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Every gardener is familiar with the extraordinary effectiveness of vines in a proper setting, but most of us become discouraged after bad luck. The daintier vines have a habit of developing some unknown illness and dying back unexpectedly, while those which thrive usually do too good a job of it. Many a porch has collapsed under the weight of a […]
Gardening jobs are just like any other job; sometimes, they seem daunting. Where to start? What is more daunting than starting with a weed-filled field? The Challenge The task was to transform this wilderness into an attractive, natural-looking landscape. In the distance, you can see a number 0f rambling, overgrown hawthorns with a tree growing through them. These hid a […]
The students have returned to school, your mailbox is crammed with a new crop of seed catalogs, the leaves are falling, and the days are getting shorter. Drive by your local garden center or roadside stand and the displays are filled with ornamental kales and cabbages. Autumn has arrived. Long after the first snowfall and frost have erased most traces […]
Vinca minor is, as my father used to say, neat but not gaudy. Sometimes known as periwinkle or myrtle, this creeping perennial appears everywhere. Like a good soldier, vinca hits the ground running, and does its task efficiently, even under adverse conditions. Parts of the suburbs are virtually upholstered with it, but you can even find this undemanding evergreen stalwart […]
Lately, it seems like every time you turn on the local weather forecast, the meteorologist is talking about drought conditions. If you are in a severely affected area, or under water restrictions, this doesn’t mean you have to give up gardening. By following some drought-wise garden water tips, you can have your water, and your garden, too. You may have […]
The catalogs are a little slimmer this year, but they are still full of the hope and glory of spring and summer. Flowers, vegetables, fruits and herbs burst forth from the pages, each better than last year, allegedly foolproof and free-flowering, requiring little or no maintenance and a great return on investment. It all goes to show that gardeners are […]
I am very prone to love at first sight. In fact, it happened just last week. I saw a tall southerner “across a crowded room”, as the song says. My heart stood still (as another song says). I was enraptured. The tall stranger was plumbago (Plumbago auriculata, also known as Plumbago capensis), which is sometimes also known by its extremely […]
When I moved into my house in mid-February a year and a half ago, one of the first things I did was to walk around the yard, and try to figure out what the previous owner had planted. The winter had been exceptionally mild, and she had done little garden clean up, so it was easy to identify the remnants […]
In his classic book Mormon Country, author Wallace Stegner noted that nineteenth century Mormons planted rows of Lombardy poplar trees wherever they established settlements in the territory that is now Utah. The trees served as windbreaks and boundary markers, but they were also the flags that marked the advance of Mormon civilization in a hostile territory. In my hometown and […]
I have given up indoor seed starting completely on several occasions. The first time it happened I was a novice gardener. I had ordered seeds of just about every plant that I saw in the garden catalogs without thinking about such practical things as gallons of potting soil, hours of daily watering, and square feet of windowsill space. It also […]