If there is one gardening implement that has drawn lines down gender preferences, it would be the weed wacker. I should know, I now own 3 of them. My most recent weed wacker acquisition came from Troy-Bilt (being the Troy-Bilt’s TB57, Lithium Ion String Trimmer) who wanted me to try it out and let you all know what I think about it. And I felt very qualified to do this because, well, I own so many of them now.

My weed wacker collection started out with me going and buying a weed wacker we were in need of one. So I drove myself down to the hardware store and bought one. I bought one that I liked, an electric one, the kind you plug into the wall like a vacuum cleaner and look like a confused housewife wandering around your yard.

My husband was not pleased. He had no desire to look like a confused housewife (he was doing just fine looking like a confused husband, thank you) and he then went out a scoured yard sales until he brought home a rather large gas powered one.

He hated the electric one because he thought it was prissy. I hated the gas powered one because it was heavy and stank. Often, the neighbors would watch the street theater as my husband and I casually wandered around the yard and weed wacked with our own weed wackers trying to prove, non-chalantly, that our weed wacker was the better weed wacker.

Now, I have this weed wacker from Troy-Bilt. It is a battery operated weed wacker and seems to address the issues that both my husband and I had with each others’ weed wackers. Now, technically, my husband is not here to speak his mind on it, but, like all wives before me, I feel that I am entitled to but my words in his mouth.

The Troy-Bilt weed wacker was light enough for me to carry around, and did not have the allegedly sissy electric cord leash. It certainly had the power to cut through the massive patch of thistle that had sprung up around my compost bin (it was like a scene out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre watched on a TV where the color is really off).

I do have to say that I did have some difficulty putting it together. I can honestly say that in this case, the problems started when I skipped the step my husband usually takes in skipping reading the directions. The directions confused me and that made it difficult to put the weed wacker together quickly. I probably would have been better off just putting it together without the directions.

But, once it was together, it worked very well. And the really nice thing about it being battery operated was that when I noticed I had missed a spot, it was no more difficult than picking it up to correct the problem. No lugging the power cord back out. No struggling to get the thing started again.

So now, I have to figure out what to do with the other two weed wackers. I suppose I could always paint them and list them on Craigslist as a matching set of his and her weed wackers.

Tis the season for mental garden preparation. There is snow on the ground and ice on the roof, but right now, the heart of a dedicated gardener is singing the song of spring. And good marketers know that we are doing this. This can be evidenced by now daily piles of mail that are being dumped outside my door. I think this is my mailman’s subtle hint that due to current catalog volume, I need to add myself to a national do-not-mail list.

This is also the time of year that I get inundated with review requests. I actually have to turn some down these days, lest all you read is reviews of product. Helpful as that might be ( and as much as I like free stuff), it would probably get a little old a lot fast.

But when Burt’s Bees asked if they could send me some product to take a look at… Well, there is free and then there is good free. Burt’s Bees qualifies as damn good free.

So, a few days later, among the pile of seed catalogs, a rather non-descript box was also dumped. And it was filled with all sorts of fun little goodies.

About half of the products I cannot make a solid commentary on, beyond to say they smell absolutely fabulous.

But the other half of the products I can comment on, so here is the quick, fast run down.

Burt’s Bees Muscle Mend – I started a class at the gym called Boot Camp. Enough said. Love this product.

Burt’s Bees Miracle Salve – Winter does a number on my skin. Like, I could be a stand in on The Mummy sort of dry skin. This has done a great job dealing with that.

Burt’s Bees Res-Q Ointment – Not sure what to say on this one. Used it on a burn, but whether it helped or not is hard to say. Still smelled really nice.

Burt’s Bees Garden Gloves – I don’t usually use garden gloves. Way too fussy for my taste. But, I do normally keep a pair around because sometimes there just is that really nasty weed that refuses to budge and has spikes from hell. These seem very nice for that. Tough rubberized palms with a light knit back. Not too heavy but tough enough for what I need.

And then, as the bestest thing that came in that box….

They sent me Burt’s hat. Well, maybe not Burt’s own hat (I imagine a real gardener’s hat is a little bit yucky), but that kind of hat that he wears in the pictures, they sent me that hat. It will be a stylin’ summer in the convertible wearing that hat. Gardeners driving past will bow down to my keen sense of style.

But until the weather gets warm enough to enjoy my garden or my convertible, all I am left with is spending hours unscrewing the caps on these Burt’s Bees products and inhaling deeply.

This month, I received a pair of Muck Boots gardening shoes to try out in the garden. The only problem is that really, I am a barefoot gardener. I risk heel and pinky every year hoeing the weeds in naked tootsies. The soles of my feet are so calloused that even the Canada thistle shies away for fear that my foot will crush it without ever knowing it was there.

When I said I would look at these shoes, I had every intention of trying them myself just for the purposes of the review. But when they came in the mail, The Daily Garden rubber gardening shoes were of such a high quality, that I felt it just was not fair. Why should I keep such a nice pair of gardening shoes when I would wear them twice and then sacrifice them to the hungry monster I lovingly refer to as the foyer coat closet? Surely there was someone in my life who would be more deserving (and apt to make good use of the shoes) than I was.

That was when I thought of my mother. She has been on a quest for several years now in search of a perfect gardening shoe. It wasn’t that she couldn’t find comfortable gardening shoes. Nearly all of them are comfortable. A gardening shoe that is not comfortable tends to be converted to a planter rather quickly and therefore ceases to be a gardening shoe. It was just that, well, they all had breathability issues. Gardening shoes do tend to be overwhelmingly made from easy to rinse but solidly formed plastic or rubber. In my family, one cannot trap one’s feet into a solid confine and not expect there to be a few air quality issues when we remove them. For those who have not put two and two together, this would be why I frequently go barefoot.

But I had high hopes for these shoes for my mother. These shoes are made from the ubiquitous solid rubber, but they had a foam like lining. It felt much like the memory foam that is so popular these days. The packaging claimed that this lining made for superior breathability within the shoe.

My mother tried them on and she was pleased with the way the felt on her feet. She compared them in comfort to a pair of Crocs, with that soft yet firm support. The foam lining is largely responsible for that. The lining also did a good job of keeping the feet cool.  She liked the look of the shoe as well and was impressed with the quality feel of the shoe. This is a heavy, well made shoe and you can feel it.

She did note that because the shoe is so heavy, she is not sure how well she would like it in the heat of summer. She felt that for the Fall and Spring, it was defiantly a great garden shoe, but she would have to try it out during the summer (now a whole year away) before knowing if the shoe would be too heavy.

She did end up with blisters on the backs of her ankles after wearing them for a few hours. This is not so much a fault of the shoe, but rather a warning that if you do purchase these shoes, you will want to protect your ankles until you have built up the appropriate calluses.

All and all she was pleased. She felt that this time, she may have found the perfect gardening shoe. Perhaps now the EPA can stop sending those annoying notices to the house during the gardening season.

Once again, the blogging gods have seen fit to send my way the manna of product reviews. This month, I received the Mosquito 86 to review. As was pitched by the representative of the company, the Mosquito 86 is “a new, innovative way to eliminate mosquitoes in a manner that has previously only been offered through professional mosquito and pest sprayers that use commercial sized foggers or truck-mounted systems.”

I.E. It is commercial grade pesticide.

I am not an organic gardener, though I do try to stick to mostly organic methods, mainly because I am a cheap ass part Scottish woman and you can’t get much cheaper than organic. But, I am not above using chemicals if I feel they are worth the cost and effort. So I said I would look at this product.

Beyond that, being a gardener/nature lover/without air conditioning, I regularly eat dinner with my family outside in the summer. Mosquitoes put a crimp in that lifestyle and I don’t particularly like to decide between battling blood sucking insects outdoors or being heated to the same temperature as my food indoors.

This seemed like it might be a good solution. Why not give it a try?

The box arrived as promised and my eldest son and husband assembled the contained system with no problems and without once having to refer to the directions, not that they would have if they needed to, but it was nice that the situation never came up.

While they assembled, I did read the directions and the box, and read the following “Kills mosquitoes (check), wasps (check), yellow jackets (check, check, check, check) and bees (ummmm…). Fortunately, it is late in the season. Most of my flowers are dead or fast fading, so bees don’t make forays into my yard at this time.

My eldest, who is 12, donned the system and my husband and I immediately started to sing the theme song to Ghostbusters, though we were quickly reminded of our age when our son asked “what’s that song?” *Sigh* The loss of the high entertainment of my childhood is tragic.

And for those who may be concerned about the effects of the chemicals on my son, remember, this is the same stuff that your local city (at least mine, anyway) drives around and squirts into your front yards via truck. Here in Ohio, mosoquitoes are a concern due to West Nile.  This chemical has been found safe at reasonable levels (which we will be well below) for humans and pets.

My son sprayed the yard and a few hours later, we sat down to dinner. I have to admit, dinner seemed more mosquito free. It was certainly more yellow jacket free, and they had been a serious problem at dinner as of late.

So, would I recommend this product? That is a tough call. They had me right up until the box said “bees”. I need those in my garden, so this is not a product I could use regularly or even often. September would be the only month where I could even think about using this product. But, most of suburbia is not as dependant on bees as myself but they are certainly as plagued by mosquitoes and yellow jackets as I am. The average suburban home owner would find this to be an effective product.

In the meantime, I was pleased to see that Columbia Pictures has decided to release yet another Ghostbusters. At least then my movie references to my children will seem a little less obscure.

Yesterday, I reviewed the book “Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls”. After I read the book, I had the delightful opportunity to ask one of the authors or the book, Noel Kingsbury, a few questions. I skipped over the availability question this time. While he is quite adorable, I thought that the audience at large (that would be you) would be interested in some more relevant information. So here it goes…

What is the best use of either green roof or vertical gardening (or both) that you have seen? Why does it win that distinction?

Best green roofs I have seen have been in Germany where you have a rich dry meadow type habitat that looks after itself but is really bio-diverse with masses of drought-tolerant wildflowers. And one in the north of England which Nigel Dunnett designed, with a 12cms substrate, very flowery, but that is quite a generous substrate in a cool climate. The only vertical gardening that works is Patrick Blanc’s work in Paris, but it is very expensive and not an easy thing to manage. Far more practical is the use of climbers to cover vertical surfaces – which I know is not done much in the US, but is very common over here in Europe.

What advice can you give to a person who would like to implement a green roof in the typical American suburban neighborhood? Keep in mind, that these neighborhoods typically have ordinances that discourage new or atypical appearances on homes.

Ahh… the USA… land of the free! Where if the city won’t get you for being different the neighbours will. Why are you guys such a nation of conformists? 

A really inspirational gardener here is a chap in Chicago…. Marcus de la Fleur , despite the name a German and a good European freethinker. Check out his website at www.delafleur.com/168_Elm/ for how to convert a rented 1920s house in a classic suburb. He got his landlord interested, has a noticeboard for the neighbours to read, has open days. In other words he is saying he is doing something different and happy to share his ideas with others. If it is about saving water, saving energy etc. then it usually gets people interested.

What are the top three difficulties the typical home gardener may face or should consider when installing a green roof?

1. finding a sympathetic builder or other construction professionals
2. working out a suitable plant mix for your locality
3. sourcing an economic supply of suitable plants

What would be your favorite plants to use in either a green roof or living wall?

Depends entirely on where you are. There is a lot of potential i should think in smaller native American bunch grasses like Stipa tenuissima, as they are drought resistant. Thrifts, armeria species do well and are very decorative. Dwarf alliums, ie. garlics do well, are very colourful and spread by seeding.

I’m going to talk about facadegreening, ie. using climbers. there are few, unfortunately which are evergreen. If you live in the south you can do fantastic things with evergreen ‘jasmine’ type things, not jasmines per se, but species with white and heavily scented flowers: holboelia, stauntonia, trachelospermum etc. Otherwise there are deciduous but much hardier species, a lot of native vines, ie. vitis species or other related Asian species have attractive foliage and fantastic autumn colour, and of course all your parthenocissus species which self-cling to walls.

Bonus IF question – If you could be transformed into any kind of plant in the world, which would it be and why?

Maybe an English oak (Quercus robur), stand there for a very long time and watch the world go by.

I received Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls in the mail to review and I was surprised to discover that I had actually already read it. Well, kind of… I read the 1st edition, which is kind of like the difference between King Kong (1933) and King Kong (2005). Both are great in their own right, but the second edition was updated, with additional bells and whistles.

I first read this book after I had the fantastic idea that I would put a green roof on my house. I went to the library, got every book that I could find on the subject and read them all voraciously. I enthusiastically showed the pictures in the books to my husband who then poured a huge bucket of cold reality on my green roof. I didn’t quite understand everything he said, but there were terms like lode bearing and roof angle and hauling A LOT of dirt. I stopped listening at that point. Construction terms are just not my forte. While I rule the roost on many things, my husband has the final say on building projects. He did promise that if we put a shed in the back, I could green roof it to my heart’s content.

My failed fantasy projects aside, green roofs are an awesome idea. Take a look at this aerial view of Cleveland. Notice something missing? Like the color green?

These buildings cover the surface of the land with metal and man made rock. They absorb heat like a sponge and deflect precipitation like a Scotch Guard. But, many times they have roofs that are flat and serve no other purpose than… than… absorbing heat and deflecting rain. They are not so much bad as a fact of modern life.

The idea of green roofs is that we can have our cake and eat it too. You cover that flat unused building tops with a meadow (or other kind of garden) and return the square footages of green space in a given area to what it once was. Even if the new green space is a few dozen stories up.

Really any building, short or tall, can take advantage of green roofs and Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls is a good place to start to learn more about it if you are thinking about converting a building or building a new structure with a green roof.

I will warn you that this is a heavy book, in terms of knowledge and verbiage. It is no really a guide for the casual interest, but a book that you would probably read, feel confused for half of it but more confident in the idea when you handed it over to your architect and sat down to talk about it.

What you will not find in this book is a step by step guide on how you can convert your roof to a green roof. That’s because a green roof is not a weekend project (unless you intend to put it on a shed in your back yard). The average green roof requires the input of an architect, who can assess the needs of that style of roof and recommend the appropriate changes to the building, which will probably need to be implemented by a professional contractor.

The book does provide a handy plant guide to help you select vegetation for a green roof.

I still want to build a green roof on some kind of structure, though it will probably end up being a shed that I will someday get built in the backyard. But, if you are building a new home and you are looking to incorporate some green ideas, give green roofs and Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls some consideration.

P.S. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is info in the book about living walls too. I didn’t have any walls I wanted to cover with plants, so I kinda skimmed over that info.

P.P.S. Stop back tomorrow and I will have an interview with Noel Kingsbury, one of the authors of this book.

Rain barrels tend to be ugly, monstrous things that you hide in the back corner of your house or risk the neighbors wondering when you are going to be sharing the moonshine you are distilling. I have seen these beasts for sale at the garden centers. All blue or orange and scary looking. Well, they are not all that scary looking, but the $300 price tag is. Something that expensive should not be that ugly or so obviously not natural looking. How do you hide a huge, ugly barrel???

So when I was asked by Garden Supermart if I wanted to review a rain barrel, I was a little apprehensive. Where would I fit an ugly giant barrel in my little bitty yard?  What if it was a blue barrel?  There is no hiding a blue barrel. But they assured me that their rain barrels were neither ugly nor blue. I was delighted and I agreed. And thus began the Great Rain Barrel Postal Adventure.

If you live in the US, you know that the incompetence of the United States Postal Service can sometimes achieve epic proportions. If ever there was a poster child for why government monopolies are a really bad idea, the USPS is it.  Individual emplyees can be good (my mailman Leon and my Grandpa who worked for them being two examples) but the organization as a whole leaves something to be desired. Case in point, it appears that the USPS has the singularly unique ability to lose a package that is larger than your average baby elephant.

After one month, 3 trips to the post office and one exasperating conversation with a Postal Supervisor, they were finally able to locate the rain barrel, which had apparently had been sitting in the middle of their sorting room the entire time, playing a rousing game of Captain Obvious hide and seek.

Anyway, I finally got the rain barrel home, and I do have to say that I was duly impressed. It was not blue nor was it ugly. As a matter of fact, it was terracotta colored and pretty enough that I elected to install it under a downspout on the front of my house, conveniently located near my container plants.

The barrel itself is made from a formed plastic but two different neighbors commented on the fact that they had mistaken the rain barrel for a genuine terracotta jar. It is light enough for me to carry with one hand, but did not feel flimsy or cheap.

I was a little disappointed by the fact that the rain barrel did not come with directions. While there is only a little assembly involved, I did have to correct my husband when he installed it as he figured that top screen was simply an extraneous part thrown in to waste money. While he would have assumed that anyway (as he does not read directions), it would have saved my 10 minutes of arguing with him on the matter if I just had a picture to point to.

And as a note, not good or bad, the hose that leads off the barrel is a very tight fit. Very difficult to get on, but that and the hose clamp ensure that your barrel will not leak.

The price of the largest size rain barrel is comparable to the price of the ugly blue barrel I saw at the garden center the other day, which means you can get style and functionality for the same price.  The one I have is actually less than that as it sells for $159.99 plus shipping.

All in all, I was pleased with my new rain barrel. My only real complaint is that you might want to check and see if they can deliver it via UPS or FedEx, who have to do their jobs in order to stay in business.

My husband and I have always gotten our mowers out of the trash. It is not that we can’t afford a new mower, it is just that my husband tends to feel more manly when he can push a mower that a lesser man was unable to repair. I don’t understand it either. I chalk it up to excess testosterone.

A few months ago, Troy-Bilt asked me to review a mower for them. My thought was that there was still snow on the ground and it is really hard to mow grass in the snow. They said, “No, silly” (they didn’t say that, but I bet they thought that) “In the spring we want you to review one of our mowers. We will even send you one to try.” Well, who can say no to that?

So a new XP Series lawn mower arrived in a big box (which was later adopted by my children and transformed into a coffin. I just don’t ask) and my husband assembled it. He was able to put it together in under a half hour without reading the directions (it is apparently not manly to read directions). But I assume that those clever people at Troy-Bilt know that their product is meant for testosterone addled men and they have designed the product accordingly.

The mower was also easy enough for me to start. That right there is a miraculous feat of industrial design as I sometimes need to go get my husband to start the electric weed wacker for me. I have pathetic arms.

My husband felt that there were too many safety features (testosterone again). I, being the daughter of a man who had once removed the safety feature off a power tool and subsequently lost 2 1/2 fingers, felt there were probably too little, though I could not think of any I would immediately add. I am still fairly certain my husband could figure out some way to almost injure himself with it in the name of being manly.

Then we (and by that I mean my husband) took it out for a run around the yard.

This model is a mulching mower, which I love. Our last dragged from the trash mower was “Not a Mulching Mower”, which I think translates to “Pain In The Ass” in Swahili. I don’t like raking my yard more than once a year.

The XP mower also cut beautifully. Nice, smooth even lawn, which is saying something with my lawn. The dandelions did not have a chance.

Then my husband let me try out the self prolusion system. Hmmm… I am not so fond of that. At level 1, you are walking at a pretty good clip, faster than I would like though my husband does not mind. At the highest level (4), you are training for a marathon with a lawnmower in front of you. I am not joking on that. I was literally pulled off my feet. When you try to mow the lawn without the self propulsion, well, the XP mower did not take kindly to its features being snubbed and did not handle well.

Of course a safety feature kicks in when you let go of the handle while using the self propelled feature. It cuts the motor so that the mower does not go tearing off down the road. But my biggest concern with this is that I have a 12-year-old son (read free landscaping crew). I am a little worried about this mower being used by him. I have visions of the mower akimbo and the half unscathed remnants of my 60 year old hydrangea bush and my son sobbingly explaining how he panicked and just did not let go. Underage mowing with the XP will need to be supervised for a few weeks, maybe months before I feel comfortable with it.

But, my paranoid insecurities aside, it did do a sharp job on the lawn in no time at all. It is a great mower, just a really powerful mower.

I suppose the thing to say would be that this is a man’s lawn mower. More power and all that jazz. Which is okay with me. It gives my husband something to expend his excess testosterone on. He is less likely to injure himself that way.

When I was a kid, I experimented with hydroponics (and not for the typical reasons teenagers do). I was sure that by the time I was an adult, this would be a valuable skill as we would all be living on the moon and maybe even Mars as my teachers had rather firmly told me that we would have decimated this plant due to our rapid deforestation of the rain forest. That didn’t happen.  I guess we just did not cut down enough trees to make it worth NASA’s while (don’t tell my sister I said that).

Which is probably a good thing as I killed everything I tried to grow in water. Hydroponics requires a little know how.

It was quite a few years later on a trip to Canada where I saw, from a distance, the hydroponic future of farming. There were many greenhouses in some of the colder parts of Canada where vegetables were (and maybe still are) grown for commercial consumption. It was always one of the reasons I never worried my pretty little head too much about the future of the vast amount of farmland here in the States. Using hydroponics, you can always go up.

So it intrigued me when, a few weeks ago, I was approached by a EasiestGarden.com to review their how-to video on creating a Hydroponic Lettuce Garden. Could I actually build a hydroponic system at home? So, I watched the DVD and read the manual to find out.

First of all, I do have to say that if you are interested in learning how to create a hydropnic garden, this is an excellent resource. The topic was thoroughly covered and every detail, right down to some darn handy tips and tricks, were explained in an easy to follow step-by-step manner. As a resource, it was great.

The video quality was so-so, but I was willing to forgive that. They at least used a tripod and the video quality does not take away from the content in the video.

The DVD and manual retails for $29.95, which is on the high side for a DVD and small paper pamphlet. Is it worth it? Well, I think that is up to you. This is a topic that is difficult to find really good, thorough information about and the DVD does make it easy for you to understand what could easily turn into a complicated subject. If you are looking for a great resource on this topic and you are committed to the project, than the $30 is worth it.

Now, to answer the question of whether I could build a hydroponic system at my home. Technically, with the directions outlined in this guide, I could but I have a small yard and the end contraption is not the loveliest thing in the world and I could easily see my kids confusing it with an oddly shaped jungle gym. So, my future career as a space station hydroponic gardener will probably have to go on hold. But it was fun to see how I could make such a garden, if I needed to… Say because we actually did go to Mars.

This week’s product to review was sent to me by Fine Gardening magazine. It was a set of DVDs that were presented to me by Fine Gardening as a great resource of information on very focused gardening topics. I got to take a look at Pruning and Propagation.

First, because I like to present good news before the bad, this is an information packed product. Each DVD covers in entirety all the questions that the average person might have about a topic and the bonus videos do make it a bit easier to understand the topic you may have a question about.

But… The dreaded but…

This was not a product that I liked. First of all, it is a program that automatically tries to install itself on your computer. I HATE installing anything unnecessary on my computer. I need all the space possible on my computer to store things like pictures of my garden and illegally downloaded songs. For information that I may only need to reference a few times a year, installing a permanent program is a hassle. It is like buying a reference book that you are told you can only buy if it stays on your coffee table year round.

I would prefer to just pop the DVD in when I need to and access the info from the DVD. This option is avaliable, but as you are prompted to install each time you put the disc in your computer, this may be confusing for less technical people.

I also was a little disappointed in the quality of the videos on the DVD. Don’t get me wrong, the information was all there, but the quality of the video was shaky and I mean that in every sense of the word. Unless there were minor earthquakes in every location that they shot, there is no excuse for shaky video on a professional DVD. For the cost of a single one of these DVDs ($24.99) they could have bought a cheap tripod and improved the professional look of the DVD by 100%.

I also thought the price was smidge high as well. I appreciate the value of information and, despite the free access to all kinds of crappy information on the web, I appreciate that quality information should be paid for especially when it is organized. But the fact is that you can find well illustrated books with similar information for less.

Who are these DVDs for? Well,

• If you do not mind installing several programs on your computer to have easy access to quality information
• or you understand how your computer works enough to feel comfortable navigating it
• If you don’t need to take Dramamine to make it through a Disney 3-D theme ride
• If you are lacking in space for books

If the above describes you, this would be a good product for you. As I said, the information is solid but the execution leaves a little something to be desired.

Read other reviews of this DVD:
Guest Review: Fine Gardening’s DVD on Propagation
The Fine Art of Teaching Pruning