garden inn

Here are more flowers for you to enjoy! B put these together. I love that when I take pictures of the vases of flowers he creates, we can spread the joy that these flowers bring even further. When I first met Jeff, he was growing flowers everywhere. I was so inspired. Now our whole family shares that love for flowers. Right now I’m appreciating all the colors of summer. The flowers, the harvests, the ripening berries and fruit… It’s one of my favorite things about summertime, how colorful it is!

If you’ve been wondering what to plant in your garden for the bees, I’m here to tell you- they love borage! Jeff tucked borage plants into raised beds throughout the garden this year, and the plants have been quite popular with the honeybees and bumble bees. B said he has also seen the tiny orange butterflies (not sure of the name) that we have here in Western Oregon, visiting the borage flowers. We love watching which plants the honeybees visit the most in the garden. In the spring, they covered the goumi flowers . Throughout the summer, the borage flowers have been well loved by the honeybees. One of our favorite books, 100 Plants To Feed The Bees , says “While bumble bees (especially species with short tongues) visit borage, it is most important as a honey bee plant. Butterflies and other flower visitors typically ignore the flowers.” That’s why we love to plant a diversity of flowering plants, so there are plenty of favorites for all the different pollinators. Another ...

The downtown Durham landscape was transformed in 2021 by Ben Bergmann, using native plants to enhance sustainability, aesthetic appeal, and service benefits while addressing urban challenges. Educating the community is a key goal. Learn more about how Bergmann and his team are bringing Piedmont plants back to Durham's urban center.

Learn about gardening at upcoming community events in and around Durham, NC for September 2024: Ask a Master Gardener events, plant sales, butterfly discovery, fall planting tips, birding, and native ferns presentation.

The more involved I am in growing food, the deeper my appreciation for food. You realize that it’s not as simple as sticking a seed in the ground and coming back awhile later to harvest something. Growing food, like so many things in life, is humbling. You work really hard. Sometimes the harvests are humble, and sometimes the harvests are abundant. They are all appreciated, they are all precious. You never know what the weather will bring. You never know what animals will want to share in the harvest. This year there were bunnies who thought our garden was pretty tasty. Jeff and B caught a few in live traps, and we took them down the road where the bunny family could live in the wild, without being near anyone’s garden. Those blueberries in the picture above? We got a few handfuls of blueberries this summer and that felt like something to celebrate. The moles here have been digging under the roots of the blueberry bushes for years, nearly killing all the blueberries. We finally d...

In "The Budding Orchardist," Jeff Kanters explains the importance of summer pruning for fruit trees. By managing tree size and shape, this practice ensures healthier, manageable trees and higher quality fruit.

We had some thunderstorms and rain over the weekend here. We were all out in the garden harvesting when it started raining, and at first I thought about not wanting to get wet. But then the childlike part of me… was delighted. There is something about being out in the summer rain, and harvesting in it felt like an adventure. Jeff devotes time each day to watering the garden, and getting a break from watering for the whole weekend was a real treat. We also appreciated that because we’ve been busy working on orders for our family’s handmade business. The vase of flowers pictured above was put together by B. I hadn’t thought of putting Hosta flowers in a vase before, and thought the light purple flowers were really pretty in there. I’ve been taking pictures of every vase of flowers he makes, and have so many beautiful ones to share with you. The garden is an absolute jungle right now. The harvests are amping up by the day, and the changes out there are happening more quickly than...

Learn about positive environmental impact at Durham Garden Forum's in-person lecture titled "Nine Ways to Help Heal Earth" by Matt Archibald, ISA Certified Master Arborist. Read more about membership offers, monthly lectures, and benefits.

The "Tomatoes on Trial" project at Briggs noted the first cultivar to ripen on July 6. Master Gardener volunteer Eric Wiebe is growing some of the tomatoes in his home garden and has had some early success. Read more about his take on these tomatoes.

This year we have Snapdragons blooming in the garden in all different colors. I’m especially loving the Appleblossom Snapdragons. Aren’t they sweet? The variety does remind me of apple blossoms with the coloring. B made a vase with a whole bunch of those for a friend. The Snapdragons have been an addition to many vases of flowers this summer. We are all about the flowers in the garden, always. Do you love Snapdragons? Are you growing them this year?

The honeybees have been buzzing with activity all the time. After watching them, the expressions “busy bee” and “busy as a bee” have a whole new meaning for me now. We watch the honeybees fly in and out of the hives, and we watch them visit flowers around the garden. We also visit the hives regularly to have a peek inside (through the viewing window so we don’t disturb them.) I mentioned before that we have a viewing window on each hive, so we can simply remove the wood cover on the side and watch the bees. We love watching them. Seeing the honeycomb form day by day is amazing. I took the pictures above showing the viewing windows in July (and also shared a video over on Instagram.) B took the first two pictures in this post, when he spotted a honeybee on a zinnia flower in the garden. I absolutely love what he captured on camera! B showed me that if you place your hand gently near the plexi-glass cover on the viewing window (you don’t even have to touch it), you can feel war...

Gary Crispell reports on the Accidental Cottage Garden which thrives despite recent weather challenges. See his recommendations for gardening and tending to your landscape this month.

Hi there! I’m back to talk about garlic some more. Where I left off in the last post, I told you about previous garlic harvests , the 2023 garlic harvest doing poorly in those raised beds, and that we were wondering where to plant garlic in the fall to have better results. We ended up doing something we had never done before, and that was to plant garlic in pots! It was a curious idea to me at first, I just had never thought of doing that, but it turned out to be a great way for us to grow our garlic. We bought some large pots at a nearby garden center, and planted the garlic in those. We decided to put them in the greenhouse for the winter, because of the issues we had previously with drainage during the rainy winter season. The garlic did so well in pots in the greenhouse that we plan to grow them the same way this year! We plant our garlic in the fall, and then harvest it the following summer. First we harvest the garlic scapes , and then the garlic bulbs. (Luckily, the ga...

As I was coming here to share about the garlic we grew this year, I realized I hadn’t shared about garlic harvests in a few years. The pictures above are from our garlic harvest in 2022. We grew a variety called Music that year that we bought from a farming friend. (Jeff’s first question: does it have large cloves?) When we looked up Music Garlic, we read it was a good producer, had a good shelf life for that type garlic, and that the taste was medium hot with a true garlic flavor. Sounded good… The results? We were pleased with it. We liked the flavor and the size of the cloves were great too, so overall it was a variety we liked. (Though, let’s be honest…. have I ever tried garlic I haven’t liked the taste of? Nope. I love garlic, and haven’t met one yet I didn’t like.) Jeff has always preferred the garlic with the large cloves, that are easier to peel. After comparing the different kinds, I prefer them too. (If you’ve ever spent lots of time peeling teeny, tiny garlic cloves y...