I’m on the verge of a Caddy Shack moment and if improvised explosive devices existed for vole management, I’d blow up my whole yard right now. For the first time in several days, the sun’s out and I thought I’d walk the garden in search of the first signs of Spring. What I discovered had…
The new plant wish list is getting longer in my garden notebook. I also keep an updated one in the notes section of my phone just in case I happen to pass a garden center this spring. Who am I kidding? I write of it as though it’s a possibility when the reality is I…
My plan was to kick off 2020 with a post about all the new plants coming out this year. Then just like that, life changed and in an instant it became more important to devote a post to my dog, Stella. She spent 12 years shadowing me, content to sit beside me as I toiled…
What do you get when you cross a 1974 GMC van with an artist and one of the biggest names in the Chicago gardening scene? A plant truck, of course. While attending a garden media event in August, I ran into my friend Tony Abruscato, aka Mr. Green Chicago. He owns the Chicago Flower and…
The title sounds rough and you may be wondering why the heck I go to the trouble of writing this blog, or gardening at all for that matter, when I look forward to saying goodbye to it. Sometimes sooner than later. The short answer is it’s exhausting. But the longer answer, and the one I…
Voles are cute and yet, I want to kill them. My thoughts weren’t so violent before I discovered just how destructive those little buggers can be. They ain’t so cute anymore. In early October, we had a wicked storm, the kind where the rain falls sideways, trees bend like licorice sticks and wind bellows like…
