the garden

the garden

we come from the Earth, we return to the Earth, and in between we garden...

april...

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud come over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

- Robert Frost


january	february	march	april


may	june	july	august


september	october	november	december

westhaven woods, beyond the back fence

GARDEN RANT manifesto

We are:

Convinced that gardening MATTERS.

Bored with perfect magazine gardens.

In love with real, rambling, chaotic, dirty, bug-ridden gardens.

Suspicious of the “horticultural industry.”

Delighted by people with a passion for plants.

Appalled by chemical warfare in the garden.

Turned off by any activities that involve “landscaping” with “plant materials.”

Flabbergasted at the idea of a “no maintenance garden.”

Gardening our asses off.

Having a hell of a lot of fun.

MOSS MAKES A LUSH, NO-CARE LAWN

"...a moss lawn needs “a fraction, one percent or less” of the 10,000 gallons (beyond rainwater) that the E.P.A. estimates a suburban grass lawn drinks annually."

Source: United States EPA: Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program

THINGS YOUR LAWN NEVER WANTED YOU TO KNOW

* The EPA estimates that the total amount of residential lawn in the United States ranges around 40 million acres, making turf grass the nation's biggest irrigated crop.
* Americans pour as much as 238 gallons of water per person, per day onto lawns during the growing season.
* The U.S. lawn industry is a $70 billion annual business.
* America's 50 million or so lawnmowers burn through 800 million gallons of gas every year.

AMERICA'S CHEMICALLY DEPENDENT & TOXIC LAWNS

* 67 million pounds of pesticides are applied to roughly 30 million acres of lawns in the U.S. each year.
* The #1 most water intensive crop in the United States is lawn grass. The average lawn is doused with 10,000 gallons of water each year (in addition to rainfall).
* Synthetic fertilizers run off into streets and local waterways, choking aquatic life and polluting our water.
* The EPA estimates that a mower emits as much pollution in one hour as a car emits in driving 20 miles.
* Numerous studies have linked common household herbicides and pesticides to asthma, cancer, reduced fertility and neurological harm to fetuses, infants and children.

-- organic consumers association