The Joys of Visiting a Friend’s Garden
July 20, 2012
Roses and Clematis Intertwined
For me there is always a joy in watching a garden evolve over time, whether it’s my own garden, the garden of a friend or of a client.
On the LinkedIn site of the National Association of Professional Women in Landscape, Karen Chapman, owner of Le Jardinet talks about a garden she designed for friends/clients that involved intertwining Roses and Clematis along a pergola over the home’s garage. She discusses how rewarding it is to design a garden for a client who will let you visit year after year to follow its evolution. The post is titled Friends and can be found on her blog
Click here for more information about Karen, her company and her new book.
A Very Portable Greenhouse
June 24, 2012
Urban Gardens posted about this very portable greenhouse on their site a few days ago and I thought it was so great I just had to post about it on my blog.
This amazing greenhouse was designed by Studio Besau-Marguerre in Hamburg in collaboration with Adrien Petrucci. It comes with a leather strap, which, aside from being fashionable, is also practical as you can move this small greenhouse inside or out as weather permits.
Twig Plant Markers
June 9, 2012
Twig Garden Markers
I saw these great garden markers on Urban Gardens and just loved them. They are made by Jo in Edmonton and sold on her Etsy store.
Jo makes these from Manitoba Maple twigs she finds in her yard. The ink is heat stamped to make them okay for outdoor use.
You can also ask Jo to customize a set for you if you want different names on them.
Five are $20
Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer
June 1, 2012
Artichoke and Euphorbia Leaves
This is my entry for this week’s photo challenge. It means summer to me because I love mixing edibles in with my flower beds and I find that artichokes look particularly good in a perennial bed. I love the way their leaves are structured. And I love artichokes!
The Sustain Blog Nominated for Two Awards
May 11, 2012
Recently I was nominated by Shannon at dirt n kids for not one but two blog awards. So, first of all thank you to Shannon. If you haven’t yet visited her blog, you should. The first award is the Kreative Blogger. And the second is the Versatile Blogger.
The rules for both awards ask that you nominate seven other bloggers for the award and share seven fun or interesting facts about your self. Since I got nominated for two awards I am going to do 14. You may fall asleep.
Here we go… 14 fun filled facts about me.
1. I can spend about four or five days completely by myself before I get lonely.
2. I purposely keep my nails short so they are easy to clean after gardening.
3. I am a Sherlock Holmes junkie.
4. I have seen every episode of Bones at least three times.
5. My favorite poem is A Man Said To The Universe by Stephen Crane.
A man said to the universe:
“Sir I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“That fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
6. In high school I was on the Junior National Ski Team and was offered a spot on the U.S. Development Ski Team (which I declined).
7. I spent a semester abroad in Nepal and have traveled to India, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Guatemala, Montserrat, Kauai, Canada, Russia, Scotland, and England.
8. My family lived in England for a year when I was a baby.
9. I was recently asked to be the chair of the Austin Chapter of the National Association of Professional Women in Landscape and, yes, this is a blatant promotion of the group whose web site is napwl.org.
10. Before I became a landscape designer I did lighting for feature films.
11. After marrying into a family of cooks I have finally started trying to cook and found I don’t hate it. In fact, I kind of like it.
12. I once had a client in Brooklyn whose wife, while planting pansies in the back yard, found a gun buried there.
13. I can weld.
14. I have two cats I found as stray kittens living in the basement of the Trump Tower. I named them Osiris and Tamuz
Okay, on to the other bloggers for nomination. Here we go…
3. Urban Roots
5. Plant Select
6. Rantings of an Amateur Chef
10. The Incredible Lightness of Seeing
11. The Soulsby Farm
12. wasteisblank
13. GRDNBKLYN
14. Vickster’s Vine
If you made it this far thank you for sticking with it. If you have a chance I highly urge you to take a look at at least a few of these blogs. Of course not everyone will like all of them but I bet all of you will like at least one enough to start following it.
Seaweed For Your Garden
April 16, 2012
TomCorser Seaweed 3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Martina Fugazzotto, who has a blog entitled farmtina, has a post on her site written by her mom. Apparently her mom knows about some very interesting ways to use seaweed in the garden.
If you go here you will have the chance to be enlightened, as I was, about how to use seaweed to keep down weeds, repel slugs and restore nutrients without adding too much salt to the soil.
The RE Store
April 7, 2012
A Repurposed Headboard From The RE Store
Photo Courtesy of The RE Store
For almost twenty years RE Store (there are actually two) in Western Washington has been providing quality recycled building materials as an alternate to new materials to sustainably conscious consumers. And over those twenty years the store has grown into a company that now also offers an amazing range of services. Not only can you go to the store to pick out materials, the RE Store also offers a free pick up service and a green demolition service.
What is green demolition you ask? It is a way to dismantle a building using machine and hand techniques to recover materials for reuse. This can include everything from structural framing beams to flooring and fixtures. The RE Store specializes in whole-building deconstruction, which is economically competitive with regular demolition and allows for the reuse up to 50 percent of most structures. This keeps a lot of materials out of the land fill.
The RE Store also has skill building workshops for the community and a Sustainable Living Center. Take a look at their web site and blog for more information about this inspiring and highly useful venture.
Find A Place To Compost
April 4, 2012
A picture of compost soil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Have stuff to compost but no actual place to compost? Go to FindAComposter.com, enter your location and compost centers will magically appear on your computer screen.
As for keeping the stuff to compost until you get to the compost site you have a couple of options. As we don’t have much counter or under the sink space I put it in a plastic bag in the freezer. But if you have a bigger kitchen there are all kinds of small, kitchen top and under the counter compost pails with charcoal and other kinds of filters that work well.
Repurpose Compostable Cups Made From Plants. Not Oil.
March 30, 2012
Did you know that most of the to go cups we drink out of are made from oil meaning they can not be recycled? I didn’t until I found out about a company called Repurpose Compostables and read about what they have been up to lately. I urge you to go to their web site and find out the exciting things they are doing.
It seems they have figured out a way to make cups out of plants. Cups made out of plants can be composted to make more cups out of plants. Pretty cool, right?
The cups can be found at select Bed Bath & Beyond stores, Bedbathandbeyond.com, and Amazon.com.
You can visit the Retail Locations page of their web site to see when new stores will be carrying their innovative new product.
