Video: All Animations Building a Park Out of Waste Designing for Active Living The Edible City Energy Efficient Home Landscapes From Industrial Wasteland to Community Park Infrastructure for All Revitalizing Communities with Parks Leveraging the Landscape to Manage Water Urban Forests = Cleaner, Cooler Air Related Projects Crosswaters Ecolodge Garden/Garden — A Comparison in Santa Monica Lily Lake Residence NE Siskiyou Green Street Nueva School Designing Neighborhoods for People and Wildlife

Designing Neighborhoods for People and Wildlife from ASLA on Vimeo.

Yesterday, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in Washington, DC, released an animation that promotes the values of landscaping with native plants to support local wildlife, and it is now live on ASLA's web site:http://www.asla.org/sustainablelandscapes/Vid_Wildlife.html an is posted above. The key advisors for the animation are Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home, and Ann English, ASLA, the Rainscapes Coordinator at Montgomery County, Maryland Department of Environmental Protection.

Seed Packs for Trick-or-Treaters

I always like to give something on Halloween in addition to candy. Sometimes it is cool pencils or stickers. Other years I give out small toys. This year I went through my boxes of extra seed packs and sorted out ones I thought kids would enjoy growing or that had a fun autumnal look -- from pumpkins to carrots to sunflowers to funky gourds. I got out my box of scrapbooking supplies and found a "Happy Halloween" stamp. I stamped some card-sized paper samples then stapled them to the top of the seed packs. I think they turned out pretty nicely. Next year, I'll try to remember to make these a few weeks in advance of the Halloween holiday to give out at any events Washington Gardener Magazine may exhibit at as a nice booth freebie for kids and adults.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Corona Contest - Deadline Pushed Back Due to Sandy

For our October 2012 Washington Gardener Reader Contest, we are giving away red t-shirts (size XL) and garden clippers from Corona Tools.

An authentic American brand, Corona tools were born in the orange groves of California in the 1920s. Since then, generations of agriculturists, gardeners, landscapers, arborists, and construction professionals have turned to Corona to find high-quality tools that work as hard as they do. They know that Corona’s iconic red handles are an immediate symbol of quality and long-lasting durability. Learn more about CoronaTools at http://coronatoolsusa.com/.

To enter to win a Corona T-shirt and garden clippers, send an email with “Coronoa” in the subject line to WashingtonGardener@rcn.com by 5:00pm on Tuesday, October 30 Sunday, November 4. In the body of the email please include your full name, email, mailing address, and tell us: “Your Favorite Gardening Tool and Why.” The winners will be announced and notified by November 6. Some of the entry responses may be used in future Washington Gardener online or print articles.

Fenton Friday: Weeds and Last of the Potatoes

Pumpkin vine blossom

Spent some time in my garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden weeding and cleaning up some of the spent cucumber and melon vines. I did note that my Spinach is growing tall with nice foliage, but no heads forming yet. My pumpkin vine decided finally to set a flower (pictured) but unless we have the mildest winter weather, it is a waste of the plant's effort. Yeah, this has been a crazy year as far as timing.




I also weeded a bit as with other things ending, it is very obvious where weeds like Mares Tail and other nasty plants have snuck in underneath and behind the "good" plants. And they have the nerve to  be starting to set seed!

German Butterball potatoes

I dug my last German Butterball row of potatoes up too. Leaving these in all season paid off as I have far more yield from these than the plants I dug up mid-summer.

Video: How to Winterize Your Vegetable Garden

For 3+ days, I've bee trying to get my photos and video of the White House kitchen garden to upload so I can edit and share them with you all. I think I'll give that a break for now and hope that happens over the weekend so I can share them next week. Meanwhile, I'm postng this video from the Washington Gardener Magazine/MonkeySee.com vaults on "How to Winterize Your Vegetable Garden."
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Growing Moss Gardens and Lawns ~ Washington Gardener Enews ~ October 2012

Open publication - Free publishing - More dc

The Washington Gardener Enews ~ October 2012 is now out and being emailed as a PDF to all current Washington Gardener Magazine subscribers.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
~ Growing Moss Gardens and Lawns
~ Magazine Excerpt: Knights in Muddy T-Shirts -- A Garden Rescue
~ Mid-Atlantic Garden To-Do List for October-November
~ Reader Contest: Win Garden Clippers and T-Shirts from Corona Tools by telling us Your Favorite Garden Tools
~ Washington Gardener's Recent Blog Post Highlights
~ Spotlights Special: New October Magic™ Dawn (Camellia sasanqua) from Southern Living Plants
~ Top Local Garden Events Calendar for October-November
~ Washington Gardener Magazine Back Issue Sale!
and much more... 

The issue is also posted and archived online at:

http://issuu.com/washingtongardener/docs/wgenews-oct12

so you can access it anytime.