A quick note before we get into a makeover I’m really excited about: This post is a paid partnership with Lowe’s Home Improvement, but you know how I roll on these things: You always get my honest opinion whether you want it or not! Here’s a typical summer for me: Part 1: Hurry, hurry, hurry. All this garden stuff has ...
Over the weekend I did something I should be doing much more often. I got out of bed early and, instead of lingering over multiple cups of coffee, I grabbed my camera to take a few pictures in the nice morning light. Whether you take photos to share, as a record of your garden or just for fun, looking at ...
There’s something special going on at a little island smack dab at the meeting point of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. I’ve never been to a place outside the tropics where a garden can be filled with every color and have it work like it does on Mackinac Island. The air there is clear, the skies seemingly always deep blue. ...
Four years ago when I planted comfrey, I went into it with my eyes wide open. I knew that because comfrey grows very deep roots (like 15 or more feet deep), and because it grows very easily from root cuttings, that once I planted it, odds are, it would be in that spot forever. So, after selecting the Russian bocking ...
Whenever I’m in Chicago I try to take a stroll through the Lurie Garden in downtown. I realize that the whole point of Piet Oudolf‘s iconic design is that looks great all the time, just in a different way (and in a way that sometimes redefines what looking great means for a garden), but it never fails to amaze me ...
Do you ever wonder what size plant you should buy? Is that bigger plant really work twice the price of a smaller plant? I have no clear position on this. Years ago when I was first starting this garden I got very involved in a plant co-op that I purchased dozens (or maybe hundreds) of plant liners through. It allowed ...
I’m writing this on Friday night because a Friday Finds never happened. I gardened after work until late—I’m determined to have every plant that’s in a pot in the ground by the end of the weekend—and waited for a big expected storm to come through to water it all. It’s amazing how efficient I am right before it rains. The ...
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Welcome to Week 2 of the One Room Challenge. I’m “playing along” as a guest participant in the blogging event that has people making over a room in six weeks and linking up via Calling it Home. In Week 1 (which I just published a couple days ago) I laid out the room, the issues, […]
There comes a time in every seedling’s life when it must move out of its cramped confines into bigger digs that will allow it to keep growing. Given proper heat and light, tomato seedlings grow faster than most other kinds of seeds, so they need almost constant tending from the moment they are planted. I […]
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 […]
Holy smokes. I’m finally sitting down to reach out to you all to just let you know I’m still around a little bit about what’s been happening. I tend to do little personal updates as part of Friday Finds, but there was no getting to a computer on Friday. Last week I traveled to Savannah, […]
Given that I delayed a lot of garden work in fall, it’s no surprise that the first real job I did in the garden this spring was a task I should have taken care of several months ago. And it was that much more painful for having waited. Last September I shared the sad news […]
What a week. Well, weeks. I have been at an uncomfortable level of “busy” lately and I can’t wait to be back to normal busy, which is my happy place. But caring for my seedlings is a wonderful break. Two times a day I check on them, making sure they are properly watered, rearranging them […]
There are signs of life in the garden. Somehow the leaves that I removed in fall reappeared and all of the perennials that I left standing in November are waiting to be chopped down, but underneath the mess, things are happening. The earliest daffodils in my garden, which live in a little microclimate along the […]
I keep lists of plants I’m on the hunt for in various places—on sheets of paper in my purse, in an app on my phone, at the back of my garden notebook. This way I remember to grab them if I find them at a local nursery. Each year there are a handful of plants […]
Happy spring! In preparation for the first day of spring, we spent some time over the weekend walking through our still partially snow covered yard taking an assessment of what needs doing this year. The creek that runs under this little bridge and it’s twin a bit farther east ranges from a trickle to a […]
The week again got away from me, but that’s no reason not share some good stuff from the web. Here’s some of my favorite finds. Gardener admission: I don’t care for asparagus. I’ll eat it if it’s roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper but I do so begrudgingly. But I know plenty of people […]
Big things happen in my garden when I’m not able to garden. It is absolutely a case of my gardening eyes being much larger than my gardening stomach, but what else is a gardener to do during the long days of winter than think about the garden? The west side of the house is the […]
Since I started growing plants from seeds in earnest a few years ago the amount of plants I produce has increased almost exponentially. That is only problematic from a space standpoint. I plant or have homes waiting for all of the plants so none go to waste and I think my garden is better because […]
Stacey Hirvela didn’t get into gardening the way many people do; it wasn’t something she was surrounded by. But her grandmother grew lily of the valley by the garage, and young Stacey was allowed to pick as many of the flowers as she wanted. It wasn’t until she was older that she discovered gardening for […]
When I set about doing this project, I planned on doing a long, involved tutorial on the blog. As it turns out, it was just about the easiest project I’ve ever done so no tutorial is needed. Remember these pots I found on a super sale in fall at the Restoration Hardware outlet? I knew […]
