gifts for gardeners and other humans, 2018 version

Check out these stunning Types of Geraniums that can be a great addition to both home and gardens. We have picked the best ones for you!

‘The Garden of Reading: An Anthology of Twentieth-century Short Fiction About Gardens and Gardeners’ edited by Michele Slung.

A bit of light relief for a dark corner! Spreads well but easliy controlled like butter (take a knife too it..

Botany is the science of plant life. In other descriptions it is the study of plant science or plant biology. A botanist is one who studies botany.

I will use Shangri-la as an all encompassing name for spiritually based gardens and areas of harmonious natural beauty stealing a name from James Hilton in his novel Lost Horizon.

Are you keen on the idea of growing your own vegetables, but not really sure where to start? This list of ten easy to grow vegetables is a great first step on your grow your own journey.

The English-born Capon, a doctor of botany from the University of Chicago who went on to be a professor at California State University, Los Angeles for 30 years, has since retired, leaving time for the revamping of “Botany for Gardeners,” the bestselling title for its publisher, Timber Press, in the U.S. and England.Not only did Capon write it; he illustrated it, too, and even took the plant photographs that further bring the text to life. Capon is also a lifelong gardener, though images of his own place never appear in the pages.“Botany for Gardeners” was born as a textbook out of lecture notes for a botany class Capon taught for many years to non-science students, so it’s thorough—but not the kind of dense, full-fledged botany text that will scare you away.In fact (even 20 years later), it just keeps drawing me back in, especially for tidbits like these. Did you know:That litmus, the dye used to indicate acidity and alkalinity, is

There’s a spot beside my patio where Nicotiana and annual poppies like to propagate–don’t ask me why–and I’ve learned to let them do so, above, until they’re just big enough to move around where I want them. (This means we each get our way half the time, I guess you could say.) In the driveway gravel, wonderful sedums like ‘Matrona’ sow all the time, and I’m happy to have the freebies to add to the garden.If the colony of volunteers is in the right place but just too thickly sown, I edit (with repeated pinches of my fingers, removing enough to allow the survivors good spacing). If the colony isn’t where I want it at all, I scoop up trowelfuls (above, with Nicotiana) and move them, above, or sometimes even individual young plants.This is my system with not just the poppies and flowering tobacco, but with tall verbena (Verbena bonariensis), and would be with Nigella and larkspur and other things I no longer grow (though who knows why?).I know, I should neaten up my act–how messy to let the dill grow 6 inches high before weedi

Since the book “Planting in a Post-Wild World” came out in 2015, co-authored by Claudia West with Thomas Rainer, I’ve been gradually studying their ideas and starting to have some light bulbs go off, on how to be inspired to put plants together in the ways that nature does, in layered communities.Claudia joined me on the July 17, 2017 edition of my public-radio show and podcast to about some of the practical, tactical aspects of plant community-inspired designs that we can app

“Last year [2012] at the overwintering sites, the area occupied was at only 60 percent of its previous low,” she says. “It had been declining, but that was astonishingly low.”The migration-monitoring program Journey North also reported lower stats in 2013’s cold spring. And though the numbers were only preliminary when we spoke that fall, University of Minnesota’s Monarch Larva Monitoring Program seems to indicate that “we’re at about 20 to 30 percent of our average,” Oberhauser says, acknowledging that these drastically lower numbers might be a “new normal.” But she’s not sounding defeated, by any means.A big positive: A lot of people are interested in monarchs. “Though it will be difficult to make up for all the habitat we’ve lost, we can make that ‘new normal’ as good as we can.”  (Ways to help are father down this page.)what going wrong for monarchs?MONARCH

Important: Click the “Note to Seller” link on the PayPal checkout page and then tell me there how to inscribe your book(s). If you don’t, I’ll simply sign them, rather than personalize.Want to know more about each book? That’s here.

LOST ANYTHING IN THE GARDEN LATELY (besides your mind)? That’s the question Forum member Boodely poses in the Urgent Garden Question Forum this week, and I’m confessing to eyeglasses, every manner of tool and more. (Usually my MIA items turn up when I turn the compost heap.) Lost anything in your garden? On the very practical side comes a twist on the groundcover question, which usually includes the words “for shade.” Not this time.