What do you think about Garden Club website?

We'd love to hear your view! Just click on 'COMMENTS' under any post to reply... under any of the topics below.

How did your garden grow this summer?

We'd love to hear about your adventures, just leave your comments or questions here.

Got any fall gardening tips?

Summer can't be over yet! Time to clean up the tools and clean out the garage one more time before the deep chill sends me inside to warm by a fire with a good book. Put some mulch around newly planted perennials to prevent them from heaving out of the ground this winter.

Find a new Dwarf or Petite plant this year?

Thanks Okra... I've already started my quest into the world of petite and dwarf plants! The growers finally get it! We all don't have expansive yards to display mounds of landscaping or the area to create full sized garden rooms ... so it's great to see all the offerings in 'pint sized' versions.

Just my rantings . . .

My soap box is sneaking out from under my desk again... I have some real concerns about our development which is supposed to be a 'Nature Conservancy'. I want to be a good neighbor and keep a positive attitude, but it's getting harder to keep quiet!!!

I remained quiet when all the blackberry brambles & thistle stands were sprayed and removed from around the ponds and at the edges of the wetlands and woodland areas. Heaven knows the Black-eyed Susans were ugly with a fungus and needed to be cut down, but did they have to remove only the seed heads of all the Coneflowers before the birds had a chance at the seeds?

Not that I think that thistle is that attractive or necessary... but at the edge of the wetlands and other parts of the 'common areas' some could have been left standing for the wildlife. Did you know ... Goldfinches usually begin nesting in July or August, after most other songbirds have finished. The female builds a tightly woven nest of plant fiber lined with ‘thistledown’, and lays four to six eggs. Nests are always located near stands of thistle. Regurgitated thistle seeds are the primary food for nestling goldfinches. Although these birds may eat the seeds of many different plants, they prefer those of the composite flowers, such as thistles, dandelions, sun-flowers, coreopsis, and cosmos.

OK, I feel better now that I have a plan... I'll just have to plant more stuff (in my flower beds) that the birds can eat and share them with the neighbors for their 'Wildlife Garden'.

Are you an extreme gardener?

Wildflower gardening on a hill is extreme gardening for some of us, just to keep your balance, and I hope my neighbors didn't see me teeter-totter backwards and fall on my a**!

What was your 'exteme gardening' adventure this summer . . . we'd love to hear from you!

Gardeners comments welcome here!

July 2006... This is the way my neighbors see me most mornings... so it seemed appropriate to use here. I hope this blog encourages gardeners comments about their gardening adventures. My web page seems to have attracted only a few comments over the past few months and has been rather disappointing, as I seem to be on the 'hit list' for all the spammers in the world! I'm one of those gardeners who enjoys 'playing musical plants' dividing, sharing the divisions with my neighbors, and moving them around every other season or so... making room for something new, as my planting space is very limited since we moved into an 'active adult community', (which simply means no children under 18 are permitted to live here). I have second thoughts about that now, and actually miss the sounds of children playing, even those basketball thumps in the night, and having conversations with them as they passed by the house. I miss my garden and now have to sneak plants into my limited garden beds... because there is a 'plant list' of what is allowed to be planted! I'm reminded of an overused quote now... "For everything you gain, you have to give something up". (I'll move again before giving up gardening!!!)