Container Gardening includes design considerations, planting, care, and plant choices.
In Seating Makes the Garden I try to convince you to use more chairs, benches and dining sets in your garden; even a hammock if you're into napping. And I show off all my own outdoor furniture.
"Sustainable" typically means not requiring outside inputs, but how does that apply to gardening? Sustainable gardens are more the ideal than the reality because without humans to take care of them, they'd just revert to forest, at least here in the East.
So we minimize inputs like fertilizer and supplemental water. We use "earth-friendly" practices like improving the soil. We're strictly organic or pretty close to it. And include plants that support wildlife in our gardens.
On this site and in my garden-coaching, attention is paid to sustaining the gardener, too. Call it low-maintenance gardening but more importantly, it's low-drudgery. It's also gardening for the small of budget, with tips for how to use what you've got, get free plants, et cetera, because this is real gardening for regular people .
But the focus here is on teaching gardening - the growing of plants for their beauty, for their manypositive contributions to the environment, and because homegrown food is just better.
If there's a commonly accepted axion of sustainable gardening it's this: Right plant, right place. Very pragmatic, very clogs-on-the-ground. And that's my focus here - on how plants really behave in our gardens and what really works to keep them and the soil they grow in healthy. For more on definitions of "sustainable gardening," see my article on GardenRant and some terrific comments.
