I have a news flash for you. None of us is getting any younger. Yet, we march through the years as if we will live forever. It's said the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. My birthday is Tuesday, and for the last few years, on every special date I celebrate, I do it by planting a tree. Remember the Royal Raindrops crabapples I planted last November? Okay, that wasn't a holiday, but still. For Christmas, it was Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane' (actually planted in January). Other plants include a southern magnolia for one anniversary and the maples planted for each of our children. The southern magnolia is thriving, and its lemony scented blossoms serenade me as I work in the garden in early summer. As for the maples, all died but one, and I'm sharing that because some experiments are not so successful. Now, I'm...

The centerpiece of the potager Dear Carol, Mary Ann and all of our gardening friends around the globe, I wish I could write and say I'd planted the fall vegetable garden, but yesterday, ragweed pollen put me down for the count. I didn't get anything pulled up or planted. However, here is what I plan to have in this week. Lettuce, spinach, tatsoi, bok choy, onions, garlic, blue kale and swiss chard, among others. I'll set out my seeds and put together the configuration. In the meantime, I must pull up several plants which are finished. Most of the garden performed exceptionally well this year. Here is a picture of it in spring, and you can see the difference in growth between it and the plants on the left. The sweet potato vines, which were a gift from my friend, Katie, have grown to take over the path, but I...

Cindy, From My Corner of Katy sponsors Three for Thursday every week, and the nice thing about this meme is that you can choose whatever three things you want. This week, I'm all about the insects living in my garden, and this time of year, there are a lot of creepy crawlers out there. Here's one locavore who makes it her business to eat locally, and she's not even an insect. She's an amazing arachnid instead. This large and impressive spider wove her huge web over the entire first tier of the raised border next to the deck. Can you see how large she is in this picture? That's my rain gutter, and she's nearly the size of it. When I saw her, I about jumped out of my chair because my other garden spiders are more elongated and not so uhm, voluptuous. So, I consulted the Internet and my...