Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Gardens of Mount Desert Island: Asticou Azalea Garden




Mount Desert Island, Maine is one of the most beautiful spots in the country.  With Acadia National Park at its core, the diverse landscape of the island and its rugged coastline have been drawing visitors for centuries who marvel at its natural beauty.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Keeping Up With The Pace Of Technology: QR Codes

gardener


QR Codes: Where Horticulture and High-Tech Intersect

One of the things I like best about gardening is that it provides an escape from all the high-tech electronic buzz that usually fills my head during the day.  Between emails, text messages and what seems like constant googling, it's all too easy for me to fritter away my entire day tied to one electronic device or another.  Once I'm in the garden it doesn't take long before I undergo a real digital purgation, where my head is emptied of all those bits and bytes.  There isn't anything virtual about the garden.  Out there, an electronic reminder usually means I've weeded a little too close to the electric fence (ouch!) and a tweet means that there's a real bird following me around and not someone on Twitter. Isn't reality wonderful?

However, as much as I like to keep the two worlds of horticulture and technology separate and distinct for reasons related to my own sanity, there are a few cases where I permit them to intersect. This is chiefly because I'm lazy and always looking for ways to make my gardening life a little easier.  For example, not long ago I wrote about how my IPhone became one of my favorite new tools once I found out what it could do for me in the garden.  And now, there are QR codes which are not only very cool and appeal to the nerdy side of me, but also seem like they could have great potential in the world of gardening.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Fall Cleanup--Turning Over A New Leaf



Our gardens here at Juniper Hill are completely surrounded by woodland which means that at this time of year I am practically swimming in a sea of fallen leaves. And, at a time when there are so many other end-of-season gardening chores to attend to, there are only so many hours one can devote to raking.  After all, there has to be a little time left over for other important fall pursuits like trying to figure out why we are paying all that money for 350 cable channels but will face yet another long winter with nothing to watch.  That's why, wherever possible, I try to rely on mulching rather than raking.
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