Coniferous and citrus scents are refreshing, restoring and revitalizing. Their smell shakes the doldrums of drab days and brings a little sunshine to your outlook on life.
Coniferous scents like pine, cypress and especially balsam fir, are healing and restorative, both for physical ailments, ... Views: 18
Tinctures preserve the active compounds of plants indefinitely, or at least long enough for one to feel that way. A good tincture should last for twenty years if stored in a cool dry place away from the sunlight. Tincture bottles are amber or dark blue on purpose, to keep out ultraviolet light ... Views: 52
Climbers and ramblers are nature's gift to the land-locked gardener. I don't think there is anything cozier and more delightful than a little corner filled with greenery and flowers tucked away from the world, sheltered between walls covered in rose bunches or hiding behind an old arbor trailed ... Views: 45
Now and then I get a renewed enthusiasm for making my own beauty products and the kitchen turns into a magical apothecary where decadently sweet smelling lotions and potions steam and brew.
Sometimes I think making the creams, oils and perfumes is more enjoyable than using them. Not!
For a ... Views: 94
One of the myths of gardening is that once you planted a perennial border it is set in stone and it will come back, year after year, exactly the same. That is not true at all, I look through pictures of my garden through the last few seasons and it is almost unrecognizable from one year to the ... Views: 74
I woke up this morning to a wispy snow flurry, the thin and icy kind that comes about when temperatures drop too low. Eighteen degrees, to be precise. It settled, unsure, in a thin, powdery layer that still lets the ground show through.
I almost hesitated to disturb the pristine cover when I ... Views: 77
Two autumns ago I started a lot of perennials from divisions: irises, daisies, garden phlox, daylilies, and this is the year for them to start blooming. Of course, this fall I forgot to move the beautiful Pink Sorbet peony, which means it’s going to spend another spring trying to dig itself out ... Views: 110
The old garden roses are a proud tradition among rosarians, because they have a long history.
These are the roses cultivated before the creation of the first modern hybrids - the gallicas, the damasks, the albas and the centifolias and the mosses.
They have been immortalized in the ... Views: 73
Snow arrived, as promised, and blanketed a rather drab decor with a fresh coat of white. I’m bundled indoors, cozy next to the fireplace and a thick pile of flower catalogs: the summer bulbs are here.
What’s featured in the glossy pages? Gladioli, every breed of lily in existence and ... Views: 77
As we left the shore and I looked back at the beautiful, surreal landscape of Horseshoe Bay, it felt like all the worries and the cares of the world were also left behind to fade into the distance. The vast, placid waters worked their magic on me too, as they did on so many travelers throughout ... Views: 80
I was walking through the garden trying to assess what is left to do before winter descends upon us for good and I ran into a lovely surprise. My miniature rose decided to brave two killing frosts and a freezing rain and bloom in the middle of November.
Contrary to popular belief roses are ... Views: 94
The winter garden is a haven for the little creatures of the land; it provides them with shelter, food and cozy nooks to hibernate.
The gardener can lend a hand, goodness knows the wildlife can use all the help it can get during the coldest days of the year.
Add bird feeders to your backyard ... Views: 87
One of the perks of keeping a garden is stumbling upon little joyful moments when time stands still and life flows softly through, peaceful and unhurried.
Time slows down so we have enough of it to notice how bright the sunlight looks, reflected in the gold and orange leaves of the maple ... Views: 101
How does one use freezing rain in a sentence without spoiling everyone's mood? I heard it, early in the morning, while it was still dark outside, the sound you can't mistake for anything else other than maybe sandblasting. Ice pellets. Nice!
With that the last of the annuals abandoned the ... Views: 94
My beautiful is preparing for winter and there's not much I can do about it so I'm starting next year's planning early.
There are never enough annuals or spring bulbs, so those are definitely on the list, especially for the new garden I started early this summer and which, with loving care, I ... Views: 109
Bath salts.
The base of a bath salt is an equal mix of sea salt and baking soda. To this one adds other ingredients as one wishes: dried and powdered herbs, powdered resins, powdered milk, clays and muds, food coloring for effects, and of course essential oils. Go easy on peppermint and ... Views: 151
I couldn’t imagine my garden without the toad lilies, whose blossoms are as close to approximating a tropical orchids as any cold weather plant is ever going to get.
Don’t get deceived by their fragile look, they are hardy to zones four through nine and just like their cousins, the spring ... Views: 87
You will not believe the level of chaos nature can impose on a reasonably well tended garden in three weeks. It took the plants that long to look scary and me one week to salvage the back yard from the wilderness. Five foot tall weeds, cracked nutshells, broken branches, vines grown out of ... Views: 183
I don’t think the goal of traveling is to see places and learn things, often you get better images and information from photography catalogs and travel guides. The goal of traveling is to get immersed in the spirit of a place.
The longer you stay in Greece, the more it becomes clear to you ... Views: 104
Every spring I plan on planting more annuals and every summer I fall short of the desired effect. At least this year I have an excuse: after clearing up the shrubbery from a large portion of the front yard, the design of a new perennial border became a priority.
There seems to be a quiet ... Views: 205
I felt kind of guilty to see that the grass had gone to seed on my lawn, but then I saw it ripen in a lot of other places and relaxed, it seems the combination of warmth and plentiful rain gave it the oomph to grow wild this year.
Because we're used to seeing it in its domesticated form - the ... Views: 211
There is something very sweet and nostalgic about this plant, with which I got acquainted in literary works before we met in real life.
What is it that I find so fascinating about heliotrope? I don't know. Maybe it's its deep purple flowers that glow like gems wrapped in dark foliage, maybe ... Views: 140
You would think that hostas, like the shade plants with broad foliage that they are, would love nothing more than a rainy summer, right? Partially. They developed luxurious foliage, and yes, the large fragrant ones did bloom, but not as abundantly as they usually do. You are looking at a picture ... Views: 163
There is a time around the middle of July when the garden looks absolutely resplendent. It feels like every flower is in bloom, competing for attention. The late spring blooms haven’t faded yet and the some of the late summer ones decide to show up early, so there is a surreal mix of seasons ... Views: 155
Aromatics come in two flavors: kitchen herbs and medicinals. A few herbs cross over from one category to the other, rosemary and lavender would be good examples of that, although using lavender for cooking is a bit of an acquired taste.
Almost everybody has grown kitchen herbs on a sunny ... Views: 155
I’m sitting on the balcony staring at my purple cherry pie plant, which looks happy as a clam basking in the sunshine in the company of butter yellow petunias. I don’t know why I haven’t tried heliotrope before, it’s an old fashioned cottage garden favorite and mine is a cottage garden.
Some ... Views: 141
If you ever watched a time lapse footage of a plant you can’t see the botanical world the same again. Nobody questions the fact that plants are living entities, but since their lives unfold at a speed so much slower than our own, one gets it intellectually, but rarely at gut level.
The most ... Views: 124
Container gardening sneaks up on you. You start with one potted plant and pretty soon the entire patio or balcony is covered in them, looking almost indistinguishable from the adjacent flower bed.
If you have lots of plants in pots, keep them grouped. That way the containers get some ... Views: 165
Shade gardening grew on me, literally. I don’t know how fast trees grow, but it’s fast enough and those lovely giants of the vegetal world can cover a lot of territory, both above ground and below. That’s how I ended up with every flavor of shade known to horticulture.
In this situation, if ... Views: 150
After a streak of sunny days, mother nature decided to bring the gloom, and I never pass the opportunity gloom provides to indulge in relaxation and pampering, isn’t this what rainy days were created for?
The flower buds are on the brink of opening, but it looks like they decided to wait for ... Views: 147
Summer is knocking on the door a month early and it brought with it sweltering temperatures more suitable for the middle of July; it arrived so suddenly it gets difficult for us poor humans to adjust. Everything tripled in size in a matter of days, desperately springing into bloom as if not to ... Views: 166
Once the rose enchants you you become a life time devotee. In all fairness who can deny this blossom anything, I mean anything, really? For what other flower would you suffer through the scratches and the winter protection and the constant fending off of beetles and blackspot and the capricious ... Views: 187
Some plants don’t benefit from being started indoors. There are a few reasons for this: their tender foliage has a hard time adjusting to the change of environment, their roots dislike being disturbed or their growth schedule is so accelerated that they outgrow their starting containers too ... Views: 147
I always plant tulips. I’ve had beautiful ruffled pink ones, and fringed parrot ones, standard, double, lily flowering, you name it, I’ve tried them. I rarely see any in my garden.
They don’t like the soil or the light levels, or something, or maybe they get eaten over the winter, who knows? ... Views: 147
Every year when I enjoy the abundant bloom and fragrance of my Miss Kim lilac I count myself lucky for my tendency to procrastinate. I put off pulling what looked like a dead shrub for an entire summer and fall, only to be surprised with blooming branches the following spring.
Lilacs are ... Views: 166
The area I’m really looking forward to this year is the herb garden. I must have just the perfect soil for herbs, because they’re thriving, every one I planted doubled in size.
The herb patch concept started as a wheel, but the space allocated has the wrong shape, so it follows the wild and ... Views: 233
It doesn't really look like spring in the garden until the spring cleaning is done. I rushed through it for a few hours between rains, so I didn't have a chance to pay close attention to the perennials that were already out.
The sprucing up attracted a few visitors from the wilderness - a ... Views: 148
Some plants don’t benefit from being started indoors. There are a few reasons for this: their tender foliage has a hard time adjusting to the change of environment, their roots dislike being disturbed or their growth schedule is so accelerated that they outgrow their starting containers too ... Views: 163
Every summer I plan to thin the violets and every summer I change my mind at the last minute, and this picture is the reason why. How can I pull these delicate flowers that cover the earth in spring in every shade of blue between aqua and indigo?
Sweet violets are to the flower bed what ... Views: 178
Here’s to this year’s crop! I decided to try Independence Day tomatoes, and learned that it has a much lower germination rate than other varieties. Let’s hope they make up for it with taste.
The seedlings look sturdy and enthusiastic, and have grown large enough that I don’t have to worry ... Views: 144
Hellebores are woodland plants, perfect to grow under the canopy of deciduous trees. They prefer alkaline soils - keep them away from pine trees - are adapted to the colder climate zones and are the first flowers in the garden, blooming as early as January during mild winters. They keep their ... Views: 200
I know this is a task for October and not February, but since the weather turned sour and put the excitement for gardening activities on hold again, I thought I’d put together a list of interesting daffodil varieties to consider next fall.
Flower Drift is a double daffodil with pure white ... Views: 161
What makes a beautiful perennial garden? There is no recipe or guarantee, but I can list a few things I noticed over the years that all thriving gardens have in common.
Work with the land you have
I know this ingredient can be supplanted by a simply unreasonable amount of work and earth ... Views: 186
The plants got the message that winter is over. Every year this message comes in secret, in subtle ways that only plants seem to understand, but they all get it simultaneously and come back to life with a speed and enthusiasm that always humbles me, even after so many years of gardening.
This ... Views: 183
Both of the rose cuttings I started last fall have rooted, judging by the new growth, but I’m not taking the jars off of them until the weather turns really warm.
The roses are usually the first to get attention in my garden, before the spring cleaning or tending to the grass, so let’s talk ... Views: 189
There is something I'm looking forward to this spring: I can't wait to find out if the two roses I started from cuttings last fall took root.
It's almost time to start caring for roses, now that the threat of killing freezes is over and before they come out of their dormancy. If you are ... Views: 186
Successful winter garden design relies on color and structure. Winter gardens are minimalist, they need good bones to make up for the missing greenery. Strong trees with well defined shapes and interesting bark, artful topiary, even tall pampas grasses or colorful seed heads can provide that ... Views: 221
If you want a real cottage garden, don’t tame it, it is supposed to be wild, messy and overgrown, sort of jumbled together without too much focus on height hierarchy and perfect color schemes.
Many of its traditional plants are tall, broad and thick and spill over railings, fences, trellises ... Views: 193
Have you ever had this sinking feeling, when you want to try a plant you’ve never grown before, and you look at the beautiful photos on the seed packet, that there is absolutely no way this botanical wonder will ever grow in your garden?
I’m not one to dismiss instinct, it is usually based ... Views: 216
The fountain at the center of the garden was a staple of medieval landscape design. Its simple yet powerful symbolism was derived from necessity, but speaks to that part of the soul that envisions water as healing and life giving. Nowhere is a tiny fountain more at home than at the center of a ... Views: 194