This week, I had big news! We closed on the house this week. To hear more about the young man who is taking over my garden, click here. To watch us on YouTube, click here.

Garden Updates:

Carol bought a new lawn mower. Her previous one was 13 years old. She froze some squash, peppers, and green beans. I made chili this week. It was so good.

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Question of the Week:

What’s really wrong with Carol’s Black-eyed Susans?

Septoria leaf spot, most likely. And particularly susceptible is ‘Goldsturm.’ Listen to Hans Hansen talk about it on Instagram. I’m glad to hear it has an Achilles heel.

Insect of the Week:

Butterflies, and how now is a great time to see them in your garden. The adults are flitting and mating and moving on. My new garden is full of Gulf Fritillaries. I don’t know why I couldn’t remember that word in the podcast.

Flowers:

Bulbs. What we buy. How we grow them. All the things. I’m sure we’ll talk about them more later. If you have trouble with critters digging up and eating your tulips, try Plantskydd (Amazon), unless you have Alpha gal syndrome, of course. Unfortunately, I’m allergic to it.

Vegetables:

All about garlic. Where to buy it (it’s a bulb), and we order ours because you get a large bulb, and you can often get unusual varieties. Garlic gives so much for so little. I grow it almost every year. Listen for more garlic information.

On the Bookshelf:

We revisited a favorite book, The Language of Butterflies: How Thieves, Hoarders, Scientists, and Other Obsessives Unlocked the Secrets of the World’s Favorite Insect by Wendy Williams (Amazon, Bookshop.)

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Dirt:

Carol looked up our State Animals. It’s a fun thing.

Rabbit Holes:

Carol listened to The Book of Margery Kempe, by Margery Kempe, and is working on the next Lost Lady of Garden Writing

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A Garden to Visit:

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, in Richmond, Virginia

Thank you:

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter! If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.

And, if you have suggestions for topics for us to discuss, send us an email or leave a comment.

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We are in the waning days of summer! To listen to this episode, click here. To watch this episode on YouTube, click here. Though, I still don’t know why you would want to watch us instead of just listening, which you can do while doing other things.

Substack for everyone!

I started back writing and here is my article, Teresa Byington is also writing at A Garden Diary on Substack, with links to RoseChat, her podcast. Carol has written her Substack for quite a while, and she also has her Lost Ladies Substack. You should subscribe to all of us!

Playing Favorites:

I gave a shout out for my small orange zinnias, which are a mix of ‘Short Stuff’ and ‘Profusion.’ Carol was excited about Barnardia japonica. From the photo above, you can see why.

Question of the Week:

When can I transplant roses? Our listener said she totally put them in the wrong place. While I defer to Teresa of Rose Chat podcast, I would transplant them in early spring if I lived in Indiana. In Oklahoma, you can transplant in the fall once the weather cools down.

Insect of the Week:

The Thread Waisted Wasp, which is a beautiful little creature.

Flowers:

We thought we’d discuss flowers and plants that peak or look great during the waning days at the end of summer. You’ll have to listen to the episode to learn more, but here are winning zinnias from All-America Selections.

We’d also like to know what flowers you grow for late summer color. Leave a comment to tell us about them.

Vegetables:

We decided to chat about winter squashes and why we don’t grow them.

Plus, who’s growing and storing winter squashes? Not us.

On the Bookshelf:

A Green and Pleasant Land: How England’s Gardeners Fought the Second World War by Ursula Buchan (Bookshop, Amazon.) This title looks fascinating to me, and now I want it.

Also, we misspoke when talking about England after the war. C. S. Lewis’s wife was Joy Davidman! You can still watch their love story, Shadowlands, on Amazon.

The Real Vintage Dolls House on YouTube has Carol fascinated.

Dirt:

People who read live longer, which is ironically on Instagram. I bought a new book this week in honor of this.

Rabbit Holes:

Carol came up with another Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Alice Lounsberry.

Carol has also been listening to several audiobooks, including: A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts by Therese Anne Fowler (2019), all about Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont, Whistler by Ann Patchett (2026), and The Kennedys and the Windsors: The Story of Two Dynasties, One Born, One Made by Caroline Hallemann (2026)

I’ve been in a new season of dinosaurs on Last Z Shooter. It’s season four, and I was fascinated that we collect pine cones and ferns. Someone must have researched the Jurassic era.

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A Garden to Visit:

Carol and I have both been to Biltmore House and Garden in Asheville, NC, many times. It’s astounding.

Thank you:

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter! If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.

And, if you have suggestions for topics for us to discuss, send us an email or leave a comment.

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This episode opens with nephews, a football coach, and a book on the shelf. You’ll just have to listen to see how we connected these, so click here. To watch us on YouTube, click here.

Carol had rain in Indianapolis, and we’ve been furiously hot in Oklahoma.

Playing Favorites:

My favorite was the ‘Always Hope’ rose, which is new to my garden. Actually, everything in my garden is new.

Carol loves her hardy begonias.

Question of the Week:

Why does my fill-in-the-blank plant look terrible? Plants go through cycles, and sometimes, those aren’t pretty.

Insect of the Week:

The Great Black Wasp… a solitary pollinator that Carol saw for the first time in her garden on her flowering oregano. I love these wasps. They are quite beautiful.

Flowers:

Is it worth refreshing annuals in late summer for fall? We think so, and we explain why. We also share our favorites. Some are flowers. Some are not, but they still make great ornamental plants.

Vegetables:

It’s not too soon to plan for 2027.

If you’re planning your seed purchase, we shared some All-America Selections Vegetable Winners for 2026:

Tomato BadaBing! F1

Kale Rubybor F1

Pole Bean ‘Majesty’

Butter Lamp F1 Winter Squash

Basil Treviso -

New Varieties sent to Carol from Burpee

Akoya Small-Fruited Tomato

Sweet 150 Small-Fruited Tomato

Pick N Pop Orange Sweet Pepper

Monteverde Late Flowering basil. Personally, I’m excited about these new basils that don’t go to seed in our heat.

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On the Bookshelf:

Carol went back in time with Back to the Garden by Ursula Buchan (2009) (Amazon for used copies.) It’s a good read. Easy for nightstand reading.

Dirt:

The five plants every pollinator garden needs. This was about native bees. It’s a good read.

Rabbit Holes:

Judi Dench’s Shakespeare: The Man Who Paid the Rent.

Carol’s blog post for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day.

A Garden to Visit:

Carol visited the Holcomb Gardens at Butler University which has been planting with native plants by the Indiana Native Plant Society (INPS.)

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Thank you:

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter! If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.

And, if you have suggestions for topics for us to discuss, send us an email or leave a comment.

With a shared love of gardening…

Carol and Dee

It’s still summer in the garden. If you’d like to follow along with us as we garden in the heat, click here. To watch us on YouTube, click here. If you hear me yawning, yes, I was tired. I don’t know why.

Yes! There is a contract on my house! Keep your fingers crossed that it closes on time and everything is easy.

Also, my client who was bitten by the prairie rattlesnake is okay. She is out of the hospital and doing fine. Hi Darla!

Carol built the new hanging golden pothos from Lego.

Question of the Week:

What’s wrong with my tomatoes? Here’s a hint, watch for the tomato hornworms, and this time of year, tomatoes are tired and get foliar diseases. .

Insect of the Week:

Our insect of the week, Black Saddlebags Dragonfly, is shown above. Cute little thing isn’t it?

Flowers:

Our favorite summer garden annuals. We are branching out from perennials and native plants obsessions because sometimes a good tropical or annual is just what you need for a summer garden. I would argue it always is, along with the perennials and natives.

Here’s a partial list of some we talked about.

African blue basil

Zinnias and sunflowers

Verbena bonariensis and Verbena ‘Bampton’

Celosia

Gomphrena, either Truffula Pink, or you can grow the QIS series from seed.

Stachytarpheta ‘Nectarwand Red’ (porterweed) which is one of my favorite butterfly nectar plants. Hummingbirds also like it.

Salvias, especially the Skyscraper series and Wendy’s wish

Perwinkles aka Annual Vinca

What would you add to our list?

Vegetables:

Carol came up with some timely vegetable garden reminders for August. In my case, I’m buying vegetables at the farmers’ market. I also have a CSA flower subscription from Ladybug Lane because I can’t grow as many things here as I did at my previous home.

Do you have suggestions for what to do in the vegetable garden in August?

On the Bookshelf:

In the Land of the Blue Poppies: The Collected Plant-Hunting Writings of Frank Kingdon Ward (2003) (Amazon, Bookshop) (It was Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward who invented the Wardian case in the early 19th century, not Frank Kingdon Ward. They may be related.)

Dirt:

Hydrangea Pruning: What Stays, What Goes and When by Lorraine Ballato (Amazon). If your hydrangeas are confusing you, this is the book for you.

Rabbit Holes:

Carol read and listened to several books last week including The Churchill Sisters by Dr. Rachel Tretheway. (Bookshop, Amazon). She also plans to listen to the audiobook The Kennedys and the Windsors: The Story of Two Dynasties, One Born, One Made by Caroline Hallemann (Bookshop, Amazon) But until she gets it from her library, she’s listening to Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench (Amazon, Bookshop). (Listen to Judi Dench recite Shakespear on Instagram)

Then there is Adele Dawson, another Lost Lady of Garden Writing.

And via Dear Hugo by Molly Claverly (Amazon, Bookshop), she found out about sloes, the fruit of blackthorn. More info from Woodland Trust in the UK.

One other book recommendation: The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds. (Amazon, Bookshop) The story takes place in 1920s Provence in France.

I bought three Bulgarian specialties from Malincho.com. I bought Lutenitsa, spiced salt and rose jam. I loved it all.

A Garden to Visit:

The Tulsa Botanic Garden, which is northwest of downtown Tulsa. It’s a young garden, but so worth your time. I love it and have visited many times.

Thank you:

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter! If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.

And, if you have suggestions for topics for us to discuss, send us an email or leave a comment.

With a shared love of gardening…

Carol and Dee

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Before starting on our serious topics—lol—, we discussed last week’s irritating, digging animal. We thought it was an armadillo, but it turned out to be a groundhog. Here is your link to listen. If you want to watch us on YouTube, click here.

Playing Favorites:

I brought up my SuperCal petunias. I mentioned that they weren’t the same at the Petchoas, but I was wrong. They are also interspecific hybrids. I also had a rose, ‘Ray Ponton,’ that is blooming like crazy. Carol’s favorites were her resurrection lilies.

Insect of the Week:

Lily leaf beetle was prompted by a reader’s questions. Check Wisconsin Extension on how to identify and how to control. This site shows the range, and Carol and I don’t have them. I hope they never come.

Flowers:

We talked all about Mandevillas and Bougainvillas. Listen to the podcast episode to hear more. I suggested the Sun Parasol brand.

Vegetables:

We talked about two vegetable cookbooks. I also shared how I fry okra. The secret is egg whites. Listen for more.

My New Roots: Inspired Plant-Based Recipes for Every Season: A Cookbook by Sarah Britton. (Bookshop, Amazon) Check out her website and her Instagram account.

Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables by Joshua McFadden (Bookshop, Amazon)

On the Bookshelf:

Carol picked out a classic, My Summer in a Garden by Charles Dudley Warner (1899) (Bookshop, Amazon).

Dirt:

Chatsworth Garden Design Revealed in the Drought

Rabbit Holes:

The Botanist’s Assistant by Peggy Townsend (Bookshop, Amazon) Lots of interesting deadly plants mentioned.

Also Time Traveler by Merriam-Webster: Words that first appeared in print for the year you were born…

A Garden to Visit:

Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden is especially timely now with the drought and heat in the UK. All of us could learn from this garden.

Thank you:

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter! If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.

And, if you have suggestions for topics for us to discuss, send us an email or leave a comment.

With a shared love of gardening…

Carol and Dee

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We opened this this episode discussing what our Netflix “documentaries” would look like. If you’d like to watch us record, check YouTube here.

Big news! We are pleased to announce that we received a Silver Laurel Award for the podcast from GardenComm! This is such a big deal because it’s from our colleagues.

And, poor Carol! She had surgery for a kidney stone. We still managed to get the podcast recorded and send out the newsletter.

Question of the Week:

Carol got a question from her neighbor, “What is digging in my lawn?” We mused on several suspects. It turns out it was a ground hog. Bad creature!

Insect of the Week:

Related to grubs in the lawn, the larval version of June Beetles. Here is info from Wisconsin Horticulture Extension.

Flowers:

In keeping with our bean theme, we decided to share flowering beans. These are all annual flowering vines that are pretty interesting. These are usually grown for their flowers or interesting pods, or both!

Hyacinth beans - Lablab purpureus

Scarlet runner beans - Phaseolus coccineus

Yardlong beans - Vigna unguiculata subsp. Sesquipedalis

Corkscrew vine beans, Cochliasanthus caracalla

Vegetables:

We talked briefly about alternative beans to grow in the vegetable garden. In particular, we discussed black beans, kidney beans, northern beans - mostly for drying. General info from the Old Farmer’s Almanac. The following are seed sources for older or heirloom bean varieties: Rancho Gordo, Seed Savers Exchange, and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. We’ve bought from each of these companies.

On the Bookshelf:

Carol had this book, and it looks very interesting. Saving Seeds, Preserving Taste by Bill Best (Amazon Link). There’s an audiobook edition that Carol might listen to soon.

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Dirt:

Our dirt harkens back to last week’s episode on trees: Planting Trees at Waddesdon Manor.

Rabbit Holes:

Dee is learning Bulgarian with the help of ChapGPT and the TalkPal app. Emma is her AI companion and daily chatting pal. Dee also watched most of the FIFA tournament games. Spain was the grand prize winner!

Carol wrote about another Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Danske Dandridge, and shared about a book of her essays, The Garden at Rose Brake: Garden Writings of Danske Dandridge, collected and with an introduction by Justin McHenry (2020). She also listened to Muv: The Story of the Mitford Girls’ Mother by Rachel Tretheway (2026) and hearing about the book on the Slightly Foxed podcast.

A Garden to Visit:

Visit an All-America Selection garden near you! You’ll learn about new plants and get ideas for your own garden.

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Thank you:

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter! If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.

And, if you have suggestions for topics for us to discuss, send us an email or leave a comment.

With a shared love of gardening…

Carol and Dee

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Good morning friends! We have another exciting episode to share. You might be wondering why an episode on trees opens with a half-open sunflower. It was my favorite this week partly because my granddaughter was so excited to see it. She helped me plant the seeds. To hear more about this and all about trees, click here, and to watch us on YouTube, click here.

First, Carol updated us on her ritual of the first tomato blog post from 2006 and Play-Doh Blooms (Amazon.)

Question of the Week:

Why did a big limb that looked healthy suddenly fall out of my tree? More info from Davey Tree Company

Insect of the Week:

Mimosa Webworms - Info from Purdue, along with Carol’s tale of two different kinds of treatment.

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Flowers:

How to choose trees for your garden. We were able to put this under the flower topic because many trees bloom in spring. We had a great discussion. We believe you will like it.

Vegetables:

We continued our tree theme with two fruiting trees.

Pawpaw trees - Check them out at Stark Bros

Walnut trees - Info from Garden Professors Blog. We also discussed black walnut trees.

On the Bookshelf:

Carol brought Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree: A celebration of our connection with trees by David George Haskell (Amazon Link). Haskell also wrote How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature’s Revolutionaries and The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature. Check him out on Instagram.

Dirt:

We both enjoyed Judi Dench and her passion for trees. A clip/intro to her documentary My Passion for Trees

Rabbit Holes:

Dee: A new cookbook, The HIgh Protein Plate, by Rachael DeVaux, RD.

Carol: Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann (2005), a new biography about Katharine S. White (The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker, by Amy Reading), and a new Lost Lady of Garden Writing.

A Garden to Visit:

United States National Arboretum

Thank You:

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter! If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.

And, if you have suggestions for topics for us to discuss, send us an email or leave a comment.

With a shared love of gardening…

Carol and Dee

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Happy Halfway Thru July. This year, this gardening season, is flying by, isn’t it?

Dee and I are back to recording on Fridays and releasing the early versions of the podcast on Tuesday mornings. Do you want to watch us on YouTube? If yes, click here. Or maybe you’d rather listen to this episode? To do that, click here.

Question of the Week:

How do I grow a wildflower meadow from seed? Dee often gets this question from her garden coaching clients. Part of her answer is to get the book, Mini Meadows, by Mike Lizotte, and read it. He explains it well.

Insect of the Week:

We talked about Blue Orchard Mason Bees. Do you have them in your garden? You can make nesting boxes for them or buy commercial ones.

Flowers:

We talked about cone flowers and all the varieties that are available. We were speaking primarily about Echinacea purpurea, though there are many other native Echinacea species you can grow in your garden.

We kind of ended on a sour note because we had to talk about aster yellows, a disease that can infect coneflowers and sadly has no cure. You can read more about it over on the Missouri Botanical Garden website.

Vegetables:

We, or rather Dee, shared some vegetable recipes, including:

Authentic Shopska Salad Recipe

Cold Yogurt Cucumber Soup - Tarator

Princesses (Bulgarian Ground Meat Sandwiches) Recipe - Food.com (Yes, we know this isn’t a vegetable recipe but it sure sounds good!)

Dee’s Zucchini Squash Challenge on her blog

What are some of your favorite recipes for using up your summer produce?

On the Bookshelf:

I have several wildflower books, but one of my favorites is A Naturalist’s Book of Wildflowers: Celebrating 85 Native Plants of North America by Laura C. Martin (2021) (Amazon). Listen to find out why. Do you have any wildflower books you would recommend?

Dirt:

Get another dose of cuteness on Instagram from a farmer-gardener and his two young daughters, the two “supervisors”. Meet Jeremiah_Farmer. They also have pigs!

Rabbit Holes:

I went down a rabbit hole to write about another Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Katharine S. White. I also wrote a blog post about tips for getting your garden to produce more veggies. Dee wanted me to talk about these tips next week, but I’m sharing them now! Dee went down a rabbit hole for the Blue Orchard Mason Bees.

A Garden to Visit:

We talked about the Dallas Arboretum which we visited while in Dallas in 2010, with GardenComm for their annual conference. I think it was 2010. Regardless of the year, it was one seriously hot day when we were there.

Thank you:

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter! If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.

And, if you have suggestions for topics for us to discuss, send us an email or leave a comment.

With a shared love of gardening…

Dee and Carol

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Another week, another episode. We cut it a bit close this week because of our schedules, but we made it with hours to spare. To entice you to read this short newsletter, I put think links to watch us or listen to us at the end.

Ready to find out what we discussed? Here you go…

Question of the Week:

What would you do if you found you had a mystery vine growing in your garden? That’s what my sister asked me last week. Listen for our advice on what to do about it. She had another question, but we covered the answer to it when we discussed our flower topic.

Insect of the Week:

We talked about leaf cutter bees again because I’ve seen some leaves where they’ve been chewing a bit. The link takes you to some great info from the Missouri Botanical Garden, or just listen to us talk about them.

Flowers:

We decided to talk about flowers and plants you can propagate by rooting in water. I found an article from Epic Gardening with a list of 31 plants you can root in water, but there are way more than that. Have you rooted plants in water? Tell us about your experience with this easy propagation method.

Vegetables:

We talked about what you should do if you have some mid-season failures and what else you can plant in your garden in the middle of summer. As always, we welcome suggestions for vegetable garden topics.

On the Bookshelf:

This week, we featured Collected Curiosities; More Stories and Recipes from the Historical Apothecary Cabinet, another beautiful book by Amanda Edmiston (Amazon). We previously talked about her first book, The Time Traveller's Herbal: Stories and Recipes from the Historical Apothecary Cabinet. If you liked that first one, you’ll like this new book too.

Dirt:

Check out the Dictionary Diva on Instagram to find out why we discussed ducks growing on trees.

Rabbit Holes:

Dee has been checking out some Bulgarian vegetable recipes. We’ll talk more about those next week, we promise. I discovered a new book by a Hoosier author, Rural Free: A Farmwife’s Almanac of Country Living by Rachel Peden (1961) plus I discussed my idea of creating a family time capsule for the 250th anniversary of the United States.

A Garden to Visit:

We discussed the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma, and why it’s worth a visit.

Thank you:

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

For those who are here for the links, here they are!

To watch this episode on YouTube, click here.

To listen to this episode, click here.

(If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.)

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Thank you for your kindness and understanding to allow us to skip a week! We are back now and as per usual, we are offering a link to listen to us now and a link to watch us on YouTube.

But we almost didn’t make it back this week. It was touch and go for about five minutes, but we made it happen. We didn’t let a little obstacle like Dee’s computer giving up when she booted up it up to sign in to Zoom. Instead, Dee pivoted and used her iPad to record the audio and video and her phone to see the notes. She had to hold up her iPad with one hand, so apologies if you see some shaking of her on the recording.

But we made it happen. We are here. We have a new episode and it’s all about engaging the sense of touch and all your other senses while in the garden.

Here’s a rundown of what we talked about.

Favorites This Week

My favorite this week was my tall lilies which are blooming now and have withstood some pretty heavy rains. I put pictures of them on Instagram and on Substack. Dee’s favorite this week was Calibrachoa ‘Lemon Slice’, which she has growing with dwarf morning glory (Evolvulus glomeratus), also known by its cultivar names 'Blue My Mind' or 'Blue Daze.’

Question of the Week

Our question of the week was how to keep Bermuda grass out of your flower beds. No, it’s not a problem for me in my Zone 6a garden, but for Dee and many others it is. Listen for her tips on how to keep it out of your garden beds if you live where it is often used for lawns.

Insect of the Week

This week, we discussed the awful, horrible Japanese beetles. Do you have trouble with them in your garden? Do you have other suggestions, other than what we discussed, for getting rid of them?

Flowers:

We talked about touchable flowers. Do you have a favorite flower to touch in your garden? Or, like many gardeners, do you reach out and touch all the plants?

Veggies:

We tried to stay on topic and discussed the vegetable garden as a wellness garden. We offered some advice to keep your vegetable garden from overwhelming you. If you have other tips, let us know!

Dirt:

Our dirt was Adelynn’s Plant Rescue on Instagram for a daily dose of cuteness.

On the Bookshelf:

We talked about two books this week.

Good Nature: Why Seeing, Smelling, Hearing, and Touching Plants is Good for Our Health by Kathy Willis (Amazon) was kind of the inspiration for this week’s topics.

Botanicum: Welcome to the Museum by Kathy Willis, Illustrated by Katie Scott (Amazon) is an oversized book great for older kids interested in plants.

Rabbit Holes:

Down in our rabbit holes, Dee watched some videos on Instagram about American food week in Bulgaria. We both laughed at their idea of American food.

I talked about Blackwell’s, my secret source for UK published books that haven’t yet been published in the United States. They ship for free to the United States. I also went down a rabbit hole for another lost lady of garden writing, Caroline Dormon, friend of Elizabeth Lawrence. She’s fascinating!

We both finished watching all the episodes of season 5 of Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime, which of course sent us down various rabbit holes to find out more info.

A Garden to Visit:

Our garden to visit was Kew Gardens. Dee went there at least once. Have you been? Is it on your bucket list to visit?

Thank you!

And with that, we’ve come to the end of this week’s podcast newsletter. We hope you enjoyed it, and that it prompted you to want to listen or watch this episode.

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

We wish all of our American listeners a Happy and Safe 4th of July celebration! What will you be eating? Be careful if you are shooting off fireworks!

(If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.)

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If you are looking for links to this week’s podcast episode, you won’t find them because we took the week off.

I can explain.

We normally record on Sunday afternoons, but this past Sunday was Father’s Day so Dee had family plans. Okay, back up to Saturday. Saturday was no go for me because I went to an all day family reunion. Alrighty, how about Friday? Not good for either of us because of lunch plans, mowing opportunities, etc. Well, how about Monday? Dee’s husband had back surgery on Monday, so no way we could record on Monday. (Dee appreciates prayers for his recovery!)

In other words, we simply ran out of days to record, so we made the decision to skip this week and just send out this newsletter to let everyone know so you wouldn’t worry about where we were, or wonder if I forgot to hit the publish button!

Dee put me (Carol) in charge of this week’s newsletter so I thought I’d start off with a picture of a sweet little viola that came up in my lawn. It’s obvious that I don’t use a pre-emergent herbicide because not only did that sweet little viola (SLV) come up, so did some crabgrass. Just ignore the crabgrass. It’s green and IMHO most of the time the pre-emergent herbicides that they put down on other people’s lawns often don’t work, which they blame on “the weather.” Anyway…

In other news, Dee put out an IG reel recently with a lot of good info on her container plantings. You should read the comments/questions and some of her answers which reveal some exciting plans she has for this fall.

I published my usual Sunday evening newsletter, In the Garden with Carol, which includes a poll about a possible name change. I’m pretty sure I set it up so you could still respond on Tuesday (today!) before it ends.

You’ll have to come back next week to find out about the insect of the week, the flower topic, the vegetable topic, the book we have on the bookshelf, any dirt we found, rabbit holes we explored, a garden to visit, plus what’s going on in our own gardens.

Until then, here’s a picture of a wasp I saw in my garden Monday morning.

It’s hanging on to the dill flower, probably still resting after the storms we had last evening and night.

We appreciate you hanging on as well, and coming back next week for another episode of The Gardenangelists!

Thank you!

And with that, we’ve come to the end of this week’s newsletter. Thank you for understanding why we didn’t record a new episode this week. We’ll be back next week with more “flowers, veggies, and all the best dirt!”

(If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.)

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Listen up! We talked this week about listening to your garden. What do you hear? Does it matter what you hear? We think so and went into a bit more detail on why.

If you’d like to listen to this episode now without waiting for it to show up on whatever app you use to listen to podcasts, click here. Or, if you would prefer to watch us on YouTube, click here. (Many of you do prefer YouTube, and if you are one of those many, could you like and subscribe? “It helps us get noticed by others.”)

On to this week’s episode. After we talked about what we did in our gardens last week, what our favorite plants are, and answered a question we got, we talked about…

Insect of the Week:

Fireflies or Lightning Bugs, what do you call them? I’ve noticed them in my garden in the last week or so, and Dee is wondering if she’ll see some in her new garden. I bet if she goes out at night, she will. Do you see them much in your garden? Would you like to see more of them. We talk about how to grow a garden they’ll love. Anyway, they are so loved, they even have their own website.

Flowers:

For our flower topic, we talked more about listening to your garden. You can tell a lot about the health of the garden by the sounds it makes. Birds singing, bees buzzing, and more. What does your garden sound like these days?

Vegetables:

Our listening topic continued in the vegetable garden. Did you plant corn? I did, and I can’t wait to hear the wind rustling the corn and pollinating it. I look forward to bees being lured in by my hollyhocks and then pollinating the squash and cucumbers!

On the Bookshelf:

This week, we talked about Garden Voices: A Year of Gardeners’ Writing, Edited by Claire Masset (Amazon). Listeners, and readers, I bought this book when I became aware of it, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. There are selected readings by all kinds of garden writers, mostly from the past, for every day of the year. Day by day as I read each selection, I never know if I’m going to fall down a rabbit hole looking for more information about someone or something. I love that anticipation. Plus, at the end of the year, I can flip back to the beginning and start over because I never know what will resonate with me from day to day, month to month, year to year. You ought to buy yourself this book.

Dirt:

We talked about controlling and eliminating pesky mosquitoes. I read about how some people set up a Mosquito Bucket to trap and kill them. (News Report) I might try that. I also have a vinegar tower thing to keep mosquitoes away. Here’s a link to it at Home Depot. Dee says the wind often drives them away from her garden, so I guess there is some benefit from living “where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.”

Rabbit Holes:

Dee went down a rabbit hole for the rose harvest season in Bulgaria. She watched many videos on it this week and wants to now smell those roses en masse. Can you imagine? Here are links to some of those reels: reel, reel, reel, reel, and reel!

I revisited Elizabeth Lawrence to write about her as the latest Lost Lady of Garden Writing. She’s not a complete unknown but it’s surprising how many still haven’t read about her. I also listened to Death of a Groom by M. C. Beaton with R. W. Green, which means I’ve read all 38 of the books in the Hamish Macbeth mystery series. Dee was impressed, kind of. Are you? Have you read any of them? In other reading news, Dee still hasn’t finished Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. Have you read it? What did you think?

A Garden to Visit:

We decided to talk about Longwood Gardens, because they are famous for their fountains, which sort of fit in with our theme because they make a lovely sound. Dee saw them and thought I was with her, but I’ve never been. Oh, well, we’ve been on many garden tours together, it’s easy to forget.

Thank you!

And with that, we’ve come to the end of this week’s podcast newsletter. We hope you enjoyed it, and that it prompted you to want to listen or watch this episode.

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

Notice that the title of this week’s episode includes a question. Feel free to answer it in a comment or email us. We’d love to hear about what you hear in your garden.

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Another week, another episode, and of course, another newsletter. If you came here for the links, I put them way at the bottom so you’ll have to work to get to them! And while you are down there, hit the like button and leave us a comment.

Garden Updates:

We both had busy weeks in the garden, getting stuff done! No sitting around for us. Dee, of course, had a couple of new roses to plant, sent to her by Jackson & Perkins Roses. Check out Ruffled Romance on their website. What do you think? Pretty, isn’t it?

Playing Favorites:

It’s that time of year when it is hard to pick out just one favorite. For Dee, it’s her Truffula Pink gomphrena. See the pic above for why anyone would love that flower in their garden. For me it is my Spigelia marilandica, known as Indian Pink. It did something special, which we talk about on the podcast. I put it at the top of this post!

Question of the Week:

Our question of the week was sent by a listener and is about salvia. This gave us a chance to mention Salvia ‘Blue by You’ which is repeat blooming in my garden for the second time, and is supposed to repeat bloom about five times. Proven Winners has it as do others.

Insect of the Week:

Speaking of blue, a happy coincidence is that we also talked about Shiny Blue Beetles. Blue bugs are interesting when you see them, and not that usual, at least in my garden. How about in your garden?

Flowers:

For our flower topic, we talked about the lulls in the garden, when it seems nothing new is blooming and everything that was blooming is fading. We offer some suggestions about how to fill those gaps. We’d love to hear your ideas too!

Vegetables:

Staying on theme, we talk about the calm before the big harvest, and why you want it. We also talked about small harvests you might be enjoying know if you remembered to plant early. In my garden, I’m picking peas! How about you?

On the Bookshelf:

We reviewed a new book, The New Garden Designer’s Handbook: How to Design Useful Gardens from Start to Finish, by Daryl Beyers, Illustrations by Elara Tanguy. Thank you to Timber Press for the review copies. If you are struggling with your own garden not feeling like it’s coming together, or has too many lulls, this is the book for you.

Dirt:

For the dirt, we talked about poison hemlock. It’s once again time to make sure you know how to identify it, not because you are going to mistake it for carrots, but because it is deadly poisonous. See this reel on Instagram. Plus check out this post on Instagram with a pick of the four white flowers that look alike: Queen Anne’s Lace, Poison Hemlock, Hogweed, and Wild Parsnip.

Rabbit Holes:

We were both a bit too busy for deep rabbit holes, but I finished listening to the audiobook of Land by Maggie O’Farrell. Definitely five stars from me.

Garden to Visit:

This week, we featured Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Garden, in Charlottesville, Virginia. If you’ve never been, it’s time you went, especially to see the huge vegetable garden. Don’t forget to tour the house.

Thank you

That’s it for this week! As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

And here are the promised links: To watch this episode on YouTube, click here. To listen to this episode, click here. Don’t forget to like and comment!

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In honor of the Chelsea Flower Show and our book on the bookshelf, we went across the pond this week. To listen, click here. To watch us on YouTube, click here.

Garden updates:

In our updates, Carol got a lot of rain very fast. I got a little rain myself. Now, it’s unseasonably hot in Oklahoma. Carol helped her family with their gardens. I took care of my new one, and I met with an irrigation specialist. I’ll give out his name AFTER my work is finished. We also had our estate sale, and people bought everything I had. Seriously, in the garden and out.

Question of the Week:

Is it too late to sow seeds or to plant that plant?

Is it too early to buy bulbs?

For the answers, listen to the podcast episode, but here are our favorite bulb retailers.

Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, John Scheeper’s, Van Engelen

Insect of the Week:

The Red Admiral butterfly in England.

Flowers:

We decided on the winning flowers at Chelsea Flower Show… and other new flowers like Double Up Red Begonias. I love those begonias, and I found them at the Antique Rose Emporium in Texas. I wish I had bought more.

For more info on the Chelsea Flower Show winnters, check out the RHS site. The winner was Hosta ‘Red Ninja’ if you want to buy it.

In the U.S., we do things a bit differently. Check out the All-America Selections!

Vegetables:

The classic British vegetable garden… what do they grow and where? Hint: they grow tomatoes in their greenhouses. Mine would melt.

On the Bookshelf:

My Gardening Life by Mary Berry (Amazon.) This book is what started our journey over to the British Isles.

Mary Berry’s Country House Secret on PBS is a show I truly enjoyed.

Dirt:

The tree growing grandmother from Yorkshire. Via Instagram. Also, this article

Rabbit Holes:

Louise Riotte, the last Lost Lady of Garden Writing.

Season five of Clarkson’s Farm starts on Amazon Prime this week. Carol and I are both very excited.

A Garden to Visit:

Sissinghurst Castle Garden, which is a must-see if you go to Great Britain. Here are three books about this famous garden and its designer, Vita Sackville-West.

Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History: The Quest to Restore a Working Farm at Vita Sackville-West’s Legendary Garden by Adam Nicolson (Amazon) Also, Where the Old Roses Grow: Vita Sackville-West and the Battle for Beauty during Wartime by Janelle McCulloch (Amazon Link)

Thank you

That’s it for this week! As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

(If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.)

Carol decided we should do a banana theme this week. To listen to this crazy episode, click here. To watch us on YouTube, click here.

Garden Updates:

In my garden update, I shared that my estate sale is on Thursday night and Friday. Maybe Saturday too. Watch Instagram for updates! I also went to the Texas Rose Rustlers meeting at the Antique Rose Emporium, and drove 6.5 hours each way. I also snagged the last Bulgarian ‘Kazanlik’ rose. Listen to the drama about it in this week’s episode.

Carol found a new variegated basil, Pesto Perpetua, shown above.

The good news is the rain held off for the Indianapolis 500. Phew! Carol had four inches of rain, and I had 5.5 inches last week. A wild weather week.

Question of the Week:

Why does my plant need potassium? Carol found fantastic info from the University of Minnesota, but we can tell you your plant won’t be healthy without enough potassium which is the “K” in NPK on fertilizers.

Insect of the Week

Banana slugs, which aren’t actually insects, and here’s info from National Park Service.

Flowers

Growing bananas in the flower garden. We used Tropical Plants and How to Love Them, by Marianne Wilburn, as our go-to guide. I’ve grown bananas in pots. I like the red-leafed ones.

Everything you ever wanted to know about bananas from Brittanica.

Would you grow a hardy or tropical banana plant? Do tell.

Vegetables

High Potassium Veggies info from My Food Data. Bananas and potatoes are at the top of the list.

On the Bookshelf

We think our book this week would be a great one for a new gardener. Plant by Number: Design your Dream Garden With 24, Step-by-Step Planting Plans by Stacy Tornio (Amazon) (Publishes on May 26. Thank you to Timberpress for review copies.)

Dirt

Banana Peel Water for fertilizer? No, just no.

Rabbit Holes

Dee: I’m all about roses and the Rose Chat podcast right now. I enjoyed the podcast on my way home from Texas.

Carol: Found a couple of old, but good gardening books at the local Half Priced Bookstore: Rose Recipes from Olden Times by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, first published in 1939. Her copy is a paperback edition published in 1973. She also purchased An Island Garden by Celia Thaxter, first published in 1894. And she went down a rabbit hole for Louise Riotte, from Ardmore, Oklahoma. She’s another Lost Lady of Garden Writing.

A Garden to Visit

Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh. We visited there when we went to the Garden Writers Symposium in 2014. My blog won a gold award so Carol shared my excitement above. Carol also won a silver award for her online newsletter article.

Thank you!

That’s it for this week! As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

(If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.)

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We never know what’s going to happen when we sit down to record another podcast episode. This week, my internet was blipping on me so please forgive the audio quality. I think I eliminated the gaps when Dee couldn’t hear me or I couldn’t hear her, but sometimes we talked over each other. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Now, those links some of you come here for. To watch us on YouTube, click here. You can see me freeze up a few times! To listen to us, click here.

Before we get into our topic—herbs!— you might want to check out the salvias from Proven Winners that we mentioned including ‘Rockin’ Fushia’ which Dee and I both independently purchased. You should also check out the ‘Moongate Mocha’ clematis from Proven Winners. I got a trial plant from them and cannot believe how dark the leaves are. When it blooms, it’s going to be gorgeous in my pink garden. Thanks, Proven Winners!

Finally, in case you missed it, here’s a link to my Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day Post for May.

Now on to the episode, in which we mostly feature herbs.

Question of the Week

What herbs grow well with roses? Dee was asked this when she spoke in Texas a few weeks ago. You know I’m not giving you the answer in this newsletter. Listen to hear her answer.

Insect of the Week

Dee wanted to talk about mayflies, for some reason. I found some interesting info about them from Birds & Blooms

Flowers

We decided to talk about herbs to grow for the flowers. We featured the usual suspects, like lavender, but also included roses and a couple of other interesting flowers. You can get more info on this topic from Epic Gardening and by listening to this episode.

Vegetables

You can grow a vegetable garden without herbs, but why would you? We mentioned a lot of different basils, including ‘Monteverde’ from PanAmerican Seed, and also for sale from Burpee. I have some trial plants of it that I’m growing. If you’d like to know more about any of the other herbs we mentioned, leave a comment and we’ll get you a link or other info. And tell us what herbs you grow in your vegetable garden.

On the Bookshelf

I recently bought The Time Traveller’s Herbal: Stories and recipes from the historical apothecary cabinet by Amanda Edminston, an herbal storyteller (Amazon link) The author is also on Instagram. She has another book coming out on June 30th: Collected Curiosities: more stories and recipes from the historical apothecary cabinet. (Amazon link) I pre-ordered it so I’ll have both!

Dirt

For our dirt, we stayed with our herb theme. We discussed that National Herb Week - May 7th - 13th is always the week leading up to Mother’s Day, per the International Herb Association. We also talked about the Herb Society of America, which I’m a member of. Are any other listeners members of HSA?

Rabbit Holes

Dee is looking to buy a ‘Kazanlik’ rose from Antique Rose Emporium (I think that’s the rose she wants!)

I went down a rabbit hole of anthropomorphism, where animals are given human characteristics. I read Watership Down by Richard Adams and Shady Hollow by Juneau Black, and went to see the new movie, The Sheep Detective, which is based on the book, Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. I’m also excited that my library has an adult reading program for the summer. Check out the Beanstack app to see if your library has a program like it. Would you participate in it if they did?

Finally, I finished my research and wrote about the latest Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Elda Haring, who was all about growing plants from seed.

A Garden to Visit

Sticking close to the herb theme, we talked about The Chelsea Physic Garden (visited by Dee) and their Florilegium Society.

Thank. you!

That’s it for this week! As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

(If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.)

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This week it’s all about pots and containers. To listen, click here. To watch us on YouTube, click here. Excitement abounded at my house the morning we recorded when my cats found an Oklahoma ring snake in my house. It was a baby, and I put it outside. I’m glad I saved it from my Russian Blues. They are big hunters.

Southern Living Plant Collection sent me It’s A Breeze® Ivory Blush Rose.

And, more exciting news! My estate sale is tentatively scheduled for June 4-5. Mark your calendars, and if things change, I’ll let you know.

Carol’s garden fairies reviewed her performance so far this spring in a blog post, but I give her an A+! She’s been buying and planting with abandon. She is very concerned that her favorite local greenhouse is out of the Skyscaper salvias which she loves. What will she do?

Playing Favorites

Carol’s favorites were her peonies. Mine is my Leonardo da Vinci rose, shown above. Not only is it beautiful, it is also fragrant. Carol’s peonies are shown below.

Question of the Week

Why didn’t my peonies bloom? Listen to the episode to discovery why.

Insect of the Week

Carol picked Crane flies. Basically, do not worry about these harmless creatures.

Flowers:

We decided to share our favorite flowers for containers. Here are three we really like:

Queen Tut papyrus

Tattoo™ Papaya Vinca

We talked a lot about pelargoniums in this past episode

Vegetables:

We discussed vegetables for containers too. Carol found examples of good container grown veggies from Burpee: On-Deck Corn, Patio Baby Eggplant, Sweetheart of the Patio Tomato, Mocha Swirl Sweet Peppers, and Hamburg Lettuce. I’ve grown vegetables in containers many times. Just make sure your plant isn’t too large for the space in which it is grown.

On the Bookshelf:

We sampled two book this week. The first one is brand new while the other one is a favorite. The Creative Container Garden by Anders Royneberg with Erik Schjenven (Amazon) and A Year Full of Pots: Container Flowers for All Seasons by Sarah Raven (Amazon).

Dirt:

Carol’s spinstercore gardening, and a search on Pinterest… for Unusual Plant Containers.

Rabbit Holes:

Dee: I bought another metal garden hose and a new sprayer. I’m in love with these two products.

Carol read Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, by Rumer Godden (1979). She is listening to Watership Down, by Richard Adams. She also wrote about another Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Elda Haring.

A Garden to Visit:

Wing Haven in Charlotte, North Carolina, the gardens of Elizabeth and Edwin Clarkson, and Elizabeth Lawrence. We both love these very personal gardens.

Thank you!

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

(If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.)

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Hello, and welcome to another podcast episode. While Dee is resting up from a long weekend of traveling, I’m taking over the newsletter!

If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, click here. Or, if you’d like to listen to this episode a day early, or any time, click here.

With that little housekeeping out of the way, read on for a bit of a preview about what we talked about this week.

We sort of had an “old ladies gardening” theme going, but I decided to refer to us “long-time” vs. “old ladies” in the title. It does sound better doesn’t it?

We started off with some chatter about this past weekend’s historic Kentucky Derby race and all the roses involved. My aunt sent me a text about a Hallmark Movie featuring Kentucky Derby flowers and roses: Kentucky Roses. Let us know if you decide to watch it.

With that little timely topic out of the way, let’s get on with the show, as they say!

Insect of the Week

Our insects this week were the Columbine sawfly and the Columbine leaf miner. You can find out more about them on the Wisconsin Extension website.

Dee was in Texas and Louisiana speaking and rubbing elbows with many rosarians, so our discussion naturally included quite a bit of rose talk. Dee met the famous Peggy Martin, who has a rose named after her. You can find the Peggy Martin rose for sale online at the Antique Rose Emporium. Dee also got Peggy to sign the children’s book about the ‘Peggy Martin’ rose, The Rose Without a Name: The Story of the Katrina Rose, by Nancy Rust and Carol Stubbs, Illustrated by Melissa VanDiver. Very cool!

I only traveled to Franklin, Indiana to attend the Johnson County Garden Fair, which was fantastic. In other news, I’m also doing a product review for a company called Just Good Soil. More on that in a future episode.

Flowers:

Our flower topic was about what flowers, plants, and practices we suggest you leave behind as you grow older in the garden. Or rather, as we all grow more experienced as gardeners!

Vegetables:

For our vegetable topic, we went back to basics. Honestly, start with good soil and you are 99% there. Listen for the rest of our advice. When Dee brought up Monty Don, I remembered this Substack article about The Monty Don Tax. Quite interesting that not everyone in England watches Gardener’s World!

On the Bookshelf:

We were pleased to discuss the new book, Garden for Life: Strategies for Easier, Greener, More Joyful Gardening as We Age, by Rhonda Fleming Hayes (Amazon Link). Listen to find out who’s included in the book (hint: Dee) and what we love about the book. Also, a nice shout out for our friend, Mary Schier who has an excellent Substack: Your Northern Garden.

Dirt:

Our dirt was about how those in the Boomer Generation seem to have a lot of stuff they are leaving for their children and grandchildren, who might not want it all. Here’s one of many articles about this “trend.” There’s also a guy on Instagram (Nick Fox Radio) who posts pictures people send him of their “interesting” inheritances.

Rabbit Holes:

Down in our rabbit holes, Dee was all about roses because of the research she did to put together her talk on companion plants for roses. Somewhere along the way, we talked about rose rosette disease, which Dee wrote about quite a bit when it attacked her roses many years ago. Here’s one of Dee’s blog posts about rose rosette disease, if you are unfamiliar with this rose disease.

I’m researching the next Lost Lady of Garden Writing and also talked about the books I finished reading/listening to this past week, including Matilda by Roald Dahl, Raising Hare: A Memoir by Chloe Dalton, and The Lark by E. Nesbit.

A Garden to Visit:

Our garden to visit was Gibb’s Garden in Georgia, in a place called Ball Ground, north of Atlanta. Listen to find out what made this garden memorable!

Thank you!

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

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P. S. Just to prove it’s me, Carol, who wrote this, here’s a picture of violas!

This week’s episode was a compendium of topics, which means it was a normal week. To listen, click here, and to watch on YouTube, click here.

Garden Updates

Big surprise! Carol mowed her lawn. She went with her sister to the greenhouse, and she shared some perennials with her. It feels like spring is way ahead of itself. Basil Becky, friend of the podcast, brought Carol some scented geraniums and some African blue basil. I want some African blue basil!

I planted out my front bed! Yay! Well, at the time of the podcast, I placed the plants, but now I can say they are planted and happy as they can be. I also have room for some roses! Yay!

Also, the pelargonium I was referring to is ‘Mrs. Pollock.’ I planted an antique container of it with needlepoint ivy, a new obsession.

Insect of the Week

We profiled Mitchell’s Satyr Butterfly with information from Central Indiana Land Trust on Instagram. (Also, the invasive plant Carol was trying to think of was Purple Loosestrife.)

Flowers:

It’s all about hydrangeas with some very good information if I may say so. Here’s even more from Proven Winners with an explanation of the five main types.

Vegetables:

How to learn from your failures and not throw in the trowel, partially inspired by an essay in American Gardener, from the American Horticultural Society. What was your biggest failure in your vegetable garden?

On the Bookshelf:

We shared a wonderful book, Hydrangea Happiness: Planting, Pruning, and Blooming. by C. L. Fornari (Amazon link) (Publishes April 30)

Dirt:

Using cornstarch in the garden, via Martha Stewart. What do you think of this?

Rabbit Holes:

Dee: Heritage Rose Foundation and her upcoming talk on Old Garden Roses and Their Companions.

Carol: Working on her presentation on Tips and Tricks to Spring into Gardening for Franciscan Senior Promise, a local group.

A Garden to Visit:

This week’s garden to visit is the Atlanta History Center and in particular the Cherokee Garden Library. That was very special.

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

(If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.)

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This week’s episode was kind of a hodgepodge of information partly because I went to see Stevie Nicks in concert and got home late the day we recorded.

As always, to listen a day early or anytime, click here. To watch us on YouTube, click here.

In our updates, Carol mentioned using Sunday Dandelion Doom which you can find on Amazon. It’s an organic solution. I mentioned my back borders which are finished (see pic below). They are still working on the front border. I can hardly wait to plant.

Question of the Week:

Why didn’t my daffodils bloom? Here’s some information from the American Daffodil Society. We also discussed what we thought might be the problem.

Insect of the Week

I picked Hyles lineata, White-lined Sphinx moth. Here’s some info about them from Wisconsin Extension.

Flowers:

For our flower topic, we talked about plants to let self-sow and plants to keep from self-sowing. What do you absolutely try to prevent self-sowing in your garden and what do you like to have self-sow? Let us know in the comments!

Vegetables:

We discussed how to shop at your local farmer’s market. What topics would you like us to cover related to growing vegetables? We feel a bit tapped out on veggie topics and would love some suggestions.

On the Bookshelf:

Plantiful: Start Small, Grow Big With 150 Plants That Spread, Self-Sow, And Overwinter by Kristin Green (Amazon Link). It was published about 12 years ago, but is still up to date.

Dirt:

Carol listened to Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World, by Joel Salatin. It kind of ties in with our farmer’s market topic.

Rabbit Holes:

Carol researched another The Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Mrs. H. B. Tillotson.

Also, she is reading/listening to books by David George Haskell, including How Flowers Made Our World, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, The Songs of Trees: Stories of Nature’s Great Connectors, and Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree (Blackwells). They sound interesting!

A Garden to Visit:

We chose University of Washington Botanical Garden, home of the Eleanor C. Miller Horticultural Library this week.

As always, we appreciate all of you for listening to our podcast and for reading this newsletter!

(If you’d like to support us, check out our affiliate links here. Book links are also affiliate links.)

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