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Garden Notes
I’ve kept a garden notebook for years. It contains monthly precipitation figures, comments on how well (or badly) things are going in the garden, a record of watering from June to September (so I can...
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The Unkindest Cut
I hate pruning. For a gardener, that’s a dangerous admission. Gardeners are always pruning, or at least always cutting. (“Pruning” usually refers to operations on woody plants such as trees and shrubs,...
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Tool Review: Pole Pruner
I’ve been doing a lot of pruning around the place lately, and had a substantial brush pile for pickup on our recent Compost Day. Most of the pruning and trimming was done either with feet on ground or...
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Garden Restart: Mixing, Mulching, and Moving
Transitioning from the somnolence of winter to the sometimes frantic activities of spring in the garden can be painful. For a few weeks, I kept finding reasons to stay inside, hunched over my...
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The Rites (and Wrongs) of Spring
Spring has settled in and I’ve done the usual things associated with the season: edging the perennial beds, distributing enriched compost, cutting the grass, seeding tomatoes (indoors), cutting down...
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Managing
Nearing the bottom of Bin #2 One of the big garden jobs that actually got done in May was Compost Management. This means: 1) Shovelling out the remaining bit of finished compost from Bin #1 (the...
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Garden Notes: Blooms and Birds
It’s hard to get excited about the garden in January, but February is really the start of spring here on southern Vancouver Island. Even in a mild winter such as this one, though, cold and snow aren’t...
View ArticleSpring, the Frantic Season
Never mind that March 20th is the official first day of spring, here it’s been under way for weeks. The grass has been mowed twice. Crocuses have gone through two sets of flowers (the first of which...
View ArticlePreparing to Cut
No, this isn’t about editing the work in progress (although I am doing that). It’s about surgery, specifically plant surgery. It’s pruning time. I have admitted that I hate pruning, because of its...
View ArticleMisled by Experts?
When things work out badly, there is a tendency to blame someone else, often those who give advice. Quotation:“Gardening is a vocation like any other—a calling, if you like, but not a gift from heaven....
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