It has been a difficult few weeks to be a gardener in my area. The sun is setting early (and soon to be much earlier) so there’s no time for gardening after work and the weekends have been rainy. I appreciate this late season rain, as I believe that it is best for plants to go into dormancy well hydrated, ...
I tend to go on a bit here about taking stock of your garden so you can make changes next year, but that’s because I still think it’s one of the single best things you can do. Plus, I find it to be a very optimistic activity. In the middle of a season of decomposition, I find it quite enjoyable ...
This is a challenging time in the garden for me. We’ve not yet had a frost, so although things are looking a little ragged, there’s nothing that’s dead and looking terrible. Which means I’m faced with the conundrum of going against my gardener’s gut reaction to do everything I can to keep plants looking good and the practical voice in ...
To my knowledge there is no garden task that strikes fear into the heart of gardeners so much as pruning. By my estimation, the two most likely explanations for this are: We’ve all been scolded and made to feel bad/silly/stupid for pruning incorrectly. We live in perpetual fear of killing plants by pruning incorrectly. There are rules for pruning. Oh ...
It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Friday Finds, so I thought I’d pop in quickly to share some of my favorites for the week. First off, a bit of a programming note. I haven’t been posting a lot lately simply because it’s been one of those busy times in life. I was out of town last week (in beautiful ...
For as much as I love plants, my relationship with houseplants is, as they say on Facebook, complicated. I love having them, because a house devoid of plant life would be depressing. But at the same time I don’t love the space they take up nor their neediness. And because of that it is only due to their summer vacation ...
Sometimes I am tempted to create more gardens (which I absolutely do not need) simply to create more garden paths. I don’t know why I have a love affair with paths, but I collect pictures of them and ideas for future paths with the same zeal that I collect garden ideas.My tastes in paths are nondiscriminatory. I love them whether ...
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Before I get into Friday Finds, a few notes. I have been working on a post with three book reviews in it for weeks now and still haven’t finished it. Next week. They would be excellent gift ideas too. Our first snowfall of the year is expected to come tonight and it could be anywhere […]
As a Midwesterner, I have been raised to be excellent at complaining about the weather. It’s the No. 2 most popular hobby in these parts, bested only by something related to football. But this fall we’ve had absolutely nothing to complain about. This El Niño year has given us the most lovely weather, including the […]
I’m a bit late on Friday Finds today, but there was some good stuff on the Internet this week. Here’s a taste. The One Room Challenge wrapped up this week. I still can’t believe these people do a whole room in six weeks. I particularly liked this entry and this bedroom. Check out the amazing guest participant […]
I got my latest issue of Gardens Illustrated magazine the other day. I say “my” latest issue, because this British pub take a long time to get to a mailbox in the U.S. and I believe the next issue is already out in England. I put up with that because it’s a fantastic magazine, one […]
So last week, I signed off on Friday Finds by saying that I didn’t know what I was going to do this weekend, but that it wouldn’t be cleaning a fireplace. So imagine my surprise when, just 48 hours later, I was crawling around in a firebox doing just that. A dirty old fireplace never […]
Before we jump into some great Friday Finds, a quick update on bathroom renovation planning progress (for the downstairs bathroom renovation that may or may not happen this winter). I have now found two accent tiles that have been perfect … until I ordered them and they were discontinued. I can only assume that the […]
Have you ever cleaned your stone fireplace surround? I bet the answer is no. I mean, how are you supposed to clean craggy rocks? We’re been in our house for more than 13 years and I know we’ve never cleaned our fireplace surround. My guess is that no else in the 70 or so years […]
I’ve been trying to source things for our potential bathroom remodel as I make a budget for it and over the weekend I came to the line on my spreadsheet for lighting. I started looking around in all the usual online places, trying to stay mostly in the huge lighting Internet superstores and away from […]
Glad to be back for Friday Finds this week. Blogland is humming these days; it seems like autumn has everyone in the mood for some seriously creative projects. First off, if you missed my review of the most empowering yard tool I’ve ever used (which was posted late last night because of an a.m. / […]
It is a big time of year for yard work. Those of us in the north know that any day could be our last opportunity to clean up the yard before snow and ice descend. And with the garden more or less minding itself at this time of year (at least until we get a […]
In my mind at least, the downstairs bathroom renovation is ON. My mind and reality are not necessarily in the same place though. One thing I learned when we did our major house remodel four years ago now (I cannot believe it’s been that long! I still haven’t hung any art on the guest room […]
There is a traditional among northern gardeners in which the night before the first frost we all run out to our gardens and cut every tender flower we can find. Last Friday, the night of the first predicted frost, I got home later than I expected, which mean that I ran outside in the very […]
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a few things you can do in your garden in fall to set yourself up for a great gardening year ahead. I accidentally came across another one: check out the sky-view of your garden to look for potential improvements. While looking up something else on Google Earth, I […]
Well, it looks like we may get our first frost tonight. I’ll be making myself a big bouquet of flowers from what is left in the garden and bringing the poor spider plant after work. I don’t think I’ve told you about the abused spider plant before and I’ll have to something. I bought it […]
