Category Archives: Garden Design

Designing A Dream Garden

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Dream assignment time! I’ve recently been asked to design an herb garden to surround a small craft cafe, a place where visitors can drink herbal teas, taste herb salts, herb butters, and herbed breads. The menu will change often but will always offer fresh herb omelets as well as daily soups and salads. In the crafting classes, people can make lavender wands and herbal sachets, bath salts, hand lotions, shampoos and body wash. What’s not to love? I’m already angling for a day job when it opens, assuming it ever does; this delicious idea is the dream child of a very busy woman. That’s so healthy! There have been several studies showing that accumulating the materials for crafting can be every bit as satisfying as actually making the whatever. If the cafe part of this dream project turns out to be just a hope for the future, the owner will still have a marvelous garden, filled with beautiful, fragrant and edible plants. Oh, and a beautiful gazebo, of course. Right?
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Posted in Cooking Schools, Edible Flowers, Garden Design, Health & Wellbeing, Native Plants, Pollination Gardens, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Nature Loves Diversity

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No sheep were harmed by this weird but nontoxic dye job Healthy Inclusion It’s been a wild week, with snow and black ice limiting travel and gender diversity and MLK programs expanding thought. I’ve also been following a conversation sparked … Continue reading

Posted in Garden Design, Health & Wellbeing, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Living Perfumes

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To find a fragrant mixture that makes us happy, we have to play around a little. One way to do this is to make small bouquets or tussie-mussies, layering the herbal with the floral, mixing and matching until you develop a clear sense of what floats your boat. Notice how various scents make you feel or what they spark in your memories: Generally speaking, gentle herbal scents encourage stressed bodies to relax. Bracingly aromatic odors invigorate dull moods. Certain perfumes unfailingly entice us to abandon ourselves to enjoyment, while others seem exhilarating or fascinatingly mysterious. Fragrance gardening is per force a deeply personal enterprise because you and your nose are unique. Continue reading

Posted in Garden Design, Gardening With Children, Hardy Herbs, Pollination Gardens, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Plants That Feel Like Home

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Planting must harmonize with neighbor’s cars and backdrop shrubs, of course. Comfort And Joy Whenever we move to a new home, there’s always a period of adjustment as dreamy ideas start to mesh with reality. When I first realized that … Continue reading

Posted in Annual Color, Early Crops, Easy Care Perennials, Garden Design, Hardy Herbs, Planting & Transplanting, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment