A Fresh Start: Planting Our 2018 Summer Garden

This past Sunday we had a chance to plant our long-awaited summer garden. We're on the later side for planting here in Virginia and had been putting it off due to really fickle winter weather, followed by record-breaking downpours of rain around here this month. That said, when the sun finally came out, we made a day of it!

Summer's Bounty: A 2017 Garden Update

With summer in full swing, we've got quite the garden bounty coming in and have rounded up a few photos to share how our little city plot (and the raised beds!) have taken shape this season.

Landscaping with Herbs: A Lavender Lined Walk

We've been tackling quite a few weekend-sized home projects since the spring weather has kicked in, one of which includes a little refresh of our front sidewalk...

Sending Out an SOS: Hunting Dog Garden Statues

Image credit

Today's post is a bit of a call for assistance — in the form of, "we've looked everywhere and can't seem to uncover where a pair of these hunting dog statues can be found." Alas, in our fruitless hunt we're putting out a collective call (in our best Police voices) for your knowledge on all things dog statue related...

Training our Wisteria: DIY PVC Pipe Garden Arbor

Right around this time last year, we'd returned back home from our Italian vacation on the grounds of an olive grove and unreal stone farmhouse in the hills of Umbria we'd found on AirBNB. Filled with leisurely sips of local wines and cooking dinners over open fire with simple ingredients — it was an incredible trip and one we think back on often as one for the lifebook. Oh, to return.

Hanging onto Summer: How to Make Sun Tea

With 90 degree days in the forecast this week, the heatwave around these parts sure does put new meaning into "hanging onto summer." It's been a particularly hot season here in Virginia this year and hot summer days call for southern traditions, like sun-brewed tea.

Such a simple pleasure, sun tea is quick to make, requires minimal ingredients and puts the sun's rays to work instead of heating up the kitchen during hotter summer months.

How To: DIY Dried Lavender Bunches

Late spring has us eager to be back in the garden, tending to our growing collection of perennial herbs and starting a few new annual varieties.

Our Mother's Day Fig Tree

We spent Mother's Day this year down at the farm with both our mothers and extended family. While the true gift that day was spending time together, we did decide to gift Mary's mom with a fig tree to plant on the grounds.

Over on eHow: How to Grow Wisteria in a Planter

After returning back home from our stay in Italy, we have officially caught a case of the wisteria-fever. Known for their cascading blooms, the farmhouse where we stayed had a mature wisteria vine covering the outdoor pergola like a beautiful living canopy.

The Great Gardenia Purge

We've just returned home from a week in London and are looking forward to sharing a photo recap early next week — before doing so we wanted to pop in with a little front yard update we tackled before heading out. In what we are calling The Great Gardenia Purge of 2015,  you can see we've done quite the bit of "pruning" out front...

Over on eHow: DIY Cement Flower Pots

We recently made a trio of cement flower pots to act as an outdoor centerpiece for our patio table — they help brighten up our backyard and were silly-simple to make. With basic materials like plastic containers, quick drying cement, water and a little cooking spray these planters are one of those projects that takes minimal effort but gives off a huge return.

DIY Vertical Succulent Garden: eHow's Ikea Lack Hack #ProjectThrowdown Challenge

Over the last couple of weeks we've been stretching our creative muscles and working with new-to-us materials on what's turned out to be one of our favorite new projects — the hanging vertical wall garden pictured above.

How To: Plant Asparagus Root Crowns in Containers

So! We've been successfully growing asparagus in containers over the past couple of weeks, something we've wanted to do for years, and can't wait to share all the details here on the blog.

Garden Update: Why Aren't My Jonquils Blooming?

This time last year we were transplanting jonquil bulbs we'd dug up from my mother's place on the river around our house here in the city, in hopes they'd grow and multiply, bringing a little bit of history and familiarity each spring.

Winter Garden Updates & Wishing for Spring

March is a classic time of year when we're itching to get back into the garden — planning, planting and generally cleaning up the yard. We're dreaming up all the grand plans we hope to achieve over the growing season, just like we were this time last year. That being said, it's still just before the official start to spring and the weather hasn't yet started to crack.

Plant & Grow a Pineapple Top: Take Two!

Today we wanted to pop in with an update on our homegrown pineapple plant — you heard that right, we've been trying our hands at growing a container pineapple indoors here in Virginia over the last several months, and it's going surprisingly well:

This whole project began almost 2 years ago when we first tried to regrow a pineapple from the leafy top scraps of a pretty dried out fruit. Being completely honest, that experiment didn't go so well and after several weeks of trying to breath new life into that plant, we called it a lost cause — but that didn't stop us from trying again!

Over on eHow: Edible Landscaping with Fall Pumpkin Planters

We've been looking forward to sharing the finished project from our weekend pumpkin hunt here in RVA! For our latest project post for eHow, we created some of our favorite fall decorations — carved pumpkin planters.

Over on eHow: Make a Self Sustaining Edible Kitchen Garden

You might already know we are big fans of trying to regrow different kinds of fruits, vegetables and greens from the kitchen scraps otherwise tossed in the trashbin. We've seen great successes with regrowing plants like celery, green onions, sweet potatoes, bok choy, garlic, horseradish root, avocados and even pineapples using little more than water and sun.

Garden Update: Late Spring 2014

Today we wanted to pop in with a late spring update on all things gardening. We gotta keep it real and let you know that we definitely haven't planted as much as we'd like, and not everything we've tried this year has been a winning success, but other plants have really taken off. We've got a bit of a gardening hodge podge around the house, so today we're going to lay it all out, just the way it is!

The last time we checked in on the state of the garden and new plantings was in early April — you can get the full rundown in this post. Well, it's amazing what 6 weeks can do in terms of growth, so let's take a tour!

Where We Found Our Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree

As an update to our office transformation earlier this week, we mentioned ordering a fiddle leaf fig tree to complete the greener elements of the new space — and it's finally here! We've wanted some larger indoor plants and after studying the best types of trees for indoors, we liked the look of both the rubber plant and fiddle leaf fig.