Tag Archives: mulch

Design Sandra Heggen Sustainability in garden design

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This is a subject that is very dear to my heart. I get quite passionate about the subject so do apologise if I offend any readers. I have been a sustainable garden advocate now for at least 20 years – well before most people even considered what sustainable gardens really meant. So I have put a lot of mental energy into working out why I think the way that I do about how we design gardens and how we manage them into the future. I was also the only owner/designer of a garden that was accredited with Ecotourism Australia for its sustainability credentials. Continue reading →

Smashing Making muck

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I recently finished an excellent book entitled, Resurrection in a Bucket: the Rich and Fertile Story of Compost, by Margaret Simons. It’s a light-hearted journey through the biological processes and social history of compost. I highly recommend it! Its arrival on my study desk was timely because I’ve been busy building large compost piles in preparation for reclaiming large areas of driveway for growing plants. By winter’s end I should have half a dozen large piles of compost ready for building up my existing soil. Continue reading →

Living-Amongst-the-Stars-the-Garden-Takes-Center-Stage Northwest Flower & Garden Show 2013

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In just a few days days, we will be setting up for our garden in partnership with the Washington Nursery and Landscape Association at the 2013 Northwest Flower & Garden Show. The show runs from February 20th-24th at the Washington State Convention Center. For garden geeks (we know who we are) and brown thumbs alike, the show is the unofficial kick off to spring; the sights, scents, textures and thousands of blooming trees, shrubs and flowers scream (albeit a bit early), “Spring is almost here!”  And boy, aren’t we ready for it? Continue reading →

ash tree in winter The wisdom of winter

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I do not have a winter garden. No snow covers evergreens or drifts in small waves at my feet. The berries are gone, long devoured and those remaining hang wrinkled and small. My garden lies like the bleached bones of a whale, exposed and naked, stark branches and limbs jutting at odd angles against a pewter sky. But my garden doesn’t care and neither do I. Continue reading →

A liberal use of straw The once and future patch

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`The greatest art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land’ said George Washington. With this lofty ideal in mind I set about transforming around 280 square metres of garden into our own grocery store. Continue reading →

Raingarden by Landscape Charlie (www.landscapecharlie.com) Make a rain garden

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It hasn’t rained here for weeks, but when it does, it’s likely to pour, as we have lots of storm event rain, where long dry spells are followed by a real drenching. According to climate change predictions, this episodic rainfall pattern is likely to become even more pronounced in the future. Continue reading →

Turf-Grass-Removal3 The lasagne method

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If I could somehow go back in time and give my new-gardener self just one piece of advice, it would be this: Use the lasagna method when starting a new garden bed. Of all the tough gardening chores, removing old weed-infested sod (or any sod, really) rates right up at the top of the This-Really-Bites list. Oh, how I wish I had known that I could just smother stuff rather than wrestle it out of the ground—the sheer force propelling me off to the chiropractor to fix my aching back once again. Continue reading →

GardenDrum lovely loam soil with earthworm Rare earth

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Now I’ve being reading about rare earths. In the financial pages they are metals found deep in the earth that are used in our modern technical world to help manufacture smart phones, hybrid cars and even wind turbines and lasers. Continue reading →