Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just stick any old plant into a container with any other plant and have it be beautiful and grow perfectly? Anyone who has tried this knows it just doesn’t work that way. I scoff a little when I see some beautiful container planting in a photograph that makes absolutely zero sense because I ...
Gosh, here I was reveling in the extra-week-in-between-Christmas-and-Thanksgiving glow and all of a sudden it’s December and I’m freaking out a little bit. Every year I resolve to take time to actually enjoy the holiday season instead of scurrying around doing everything, and every year, I end up totally stressing myself out. The problem is that I’m just not the ...
I am a Halloween failure. I have not put one Halloween or fall decoration in, on or near my house. You won’t find so much as a pumpkin donning our front stoop. I’m not a total scrooge (can you use that term in reference to holidays other than Christmas?), it’s just that we live in a fairly remote area. We ...
You won’t catch anyone here complaining, but two weekends ago it rained from Friday night to Sunday night almost without stopping. It was a nice, steady rain that added up to 2.5 inches over the course of the weekend and boy were gardeners, myself included, happy. Of course it put a major crimp in my plans to clean up the ...
For the three summers that we’ve had the window box I’ve been challenged to find the right balance in it. The first year was fairly experimental. Last year I ended up with a texture issue (everything was the same scale). This year I actually worried more about the texture than the color and did OK. What I’m most impressed with ...
I have a little obsession with container gardening. I don’t know what it is about container gardening that gets me so fired up, but I can say that it my favorite thing to do in the garden. It might be because it allows for a lot of creativity, but I think it’s because it appeals to my impatient nature. In ...
Thanks for your patience with the minimal amount of posts last week. When I’m writing at work I’m so engrossed in it that I have a really hard time writing about anything else simultaneously. So I need to bring you up to date on what was maybe the best shopping trip ever. I’ve mentioned Klehm’s Song Sparrow Nursery before as ...
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.
I’m coming to the conclusion that public gardens may be among the most under appreciated spaces on the planet. That’s not to say that they are not appreciated, just that they are not appreciated enough. I’m delighted every time I go to a public garden and I always enjoy it more than I expected to. […]
I have written thousands of words on this blog about deer: plants deer avoid, ways to fend off deer attacks, homemade deer spray, complaining about deer. Lots of complaining about deer. And a lot of you reading this have deer issues too. I know because not only do you commiserate (particularly with the complaining), but […]
You have gifts to buy and I’m here to help. There’s a lot of gardening stuff out there geared toward gift giving and to be honest, a lot of it is not great. Quality matters and sometimes cute just doesn’t cut it. Gardeners are, generally speaking, a practical bunch, and most of the gardeners I […]
There are two possible explanations for what’s been going on outside here lately: Either the weather is completely off its rocker or I’ve forgotten what this time of year is like. After several decades of experiencing fall into winter in this particular part of the world you would have thought I’d have it down by […]
I suppose the answer to the question posed in the title starts with “What plant?” Sure, there are plants that are special (we all have favorite plant children whether we admit it or not) that many of us would go to some length to protect. But what about replaceable plants? There was a time where […]
This post is sponsored by 3-IN-ONE® Brand, but all opinions are my own. I also take full responsibility for any messy garages that may be featured. There’s nothing like an abrupt change in seasons to get yourself in gear. Just a week ago I was sitting back, enjoying a beautiful fall day and feeling pretty […]
I might whine about winter and therefore autumn, which is guilty by association, but last weekend we had one of those magical fall days. The sun was bright and warm, the sky was that deep sapphire blue you only see in the last quarter of the year and every bit of foliage seemed to be […]
Fall cleanup used to be more about making sure the tools were put away, the leaves were off the lawn and the pots were cleared out of the way to make sure they won’t get in the way of the snowblower. I’m not sure when it happened but somewhere along the line I started collecting […]
Whew. Life has been a whirlwind lately. Right around June life always starts getting busy. There’s the usual busy-ness of summer and I managed to add to that by having a group of master gardeners tour my garden in August. And just when I thought I’d get a breather, work got busy. Somehow here we […]
There are gardeners who eschew new plants, and although they may have some valid arguments (among them that they are hybridized to a point where they are no longer of use to pollinators and the species is just fine), I’ll never get sick of trying new plants in the garden. I enjoy the challenge of […]
The last day of summer came and went in the most depressing way possible: with an all-day downpour that kept me out of the garden. This summer-loving gardener is not pleased. It is my sincere hope that we have a lot more summerlike weather ahead because as usual, it feels like summer has absolutely flown […]
Everything was going fine until it rained. And rained. And rained. Our weather station temporarily went on the fritz last week when a night of lightning took out the power, but we got somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 inches of rain in about four days. That much rain at this time of year is […]
These are the onions I grew this year. I harvested them this weekend and they may be the single best argument for trying new things in the garden.I can’t give you poundage because I just pulled them and they are curing but I can assure you I’ve never grown more onions before. And here’s where […]
I can tell you the exact moment that summer started at my house: 12:27 p.m. September 2. You read that right. That is the moment that summer started. Reports of summer’s death have been greatly exaggerated. And in this house summer starts the moment that I take the first bite of BLT featuring a giant […]
