What can we say? We are here because we love plants. You’re probably here because you love plants. We talk a lot about the plants we love, covet, admire, have watched grow happily in our gardens, tried and failed, the ups and downs of tending our own gardens and visiting others. It’s a happy place here, join us.
Flower or seed head: debating which I like more. As you can see, it's a tough choice. Right now I've got Cirsium occidentale planted next to Echium wildpretii, a happy accident, aka a place where I could still see dirt. I've got a feeling both plants will have seeded...
Last week Patricia mentioned her foray into tomato growing. Since she'd previously asked about my "candy tomatoes" -- a reference to the fact everyone was eating them like candy at the open garden last August -- I thought I'd share what I'm growing this year. I think...
Get your Sputnik on here. Pronounced: Miss-SHOW-ee-a. Hah, I've been saying it wrong all this time. It pays to do a little research--which in fairness, I do. Constantly. But with a catalog of some 34,000 plant and growing, it hard to keep an eye on everything. Of...
I love a challenge, especially when combined with bargain hunting. Last week, gardening pal Alan posted on Facebook asking if anyone knew a good source for metalwork to use in the garden. Say no more. In the early days of trying Craigslist, I couldn't find anything....
Well designed gardens are known for their sweeps and swaths of the same plant. Onesies are frowned upon -- plant in groups of threes, or better yet five or even seven. But how can I possibly have room for all the cool plants if I do it that way? Thus I’ve resigned...
Do you ever play that game? I hope so, that I'm not just some nutty outlier. I'm going to guess you do, at least once in a while. Though I stand ready and willing to be corrected. Sometimes to make the game more manageable, I try narrowing to just one genus. That...
Out and about with a friend one day she asked if I'd mind stopping to pick up a pair of boots she had repaired, "of course not!"...and that's how I discovered JD's Shoe Repair. Up until then I'd taken shoes (and handbags) in need of a little TLC to a place in the...
I thought I'd let a couple of our nurseries describe the varied colors of this fabulous plant, after all they say it much better than I could: "This ever-colorful evergreen's leaves keep growing in yellow-orange-red-green marbled patterns..." - Cistus Nursery "New...
There was a rescue operation, on a hot and miserable morning back in August of 2014. I'd taken a walk past Patricia's old garden and spotted a new crop of Echium wildpretii seedlings. Knowing the new owners were planning on a clean sweep (out with the plants, in with...
Initially this post was going to be the 3rd in my "never say never" series. After all I never thought I would be planting Begonias in my garden, and certainly not in my much loved chartreuse Circle Pot. But then I realized it wasn't so much about breaking the Begonia...