Garden Design: Quantity vs. Quality

...st pots. I’ve noticed, from the years I used to be in the art world, that he most talented creative folks I’ve met crank out lots of material. So how do we apply the quantity over quality principle to laying out a garden–especially since you often get only one chance a year to get it right? Above you see some of Kelly’s ideas for the parkway garden we planted in the fall. I think it is at this first point in the process...

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How To Design a Garden Step II: Using Google Earth to Draw Up a Plan

So you’ve set the goals for your garden, as we outlined in a post earlier this week, and you’re ready to start putting pen to paper. Google Earth makes it easy to quickly create a plan to scale. Zoom in on the space you want to garden and print out an image. Next, take separate sheets of tracing paper and use them to map out: your goals existing conditions such as trees and buildings future plantings where water flows when it rain...

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On why our vegetable garden is such a disaster this year . . .

llet and get some new soil. Something is out of balance. Mammals–I’ve never had so many midnight skunk raids. Someone tell me if skunks are edible. Looking better than last year, but the backyard still needs some design help. Oh, the humanity Fatigue and frustration–the double knockout punch of skunks and the hot weather left me on the ropes with little enthusiasm for ongoing gardening maintenance. Ego–forgetting that ur...

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City of Memphis Cites Front Yard Vegetable Garden

From Mr. Brown Thumb via Kitchen Gardeners: “This week Adam Guerrero, a math teacher at Raleigh-Egypt High School in Memphis, TN., along with three students became lawbreakers after they continued to tend to a garden after it was deemed a neighborhood nuisance. Guerrero was cited for violating city ordinances 48-38 and 48-97. His crime, as reported by the Memphis Flyer, consists of failure to maintain “a clean and sanitary condition...

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Mud for the People! Building an Adobe Garden Wall

...n his website, www.kurtgardella.com. We’ll post announcements for future classes, because I haven’t had so much fun in a long time! This past weekend’s workshop focused on making bricks and building an adobe garden wall. If you want to learn about adobe, Kurt and Ben are the folks to go to. And, lest we forget, adobe is the traditional building material of the Southwest United States and many other parts of the world. Adobe need...

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Saturday Linkages: Spoiled Kids, Leaf Blowers, and Yet More Signs of the Artisinal Apocalypse

...de: How South L.A. Bus Riders Weather the Elements http:// la.streetsblog.org/2012/07/12/des perately-seeking-shade-how-south-l-a-bus-riders-weather-the-elements/#.UATeyLR4nH4.twitter  …   Color Palettes Inspired by Cats from Design Seeds – http://www. moderncat.net/2012/07/15/col or-palettes-inspired-by-cats-from-design-seeds/  … For these links and more, follow Root Simple on Twitter:  Follow @rootsimple...

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Events in Los Angeles This Weekend: SIP Workshop and Maria’s Garden

am at 421 North Coronado Street. “This is a great opportunity to help a Senior Citizen in need and spend the day puttering around in the garden! We need people of all skill levels from beginners to experts. Landscape Designer Maggie Lobl has kindly worked out a design approach and will help co-ordinate activities.” For more info see Anne’s website....

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Garden Like a Pirate

...General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, we at Homegrown Revolution would like to introduce the concept of Pirate Gardening. Pirate Gardening involves claiming unused land that does not belong to you for growing food crops. The first bit of land we hijacked was our own parkway, that bit of dirt between the sidewalk and the street that t...

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Yet More Tasteless Garden Statuary

 Photo by Anne Magnér Photos of shocking garden statuary continue to pour into the Homegrown Evolution in-box. Anne Magnér sent these amazing photos all the way from Denmark. The crass garden gnome, apparently, cuts across all European cultures from north to south.  Photo by Anne Magnér Photo by Anne Magnér I wonder what’s up with the confident and smiling Danish woman statues to the right of the kids. Wouldn’t mind one of thes...

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Book Review: The New Sunset Western Garden Book

The Sunset Western Garden Book was one of the first gardening books we picked up when we bought our house back in 1998. A new version is out this month, now dubbed The New Sunset Western Garden Book, and it’s a significant improvement over our old copy. Lavish photos have replaced the drawings of my 1998 copy. The new edition has significantly more coverage of edibles, including a vegetable planting schedule as well as nice photographs of...

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