Arden Park Garden Tour

My neighborhood is having their 2nd annual garden tour on September 17th, and lucky me, I've been asked to participate. As much as I might be stressing about how "unconventional" my garden is, I'm also very excited to share some of my passions with complete strangers, and be able to highlight some of my favorite businesses in the process. The first thing I'm going to tell visitors: protect wildlife and protect the environment. I got my my garden certified as a wildlife habit through the National Wildlife Habitat a few years ago, and I'm very excited to help homeowners do the same with their own gardens. Step one in completing my certification was coming to a mutual understanding with the squirrels! If you live in Sac, you know exactly what I'm talking about!
The second thing I'm excited about sharing is how this is a KID friendly garden. My daughter taught me how to "let go" when it comes to a garden design (the word design is a loose term here- I have no design!). She's picked out half of the plants you'll see in our garden, and I heavily encourage her to consider this space her own. Our garden is also the best CLASSROOM I can offer her. If you have a youngster in your house and want help in getting them outside to enjoy it, please let me know! I'd be happy to share with you what has worked with my daughter, and please feel free to bring your kids to my garden (we are a kid-friendly garden, I won't freak out if they want to pick flowers or eat our tomatoes).

The 3rd thing I will be emphasizing will be LAWN REMOVAL. Yeah, unless you have a soccer team (small shout out to the Team Tigers, my daughters soccer team! Grrrr!), why do we have so much lawn?! To my dear neighbors, we're getting METERS. The cost of water will be going up for us and we have these expansive lawns that we NEVER use. Why not remove the lawn, switch to drip lines, and put in pretty flowers? How about some edibles? Even better: NATIVES! I'd be happy to share some of my favorite resources for doing this!

Interested in the tour? Here's the details!

Arden Park Garden Tour

Saturday, September 17th, 2011, 10:00am-3:00pm

Map and passport is handed out at 1213 Eastern Ave. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door. For information/tickets contact last3lives@aol.com or call (916) 487-5445


If you're unable to make the tour, please visit some of my favorite businesses listed below (they will all have handouts, catalogs, etc available at my place on the tour). Not only do I stand behind the products these companies sell, but their websites and/or staff are some of the best around and have a wealth of information that will assist any/all homeowners!

Corona Tools offers heavy-duty, durable tools at a reasonable price! For over 80 years they've been in tool making business, building tools that will last you a lifetime. I've had my hedge shears from them for over 10 years, but my favorite tool is their orange snips, which just so happens to be the first tool they ever made. With 10 citrus trees, these snips come in HANDY when I need to pick a lot of fruit all at once! They are also great on my apple trees! Corona Tools was nice enough to send trowels for me to give away to my first 50 visitors on the garden tour- PLUS they are sending a huge basket of tools to be part of our big giveaway! A big thank you to Corona for their generosity- go tell them how much you love their tools on their Facebook page here!

TrailMix.Net is my absolute favorite store! Located in Old Sacramento, they have everything you need to help get your kid (and you!) outdoors! The lovely folks at Trailmix.net have donated a copy of Sharon Lovejoy's book, "Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots" for our giveaway! I adore Sharon's books, but this one is my favorite for any parent wanting help with gardening with their children. In addition to Trailmix.net's recent newsletter, we'll have copies of their famous Old Sacramento Scavenger Hunt for you to do with your children or grandchildren. Check out their website, and "like" them on Facebook!

Authentic Haven Brand's Natural Brew Tea- Moo Poo Tea for your plants! Annie Haven has sent some for us to include in our giveaway- so you might want to get to my place early! For more information on this natural soil conditioner, visit their website or call 949-248-1249. And go "like"them on Facebook!

Costa Farms is one of the premier indoor and bedding plant companies in the US. A few years ago they launched O2forYou, a program to help clean the air in your homes and businesses by offering plants that can improve the air quality in your space that can be tainted by carpets, plastics, and paint. They also just launched GrowingStyle, a premier content destination for indoor plant enthusiast's (also available for your iPhone, iPad, and Android)! They are also on Facebook! And, did I mention I have like 200 plants to give away from them? That's right! We have a bunch of O2forYou plants to give away!

Talini's Nursery: 5601 Folsom Boulevard, Sacramento CA 95819. Phone: (916) 451-8150, hours M-Su 8-6. Check them out on Facebook to keep up to date on new items and sales in the nursery! Talini's will be supplying some MaxSea fertilizer packets, plus they will be helping me pimp out my garden with their fabulous selection of garden decor and plants (did I mention they carry Annie's Annuals too?) . Oh- and soon they will be carrying chicken coops!!!!!

Annies Annuals & Perennials: 740 Market Ave, Richmond CA. Phone: Nursery, (510) 215-5301, Orders, (888) 266-4370. One of my favorite nurseries, they are a quick jump off the freeway if you are stuck in Bay Area traffic, not to mention the staff there is super fab- and their selection of plants is mind-blowing! If you have a weakness for plant crack, I have a nice supply of their summer catalog for you plant fanatics to drool over, and I will have a nice stack of coupons for you to go buy plants for your fall garden (after all, Fall is the best time to plant here in Sacramento!). I swear I have tried to grow every single plant they carry, so if you want advice on what will work well here in Sacramento, please come and ask me! And did I mention they are also participating in my garden tour giveaway? Yep! They are! We'll have a few items from them in the giveaway to help you in becoming a fellow Flower Floozie!

Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, 125 Clydesdale Court, Grass Valley CA 95945, toll free (888) 784-1722. They have the most extensive supply of organic products for your garden! As much as I love their website and catalogs, I prefer a nice autumn drive to Grass Valley to see the fall colors, and get to visit the nursery and store in person. The staff there are SUPER helpful, and I highly recommend you check out their fruit tree selection. If you come on the garden tour, make sure you ask me about the multi-fruit tree's my husband bought me from there! Visit the vendor table to grab a copy of their catalog (and psssst, there may be some seeds in it for you seedy folks!)

Dripworks, 190 Sanhedrin Circle, Willits CA 95490. If you are interested in converting your sprinklers to drip to utilize the cost/water savings, please check out their website! Not only do they have really cool videos for you DIY'ers, the folks from Dripworks are just SUPER COOL. They visited my garden a couple weeks ago and I fell in love with them, it's SO much fun to meet the "faces" behind the business and I can honestly tell you that Dripworks has your best interest in mind! Go "like" them on Facebook here, and don't forget to sign up for their email list (because you MAY see a couple familiar faces in their videos, like me.....and our favorite local farmer, Farmer Fred!)

H. Potter, Distinctive Home and Garden Accents, (509) 921-1640, if you are on the garden tour, please check out the garden torches in my backyard! They are from H. Potter! If you can convince my husband to let me buy like one of everything from their website, I would greatly appreciate it (you might think I'm joking, but I'm not!). They also have some pretty awesome guest authors affiliated with their site to help you decorate your garden- like Daffodil Planter! She's awesome, I love her, you will too :)

Schreiner's Iris Gardens, 3625 Quinaby Road N.E., Salem, OR 97303, Phone: (800) 525-2367. Not exactly local, but they have an awesome selection of irises (my husband's favorite flower), and they are from Oregon (oh hey- so is my husband!). Two things in life are true, 1.) people from Oregon are cool, and 2.) Irises are some of the easiest flowers to grow, it also helps that they are down right pretty! You won't be able to see the 18 varieties I have from them blooming on the garden tour, but you CAN grab a copy of their catalog and check out the spring time bloom action that your garden may be missing!

Urban Renewal Landscaping will be participating in our giveaway by offering TWO of our lucky visitors a free irrigation consultation! I met the owner, Jason, when I got my certification as a Green Gardener, and I'm happy to say that as of a few months ago I have URL helping me with my garden!

Who else might be here? Um.... how about a couple of my favorite local bloggers! If you're interested in bee's, you might want to search for Amy from The Lamm Farm (and if you're coming from out of town, book a room at The Citizen Hotel where she works)! Also, my favorite Davis resident, Kristi, from Not So Crafty might be here too (make sure you tell her congrats on her recent wedding!)

Interested in hearing about other NorCal garden events? Check out Dirt du Jour! They dish the dirt on all garden related events in NorCal, and scour all of the blogs and websites so you don't have to! Sign up for their email list to get email updates on upcoming tours in your area!

Schreiner's Iris Gardens

I love when I find a plant or bulb resource that just blows my mind. Schreiner's Iris Gardens in Oregon is my new infatuation, and as you can tell by their packaging- they have plant lovers in mind! After we returned from a trip to Yosemite a couple weeks ago I was heavily thinking of my grandma, who we lost to Lou Gehrig's disease this past fall. This time last year my heart was hurting and I went through fall (my favorite time of the year, usually) in a deep funk. What got me out of it was my early spring bulbs: daffodils and irises brought brightness and color to an otherwise dark period. Irises lined the street of my grandparents property in Elk Grove, and those same irises have been dug up and shared many times with several family members and friends over the years.
Although I have received plenty of iris rhizomes from my grandma and my mom, I wanted to create new heirlooms for our family by introducing some new colors. Most of the irises in my family are lavendar, but there are hundreds of other options out there! Right now happens to be the optimal time for planting new iris rhizomes, so I happily placed my order the Schreiner's. They arrived today; each of the 18 bulbs in my order were cozy and snuggly in a nice amount of packaging- not shoved in a mesh bag like you would get from some mail order sites.

And if you look closely, they were each beautifully labeled! Each label included their name, what kind of iris they are, how tall they are- AND it includes a photo of the flower.

So you wanna know what I bought? Well, I won't go into details on each specific one (I got 18 of them! We'd be here all night! You can check out their website for that info). But for starters, I ordered Bumblebee Deelite (pictured above, right) to show my appreciation and love of bee's. I also ordered a couple of black irises, like "Yosemite Nights"(because we LOVE Yosemite), and I ordered "Hello Darkness" (shown above left, black) because it immediately made me sing Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence".

Hello darkness, my old friend,

I've come to talk to you again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.

I ordered Gnus Flash (above, left) because of my fellow local blogger at Garry's Garden Gnus, and Grateful Red on the right is just simply beautiful and I am a sucker for anything that comes in red. I can't wait to get them all in ground, and patiently await spring when they have their moment to shine!



You can check out Schreiners on Facebook, sign up for their newsletter here, and if you'd like to get some in ground now like I am, visit their online catalog and place an order (psst- they are also having a summer sale here)!

Harvesting Artichoke Seeds

Tonight we collected artichoke seeds.
The beautiful blooms that provided us with food in the spring, and became a bee's playground in the early summer are now beautiful dried flower heads.

With something so beautiful I'm ashamed to admit how I harvested the seeds. I literally took the dried flowers and bashed them against the sidewalk. Don't judge me! These suckers aren't exactly friendly! They are pokey! I bashed, and kiddo used her magical little fingers to pick up the seeds as we went. A single flower produced at least a thousand seeds. Half went into my pile, half went into hers (payment, for her efforts). I have no idea where she put them all, but I'm sure I'll find out someday. In the meantime the flower head kept sending off pieces of "snow" (well, according to my daughter). So then what did we do?

Well, SHE danced. It was like blowing dandelions in the wind without the fear of future weeds as we plucked each and every seed before it had a chance to sail across the yard. Some of the simplest things can be so magical to a kid, and I LOVED that she enjoyed it so much.

At the end we were left with a pile of seeds (and another pile worth randomly place in the yard thanks to her). We also ended up with the worlds fanciest hat that just so happens to have the look and feel of fur without the glare from PETA.Anyone need any?

Hopscotch Stepping Stones- and a DRAMM Giveaway!

This week kiddo and I came up with this fabulous idea of making stepping stones for our garden since she is constantly getting slivers on her feet from the bark that is covering the pathways in our vegetable garden. What we ended up with: the classic game of hopscotch!
The concrete pavers were $1.19 each at our local Home Depot, and the outdoor paints were about $1.50 a piece. We were able to complete this project using one bottle of each in red, blue, green, orange, yellow and black- and we used two bottles of white. Painting the squares took us two evenings, and the installation took me about 30 minutes since I just had to move bark around to get them in. We only painted the very top of the pavers in case we want to flip them over and use them for something else later on.

What we ended up with was a strong punch of color in the garden for about $25, and kiddo feels more like this garden space is hers too. We spent some time this morning not only playing hopscotch, but working on math problems too (and these are much more fun than using boring paper!). With her 5th birthday coming up in a couple of weeks and her new adventures in kindergarten, we wanted to celebrate this new chapter in her life with a colorful giveaway! The fabulous folks over at Dramm Corporation know that kids love color, and their watering cans, rubber hoses and sprinklers show it!

The winner of this giveaway will get one of their ColorStorm Premium Rubber hoses in the color that they choose. These 50 ft long hoses resist kinking, coil easily, and come with a lifetime guarantee. But lets face it, the kids will be more interested in their brilliant colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and berry!
But that's not all! They are also offering the winner one of their Sunrise Rain Wands, also in the color you choose! These light-weight wands have a nice gentle shower so you don't have to worry about your kids harming your tender plants when they help you water your garden! Check out their website for other items that can make watering easier and more fun in your garden (we love our berry colored ColorStorm Turret sprinkler!)

To enter this giveaway leave me a comment here on this entry telling me your favorite way to add color to your garden. Bonus entries for clicking "Like" on Dramm's Facebook page (and leave me a comment here telling me you did so), and posting about this giveaway on Twitter! To tweet this giveaway post "I just entered to win a Dramm ColorStorm hose and Sunrise Rain Wand from @betweenthelimes at http://tinyurl.com/42kptuv #DRAMMgiveaway" Entries will be accepted up until August 21st! Come back here on August 22nd to see if you won!

*****We have a WINNER!***** Congratulations "SueJenn"! Email me your address and the color of hose and wand that you want! For everyone else: thank you for your entry! Please look for DRAMM products at your local garden store, or they are also available online at Amazon.

Plus- visit back here next week as we are having ANOTHER giveaway (since this one was SO much fun!)

Review: Fine Gardening's 'Plant Combinations'

Recently I was lucky enough to get my hands on a review copy of Fine Gardening's 'Plant Combinations: 82 proven plans for any situation.' One of the things I love most about Fine Gardening magazine is their full color photos, and this one is no exception! This magazine caught my eye because it highlights a bunch of my favorite plants- such as sedum, rudbeckia, and lamb's ear. As a gardener I have no problem planting these plants and having them live. My problem: I lack any ability of garden design.
You see, I have all ten of the plants highlighted in 'Plant Combinations' and my garden looks NOTHING like the gardens in the pictures! What you see above is one section of my flower bed where I literally cram as many plants as possible in a limited space. The only "planning" that took place here was deciding when to remove the lawn.

But the photo above from Fine Gardening is beautiful. It's designed, and appears to be almost effortless. Here in California, this design will continue to look good year round. The barberry in the background will turn a lovely rust color in the fall, while the yellow euonymus remains unfazed during our winter months.

This fall I'll be digging a bunch of my plants up and shuffling them around with the recommendations from 'Plant Combinations'. When you think about it, it's kind of like hiring a garden designer for a fraction of the cost! Now THAT's what I'd call "WINNING!"