Gardeningtips News: 1/3/10

Friday, January 8, 2010

The Budding Gardener

Posted: 08 Jan 2010 01:23 PM PST

The first thing I did this past Monday when I got into work is hang my 2010 calendar at my desk. The neat thing about this Botanical Paperworks creation is that as I rip each month off to reveal a new calendar page and whimsical illustration, I can save the old one to plant in my garden. Pages are made of cotton or 100% post-consumer waste and are riddled with North American wildflower seeds. Planting instructions are available on the site. Stay tuned to see what sprouts!

The photo below is the tin version, but I wanted to show what the pages inside looked like. botanical-paperworks-calendar2

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The Budding Gardener

Paint your garden black

Posted: 06 Jan 2010 10:48 AM PST

Ok, don’t paint all of it black. But add some contrast this spring with something really interesting, a conversation piece. Plant something black. I came back from my holiday vacation to find Black Plants by Paul Bonnie on my desk. It was an interesting contrast to the white swirl of snowflakes that I could see out the office window. The featured plants are gorgeous and unexpected–a nice change from the usual botanical suspects gracing the nursery. Now they’re not all pitch-black per se, but some plants have black leaves or stripes on their petals or are deep shades of purple or burgundy. I’ve included a couple of examples below!