Sustainable Gardening News - May 2008

In the News

• A ban on many lawn and garden pesticides will go into effect next spring in Ontario, Canada. The new law would prohibit 80 chemicals and 300 products that experts say pose a potential health

• Even big business loves bees, especially if the business if Ben & Jerry’s.  Blogger Michele’s family are seriously into bees. Then over on Dry Ideas learn how to build your own solitary bee house.

• Thanks to Craig Cramer and Jane Berger for posting about this great hort student project.

• Slate tackles the debate over fake turf.

• Treehugger reports that condoms can save the rain forest.  Another great reason to use ‘em, I suppose.

• Great report in the Washington Post about trees, global warming, and our gardens.

• It had to come to this - treebhuggers battling it out in court with solar-panel-huggers.

On the Blogs

• I give Jeff Gillman’s proclamations about herbicides and fertilizers, organic or otherwise, a thorough look on my blog and in my local paper.

• Boy, the Germinatarix got into the thick of the lawn/anti-lawn debate when she supported SYNLawn for areas without enough rainfall for the real stuff.  Commenters spoke their minds.

• Andrea (at Heavy Petal) posted about amending your soil organically.

• Just say no to water-saving hydrogels is Idaho Gardener’s recap of a meaty discussion on the garden writers email group, and I thank Mary Ann for the great summary.

• Carol reviews cultivators, so we don’t have to.

• Great post by Saxon Holt at Gardening Gone Wild about marketing of new plants taking a bizarre turn of late.

• One blogger steps up to defend a lovely weed - violets - and finds out she’s not alone in admiring them. I’m in the pro-weed camp myself.

• Check out this great post about pesticides, organic and otherwise, comparing a news story with The Truth about Organic Gardening.

• I report on a movie about truly sustainable agriculture in Cuba, post-peak-oil.

• Read about invasive plants being removed from shelves.

• I reported on how advice about dandelions is changing - but not fast enough here in D.C. where it’s still "Nuke ‘em!"

• It’s a hard life in the city for a tree. This reports on the pro-tree message, and some anti-tree pushback.

• Wanna see how the more toxic elements in the petro-hort industry promote their smelly products?  Every way they can think of, including lobbying the garden writers.  Lots of juicy comments.

• Oh, yeah, We Heart the Zero-Impact Man.

In the Garden

•  With Organic Gardening and DC’s Channel 9 News both visiting this month, readers may have seen enough of my garden for a while.  In case you haven’t, here’s a nice woodland scene.

• Reports of my lawn-to-groundcover and lawn-to-veggies makeovers are coming soon.

My So-Called Second Career

• It’s peak season for gardening coaches, and I wrote about one client who received my services as an early Father’s Day gift.  I’m meeting some very, very cool people this way, I’ll tell ya. 

• I finally gave my first talk to a large group, using actual photos, on the subject of Creating and Maintaining a Sustainble Gardening - what else?  The crowd was not shy with their questions and a lively time was had by all.  But best of all, it’s over.

What I’m Reading

A wildly enthusiastic review of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver is coming soon.