9. BirdCam “Look at the birdie!” has never had more meaning. While roaming the exhibit hall for new gardening products at the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina, I found a great bird-watching gadget. The Audubon BirdCam actually lets you capture images of the birds that visit your backyard feeder. This weather-resistant outdoor [...]
Who would have thought that a lecture on plant pests and disease would be one of the highlights of the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina? Here’s why Jim Chatfield’s talk ranked #3 of 12 great things I found at Raleigh. 3. Jim Chatfield Got diseased or buggy plants? Who you gonna call? [...]
I should know by now that gardening life rarely leads us down a straight and narrow path. But a cooking show, and a healthy one at that? But that’s exactly where my gardening friends, Carol Cowan, Carol Gardner and Lorraine Hunter and I wound up. Last week, W Network’s Healthy Gourmet, televised on the VIVA channel, taped [...]
The semi-annual Journees des Plantes at Courson, just outside Paris, draws plant nerds from all over France, Europe and North America — including me! In May, 2009, three and a half days of pouring rain tested the mettle of both visitors and exhibitors alike. But muddy ruts a foot deep and tractors pulling cars out [...]
Did you miss Canada Blooms this year? Are you from out of town or out of country and have always wanted to see the show? A fabulous video of Canada Blooms, 2009 is now available online:
10. Attend a Garden Show Nothing takes me out of winter and into spring than a trip to Canada Blooms. This year’s show features more than 24 gardens, an expanded marketplace and special speakers, including Jeff Lowenfels from Alaska who’s talking about organic gardening and Cornell University’ Dr. Robert Raguso with a lecture on the relationship [...]
Dragged myself out of bed for day two of the set up of Canada Blooms. Delivered lots of plants, watered containers and checked out the gardens in progress. My favourite so far is by Hobson Landscapes. Entitled Urban Pioneer, it features a contemporary sugar shack which should have been surrounded by sap buckets, but unfortunately, [...]
On day three, everything comes together — somehow. My day started out helping plant daffodils and lay mulch in the Bienenstock Natural Playground where kids can have fun learning about soil. There are stations for making birdseed balls, a tree-painting area and a log full of worms (yes, those yucky, icky but wonderful creatures that [...]
Spent the day helping Charlie Dobbin with the set up of Canada Blooms. Helped plant up giant planters filled with bulbs, primulas and gerberas — it felt like spring was here! Here are some fuzzy pictures (not sure if the fog is from the cell phone camera or the dust and exhaust fumes at the [...]
9. Organize your photos. If you’re like me, I snap photos of the garden all season and dump them on my hard drive or on an unlabelled CD where it’s impossible to find them when I need to. Now’s the time to go through the photos and paste them into my gardening journal, organize them into [...]
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