My friends, I’ve found the key to happiness. Well, that might be too broad of a statement. Let me get a bit more specific: I’ve found the key to happiness in March and April for gardeners in climates where winters are long and cold. The secret? BULBS!
Now, I know what you’re thinking: Planting bulbs is a lot of work for such a short bloom time. Can’t I just find happiness in a bottle of Cabernet?
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It was bound to happen. After months of cold, snowy weather without the normal respite of random warm days, my condition worsened. “Get in the car — we’re going to Lowe’s,” I announced to my husband on Saturday night. Ten minutes later, we were bundled up, cursing ourselves for not using remote start to warm up the Tahoe, and headed to town. As we pulled out of the driveway, I growled to Brandon: “Play me some angry music.”
Call it the winter blues, call it cabin fever, call it “*bleep* you, winter!”, my affliction has me feeling a combination of anxious, frustrated, and just plain angry. Last year at this time, I was having my water garden installed! We were seeing glimpses of spring! Heck, you could even be outside without the fear of frostbite!
I mean, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, can we please get some warmer weather around here?
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Botanical gardens are amazing classrooms; kids can learn to appreciate the natural world, adults can learn to look up from our smartphones and appreciate the present, and gardeners can learn that it’s easy to have a beautiful garden when you have an army of staff and volunteers!
Beyond the lesson that we should give ourselves a break and not compare our own gardens with those that have full-time caretakers, we can pick up a few other ideas that are easier to implement than finding money in the budget for a full-time gardener. Continue Reading
Happy Earth Day, friends!
It’s been a late spring, and I thought you deserved to see some beautiful spring flowers, so it was out of complete selflessness that I drove to Ted Ensley Gardens in Topeka, KS this week to take pictures of tulips in bloom. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that tulips are my favorite flower and that the 9.5 acre garden has more than 50,000 tulips on display. Nope, my motivation was completely altruistic. I enjoyed Tulip Time in Topeka for you.
Last year was the first fall I tried planting bulbs, and the ‘Spring Beauty’ crocus were a delightful promise of spring throughout March. There has been a definite gap between the crocus fading and the rest of the garden awakening, though, so next year I have a plan: Continue Reading
It’s easy to look at pictures in gardening magazines, Pinterest, and Instagram and feel a bit discouraged when you compare them to your own garden. At least I feel that way — there’s a big gap between where my garden is and where I want it to be. I still have a lot of plants to buy, work to do, and time to wait for young plants to mature. But it hit me yesterday that I have only been on my gardening journey for one year — and I’ve made an incredible amount of progress! Continue Reading
Today is second straight Sunday in April where the high is in the 30s and we have winter precipitation falling from the sky. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Mother Nature was intentionally trying to prevent me from having some beautiful spring garden pictures to share with you. I can’t say that we haven’t had any nice weather lately — it’s just been all over the place. I went from having to cover plants on Tuesday night (a 22° low), to a Thursday so warm Beau needed a dip in the pond, to again having to cover plants for a 20° low Friday night. Craziness! Continue Reading
I had planned on this being a much more focused and well-written post. I had blocked out plenty of time late afternoon and early evening today to write, edit, re-edit, re-re-edit, and so on. But then this little guy (gal?) showed up and all my plans went out the window. Continue Reading
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
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
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So glad you’re here! I’m Sarah — garden enthusiast, animal lover, and blogger. I live with my husband and four-legged children in Kansas. Learn more…