Why I Oughta...

One of my (V1 Draft) " Great Garden Rules " is to think about designing for a four-season garden.  Part of that idea is to have things that look as good when they are dead as when they are alive.  For me, in Zone 6a/5b, that means things that look good in Winter.  In dormancy.   One of my favorite garden plants (that isn't a fern) is Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass.  I, of course, like how it looks in the garden during the growing season.  But, I also *really* like how it looks in Winter.  With the upright seedheads standing proud throughout the dormancy period. I have it planted all over the garden. I also have had a couple of problems with critters in my garden. Near our house and the back stoop, we have an entire ecosystem of chipmunks and (I think?) voles and or mice.  They scurry around.  Make burrows.  And hide inside all the plant material. We also have rabbits.  I've done my best to keep them out with a fence, but they...

One of the 'wins' from last garden season were the three Garden Ghost Artemisia that I planted in the front yard Island Bed along the driveway .  They quickly filled-in/filled-out, provided a nice pop of white to brighten up the bed and were *very useful* in cut flower arrangements.  I bought them from Roy Diblik's nursery up in Wisconsin (Northwind Perennial Farm) and planted them along with a couple of grasses, some annuals and the Korean Maple tree.   Here's a look at one of the MANY arrangements that I used the Garden Ghost plumes in as filler flowers . The provide a tiny bit of Winter interest, but they also have stems that help protect the crown of the plants by trapping leaf litter around the base of the woody plants.  Below is a look at the current state of these Garden Ghost Artemisias planted right next to the driveway: I've talked about it a few times, but between the early snow-fall and the deliberate adoption (at least a little bit more than normal...

I've had a weed-burning torch for a couple of seasons and I've used it in various ways - mostly to burn-out weeds on the patio and in the lawn when I didn't want to use a herbicide.  But, starting last Spring I introduced trying to do a tiny bit of a 'controlled burn' in some of our beds.  Here's a post from just a couple days over a year ago showing the 'controlled burn' of some of the leaf litter left behind from Fall and carried over through Winter .   I also burned up some of my compost bin last year, too .  I don't think I'll be doing that again. But, I am going to keep going on some of the bed burns.  I started this weekend by burning out some of the area at the corner of the patio.  This spot is home to three Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses.  After cutting those down to their crowns, I used the torch to burn up some of the leaf material and the dried blades of the grasses.    You can see in the photo that I didn't let this fire...