Photo credit: Margaret Roach

Margaret Roach is the author of A Way to Garden, one of the most popular - and informative - garden blogs out there.

And one of the loveliest.

Margaret has published a photo gallery of 2010 in her upstate New York garden. It was a year of extremes, she writes: too much snow followed by a too early spring, a too dry summer and a too wet fall.

Margaret gave up a high-pressured life in New York, where she worked for Martha Stewart's enterprises, and retreated to her garden. She has written about that journey in a just-published: "And I Shall Have Some Peace There."

Take a tour of Margaret's garden as it displayed itself during 2010. It is worth your time.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

My friend and garden blogger Teresa O'Connor, author of Seasonal Wisdom, says the average artificial Christmas tree ends up in a landfill within three years.

Demonstrating again that I am not average -- maybe not even normal -- I have had my artificial tree for about 10 years.

In any case, Teresa makes the case for the live tree and talks about what to do with it after the season is over.

More than 13 million evergreens were cut for sale this year, Teresa says. It is a shame to just trash them all.

Among her earth-friendly suggestions are a bath scented with pine-needle infused oil.

For sure that won't work with an artificial tree.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I've wanted a water feature for my garden for ages. But I didn't want to pay $150 for one, and I didn't want to have to run a power cord across the lawn.

Fellow blogger Gayla Trail at You Grow Girl offered this elegantly modest water feature, designed by a friend using spare clay pot saucers.

The difficulty would be, of course, that it is standing water and it might invite mosquitoes of not changed regularly.

But it sure is cute!

Photo credit: Gayla Trail

Posted by Susan Reimer at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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It is fall and, if you are like me, you are unhappy with your garden.

You have been working at it all summer and if you are not simply bored by it, you are frustrated that it didn't turn out as you has hoped.

And you forgot to plan for fall color. Again.

I am in the midst of a garden makeover - not the whole garden, just a corner - and my mind is a jumble of ideas and plants.

To the rescue? The Garden Designers Roundtable.

Continue reading "Time for a garden makeover?" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Elizabeth Malby

Echinaceas, otherwise known as coneflowers, are far and away my favorites in the garden.

They are tough, even in drought. Their stems are sturdy. They are rarely vulnerable to disease or insects and the birds love their seed heads.

They used to come in just one color - purple, which would fade to a pale lavender as the flower aged.

Now they come in everything from red ("Tomato Soup") to white ("Fragrant Angel) with stops at yellow ("Mac n Cheese") and green ("Coconut Lime") in between.

And I bought them all.

Continue reading "Echinaceas! "God bless you!"" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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The gardening gals over at Garden Rant have arranged for a series of guest rants while they are about other business, and it is worth stopping by to hear the ranting opinions of others.

Today, Stacy Moore writes about xeriscaping and the misconceptions gardeners have about gardening without much water. That is doesn't mean a big Yucca plant and a lot of gravel. Considering the current Mid-Atlantic hot spell, it is a timely read!.

In another guest rant, Tom Alexander makes the point that cultivating marijuana is gardening no matter what the powers-that-be think of the crop.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The ladies over at Garden Rant are red in the face over a campaign by Scotts MiracleGro to eradicate clover and dandelions from our lawns with their search and destroy chemical approach.

Take a read.

When I was a kid, my dad had so much clover in his yard that one of our neighbors - who fussed over his lawn until it was perfection -- made a "bee hive" out of a cardboard box and stuck it in the middle of our yard to tease my dad.

That was 50 years ago. Scotts might be a bit behind the times.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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Among our hosts is Elizabeth Licata, who contributes to the blog Garden Rant, and who admits to being somewhat nervous about our visit to her garden.

Boy, do I get it.

One of her fellow bloggers on Garden Rant is Susan Harris of Tacoma Park -- almost a neighbor. She called one day and said she'd be in my neighborhood of Annapolis and could she stop and see my garden?

I about fainted.

Continue reading "Buffa10: Garden bloggers confab" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Photo credit: Margaret Roach

Margaret Roach used to work for Martha Stewart. Now she works for all of us.

The wise and witty writer behind the blog A Way to Garden has always been there for us with lists of chores and tomato-growing tips and just about anything else you need to know about gardening.

Today she is opening up her own garden for us with an on-line slide show. Take a minute, click on the photo above of her garden and take the tour. It is quite wonderful.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Another way is to get the advice of someone you trust. I have asked my friend and gardening guru Durant to visit for a garden "intervention," and I am hoping she will have some advice for me.

If you don't have a Durant in your life, check out Susan Harris' on her blog for Homestead Gardens. She is writing in her role as "garden coach," and making plant suggestions for May.

And in this post, she is writing about five shrubs that will give fullness to your garden.

Continue reading "A garden coach" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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The final tallies are in and, sadly, Garden Variety was not among the winners in this year's Mouse & Trowel Awards for garden blogs.

But you are!

With 548 nominees and more than 5,000 individual votes cast, this is certainly affirmation that blogging is here to stay as a way to get solid garden information out there, as well as a way for gardeners to share the beauty and passion of gardening.

And for you, the garden blog reader, there is more good news. Visit the Mouse & Trowel Awards website, see the list of winners and runners up and get on board!

Continue reading "Mouse & Trowel Awards" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Today is the final day for voting in the Mouse & Trowel Awards, given to the best garden blogs, and Garden Variety wants your vote!

We survived the first round of voting to make it as a finalist in "best blog by a company."

Follow this link and put us over the top!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Just one day left to vote for your fav gardening blog for the Mouse & Trowel Awards.

The usually humble and reticient Garden Variety would like your vote for, perhaps, best new blog (we launched in Marcy, 2009), best blogger to follow on Twitter (I only think in 140 characters), and I have some thoughts on my best post of the year, as long as you are asking.

All you have to do is click on the button on the side of this page that looks just like this, and cast your ballot.

Get out the vote! Get out and vote! It's American!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Fellow Maryland garden blogger 2 Green Acres, a native plant enthusiast from northern Baltimore County, took a walk along the C&O Trail near Sharpsburg, MD and was amazed at all the wildflowers she saw.

She took pictures and shares them with us here.

A lovely vision of spring...

Photo credit: Flickr/TrailVoice

Posted by Susan Reimer at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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It is the 15th of the month and that means it is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day on the Internet.

Some of the best gardeners -- and some of the best photographers -- are posting pictures of what is ablaze in their gardens on this day

The perfect antidote to tax day, is it not?

Here are some blogs to visit.

Jean McWeeney at Dig, Grow, Compost, Blog

Continue reading "Garden Bloggers Bloom Day" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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 Photos of her cottage and dog, Webster, courtesy of Rosemary Beck

That's the first thing I asked Rosemary Beck, of course.

Are you content in your cottage?

Rosemary Beck is a New Jersey antique dealer, real estate agent, photographer and the blogger behind Content in a Cottage.

It is one of my favorite blogs because of the wonderful eclectic eye of its author.

On any given day -- actually three or four times during any given day -- Rosemary will put up photos she finds of wonderful sunrises, antique greeting cards, terrific kitchen designs, flowers in vases. Just about anything that strikes her fancy.

"I just post what interests me and I just happen to be interested in a lot of things," she said. "Things catch my eye and I save them."

She has a flat file in her studio with lots of prints. And she surfs the Web thoroughly. "I cover a lot of ground." Her favorite spot for pictures is Pixdaus, a photo-sharing Web site. And she takes many of her own photos.

About the cottage.

It is in Morris County, New Jersey, and she shares it with her 89-year-old mother. "This is my favorite house that I have ever lived in," she said.

Continue reading "Content in a Cottage" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Those Bradford pears, which are blooming like ghosts in the woods right now, are an invasive specie and they "don't play nice" with others.

Birds spread the seeds from this tree, formally known as pyrus calleryana and native to China, and they take over fast.

But their limbs are weak and their lives are short, making them a very poor choice for homeowners, despite their pretty white blooms.

Continue reading "Bradford pear trees" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

It is awards season in the land of garden blogs and Garden Variety is asking you to show her some lo-o-o-ve!

Colleen Vanderlinden, organic gardening columnist for About.com and founder of the Mouse & Trowel Awards for garden blogging, has added new  categories this year -- all the better to spread the glory like, well, mulch.

And they include categories into which Garden Variety fits nicely: Best new garden blog (we launched in March, 2009) and best blogger to follow on Twitter (I only think in 140 characters.)

I have some thoughts on my best post of the year, as long as you are asking.

Voting continues until April 30, when a new round of voting on finalists begins.

So, get out there and vote. If not for me, for the garden bloggers you love. It is your civic duty.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Our own Robin Ripley, who blogs about gardening at Bumblebee Blog, is the guest ranter on the popular blog Garden Rant and, wow, is she in a huff!

Robin, who lives and gardens and raises chickens on a 21-acre homestead somewhere in Calvert County, Maryland, is furious with half-hearted vegetable gardeners who give serious vegetable gardeners a bad name.

Continue reading "That's why they call it a rant!" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

On the 15th day of every month, garden bloggers celebrate by posting pictures of what is blooming in their gardens or in their neighborhoods. It is an Internet event begun by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Things are pretty rough in my garden right now. Between the melting snow and the pelting rain here in the Mid-Atlantic, there is standing water everywhere. The only thing that might be bloooming in my garden is algae.

But my fellow bloggers have come through. Take a tour of the photographic wonder they have captured of early spring.

Continue reading "Garden Bloggers Bloom Day" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Dear Garden Variety Readers,

I am not dead, ill or being rude.

If you find that your comments are not posted in a timely fashion this weekend, do not be discouraged.

My laptop has been removed from my steely grip to be repaired, and I might be a week without it.

And I thought cell phone withdrawal would be tough! 

For a blogger, who might be inspired to write a post early in the morning, late at night or in between, a laptop computer is essential.

But, in gardening terms, laptops are not particularlyl hardy in any zone, and mine needs the attention of an expert.

So does my garden, but that's another story.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Do you want to know more about me but were afraid to ask?

Brad, from Container Gardening for You, did an interview with me, and this is the result.

He's also done interviews with Kerry Michaels, who writes about container gardening, Mel Bartholomew, who came up with square-foot-gardening, and Allan Becker, a perennial garden designer and blogger.

And those interviews are waaaayyyy better than mine!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Susan Harris, who blogs for Homestead Gardens, the lawn and garden center in Davidsonville, takes us on a tour of gardens, and garden blogs, from around the world. And she includes a link to help you find garden blogs right here in the old US of A.

Freda Cameron, a garden and travel writer, takes us on a tour of her garden, with its wonderful fences and gates on her blog, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. Check out her previous posts to see the gardens she has toured during her travels.

Continue reading "Garden daydreams in the snow..." »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Photo credit: River Hill Garden Center

My neighbor, Ruth, has several gorgeous crepe myrtles in her yard and last year she had them pruned to within an inch of their lives.

I was nervous and so was she.

She told me the arborist explained that crepe myrtles are more like perennials than they are like trees and that they rebound beautiful from a harsh pruning.

And they did!

Continue reading "Crepe murder" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Fern, who writes the garden blog, Life on the Balcony, for apartment and condo-living gardeners, wants us to vote:

Are you going to plant vegetables or flowers this year, or some combination of both?

So far in the poll, vegetables appear to be winning.

Unfortunately, there was no category for me: 100 percent flowers, except for those two tomato plants.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Garden blogging is as much about garden photography as it is about gardening, and the best blogs out there have a very good photographer behind them.

Laura Livengood Schaub is one of those with a gifted eye. An art historian and a landscape designer, she left a high-tech marketing career to pursue her lifelong passion for plants and gardening, something so many of us wish we had the courage to do. She has the added advantage of living and working in the San Francisco Bay area in California.

On her blog, Interleafings, she gives us a picture story of the development of a garden in a corner of her yard after deciding to do without a lawn. The pictures tell the story of the growth of this garden, complete with the final view from her front door.

It is a spectacular garden. And I have to say that nothing gives more hope to us hopeless gardeners that the kind of before-and-after pictures Laura is sharing.

Margaret Roach, who blogs under the heading A Way to Garden, is another gifted photographer.

Continue reading "Watching a garden grow" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

My friend Teresa O'Connor - and I mean that in more than a Facebook kind of way -- writes the lovely blog, Seasonal Wisdom, and she shares folklore about New Year's Day, including the fact that it wasn't always January 1.

As an added bonus, Teresa, who gardens in the foothills of Boise, Idaho, has some vintage New Year's cards displayed on her post.

Continue reading "Seasonal Wisdom" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Garden Variety would like to deliver a hearty, and heart-felt, "Welcome back!" to Julia Green, the writer behind A Maryland Country Garden.

Julia's is a beautiful photographic blog dedicated to the gardens and the wildlike around her seven-acre home in Northern Montgomery County, and it was one of the first I discovered when I started hunting for gardening blogs.

I had missed Julia, and thought perhaps she had tired of the whole blogging thing. But she says in a recent post - her first in more than a year - that she has been ill, having undergone surgery for cancer last spring.

She talks briefly in the post about the bad timing of her illness, coming as it did just as spring arrived and, with it, all those garden chores. By the time she recovered in late summer, the garden, she said, had gone to "wrack and ruin."

Julia says she has a clean slate - health-wise. And is giving herself a clean slate in the garden, too, where she will try to start over this spring.

Any gardener who has jumped over the fence into the second half of life is certain to have wondered what would happen to her gardens should she, or he, become too ill to care for them, especially since most of us can barely get all the work done now.

 For that reason, it is easy to understand how difficult it must have been for this gardener to watch her gardens go crazy while she healed.

I am pleased for Julia that she, and her pretty blog, are back with us.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

A pair of my fellow garden bloggers have excellent holiday ideas that I'd like to share....

Helen Yoest at Gardening with Confidence says the best thing to put in a birdbath at this time of year is water for the birds who are wintering over and may find their other drinking spots frozen.

But if you have nine of them, as she does, (yes nine!), you can give one over to the holiday and decorate it. She offers step-by-step photos to help you do it, too. 

And Laura Mathews, who writes the Punk Rock Gardens blog out of Central Pennsylvania, is writing about CSAs, Community Supported Agriculture, and suggests giving a membership as a Christmas gift. CSAs provide a box of locally grown, fresh produce every week or so.

Each box contains a suprise, Laura writes. And it is truly the gift that keeps on giving!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Matt Lehman, the Kansas college student who is growing vegetables in his dorm room, has posted an update on his blog, Dorm Room Garden.

I wrote about Matt in my garden column in The Sun, describing how he had been inspired by a book on square-foot gardening.

When he returned to college in the fall, he brought with him a garden in a 3-foot-by-1-foot wooden box and planted it with cukes, beans and tomatoes.

So far, he's had cherry tomatoes to eat -- and three beans. But he pretty much drowned his cucumber plant.

Check out Matt's update.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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For today's Tool Time post, Garden Variety is going back in time.

Way back in time.

Through the courtesy of Barbara Wells Sarudy's blog, Early American Gardens: A museum in a blog , we learn about John Evelyn, a wealthy English aristocrat and his 40 years long project to catalog the horticultural information which was changing so fast in front of him.

Much of what he wrote was, of course, about garden tools, and he included a long list of what he thought were the essentials. Read his list on this blog post by Sarudy.

She was the executive director of the Maryland Humanities Council for nearly 10 years, retiring in 2001. She wrote extensively about early Chesapeake gardens and her work was published as a book, "Gardens and Gardening in the Chesapeake, 1700-1805."

Sarudy told me in an e-mail that she finds her investigation of the history of gardens "endlessly fascinating."

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Susan Harris, Takoma Park garden writer and one of the four faces behind the successful Garden Rant blog, has officially begun blogging for Homestead Gardens, the nationally known lawn and garden center in Davidsonville.

Harris, who also writes the Sustainable and Urban Gardening blog, says she will "be covering national gardening news, features about interesting people like the stars of HGTV and PBS gardening shows, author interviews, book reviews, fun websites and blogs, great public gardens in the region and across the U.S., videos, and whatever strikes my fancy."

Also writing for the Homestead blog, which went on line Wednesday, is Gene Sumi, Homestead's "answer man" for any and all garden questions, and Rita Calvert, founder of Buy Fresh, Buy Local Chesapeake.

Check out Susan's first post and get more information about her partners in this enterprise.  But come back to Garden Variety when you are done!

Posted by Susan Reimer at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Susan Harris, one of the four women behind the highly successful Garden Rant  gardening blog, will be blogging for Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville soon. Susan, who lives in suburban DC, also writes the Sustainable Gardening blog.

Susan told me she will be blogging about national garden trends and issues, and will share the blog space with Gene Sumi, Homestead's very popular garden education coordinator, and the  Rita Calvert of Buy Fresh, Buy Local, which examines Cheapeake Bay food issues.

Word is the blog will start up in the next few days.

Keep an eye out on Homestead's Web site.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Looking for organic food sources in your area?

Check out the Local Harvest Web site.

Plug in your zipcode, and a list and a map will pop up, showing you where small farms, restaurants or farmers' markets are located. It will also help you find CSAs, co-ops and on-line stores.

I punched in my zip and got 54 listings. There are reviews of some of the listings as well. It appears to be pretty accurate for my neighborhood.

This is how the Web site describes its origins:

'LocalHarvest was founded in 1998, and is now the number one informational resource for the Buy Local movement and the top place on the Internet where people find information on direct marketing family farms. We now have about 17000 members, and are growing by about 20 new members every day. Through our servers, our website and those of our partners serve about three and a half million page views per month to the public interested in buying food from family farms.

LocalHarvest is located in Santa Cruz, California, and was founded by Guillermo Payet, a software engineer and activist dedicated to generating positive social change through the Internet."

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

The green movement goes to the dogs!

Thanks to Kerry Michaels of Maine, aka containergarden, for posting this fun picture on Twitpics. Notice to topiary puppy!

Kerry writes about container gardening at About.com.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Check out this article at Dave's Garden, one of the best Internet sites out there for gardening info.

Sally G. Miller writes about installing an old mailbox in her garden. It not only looks cool, it holds stuff you might need while gardening, including:

• Pruners
• A trowel
• Gloves
• Pencils, markers, paper to make notes
• String or garden wire, measuring tape
• Plant labels, a produce bag for harvesting and a paper bag for seed heads.
• And maybe a bandana or a hat     

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Susan's garden/Photo by Susan Reimer

Just when my tomatoes are about to ripen, I am leaving on vacation. Happens every time. I swear, I could vacation in May, and my tomatoes would come and go while I was gone.

I will be away for two weeks, beginning July 12, and I am looking for someone to harvest my tomatoes and water the plants on my deck while I am gone.

I am also looking for guest bloggers here on Garden Variety.

Sometime in the next week, write to me at susan.reimer@baltsun.com and tell me about your garden. If you can, e-mail me a picture, too. I will put them together and schedule them to appear on Garden Variety while I am gone.

It will be like Christmas. You will have to check every morning to see if your post is up!

Write and tell me what you like about gardening, what you hate. Your successes and your failures. The tricks and shortcuts you have learned over the years. About the garden your grandmother had or the one you left behind when you moved.

If you have been reading Garden Variety, you know this isn't brain surgery. So relax, and jump into this blogging adventure.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Our companion out here in the blogosphere, entomologist Michael Raupp of the University of Maryland, features the odorous house ant Monday on his blog, Bug of the Week. 

If any of you have seen this little ant make its way into your kitchen this spring, you will want to read his description of its habits and see the video and photos Mike has included, and take his advice on how to get rid of the ants.

And the ant's name? It comes from the bad smell the results from crushing it on the counter. Mike describes it as "fermented coconuts," but I have to say I haven't ever smelled fermented coconuts, so I can't attest to the accuracy of his desciption.

Here's a photo of the ants and their last summer, a sweet but poisonous bait.

Photo credit: M.J. Raupp.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Today's lesson on Bug of the Week, the blog devoted to insects and written by the University of Maryland's Michael Raupp?

Millipedes don't have 1,000 legs, and centipedes don't have 100.

But they are great recyclers.

For more, including video (ewwwww), go to Bug of the Week.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

This week's topic on our friend Michael Raupp's blog, Bug of the Week, is the Eastern tent caterpillar.

The University of Maryland entomologist says the blooming of the cherry, apple and crab apple trees means it is time for gardeners to inspect the limbs for the signs of the black egg pouches that will launch as many as 300 hungry larvae each.

The caterpillars build their tents to protect them from the elements and predators and then proceed to completely strip trees of young and tender foliage.

The caterpillars can be removed with a gloved hand on a cool day, placed in a bag and destroyed, Raupp writes. The old method of burning them out, he says, is not only a bit dramatic, but the flames can harm the bark of the tree.

For more on tent caterpillars, as well as more pictures and video, visit his Web site.

Photo courtesy of Michael J. Raupp.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Professor Mike Raupp of the University of Maryland is talking about bees again this week in his Bug of the Week blog.

"In a few weeks many native bees will awaken from their winter respite and begin the vital work of pollinating a multitude of flowering plants," writes Prof. Raupp.

 "Before we learn more about our native bees, Bug of the Week makes one last stop in Belize to visit some close relatives of our domestic honey bee. While visiting a rest camp near the Mayan ruins at Xunatunich, we discovered several colonies of stingless bees occupying cinder block walls of buildings."

To read about the dramatic "attack of the stingless bees" when Prof. Raupp gets too close, check out today's blog post.

He has great pictures, too.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

Better Homes & Gardens blogger Alicia has a fun post about the use of misprinted cans to create art.

It seems that VivaTerra is grabbing up misprinted soda, juice and soup cans that were headed for the landfill and making word art out of the colorful and patterned metal bits: words such as “garden,” “grow,” and “dream” to be hung on walls.

I am wondering what this word art might look like on a garden fence or the side of a shed? Or on the wall of a screened-in porch?

 Check out her post  on "From Trash to Art" for some more ideas about doing "recycled crafts" with your kids.

Photo courtesty of Viva Terra

Posted by Susan Reimer at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden blogs
        

University of Maryland entomology professor Michael Raupp noticed during the cicada mania of 2004 a remarkable desire on the part of regular people to know more about bugs.

With that in mind, he began "Bug of the Week," his Monday morning blog about, well, bugs.

"It is really kind of a blue collar approach," he said. "I simply get up in the morning, walk out of my front door and find a bug. If there is a silverfish in the bathtub, I photograph it and write about that.

"But what I am most likely to do is go into the garden or to a trail or a park. The focus is not on big showy, exotic bugs. Just the average-guy bugs."

Raupp follows the seasonal arch of bug-dom. He is writing about bees this week and last because they will begin to be active soon. Then he will probably begin talking about the Eastern tent caterpillar because you will begin to notice their nests as soon as the forsythia blooms.

He started with about 50 or 100 hits a week. Now he is up to 20,000 hits a month in the summer. It has become a part of many home-school science programs. He has a substantial archive of past bugs, too.

Raupp isn't into killing these bugs, as you might imagine. "Absolutely not."

But for the the particularly egregious ones, such as the yellow jacket, "I will tell you the environmentally responsible way to off those things."

Photo of boxwood aphid courtesy of Michael Raupp.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Garden blogs