…es have been blooming earlier in spring, so that by the time the parade that highlights the end of the festival rolls around, the cherry blossoms are past their peak bloom. This year, the parade takes place on Saturday, April 14. However, last year’s peak bloom (when 70 percent of the blossoms are open) occurred between March 24 and March 31. More than a million people from around the world visit Washington, DC, each year to enjoy the bloss…
…d enclose the space. But, with two chairs and a coffee table, there was no room for the dining table. Time for another patio, the “big project” for 2007. I started the project in the fall. The goal was to create a 150-sq. ft. patio using natural stone that comes from the region. I was lucky enough to get some beautiful stone from across the lake in New York state. The site I chose is in a corner of the yard where I had to take out a d…
…m an excavator — and a lot of sweat equity — Joann created a 900-square-foot herb garden. To mark the entrance, she used our Rosedale Arch, After the excavator cleared out the 30′ x 30′ area, “we brought in 15 cubic yards of soil for the raised beds and shoveled two cubic yards of stone for the walkways, which are lined with landscaping fabric,” Joann writes. To surround the garden, Joann plans to install a locust-post fe…
…, we found out that the Peterson Garden Project, a community garden in Chicago, is also using the Kitchen Garden Planner. To learn more, we e-mailed project founder LaManda Joy. “Have we USED IT! OMG! We taught probably 100 people how to garden last year with our community garden (which became the largest edible garden in the city), and your tool was our number one resource.” LaManda tells the story: When we started our revival Victo…
What does a decades-closed landfill have in common with local foods and fresh fish, algae and biodiesel? They’re all closely linked together in a new energy-creation and economic cycle: one that offsets harmful greenhouse gases while bettering the environment and benefiting the community. What does a decades-closed landfill have in common with local foods and fresh fish, algae and biodiesel? They’re all closely linked together i…
Curzio Caravati with some of the 300 Potato Grow Bags at the Kenosha Potato Project. As founder and curator of the Kenosha Potato Project Curzio Caravati has grown and catalogued more than 300 varieties of potatoes in his collection. Why? Because he is passionate about preserving the genetic diversity of heirloom potatoes and saving varieties from extinction. “Preserving a storehouse of information helps protect against diseases of the fut…
…nd what went into producing it. So how come I can’t have the right to know what’s in the food I buy in the store? That’s the goal of the Just Label It campaign, which last month submitted a record-breaking 1.1 million signatures to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in favor of labeling genetically engineered (GE) foods. And in polls by ABC, MSNBC, NPR, the Washington Post, Consumer Reports and others, consistently…
…awn with blue garden beds in the next year. So please, don’t stop selling them! When did you start? The garden was built in January. Thank God for our beautiful southern California weather. I live in Sunset garden zone 18, in the San Fernando Valley. Piper What about the white fencing? Decorative or functional? The fencing was for one reason, and her name is Piper, my 3-pound (at the time) black poodle mix puppy. As soon as I put the fenci…
Take a slideshow tour through the garden of Vicki Nowicki, one of the 2009 Garden Crusaders. Her garden is in Downer’s Grove, IL Vicki (right) and I in her garden. This past August, I had the great pleasure of spending a whole day with one of this year’s Garden Crusader award winners: Vicki Nowicki. It was exciting to visit her home just outside Chicago — ground zero for the sustainable landscaping business she runs with h…
…lity and adaptation to the site as well as their contribution to the larger design. Piet Oudolf, Dutch plantsman and landscape designer, has been one of the people at the forefront of these changes. His work, beginning in the 1980s, revolutionized European garden design with its emphasis on grasses and tough, hardy perennials and bulbs. In his early years, he felt constrained by meticulously kept perennial borders that required constant deadheadi…