Book review: Heaven is a Garden

This is a long overdue book review. So tardy, but that's not a reflection of the book's content in any way! Heaven is a Garden is a design guide by Jan Johnsen (2014, St. Lynn's Press) whose tagline is "Designing Serene Outdoor Spaces for Inspiration and Reflection". Not being an overly spiritual person I was a bit put off by the title, but I'm all about "serene outdoor spaces" so I accepted a review copy from Jan.

My first act when getting a new gardening book is to quickly thumb through to get a feel for the content, a quick preview. Heaven is a Garden has everything to get me excited: rocks, trees, water, and enough photos to satisfy visually.

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Repelling mosquitos

Do you live where there are no mosquitos? If so, I envy you. Mosquitos are probably the least-favorite garden pests not because they bother plants, but because they are so irritating to gardeners themselves. This summer I got a chance to review a few products intended to keep these pesky insects away from we who enjoy being outdoors...

...and one that is made to soothe when repelling isn't completely effective. Even though I received these samples early in the season I wanted to give them a thorough workout over the whole summer, hence this review so late in the year.

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Garden Hose: Gilmour Flexogen

One thing that most gardeners don't enjoy talking about is watering. Many have irrigation systems, and drip systems are essential where water conservation is a top priority or where the air is extra dry, but for me watering means hoses.

I don't use sprinklers; watering by hand is my hydration method of choice, so that means hoses that get dragged around the garden. At the beginning of the season I had four or five 50 and 75-foot hoses, three of which I use regularly, with the others being kept in the garage as backup. This spring I received a new 50-foot hose from Gilmour for review.

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Spraying?

If you've been following me for a while, you have heard me talk about weeding, planting, pruning, raking, mole and mouse removal -- pretty much anything having to do with gardening. What you don't read about too often is spraying, because I rarely do it.

So when a company contacted me a month ago about their plant sprayer, my first thought was to ignore (delete) their message. My second thought though was about my broken pump sprayer and the fact that powdery mildew will soon be here, so I replied instead. A couple of weeks ago I gave their product a try.

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The future of hummingbird feeders?

Who doesn't like seeing hummingbirds in the garden? I know I do, and besides planting lots of hummer-attracting plants (Agastaches and Salvias for a start), I've been hanging hummingbird feeders for as long as I can remember.

Back in May I had the opportunity to review a new type of feeder, and today's post is my experience with it so far. As you can see from the box, this thing must be HUGE!

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A couple of tools

Do you keep on using old tools that you've had for years, even though you may have newer ones that were supposed to be "better"? I have that situation with my main trowel -- I use a no-name one that I probably bought at a big box store 15 years or more ago. It's got a better shape than the newer branded trowel that I received as a gift several years back, so I just keep using the old one.

I've recently discovered that I had a couple of new tools in the basement that wouldn't replace anything that I currently use, so I thought I'd give them a try and let you know what I think of them.

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Sprout!

Have you ever grown your own sprouts or shoots? I have both in jars and in special sprout trays, and I must admit that I don't find it to be as simple as they say it is. Even though I believe I've always followed the necessary schedule of rinsing, it seems that I have about a 50% chance of getting edible sprouts from my efforts. After a failure I get discouraged and end up putting thoughts of healthy, fresh sprouts out of my mind for months or longer, until I get the urge to try again. I haven't tried for well over a year, possibly two.

So when I was recently contacted by a company to see if I had an interest in reviewing their sprouting seeds, I got a bit excited. I wasn't familiar with the company so I did a little research. It seems that Dr. Mercola has relatively few products related to gardening, and that they're a general "natural health" company. In fact, under the "gardening" section of their product catalog there are only the sprout growing supplies and some heirloom seed bundles -- which I suppose I understand and appreciate since growing your own food is one way to help achieve overall health.

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Book review: The Living Landscape

This book review is long overdue, but don't take that as an indication of the book's merit: this is probably my favorite gardening book published in 2014. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The book is The Living Landscape by Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy, and when I saw mention of this then-new book in an email from Timber Press over the summer, I was immediately intrigued. The tagline of "Designing for beauty and biodiversity in the home garden" gives you a hint at what's in store on these pages, but only after opening the book did I realize what a gem it was.

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Book Review: Deep-Rooted Wisdom

Suppose I asked you to tell me everything you know about plants and gardening. Not the specific plants themselves -- I don't want you to create a list of plants -- but things in general: how to plant, what tools to use, where to get plants, how to create good soil, pest management, etc. Everything you can think of related to your garden. A daunting task, right? Now suppose that I asked you to include details on how you learned each of these things, especially if you learned it from another gardener.

That's how I can best describe Deep-Rooted Wisdom, "Skills and Stories from Generations of Gardeners" by Augustus Jenkins Farmer (2014, Timber Press). It's "everything" Jenks Farmer knows about gardening plus lots of stories about the people who taught him.

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Review: Conant Weather Station

I've been testing another product this summer, one that is important but not essential in these modern times of connectivity: a thermometer! Is it strange that I've never had a thermometer in my garden until this year? My problem was being spoiled for choice: there are so many different types of thermometers available, how would I choose the right one for me? I knew that I didn't want to go strictly functional, so something plastic or digital wasn't right.

When this spring I was contacted by Conant, an "Annapolis, MD-based manufacturer of high-quality functional home & garden decor", asking if there was something from their catalog that I'd be interested in reviewing, I was only slightly interested -- until I saw that they have a wide selection of weather instruments.

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Product Review: Liquid Fence Deer & Rabbit Repellent

I don't do many product reviews on this blog, as I don't think that's what both most of you come here to read. Occasionally though I'm contacted by a company that sells a product that I think would be worth reviewing, and today you get to read about one of those.

The product is Liquid Fence Deer & Rabbit Repellent, and although I was sent a bottle of this free of charge early in the growing season, I wanted to give it a good long test before talking about it. My verdict: it works! But...

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Something different: garden message

One of the things I like most about having a blog is that it introduces me to lots of like-minded people: experienced gardeners, beginners, plant-lovers, bamboo growers, and sometimes companies. Yes, marketing departments sometimes find me and request that I take a look at some product or another and post about it. My criteria for this type of "opportunity" is that it really must be something that I'm excited about and would actually use in my garden. If not, I politely decline the offer -- which is what almost always happens.

That was my first thought early last week when I got an email from Jeremy at Adirondack Stone Works, and I was ready to compose my standard "no thank you" email, when I realized a few things.

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