Browse Month: March 2018

Summer flowers at the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens

Garden planning: 2018 edition

In 2017, I was a master of impulse gardening: “Ooh!  these plants are on sale!”/ “Time for a new garden bed — I need to fill the space!” It led to a lot of progress, but also, a few regrets.  Towards the end of the season, I realized that almost everything I planted was about the same height, and this winter the empty garden beds have been staring at me, begging me to do better next year.

While I can’t vow to avoid impulsive gardening completely this year, I am determined to be more intentional with my garden’s design.  After looking at thousands of garden pictures, I think I have my plan boiled down to nine elements I will be focusing on: Continue Reading

Waterfall into a stream as part of a backyard water garden.

My water garden dream come true

The year was 1999, and my brothers and I had a big task ahead of us: somehow convince my parents to fund and help us build a water garden at our house.

Okay, truth be told, my mom was on board —  it was really my dad we had to persuade.  I went into high-gear research paper mode, checking out all of the related books I could possibly find from the library and building out compelling argument backed up with a project plan.  Had it been a school assignment, I’m sure it would have been graded A+.  My brothers and I presented the idea to our parents;  our phenomenal presentation was met with, “We’ll think about it.”  Dang it. Continue Reading

Crocus Spring Beauty growth early March

Glimpses of spring

Happy March, my friends — we made it through February!  Though it is technically still “late winter,” we’re starting to see small hints that spring is just around the corner.  The Black-capped chickadees have started singing the two-note song that puts a smile on my face,  the daylight stretches into the evening a bit, and KC has seen some beautiful 60-degree days.

I’m starting to see tiny signs of life in my garden– while cleaning up sticks this weekend, I noticed that the Japanese Maples are covered in tiny buds.  Most are 6-12″ saplings, and I only permanently planted three last year–the rest I stuck in the ground, pot and all, hoping that they would overwinter.  It appears they all survived — score one for this newbie gardener! Continue Reading