Kathy Purdy

What You Don’t Know About Bugs Could Make Your Garden Better

by Kathy Purdy February 28, 2014
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Interview with Jessica Walliser, Author of Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden Jessica Walliser’s new book,Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Controlrecently published by Timber Press, turns the gardener’s view of insects upside down. Suddenly, they are no longer the enemy, but allies you encourage by the way that you […]

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A Garden of Marvels: Book Review

by Kathy Purdy February 24, 2014

I always thought my garden held marvels, but until I read A Garden of Marvels: How We Discovered that Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants by Ruth Kassinger, I didn’t realize just how marvelous it was. And if you told me I was going to find a book on the […]

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Why You Need to Get Outside During the Next Thaw

by Kathy Purdy February 20, 2014

Have you, like us, had more snow this winter than in the last twenty years?Perhaps, like us, you are getting a thaw? The temperature is well above freezing during the day, with intermittent rain? You need to get out! Take a walk through your garden–wear rubber boots and carry an umbrella if you must–but get […]

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Spring Inside: Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day February 2014

by Kathy Purdy February 15, 2014

I have Matt Mattus to blame (and thank) for these primulas. I never would have looked for them at my local Wegmans if he hadn’t mentioned that’s where he found his. (Wegmans in Massachusetts? Who knew?) Since he brought it to my attention, when I saw them for 99 cents each I grabbed two. Finally, […]

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Some Things You Should Know About Bird Feeding in Cold Climates

by Kathy Purdy February 13, 2014

The simplest of chores can get really complicated . . . Feeding the birds is one of the most delightful things a cold climate gardener can do while she is waiting for the snow to melt and the snowdrops to bloom. No, wait–I take that back. Watching the birds flutter and feed and jockey for […]

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How To Make Garden Beds Without Too Much Fuss

by Kathy Purdy February 5, 2014

When I first started gardening, the “proper” way to prepare a garden bed was double digging. I wouldn’t recommend that for anything except really long-lived plants, like peonies and asparagus. These days many people recommend lasagna gardening or something similar. I tried that, and it didn’t work too well for me. The biggest mistake I […]

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Rethinking The Front of the House

by Kathy Purdy January 29, 2014

The front of our current house presents a very long surface to the road, having been added onto twice by attaching rooms to the side. It faces the most level land to be found on the entire ten acres, the front lawn. And yet, when we moved in, only a scruffy scrim of shrubbery clung […]

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Gardening Books to Dream With

by Kathy Purdy January 18, 2014

Pity those gardeners in warmer climes who garden all through the winter. Scarcely are the holidays over, and their hellebores are up and crocuses are showing buds. They never get to put up their feet and completely ignore what the plants are doing outside. We cold climate gardeners, on the other hand, can fully and […]

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Houseplants For the Winter-Weary: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day January 2014

by Kathy Purdy January 15, 2014

I‘ve bought yet another plant after saying I was tired of my houseplants. I pounced on this forced hyacinth in bud while grocery shopping. I didn’t force any hyacinths myself this year because I was short of funds and many of the bulbs I tried to force last year went moldy on me. But right […]

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Three Poppy Seed Tips

by Kathy Purdy January 9, 2014

Botanical Interests asked me to submit three tips about poppies and my photo to put in their catalog. They only used one of the tips, but there I am on page forty-five.Botanical Interests sells several kinds of poppies, including one of my favorites, ‘Lauren’s Grape’. One year their supplier of ‘Lauren’s Grape’ had a crop […]

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