Forget the traditional parterre Herb Garden, if you can’t keep herbs alive! Goths, ghouls, and any gardeners with a sense of humour about their plant-growing failures will enjoy a decorative Herb Graveyard instead.

Penfold Merton, “UK-grown tinkerer” currently working as an Artist in Residence at the Instructables Lab, San Francisco, came up with the fabulous idea for faux tombstones amusing yet useful herb garden approach, as a result of a conversation with Instructables member TangerineBadger.

Turn the unsightly bare earth of your herb garden into a charming old cemetery by planting mini gravestones! … a simple, if slightly morbid, way to make use of the patches of soil that are visible before your herbs have sprouted. It also provides attractive labels for the herbs once they are fully grown.

The one challenge, for most of us DIY crafters with a love for gardening, is that we don’t tend to have a laser thingie machine for etching acrylic — which is called for in the otherwise excellent and detailed instructions for this project. Since there’s no way I’m going to buy a laser cutter to cut the plant names into acrylic, and I don’t know anyone who’s got one tucked away in the corner of their kitchen, I’m brainstorming alternative how-to methods here…

(Hey, just noticed — Penfold Merton’s got an Etsy shop where he lists the acrylic plant-stake tombstones for sale! At ten dollars each, a bargain!)

But let’s suppose you want to DIY, or maybe you (try to) grow different herbs from just the Parsley, Sage, Cilantro, Chives, and Basil for which gravestones are available…

• What about making a plasticine mold, perhaps, to create the little plant-marker tombstone with the same kind of cement you’d use for decorative stepping stones in the garden?
• Or maybe there’s some kind of pourable resin type kit one could find at a craft store?
• Modelling clay might work, if you put on a waterproof glaze of some sort. But would a clay slab have to be quite thick and heavy, in order to be strong enough to stand on end? And what if you don’t have a kiln?
• Penfold suggests Sculpey, which would be much lighter in weight.
• Or if you know a model railroad fan you might beg a supply of Sculptamold or similar modeling compound…

All of these methods could be a lot of fiddley work, though, to make a number of different herb tombstones. Because really, to pull this off, you need the carry the theme through the entire herb garden, with a different shape of marker for each type of plant you want to grow… But for those of us who struggle to keep an herb garden alive, the Herb Graveyard project is really too delicious an idea to let go.

So I’m looking for ideas on this, people — any suggestions for other (easier, less expensive) ways to make these without laser-cutting acrylic?

So my veggie garden is still under four feet of snow — does that stop a keen gardener from planning for a new planting season? Heck, no!

One of the first plantings that will go in (when Spring eventually arrives in Atlantic Canada) will be the salad garden of mixed mesclun greens and spinach and lettuce, not to mention some tasty lovely snow peas. These are all vegetable crops that prefer cooler air and soil temperatures, and will quickly fade when summer sun grows warm.

Stretch the Summer Salad Days

Did you know that you can grow salad greens in containers, if you don’t have a patch of earth for a garden? They look quite lush and lovely growing in pots, too.

Keep the harvest going by snipping off just the outside leaves, rather than the entire head of your lettuce plants. The plants will keep producing from the centre, and you get super-fresh salad for days and days on end!

Lettuce and spinach and other greens are easy to grow from seed. So easy, in fact, that I never seem to learn to scatter the seeds thinly enough — I’m always making allowances for seeds that might not germinate, and I end up with a crowded planting of tiny plants struggling against each other for light. Not so good for the air circulation, either, and some of my lettuce can end up composting itself if we get a few days of rain.

No big deal, though: just get in there with the scissors and thin it out. Cut off some of those tiny lettuce plants right at soil level when they’re just a few inches high, and start the salad season early. Thinning out will let the remaining plants grow better and avoid those nasty damp-related problems.

Slugs and Snails, Oh My!

Slugs and snails are the biggest threat to a nice salad garden, and you’ll have to be on your toes to keep ahead of them — they sneak out at dusk and can eat their way through a great deal of salad in one night, leaving silvery slimy trails all over the ragged green leaves, while you’re sleeping peacefully and all unawares… Unpleasant!

Some stores sell various kinds of “snail bait” and “slug powder” — but those are just another name for poisons. Nasty ones. And much as I find slugs to be one of the more disgusting creatures on the planet, I have no interest in sprinkling toxic chemicals around the vegetable garden. No amount of washing the lettuce would convince me that it’s not tainted. Some people swear by the new products made with iron phosphate, but I have no experience of them so you’re on your own there!

Here are two earth-friendly solutions that work for me to keep slugs and snails out of the salad garden:

One is the traditional trap baited with beer. You set a shallow dish into the garden soil just so the lip of it is even with the top of the ground, then pour in some beer. (Feel free to use the stale dregs left in the bottom of bottles after a barbecue — no need to waste the good stuff on your slugs and snails!) During the night, the slimey crawlies will come out and head for the lettuce… but they’ll get distracted by the beer, slip in for a drink, and drown. Ha!

The other solution is physical control — and no, I’m not going to suggest going out with a flashlight and hand-picking your slugs and snails out of the lettuce. Although I do know some people who actually do that. Ugh.

No, we’re talking about slug prevention here.

First, you make sure there’s not a lot of litter in the salad garden, such as fallen leaves and such, for slugs and snails to hide underneath in the daytime. Then, you put a little barrier around each lettuce plant.

A sprinkling of “diotomaceous earth” — ground up fossils, as I understand it — will scratch their little slug bellies, so a ring around the lettuce will keep slugs at bay. But I always worry about the cats and dogs getting into it and then licking their paws, and the white granules are not particularly attractive in the garden. Also, I’m not 100% convinced that diotomaceous earth is the way to go from an environmental perspective: surely there’s a finite supply of fossil bones to make it? And what’s involved in the processing and packaging and transportation?

I don’t know the answers, but these are questions that keep coming to mind — and I’d prefer not to do too much in the way of deep thinking when out playing in the garden.

Wood ashes work the same way as diotomaceous earth, by the way — and some gardeners swear by coffee grounds, cornmeal, and natural bran — but all of these barriers will only work if they’re dry. One good heavy dew in the late evening, and the slugs and snails can move right back in. Crushed eggshells and cedar chips are more effective, as they keep on working in all types of weather, but how many eggs can you eat? I don’t use cedar chips mostly because they keep the ground from warming up, and in this short Canadian growing season we really need to let the sun reach the soil as much as it can.

Generally, I just put a low collar of some sort around the lettuce plants. Cardboard won’t do it — the slugs and snails will just laugh merrily and climb right over it. What you want is a strip of copper. Slug slime reacts in some way with copper to basically electrocute the slugs. Ha!

And that’s where this iron plant crown (from Wisteria) comes in.

Granted, the crown is supposed to be for decoration — perhaps to make the lettuce plants feel important? at $39.00 per, they should! — but I say, if you’re going to have slug barriers around a bunch of garden plants, why not make them in a whimsical shape? And if, like me, you like to put the occasional pretty ruffled lettuce plant in among the garden flowers, too, a decorative iron crown might be the perfect finishing touch.

To make the crown a useful slug-proofing solution, however, just plain iron won’t do. Fasten a strip of copper around it to repel the slimy pests.

I’ve also had pretty good luck with previously-enjoyed tinfoil (aluminum foil) in place of copper. Now, I won’t swear that it will work for you, because tinfoil isn’t mentioned in any of my gardening books, but I first tried it because (a) copper can be pricey, (b) I am almost pathologically thrifty, as gardeners go, and (c) I had a slug emergency one year — and it works for me.

Crumple up your scraps of tinfoil left over from kitchen and barbecue use, and make a tiny obstacle course for slugs and snails to struggle across on their way to your plants. And if you hide the tinfoil inside a lovely crown, looking like something out of a garden fairytale, no one will be any the wiser to your frugal trick!

[Thanks to The Finer Things for finding the crown!]

Tired of the same-old same-old Thanksgiving decorations?

You can’t go wrong with the classic turkey (or a cocky classic rooster, for that matter), but here’s a fun new twist on the rustic Autumn yard art.

No carving.
No mess.
Reusable for years to come, of course, and very affordable at $11.95 (or less) at Gardeners.com.

Just push these simple iron silhouette pieces — turkey or rooster — head, wings, legs and tail — into a squash or a pumpkin, or any similar large round vegetable, come to that… Instantly, you’ve got an amusing vegetable sculpture to strut its stuff on your front porch or lawn!

Yes, you guessed it — there’s a new shop on the block, garden fans! Goods for the Garden hits my list of sources for garden art and accessories, partly for its earth-friendly attitude… but mostly, I have to confess, for the sheer luscious beauty of the products.

The Campo De’ Fiori line of terra cotta planters, for example — like this Sevilla Plant Set. A curvy iron plant stand with a copper saucer, holding a graceful terracotta pot (not your ordinary plant pot, though; just look at the upward sweep of its line)…

Have you ever seen anything that so clearly evokes the classic English country house and conservatory?

The mottled white-ish grey-green colouring on the terracotta is a large part of the subtle charm — it’s real living moss that lends the antique heritage-garden look.

Here’s a craft tip, DIY-ers :

If you want to give the same antique appearance to your own brash-orange brand-new terracotta planters, there are two basic ways to go about it.

1. To grow your own moss…Soak the plant pot in water over night. Blend together a handful of live moss and a cup of non-pasteurized yogurt (if you don’t have yogurt on hand, you can use beer with a spoonful of sugar mixed in) until very smooth. Brush this onto the plant pot where you want moss to grow. Keep it in a shady place, and mist it with water occasionally until the moss begins to grow.(Note, this method won’t work on plastic or metal — moss prefers a porous material like clay or Hypertufa or concrete.)
2. To paint the illusion of moss…For hot dry climates, or for planters to use indoors, you may choose to go with a simple faux paint technique to add that elegance of age.Dab on a touch of craft paint or ordinary latex house paint, in a soft pale grey-green. Let it just barely start to dry, then dry-brush over it with white paint. Wipe most of the paint off with an old rag, and that’s all it takes!Be scanty with the paint application, to make sure the terracotta colour of the pot isn’t totally hidden — this is a case where “less is more” and you can always add more later…

For more inspiration, and for garden shopping with an environmental conscience (wholesale or retail), do check out GoodsForTheGarden.com.

Committed to preserving the earth’s green spaces — from public gardens to at-risk eco-systems — Goods For The Garden owner Matt Silvern says this:

To spend my days providing beautiful objects to everyone from the part time gardener to the largest landscape architecture firm, brings me great joy.

As a gift to my children, to theirs, to you and yours, I am as committed to my community as I am to these artisans, and that is why I try to give back every time I take in. I pledge to continue to raise funds for public gardens (5% of every order is donated), great humanitarian programs like Potters for Peace and to increase my support for community organizations.

Goods for the Garden will contribute 5% of the purchase price of every product to an organization of your choosing or to the 1% For The Planet fund.

And that’s a beautiful thing, too.

photo by amberdc.

Want to grow a variety of herbs, but only have a small space for a garden? Stuart Robinson, one of our favourite Aussie gardeners, offers the Herb Spiral as a unique solution!

Basically, an herb spiral garden is an attractive and useful “permaculture” gardening method, a construction that winds its way up from its base, curling in to the centre as it goes up to about three feet in height.

The spiral structure means this herb garden has a small “footprint” in terms of garden space, but lots of room to plant a variety of herbs to please any gourmet cook-gardener. Easy to reach everything for picking and weeding, too.

Build your own herb spiral garden out of whatever materials are affordable and most available to you, whatever will best suit your landscape — Stuart has seen these interesting gardens made from PVC piping, clay tubing, and rocks and stones…
I think I sense a use for my old eavestrough piping, here!

Plant sun-loving herbs at the top of the structure, where the water drains away most efficiently, and those plants that prefer damp soil can go down at the base, where the water ends up! Which side of this semi-vertical garden you use for a certain plant can be determined by how much sun exposure it needs, because parts of the spiral will naturally offer more shelter and shade than others.

Friends are very forgiving about small garden imperfections (that’s why they’re friends!) but this year, we’ve got A Big Wedding Anniversary coming up in the extended family and everyone’s keen on making the party an outdoor event. We’ll want the place to look its very best for the occasion — but re-designing the landscape completely is out of the question!

So I’ve been going back through some earlier garden-related posts of mine, seeking inspiration, and remembering my Aunt Virgie’s old tried-and-true methods of getting a show-stopping yard and garden without actually going to a lot of trouble or expense.

5 Ways To Fake A Show-Off Garden

(with thanks to my frugal and green-thumbed Aunt Virgie)

1. Planter Magic

Need some colour? Group a few containers of lush flowering annuals wherever your borders look tired or dull. Keep your planters in the one single family of materials for unity — if you do terracotta for one, do terra cotta for all — but do mix up the heights and sizes of the pots to increase the interest.

2. Weed Wisdom

If you don’t have the time to weed all your borders before a big garden party or flower-loving in-laws are expected, concentrate your efforts on tidying up the front six or eight inches of each bed. A clean edge gives such a good impression, no one will notice a stray weed among the back-of-border specimens.

If time permits, do crisp up the meeting of soil and turf grass with an edger or straight-edged spade. And if your budget permits (which mine never does, oddly enough), consider a layer of decorative mulch.

3. Artful Dodges

Locate the lawn art with care. A piece of garden sculpture or a wind-driven whirly-gig can do a lot to dress up a garden, if chosen well, but it will draw the eye to whatever you place it near. If your roses are overblown and going brown at the edges, for example, move those garden gnomes out of the rose garden and over to the late-season lilies or whatever else is looking its best at the time.

4. Put It In Perspective

In general, concentrate your major tidying-up efforts for the areas of garden that are closest to the house or outdoor seating area. Distance, when it comes to viewing a garden, can hide a multitude of flaws!

If the view form your patio leaves something to be desired, despite your best efforts, you can make the patio itself the centre of interest. Go for bright cushions on lawn furniture, a pretty table setting, groups of potted plants at the edges of the seating area, maybe a shade umbrella or two for a festive air… This is a great place for a stunningly original piece of garden sculpture, unusual windchimes, decorative pavers, all the small close-up touches that will draw the eye away from a less attractive vista.

5. Cosmetic Measures

Every yard and garden, like every house, is likely to have some bits and pieces lying around that you yourself don’t even see any more because you’re so used to them.

Try to look at your place with an outsider’s eye — the way that real estate people tell you to do when “set dressing” your home for a prospective buyer to view:

• Pick up the kids’ toys (and, of course, the dog’s droppings!).
• Tuck away your garbage cans, garden tools, water hose, and other work-a-day necessities in a garage or garden shed, out of sight. If you don’t have a building in which to hide your tools, a good-looking large deck box will do the trick — and it can double as outdoor seating, too.
• Remove or replace any outdoor furniture or garden ornaments that are showing age and wear, or just plain getting shabby.
• Seed quick-growing annual vines like Morning Glory to clamber up a network of well-placed plant sticks and screen the compost pile (or use one of the many tidy compost bins on the market).
• Consider some flower-filled windowboxes or a new coat of paint to perk up an old garden shed.

Of course, if your nearest neighbour is stockpiling old rusty automobiles in his yard, that’s another thing.

Pick an attractive point in the middle distance — in your own yard — and focus the attention there, perhaps with a show-stopping floral display (in containers, if you must) or a busy bird-feeding station.

In your long term plan, consider a free-standing trellis, overhung with vigorous grapevines or fast-growing Virginia creeper, to screen the unpleasant view. A solid privacy fence can do more than block a sight line, so think twice before installing one: there’s a chance it could block out a welcome cooling breeze, or even make your yard or garden seem smaller.

Pure inspiration for garden dreamers:
Fletcher & Myburgh‘s stunning line of garden swings and hammocks look more like artwork than outdoor furniture.

Perfect for a small chic city garden, if perhaps not quite the style for our own rambling weedy rural attempt at horticulture… Still, it’s inspiring to browse.

This British he-and-she team of artist-designers “create magical pieces of functional sculpture, which challenge people’s conceptions of what a ‘swing’ should be”! All that, and they manage to find the energy to raise three children, too. Now, that’s inspiration!