Echibeckia
Ever heard of echibeckia? I hadn’t, but I found it in the nursery as I was searching for a replacement for a ‘Prairie Sun’ rudbeckia this morning. (One of them sadly got scorched in last week’s 100 degree temperature). ‘Prairie Sun’ rudbeckia While I can luckily order my replacement, I bought a ‘Summerina’ echibeckia in case my […]
Tomatomania!
This spring I installed a new trellis for my indeterminate tomatoes. I planted Sweet 100s, Yellow Pear and Sun Sugar right next to the hog wire trellis and have continuously trained the plants to create an arch of tomatoes! I took this photo on August 8th and the back trellis is almost complete covered with […]
Shade-happy Gardenias
Last summer, I purchased a gardenia plant (an evergreen shrub with wonderfully fragrant white flowers) that Van Winden’s Nursery plant experts promised me would be happy in the shade. I wanted to have one by my front door so we could enjoy that wonderful fragrance they provide. I put it in a terracotta pot, with plenty of […]
Sunday Seeding
After our Garden Conservancy trip to Sun Valley, I had a short list of perennials that I fell in love with in the gardens we visited (which I always have after these great trips). So, I went online and tracked down seeds for some of these favorites – Shasta Daisies, Crazy Daisies and a few varieties of […]
Sun Valley Meadow Gardens
One of the wonderful things about the Garden Conservancy is that members get to see homes and gardens that one wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to see. That was definitely the case with the special properties we saw on our recent trip to Sun Valley. For example, check out this amazing view from one owner’s home. It […]
Abundance
After three weeks of being away from my vegetable garden, in the middle of summer, I knew what I was walking into this weekend. Abundance. The photo above represents this morning’s harvest and does not include all I picked on Friday and Saturday. It is a crazy amount of vegetables! I think it is safe to say, […]
Late summer color
I arrived in my Napa garden after being out of town for a few weeks and was sad to see much of my garden color from spring and early summer gone. The roses are in between blooms and many of my remaining flowers have been bleached out by the intense sun and heat of our summer […]
GC Sun Valley trip
As Vicki mentioned, we just returned from our Garden Conservancy trip to Sun Valley, Idaho which was especially interesting to me because we have a small home there which we use mostly in the wintertime. I think more about winter sports than gardens during these months. So I was curious what people were growing in their gardens […]
Natural Sunscreen
Carolyn and I just returned from The Garden Conservancy fellows tour in Sun Valley, Idaho. Sun Valley is a high desert and was hot and very dry while we were there. When we were touring the Sawtooth Botanical Garden, our guide informed us while we were standing in a grove of Aspen trees, that the […]
Successful tomatoes
Garden Conservancy co-chair and gardener extraordinaire Courtnay Daniels shared a tip with me that she received from an Alabama friend who swears by the following recipe when planting tomatoes. I will try this myself next spring when I plant my tomatoes. 3 cups potting soil 1/2 c. powdered milk 1/2 cup epsom salts 1T. baking soda […]
A love affair
It’s official! I’m totally in love with the Coneflower, or echinacea. Vicki and I were in Sun Valley last week for the summer Garden Conservancy trip and the standout flower for me (and it was stiff competition) was the Coneflower. I didn’t realize how many varieties and colors there are. The wonderful thing about these flowers […]
My Happy Place
As you have seen from my recent posts, I have been traveling. I drove up early yesterday morning to see my garden and have now spent two days weeding, harvesting, tying up tomatoes and green beans, ripping out radishes and watering. While I was gone, the Napa Valley has had a heat wave, and my […]
Flower Humor
My wonderful friend Jan always sends me funny emails about a variety of subjects. Today, she sent me the following very funny one about unique flowers that I just had to share. Enjoy! Hooker’s Lips (Psychotria Elata) Dancing Girls (Impatiens Bequaertii) Laughing Bumble Bee Orchid (Ophrys Bomyblifora) Swaddled Babies (Anguloa Uniflora) Parrot Flower (Impatiens Psittacina) Flying Duck Orchid (Caleana Major) Happy […]
Hampton Court Palace & Flower Show
Hampton Court Palace, located just outside London, was built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey between 1515 and 1530. When it was first built, Hampton Court was not meant to be a royal house. Mr. Wolsey gifted Hampton Court to King Henry VIII around 1526 and King Henry began enlarging the estate. I was lucky enough to visit […]
Kathleen Clemons
I was just introduced to photographer Kathleen Clemons through Creative Live’s great photography courses and she has changed my life forever! I LOVE taking pictures and the more time I spend taking various pictures, the more I’ve discovered my love for photographing flowers. So I’ve been learning as much as I can about how to take beautiful […]