It has been such a busy year for The Great Garden Renovation (TGGR) that I’m dividing my end-of season status report into separate posts for the front and back garden areas. In late July there came a glimmer of hope that the long-awaited (since March 2019) replacement of the Driveway and the Courtyard would commence…
Do you have certain plants that you would describe as being a ‘good doer’? In other words, any that surprise you by performing above and beyond what you had any right to expect. It turns out that I inherited one here at the Money Pit’s garden. It’s a white iris that was at the front…
If movies, plays, and television shows can have their annual awards, why not our own gardens? In that vein, I’m inaugurating them here at the Money Pit, starting with this gardening year of 2021. And of course, just like in the awards shows, there is a ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’ plant-obituary column for the year…
It’s amazing how one thing leads to another. Remember my brief mention of an overenthusiastic volunteer conifer, at the start of my Disappointing Surprise post? It’s been here for at least five years and only registered in my consciousness as That Volunteer Conifer. It turns out that the correct description was “volunteer male Juniperus virginiana,…
Gardening holds so many surprises; some pleasant, and some…not so. Some are open to interpretation, such as the discovery of ‘volunteer’ plants that may or may not be welcome (a hint to Toxicodendron radicans: you’re not.) And sometimes the initial evaluation changes over time, such as the cute little 8-inch-tall volunteer conifer I discovered at…
This post is a combination of a Rant and a What Would You Do question. Let me set the stage: In late May, I ordered six Epimedium ‘Flame Thrower’ despite their $18/each price tag, because they will be a perfect fit for my new red-and-yellow color scheme for that bed: The current and/or future residents…
Now that everyone has seen the wages of my slothfulness in the backyard portion of the garden, it’s time to see what the world at large has been subjected to (i.e., the front)! There are fewer planting areas here than in the back, because the house front is set back 65 feet from the curb,…
You may have noticed that I haven’t added many garden posts recently; since May, in fact, and the last ‘overview’ of things here dates from the tail end of last year. I had planned to post a spring update of TGGR (The Great Garden Renovation) but several things conspired to keep me from doing any…
The Chatsworth Lady 