Garden Journal

I love how many people walk down our street; it just makes me happy, saying hello two dozen times on a Saturday morning while I do half an hour of weeding and deadheading. One person asked if she could pet my dog (Ellie was leashed in the yard, because she likes to watch the world […]

First dahlia — this is an early one, as you can tell by my summer sandals. Usually they show up a bit later in the year. But welcome, welcome.

This is a small garden issue, but I don’t know how to handle it. So I’ve been planting in the hellstrip, and it’s bothering me that even though a couple times a year I mulch and neaten the edge, it quickly gets messy again, as you can see in the first photo. I mean, mess

The only problem with planting prairie natives is that they’re *so* hardy and happy in this environment that they have a tendency to get huge / spread, and then crowd out the other plants. This is Culver’s Root / Veronicastrum virginicum, and I quite like it, esp. the pale purple variety, but if I’m not

White Flower Farm offers a ‘perfumed garden’ collection of unnamed Oriental lilies, $29 for a dozen lilies. I split them up, six in one spot and six in another, and even though the bunnies ate fully half of them, the ones that survived are just splendid, lending drama in an array of pink-white tones. Really

Finished a little early, my 45th birthday present from Kevin and Jed, a back patio and new seating! It’s nice that it’s done early, so it can be used during the upcoming party on the 23rd. 🙂 We had this area by the garage that had been originally intended sort of vaguely as a shady

Hm. I didn’t *plan* for the dragon’s blood sedum to be growing through the creeping charlie like that, but I have to say, it’s a perfectly fine effect. If they’re happy, I’m happy. Achillea / yarrow, with hosta and allium summer beauty behind, both still opening. I haven’t grown achillea before, because I’ve mostly seen

The garden I’m docent-ing    had this narrow trellis, just inside the fence, which supported a massive wisteria. We’ve been struggling with the lack of privacy in our backyard — as you can see in pictures 2-4, it’s overlooked by an apartment building immediately next door, as well as a set of new townhouses that

I went out to water last night, around 8:30 p.m., and was surrounded by lots of fireflies the whole time (and no mosquitoes!), which was magical. I was singing as I watered, Bill Staines’s lovely “Prairie Song,” and feeling both slightly goofy but also very happy. And then a young woman walked by with her

I tried to add lilies to my garden this year — I’d had a few Stargazer and Starfighter before, but wanted more, so I added a half-dozen in front, and the same in the side and the back — or I meant to! But it turns out the bunnies LOVE my lilies. This is the