Back when we first installed what we call the Cee garden (so named because the aerial view of the bed looks like the letter C) my vision was to use the red and fuchsia Monarda we inherited at the house along with the fuchsia peonies we were gifted by my parents (they came with the… Continue reading A Rethink for 2021: The Cee Garden
I feel like I just wrote the September post and now its almost October. I'm flummoxed and mystified as to how this happens every fall. Its here and then its gone and I've managed to complete less than half the projects I swore I'd do. Like clockwork. I'm sure some of this is in part… Continue reading A Preamble to October.
As we roll into the early stages of autumn, I find myself realizing that I've not posted here since late July!?! Awful! I'm going to try going with a regular monthly post and adding in extra posts as needed to make things both more consistent and easier on myself (you should see the number of… Continue reading September
AKA: How to notice problem areas and figure out ways to fix them in a hurry. We offered up our garden this year to our Garden Club. As in we finally said it was a green light for them to come visit (socially distanced and with masks, of course) during our summer garden tours. The… Continue reading Planning for a Showing.
I've got to tell you, the last episode of Gardener's World we watched had Monty talking about his wildlife pond and how they had just moved it and that everyone ought to be patient when they put one in. Something about giving it a year for animals to move in. Ha! I exclaimed at the… Continue reading Pond Residents & Visitors.
I was reading Margaret Roach's interview with Bill Noble about designing gardens that feel rooted to its particular geographical space. I always find this concept interesting and, frankly, appealing but its been an idea I struggle with recommending. How's that for non-sensical? Let me make it clearer- or at least try! You see about a… Continue reading Garden Design Rules: Necessary or Joy Killers? The Debate Continues…
Apologies for my absence... we've had a lot going on recently and we've been away/busy/otherwise engaged leaving time for gardening, but little time for blogging about it. In any event, while it is only mid-June, there have already been plenty of new lessons to be learned so I'll share them with you. If at first… Continue reading This Year’s Garden Lessons (so far…).
No seriously, instead of just talking about it and sketching ideas, we actually built it. Obviously this idea and plan has been gestating for a long while, we went back and forth on the location, the shape, the depth- all of it. But we settled on the swale as the best location and, in a… Continue reading The Wildlife Pond. We did it!
So, you are off to the nursery to buy yourself some veggies and/or flowers. Huzzah! Support that local nursery if you can (I'm not at all convinced the plants at big box stores get the same sort of love as they do at a nursery, but I've absolutely bought plants there, so you know, go… Continue reading What to Look for at the Nursery.
This past Saturday a package arrived on the doorstep. It was the 27 bare root shrubs I ordered back in December!?!? I knew they were coming, but somehow lost sight of when. I was thankful they at least had the decency to show up on a weekend (with halfway decent weather to boot)! The first… Continue reading Installing the Hedgerow.
Alright Team, time to talk little logistics that make a big difference in the garden. I’m talking about the seemingly insignificant or weird stuff that you need to know to ensure Zen-like energy through the growing season. Ready? 1. Don’t use Sharpies on your plant labels unless they are made of wood. Use pencil or… Continue reading My Best Gardening Tips and Tricks.
A few weeks ago (mid-March) we took advantage of the drier conditions and perfect winds to burn a few sections of our prairie. Its something we'd been planning for and looking forward to since last fall. We knew, once we decided we wanted areas of tall-grass on our property, that we'd have to manage it… Continue reading Burning.
I shall proffer, firstly, my definition of the Midwest for this post's purposes: Wisconsin, Minnesota, both Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, northern Illinois, and... bear with me... Montana, Wyoming, and northern Colorado. Now, if you'll indulge this tangent, I'd never consider (as a lifelong Midwesterner) anything west of the Missouri River to be the Midwest. But as… Continue reading Growing Vegetables in the Midwest.
Oh Mother Nature, you sneaky fiend! I'm not sure how to interpret this latest bit of tomfoolery- it feels rather spiteful what with everything else going on in the world. Then again, maybe it is just a distraction to give our minds something else to fret over for a day or two. Who knows, but… Continue reading Not so fast!
I'm sure most of the world is scraping the bottom of their usual well of content, so I thought I'd toss out some of my favorite content in case it is something that will help y'all pass the time. Sharing is caring! Photo by Burak K on Pexels.com THINGS TO WATCH:A Year at Kew (YouTube)-… Continue reading Quarantine Content
I'll happily leave this post mostly free from text. The few crocuses we have are starting to bloom, this white one is the first of the year and its presence is more appreciated than it will ever know. Next in line. A visitor, as happy about the sunshine as we are. I've got a few… Continue reading And so it begins.
Oh man you guys. I've written a half dozen blog posts that couldn't bear to publish. Some are anxious, some annoyed, some blithely defiant. None of them felt right and all of them went in the bin. Turns out I don't know what to say or how to say what I'm thinking about all this… Continue reading Forward.
Not the blog! Just daily life. I'm so thankful that Spring is in progress here, for the mental relief and physical tasks that working outside provides is exactly the balm and reset I have needed. I'm sure some of you know that I work in a hospital laboratory. We are not on the front lines… Continue reading Refocusing.
About 3 years ago, when we first started the main garden space and had the limestone slabs put in, we planted a Thornless Cockspur Hawthorn in the center of it. It was the perfect combination of size and features and I was sure, after much research, that it would be perfect for this space. I… Continue reading Rusty Hawthorn.
There is a particular brand of joy that is unique to the truly Northern segments of this great country (no, Washington, you don't count). It doesn't take much to stir the beginnings of this unique subset of joy... you feel it coming on (a bit like when you know you've started to blush) when the… Continue reading Elation!
Box & Bay 