Traditional new year’s resolutions are for the birds, as far as I’m concerned. I gave up making them ages ago. Basically, I try to be a better person than I was the year before. But I thought it might be fun to make a few resolutions for gardeners. These are specific to me, but I suspect they translate well to ...
Wow, how did it get to be December 31 already? It seems like the year just flew by. Come to think if it, since I was 25, they all seem to have flown by. It was a good year on the blog. I’ve been doing this since April 2009 and I wrote (a few) more posts this year than any ...
Hello again gang! I totally left you hanging on Christmas Eve and I haven’t been back since. Sorry about that, I was feeling a little lazy. I did take a bunch of photos of the mantel, but it seems ridiculous to show them now, when I’m chomping at the bit to clean it all up. I love Christmas decorations but ...
Ever since our first dog was a puppy, we’ve done a personalized holiday card featuring the dogs. Sadly I can’t find that card anymore, but last year I showed you many of our previous cards (and this one). This was the first time in 11 years that we made a card without Hudson on it, which is sad, but we were ...
Welcome to The Impatient Gardener blog, where Christmas happens in slow motion. I’ve been slow to get things finished this year, pared down the decorations and haven’t quite finished wrapping yet. That means that I’m just now getting around to showing you some of how Christmas is happening in my house. Today I’m showing you the tree, mostly because the ...
Well, the Hampton Hostess might have been hanging with William and Kate last week, but remember how Kate practically welcomed me to England (I “ran into” her after I’d been there for all of 14 hours)? I love looking at other people’s houses all holiday’d up. Linda’s decorations are refined, unique and restrained. I bet everything she puts out has ...
Behold! I bring you tidings of great news! I got my Christmas tree decorated this week. No pictures to share yet (and frankly, I do the same thing every year on my Christmas tree so it doesn’t look much different than in the past), but I will definitely share my pared-down holiday decor with you soon. Despite the fact that ...
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.
So here’s the story. About three years ago I saw a note on Freecycle about a Crate & Barrel buffet up for grabs. I hopped right on that and picked it up. It was one of those assemble yourself pieces and obviously not a lot of care had been taken in assembling it. On top […]
S ometimes it’s the simplest things that make the best accessories, and this is one of my favorites. My friend Jill collects sand. She’s not able to travel much so she asks friends to bring sand for her collection. She says her goal is to someday return it all to where it came from. I […]
I t’s an exciting morning! I swung by Houzz today and greeting me there was … my door! It’s part of an ideabook on using blue, and I think I love every single picture in the ideabook. I just adore blue, although usually as accents rather than wall colors. However, seeing some of those photos […]
I haven’t even finished cleaning up my 2009 garden and my mind is already wandering to new plant introductions I’ll want in my garden next year. Proven Winners leads the field in new plant introductions, at least annuals, and has the backing of an enormous mar
What is with your obsession with sectional sofas? Sometimes the room is just not big enough for a sectional with a chaise end. Help me understand.
W e tackled the bluestone path this weekend and it was no small task. Fortunately my husband as access to some big equipment through his job, and boy did it come in handy. We pulled out all the bluestone, and the larger pieces were definitely two-person jobs. The Kubota came in handy to move them […]
I ‘ve been doing some shopping this weekend. This is not necessarily a good thing, but sometimes a deal comes along and you know you only get one shot at it, so you better take it. I’ve been planning to put banquette seating in my kitchen. Although I love the round table that came […]
T he house at the end of our road is undergoing a major landscape renovation that is nothing short of spectacular. Hopefully I’ll get permission to snap a few pictures next summer. But I did snap a picture of the most spectacular stacked stone wall that serves as the entrance to their property. The wall […]
T hat sounds awful doesn’t it? I mean, any kind of littering is bad, right? It is, but there is one kind of littering I don’t mind as much: throwing glass bottles in the water. I’ve never actually seen anyone do this (thank goodness) but obviously at some point, people did all the time. Because […]
W ow, what a weekend! I think much of the country experienced beautiful weather this weekend and up here in Wisconsin, the situation was no different. Saturday was hovering near 70 degrees and even though and invitation to go golfing with my girlfriends was tempting, I knew this was going to be one of our […]
A nyone who has ever tried to pick out white paint will tell you that white is not white. Several years ago, as I set out to repaint much of the chipped and faded white trim in the house I went in search of white paint. That’s when I first discovered how many whites there […]
S o far, we’ve changed very little about our house in the seven years we’ve owned it. But the first thing I did was paint the brown front door. I can’t fathom how this cool door (certainly original to the house, which is now 70 years old) ended up brown, but that’s OK, because after […]
When we moved in, the wood floors were in pretty good shape, other than the fact that they were pink. Yep … pink. They are red oak and had been “pickled” which gave them a decidedly pink appearance. Add in two enormous and often wet Newfoundlands and the fact that our house, which had previously […]
Well, as I alluded to earlier, my obsessions have strayed a bit from gardening for the time being. Part of that is because of my seasonal case of self-diagnosed Attention-Deficit Disorder, and part of it is because, well, there’s not much gardening to be done right about now. For me, the inside and outside of […]
