CAN YOU GUESS what the top 11 new stories of 2011 were on A Way to Garden? As was the case last year, not even one featured the increasingly cushy life of Jack the Demon Cat, now operating under the assumed name Jack the Mama’s Boy–and just completing his first full year of nonstop sleepovers and on-demand feeding courtesy of his personal valet. Speaking of eating, a lot of this year’s top posts involved garden-fresh ingredients. Here’s what else:
1. Farm-Fresh Peaches, Frozen to Perfection
Packing a harvest of summer’s juiciest flavor for the long haul: a how-to.
2. Slideshow: 54 Top Shade Plants
The older the garden gets, the more shade (and shade plants) I have. Some beauties.
3. Canning-Jar Giveaway and Produce-Stashing Tips
Wherein I confess my newfound love for Weck jars…and share all the links on how to stash what.
4. Instant Water Gardens: Try Seasonal Troughs
No other feature here gets more attention than the two big pots I drag out and fill with water and floating plants each year.
5. Great Shrub: Bottlebrush Buckeye
One of my oldest, and certainly my largest, shrubs, a joy in several seasons.
6. Recipe: Baking Up Some Heirloom Beans
I baked this staple of my menu on the “Martha” TV show, and you gave them a big thumb’s up. They freeze well, too.
7. Garden Gates in Trash-to-Treasure Style
I finally cleaned the barn in 2011, and recycled some long-lost bits and bobs into garden decor.
8. Cucumber-Growing Q&A, and the Best Pickles Ever
Sick of wilts and beetles, I’d skipped cukes for a few years, but I studied up and had a great crop.
9. 5 Things You Must Read While I Savage My Garden
One of my periodic links posts, timed to distract you from the mess I have to make after spring stuff gets a stiff haircut here.
The website greengrove.cc is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
A fad in modern architecture and gardening or a necessity to bring back nature into industrialised densely built urban landscapes? Living green walls are becoming more and more popular, so we decided to explore the benefits, installation and maintenance process of these structures. Read on to find out how long they have been around, why so many buildings are having them, and how you can make one for your home.
Just because our attention is focused on keeping things steady (ahem, alive) in the garden this deep into the summer, it doesn’t mean we should neglect our leafy loved ones who live indoors—especially if you have travel plans! Houseplants have special needs every season, but summer heat and time away come with their own set of challenges.
Ah, garden dreams. We all have them. You drive by someone’s front yard and gasp at how original, yet welcoming it is. Or you go to a friend’s garden party and get positively green with envy over their, well, greenery and the overall flow of the space. To achieve such greatness, you decide you need to hire a landscape designer. And then you realize you have no idea what to do next.
Britain has some of the best gardens in the world. The choice of which to visit is far larger than this selective list but at least it gives you somewhere to start planning this years outings.
Sometimes as gardeners, we place all the emphasis on plants. However, a few well positioned ornaments and focal points can heighten the interest and drama within a garden.
It is interesting to see how gardening adverts have changed with the horticultural industry and modern developments. Yet a top fruit business has in some ways stayed the same.
Colorful ferns can be an excellent addition to any garden or indoor plant collection. These plants are characterized by their beautiful, vibrant fronds ranging from shades of pink, red, yellow, and even purple.
In July 2022, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) drew attention to North America’s migrating monarchs by adding them to their ICUN Red List of Threatened Species. In the United States, the more immediate plight of other threatened and endangered species has precluded the monarchs’ inclusion on the Endangered Species List. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged that their place on this list is “warranted.” They mandated that the monarchs be reviewed annually as a potential candidate for inclusion. These incredible insects migrate 4000 miles every spring and fall and face immense dangers on this epic journey. What simple steps can you take to help monarchs as they travel past your home?
THE OFFICIAL STATISTICS-DRIVEN all-time best-of list—the 50 stories you clicked on most since I launched A Way to Garden in March 2008—is all well and good, and actually a great place to get acquainted with this site. But I have my own list of stories I loved the most so far.
We’d been to hear another old friend, Dan Hinkley, speak at nearby Berkshire Botanical Garden’s annual lecture with several hundred other winter-weary types, and afterward gone off with Dan and friends to eat.We didn’t really talk plants at the meal; nine crazy gardeners traded pet stories. I know—insane. Either we are getting old and soft, or have spent too much time on Cute Overload. But the next morning my breakfast guest and I shifted from zoology to botany, stirred up by a few of Dan’s slides, including one of Mukdenia rossii ‘Crimson Fans,’ a shade plant Dan’s helped bring to market as