I’ve mentioned the basement project here before, but only in an introductory fashion. Frankly, not much has happened with it, but there’s one sure way to make sure it gets done: Put it on a ridiculous schedule for the world to see. Enter the One Room Challenge, which technically began last week but I got a little behind on so ...
You know what a bummer it is when you find something you really like only to discover you really don’t want to spend that much money on it? That sort of sums up my search for lights in the basement, which, as you may recall, we are trying to do on a tight budget. At one point during my search ...
We are free of cable television. I feel like shouting it from the rooftops. The cord is officially cut. This is a move that we’ve been seriously contemplating for at least two years. Every month the cable bill would come and I’d shake my head at how much we were spending for television. Or worse, I’d avoiding looking at it ...
When Mr. Much More Patient proposed to me, the ring came in a perfectly wrapped box (done at the jewelry store) that sat flat on the table. After we got through the whole “Yes!” bit, I went back and examined that wrapping, which was done without tape, just a perfectly cut square of paper and that beautiful red ribbon. I ...
I got a lot of questions recently about how I constructed my holiday containers and window box so I thought I’d share a quick tutorial. I can’t say that I invented this method, but I’ve gotten pretty close to perfecting it after several years of tinkering with it. The inspiration for it came from the professionals, mostly Deborah Silver. Just a ...
I spent many, many hours dealing with leaves last weekend. I say “dealing with” because removing the leaves from the lawn and getting them to their final resting place involves a series of machines and every once in awhile an actual human-powered rake. My method mostly involves using our lawn tractor to mulch and bag the leaves on the lawn ...
Last spring Mr. Much More Patient looked out the window at our still-gray landscape and asked why we didn’t have more daffodils. They are a good bulb to grow here because no critters will touch them. Still, I don’t want to add too many more to the gardens, as keeping them healthy requires leaving the foliage standing to die back ...
The Impatient Gardener blog was started in 2009 and its library of posts includes practical how-tos, plant guides, favorite garden gear, successes and failures and much more. If you’re looking for something specific, the search function at the top of the page can help.
When the world was busy panic-buying toilet paper, I was busy panic-sowing. As it became clear that the novel coronavirus pandemic was going to change life, at least for awhile, I was in the middle of my regularly scheduled indoor seed starting. I had made a quiet promise to myself that this year, for once, […]
As you probably know, I live in the land of the delayed spring. So when I started getting questions from a couple people asking about why their tulips and other bulbs were short I didn’t think much of it. Maybe they planted them too deep or had something funky going on with the bulbs they […]
In a very random Instagram moment over the weekend—a hastily shot story made while practically running past the compost as I dashed around trying to get a few jobs done before it rained—I showed an exciting compost-related development: a second bin! OK, very few things related to compost can possibly be classified as exciting, but […]
Hi there, homebodies! I feel obligated, as I do from time to time when I disappear for a few weeks at a time, to apologize for being a bit scarce. There was a reason for it a couple weeks ago and then, well there wasn’t and now in this new world we live in I […]
Do I dare? Do I dare even get my hopes up that we may indeed be having an early spring and trust that we will roll right into a warm spring and a “normal” summer? You know the answer to that. I absolutely should not do that and yet I will. I am. This year’s […]
Last spring a trip to Pennsylvania provided inspiration that I continue to draw on now, especially on these cold winter days. I consider my visit at Chanticleer Garden to be the most influential garden tour I’ve ever taken, but just the day before I was at Longwood Gardens and it was no less inspiring. In […]
Annual vines are some of the hardest working, best problem solving plants in the summer garden. And with a grow habit so vigorous, when warm days turn to hot days and warm nights, you can almost watch them grow in front of your eyes. Vines are great for screening the less attractive bits in our […]
After you garden for awhile, you start to get a pretty good idea of what kind of gardener you are. Your style and approach to garden tasks becomes pretty clear. And after two decades of gardening in some form, I think my weak point is clear: restraint. As much as I know that restraint is […]
This post is sponsored by Jung Seed Company but, as always, the words and opinions here are my own. Is it just me, or are more people into growing plants from seed? In the past couple years I feel like so many people have asked me about seeds or shared their seed-starting tips and stories. Whether […]
I don’t often talk about houseplants here, and on the rare occasion that I do, it’s done reluctantly. I’m just not all that comfortable with them, and I certainly don’t have the passion for them that I have for all the great things that grow outdoors. I have a few houseplants that get special treatment […]
I have to admit something. I cried watching a gardening television show. Not during the reveal of some kind of makeover for a deserving family. Nope. I cried watching Monty Don talk about American gardens. Let me back up a bit. For those who are unfamiliar, Monty Don is perhaps the most well-known gardener in […]
Well I’m predictable, that’s for sure. Every couple years, almost without fail, I take on a really big garden project. I cannot explain what compels me to follow this arbitrary yet somehow predictable schedule, but I do. And so, since I spent much of 2018 building the dream vegetable garden, and part of last year […]
Most winters, I make it until at least January before I start ordering plants for a gardening summer that might as well be a light year away, but this year I got a head start. It wasn’t my intention to start buying when I should have been Christmas shopping for other people, but the early […]
In what has become something akin to a tradition around here, we’re just days away from Christmas and the outside of my house is fully decorated (at least as fully decorated as anything gets around here), and the inside has a long way to go. I’ll be honest, I have a lot more fun doing […]
