A few weeks ago, Debbie at A Garden of Possibilities wrote about her favorite reblooming perennials. Nepeta (i.e. catmint) didn’t make her list, but it tops mine. I’ve always loved lavender-lined paths, but I’ve had no luck whatsoever growing lavender, so I lined part of the path near the patio with nepeta. It shares many of the same attributes that ...
Deer are odd creatures. They don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to what they feel like eating on any given day. They stand in front of cars and stare at the passengers. They will stand in a yard just feet away from a house with a pair of dogs going absolutely berserk barking at them without looking like ...
Thanks for your patience with the minimal amount of posts last week. When I’m writing at work I’m so engrossed in it that I have a really hard time writing about anything else simultaneously. So I need to bring you up to date on what was maybe the best shopping trip ever. I’ve mentioned Klehm’s Song Sparrow Nursery before as ...
Some women have a thing for shoes. Not me; I have about four pairs of shoes plus a few speciality pairs. Other women have a thing for purses. That’s not me either. I have one purse that rarely leaves the car. My weakness is gadgets. And gardening gadgets? Forgettaaboutit. Here are a few of the new gardening gadgets I picked ...
The garden is a demanding mistress this time of year. Despite our early spring when I thought I had a head start on gardening projects, I feel I’m behind again. The beds still need to be edged, plants moved, plants planted and, of course, weeding, weeding, weeding. Daffodils are fading and need to be tied into little packages so I ...
Another hairy deadline at work has passed (or will have, I pray, by the time you read this) which explains the lack of posts last week. It’s funny how what is normally a pretty laid-back time of year around here is so hectic this year because of the early spring. In the past I’ve actually gone a little stir crazy ...
Cue the collective groan. Who can pass up a good “orange” pun? It’s just my way of telling you to make sure to catch my guest post at The Design Confidential about how to incorporate the Color of the Year (Tangerine Tango, but for purposes of gardening we’re calling it orange) into your garden. In it I lay out a ...
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.
If you had told me last March when I wrote on this blog about my rather grand plan for a new vegetable garden that I would still be updating you on it nine months later, well, I probably wouldn’t have done it. Suffice to say, I had no idea what a big project I was […]
This post is a paid partnership with Lowe’s Home Improvement, but I’m responsible for all of the opinions expressed here as well as the horrific state of my garage when this all started. One of the last garden-related tasks of the year is the annual cleaning out of the garage. Well, not the entire garage. […]
Have you finished your Christmas shopping? If you’re like me the more appropriate question might be: Have you started your Christmas shopping? Yes, we’re officially down to the wire, but I am here to help. And to me one of the best gifts period, and the best last-minute gifts are books. Most people still have […]
If you are like me and you are just a tad behind on your winter containers, you might feel like you need to scramble a bit. One thing I’ve learned is that, especially around the holidays, scrambling leads to spending. So in a nod to keeping things simple and affordable, here are some things you […]
Lowe’s Home Improvement partnered with me on this post to provide a big surprise to some great friends. All words, opinions and griping about the weather are my own. If you aren’t familiar with the Midwest, you might be confused by what you’re about to see. The fact is that there isn’t a lot of […]
First we covered practical gifts for gardeners, but now we head to dream gifts: the amazing, the luxurious and the downright absurd. There is one gift that I didn’t have a proper illustration for that definitely falls under the dream gift category in my mind: Someone to help in the garden. 1. Cheryl’s she-shed has […]
Judging by my overflowing email inbox this weekend, I guess holiday shopping season is fully upon us, and that means that it’s time for a few gift guides. And I’m starting it off with my guide to practical gifts for gardeners. By the way, many of these items might be on sale or be offered […]
Well, it’s time to think about next year’s garden. I can hear what you’re thinking: But Erin, you haven’t even finished cleaning up this year’s garden! Aren’t you still trying to get a fence up around the vegetable garden this year? Have you even found all the tools you stranded in the garden yet? And […]
Well this was not in my plan. An early season snowfall has put a damper on my fall gardening plans and even worse, it has pretty much killed any desire I have to be in the garden. It’s just so hard to get inspired to garden when the option is getting your winter gloves dirty […]
More than once I’ve written here about the misconceptions I had about spirea. For a time it was, to me, the most boring of shrubs, the least interesting of what I call the “landscaper’s trio” of spirea, daylilies (almost always ‘Stella d’Oro’) and a (usually sickly looking) hydrangea. Somewhere along the line this combination
Bulb planting continues for me. I’ve been a bit pokey about it this year, just because the lack of a mid-fall warmup has me running a bit frantic in the garden. There’s lots of cleanup to be done, and some jobs, like digging dahlias seem to be taking longer than I planned. I have about […]
We’ve been enjoying a particularly beautiful fall here. Beautiful not in terms of weather, as gray days have far outnumbered those crisp, sunny fall days with royal blue skies, but the trees have put an amazing show. Last year, a late-summer drought stressed trees, plants and gardeners alike, dropping leaves to the ground before most [&hellip
This post is a paid partnership with Lowe’s Home Improvement, but all words, opinions and the recipe for the perfect s’more for non-marshmallow lovers are my own. If Mother Nature is feeling generous we’ll enjoy a long autumn with a few excellent Indian summer days mixed in for good measure. I know I spend a […]
We’ve had several frosts now (Indian Summer, where are you?) so the garden is a mishmosh of dead and alive right now. Some things are looking great and so much else is looking terrible. I’ve been trying to take some mental notes for the future. I went heavier on the annuals this year than I […]
