose and planted it in one of our garden beds last year. My neighbor's house is over a hundred years old and it was in the garden there when she moved in over twenty years ago. The blossom pictured above [...]

One of the things I did in June was tackle a part of the north border that had never been cultivated. I had dumped leaves there for several years, but otherwise whatever the birds planted that could tolerate shade was growing there: garlic mustard, aster, goldenrod, creeping bellflower, and jewelweed. My goal was nothing less [...]

No thanks to me, but we have been enjoying some fabulous lettuce from the garden lately. Except for one week in early June, it hasn't been especially hot. So it might be the weather, or it might be the varieties, but we're eating salad every day. Salad every day . . . what do you [...]