“Looking for inspiration and relaxation? It’s all in your own backyard.”
Garden Reports and Rejoicing – January 18 Currently, my most popular talk is titled “Myths, Lies, and All The Latest Dirt.” In this presentation the image below introduces a spiel about dealing with weeds. The myth/lie is, of course, that if you just buy this product you won’t have to deal with weeds. (Substitute the [...]
Report From An Opinionated Gardener – April 12 I decided today that beach combing and weeding are very similar. In both cases you are focused down toward the earth, paying attention and, hopefully, letting everything else slip away. The one important difference is when you comb the beach you’re looking for things you’d like to [...]
Report From An Opinionated Gardener – November 7 When I was a girl in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, I found a dog in Iverson Park. He was super friendly and, already a dog person at age 13, I naturally brought him home. All of my brothers loved him right away and we named him Buffy. Later, [...]
Report From An Opinionated Gardener – October 27 Am I the only one who gets busy and assumes that things are growing just fine in my life, only to be brought up short by someone misunderstanding what I’ve done or said? I get focused on my own problems, desires and all-that-needs-to-be-done somehow thinking that others [...]
Report From An Opinionated Gardener – September 5 Most gardeners in this area would be interested if I described a perennial that is tall and dramatic with pink stems that are so strong there’s no need for staking. This plant has bright green foliage that’s untroubled by insects or diseases, and white flowers that develop [...]
Report From PIA – July 18 We are midway through the summer, and there are two approaches to this time of year. Some people decide that they are “done” with their garden. They enjoy what they planted in May and early June, but they don’t want to place anything else in the ground for the [...]
Report From PIA – June 6 When my kids were young I would occasionally give them an incentive to do something that was difficult. “That’s terrible,” other mothers would say. “You should never bribe children because they should learn to do something just because it’s right.” “Oh really,” I’d respond. “And just how many adults [...]
Report From PIA – May 8 When I was in the third grade my father told my brother and me that he would pay us a penny for every dandelion we dug out of the lawn. We went to work with enthusiasm, feeling rich from the get-go, because at that time in the 1950’s a [...]
Report From PIA – March 23 At a recent talk I showed an image of Dave and Judy Roger’s garden. With a business name of Art In Green, you know that their property will be beautiful and it is. Much of it is also very low-maintenance because the plantings are so think that the weeds [...]
Report From PIA – February 20 When I was preparing to leave after my talks at Sullivan Renaissance today, a woman stopped me in the atrium. “Can I ask you a question?” she said. “What do you think of horse manure?” I told her that I thought that any manure was great for the garden, [...]
