Living Homegrown

Pinterest Wednesday

 In honor of my addiction to Pinterest, I am posting one of my pins below...

 

You can go to the original link here at Etsy.

You can request to join Pinterest by going HERE.

You can follow my boards on Pinterest HERE. (I am listed as T Loe)

Enjoy!

Garden Jewlery

Here is something fun! Check this out:

This is a pendant you can buy on Etsy. I like it. The moss is not real (so no sunlight or water is required) and the idea of wearing a tiny garden just cracks me up. Who says you can't take your garden with you? 

And here is a ring...with faux moss and pebbles!

The ring is not my style...but fun, none the less. The pendant sells for $25 and the ring is $38. You can click HERE to see the full line of garden jewelry.

And no, I do not know these people, nor did I get anything for mentioning these items. I just thought they were fun and unusual.

Bring Your Own Towels...An Outdoor Shower

Check out this stunning outdoor shower! It belongs to my twitter friend Robin. (Robin blogs about gardening and chickens on her BumbleBee Blog and at Gardening Examiner.)

Isn't it awesome? I have always wanted an outdoor shower and Robin did a great job with hers. For more information, here is her post all about it.

I think all she needs now is an outdoor sink!

This "repurposed" sink is sitting in the yard of Ruth Dobsevage, who wrote about her sink gardening adventure on the Fine Gardening website. I like it...in a "I feel trashy" sort of way!

Miniature Terrariums

Remember my post on the tabletop "air plant" terrarium a few weeks ago?

Well, check out these miniature terrariums created by Amy Whitman, a horticulturist at Gardener's Supply Company. She writes about these terrariums on the company's gardening blog.

(You didn't know that one of the major gardening catalogs had a blog? Oh yes! Many gardening companies are jumping into the blog-sphere these days.)

Amy created these unique mini-gardens in an assortment of glass containers as holiday gifts for her co-workers last year. She found the assorted glasses at a local thrift store and filled them with gravel, soil and tiny plants.

The blog post gives full instructions on creating these charming mini-gardens. The only thing I would do differently is to use a spoonful of charcoal instead of gravel. Charcoal will keep any standing water smelling sweet...just in case someone over waters.

I saw similar miniature terrariums at the San Fransisco Flower and Garden Show this year.

Of course these terrariums do not last forever. Depending upon what you grow, the plants can quickly outgrow the container. Succulents and mosses will probably last the longest.

But what a fun way to spruce up a dull office desk or a boring corner of your kitchen!

An Air Plant Terrarium

I always have something growing on our kitchen table. (Not mold, silly! Plants! Ha ha) 

Here is my latest centerpiece creation:

One old glass container from my friend Michelle. (FREE)

A few smooth stone rocks (FREE)

Two air plants - unknown tillandsia species (About $7 total)

Maintenance (Almost none! See link below)

The result? PRICELESS!

Info on caring for air plants (tillandsia).

A Gardener's Chess Set With REAL plants

While at the LA Garden Show, I saw this cute little chess set in one of the displays. I thought it was a great idea!

Other posts on the show:

Edible Plants

Container Gardens

Paisley Garden Apron & Gloves

Okay...How cute is this???

I found this apron at Womanswork.com (a great source for woman's gloves and garden accessories) and I fell in love with it. (Gloves sold separately)

You can also buy a matching hat...

 

I actually DO garden with an apron on...vintage aprons mostly...and it looks to me like this apron will last much longer than my my vintage versions. I also like the snap closure front pocket. It only costs ten bucks.

Come on...I think gardening should be fun...and silly. We NEED this, don't we?

Here is the other version....pretty black and white flowers...

A Garage Sale Garden

My friend Michelle Yeaton planted some vintage stone urns with holiday colors and placed them on her front porch. They looked fabulous. I asked her if I could photograph them for the blog to illustrate ideas for "porch garden" decorating. She said yes and here is one of the urns...

 

But while I was there, I started photographing Michelle's garden birdhouse collection and some of her more unusual container plantings and suddenly I realized that I really need to come back and do a full garden tour here.

 

See, Michelle is a garage sale hunter. She is up at 6 AM every single Saturday morning (rain or shine) looking for treasures in other people's junk. She hits every garage sale in town and has been doing this for years. She has an eye for vintage and a "shabby chic" decorating style that carries over into her gardening adventures.

Just look around her garden. There are garage sale finds everywhere.

Keep in mind that this is the dead of winter here in Southern California which means we have mostly green and not a lot of color. But Michelle manages to keep the garden extremely interesting.

Here is a water feature she created in a vintage baby bathtub...

 

Here is a collection of treasures she has in her "porch garden". The collection changes with the seasons...

I promise to come back in the spring and give you a full tour with an interview of Michelle. She is an excellent gardener and extremely creative with her use of plants. We can learn a lot from her. It will be great...

But in the meantime, I plan on running out to get some white cabbages to plant on my own front porch!

If you want to read about other awesome garden visits, check out these posts:

A visit to NANCYLAND - GWA Tour

A visit to URBAN EDIBLES - GWA Tour

A visit to LAUGHING SPIRIT - GWA Tour

A visit to LUCY HARDIMAN'S Garden - GWA Tour

GWA Garden Tour Diary #1 - Nancyland

There were over 600 garden writers at the GWA conference this past weekend in Portland and on Garden Tour Day, getting them around to see seven gardens and one nursery in under three hours proved to be an impossible feat. Nine buses took us in a round robin formation to each of the gardens as fast as their little wheels could take them. We tried to see them all...but it was just not meant to be. Although it was disappointing to not see everything, we were NOT disappointed in the gardens!  They were great! It was very gracious of these gardeners to open their yards to us.

As promised, I will show the photos of each stop I visited (five in all) in their own post. One post per day.

My first stop on the tour (see below the jump) was Nancyland!

Paper? Plastic? Or Stylish?

There have been several articles recently in our local paper about making the choice between paper and plastic when you go to the grocery store. In the past, I had always chosen paper. I figured that because I reused it at home for various things before recycling it, paper was the best choice.

But I was surprised to learn that actually when it comes to recycling plastic bags versus paper bags, plastic leaves a smaller carbon footprint during the recycling process. It is also cheaper to recycle a plastic bag than a paper bag. HOWEVER (and this is a big however), most people do not recycle plastic bags at all. And some people who want to recycle their bags, can’t because their recycle center does not process them. Apparently, some processing plants can't run plastic bags because when a stray plastic bag gets into the machinery, it can cause a jam up, etc. So, all of these plastic bags that are NOT recycled (which is most of them) end up in a landfill or in our oceans, polluting the beaches.

So, naturally our best choice is to use OUR OWN bags when we go to the grocery store (something I am trying to do every time now). I was pleasantly surprised to learn that many companies are starting to produce cute and stylish re-useable grocery bags. Check out these websites:
B.Happybags
Envirosax
Reusablebags
Cool Grocery Bags
ruMe Bags

Now, some of them are outlandishly expensive, but others are very reasonable. And don’t you think that if the bags are cute and stylish, people are more likely to use them on a regular basis?