You think this is going to be about weeding, don’t you? Well, I do detest weeding, but it pales in comparison to the garden job that I truly abhor: pulling up sod.Last weekend I finally had the guts to cut the bed lines for the new side/back yard. I sort of had to; the can of landscaping spray paint I ...
One of the trees we took down in our latest round of tree trimming and (dead tree) removal was an evergreen that the compost bin was located next to. Even though the only thing that shielded the bin was a (rather large) bare trunk, it somehow made the placement of the compost bin make sense. Now that the tree is ...
I grew potatoes for the first time last year at one of the community garden plots my mom and I share. Despite the fact that I had no clue what I was doing and the soil in the new plot was very, very poor, we got a small but delicious crop of fingerling potatoes. The harvest was that much more ...
It was a great weekend in the garden: two marathon days that left the garden in pretty good shape and my body in pretty bad shape. There is something so satisfying about the pain one feels after long days in the garden. I put some row cover over the peas and lettuce seed, if only to protect them a bit ...
Since I wrote this post, I estimate that I’ve watched more than 50 hours of British gardening shows. And I think I’ve learned more from them than I ever learned over all the years of watching American gardening shows. Some of that information—how to take cuttings, for instance—may not be completely practical as I have nowhere to overwinter delicate new plants, ...
A lot of people are blogging about gardening these days. People who normally blog about clothing, interior design and a little bit of everything (or, um, nothing) are writing posts about gardening. I think that is fantastic. The more gardeners in this world the better, so if people are inspired to put a few plants in containers or improve their ...
I know that it is high time to stop complaining about how bad winter was, but those of us who experienced it will be dealing with its aftermath for some time. In my area, where Lake Michigan reached an absurd 93% ice coverage this winter (for the first time since the 1970s), the water is going to be cold most ...
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.
Resident supervisors Rita and Hudson posed for a photograph for the newspaper photo shoot a couple weeks ago.I’m just realizing now that somebody should have washed Rita’s feet first. In continuing to revisit the renovation roughly a year after it got started, I thought I’d put together a list of things you should know if you
Boy, I have been all over the place on the blog lately and we are about to enter a subject that I’ve never dealt with before and probably won’t revisit anytime soon. I hope you all are at least a bit amused by these posts. As you know I did a lot of the painting […]
When planting the new gardens in the back yard I treated myself to three unusual and special plants, all from Klehm’s Song Sparrow Nursery, one of my favorite online nurseries. The plant that, I will be honest, I picked just because there was no difference in the price for shipping three plants or two plants […]
Yes, I know I just repainted the front door a deeper blue a few weeks ago. But the October issue of Coastal Living just came today and I think I might have to paint it again. Coastal Living photo I’m pretty sure I need that. Including that awesome starfish wreath (from Beach Grass Cottage on […]
Before I get into today’s post, I just wanted to say thank you to you all. The ideas you’ve been sharing on the office plan have been amazing and really inspiring. I can’t wait to incorporate many of them into the office. Since it is the first official day of autumn (groan), I thought it […]
Well howdy everyone! I can’t even tell you how crazy the past week has been. I picked up a little side job last week—volunteer, not paid—that took up way more of my “free” time than I expected and then I had several dinners related to an event, and a golf outing. And then, of course, […]
I never developed the ability to accessorize, whether it be in my wardrobe or my home. I tend to like a more clean-cut wardrobe full of basics (a good white shirt is the key to all humanity as far as I’m concerned although I rarely wear them because I usually spill coffee on them in […]
One of the new plants in the garden this year that has really thrilled me is heucherella ‘Redstone Falls.’ I got three of these through the Yahoo Co-op as plugs and they are all over a foot wide now. The coloring in their part-sun location is a gorgeous combination of terra-cotta, orange, yellow, green […]
It is hard to believe that it was just about a year ago that we started the house renovation (September 1, 2010, to be exact). The renovation seemed like it lasted forever (and it was a good six months) but looking back on it now it seems like a distant memory. Surely renovating a house […]
A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I had finally put the potentillia that I never really liked in the first place out of its misery. Well, my misery really, because it wasn’t doing too badly, I just couldn’t stand it in the garden anymore. There is one other plant that has underperformed since we […]
The air is just a touch crisper. The mornings are a bit cooler. Stores are full of fall-themed merchandise. Fall bulb catalogs were filling the mailbox weeks ago. As much as I’d like to pretend it’s not the case, autumn, apparently, is around the corner. And the surest sign of that is that I’m starting […]
I know I go on and on about hydrangeas, and particularly Limelight, but I simply can’t help myself. I mean look at how many petals are simply packed into this flower. And the blooms on my older Limelight are enormous! Of course all I have for scale is my hand, so here’s a picture […]
I apologize for the lack of posts this week. Since most of what I blog about in summer is stuff that happens outside, and because I’m usually at work during the day when the light is decent, I often take most of the photos for the blog on the weekend and then pump out a […]
There are so many garden chores that escaped me earlier this season since I was busy basically redoing our entire backyard (including this path and these walls) so one of the many things that needed attending to was some plant moving. Sadly it seems like the worst of the heat is behind us (90 degrees? […]
