Author J.A. Jance Imagined a Colorful Epic Garden
You know I love visiting gardens so when thriller author J. A. Jance invited me to tour her Seattle-area garden, I jumped at the chance. It’s a wonderfully imagined colorful space inspired by an epic poem by C. Day-Lewis. Jance fell in love with the poem decades ago at a…
#18 A Book on How to Create a Sacred Garden Space
Jessi Bloom’s Creating Sanctuary is a beautiful guide on how to honor your land while honoring your self. It’s part garden design, part plant-based medicine, part soul-healing. She talks about creating a sacred garden space that aligns with your spiritual self before advising on how best to care for that…
#1 Do Plants Make You Happier?
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about plants and mental health. Does having plants make you happier? They’ve made me happy for over two decades now and in turn, as a professional gardener I made many people happy by helping them with their gardens. Over the years, my clients have…
How to Make a Plant Combination That Pops
Creating a plant combination that pops is tricky. You have to use plants that like similar conditions of light, water, and soil. Then you have to create an overall design that incorporates varying shapes and colors that both clash and recall each other’s characteristics. While it takes a bit of…
A Pretty Petunia Is Best for Beginner Gardeners
For beginner gardeners, a simple reliable petunia is the best choice to grow for long summer color. Experienced gardeners might argue these zone 9-11 annuals are trite. They’re available at every nursery and hardware store, bursting in bright colors, begging loudly to be taken home. Still, they cheer up a…
The Best Giant Book Every New Gardener Needs
Yes, it’s February but it’s never too early to dream about the garden for spring. If you’re new to gardening chances are you don’t have a lot of books on the subject. Well, the truth is you don’t need that many but there’s one book I recommend to everyone when…
How to Grow Amazing Houseplants and an Outstanding Garden in Norway
Tommy Tønsberg gardens in chilly Norway. The former editor-in-chief of Norsk Hagetidend, Norway’s largest gardening magazine, now writes about and grows plants. He also photographs and broadcasts about them. He lives on a property about 30 minutes north of Oslo with his partner Kenneth and three cats, Big Cat, Little…
In a Woodland Border, Plants Struggle in the Sun and Sandy Soil
Along the back fence of my garden I have a tricky spot. A dry woodland border of sun that’s tucked under fir trees. The ravine behind the fence slopes up and the fence intersects where the wild woodland ends and my cultivated area begins. So it’s the edge of a…
