Design

Coming back from winter break, I've been amazed with the productivity of our winter vegetable gardening experiment in the unheated teaching greenhouse (the Sprouting Wings Greenhouse). Wow. Kales, lettuces, and spinach a flourishing mesclun mix With no heat, regular poly/hoophouse covering, and plastic water-filled barrels as a heat source, these greens have not only survived, but they've thrived and grown.

I've been thinking quite a bit about 'sustainable gardening' lately.  I promote (what I consider) are sustainable gardening practices in the classes I teach -- minimal inputs of water, fuel, pesticides, herbicides, and inorganic fertilizers, don't let leaves leave your property, don't kill things, promote diversity, plant mostly natives, think naturalistic planting design, minimize areas devoted to lawn, etc.  We've been happy with our 'natural garden' created with this approach in our own home landscape in the Piedmont of South Carolina.  And we're continuing this in our second home in the mountains (where we'll probably 'retire'), where we're populating the slope around our small mountain house with native understory shrubs along with native trees. Vegetable gardening is a bit more problematic;  vegetables, by their domesticated nature, are nutrient and water hogs, so the gardener is ALWAYS grubbing around for more sources of organi...

It's been a great fall color season, and the ginkgos are currently at their peak. Ginkgos are ancient conifers with a delightful habit of turning butter yellow in fall, just before all the leaves (in clusters on short shoots) drop, practically in unison. I remember a great photo/memory image from years ago of our dog romping with my gardening companion in the ginkgo leaves in front of our (first) house in Georgia. Ginkgos at the South Carolina Botanical Garden We've had ginkgos ever since. These two are at the garden where I work.  Fabulous!