My Garden Online Blog

I am thrilled that Woodward School and Alberta Rider have joined me on Twitter; I think their teaching method is so exciting and offers so much for the students in the area.  The Alberta Rider school will be restoring an acre of property to native plants and hopefully creating a wildlife habitat!  A website promoting an Oregon Better Living Expo provides details on both schools; please read up on these wonderful projects that can’t help but provide a healthy education for the kids!

http://www.betterlivingshow.org/Albertariderelementaryschool.htm

Since I live in Chicago, composting isn’t on the top of my “to-do” list but I found this interesting website dedicated to composting (http://www.compostguide.com/).  Question for those who know-what can you do with kitchen scraps during the winter months other than throw them away?

Woodward Gardens in Oregon is a student garden located at the Mary Woodward Elementary School.  The school has captured the beauty of the garden in a lovely collection of postcards shown on this site:

http://www.betterlivingshow.org/garden-themed-cards.htm

Please help support this wonderful project by ordering some cards ($1.00 each!!).

My mother tried to get me to read  Shakespeare as a young adult - she knew I needed all the guidance I could find!  Had she only pointed out that Shakepeare had made many references to plants, I may have tried plowing through one or two!  Luckily, Nancy Shumacker Pollan has done the work for us by publishing the beautifully illustrated book “Shakespeare’s Garden”.  My favorite page - Pansy (Hamlet IV,5); in my opinion, nothing beats a pansy.  Please visit Borders or Barnes and Nobles to pick up a copy of this lovely book.

I have a Christmas Cactus that is 10 years old; unfortunately, it blooms at Thanksgiving instead of Christmas.  No matter - it is still a fabulous plant. 

What do you do with your dried out bouquets or holiday plants?

I spent weekends “battening down the hatches” on my yard; covered each fence area with chicken wire, then black landscaping carpet.  i even got my kids to join in the fun - nothing like using a staple gun randomly along a fence line!  As we were working our way around the yard, I had the image of 1 of the rabbits sitting behind me, munching on a plant, laughing as I labored away trying to keep him out.  I decided I had to try to re-create the image and with the help of Ed Pollick (www.edwardpollick.com) I have the image to show you.  Enjoy!