New article

New article up at the Examiner, on the perennial Oriental poppy:
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/perennials-for-spokane-gardens-oriental-poppies

New article up at the Examiner: a review of the book "The Most Beautiful Gardens in the World"
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/gardening-book-review-the-most-beautiful-gardens-the-world

New article

New article up at the Examiner, on suppressing weeds by keeping the soil covered:
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/keep-down-weeds-by-covering-the-soil

New article

New article at the Examiner, on plant terms:
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/annual-biennial-perennial

New article

New article up at the Examiner, on evening scented plants:
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/night-scented-plants

New article

New article up at the Examiner, on garden gazing globes:
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/gazing-globes

How we clean the yard around here

That engine is out of a rather large track-type earthmover; it's about 3 times the size of one from a full size pickup. The grappler is about 4' tall. Yes, even the seat is about the height of the roof of the mobile home there.

I have no idea what that big metal box was, but it's gone to the recycler now. Many, many tons of steel have gone to the recycler in the last few weeks. It's very nice to know someone with a giant machine who can deal with the stuff rather than trying to load it by hand! It's sort of like a giant version of one of those games where you put a quarter in and try and grab out a stuffed toy. Must manage to convince the owner to let me play with it one of these days!

New article

New article up at the Examiner, on the super hardy (and super nice) rose Theresa Bugnet:
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/roses-for-spokane-gardens-theresa-bugnet

New article!

New article up at the Examiner, on plants for an evening garden!

http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/the-evening-garden

New article

New article up at the Examiner, on attracting beneficial  predatory insects to the garden:
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/beneficial-predatory-insects-the-garden

Messages from my plants

Looking around at the plants today, I discovered that the young bristlecone pine is sending me messages. Here, it seems to be wishing for peace.

But another look shows it sending a somewhat ruder sentiment.

New article

New article up at the Examiner, on planting tomatoes!
http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-spokane/planting-tomatoes

Birdz!

Yesterday, I was very surprised to look out and see this!
A mountain bluebird! There were a pair (this is the female), flitting around where a bunch of sunflowers grew last year. They're omnivores, so they were probably finding fallen seed. Hopefully they will stick around and nom on some bugs, too.

I haven't seen bluebirds in over 15 years. Around then, there was a push to put up next boxes for them. People would put them on their fenceposts, because apparently they like that height, and they like a long low approach.

Problem was, the fenceposts people were using were by the road, and they kept facing them to the road, so the birds were approaching the boxes over the asphalt at about 4' in altitude.

Wanna know how many dead bluebirds I saw on the road in that era? Lots.

I'm very happy to see these two. I hope they are the start of a trend.