My husband, Larry and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary last weekend in Pasadena, California.

(Yes, I was a child bride).

We spent three glorious days visiting some of the nation's most loved botanical destinations including Descanso Gardens, the Los Angeles Arboretum and the Huntington Library and Gardens.

One of the highlights of our trip was dinner at the Parkway Grill in Pasadena, a restaurant that boasts its own organic gourmet garden!

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Garden Center TV

I’m on my way to Chicago to cover the Independent Garden Center Show.  The “IGC Show” will run from Monday August 19 until Thursday, August 21 and is being touted as the “World’s Largest Garden Center Show,” so I have BIG expectations!

 

I’m  packing comfortable shoes, my video camera and taking along an assistant so that I can make my way through the massive exhibit hall where over 500 garden product manufacturers hope to catch the eye of retailers and media representatives. 

As a garden spokesperson for television and online, I’m looking to find the most unique, clever, practical and beautiful garden products to share with you and use in my landscape designs.

I’m ready to be swept off my muddy feet with:

Out of this world statuary!

 

Fountains with personality….

 

Outdoor furniture that looks like furniture!

 

Sexy water garden plants and decor!

 

Garden accessories I can place in the garden with pride!

 

New, personalized garden tools that suit my lack of dexterity!

 

New, shiny (and not so shiny) garden pottery that will be the envy of all….

 

And anything out of the ordinary, strange and captivating like this “Flying Bamboo” from Monrovia Growers!

Plus, soil, seeds, mulches, fertilizers, water management systems and everything else!

Have any garden products you want me to scope out for you? Let me know.

Visit EdenMakers’ Blog for the latest scoop on what you can expect to find in your local garden center.

 

 

 

 

 

My raised vegetable bed is in germination and growing mode with all my favorite lettuces, heirloom tomatoes, squashes, sugar snap peas, curry, chayote and more! Next to gardening, I love to cook and I can’t wait to see the first set of leaves burst through my 2″ layer of mulch. I’m not the only one waiting though …

I set out some whimsical sheep and geese garden ornaments to give me something to look at while I wait for my culinary babies. The birds are scared of the ornaments too, so I have a built in scarecrow. What luck!

Take a look.

“Mother Goose” waits on my Persian baby cucumbers called, “Green Fingers” from Renee’s Garden to sprout. I looked high and low for these small, crunchy cucumbers that are usually found only in farmers markets.

This sheep was cheap! Only $2 dollars at the market in the “Easter Decor” clearance bin. How do you like my wooden spoon plant marker? I planted “Runway Arugula” also from Renee’s Garden. It is supposed to be slightly less tangy than regular Arugula, but same peppery taste!

The sheep decor straddle my “square foot” wood dividers. Have you read the book, “Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew? It is a clever planting method for intensive and effective yield of maximum vegetables in small square foot garden areas!

A few weeks later when the veggies and herbs start to grow, the sheep and geese look like they are in a foraging field! As for me, I am in heaven.

My friend, Joelle Berti is a beautiful French woman with a natural and earthy style. She is a true “Eden-maker.” Joelle always has a new idea, (or twist on an old one) for cooking, decorating and gardening. I was enjoying a cup of red Chai tea at her home this weekend when I spotted a colorful object that appeared to be  a Christmas decoration, sitting on her bar.

 

Beautifully wrapped magazines make a great, custom gift.

“That’s pretty. Is it a Christmas decoration or “yuletide log?” I asked

“What decoration?” Joelle answered looking around

“That one, over there on the bar.” I pointed out

“The gift? Are you talking about the Christmas gift for my friend?” She corrected me with her thick, but understandable French accent.

I picked up the package and noticed that it was in fact a bundle of glossy magazines tied together with a ruby colored velvet ribbon and topped with a handcrafted willow and berry star. The magazines, Paris Match, were selected especially for Joelle’s friend, an American woman who learned to speak French at  the Universite de la  Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris. Joelle was also giving her friend a bottle of French wine to go with it. 

“I love that your gift is so personalized! I have to steal your idea and blog about it. Do you mind?” I asked

Always generous, Joelle responded, “Of course not, go ahead. By the way, my last name is spelled, B-E-R-T-I.”

I have friends and family with diverse interests- some are into politics, others, sports, gaming, gardening, I’m sure to find a specialty magazine to suit their interests. I’ll buy them a subscription and then pick up a few issues to wrap “Ala-Joelle.” With this type of gift, my recipients will remember my thoughtfulness every month when they receive their magazine in the mail. I’ve got a “good friend pass” for the year. 

To order subscriptions online, go to the magazines’ web site, (you can usually find the address on the magazine cover). Add a complimentary gift and you are done!
 

What's up with the overflowing bins of free coffee grounds that are offered daily at most Starbucks?

Am I the only person who takes advantage of this beneficial product for my garden?

As a garden designer in Los Angeles and in my travels across the states to do my television gardening segments, I always check in for at the local Starbucks my Venti Chai Tea Latte and grab a  bag of coffee grounds to add to my or my client's compost pile. 

Are you familiar with the Starbucks coffee ground bag?

It always surprises me when I see that the bins are usually hidden in the back of the store where most people can't  see them  and there's always plenty of bags available.

I've even questioned  employees if customers ever ask for free grounds and they usually just point to the small sign that reads "free coffee grounds" leaning against the back clearance rack. 

I've seen the bins used as trash cans with used newspapers stacked on top of them.

No wonder the free coffee grounds  are a "best kept secret."

Most gardeners are familiar with the benefit of adding organic material like coffee grounds, vegetable pulp, peels, and yes, even newspapers to their compost pile for later use in their gardens. 

I think Starbucks should make a concerted effort to educate their in-store guests since they obviously need to dispose of  the coffee grounds in an environmentally responsible  manner.

(I think they mention it on their web site but it needs prominent display in the store!)

Come on Starbucks, put together a 30 second audio clip to compliment your instore music broadcast with tips for greener gardens  with the help of some coffee grounds.

Put some colorful and informative posters  on your walls about how to start a compost bin and encourage people to garden. 

If you need a spokesperson, sign me up, I've already started working!

Garden Designer Shirley Bovshow encourages you to recycle your coffee grounds!

By Shirley Bovshow

 I was reminded of my resolve to start drying some of my clothes outdoors when I read a blog post by  Susan Harris of  Garden Rant, on  community associations and how their rules preclude the use of the environmentally friendly outdoor clotheslines. Thank God I don’t live in one of these  neighborhoods because my clotheslines are going up soon!

As a matter of fact, I just ordered a collapsible outdoor clothesline today that can be closed and put away after use like a patio umbrella. I should get it sometime next week. I can’t wait for it to arrive because I’ve been drying clothes on an indoor rack for years and I’m tired of the musty smell it brings to the room. Of course I’m looking forward to continued savings on my electric bill but I have to admit, I’m motivated by selfish reasons- I can’t afford to have my blouses shrink and have my buttons gap from the pull!

The steel-framed outdoor clothesline will give me over 210 sqare feet of drying area and takes up approximatley 7-square feet.

Questionable aethestics aside, outdoor clotheslines ceased to be a  common urban residential feature  as electric clothes dryers became more affordable.  I was around 8 years old when my parents  bought our  first dryer. It changed our lives! With six kids in the house, my mom tended  to  tons of laundry and we all took turns helping to hang it outside. I tried to make my chore more fun by stuffing  a towel “cape” into my shirtcollar and pretending  I was “Batgirl. I guess it was just a foreshadow of things to come now that I’m a real life garden crusader on  my television show , Garden Police!

 The amount of time and labor that the dryer saved us was unquestionable in a household as large as ours. The last thing on our minds was how our new appliance impacted the environment or sucked watt-loads of electricity. So, I guess you can say I’m going “retro” with my outdoor clothesline. It’s ironic when you think that the modern conveniences  that have “gifted” our society with the time to multi-task and advance during the last 50 years are now the very things being indicted as environmental resource leaches.  The dryer is just a small player in the  “laundry list” of violators.  

I’m salvaging this dead space near the trash cans to set up my clothes lines.

It’s not all bad though, I sense a new revolution on the horizon on par with the industrial revolution that deemed cottage industries obsolete , but this time it’s the reverse. Cottage industries are emerging once again with all kinds of “home-spun, from the ground” remedies to save the earth from runaway consumption. Nothing fancy, just stuff us gardening fanatics knew all along. The answer is outside. Go outside to hang the laundry, go outside and grow some food of your own, go outside and enjoy the sun and the wind as they kiss our faces and dry our clothes like in the old times. 

*See more garden projects, “before and after” landscape photos and the latest in garden design with regular visits to Shirley Bovshow’s EdenMaker’s Blog!