The Mysterious Garden Muse

“Talking Tulips with Eric Olson of DeVroomen,” By Becke Davis Tulips are one of the most easily recognized heralds of spring, providing welcome color in beds and borders. To landscape contractors, though, tulips sometimes spell trouble. “They worry about deer damage and tulips only lasting one year,” observes Eric Olson, sales and marketing adviser of De Vroomen Holland Garden Products in Holland, MI. While Olson agrees that deer can be a problem, he adds, “People need to try other types of spring flowering bulbs. Tulips are not the only spring flowering bulbs, so try some of the other spring beauties. There are no deer resistant tulip varieties yet, but researchers are working on it and getting closer. Maybe some day we will have this problem figured out. As for the other concern, we do have new research on tulips that perennialize. You can also plant a combination of early, mid and late blooming tulips you can have 40 days of bloom, from the first part of April to mid-May in the mid-...

Where Have All the Bees Gone?" By Becke Davis "Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put his head between his paws and began to think. First of all he said to himself: "That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee." Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey." And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it." Ever since A.A. Milne's tales of Winnie-the-Pooh were published more than half a century ago, Pooh's adventures with bees have made the honey bee more of a familiar face than a menace with a sharp sting. In the real world, some people are concerned that declining...

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is going to be our featured mystery for February at the BN.com Mystery Book Club. It is often listed as one of the best mysteries of all time. It's a great book by a British author who deserves more recognition. If you haven't read this yet, you're in for a treat. Sorry about the picture quality, not sure how to fix that.

This month at BN.com we are featuring these two books in the Mystery book club. I've been a fan of Greg Iles' books for awhile and these two very different books have one thing in common -- once you start reading them, you'd better make yourself comfortable because it will be a long time until you can put them down. I stayed up half the night to finish Third Degree in one sitting. Come join the discussion!

Right now it's pouring rain in Cincinnati, but I thought I'd share some pictures that I took last winter. This isn't good for the trees, but it is certainly beautiful in its own way.

Wow, I really have been a slacker about this blog. I'll try to do better in 2008 -- does that sound like a resolution? Under the heading: "Excuses, excuses" I'd just like to point out that I was away more than I was home in 2007. The new year is continuing to follow this trend. Since I last wrote, I've had so much going on I hardly know where to start. My news isn't all garden related, so somewhere along the line I may have to change the name of this blog. Oh well, if you will bear with me we'll see how it goes. In the latter part of 2007, I was in Chicago about every other week. We have been thinking about moving back up there, maybe to a small place in the city. Now that we are empty nesters the call of the big city is strong again -- we did love living in London all those years ago and we've always liked Chicago. Then again, Chicago is the "green" city not the "cheap" city -- we saw this great condo near Belmont and when we check...