Bump! Wow, it's hard to believe this thread got so little response. I am staring down the barrel of a long winter and wonder what I might read to get me through. I have some of the basics and how-tos....looking for more of the same with a different perspective or a fun read like Georgianne Brennan's In the French Kitchen Garden.

I absolutely love Garden Gate. Each issue comes with hole punches so they can be saved in a three ring binder. That's a huge help for someone like me who holds on to gardening magazines forever! Plus when they feature a garden they also include the site plans so you can see what is planted where, and they provided a guide to show you where each photograph was taken from. (I don't know if you've realized this or not, but pictures can be very deceiving.) This way it's very clear how they got the perfect shot. I've also found their staff to be very well educated and up to date on gardening practices. They don't support the many gardening myths out there that still manage to get circulated (like adding sand to clay soils, can we say concrete?). Hope that helps. I still buy most magazines I can get my hands on this time of year because I just love looking at all the possibilities out there and can't wait for another growing season. Natasha

To NAF: I just highlighted Klondkike_Kate's response, right clicked on it, chose "copy", right clicked on the "Post a follow-up" box and chose "paste". Now I will replace her responses with mine. To Klondike_Kate: I have a couple of friends who are planning to move up to Whitehorse this fall. One of them just got a job as a biologist, although I don't remember for who. I might have to send them your way, because it's nice to have a friendly neighbor when you're new. GW Name - Hykue What does your GW name stand for? It started as a typo. When you type my name with your right hand shifted to the left one key, you get Hykue. I kind of like the play on haiku, and it's always available on any forum. Real Name - Julie Age - 30 Companion - Common-law husband of 10 years (or so) Children? not yet, but planned for soonish Pets? Echo, an 18-year old Husky-Collie cross; Aria, a 9-year old Great Pyrenees-Border Collie cross; Kitty-doo (yeah, I know, very original . . . and I don't know why "doo"), a 13? year old toothless tabby cat. Where do you live or used to live? I live in Meadow Lake, SK. I grew up in northern Alberta, and lived in Texas for two years and Washington state for 1 year. Zone? 1b, but don't tell all my zone 4 plants that. Please. Do you work? I'm a biologist. Sometimes I work from home doing data verification for a biodiversity program in Alberta. In other words, I check things over for pay. Very boring, but I can do it from home. Companion Occupation? Treeplanter . . . although he has a biology degree, treeplanting pays much better. Other hobbies besides gardening? Reading, cross-country skiing, knitting and crochet, walking, drawing (not as much as I should), guitar (ok, almost never, but again, I should). Sometimes computer games, in spates. How long have you been gardening? Right around one year now. I did help a little bit in my parents' garden as a kid, but that mostly consisted of shaking poppy seed-heads and transplanting petunias. Oh yeah, and picking berries. Where is your garden located and what is its size? We live on 40 acres, mostly in pasture. The house and yard are on a hilltop (yes, in SK . . . it's glacial till, which is fun, because it means that the soil can be clay in one spot and sand 10 feet away). The veggie garden is about 50'x100'. When we moved in it was 75% quackgrass, 15% raspberries, with the rest being rhubarb and horseradish. In fact, I have to show it From 27may2009 That's after we round-upped one part. In frustration with that project, I bought some flowers, dug out some sod, and planted a flower bed in mostly native soil. That's how I discovered my flower addiction, and now I have a lasagna bed underway for more flowers next year. Courses in Horticulture? No. What are your specialities in gardening? I have a friend who says I'm very good at seed starting, so maybe that. I'm planning to focus on plants that have low water needs, as our well is a little on the slow side. And I guess I'm good at the planning stage. I love making a plan, on paper, on the computer, or in my head. Best of all is all three. Favorite Flower? My parents inform me that it must be irises, and I think they might be right, but no kind of flower stands on its own in my opinion. Favorite Tree/Shrub? For the garden, weeping birch. Wild, either larch (tamarack) or paperbark birch. All of which like moist conditions unlike our hilltop, sunbaked yard. What has been the best-performing plant/plants in your gardens? Some sort of purple iris that is growing in about 4 different spots around the property, including the orchard and the middle of the lawn. It was here when we arrived, and couldn't have had much care before that. Or maybe caragana, but it's much more of a thug than a success. Most Challenging Plant? I can't say yet. Favorite Gardening Quote? I think that would have to be Marcia's quote, which I will repeat here. "When gardening, irreverence is essential. Were playing in the dirt, for heavens sake!" Favorite Garden Magazines? I'm not much into paying for magazines, but I should check out our library's supply. Favorite Garden Books or resources? Within arm's reach right now, I have: a couple of Lois Hole books, Flowers from seed to bloom and Organic food (both Gardener's A-Z Guides to Growing). A few feet further on the bookshelf, I have Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, and another Lois Hole. Those have proven most useful to me. What is your favorite tool? Probably a treeplanter's shovel. Can be used to weed, plant out new plants, divide perennials, edge a bed, dig a trench. But I also really like my dutch hoe, and my bare hands. What are you most comfortable in when gardening? Whatever I happen to be wearing. I have to make a special effort to change if it's totally inappropriate - yesterday I just barely stopped myself from weeding in a cashmere sweater. I wish I could garden barefoot, but I think about 2% of our soil volume in the veggie garden is either broken glass or rusty nails and metal bits. What has been your best garden purchase or project? So far, round-upping the quack grass. Any projects in the works or planned? Right now I'm layering organic stuff to make a lasagna bed that curves around between our house and the pond (natural, huge, and full of swimmer's itch). I plan to make it into a rainbow bed, with purple at one end and red at the other. We're trying to finish edging the garden with aluminum flashing in the hopes that it will keep out the quack grass. We need to build a more dog-proof chicken coop, because my MIL's dog is an instigator and we now only have 3 chickens left. Raised beds in the veggie garden, more fruit trees, okay I have to stop. Oh, one more thing, a greenhouse. And a new deck, before someone falls through and breaks a leg. Ack! If you had an unlimited budget, what would you do with your gardens? Firstly, see above list of projects. Secondly, hire a weeder, who would leave me only the occasional easy-to-pull annual weed. Thirdly, terrace our hillside and make it into a potager-type garden. Most importantly, spend more time with my hubby outside in the garden (and elsewhere), since he won't have to work anymore. If you could invent a plant, what would it look like? Oh, it would be a climbing vine with flowers like a large brown iris with cobalt-blue circular spots running in a line down each petal (I dreamed this iris once), and a scent like a wild rose. It would, of course, bloom all season. And be very hardy. And LOVE drought. Describe an experience with a garden pest that had you ready to throw in the trowel? None yet, although if you count caragana as a garden pest, you could say that it makes me want to cry. It's absolutely everywhere, hundreds of feet from the original hedge, and it's the spiky kind. Waah! What advice do you have for the novice gardener? Nothing except to ask people lots of questions. Also, know whether you need a reality check or a cheerleader, and choose who you ask accordingly. I have my "realistic" friends and my "cheerleader" friends, and I greatly appreciate both kinds. What is your motivation for gardening? I can't seem to help it. The veggie garden is because we want to be as self-sustaining as possible, and the flowers simply make me feel happy and satisfied. Although I didn't help my parents garden very much when I was growing up, maybe their lovely gardens had a big effect on me. It makes my house feel like a home to have live things that I've nurtured around it. Lastly, when we do have kids (or kid) I want them to learn about life and nature and gardening, and I'm hoping the gardens will help achieve that. Kind of funny that my name is a play on such a concise poem form, and I'm so long-winded. It is funny, right? And not just annoying?

Hosenemesis, that was so perfectly-put! I don't think Picasso ever meant a painting to be peaceful or restful, (although I'm _not_ an art historian). I wonder how many Guernica gardens that designer has planted? I liked the first couple of Kincade paintings I saw, until I saw that the paintings are too similar to one another for my taste. They're pretty, but geez--that saturated amber light, at any and every time of day! But their intent is definitely to soothe and bring peace and enjoyment, which is mostly what I want out of my gardens. Bold slashes of color and energy in a garden are neat, too, but I wouldn't claim that they were Picasso-inspired. The designer called Picasso stuff "clean, bold and neat"???? Most of his work (not that I've seen everything) is smeary, jagged and with sketch-like lines. Maybe the designer meant Mondrian??? I imagine that designer finds that he can get rich customers to sign on if he finds a way to relate gardens to high art. His pretensions attract pretentious customers, and there's probably more money in that. Or, if he can convince people that the look they like (something like Kincade) is stupid and will be made fun of, they might hire him instead of of someone else, or planning their own gardens.