April 2010
16 posts
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Garden Blogger's Snafu Day Update, Etc.
So when I originally thought up the Garden Blogger’s Snafu Day meme, I did it jokingly for April Fool’s Day. But, many of you liked the idea, so I’ve set up the means to actually do it. The original post suggested having it on the first day of each month. This interfered with the existing Garden Blogger’s Muse Day hosted by Sweet Home and Garden Chicago. Besides, it would...
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“BEHOLD THE BRIDE. There, standing placidly in the harsh beam of Faulkner’s...”
– One Spring evening, Bill Faulkner picked up a lady friend in his car and announced that he was taking the woman to see a bride in her wedding gown. After driving around the back roads for some time, Bill surprised his already puzzled passenger by leaving the roadway and without explantion turning...
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BOOOMM!!!
One of the most exciting things to watch each spring are the apple trees’ buds as they swell from pink round pearls and then explode into their popcorn blossoms. There’s nothing like getting smacked between the eyes with the sight of a blooming full-sized apple tree.
The smell is mingling with the Oregon grape growing beneath it; the air is so heavy with their scent that I’m...
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The April Garden Report
Unlike the rest of the U.S., Utah’s spring has been mostly harmless, if not a bit cooler than usual. I found that I burned out from my annual spring clean up a bit earlier than usual, which is strange. You would think the cooler weather would have had me chomping at the bit to get things done. It seems by drawing things out, it took away all my steam. Still, grass and other garden thugs must...
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It Takes a Village to Raise Monster Cabbages
Have you ever noticed that, sometimes, gardeners don’t take advice well from other gardeners? I’m not talking about gardening instructors, “master gardeners,” speakers, authors, bloggers, or anyone with any patina of authority about them. I mean the garden guy from down the street that from all appearances, has no more experience than you or less, who comes along and starts...
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Mulch Mosaics
I’m at a point in my life where I don’t want to pay for mulch anymore. Being a mulch cheap-skate means I have quite a jumble of different mulches in my garden, oftentimes in the same bed: pea gravel, pine straw, leaf mold, wood chips, compost, coir, living mulches by way of plants, and no mulch at all. The mosaic effect is most noticeable in the spring when everything is cut back, but...
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A Love Letter to Lurkers
You know who you are. You come regularly, you don’t leave comments. I was among you. I’ve lurked blogs and forums on gardening for years, mining them for information.
I was motivated by nostalgia for New England to start commenting on the Blithewold blog. I look toward to their posts, and have been doing so almost from its start, but found myself using it as a platform for my own...
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April Showers Bring Snow Flurries
Some of those not from around here have asked about the nature of our spring weather. The best way to describe our springs is “capricious.” For a pictoral demonstration, here are photos from last April. This first photo is from a mid-April storm that dumped 10” one night and caused a lot of damage:
The next photo was April 1st—April Fools!
This isn’t to say that...
It's an Easter Miracle!
Miracles in the garden always seem to happen around Easter around here. The very famous miracle of ‘09 was to have a black morel appear in my bark mulch. That miracle turned into the loaves and fishes variety, because I went bragging about it to the neighbors, only to find a neighbor down the street that landscaped her entire 1/3 of an acre property covered it in bark mulch and had a black...
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Garden Blogger's Snafu Day
May Dreams Gardens sponsors a Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day on the 15th of every month. Given the month I’ve had, I’m beginning to think we need to have a “Garden Blogger’s Snafu Day” to celebrate all of those happy and unhappy accidents that make a garden what it is, a work in progress.
So welcome, and let me inaugurate the first Garden Blogger’s Snafu...
