Gosh, this week just whooshed by and so many things I had planned for the blog just didn’t happen. Next week should be better. Just a few quick Friday Finds to kick off the weekend. If you’re reading this on Friday, you still have a few hours left to enter to win one of two beautiful dahlia collections, including the ...
I have always resisted journaling. I’m sure that part of that is related to a bad journaling experience I had in eighth grade when a teacher who required us to journal every day took quite literally what I had written, which in my mind was the start of one of the many of my novels that have never gotten past ...
It would be cruel to ask me (or any gardener) to name my favorite flower, but I can say without any hesitancy that I can’t imagine a garden of mine ever being without dahlias. They are, to me, the quintessential flower. And there are so many varieties I can’t imagine that everyone couldn’t find at least one (ha!) that they ...
You know what a bummer it is when you find something you really like only to discover you really don’t want to spend that much money on it? That sort of sums up my search for lights in the basement, which, as you may recall, we are trying to do on a tight budget. At one point during my search ...
It is a gorgeous day in Wisconsin. The sun is shining, the high temperature may break a record and I have completely mixed feelings about that. Don’t get me wrong, I love an easy winter. But I love it during winter. There are consequences though. Last year I had Japanese beetles in my garden for the first time ever, probably ...
So this is in my fridge. In case you can’t tell what that is, it’s a 5.5-pound bag of slightly moldy-looking sawdust. Makes it all clear, right? That’s a bag of mushroom spawn in my fridge, complete with the directions on top of it because if I don’t keep them in there I’m sure to lose them. It’s actually a ...
Although it was a major topic in fall, I’ve not said much about the circle garden lately. To catch you up to speed here’s the deal with the circle garden, which is not at all a circle, but “oval garden” is not the least bit catchy. When we bought our house it was a derelict vegetable garden that was mostly ...
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.
One of my favorite things to do on a warm summer morning is take my cup of coffee and stroll around the garden. Most of the time I end up with dirty fingernails and a half hour late for work after I start pulling random weeds or deadheading spent blooms. But lately my walks have […]
Garden tours are such a great way to give your own garden a dose of inspiration. A lot of times I poo-poo going on them because I’m busy, or it’s hot, or it’s buggy, or it’s rainy or I’ve seen the gardens on the tour before, but a couple Saturdays ago I was reminded of […]
Hi all! I’m just back from my annual journey (via sailboat) to Mackinac Island and while I get my life back in order and get some proper posts (most of which I had dreams of finishing and publishing while I was gone) ready for you, I’ll give you my annual review of a garden I […]
One of the things I particularly enjoy shopping for (other than plants or anything garden related) is lighting. It can also be exhausting because of the mind-boggling amount of options, but in general I find the search for lighting to be pretty fun. I was happy to have the chance to look for a new […]
I am not growing a Ziploc bag tree, I promise. One of the houses on a garden tour I went to over the weekend was the original home of the super dwarf apple tree in my garden. I won the gala apple (grafted onto super dwarf roots so it will never get big) at a […]
I am an unapologetic lover of meatball boxwoods. I know plenty of people abhor manicured shrubs, particularly squatty balls of boxwood. I’m not one of them. They make me oddly happy. So much so that I just added three more potential meatballs to my garden despite the threat of boxwood blight. The ‘Green Velvet’ boxwood […]
For five years now, I’ve been referring to various areas of the yard (any longtime readers remember the “Pit of despair?”) but there is really no way for you to know where anything is in relation to anything else. A blog friend (and regular reader) mentioned a few weeks ago that it was nice to […]
The weather has just been lovely here the past few days. It is all I can do to tear myself away from the garden in the morning and go to work. Today I’m going to share with you the new garden area in the back / side yard. Despite this being one of our […]
The readers of this blog have saved my bacon (and at least part of my sanity) more than once, and I think you’ve all done it again. I am downright impetuous when it comes to some things, and paint colors are a big trigger for me. A couple years ago I painted my front door […]
The only time I’ve hired a painter was when I didn’t have the equipment to do the job. The ceilings in the living room required serious scaffolding and the kitchen cabinets had to be professionally sprayed. In the case of the garage, the only thing I was missing was time. I could have scraped that […]
One of the luxuries of having a large yard with lots of room to garden is that almost every plant can have a place in it somewhere. Even if you don’t particularly like a specific plant, you can usually find an out of the way corner that needs a few plants. As far as I […]
Consider this photo your annual reminder to never, ever plant mint directly in the ground. It will take over your garden, your yard, your life. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t plant mint. It is an absolutely lovely herb that is useful for so many things. Just plant it smartly. This was a small spearmint […]
Creepy crawlies are as much as part of gardening as soil and sun. Gardeners tend to have different views on such things, some taking as much interest in the bugs as the flowers and heralding the sight of a helpful critter as much as prize-winning tomato. Others abhor the little buggers. I remember reading a […]
There are so many things happening in the garden at this time of year. Sometimes I feel like I mention something and then completely forget to give you an update on it. So today I’m tying up a few loose ends. GARDEN CLEANUP A couple weeks ago I mentioned my new strategy for getting the […]
