Life is full of serendipitous moments. You answer a call out on Twitter, and suddenly, you're having coffee with some of the nicest Oklahoma bloggers out there. A year or two later, you ask one of them, a gardener, if she'd mind you taking photos of her. You've become good friends through Facebook, Twitter, email etc., and she says yes. Marie next to her garden. So, lucky me, I got to visit Marie's animal menagerie and veggie garden. Where else would guinea hens, chickens, a gaggle of geese, a beautiful paint horse called Chanta, a blue and gold Macaw named Pacino and a teenaged buffalo named Chunk-Hi, but called Chunk, all live happily together? At the Lazy W Ranch, of course! Marie is supremely good at keeping everyone happy. Marie with Pacino, the Macaw, who is love with her. There are even llamas, a mommy, a daddy, and baby makes three....

A garden arbor and border designed by Star Apple. Photo courtesy of Ten Speed Press. I've been writing a book on edibles so I've been trying not to read anybody else's while I'm working on mine. However, I was walking through Barnes & Noble, where I saw The Beautiful Edible Garden: Design A Stylish Outdoor Space Using Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs, by Leslie Bennett and Stefani Bittner. Some books just touch your soul. This one was a combination of good sound advice on growing vegetables and ornamentals along with gorgeous photos. Leslie and Stefani are co-founders of Star Apple Edible & Fine Gardening where they combine elements of good garden design with edible and ornamental plants. I think any vegetable garden is a beautiful thing, but there is that moment when everything starts to look ratty. By crafting a garden with good bones, you can alleviate this problem at least...

It's a soggy Bloom Day here in Oklahoma. I can't believe I just wrote those words. The last three years have been nothing but drought, but this year is a whole different animal. I hear from my friends in Seattle that they want their cool rainy season back. I promise we'll only use it a little while. From the forecast, I think this will be the last of the rain for several weeks. How about some containers for Bloom Day? Helen Weis from Unique by Design told me to take pictures because I rarely do. I guess I always see my containers in a state of flux, and I am never very pleased with them except at their beginnings and their finale. When Helen visited last week, she also gave me a few pruning tips for containers. Basically, you must prune some things to give other stuff sunlight to grow....

A grasshopper on perennial hibiscus. Grasshoppers . . . . I hate the little beasties. This summer seems a banner year for these dahlia munching menaces. I use organic practices in the garden, and I needed a way to combat grasshoppers without killing bees and butterflies. Maintaining the balance of  things is the garden is so important. Luckily, I have assassin bugs and other natural predators, but I also use Nolo bait to kill young grasshoppers. Nolo bait isn't very effective on adults, but it will stop little, baby grasshoppers in their tracks. This is the brand I buy. I've never received any compensation from them except for disappearing grasshoppers, and that's enough. Here's how it works according to an agricultural information sheet from Colorado State University: "NOLO BAIT may provide suppression of grasshopper and Mormon cricket populations in crop and rangeland. It contains a microsporidial pathogen of grasshoppers. NOLO BAIT...