Share my passion for all things gardening!
Hi, everyone. If you live in the Inland Northwest, our gardening season is getting ready to end this weekend! There are forecasted lows in the low to mid-30s and even the potential for some light snow. Yes, you read that correctly! Snow. But at the very least, I wanted to give you a frost alert. How to prepare Harvest your […]
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Boy, I just got a bit of a surprise: the nighttime temperatures here in the Inland Northwest will be dropping significantly by the end of this week. Since we live in an outlying area, it will probably be even colder than the forecast of 34 to 38 degrees. So, of course, my first thought was “I’d better get out in […]
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Cool Plants for Cold Climates: A Garden Designer’s Perspective by Brenda C. Adams (Snowy Owl Books/University of Alaska Press, 239 pp., $35) I have found a book geared for those living in a colder climate. Especially those who have a tendency to let their heart govern their plant purchases! I’m sure you know what I mean because I often suffer from the same […]
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Every so often, I mention the hoop house in my garden. It seems like the least I could do is give you an update on the vegetables growing inside it. I’m growing ‘Vates’ kale, 3 kinds of lettuce, spinach and — amazingly enough — celery. More on that in a moment. The origin of our hoop house (For a quick […]
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Take a close look at the photo to the left. Do you see how the rhododendron leaves are curled? Is this a sick plant? Is it doomed to a terrible fate? Nope, it’s just a very cold rhodie that is doing what it can to get through our cold winters! This doesn’t happen to all rhododendrons, though. When my husband […]
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Does the photo to the left look like your place these days? Have you got plants stashed all over the place, waiting for the weather to warm up? This week’s column is about protecting seedlings from the weather, which is very important. I mean, you just went to all of the trouble to raise them, right? Well, before you move […]
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Here in the Inland Northwest, we’ve been buried under a heavy blanket of snow for months. It’s wonderful for insulating our plants against bitterly cold winter temperatures. But it can cause an interesting (and annoying) problem that most of us will likely see. Once the snow has melted from our lawns, we’ll discover snow mold. That’s the weird stuff you’re […]
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My garden columns seem to be coming fast and furious now that my writing season is underway! Today’s is about important regional considerations when selecting plants and seeds. Here is a link to it, in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Know your zone to pick the right plants. (or you can read my column lower in this post) While this […]
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If it’s Sunday, it’s time for my next garden column! This one is timely because it delves into some of the most heat-tolerant plants around. Here’s a link to it in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Choose flowers that can take the heat. (or you can read my column lower in this post) In it, I discuss both annuals and […]
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If you live in the Inland Northwest, you know that we had a horrific windstorm on Nov. 17, 2015. There were peak wind gusts of 71 mph, four people lost their lives, there were power outages everywhere, and an incredible amount of damage left in its wake. Now that spring is nearly here, homeowners are working on cleaning up the […]
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