One of the prettiest wildflowers that I recall from my childhood. The “paintbrush”. Enjoy.
nature
Quick Tips and Advice for Full-On Summer Gardening
Wild daisies are a sure sign of summer!
With summer just over a week away, everybody is a busy body, scampering to greenhouses and home stores trying to get what they need done. So this post is going to be just as swift as you! Here are a few tips for the full-fledged gardening season that you need to keep in mind for the rest of the summer:
Good things come to those who wait: By the end of July/ early August, spring nursery stock gets slashed to 50% off. Pick up some things there to add to your landscape. It may seem like forever, but it’s not.
Mulch: Mulch fascinates me, actually. I don’t know why, but it does. I actually have a blog post in the works that is totally devoted to it. It’s both a time and money saver on your part. It retains water to keep your plants hydrated. And it really doesn’t cost that much for a bag. You can get it for $3. And it makes your flower beds look so darn neat and nice!
Keep the weeds out: I always have weeds. It really doesn’t matter what I do. But when I am preparing my beds in early spring, I used to lay down landscaping paper to keep the weeds out. But then I was given even better advice from my mother: lay down newspapers instead! So, to keep the weeds at bay, I lay down newspapers and then put the mulch on top. That saves you money from buying the sometimes costly landscaping paper– just use your Sunday paper! It’s better for the environment because it slowly decomposes over the growing season.
Don’t forget to enjoy it. We get so wrapped up in the work we put into our landscape that we have a hard time enjoying it. I’ve talked to some people who feel that gardening and landscaping is something they have to do, and absolutely hate it. My advice? Don’t do it! Just do what you have to do– mow your lawn and maintain what you need to. Nobody needs to do any of it, but for those of us who do the grunt work every year because we love it, stop and enjoy it. Get a nice patio umbrella and lounger and plant it right out in your yard. Sit down and relax and take in all the work you have been doing. Because, truth be told, we all get far more accomplished in the garden than we do anywhere else. Trust me on this.
Clematis beauty!
For me, I am satisfied with the results of my gardening thus far. I feel that I have finally found the “zen”, or balance that I have been striving for over several years now. Just another example of how gardening is a process, and it takes years to perfect!
A Natural Pause
The imperfection in the picture is actually what makes it perfect. Enjoy.
A Natural Pause
A walk in the park. Enjoy.
A Natural Pause
I guess I have never been on a hike during this time of year. It’s either when everything is completely bare or full-on green. Seeing the little green sprouts on everything was absolutely beautiful to me, and I could help but take a picture. Enjoy.
A Natural Pause
One of the first things I saw growing in my back yard last weekend were these violets. I know most people consider violets a weed, but I remember as a child growing up in a valley called Bucktooth Run, there was this little violet patch in the hay field behind my house. I loved it and took claim to it. Enjoy.
A Natural Pause
On my early morning workout last weekend, I had to take a minute to take the exact shot of a quiet bench next to the Erie Canal that I have now taken every season. Enjoy.
A Natural Pause
“It’s a Truffula Seed. It’s the last one of all! You’re in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds. And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs. Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care. Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air. Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack. Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back.” — The Once-ler, from The Lorax
In honor of Earth Day. Every day I am in awe of our amazing planet. Enjoy.
Gardening Is In The Books: The Woodbook: The Complete Plates
Ahhhh, February you keep coming and we don’t know what to do with you! At this point I am sounding like a broken record, but we keep getting pounded with more snow and the relentless cold won’t let up. This Thursday the high expected for the day is 8 degrees.
So, I can tell you for a fact that I have my work cut out for me this spring. I have lost both my Emerald Green Arborvitae to winter damage. I would love to show you a picture, but I can’t. They are buried under three feet of snow.
To show you I am not making this up, just look at this comparison:
My backyard in early September 2014. Truly blissful.
To Saturday, February 7, 2015:
I took this yesterday morning. Can you believe this? That’s just accumulation, and not shoveled or piled snow!
Yes, I am afraid I am going to have a lot more damage from winter and deer this year than I have in the past. Well, a few more lessons will be learned this spring, I will detail them all for you!
So, as you can imagine, I have been laying low. This past week was the worst driving to work week in all the years I have been living in the Buffalo Metro area. So, this weekend has been really subdued for me.
This is my uniform on weekends in bitter cold weather:
I have been on a kick this winter purchasing big, woolly warm boot socks like these from Wigwam.
Snuggly socks and blankets leave you wanting to do nothing but read. I have been really stoked lately because a couple of weeks ago, I purchased a book that I have actually been looking for in some way, shape or form for a long time. When I read about it in Outside magazine, I couldn’t help myself. I had to buy it!
Now, this is an encyclopedia of trees that will be loved by everyone from gardeners to woodworkers. I am talking about The Woodbook: The Complete Plates. This is a fantastic undertaking by Romeyn B. Hough in the late 19th century – early 20th century. Hough was a doctor and botanist who between 1888-1913 created a 14 volume series that included actual samples from every tree in North America.
This edition of the book was compiled by Klaus Ulrich Leistikow. It has three different “slices” or cuts each of more than 350 trees neatly laid out. This is a multilingual edition that comes in English, French and German. It can be a little confusing, because some trees are referred to by two or more names sometimes, but it lists the description, habitat, type of wood (hard or soft), and use for each one. Informative, thorough, and wonderfully done. It’s been a joy to look through all the plates and see how beautiful the trees really are. This is, as they say, a truly unparalleled work that keeps blowing my mind!
One of the responsibilities of my day job is that I am a graphics/layout designer (not to be confused with a graphic designer) of sorts, and I am getting a ton of inspiration from looking at this book. I have so much to look at and will continue to enjoy this book while I keep getting snowed in!
A Natural Pause
Winter is not letting up in western New York, we are getting blasted with another weather system. Brrr! A cool (hehe) thing was that last night was a Full Moon, also called the Snow Moon. I was lucky (and crazy) enough to go out in the bitter cold to capture a pretty good picture (for me at least) of the moon with clouds around it. Enjoy.
The Bent Trowel 