Garden Therapy

Making a Pea Trellis with Kids

April 20, 2012 by Stephanie 16 Comments

This simple project is a great way to get the kids out in the garden for a little free labour…{ahem} I mean garden therapy.

Spring is the time to plant peas out in the garden. Seeds germinate well in cool soil so plants have a strong start by the time summer hits. I like to start my peas indoors then move the little vines out when they are strong enough, but you can also buy started pea plants at nurseries and farmers market this time of year.

When you plant your peas they will start to ramble and tangle along the ground and the sweet tips get munched on by just about any vegetable loving creature you can imagine (slugs, snails, the darn dog!) so it’s nice to grow them vertically up a support. The little vines cling and twine nicely around string, and this simple trellis is perfect to pack a lot of peas into a small area.

Materials:

Bamboo poles of various lengths
A spool of garden twine
A garden helper

Directions:

1. Stick two 6’ or longer bamboo poles into the soil on either side of your pea patch.

2. Make a frame using two more bamboo poles that measure a few inches longer than the width of your side stakes. Secure the poles together by tying twine around the poles where they cross in a figure eight pattern.

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Filed Under: Growing Food, Projects Tagged With: Garden Therapy, peas, trellis, vertical gardening, weekend project

Handmade Garden Flower Pillows for Mother’s Day

April 19, 2012 by Stephanie 2 Comments

If you are looking for the perfect gift for Mother’s Day that says, “you are my sunshine”, check out the Garden Therapy Handmade shop. Order now through May 3rd to ensure your purchase will arrive in time to make it for Mom’s big day and use the code “SPRING” for 10% off your entire order.

Garden Therapy Handmade pillows are made from fabric designed with photographs from my garden. Macro imagery of each flower has been carefully giclée-printed on a gorgeous a linen-cotton blend. The fabric is sturdy and the print is washable making this truly art you can use. For more information, please visit the Garden Therapy Handmade Shop.

Filed Under: Flowers Tagged With: Garden Therapy, Garden Therapy Handmade, handmade holiday gifts, Mother's Day

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival 2012 + How to Grow Tulips

April 15, 2012 by Stephanie 4 Comments

Few years back I visited Skagit Valley in Washington state where each year they delight visitors with a little taste of what Holland’s tulip farms might be like during the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. The area is home to many producers of spring flowers including tulips, daffodils, and irises.

The festival runs April 1-30 of any given year and a quick look at the bloom map will tell you which of the fields are in full glory. Bloom times are always subject to Mother Nature’s schedule, but you can usually find a couple fields of tulips in bloom in the middle of the month, but you best be quick because the blooms don’t last more than 2 weeks before they are cut, bulbs removed, and soil turned for another year.

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Filed Under: Flowers, Photography Tagged With: community events, Garden Therapy, garden tour, GBBD, tulip, tulip festival, Vancouver

Horticultural Therapy at the 2012 San Francisco Flower and Garden Show

April 10, 2012 by Guest 3 Comments

Nicky from Dirt and Martinis joins us today for a guest post on her visit to the 2012 San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. We are so lucky to have her eyes and ears (and camera) to share all the trends and eye-candy she spotted. Want to read more from Nicky? Check out Dirt and Martinis on Facebook and Twitter too.

I recently attended the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show that took place on March 21-25, 2012 at the San Mateo California event center. With over 200 green exhibitors, garden displays, design seminars and cooking demonstrations, this event is one I will remember for years to come. It was that spectacular!

Considering this was my first garden and flower show I’ve ever attended I had no idea what to expect. As I stepped into the show entrance I was immediately overwhelmed with beauty, color and serenity, not only in the garden displays, but in the attendees faces. The mood of the show was calm, the lighting was perfect and the setting was relaxing. One attendee described having a horticultural hangover after a day strolling through all the exhibits and I agree.

Thankfully I brought my camera and out of the hundreds of photos I took I’d like to show you some of my favorite parts of the show. Enjoy!

Can’t you just picture yourself here enjoying a glass of wine? I love the use of old windows in this cozy setting.

It’s not a fantasy…any garden can be green. Do you have some rusty shovels or garden tools? Hang them on a garden shed as shown here at the Hillbilly Hilton garden display…

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Filed Under: Gardening, Photography Tagged With: garden show, Garden Therapy, garden tour, guest post, trends

Tennis Racket Garden Art

March 25, 2012 by Guest 6 Comments

It’s a wonderful day for a garden project and Project Garden! The following post of part of Stacy Tornio’s virtual book tour for her brand new book, Project Garden: A Month-by-Month Guide to Planting, Growing, and Enjoying ALL Your Backyard Has to Offer, which includes recipes, plant suggestions, garden plans, and even games.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to have unique and colorful art in your garden. Colorful beaded tennis rackets can really catch the light. Here’s how to make them:

Materials:

Scissors
Tennis or badminton racket
Tweezers or needle-nose pliers (optional)
Ribbon, yarn, wire or string
Beads and/or trinkets

Instructions:

1. Using scissors, cut the strings out of the racket. Remove all the strings. (You might want to use some tweezers or needle-nose pliers to get at those hard-to-reach spots.)

2. Measure and cut your ribbon or string to the desired lengths. These will hang down from the top of your racket, so measure twice and cut once.

3. Tie knots at one end of your ribbon. Then string with decorations like colorful beads or wood trinkets.

4. Once you’ve strung the ribbons, pull them through the holes of the tennis racket and secure with knots. You can leave the beads hanging freely or tie them from one side to another to create a web.

5. Push the racket handle into the ground, and enjoy!

Thanks to Stacy for shaing this fabulous project from the book. Look for Project Garden to get more garden fun for the entire family.

Filed Under: Projects Tagged With: book club, garden art, Garden Therapy, project

Terrarium Craft Review & Salad Bowl Terrarium Project

March 23, 2012 by Stephanie 12 Comments

I was so excited to get a review copy of Terrarium Craft: Create 50 Magical, Miniature Worlds , probably more excited than is considered ‘normal’. Flipping through the 50 projects, there was clearly lots of inspiration. After a brief introduction on materials and techniques, Terrarium Craft stunning photography showcases forest, beach, desert, and fantasy terrarium ideas.

After reading the book cover to cover, I was so inspired to try some projects I have all but put my seed starting on hold and transformed my corner window grow-op into a terrarium building site. Air plants, succulents, shells, rock and found objects abound as terrariums are a nature lover’s doll house. For my first project I fashioned a woodland-inspired terrarium out of a salad bowl, moss, Aeonium, Sedum, Bromeliad and a tiny felted owl.

Materials:

Glass salad bowl
Indoor cactus soil
Polished river stones
Branches, lichen, found objects

Plants:

Aeonium
Sedum
Bromeliad
Spanish Moss (epiphyte)
True Moss (bryophyte)

Instructions:

1. Fill the bottom 1/3 with cactus soil (note: the book suggests using sand or moss balls to plant your terrarium, but I don’t mind the look of soil and I’m not worried about drainage because I’ll carefully. The book’s projects do look cleaner with the sand so it’s all personal preference).

2. Place true moss around one side of the bowl. Shake soil gently off the root ball of the aeonium, sedum and bromilad. Dig little holes in the cactus soil and place plants. Back fill with soil and place moss around plants on the moss side. Add some river stones to the other half to cover the soil up to the moss level.

3. Add fun personal elements that will add personality to your “mixed salad”. Shown here are Spanish moss (which is a type of Tillandsia or air plant so it should float above the soil), a twig with bird’s nest mushrooms I collected back in the mushroom foraging days of autumn, and a felted pocket owl that I bought from Etsy which has it’s own story.

The final result is a quirky terrarium that reminds me of days waking thought the woods with the dogs, hoping to spot a real owl like these, and collecting gems from the forest floor.

There are a few other projects that I’d like to try from the book, like suspending plant roots in a moss ball inside the terrarium, but for now I best get on my seed starting or I’ll be very sad and/or broke come heirloom tomato season.

If you have tried a terrarium, or plan to try one, please let me know. I would love to see photos of this very personal art form.

Filed Under: Gardening, Projects Tagged With: book club, Book Club, Garden Therapy, terrarium, weekend project

Weekend Handmade: Trivets to Stepping Stones

March 14, 2012 by Stephanie 2 Comments

We had a great start to Garden Therapy Book Club with lots of readers visiting and commenting on the recipes from A Green Guide to Natural Beauty + Mango Citrus Body Butter Recipe and Hemp & Honey Lip Balm. The selection is a book that I’ve been very excited about reviewing: Weekend Handmade, by Kelly Wilkinson.

On the jacket, it describes Kelly Wilkinson as a “craft designer and journalist” with projects appearing in many stylish blogs like Apartment Therapy and Design*Sponge. Since the title and cover reminded me of the Weekend Project that I post here each week, I was pretty jazzed to dig in.

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Filed Under: Crafts, Projects Tagged With: book club, book review, concrete, Garden Therapy, stepping stones

Green Roof Birdhouse Tutorial

February 23, 2012 by Stephanie 32 Comments

Green roofs are all the rage right now but why should we humans have all the fun? In this Weekend Project you will learn how to make a removable, plantable roof addition to a standard cedar birdhouse. Adorable.

My husband is a hobbyist woodworker. Lucky me, right? And since we were talking about setting up some nesting boxes for our chickadees, he found some plans online, bought some wood, and then a few hours later we had this beautiful little birdhouse.

Gorgeous and perfectly made, with vent holes for the bird family’s air circulation, and the rough wood facing in so the fledglings can crawl up to the perfectly-sized hole for their first venture out into the world. Oh, and it has a hinged roof so that you can peek in on them <ahem> clean the birdhouse at the end of the season.

Me: “Great birdhouse, Honey. Let’s make a green roof for the birdies.”

Husband: “Um, ok, well….but if we put a green roof on it we won’t be able to lift it up to look clean inside.”

Me: “There has to be a way. We can figure it out, right?”

Husband: “Um, yeah…”

If you speak husband like I do then you know that basically means, “I don’t know what you’re up to, Crazy Woman, but I’m not touching that birdhouse”. So I waited for him to go to work and I got busy building this fabulous removable plant tray that acts as a green roof. Want to make one too? Here’s how: (If you don’t see the tutorial, please click ‘continue reading’.)

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Filed Under: Gardening, Projects Tagged With: birdhouse, Garden Therapy, projects, sedum, weekend project, wild birds

Garden Therapy’s Best of 2011

January 3, 2012 by Stephanie

2011 was without a doubt an exciting year full of garden therapy. It all began with some Proposals for a New Year which really launched the Weekend Project series of tutorials that go up each and every week. It took a little while to get a groove going, but now Garden Therapy is loaded with crafty/garden-y/foodie projects that will hopefully inspire you to dig in. After all of the blood, dirt, and paper cuts it was hard to choose the best of 2011. Nonetheless, here they are.

1. Garden Therapy Handmade Shop Opens!

Opening the new Etsy shop to sell a hand crafted line of floral throw pillows was by far the most exciting thing that happened this year. The Studio Blooms line of throw pillows started from flowers grown in my gardens which were then photographed in macro, blown up to mammoth proportions, and printed on fabric using the giclée technique. Each pillow represents a piece of artwork for your home, yet artwork you can cuddle up to and read a book on. Every step was carefully (obsessively?) planned out and executed, so the final cushions are truly show-stopping.

A labour of love that took well over a year and a half to launch, it’s been a great success so far and I have very high hopes for 2012. Look for new designs, new products, and new locations where you can buy Garden Therapy Handmade in the coming year. And remember, each design is a limited edition so please snap them up before they are all gone.

2. Free Printable Canning Labels

It seems a shame to put so much love into a a jam, jelly, or pickle to then just label the lid with a sharpie. These printable canning labels are also meant for the canning jar’s snap lid so it get’s recycled when the lid does with no sticky glue to soak off the glass jar. Oh, and did I mention they are free? Yup, just download and print ‘em on label paper. You’re welcome.

3. The Natural Skincare Series

While making bath and body care products isn’t technically gardening, these projects all honour nature by using only natural essential oils, colourings, and other ingredients. Tutorials for handmade cold process soap, bath bombs, sugar scrub, bath salts, and lip balm were incredibly popular and made amazing holiday gifts. Good news, there will be more recipes and tutorials to come in 2012!

4. Candles in Many Shapes and Forms

The first candles to be posted were these Citronella CAN-dles. And while no bugs bit me while they were alight, I was bitten by the candle-making bug! Soy and beeswax jar candles followed which were beautiful in their simplicity. The real star of the show, however, was the beeswax flower jar candles, where a 3-dimensional beeswax surprise hides under the lid of these. A perfect holiday gift, although so far, those who have them have not wanted to burn them and watch the flower melt away. To that I say, light away and make more…and here’s how.

5. The Grinch Tree, Whoville Party and & Holiday Decorations

Speaking of the holidays, the Grinch tree was the singing Who’s that warmed up my Grinchy demeanour this holiday season. Feeling a little blue and growly before the holidays, I didn’t want to put up a Christmas tree this year. The compromise was to decorate a tree that mirrored the feelings, and the Grinch tree was born. And just like the movie, my spirits warmed up and the true meaning of Christmas was revealed: to make festive holiday planters and decorate the house and throw a Whoville-themed party! Thanks, Grinchy.

6. Wreath Making

There is always a wreath on the Garden Therapy front door, and maybe another few scattered around the garden. Tutorials for Making an Evergreen Wreath, Lavender Wreath, and Halloween Hop Wreath were easy and fun projects that didn’t cost a penny. Love!

7. Halloween Planters, Jack-o-Planterns, & Rock Spiders

Now that Hop Wreath wasn’t the only Halloween decoration this year. Scaaary planters with severed hands, witch’s brooms, and kale (OK, not too scary) were unique natural decorations. But nothing was as fun as the Jack-o-planterns and DIY Rock Spiders (sorry, Elisabeth, I know they freak you out).

8. Concrete Garden Projects

Being lucky enough to receive a review copy of Concrete Garden Projects: Easy & Inexpensive Containers, Furniture, Water Features & More meant a fun afternoon making modern planters and leaf-print stepping stones. I’m totally addicted now!

9. Jammin’ Recipes

Not as much canning happened as normally does, but there were still some fantastic recipes this year: Winter Marmalade, Black & Blue Berry Jam, and Bourbon Cranberry Sauce topped the list.

10. Tangerine Tango

The final highlight of 2011 was the announcement of Pantone’s 2012 colour of the year, Tangerine Tango which will undoubtedly be a popular colour in fashion and home décor (already seeing it everywhere!) but there are also some pretty cool plants that can spice up your garden. Also cool, a set of Studio Blooms pillows rocks out in Tangerine Tango. Hmmm. That is a really great way to start of 2012.

Thank you to everyone who has visited in 2011 and I so very much hope that you will be back this year. Happy gardening!

Filed Under: Canning, Gardening, Growing Food, Projects Tagged With: Best of, Garden Therapy, Garden Therapy Handmade, projects

The Magic of the Grinch Christmas Tree

December 12, 2011 by Stephanie 34 Comments

The Christmas tree that graces the Garden Therapy house this year is not a huge, lush, extravagantly-adorned spectacle as it has been in the past. Nope, this year we almost didn’t put up a tree. I was feeling a bit grinchy and will admit that the holidays have been difficult in the past, the last few years in particular. So this year the plan was to just skip Christmas all together, keep busy through the winter and pop out on the right side of Spring, ready to get diggin’ again.

You’re a rotter, Mr. Grinch / You’re the king of sinful sots / Your heart’s a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots / Mr. Gri-inch! / You’re a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!

But then and idea hit me. Like a vision appearing before me it was suddenly clear as day: a Grinch Tree. A tree design that celebrates not just the joy and wonder of the season, but celebrates the difficulties and challenges as well.

If those little Who’s could sing their hearts out in tough times, then so can I. I bought a potted cedar and rigged it up by pruning and re-attaching some branches so that the ball on the top would hang over just right. The perfect green ball and ribbon were easy to find.

The decorations are a combination of simple white lights, wooden ornaments, felted acorns, and kitchy silver disco balls. And the base is wrapped simply in burlap with a big green bow.

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