My new Corona® Garden Hoe and I cleaned up the vegetable garden earlier today. It didn’t take too long. The plants had mostly dried up before being hit with a bit of frost a few days ago. I easily pulled up the peppers, tomatoes, squash, and corn plants and tossed them on the compost bin. Then I used the new hoe to knock down the weeds and smooth the raised beds. I was surprised at how hard packed the soil was in the raised beds, even though no one ever walks on them… much. But the new … [Read more...] about My new Corona® Hoe and I cleaned up the vegetable garden
reviews
Bizarre Botanicals: Book Review and Giveaway
Someone asked me if I would be getting rid of my Stapelia since it has now bloomed, and I finally got to smell the flower to prove to myself that it really does smell like dead, rotting meat. Oh, gosh, no. I am not getting rid of the Stapelia. It’s a passalong plant. You can’t just march into the plant section of your local big box store and find one of these for sale. You’ve got to find someone who has one, drop a few hints about how interesting and fun it must be to grow, and then maybe … [Read more...] about Bizarre Botanicals: Book Review and Giveaway
I Am Both Excited and Scared
Stapelia bud I am both excited and scared. Back in 2008, when I visited Austin, Texas for the first garden bloggers’ get together, Annie in Austin gave me a start of her Stapelia, which she had gotten from her Aunt Phyl. I’m excited to announce that after two years of growing in my sunroom, my blogalong passalong Stapelia from Annie now has six flower buds on it. This Stapelia, which Annie thinks might be Stapelia gigantea, is sometimes called starfish flower because the blooms are … [Read more...] about I Am Both Excited and Scared
A Coleus Knocked On My Door
Knock, knock. Who’s there? Solenostemon scutellarioides. Solenostemon scutellarioides who? Solenostemon scutellarioides ‘Crimson Gold’ No joke, those crazy taxonomists renamed the common coleus a while back to Solenostemon scutellarioides. I checked out the pronunciation on the Fine Gardening website and have decided to stick with “coleus”. I have trouble with words that end in “ioides” and sound like a fool trying to say them, or make that “more of a fool”. Fortunately, those who are … [Read more...] about A Coleus Knocked On My Door
Monet’s Passion: A Book Review and Giveaway
I mentioned to a co-worker that I had a book on Monet’s Gardens to review and his response was, “Monet had gardens? I love his paintings.” I replied, in a matter of fact manner, “Monet painted? I only knew about his gardens.” And then I told him he should read “Monet’s Passion: Ideas, Inspiration & Insights from the Painter’s Gardens by Elizabeth Murray (Pomegranate Communications, $35.00) and find out about the gardens. In her book, Elizabeth Murray provides an in-depth look at Monet’s … [Read more...] about Monet’s Passion: A Book Review and Giveaway
The Gardening Universe Provides Me With A Fork Hoe!
The gardening universe seems to always provide me with just the right hoe for whatever it is I’m going to do in my garden next. And what I was going to do, and did, in my garden next, yesterday evening, was use my new Fork Hoe from easydigging.com to scrape back the four to five inches of mulch covering the planting bed so that I could transplant a large Helleborus and several clumps of Hosta that the “patio guys” had very nicely dug up for me. This new hoe, which is made by Chillington in … [Read more...] about The Gardening Universe Provides Me With A Fork Hoe!
