The plant sitting in the display at the garden shop beckons. I don’t yet have one of those in my garden, and besides it is the only one of its kind left to purchase. Other gardeners wiser and earlier than me must have snapped up its siblings. I have to have it, and if I […]
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Author: John
Change Your Clothes
My zone 7 garden is in the oven now. Temperature and humidity are rising with a long string of 90+ degree days. Yesterday I installed rabbit fencing, tended the compost bins, and spread mulch over part of the garden. After two hours I looked as though Shawn had turned the hose on me, and I […]
Reclaiming Fallow Ground
Much of gardening is about improving the presentation. We remove some plants while adding others. We amend the soil and mix in a heaping dose of pruning and trimming. And all the parts of our labor combine to give us the confident feeling that the end is an improvement over the beginning. Garden satisfaction comes […]
To Cut Or Not To Cut
The large maple tree which has adorned our front yard for the past thirty-three years is no more. After much discussion and with heavy hearts we called in the tree crew to remove it. That tree was gone in minutes as a chain saw ripped through the trunk so that a crane could lift the […]
Flourish or Fizzle?
As the remaining bed locations are finalized and the connecting paths take shape I can shift focus to the plant content at Paths of Hope. A new development has triggered the need for negotiations in choosing the jewels that will adorn our landscape, though. Shawn is becoming quite possessive of “her gardens.” She has opinions […]
Moving the No Dig Garden
Recently I shared our design for a No Dig Garden using a cedar raised bed outer shell with ten one cubic foot growing sections inside. The sections can be removed for planting or maintenance, and the entire garden is easily transported to a new location should such a move become necessary. Well, now that Shawn […]