A few weeks ago, I planted a new garden. I'd always wanted more shade flowers. Originally, my only shade garden was about twelve square feet. It had a big bush one the east side of it, so the only sun it got was filtered through trees, after 7pm in high summer. Even the hellebores and bergenia didn't bloom! But the lily of the valley, trillium, ( Read more... )

I start my vegetable seeds in the entryway, under flourescent lights.  The system works pretty well, but ( Read more... )

This afternoon, after the most recent round of ephemeral snow melted away, I went out and dug a whole tub of baby garlic out of the asparagus bed ( Read more... )

I'm in zone 5 in Illinois and have a gardenina bush that is worrying me. My dad said to make to bring it in in the winter, so I did, but now the leaves are yellowing. It was doing fine in the garage in December, but not growing any new leaves or buds. Now that it's in my house it's growing new leaves and buds, but the leaves are yellow ( Read more... )

At work, when a close relative dies, we all sign a card and put in a little cash toward a gift card or something - to provide a sort of respite for the grieving person.  We're all very familiar with this lately because there's been a terrible rash of parent and sibling funerals.  So I knew that when Mom stopped chemo, a card would be in my near ( Read more... )

I'm looking for things that will be blooming in early June.  My daughter's birthday is the sixth, and we have parties every year.  Last year I planted a bunch of alliums, because I love them and thought they'd be blooming then.  They've started blooming this week (Tuesday), though I don't know that their blooms will last three weeks to her big ( Read more... )

My picture window looks out over the septic system:  two concrete lids in the dead center of the yard, and a leach field running to the far corner of the yard.  I have finally cleared the area:  removed the weigela, the overgrown juniper, and the rootbound hostas, and pulled up the landscape fabric the former owner put down (held in place with 6" ( Read more... )

Just throwing around some ideas for zone 5... someone I know is working on a garden where the theme is 'out of this world!' and is looking for full sun plants that look alien/unusual/otherworldly. I was thinking Echinops (Globe Thistle) looks pretty bizarre .. but for some reason I am drawing a blank. The temps here are dipping into the low 20s so ( Read more... )

We've enclosed part of our outside deck ... it's now an enclosed porch. There is an area of dirt where I would like to have an 'indoor' garden, I think it would look nice. It will resemble a rock garden ( Read more... )

It's the dead of winter here in Wisconsin - the high on Monday is supposed to be -15 degrees Fahrenheit, with windchills pushing -45 (I know - North Dakota would scoff at our measly windchills).  It's good weather for staying inside with a hot beverage and a stack of all the best seed catalogs ( Read more... )