Sustainable Gardening News

Hellebores ARE blooming in my garden, though not this one. Photo by Rachel Pasch.

In Your Garden

• What to prune now and how includes links to videos and more. And here's more: Pruning Chores for Early March
• Lawn look like crap? Now's the time to follow the simple, organic lawn care regimen of a blogreader. The year-round maintenance plan of a real-life sustainable gardener.
• And here's the overview of what to do now: "Do something NOW about your garden"

In the News

• Exciting research from Rodale — how no-till agriculture can combat global warming.
• Next, what we gardeners know, that horticulture ALSO combats climate change, according to an article in the U.K.-based publication Horticulture Week. And food gardening is singled out as extra-helpful because it reduces consumption of meat, which is so resource-intensive to produce.
• What else combats climate change? According to this article [pdf], mycorrhizal fungi. With the addition of our favorite fungi, soils and perennial grasses sequester even more carbon.
• And plant geeks, this is for you: an evolutionary tree of all plant life.
• Fine Gardening has launched VegetableGardener.com to help us newbie veg-growers get up to speed.
• The UK has a Plan Bee (to save the bees). Do we?

On the Sustainable Gardening Blog

• Tabard Inn's Green Roof: a Downtown Garden for Roses and Herbs by a guest blogger I met at Rooting DC, a very successful urban gardening forum
• The wisdom of Suzanne Wainwright-Evans in The Bug Lady Speaks
• Hollywood Juniper — Lovely, Sculptural Deer Food is a lament, but a reader comment (from a pro) might keep this thing alive.

On GardenRant

• Seems that Monsanto is at it again — this time keeping plant scientists from even studying their GMO plants.
• Government getting on the sustainable landscaping train? Looks like it. At USDA properties worldwide.
• In Praise of the Bug Man turns us on to a terrific newspaper column with all sorts of resources.
• The World According to Felder Rushing is filled with real-life gardening advice, and amazing photos of his Mississippi garden.
• See the trailer for "Food Fight!"
• The state of Master Gardener Magazine (it needs our support).

On Sustainable Gardening.com

• Green Dumping Must Stop by our newest contributor and my main gardening guru in the world, Ann Lovejoy.
• Ann also brings us How to Keep your Thirsty Lawn Happy.
• Knock Out Roses, the newest sponsor of the website, the blog and this newsletter, get their own page. With full disclosure, of course.
• Like Knock Outs in being easy, disease-resistant and long-blooming, but shorter, are 'Flower Carpet' Roses.

My So-Called Second Career, the Update

• My spring garden-coaching article in Organic Gardening Magazine is now on the shelves. Here's my blurb about it with another photo by Rob Cardillo for the article.
• And, in fact, spring coaching is going strong, and the coaches of N. America have organized themselves in a cool new way — using Wet Paint.
• With my girl-blogger press badge, I attended a whole day of talks about water management (waaay more interesting than it sounds) and another showing the 10-year transformation of a horticulturist's garden, both at Brookside Gardens in MD. Reports with photos are coming soon.
• Even girl-bloggers have to pay to get into the Philadelphia Flower Show and attend the Garden Writers event but that's okay; lots to write about.

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