Kiss My Aster, a book review

 When I heard about Amanda Thomsen's new book coming out, I was very excited. After all, Amanda is a horticultural whizkid, who makes gardening look easy while also having fun and helping gardeners have even more fun. Whether you follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or her website, you know what I mean. She describes herself as being 'bad to the phloem', which is a delightful play on words and gives you some sense of what's coming.

As per her websites and various personae, Amanda's new book is called Kiss My Aster. Originally, the promo materials called it an Interactive Guide, but my own copy says 'A graphic Guide'. Anyway, this is a book for all levels of gardeners, from the very beginning purple-thumbed to the hardcore type like me, who has lots of experience but also knows there is always something more to learn. In this, Amanda delivers in spadefuls.

While we wait for spring--more book reviews.

In the words of Bugs Bunny, spring obviously "took a left turn at Albuquerque," as it has gone walkabout from Nova Scotia for the time being. A freak snowsquall dumped five inches of snow on my place Friday night, and while it's slowly disappearing, gale-force winds are keeping most of us from wanting to go outside right now. So we take solace in planning our gardens, including doing some garden book reading.

Winter begins to release us...and Amazing Reviews of my book

Pulmonaria is one of my favourite perennials for any number of reasons. The foliage is fantastic, the pink, blue, white or reddish flowers are cheery and beloved by bees. But most importantly to this colour starved gardener is the determination of pulmonaria. It is barely out of the ground before it is beginning to bloom, usually in mid April once the snow has gone and the soil has warmed up a little. Only hellebores and hepatica are ahead of it in my perennial plantings. However...

We are still more than a little ways from pulmonaria. Or snowdrops, or chionodoxa, or hellebores, or anything else. However, the snows have receded dramatically in the past couple of days, courtesy of some warm, wonderful weather that has brought spring into our step if not our actual calendars.