Giveaway! The Edible Front Yard
June 13, 2011 My friend and colleague Ivette Soler, aka The Germinatrix, has just published her first book, The Edible Front Yard: The Mow-Less, Grow-More Plan for a Beautiful, Bountiful Garden (Timber Press, 2011). I’m so happy for her accomplishment and am certain her book will do well. Ivette has ...
Read This: Tomorrow’s Garden
June 08, 2011 I came of age as a gardener when the native-plant movement was already well-established, in a progressive city that encourages its citizens to harvest rainwater, recycle yard trimmings through a city composting program, replace lawn grass with xeric plantings, and forgo weed-and-feed chemical treatments for their lawns ...
Read This: Chanticleer, a Pleasure Garden
June 06, 2011 I stumbled upon Chanticleer Garden by happy accident while on a driving trip down the East Coast during the summer of 2008. It was, and still is, the most engaging, playful, and beautiful garden I’ve seen. (Click here for the first of my six posts about Chanticleer.) ...
Read This: Armitage’s Vines and Climbers
May 04, 2011 Vertical gardening has gotten a lot of attention lately (see my recent review of Garden Up!), and deservedly so. While gardeners have always planted vines and greened up their walls, a renewed interest makes sense for those of us who garden on tight urban or fenced-in suburban ...
Last chance for giveaway, plus upcoming garden events
March 19, 2011 I’ve had a remarkable response to my giveaway of the succulent living picture kit. This Sunday, March 20, at 11 pm is the deadline for entering the drawing. To enter all you have to do is leave a comment on my post about Garden Up! (Note: you ...
Garden Up! Vertical gardening cyber book party & giveaway
March 14, 2011 Today is the official launch of Garden Up! Smart Vertical Gardening for Small and Large Spaces, a new book by Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet, my friends and colleagues at Garden Designers Roundtable. To celebrate, Rebecca and Susan are hosting a cyber book party with 7 great ...
Read This: The Complete Kitchen Garden
February 25, 2011 After writing my Garden Designers Roundtable post about vegetable garden design, I picked up a book recently sent to me for review: The Complete Kitchen Garden: An Inspired Collection of Garden Designs & 100 Seasonal Recipes by Ellen Ecker Ogden, a Vermont gardener, author, and cofounder of ...
Garden Designers Roundtable: Vegetable Garden Design
February 22, 2011 French potager, Allen Centennial Gardens, Madison, Wisconsin Today Garden Designers Roundtable celebrates the release of The Edible Front Yard: The Mow-Less, Grow-More Plan for a Beautiful, Bountiful Garden by Roundtable blogger Ivette Soler of The Germinatrix. How are we celebrating? By writing about edibles from a design ...
Winner of the book giveaway is…
January 28, 2011 On Monday I reviewed Andrea Bellamy’s Sugar Snaps and Strawberries and promised to give a copy of the book to a local reader. To be eligible, one had to 1) live in Austin, 2) leave a comment telling me about your desire to grow edibles, and 3) ...
Book Review & Giveaway: Sugar Snaps and Strawberries
January 24, 2011 Like a rebel without a cause, I continue to resist growing edibles despite the current fad and inspiring examples of fellow gardeners and bloggers who savor their homegrown fruits and vegetables. Sure, I stick a basil plant in the ground each spring and harvest the leaves all ...
Read This: The American Meadow Garden
January 22, 2011 In this age of lawn bashing, let me say this: I am not anti-lawn. Lawn is useful for picnicking, playing sports, throwing a ball for the dog, sunbathing, and providing a restful bit of green amid a garden. A lawn of needed size, maintained without dumping chemicals ...
Garden books to curl up with: 6 mini-reviews
November 18, 2010Looking for garden books to add to your wish list for Christmas? Here are five I read this year and recommend for information and/or inspiration. New Garden Design: Inspiring Private Paradises by Zahid Sardar, photographs by Marion Brenner (2008). This is a big, coffee-table sized gardening book, full ...
Upcoming garden events in the Austin area
October 05, 2010 ‘Twinkle Pink’ cuphea October’s cooler, less-humid weather signals the beginning of the second big gardening season in central Texas. At independent nurseries and plant sales, the aisles are packed with tempting new arrivals. And even though it can be hard to tear oneself away from one’s own ...
Read This: So You Want to Be a Garden Designer
June 29, 2010 Garden design is often a mid-life-change, follow-your-heart career choice. At least it was for me and for a number of accomplished designers I’ve come to know. I graduated from college with a degree in English and landed my first job in publishing, as an assistant editor at ...
Read This: Succulent Container Gardens
April 13, 2010 It’s the perfect time of year to refresh your container plantings or create new ones. Here in Austin, where long, sweltering summers are the norm, I’ve learned to plant only succulents or cacti in my containers in order to avoid being a slave to the hose all ...
Book Review: Fearless Color Gardens
January 27, 2010 San Francisco Bay-area artist and garden designer Keeyla Meadows offers playful, step-by-step guidelines to making colorful gardens in her new book Fearless Color Gardens: The Creative Gardener’s Guide to Jumping Off the Color Wheel. Illustrating her ideas with dozens of images from her own vibrant garden, Meadows ...
