You are a gardener; you’re enamored with gardening, with flowers, with plants. People describe you as an ‘avid gardener’, ‘obsessed with gardening’. They may even refer to you as a gardening geek.But to reach that next level of “gardenerd”, you have to embrace botanical names for a happier life, at least for a happier gardening life.Yes, I’ve heard the excuses of why some gardeners don’t like to use the botanical names of plants.Shall we go through those excuses and eliminate them?You are afraid … [Read more...] about Embrace Botanical Names For A Happier Life
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Embrace Mowing for a Happier Life
On the occasion of the completion of the 25th mowing of my lawn this season, I ask you to consider embracing mowing for a happier life.I suspect there are some who look down on those of us who will admit that we enjoy mowing the lawn. They are probably shaking their heads right now and getting ready to hit the "delete" key on this post.Perhaps they think we are some kind of faux gardeners, those of us who enjoy mowing. That we are not yet enlightened on the joys of either hiring a mowing crew to … [Read more...] about Embrace Mowing for a Happier Life
Embrace Your Soil For A Happier Life
One of the secrets to a happier life as a gardener is to embrace your soil.As gardeners, we don’t always get to choose our soil. We end up with whatever soil, dirt if you prefer, that nature and/or a land developer has left us. And in that soil, we try to grow the plants we love.We like to talk about the soil we have, almost as much as the weather.“Oh, the clay I have to deal with.”“You should see the rocks I find when I dig.”“It’s like a swamp it drains so poorly.”“It’s like concrete when it’s … [Read more...] about Embrace Your Soil For A Happier Life
Embrace Your Weather For A Happier Life
Threatening skies over my garden this evening.The weatherman said this morning that we have had at least some rain on 16 of the 20 days of May so far. I thought he sounded a bit too excited about this. And then the newscasters and the weatherman chattered back and forth about the challenge of finding periods of time with no rain when it is dry enough to the mow the lawns. The lawns are growing fast with all the rain and I've been mowing mine twice a week.And last year at this time we were … [Read more...] about Embrace Your Weather For A Happier Life
Embrace Bugs For A Happier Life
We are outnumbered, you know that don't you? There are far more insects than people. Far more, way more, lots more than we can really fathom.I read once that for every pound of people on this earth, there are 70 pounds of insects*. And insects don't weigh that much individually. So there must be a lot of them out there.Out there, where we all garden. Bugs, insects, and for sake of completeness, let's include spiders, too.We all know that sooner rather than later, as gardeners, we are going to … [Read more...] about Embrace Bugs For A Happier Life
Embrace Weeding For A Happier Life
One of the secrets to being happy as a gardener is to embrace weeding.No matter what kind of garden you have, as soon as you cultivate the earth and plant what you want to grow, the weeds will begin their quest to take over your garden.Embrace weeding.You will never finish weeding. The weeds are always out there sprouting and growing in the areas you think you have finished weeding. You might slow the weeds down a bit or even halt them temporarily, but eventually they come back. They always … [Read more...] about Embrace Weeding For A Happier Life
