Spring is right around the corner, and I've been going through photos of the garden bed adjoining our back deck. My, has it grown up--but it also needs tinkering. If you're looking for some flower power to get you through mud season, c'mon over and check this post out. Who knows? Maybe you'll get some ideas for your own spring renovation.
poppies
What Placeholder Plants Can Do For You
July 9, 2017 – Posted in: Design, How-toWhen I finally grasped the concept of placeholder plants, it changed my life. Well, what I mean is, it reduced my garden maintenance load and I enjoyed my garden more, with less work. Not precisely life-changing, but definitely life-improving. A placeholder plant is a garden-worthy plant that you happen to have a lot of, which [...]
Serendipity in July: Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day July 2014
July 16, 2014 – Posted in: What's up/bloomingWhen you let plants self-sow, as I discussed in my review of Plantiful, serendipitous things can happen in your garden that surprise and delight you.The poppies in the photo above are second year poppies. I scattered the seed of their parents over my flower bed, but I did nothing for the poppies you see here [...]
Three Poppy Seed Tips
January 9, 2014 – Posted in: Seeds and Seed StartingBotanical 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 [...]
Collecting Poppy Seeds: Fall Gardening Chores
November 10, 2013 – Posted in: Garden chores, Seeds and Seed StartingCollecting seeds is an optional fall chore for me. Most of the time I depend on the plants' own willingness to disperse seeds, or the availability of the seed from seed companies. But every so often I grow a plant and I am not sure I will be able to buy more seed, or I [...]
Mild October’s Bounty: Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day October 2013
October 15, 2013 – Posted in: What's up/bloomingThis has been a very mild fall. We've had the occasional skin-of-the-teeth frost, which means some frost on the back lawn, but not enough to touch the plants in a raised bed, or the stone floor of the front porch, or the back deck, which is a floor above ground level. As a result, a [...]
Flowers, Finally: Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day
September 15, 2013 – Posted in: What's up/bloomingAfter whining all year about seeing too much bare dirt in my garden, I am happy to report the problem has been rectified by several annuals that finally got going this month, just in time for the first frost. Fortunately, a lot of the annuals I favor are not fazed by a light frost, so [...]
Bountiful Blooms: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day July 2011
July 15, 2011 – Posted in: What's up/bloomingThe plentiful rain and lack of frost that characterized this spring is still bearing fruit. I can't remember ever seeing my daylilies so floriferous. The whole garden has a feeling of lushness that I soak up every chance I get. So it was tough choosing photos for this month's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. For the [...]
Winter Thaw Discoveries
December 29, 2009 – Posted in: What's up/bloomingEven in a cold, snowy climate, there are often thaws, periods where it warms up (that means, above freezing), the sun shines, and you may even lose snow cover. In my case, while Oklahoma was getting buried under a record snowfall, it was raining here, and then, on this past Sunday, the sun came out. [...]
Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities!: Book Review
April 9, 2009 – Posted in: Book reviewsOh Garden of Fresh Possibilities!: Notes from a Gloucester Garden by Kim Smith made me aware of my garden book prejudices: What kind of title is that? You just don't start a title with "oh" and end it with an exclamation point! And then I read the back cover: "Drawn by the tender magic of [...]
Recent Comments