Extra Credit Reading

While you are waiting for the ink on the Fall 2010 issue of Washington Gardener Magazine to dry and then be labeled and mailed, check out these autumnal stories I have written recently for some other area publications:

~ My quarterly guest post on the DCLadies blog:
A Peak Inside the Tregaron Conservancy
For years I’ve walked up Macomb Street just north of the Cleveland Park Library in NW Washington, DC and saw the vast track of land called the Tregaron Conservancy. It looks wild and wooly, to say the least. Gated off from the public and forbidding looking, I could only surmise that this property had been something of note back in its heyday, but what?...
Read the rest at: http://thedcladies.blogspot.com/2010/10/peak-inside-tregaron-conservancy.html

~ My monthly column for the Takoma/Silver Spring/Kensington Voice newspapers:
Bamboo Anew: Take a Closer Look at this Versatile Grass
Those cute National Zoo pandas' favorite treat is also one of the most versatile and useful plants in the garden. Bamboo is underused in the Washington metropolitan area and is saddled with a bad reputation. It deserves a second look and a more accurate understanding of its better qualities.
   Nancy Moore Bess author of Bamboo in Japan remarks, "It is the ugly word invasive that gives bamboo a bad rap...
Read the rest at: http://www.takoma.com/ open the current issue (October 2010) and scroll to page 21
or read it online here: http://www.takoma.com/garden/2010/10/bamboo-anew.html
or pick up the print version in person for free at the many dropbox locations around Takoma Park, Takoma DC, Silver Spring, and Kensington.

~ My quarterly column for Pathways Magazine:
Autumnal Exultation: Add Fall Color to Your Landscape
After a wet spring and blazing hot summer, this should be one of the most colorful and beautiful autumns in recent history for the greater Washington region. The leaves of the sugar maple, ginkgo, and sweetgum trees will be ablaze with the fiery hues of fall. Now is the perfect time to take a look around and evaluate your own home landscape. Could it use a bit of fall color?
   Many amateur gardeners tend to buy and plant only in the springtime. They choose what is in flower right then. This is natural, but it is shortsighted...
Read the rest at:
http://www.pathwaysmagazineonline.com/Pathways%20Online/currentissue_files/PathwaysFall2010.pdf
and scroll to pages 60-62
or pick up the print version in  person for free at the many pick-up locations around the Washington, DC region.