The Insider Dirt @ iloveplants.com - June 2007

iloveplants.com - YOUR ONLINE RESOURCE FOR THE BEST GARDENING INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET!

In This Issue:
Featured Web Sites: Gardening With Kids
Featured Plant: Endless Summer Hydrangea
Garden News: The Pollinator Partnership
Garden Bargain: Get 15% off your Order at Park Seed Co.
Garden Blogs: Life in Sugar Hollow * Lean and Green * A Salsa Garden
From my Garden…Simply Susan!

Greetings fellow gardeners, and a warm welcome to all of our new subscribers! Thank you for subscribing to The Inside Dirt @ iloveplants.com. Each month I bring you the “inside dirt” on a couple of garden Web sites and blogs, keep you up-to-date on the latest garden news and bargains, and give you an insider’s look at new Web sites and blogs added to iloveplants.com during the last month.

I hope you enjoy this month's newsletter. Drop me a line anytime you like with requests for future information or just to say hi and let me know what's growing in your garden. And, if you have a garden blog, please email the “url” to me. Thanks. Susan

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It is what sunflowers do!”
- Helen Keller

FEATURED WEBSITE

NEVER TOO YOUNG TO GARDEN - Gardening with Kids
You will find a ton of wonderful ideas for getting kids involved in the garden at Gardening with Kids. A few projects include a kid’s garden party, a nose garden, Lilliputian gardens, the world of make-believe to an odd behavior garden, and much, much more! Spending some time outdoors in the garden teaching kids about plants and nature will make for a fun summer for you and the kids.

FEATURED PLANT

A Summer of blooms with ENDLESS SUMMERÒ HYDRANGEA
Endless SummerÒ (Hydrangea macrophylla Ballmer) owes its success to its ability to bloom on both new and old wood. This mophead ( 8 to 10 inch flowers) begins bearing blooms when the weather warms up in summer and continues through the fall. It is hardy to zone 4. Endless SummerÒ is a standout in any garden with it’s beautiful large pink or blue (depending on your soil) flower. You can purchase Endless Summer hydrangea at Wayside Gardens.


GARDEN NEWS: The Pollinator Partnership
June 24 - 30th has been proclaimed the first annual International Pollinator Week. The U.S. Postal Service will be releasing a booklet of 20 commemorative stamps entitled “Pollination” on June 26th. According to a 2006 report by The National Academy of Sciences, “There is direct evidence of decline of some pollinator species in North America.” The Pollinator Partnership provides news, resources, programs and a digital library to support you in helping pollinators in your own backyard as well as the world. Check their Web site for events scheduled for Pollinator Week.

GARDEN BARGAINS ONLINE: Get 15% off your total order at Park Seed Co.
Place your order at Park Seed Co. and receive 15% off your total order now through the end of June. Choose from a nice selection of bulbs, perennials, roses, shrubs and trees. Enter the following coupon code at checkout: JUNE15

FEATURED GARDEN BLOGS

Life in Sugar Hollow
Located deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Charlottesville, Virginia lives Tracey who gardens on 5 acres of beautiful countryside. Not so long ago, while working in her Manhattan, New York office she dreamed of the life she lives now in sugar hollow. Her blog chronicles the many learning and humbling experiences that have occurred since moving to Virginia.

Lean and Green
This New York gardener shares her tips for “gardening on the cheap“ from her Brooklyn rooftop garden. You’ll be amazed at how many plants you can grow in a small space.

A Salsa Garden
For all of you who love to grow chile and sweet peppers, you will enjoy visiting this Los Angeles garden in southern California. In her first blog entry in 2004, she writes that she began growing peppers several years ago because “I find that home grown peppers are sweeter and firmer and make my home cooking into a true joy.”

FROM MY GARDEN…Simply Susan!
I have now taken to the cultivation of my own garden blog. Please visit Simply Susan! to see what’s happening in my zone 9 garden and please be sure to leave your footprints by posting a comment. I would love to hear from you!

For more great horticultural websites, please visit iloveplants.com – your online garden resource!