You won’t believe what is happening at our house today. In fact, it was so disturbing to me that I left as quickly as I could this morning without so much as grabbing a photo of it first. More trees are coming down. Does anyone else get that sick feeling in their stomach when they have to take down a ...
My favorite holiday decorations are the ones I do outside. It’s partly because they brighten up what is otherwise a pretty dreary landscape, but also because the decorations outside, particularly the containers, provide the most decorating bang for the buck.I love how with a few collected (and some purchased) materials you can create something that is really beautiful. These containers ...
We got our first real snowfall (a few inches) last night which makes it a little harder to ignore the freight train that is Christmas. Let me start by saying I really hate that Thanksgiving seems to have been forgotten other than to mark the Thursday before the weekend that everyone is putting up their Christmas decorations. I love decorating ...
I’ve whined about the deer problem in my garden many times before and there is no perfect solution. Every year I learn more in the war in combatting them and what I learned last year was that they can do major damage in winter. Up until last year, we’ve had many years of mild winters. But last year we had ...
A few weeks ago I told you that I was contemplating adding some fence panels along a portion of our driveway. I’m still very much in favor of that happening, especially since the house next door recently sold. We don’t know what the situation with the new neighbors will be, but odds are they will be around much more than ...
I forget how difficult it is to keep on top of photos when Daylight Savings Time ends. Seems like I’m only home when it’s dark these days. The deep freeze is scheduled to arrive this week and stick around for at least a week. Temperatures next week will struggle to break 20. In other words, it was time to get ...
Although the forecast for Halloween is for a full-on gale we continue to enjoy a pretty great autumn here so I still haven’t done much in the way of garden cleanup. One fall gardening chore I have accomplished, however, is planting bulbs. It’s been several years since I’ve planted any bulbs, but last spring I was kicking myself for not ...
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It was a beautiful weekend here in Wisconsin and I did not spend a single moment of it in the garden. That’s not a good thing. I should be taking advantage of good weather when I can to start sprucing up for fall. Usually my fall gardening chores consist of weeding (the more weeding I […]
Don’t read this post while you’re eating. Unless you are dieting and want a reason to stop eating. I have sad news to report on the health of the Family Jewels plant. The aphids love it. I have never actually seen a plant so covered in aphids before in my life. From a distance I […]
Busy, busy, busy. That’s the theme around here lately. The weather took at decided turn towards downright chilly over the past week reminding me of all the things that need to get finished outside before the snow flies. But you know how you can be flying along checking things off the to-do list and then […]
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. […]
The plant feeler-upper strikes again. Look how big the family jewels are getting! You might recall my PG-13 plant touching moment from last year: P.S. I’m not totally sick, I swear. I’m just a toucher. I touch everything. It’s a good thing I discovered Internet shopping because store employees would get irritated with me for [&hel
Dear Canon bigwigs, Since I’m sure you’re readers of The Impatient Gardener, you’ve probably noticed that the photography on the blog as of late has not been, um … award-winning. The main reason for that is that the Canon Rebel XTi that I have occasionally used in the past is borrowed from work and lately […]
A prudent DIYer does some testing when they work with a new product before jumping right into the real deal. I bet that would be really boring to read about. So, as a favor to you, when I decided to use chalk paint to redo my kitchen chairs I jumped right in with both feet […]
I’m a big proponent of gardening being fun. That’s why I feel that gardening “rules” should be thought of more as guidelines. My gardening rule is: Do what makes you happy. As part of embracing that philosophy, this spring I bought a plant for no reason other than that I thought it was funny. I […]
My bidding number. Go figure. I went to an auction Sunday. For FIVE hours. I had no idea auctions lasted so long (I left before it was over). Normally giving up almost an entire Sunday to stand in an dank old building would be akin to torture but I did it anyway because: 1. Some […]
If this doesn’t put a smile on your face then you need the weekend more than most. I love this and kind of want to do it but I’d be so sad when it got destroyed.
Anybody who has read this blog for long knows that I’m a creature of habit. Even if you lived in a bubble with no exposure to the outside world you would know just from reading this blog (and what kind of a sad state of affairs would that be?) what season it is. As you […]
Happy Tuesday everyone! Are you all just soaking up this last bit of summer like I am? Last weekend we did pretty much nothing productive after noon on both Saturday and Sunday. We read books on the beach, ate lots of taco dip, drank Coronas at 2 and I got to go paddleboarding (my new […]
I think most gardeners sort of lust for the perfect tomato (not ALL, since we know that oddballs like Kylee at Our Little Acre and Steve aka The Grumpy Gardener are proud freaks tomato haters). And I’d say I probably do grow a perfect tomato every summer. But I’m not content with one perfect tomato. […]
Hi everyone! I’m back from a whirlwind trip to England. I was so busy working on the sailing event the whole time that I didn’t get to do much in the way of tourist stuff. I didn’t even get to the London 2012 store before it shut down to pick up stuff for my nephews […]
