Category Archives: gardening

trying not to kill the beautiful things

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Growing Garlic (Part One)

This will be a tale told in multiple parts — partly because it’s lengthy, and I want to be sure not to leave anything out, but also because it’s a tale that is not yet complete.

The short-short version: my house gave me garlic!

The longer version: I had spent all spring since our early-April move in amazement at all the plants and flowers that were coming up in my flower beds. Multiple varieties of hyacinth, daffodils and narcissus, a tree peony and herbaceous peonies, several rosebushes, chives, allium, daylilies… I could keep going. So, when these interesting little curly-cues started emerging from my flower beds in late June, I was curious but unsurprised to see something else I didn’t recognize.

Garlic Topset

Sarah, one of my Instagram followers, commented, “I might be crazy, but I bet if you pull one of those up you’ll find a garlic bulb at the other end. ;)”

So, I did a little research, and sure enough, it looked like I was growing hardneck garlic!
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Pruning the Honeysuckle

Alas, the title of this post isn’t some esoteric euphemism: I really did just prune my honeysuckle bush today.

Back in May, this particular bush featured tiny, delicate flowers. As with many of the bushes and plants that my landscaper couldn’t identify early in the spring, I went to the Twitternets and asked my followers:

Dear #lazyweb: What is this #white #flowering #tree called? My landscaper couldn’t tell me.

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Swift came the reply:

And @martinivixen wins the #lazyweb prize! My plant appears to be Amur #Honeysuckle, per Google Image Search. Thanks!

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It wasn’t until July that it started to get out of hand: huge, top-heavy, and increasingly unattractive. Today, during Connor’s nap, I took a leaf bag and my bypass pruners — and my cameraphone, of course — and went to town.
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The Charlie Brown Rosebush

Blooming Rose

The rosebush right in front of my living room window bloomed this great peachish-coral color back in early June. The flowers were gorgeous, if a bit bespeckled with purple weirdness… and many of the leaves looked sickly and spotted.

Blackspot, I Presume?

A week later, the rose bloomed again, this time in yellow. The canes were so thin and spindly that the blooms were drooping pitifully, so I deadheaded most of them and brought the most beautiful inside (on a very short stem).

Yellow Rose in the Kitchen

It was then that I decided I needed to do something about this rosebush. The other bushes on my property seemed to be surviving the neglect of the past few years — their former caretaker having passed away — but this one caught my attention as needing some TLC.

I did some online research about rose pruning during the growing season, and found Paul Zimmerman’s YouTube channel. From his videos, I learned what tools I would need, and I purchased them on Amazon.

The day they arrived, I set to work.
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