In spite of its name, Birds AND Blooms, I always thought of this magazine as concentrating on Birds. However, I've been looking at it from time to time and have come to realize that it has lots of good information for gardeners, too. In fact, as we all become more aware of the pressures on our environment, climate change, depredations of host environments for migrating birds, and a simple desire to attract those 'flowers of the air" birds…
Coffee for Roses by C.L. Fornari is subtitled . . . and 70 Other Misleading Myths About Backyard Gardening (St. Lynn’s Press $17.95.) Fornari covers a lot of ground in this book that gives more than it promises. I had to laugh when I opened the book to the first myth,“A perennial garden is less work than an annual planting because the plants come up every year.” That was a myth that I believed in when I planted…
We have a winner! A copy of Hellstrip Gardening: Create a paradise between the sidewalk and the curb by Evelyn J. Hadden will be sent to Rose of Rose's Prairie Garden. Congratulations, Rose!
Chasing the Rose: An Adventure in the Venetian Countryside (Knopf 26.95) is Andrea di Robilant’s quest for the name of a rose that grew on his family’s former estate near Venice. His journey took him from the wild overgrown park on the estate that had left his family decades before, to Eleanora Garlant and her rose garden, the largest in Italy with 1500 roses, as well as tales of his great-great-great-great grandmother Lucia with her love and knowledge…
I have been reading Evelyn Hadden's book Hellstrip Gardening: Create a paradise between the sidewalk and the curb, with all its beautiful photographs of the different ways a curbside garden can be created. Hadden includes gardens from across the country from Oregon and California to Minnesota and New York. Different climates and different inspirations. I was very happy that she also included Rain Gardens as one of her themes because many urban areas have a great problem with…
Gardening with kids is being taken to a whole new level at the HawlemontElementary School. They have received a grant that is allowing them to establish themselves as an AgricultureElementary School. This means that the schoolyard will have a variety of raised vegetable and flower beds, including a story garden that is being sponsored by the school library. But the schoolyard will also become a farmyard with a cow, sheep, goats and chickens. And yes, that means a…
Groundbreaking Food Gardens is a great book to take new vegetable gardeners into an exciting and varied garden world this very long slow cold spring. The snow is finally gone, even here in Heath, and bulbs are blooming and tender shoots are evident all through the perennial beds. I can finally think about the vegetable garden. I actually have two vegetable gardens. One is very small. The Front Garden, or Early Garden, as I sometime call it, is…
The April 2014 issue of Fine Gardening magazine has an article by Peter Kukielski, former curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden titled Easy Picture Perfect Roses. Peter knows all about 'Easy' roses because during his tenure at that garden he ripped out 200 or so of the roses in the garden that needed pesticides and fungicides to survive and then replaced them with 693 roses that did not need that kind…
Nancy Ondra has been gardening for over 20 years and she has ten books to show for it and Five Plant Gardens: 52 ways to Grow a Perennial Garden with Just Five Plants (Storey Publishing $18.95) is her latest. This book has something for everyone, but it takes garden design to a new level of ease and understanding for the novice gardener. Even an inexperienced flower gardener understands pretty quickly that you put tall plants in back…
I'm just starting to read Five Plant Gardens by Nancy J. Ondra and I find it such an encouraging book. The book is divided into two sections, one section for sunny gardens and one section for shady gardens. She begins with one color gardens like the Bright White Garden for a sunny location. She suggests 'David' phlox, 'White Swan' coneflower, 'Snow Fairy' caryopteris, lambs ears, and candytuft, but gives alternatives and a planting plan. It is her planting…