Share my passion for all things gardening!
A long time ago, I grew calendulas at our old house. I remember seeing small black beetles on the flowers but never knew what they were. Two years ago, I started growing them again and — sure enough — those beetles are back. After doing some research, I learned they are blister beetles. I needed to come up with some […]
Read more
Today’s column is on a fun and useful topic: fragrant plants for your garden. I have several types of fragrant plants in my own garden. And that got me thinking about coming up with a list we can all use as a resource. Enter my awesome Master Gardener colleagues! I decided to email about 10 of them because I didn’t […]
Read more
This is going to be a short post but I definitely wanted to share this with you. I’ve seen a lot of different tomato supports over the years but this one caught my eye during a recent trip to England. We had the opportunity to visit the Eden Project in Cornwall. I plan to write a blog post on it soon […]
Read more
Oh my. I’ve recently had one of those life-altering garden experiences. I am delighted to share it with you in my column today. It’s about my recent visit to the David Austin Roses display gardens, located in Albrighton, England. Here is a link to my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review. Home visit with breathtaking views of Austin roses. (or […]
Read more
One of the great things about traveling to other countries and visiting other gardens is that you get wonderful ideas. Then you can put them into practice in your own garden. Today, I want to show you some of the crop protection covers I saw while traveling through England last month. I’m referring to the methods gardeners used to keep […]
Read more
In June 2017, my husband, sister-in-law, nephew and I took a two-and-a-half week trip to England. I took nearly 1,000 photos! It amazes me how much we managed to see and do in that amount of time! Here are some thoughts from our travels in England: First, if you love gardening, the very best months to see gardens are June and […]
Read more
I’ve recently returned from a wonderful 2-week trip to England. It’s been fun sharing some of the things I saw with you through Facebook over the past few days. I wanted to write about something I repeatedly saw in some of the beautiful gardens I visited. That was the use of natural materials for plant supports and/or keeping pests away […]
Read more
OK, how many of you are dealing with shady conditions in your yard? I have very little shade and have to admit that I long for some every summer. However, I know folks are interested in learning how to create a beautiful garden in their shady areas. So today’s column is all about shade gardens. Here’s a link to it […]
Read more
Growing apples is a bit problematic because they are susceptible to some nasty insect and disease problems. Growing apples organically is even more challenging for the exact same reason. And yet, my husband Bill and I have taken on that very challenge in our home orchard. Why? We love the idea of eating apples that were grown without chemicals. To grow […]
Read more
Don’t we all hate weeds? After all, they get in the way of the lovely plants we’ve placed in our gardens on purpose. I recently had a request to share some of my weed strategies, so have written a column on that very subject. Here’s a link to it in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Best weeding tools are your […]
Read more