People/Media

 My pal Ginny Stibolt accomplished what to me is the Herculean feat of writing Sustinable Gardening for Florida and getting it past all the academics who had to review and approve it it for accuracy. (Writing a book just seems to me like doing a term paper that never ends.)

But back to Ginny.  She sent me the first cover design and I posted it on GardenRant, asking for feedback and getting a ton of it.  And not in a good way.   But a new design was better and it’s in print and damn, the first review – in the Daytona Beach  News-Journal is a winner!  It only stayed online about a week so I can’t link to it but luckily I grabbed what I thought was the most interesting part.  It’s Ginny’s 8 steps to sustainable gardening.  Not "easy" steps, the silly propaganda fed to us by the media.  She calls the steps "complex" – such brutal honesty!  So, what do you think of them?

Sustainable Gardening in 8 Complex Steps

1. Having minimal impact on the environment

2. Making the best of available resources

3. Saving time and money

4. Reducing carbon dioxide and increase oxygen in the air

5. Offsetting some of the heat absorbed and stored by buildings and roads

6. Increasing habitat for wildlife

7. Preventing damage to underground infrastructure

8. Preparing for hurricanes, fires and drought

I love how big-picture it is.  Usually you see sustainability defined as just number 1, sometimes 6, occasionally 2, but never the rest.  Never (okay, rarely) is the resource of human beings considered – like our time and money, those factors that make something feasible in the first place.  The focus of "sustainability" is so often on simply avoiding doing harm, ignoring the pro-active, positive impacts that sustainable gardening has – like Ginny’s 4 and 5.  

And I’d never have thought of 7 or 8 but hey, I’m glad someone’s thinking about them.  Congrats, Ginny, on the book and the great review! 

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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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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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A terrific bunch of contributors to the website have been jumping on board over the last month and it’s high time I make a fuss over them!  Here’s a little bit about them and their contributions so far.

• Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott is the hort guru who recently helped out over on GardenRant with clarifications about using wood chips as mulch - check it out.   But who is she?  An extension urban horticulturist and associate professor at Puyallup Research and Extension Center, Washington State University.  She is the Washington State editor of MasterGardener magazine and for six years she authored an online column, ‘Horticultural Myths.’ She’s also author of The Informed Gardener.  And because I asked for a photo, heeere’s Linda!
  • The Myth of the Wandering Weedkiller: "Do does Glyphosate (Roundup) really migrate to other plants?.
  • The Myth of Staking – Do we really need to stake trees and if so, for how long?
  • The Myth of Drainage Material in Container Plantings – Do we really need those chards at the bottom of our pots?

• Renegade Gardener Don Engebretson, is a Minnesota landscape professional and multiply award-winning author.
  • 10 Landscaping Blunders and How to Avoid Them – the PowerPoint version is a huge hit on the garden-speaking circuit.
  • Myth-Busting: When planting a new tree DO NOT amend the soil is a hot topic, so Don can’t resist.
  • Myth-Busting: Moss growing on lawn is a sign of acidic soil -  more proof that Don loves a good myth.
  • Dividing Shrubs?  Don’t DO That! because people need to know.

•  Rainy Side Gardener Debra Teachout-Teashon is the online gardening guru for the Pacific Northwest.
  • "My Gardening Practices aren’t so ‘out there’ after all," about her lifelong commitment to organic gardening.

• Landscape architect Billy Goodnick, the Garden Wise Guy in Santa Barbara, California writes newspaper columns and locally on television.
  • The Pro’s and Cons of Faux Turf" is a fair and balanced accounting from an arid-climate perspective.

• Denver Master Gardener and garden designer Lise Mahnke of Dry Ideas has a clear regional focus.
  • 7 Principles of Xeriscaping from a specialist on the subject
  • How to Make your own Solitary Beehouse, which she Lise actually did herself.

• Transplanted Gardener Ginny Stibolt, author of the upcoming Sustainable Gardening for Florida, has been vetted by academia, so her writing is certified authoritative.
  • Just say no to poisons, which doesn’t pussy-foot around the issue.

• C.Garden Lady C. L. Fornariis a garden consultant on Cape Cod, and a garden writer and speaker nationally.
  • Carefree Perennials about her favorites for sustainable gardeners.

• Climate change expert Michael Johnsen contributed "The Carbon Footprint in your Garden."

• Australian garden writer Stuart Robinson, author of Gardening Tips ‘n’ Ideas is also the mastermind behind Blotanical.com.
  • Using Rubber Mulch in your Garden
  • Vegetables that MUST be Organic
  • Foliar v. Slow-Release Fertiliser – notice the Aussie spelling there?

MORE CONTRIBUTORS?
Know anyone else who writes wisely about sustainable gardening topics, including yourself?  Let us know in a comment.

Top photo: Linda Chalker-Scott.  Next, clockwise from upper left: Don, C.L., Ginny, and Debbie.  Lower composite, same deal:  Stuart, Lise, and Billy.

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Doncha love garden guests, especially when they’re gardening addicts AND gardenwriters?  Robin Wedewer is  Examiner.com’s  national garden writer and has her own blog, too – BumblebeeBlog. Think we had much to talk about?

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