Get inspired by this post on cottage garden planning as well as ideas on how you can get this beautiful cottage look yourself!
Who's with me on converting ordinary backyard into a romantic garden of your dreams? In this post I'm sharing my favorite backyard garden design and ideas that are just too beautiful to pass on. A
August has settled in like honey— sticky and sweet. The mornings greet us with dewdrops and cooler temperatures. But the sun, rich and golden, will still warm the days. The air is thick with change. Summer is fading into something more earnest. A squirrel on our front porch is eating a peach from ou
Looking for tips and ideas about growing a cut flower garden? My new garden blog series, "Growing a Cut Flower Garden" shares everything about how you can grow your own cut flower garden.
Green-thumbed friends gather among vegetable beds for a laid-back meal in a Phippsburg potting shed.
There are many ways to update your garden on a budget. From painting a fence to adding mirrors and lighting, here's a few ideas to get you started
I'm a meme addict, I can admit that. I search for them every night to give me a much needed laugh after a hard day of work. I'm a huge gardening fanatic and I can
Top New England life and style blogger, Shannon Shipman, features her Cottage Garden Ideas and what she's planting! Click now for more details!
Cottage backyard ideas offer a feast for the senses. Be inspired to turn your garden into a relaxed and inviting oasis
Use these secret garden ideas to design a magical hidden backyard oasis that you'll want to relax in all summer long.
Making your own fairy garden is easy and fun. These are the best ideas to inspire you and make you start one immediately.
Create an impactful outdoor space with these small yard and garden landscaping ideas.
Yes, yes…we sold the house. But let’s tour the before + after of the gardens anyways.
How to give your garden a rural rustic air – easy summer DIY design It is not necessary to say that the rustic garden design is simple. In other words,…
Create your own vacation-worthy postcard! Any view you’ve seen, any monument you’ve fallen in love with, can all be added to your postcard with our personalization tool. Dimensions: 5.6" L x 4.25" H; qualified USPS postcard size High quality, full-color, full-bleed printing on both sides A classic, all around paper with a natural feel and an uncoated matte finish; our Standard Matte stands the test of time. Elegant and understated, colors print softer and more subtle. 17.5 pt thickness / 120 lb weight / 324 GSM Light white, uncoated matte finish with an eggshell texture Paper is easy to write on and won't smudge Made and printed in the USA
Garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith raised his own prairie garden from seed and was delighted to find it requires a fraction of the maintenance of a conventional border
Create a beautiful yard with these creative landscape ideas with big impact.
How to start an organic garden with ease
Get inspired by this post on cottage garden planning as well as ideas on how you can get this beautiful cottage look yourself!
A lovely gardening quote for the everyday gardener! "And into the garden I go, to lose my mind and find my soul" Accented with cute insects you would find in your garden. WHATS INCLUDED: 1 page 8.5 x 11 inches HOW TO DOWNLOAD: *After purchase you will receive an email with the link to download from Etsy *Unzip the file, extract all *Open the PDF File *Print IMPORTANT INFO: *This is an instant download! There will be NO physical product sent via mail! *Must use computer to download *Since this is a PDF, there will be no refunds! *This file is for personal use ONLY! This file CANNOT be reproduced or resold commercially! *This file is copyrighted by Own That Garden Life
Use these secret garden ideas to design a magical hidden backyard oasis that you'll want to relax in all summer long.
The perfect material for creating beds is disassembled pallets and wooden boxes, they became the budget alternative to edged boards. Wooden boxes are easy to assemble and even move if necessary.
If you have a dog, you may have the displeasure of caching Spot digging up a nice chunk ... Read More
i think perhaps my life’s dream is to wake up in a small cottage, sun on my face, cat curled up next to me. the windows would face the sun so even the floorboards would be warm from the sun, even the…
Who's with me on converting ordinary backyard into a romantic garden of your dreams? In this post I'm sharing my favorite backyard garden design and ideas that are just too beautiful to pass on. A
My heart has always felt happiest when thinking about living in one of those charming, cute, cozy family-friendly homes with tons of plants and flowers, a pretty picket fence, and a...
Like laundry and dirty dishes, weeds are a routine task that needs to get done. In July and August, I find that weeding is my principal garden chore. My approach tends to be proactive–I do my best to prevent problem weeds from gaining a foothold, but I have a very big garden to manage and weeds are happy to take full advantage of any opportunity. Here is a look at my overall approach to weed management. Take stock of any Issues I always begin my time in the garden with a little stroll. I like to pause and admire what's in bloom, but there is also a very practical purpose to this exercise– I make mental notes on what needs attention and the chores that are the most urgent. If I notice weeds have begun to flower or set seed, I'll target that problem area before I do anything else. If the list of chores is long or I'm otherwise pressed for time, I might only have a chance to cut the flower heads off any weeds. When I have more time, I'll circle back and take care of the roots. Most importantly, this walk around the yard reminds me of the reason I garden in the first place. It's when I take pleasure in the beauty born of all my hard work. Assorted Phlox, Rudbeckia triloba 'Prairie Glow' and white Liatris An Overall Gameplan As I said, I tend to tackle any urgent weed problem immediately. For me, it doesn't make sense to concentrate on clearing one flowerbed at a time if I know Goldenrod seeds are going airborne at the very back of the yard. But once everything pressing is addressed, I tend to work through the flowerbeds one at a time, clearing one bed completely before I move to the next. Once an area is done, I will mulch any disturbed ground as a final step. The Best Time to Weed After it rains is absolutely the best time to weed. Dry soil, especially if you have clay, can be as hard as a rock! Wet soil is soft and loose making it so much easier to pull weeds. There seems to be only one drawback to a damp garden– the rain also seems to bring out the mosquitoes. If the bugs are bad, I tend to work in one of the more open areas of the garden (in my experience, mosquitoes love the cover of shade and dense growth). If the mosquitoes are a worry for you to, try to time your weeding chores on a day when there is a good, stiff breeze. Mosquitoes are not great flyers, so they tend to lie low when there is a wind. Not my garden thank goodness! These are weeds in an open field. Seeds with Wings Begin by Gathering all your Tools My weeding tools couldn't be any more basic. I use a trowel with a sharp point and a heavy-duty plastic bucket (a former plant pot for a tree) to collect anything I pull. I also keep a shovel on hand for anything with stubborn roots and a pair of pruners (if a weed has gone to seed, I will cut the seedhead off first and then remove the rest of the plant. This lessens the chances any seed will drop to the ground or get airborne). One last thing I should mention. Weeds can be armed and dangerous! While I don't always wear garden gloves, I always put them on when I'm weeding. Etched into my memory is the first time I had a run-in with Stinging Nettles. My fingers were on fire! Follow the Shade Some gardeners love the sun, but I find the heat and humidity drains my energy. And I have fair skin that never tans. The sun only plays connect the dots with my fine freckles. I prefer to wait for an area to move into the shade before I begin my work. After a while, you get used to the way the sun moves across the sky and how that impacts any one portion of the yard. For instance, I know that the flowerbed next to the pond enjoys a period of shade for a little over an hour in mid-afternoon. The circular garden at the back of the yard is full sun in the morning and shaded in the late afternoon. If I want to weed in the shade, those times are the perfect opportunities. Garlic Mustard Know your Weeds Like so many people, I have had an issue with Garlic Mustard. I've learned its habits and now use that knowledge against its further spread. I watch for Garlic Mustard in early spring. It flowers in May and is a prolific self-seeder. Before the tulips are finished and the perennials have flushed out, I comb the garden for Garlic Mustard and pull any flowering plants. In the fall, I make a second sweep and yank any seedlings that I may have missed. In just a couple of years, I have reduced the initial problem very significantly. Make sure you Get all the Roots Canada Goldenrod, Solidago canadensis blows into the garden from the surrounding fields. I appreciate that it is an attractive, late-summer magnet for bees, wasps and other insects, but it is also a terrible thug. It both seeds prolifically and spreads by underground roots. Once you've dug out a weed that spreads underground, I find it pays to go back over the area a second time and look for any root segments that you may have missed. Lilium 'Black Beauty' Phlox (the bubblegum pink is self-seeded, the darker shade is 'Niki') and Agastache 'Blue Fortune' Lilium 'Black Beauty' The hose snaking its way through the flowerbeds. Open Ground is an Invitation for Weeds To my mind, I can fill any open ground with the plants of my choice or nature will make the selection for me. The perennials in my garden are all snuggly planted. Whenever possible, I layer my plants. For example, I will plant hostas and Lamium at the feet of shrubs. I also let Lamium wander around the feet of taller plants. The Lily you see in the image above grows up through Geranium macrorrhizum 'W. Ingwersen's Variety'. Watch that you or your furry friend isn't spreading the problem Just a quick caution to alert you to the possibility that you or your pets may inadvertently become part of the problem. I looked down the other day when I was weeding only to discover that my skirt was covered in seeds. It took me ten minutes to pick the fuzzy seeds out of my clothes! Piper got covered in seeds as well and had to be brushed clean. Invasive Weeds For me, a problem weed or plant is not just aggressive, it's also a plant that is hard to remove where unwanted. Weeds can send out roots that spread underground in many directions. Eradicating them can be very difficult. Even if you dig out the main plant, any roots segments you miss are capable of producing a new plant. I have written about invasive plants quite extensively, so if that is an issue you are facing, I am going to refer you back to these earlier posts Part 1: Invasive Plants, Part 2: Plants to Avoid and Part 3: How I Eliminated Goutweed from my Garden (a method that might easily be used for weeds as well). Balloon Flower, Platycodon grandiflorus An older variety of Phlox that sometimes self-seeds. Phlox paniculata 'Jeana' has clusters of tiny flowers. Mulch My number one strategy for suppressing weeds is to use mulch. Honestly, I could not manage my sizeable garden without it. Mulch works by depriving seeds of sunlight. A mulch is simply a layer of material (usually organic) that is spread over the surface of the soil. Mulch not only helps suppress weeds, but it also helps with moisture retention and depending on what you use, soil health and fertility. A few organic options might include compost, manure, straw or hay, pine needles, leaf mold, shredded bark, sawdust and wood chips. A Few Factors to Consider The drier and woodier the mulch, the slower it will decompose and the fewer nutrients it will add to the soil. Manure, compost and straw may all contain weed seeds, so it is important to know the source of these materials. Perhaps the best mulch is compost or leaf mold you make yourself. You know what's gone into it, and when its properly made, aged compost shouldn't contain any weed seeds. Hydrangea paniculata 'Little Lime', Eupatorium rugosum 'Chocolate' and a pink Phlox. I don't mulch every square inch of my garden, but I do mulch most of my flowerbeds. The exception would be a number of mature areas of the garden where the plants are so tightly packed weeds have trouble finding any open ground to colonize. While I started to make compost and leaf mold, my composter's present output does not meet my full requirements. This is something I hope to rectify in the near future with an overhaul of my present setup. In the meantime, I use natural cedar mulch. It is not super nutritious, but it is effective and very affordable. Mulch is such an important topic I think I will come back in another post (perhaps after we redo our compost bins) and address it in more detail. Single Balloon Flower, Platycodon grandiflorus and Phlox 'Eva Cullum' Do we really want to think of the Garden as a Battleground? As I wrote in the opening of this article, like housework, gardening is a chore. Our approach to these two tasks is however quite different. We always talk about doing battle with weeds, but it never occurs to us that we are waging war when we pull out the vacuum cleaner. Why is yanking weeds any different than killing germs and getting rid of dust and dirt? My husband and I had a long discussion about this. "I want to end my post on a positive note," I said to him. "I struggle with the notion of my garden as a battleground." After all, the garden is where I go for peace and comfort. The joy it brings me seems so out-of-step with any notion of winning a war against weeds. Certainly, there is a long history of gardening as a means of taming or controlling nature to suit our purposes. Modern science has only sharpened the battle cry. Make things fast and easy. Bring on the chemical concoctions! For me, it's time for a new mindset. I don't want to engage in a struggle with Mother Nature, because I know it is a battle she'd win anyway. If I were to step away from my garden for just a few months, Mother Nature would quickly reclaim her rightful place. There is no such thing as a spotless house or a weed-free garden and perhaps that is as it should be.
LA DOLCE VITA LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
Who's with me on converting ordinary backyard into a romantic garden of your dreams? In this post I'm sharing my favorite backyard garden design and ideas that are just too beautiful to pass on. A
Spring is my favorite time of year and I am so excited to share more about what I am planting this year, compost and all around garden topics!!
Let me take you on a tour of my Pacific Northwest (PNW) cottage and cut flower gardens to show you what's been blooming this summer.
Back in May, one of my co-workers shared a school-wide project idea that went viral on social media from Scarymommy.com. The project was a rock garden inspired by the book "Only One You" by Linda Kranz, and decorated the landscaping of Sharon Elementary School in Newburgh, Indiana. The garden was the idea of Jessica Moyes, who is the art teacher at Sharon Elementary. Jessica, your design has inspired multiple schools to create their own rock gardens within their own schools. Our school's parents were even sending links of this project to the principal requesting the garden! There's few posts from other bloggers and teachers talking about their rock garden installations at their schools. I'd love to share our story, along with the methods used in gathering materials, containing painting with K-6, incorporating all staff, and how to complete the installation. The Materials Thanks to Streamline Landscaping in Willow Springs, IL, we receive a few buckets of smooth rocks to use for our rock garden! The landscapers even came by to see how we were doing with creation, and donated even more larger stones for each class and department in the school. We also received a donation of acrylic paint and markers from Oriental Tradings! The donated materials really helped with supply management! Here's the materials you need to complete this project: 1. Lots and lots of rocks. Consider calling a local landscaping company and ask for a donation. The rock size can be your choice. 2. Table clothes. This was a life saver for all 31 of my classes who painted (700+ students). 3. Paper towels and paper plates. Tear up sections of paper towels for students to keep under their rocks while painting. Paper plates make it 100% easier to manage the paint messes and clean-ups. 4. A copy of "Only One You" by Linda Kranz. Easily found on Amazon, or other book sellers. 5. Acrylic paint. As much as it's scary working with acrylic at K-1 ages, it's the only paint that will stay on the rocks over time. Some acrylics paint on a little transparent, while others will be more opaque. Again, your choice. Here's the link to the acrylic paint used from Oriental Trading. 6. Paint brushes, cups, and water. 7. Permanent markers. If you photograph all artworks for Artsonia, or need to know who made what rock for grading, use permanent markers for students to write their names. Oh...and add room numbers too. It really helps with organizing. If you use markers for details, keep in mind that markers do fade over time. Here's the link to the sharpie marker set from Oriental Trading. 8. Acrylic clear coat. In order for the paint to stay as long as it can on the rocks in outdoor weather, you need to spray all the finished rocks with a clear coat for protection. For a safety note, make sure you spray outdoors and after school hours, because this smell can draft down the hallways. 9. Bins for storage. This is going to be heavy! For transporting from classroom to garden set-up, make sure you have plastic, durable bins to use for organization and transportation. 10. Aprons or old shirts. If you're doing this project with young students, you need clothing protection. The Objective The purpose of creating a community project was to have student leave a "footprint" in the school. The positive message in the final pages of the book is "There is only one you in this great, big world...make it a better place." All the students from grades K-6 were read the book and took in the words of wisdom shared. Each student painted their own "fish" rock with their own colors and patterns. The Project I allotted two full weeks for all classes to complete their rocks. Each of my classes are 40 minutes in length, and visit once a week. Prior to starting the painting, I sent a note home to each student explaining the project and materials being used. Since we had so many younger grade levels, I made a huge recommendation to parents to have their children bring an art shirt to school or an apron to protect their clothing. One parent donated a box of plastic aprons, which really helped with the younger grade levels! The teachers even helped with mentioning the extra art shirt in their weekend newsletters, which really helped!!! For prepping, I set up a plate of colors for each table. If I made the plates last longer than two classes, I called it a success. Kindergarten classes only received 5 colors (red, blue, yellow, green, white) because no matter what you do, the plates only last about 10 minutes of pure colors. Once the students see that colors mix, the plate very quickly turned to brown. On the first day of class, the book was read and we had a small discussion about the wisdom shared and how they can help in creating a garden for the school. For the rest of the class, the students painted their rocks. I organized drying areas for each class by placing colored paper and a painted large rock with the class name on it. When students finished painting, they placed their rocks on a paper labeled with their class. Students were also asked to sign a class rock that their fish will swim around. Since Kindergarten and 1st grade finished quickly, they were only given one day to work on the rocks. Afterwards, I glued a google eye to the fish. (The google eyes will not stay on for more than a few weeks. It's good for the beginning pictures, but it will not last forever with a glue gun.) On the second day of the project, grades 2-6 used permanent markers to trace out eyes, mouth, patterns, fins, and details in their rocks. Since this step only takes about 5-10 minutes to complete, I found worksheets on Linda Kranz's website that students colored and filled out. The worksheets can be found here. Remember when I said that departments also receive a rock? I painted fish rocks for the front office (administrators, nurses, secretaries), lunchroom, custodians, Title 1, ELL, Special Education, and Specials! They're mixed in with the class rocks below ready for installation! Now the fun part...getting over 7 bins of rocks and large river rock into the courtyard! With lots of helping hands, we transported all the pebbles to the courtyard so I could spray them with the acrylic clear coat. The custodians were also very helping in clearing out an area in our courtyard before installation! And the sign has been made... On the day of installation, students and staff were invited to participate in the installation process. ALMOST DONE!!!! And here's the finished project! Our school has been passing around the golden pineapple award for teachers sharing positive events in our school, and on the day the garden was being installed, a student dropped this award off in my classroom! Totally excited and honored to have this award for this project! It's for the entire school for their participation!!! SaveSave
My favorite of my boards on Pinterest is my “Great Garden Paths” board. I have a weakness for garden paths. There is something so incredibly inviting about a path through a garden. It says, “Explore me,” or “Feel free to look AND touch, I’m cool with it.” My favorite garden paths bend around corners, begging […]
St. Louis is a town I’ve longed to return to since my last visit, forty plus years ago. With a “thank you” to the Garden Club of St. Louis, for…
Bring planting to life by paying close attention to the defining features of your garden
Who's with me on converting ordinary backyard into a romantic garden of your dreams? In this post I'm sharing my favorite backyard garden design and ideas that are just too beautiful to pass on. A
