The Home of Gardenblogger Susan Harris
Photo by Lauren Springer Ogden.
Wanna see why this book is winning fans AND pissing people off? The go to Kirkus’s new Blogger Network where I weigh in on a book that touches all the hot buttons in gardening today. And please support a company that supports bloggers by leaving a comment if you’re so inclined.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tweet
For Gardenblogger Bloom Day I just have time for one photo this month, and it’s gotta be of a plant I’ve heard on good authority – from horticulturist Erica Glasener - is pretty rare. At least these Yellow Waxbells seemed to thrill HER, and I’m going with that.
About the garden those waxbells are growing in, I sure agree with Erica that it’s spectacular. That would be the garden of Nell Stratchan and Peter Ward in Baltimore, and Nell gave us a tour before Erica’s talk last night to the Horticultural Society of Maryland. Full slide show of Nell’s garden coming soon.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
TweetEver prepare and then give a talk to an audience that doesn’t exactly overwhelm you with its size? That’s how I felt in Chicago, where the four GardenRanters spoke to just 25 people. But hey, that’s a lot compared to the other talks I attended there (only seven to hear Mary Ann Newcomer? Come on!) I’m told the attendees at the Independent Garden Center Show are too busy taking care of business, and that makes sense. But now, with this 7.5-minute video, I bet I can reach more than 25 people, with no travel required.
A technical note. You may recall my blogging about taking video production workshop, buying cameras and video editing software – I was gung-ho yet frustrated. So, I’ve given up on all that, except for the super-easy-yet- limited Flip camera that I use to capture my kittens at their cutest. (While eating, sleeping – really, when aren’t they cute?)
But for this video I used a program that’s every bit as easy as the Flip to use – Photo Story 3, free from Microsoft. For the narration I used a $8 microphone, and PowerPoint for compiling the images, which I then saved in jpeg and uploaded into Photo Story 3. The program automatically inserts transitions (as you see here) and pans and zooms (which I disabled for this video). And it’s easy to add music – instead of or over the narration. The result is YouTube-compatible.
I’ve done one other Photo Story video, this time using music instead of narration, and keeping those pans and zooms. It’s the National Arboretum in Winter.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tweet
It was fun driving WSJ garden writer Anne Marie Chaker around to show her my favorite curbside gardens, but was surprised to see her one snapshot of my garden (and me) appear in the accompanying slide show. Here’s the article, and while that link won’t work for nonsubscribers a week from now, you can always reach the article by putting “the hellstrip” into Google. It’s a back-door way to access the Journal online, and they don’t care because not too many people use it. One small victory for the little people, I guess.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tweet
Well, I’m home from the IGC Show in Chicago and diving into fine-tuning a magazine article on a familiar topic but with an interesting twist – it’s about LAWN and it’s for the MEN. Homebuilders of all types, Handy Harry the Homeowner and professional builders, too.
My assignment? To write about lawns, particularly how much water they waste but about their other problems, too, then to suggest alternatives to the manly traditions of Toro-riding and mow-and-blowing altogether. The editor suggested I use a tone that’s “provocative and edgy”. Yep, he wants a rant about lawns and I yep, I can do that.
Seems that the magazine, a partner publication at Taunton Press to Fine Gardening, recently covered water-saving devices in the home but they knew they needed to cover water-saving in the landscape, too. How much of the water used by homeowners is for outdoor uses, like watering the lawn? Estimates range from 30 to 60 percent, depending on the climate and the season. So it’s a big deal, especially in an era of worsening droughts, state-against-state water battles, and population increases especially in the arid Southwest.
But back to the magazine. I was interested to find such a total gender breakdown between “homebuilding” and “gardening”, with the Homebuilding Facebook page fans being a completely different group from the gardeners, as evidenced by the utter lack of overlap between my “friends” and their almost 1,000 fans. And on their website I see lots of great information but the topics covered are almost all outdoors. Their only outdoor video is about how to build a deck. Ah, but over on the Fine Gardening website I see, among the design ideas and plant profiles, plenty of manly stuff – hardscaping and outdoor structures, paths. So wouldn’t it be great if they linked to all THAT good stuff right there for the “homebuilders” to see?
Okay, I know nothing about the financial side of their relationship but as a consumer, some cross-over or link-directing could be really helpful. And who KNOWS how many builder-type guys might find themselves enjoying that new gazebo, patio or deck SO MUCH, they end up wanting to plant some, you know, greenery to look at. And pretty soon they’re calling plants by their names and looking at more than just the supplies section of the garden center and – who knows? – maybe even admitting that they like gardening.
They can call it yardwork but once you start buying whole plants, that’s gardening. And welcome to the club, guys.
Photo by Tony the Bald Eagle.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tweet
There once was a medical writer/editor who worked really hard over a long career to explain diseases and treatments very, very clearly for the general public. Then she decided she’d rather NOT work til she dropped, so in 2008 Pamela J retired from NIH and took up gardening in a big way. Gardenblogging, too, though in her case it’s garden+nature+knitting+cats+whatever she’s reading, and so on, and I say good! I think blogs that are all gardening all the time can be boring – or so I concluded years ago, before I stopped reading them. (A shocking admission, I admit, but if you’re a gardenblogger, you probably know it’s true.)
But I do read the far-flung thoughts of my real (not virtual) friend of 30 years and recommend them to inquiring minds everywhere:
I stole just a few of Pam’s awesome nature photos for the collage below. There’s lots more where they came from – and good writing, too.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tweet
Well, look who’s downing Maryland crab cakes at a Baltimore pub but The Gardener Guy himself, Paul James! Yes, Paul was my date last night for some serious drinking and eating after his talk at a home show not far from me.
Now it may take a while for me to digest what he had to say over several hours (for the record, at least), but for now a couple of reactions:
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tweet
Thanks to BizyMoms.com for the opportunity to put my thoughts in order and answer some tough questions:
1. What is Sustainable Gardening ?
2. Please give our readers some tips on creating and maintaining a sustainable garden.
3. Is it possible to have lawns that are environmentally friendly?
4. What recent changes have you seen in gardening which inspire you?
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tweet
At DC's Green Festival the big Top Green Celebrity was actor/activist Ed Begley, and he packed the house for his talk about living simply. I'm happy to report that he included some jokes in with all that Message. Didja hear that Ed and wife Rachelle have the only pre-nup in Hollywood involving carbon credits? (Funny but probably true.) And that for her birthday he bought her a hemp thong? Badabing!
But I also took notes about these more substantive bits:
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tweet
My pal Ginny Stibolt accomplished what to me is the Herculean feat of writing Sustinable Gardening for Florida and getting it past all the academics who had to review and approve it it for accuracy. (Writing a book just seems to me like doing a term paper that never ends.)
But back to Ginny. She sent me the first cover design and I posted it on GardenRant, asking for feedback and getting a ton of it. And not in a good way. But a new design was better and it’s in print and damn, the first review – in the Daytona Beach News-Journal is a winner! It only stayed online about a week so I can’t link to it but luckily I grabbed what I thought was the most interesting part. It’s Ginny’s 8 steps to sustainable gardening. Not "easy" steps, the silly propaganda fed to us by the media. She calls the steps "complex" – such brutal honesty! So, what do you think of them?
Sustainable Gardening in 8 Complex Steps
1. Having minimal impact on the environment
2. Making the best of available resources
3. Saving time and money
4. Reducing carbon dioxide and increase oxygen in the air
5. Offsetting some of the heat absorbed and stored by buildings and roads
6. Increasing habitat for wildlife
7. Preventing damage to underground infrastructure
8. Preparing for hurricanes, fires and drought
I love how big-picture it is. Usually you see sustainability defined as just number 1, sometimes 6, occasionally 2, but never the rest. Never (okay, rarely) is the resource of human beings considered – like our time and money, those factors that make something feasible in the first place. The focus of "sustainability" is so often on simply avoiding doing harm, ignoring the pro-active, positive impacts that sustainable gardening has – like Ginny’s 4 and 5.
And I’d never have thought of 7 or 8 but hey, I’m glad someone’s thinking about them. Congrats, Ginny, on the book and the great review!
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tweet
