Welcome to the MysteryGarden

I am going to do something I have not done for a long time. I am not ordering seeds from any of my favorite catalogues. This is breaking my heart, but, it is preferable to breaking my neck. Which, it appears, is what I’ve been doing to myself. I am not giving up gardening, only [...]

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I guess I watch too much CSI: Anytown. When I first saw the term biochar pop up in my garden-related reading, my first thought was an appalled, “Ew!” Don’t  know exactly what I thought they were charring, but plain old wood scraps wasn’t my first guess. Bio Char is a concept that’s been around for [...]

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I have a love/hate relationship with annuals. Linda Gay, the director of Mercer Arboretum here in Houston calls them nitrogen junkies, because of their dependence on fertilizer — and lots of it — for that signature ‘pop’ of color that they bring to our landscapes. Here in Houston, we see lots of salvias, the periwinkle [...]

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“For the love of Pea, won’t you please grow?” This is me, nervously watching, and occasionally verbally abusing, my spring plantings. I’ve currently got potatoes, fennel, cabbage (left from the fall) broccoli (ditto) and brussel spouts (ditto). I know I’ll never see actual edible stuff off that broccoli and brussel sprout plants, but I can’t [...]

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I have a lovely stand of Mailbox Pink Crinums in my side garden. (So named because the gardening friend who gifted them to me had them planted by her mailbox and she had no earthly idea what variety they really were.) I first planted this set of beds ten years ago and it is certainly grown into a [...]

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I made a sweet deal with my friendly neighborhood coffee shop. I provide a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, and they will dump their used coffee grounds in for me to take home for free!   First load home is destined to go on the roses in the morning. I’ll swab out the bucket [...]

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