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Health, Wellness, & Nature

Intimate Spaces in Large Places

Our eldest daughter is a textbook type A personality. She finds it difficult to just sit and relax because there is always another task to be completed. Her ability to keep going and going and going is truly amazing and somewhat exhausting.       The other day, while she was at our home, she …

Dining Out -- In Your Own Backyard

Every year, the National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP) and other groups publish a list of the top landscaping trends of the year. For the past few years, adding an outdoor kitchen to the landscape has been one of the top ten trends; this year was no exception.  By combining an outdoor kitchen with a …

Go Native -- In Your Container Garden

I was bound and determined to get my patio pots planted last weekend. I had all ten of them cleaned and ready to be filled, my color scheme picked out and each placement imagined. I knew exactly how many would have to survive in the brutal midwestern sun and which ones would sit in complete …

Not My Mother's Vegetable Garden

  I’ve recently noticed a pattern in our home-buying habits. Each time we buy a house, and we are on our 5th now, our yards get smaller. On one hand that seems like a plus —  much less space for routine maintenance chores. On the other hand, there’s much less space for planting. That’s where …

The Sounds of Silence -- In Your Own Backyard

The Sunday before Easter was beautiful here — an absolutely perfect day for working leisurely in the yard. About ten minutes into our afternoon, the peace and quiet of the day was shattered by the the deafening roar of a neighbor’s leaf blower running full blast. The first hour was unpleasant but tolerable. The second …

Gifts from the Cutting Garden

The crocus, grape hyacinths, daffodils and tulips all bloomed at once this year, turning my  yard into an absolute work of art. That is, until the grandkids decided they needed to pick bunches of pretty flowers for their mothers. Two and three-year-olds do not have a great grasp of how to cut flowers for a …

Add Fragrance To Your Garden

As I mentioned last week, I am determined to recreate an heirloom flower bed. Not finding heirloom seeds in stores here, I spent much of the past week browsing through and making lists of potential purchases from online heirloom seed company catalogs. Although my initial sheet had over thirty varieties on it, I was able …

Remembering Grandma’s Garden

  My husband and I just returned from a ten day vacation in Virginia. The weather was perfect the whole time we traveled; spring was emerging and everywhere we visited the surroundings were bursting with color.     Since we both love American history almost as much as we love gardening, both Monticello and Colonial …