Owner: Whole Life Gardening URL:www.wholelifegardening.com Join Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:18:16 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Plants, gardens and how they mesh with and enrich our lives. From favorite plants and products to pet peeves and politics, it's all part of life in the garden. Site statistics:Click here
Pet Peeves - I’m Thirsty! 2008-11-02 18:20:55 Today I’m starting a new category at Whole Life Gardening: Pet Peeves. Some of these will be garden related and some not. The first in this category occurred to me today as I was gardening. I am desperately trying to get some plants into the ground before winter, so today I was dashing about the [...] Read more:Thirsty
I Love This Plant - Oct 31, 2008 2008-10-31 12:56:40 Do you want a small maple tree that is extremely stylish in the spring and breathtakingly colorful in the fall? Meet Acer japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’ – the thread-leaf full moon maple. This tree grows only 8 to 10 feet tall and wide, making it the perfect plant for those small places where you want a [...] Read more:Plant
First Frost 2008-10-27 18:15:13 I can think of few better examples of an ending being a beginning than a first frost.
As gardeners we don’t want our beautiful annuals or delicious vegetables to die, and as human beings we hate to lose anything good. And yet, loss forces us to move on.
The frost that hit last week – October [...] Read more:First
, Frost
Planting Bulbs 2008-10-25 18:51:46 It is the end of October and we are planting bulbs at Poison Ivy Acres. Lots of bulbs. Today we put in 330 Narcissus bulbs - several varieties. Most of the bulbs we planted were from Brent and Becky’s Bulbs
and boy was I impressed with them. We’d placed a large order with Brent [...]
I Love This Plant - Zauschneria ‘Orange Carpet’ 2008-10-24 12:35:13 My “I Love This Plant
” on GardenLine this week is Zauschneria garrettii ‘OrangeCarpet
’ - common name Creeping Hummingbird Trumpet.
I got this plant from High Country Gardens a few years ago and I’ve loved it ever since – in fact, I got some more to plant in my new dry garden. This perennial grows [...]
Name This Fruit 2008-10-20 06:44:14 A friend who has recently moved to Hawaii has a shrub in front of her house that has this fruit on it. She has asked me what it is, and since I don’t know I’m asking you. Can you Name This Fruit
?
I Love This Plant 10/18 2008-10-15 17:38:06 Every week on my radio program, GardenLine, I start the show off with a segment called I Love This Plant
/I Hate This Plant. Needless to say, the plants that I love far outnumber the ones that I hate.
As I stood looking at the plant I will feature this week on GardenLine, it [...]
I Hate Landscape Fabric 2008-10-11 14:39:54 I think that this is a product that shouldn’t be sold. It appeals to people because it seems to solve the weed problem permanently, and for a year or two it works well as long as you don’t mind looking at the acres of bare mulch - hardly an improvement over weeds - that it [...] Read more:Fabric
, Landscape
Sharing the Wealth 2008-10-09 19:45:53 And you know I’m not talking about stocks.
I”m talking about remembering to share the garden as often as possible. The days go by and I get busy…there’s work, lot’s of work, and family in distant places. There’s my elderly neighbors who need help and have no family. Did I mention work? So weeks go [...] Read more:Sharing
, Wealth
Cultivating Wisdom 2008-11-22 13:21:53 “Can I fold your laundry?” my mother-in-law asks. “That would be wonderful,” I reply. It’s nice not to have to do this routine chore myself, and I realize that it gives her a purpose and helps her to feel needed. My mother-in-law has recently moved in with us and we are all finding new daily [...] Read more:Wisdom
Pet Peeve: Ever-Ugly Evergreens 2008-11-20 20:51:03 It’s time to look at the plants in our landscapes with a clear eye. From foundation plants to the medians in parking lots, there are plants that are left in place for years after they have lost their attractiveness. Those malpruned junipers, hacked arborvitae and scalped yews that we leave in place because [...]
I Love This Plant - Nov. 15 2008-11-14 15:15:24 The I Love This Plant
for this week is Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula‘ or weeping willow-leaf pear. I first saw this plant some years ago at the Chicago Botanic Garden and I stood looking at it, thinking, “I want one”. Four years ago I ordered this weeping willow-leaf pear from Forest Farm and I kept [...]
Thanks 2008-11-10 17:57:20 Come ye thankful people come… this song echoes through my head at this time of year. When I was in grade school we sang it every fall…is this too much of a hymn for today’s schoolrooms? I hope not.
Whether a traditional tune runs through your mind or not, at this time of year [...] Read more:Thanks
I Love This Plant - Nov 8th 2008-11-07 15:30:31 The plant I’m loving in my garden this week is Spiraea thunbergii ‘Ogon’ - wonderful small shrub that has long lasting fall color. But it’s not just fall color that makes this a great plant. ‘Ogon’, also known by the unfortunate name of “Mello Yellow”, has very fine textured foliage and soft, twiggy growth. In [...] Read more:Plant
Fornari’s Favorites - 2008 2008-11-05 12:56:28 Just a note to tell you all that I have listed my favorite plants from my 2008 garden on my website. Check out Iresine ‘Blazin Lime’, and others in my annual pick of Fornari’s Favorites.
A Weekly Walk 2008-12-31 11:00:46 Last week one of the callers to GardenLine mentioned that she walked through her garden every Saturday morning so that she’d know what to call in about that morning. Since callers make the radio show really live, I’m thrilled that she was looking for reasons to call, but I was also taken with the wisdom [...] Read more:Weekly
Instant Gardens? 2008-12-25 18:55:36 As I walk though the new landscape at Poison Ivy Acres, I’m seeing what is there, but I’m also looking into the future. I notice the blue spruce, Rhododendrons, and Hollywood juniper we planted on the property line. It will be wonderful when those Rhododendrons are large and block the neighbor’s driveway, and is there, [...] Read more:Gardens
Front Yards 2008-12-21 08:39:06 In a recent email from Wayne Winterrowd he commented on a visit to our property shortly after we moved in: “I LOVED the fact that you were putting your vegetable garden in the front lawn!”
When Wayne visited, the slope between the front of the house and the road had been cleared but was still [...] Read more:Front
A First Snow 2008-12-20 12:14:09 Yesterday we had our first snowfall of the winter. I was thrilled. Although my adult self worries about getting out the next morning, there is still a child in me that feels like every snowstorm is a celebration.
This morning the landscape is transformed. Because the snow was wet it stuck to every leaf and twig. [...] Read more:First
I Love This Plant - Campanula ‘Bernice’ 2008-12-12 14:40:15 I love this Campanula: Campanula trachelium ‘Bernice
’. It is a perennial that I didn’t bring with me when I moved to Poison Ivy Acres, so I’ll need to start with new ‘Bernice’ plants next season.
For me this plant grew to about 2 feet high in a part-sun garden. As long as it gets [...] Read more:Plant
Lawn, No Lawn, and Lawn Replacements 2008-12-07 19:40:57 One of the first things we did at our last two properties is to replace part of the lawn with gardens.
It’s not that I hate the turf… especially my idea of turf which is combination of grass, white clover, and whatever green plant happens to take root in my lawn at the time. If [...] Read more:Replacements
I Love Sweet William 2008-12-05 18:31:35 I love the old fashioned, cottage garden plant commonly called SweetWilliam
. Diantus barbatus is easy to grow from seed and although in some places it’s called a perennial, you’re better off thinking of this as a biennial. This plant grows one year, blooms the next and sometimes comes back…usually it self-seeds. Don’t [...]
Why “Poison Ivy Acres”? 2008-12-01 19:49:10 Last week on the radio I referred to my property as “Poison
Ivy Acres
”, as I have on this blog and my website many times. Later that day I ran into one of my listeners and he said, “Poison Ivy
Acres? Why that name? Aren’t there more beautiful aspects of your garden that can [...]
Cherishing The Commonplace 2008-11-27 08:51:24 It is Thanksgiving morning and as I drink my coffee I watch the birds crowd into the feeder. Cardinals, morning doves and a titmouse take turns with the blue jays. We have lots of blue jays. Just below the birdfeeder, four crows walk up the grass path from the lake, looking like religious elders in [...]
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