Sustainable Gardening News

In the News

Consumer Reports did some polling about turf and found that 64% said their neighbor has a better lawn than they do; 23% said they spend at least 5 hours a week doing yard work, 79% said they never use hearing protection while mowing, and 12% said they throw back a few brews while pushing the mower. Wow, it's dangerous out there — surveys also show that almost no one reads product directions.

Speaking of gardeners who might be knocking back some brews (all national stereotyping aside, of course) how about these Aussies? Would you believe — they're Guerrilla Gardeners intent on doing good work. Hmm, I thought law-breaking activists tried to stay under the radar.
More on the increasing popularity of gardening: here in Michigan, in the SF Chronicle, the The Wall Street Journal, the News-Herald.com, and Knoxvillebiz.com.

On my Sustainable Gardening Blog I covered rejuvenation pruning of shrubs like azaleas and weigelas in "It's June, time to prune." And my first Paul James Report reveals his love affair with mycorrhizal fungi and his best lawn care advice.
Here's a great review of the battery-powered Neuton lawnmower by Nancy at Gardening Gone Wild.
Are rain barrels the new hot item? asks Project Green Industry. They say they haven't seen so much buzz since Crocs!
Treehugger.com is pretty excited about a product that might just meet city dwellers' composting needs.
Just a month or so after About.com hired Colleen Vanderlinden to write their organic gardening articles, Robin got herself hired by the Examiner papers as National Gardening Examiner. Woo-hoo! And well deserved. I met and bonded with my fellow Marylander at the Austin meet-up; now if I can only snag an invitation to come see her garden.
Anne Raver wrote a terrific profile of journalist Margaret Roach, her garden, and her blog A Way to Garden . This quote captures the feelings of so many bloggers: "'Do I want to hand stories to some magazine and have them rewrite them?' she said. 'Forget about it; I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it. Did I say I’m not doing it? You know what? I can’t. I’m sorry. It’s just not a stage in my life I can go to.' Amen, sister."

Organic Gardening has its own section now with my own articles, plus links and recommended books.
And Ground covers also have their own section, and 12 of the little buggers have their own page. There are a couple more coming up soon (the icky English ivy, for one) but I frankly needed a break.

On GardenRant I proclaimed the Joys of Going Lawnless, so I'll just add that the joy is spreading quite nicely — in the form of creeping sedum.

That's the home page of the EcoWomen website heralding (in a photo too large for comfort) their monthly event — ME. I chatted away about urban gardening and using the Internet and all that good stuff and these young women were there, man. I met some community gardeners, a teacher of Master Naturalists for the Audobon Society, a hort teacher, several composter wannabes, and volunteers for the DC Urban Gardeners. Great networking!
Happy to be a go-to person for anything remotely garden-related, I agreed to speak at the opening of "A Man Named Pearl", the documentary about a topiary artist in rural South Carolina. Here's my report.