You’d think I’d have been warned off by the horror stories reported by Daves Garden contributors about Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans).  Like?

• Spreads up to 40-50 ft from host plant
• Strangles plants, trees
• Invades gardens, robbing them of nutrients
• Crawls up houses and gets under siding. Rips gutters from house
• I never would have thought it could punch a hole up and through asphalt  

And on and on.  And I’d read all that and wrote that I couldn’t recommend this native vine because of so many horror stories, but shoot, I said to myself, I can handle it.  Experienced gardener and all that. 

Well, as if that weren’t stupid enough, even before the plant starts destroying my home and garden I can see by its foliage that it’s none other than the weed I’ve been battling on my property for 24 years now, with no success.  Why didn’t I recognize it in my research?  Oh, maybe because the photos I’d seen of it were of its lovely flowers, rather than the crappy, rampant foliage.  Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

But now what?  Oh, I’m moving the chimnea again, too.  Oy vey.

Photo credit.

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Blog version. The whole newsletter is available here.

In the News

Continuing the gardenblogger tradition of showing off our blooms on the 15th of the month, I present one of my favorite scenes in the garden: lacecap hydrangeas, astilbes and (in the upper right) an ‘Anthony Waterer’ spirea.  For a longer view, click on over to GardenRant.

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Totally off-topic, I have to give some link love to a blog called Cute Overload, especially this collection of sleeping cat photos.  See, I keep up with politics and global warming and all that, and if it weren’t for a daily dose of adorable animals a girl could get downright grumpy.

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Give a listen to Ken Druse’s podcast "Real Dirt", which he describes thusly:

This week’s edition of KDRD, guest Susan Harris and Ken talk about sustainable gardening, vegetable gardening and the new White House vegetable garden — spearheaded by the First Lady. Susan and Ken wonder about the aesthetics of vegetable gardening – can a veg garden be beautiful? Of course, and that’s proven by a photo of the one at Chanticleer, below.

Then he lists a whole bunch of links - coz you know I can’t stop creating new ones.  

I haven’t had the nerve to listen to the podcast myself but I vaguely remember laughing a lot and not being able to remember plant names.   

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I love this story in today’s NYTimes.  It’s by the owner of a small townhouse garden in Manhattan, taking us through his consultations with friends and lots of professional designers about a much-needed transformation of his back yard.   It’s especially interesting because like most people who hire me as a coach, he’s a nongardener.  Really, he wants nothing to do with it, yet the story ends with  "I had become a gardener".  AND he compares garden designers to "life coaches", which pretty much describes what garden coaches can do - with clients who are as open to it as this writer turns out to be. 

Also, lots of good design and plant ideas.

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I’ll let these photos speak for themselves.  Above is a sea of Sedum acre with red and white clover, all in bloom.  Below?  The ideal of American landscape design (sic).  (Or is it sick?  You decide.) 

ADDENDUM:  I forgot to link to my Standard Disclaimer about Lawn Replacement - what a mistake!   I promise I don’t mean to add to the chorus of lawn-bashing that paints turfgrass as all bad and lawn-owners as environmental criminals.  But ya gotta admit that we Americans have waaay more of the stuff than we really need, and that goes for homeowners and institutions alike.

Lawn photo credit.

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Check out this sea of salvia at Chicago’s Lurie Garden!  Gorgeous, and awfully close to sustainable (its irrigation system is rarely used).  Design by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, plants by Piet Oudolf.

More from the gardens of  Chicago coming soon to this blog - and about 50 others, thanks to the second annual Gardenblogger Spring Fling.  For now, gotta run.  We’re off to see the garden of Rick Bayless, one of this city’s most famous chefs.

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Sustainable-Gardening.com is about 18 months old now and has evolved in ways that made the old design all wrong.  Like my name and "coach" in the header, when the site’s now a compilation of writing by 20 of us.  All my original gurus - Ann Lovejoy, Lee Reich and Linda Chalker-Scott - plus lots of writers I’ve more recently come to admire - Andrew Bunting, Don Engebretson, Joe Lamp’l and many others.  So here’s what’s new: 

• The tagline in the header is "Practical answers from native-loving garden gurus."   That’s supposed to make the point that the authors are people who know how to grow plants in the challenging world of landscapes.  And because they’re actual gardeners, they level with readers about what really works.
• Better organization, with plants and how-to in the navigation, and Other Resources (videos, garden gurus, coaches) compiled elsewhere.

The parts I’m still dithering over are the header photo and what should be on the home page (which isn’t how most readers approach the site, having reached it by Googling to a specific page).  This boxed lay-out could be switched to a column approach, like the one we’re using for the newsletters.

Just for comparison, here’s the old design.  New design by Lucas Sanders.

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