Gardening | Gardens For Goldens

Gardens: Love Letters to the Future

February 14, 2021 by Ogee

Gardeners don’t fear critters, bugs, disease, or even frosts. The one thing a gardener truly fears is the fate of our gardens after we are gone. The act of clearing, planning, planting, and nurturing a garden is belief in tomorrow – a love letter to the future. A gardener lives in anticipation of the season ahead and what surprises will spring forward. When you dig and turn that first shovel of dirt, a pact is made – between earth and […]

Categories: Gardening, Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden • Tags: Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue, Jody's Garden

Winter Skye

January 24, 2021 by Ogee

Two weeks ago, the asters and Mexican marigolds were still in bloom. Mother Nature can so easily lull Northern California gardeners into false hope of early spring. The narcissus have flowered, the tulips, hyacinths and iris are rapidly making their way. But grey skies and a cold north wind blew in today, with the promise of a hard freeze Monday night. I was there early for puppy duty. German Shepherd, Annie and her newborns are just visiting. Found stray and […]

Categories: Dog Fostering, Dog Rescue, Gardening, Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue • Tags: Dog foster, Puppies, Winter Garden

To Dream A Garden

October 18, 2020 by Ogee

“I knew it would be bigger…but…” We had an honored guest in the garden this weekend. Laure is a master gardener and the original architect of the Homeward Bound Memorial Garden going back more than ten years. Her design drawings are still housed in our shed, although the garden has morphed quite a bit over time. The plan called for themed beds. Some, like the White Garden and Rose Garden bed are still as intended. We found that others like […]

Categories: Gardening, Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, Nature Photography • Tags: Asters, Fall Garden, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, To Dream A Garden

The Gardener’s Shadow

July 12, 2020 by Ogee

We are sizzling this week. I have been giving the garden an extra evening drink when possible, and I am lucky to have a garden buddy to watch over things when I cannot be there. Rob is our primary dog photographer at the rescue, the author of Rob & Dog, and a recognized dog whisperer. He reintroduced me to photography years ago when I began working in the garden. I studied photography in art school but adopted the snobby bias […]

Categories: Gardening, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, Nature Photography • Tags: Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Memorial Garden

Nature Will Improvise

October 20, 2019 by Ogee

We need new descriptors for gardening in our valley now. Thanks to climate change, “full sun” should be relabeled “scorch-resistant.” Beyond “drought tolerant” should be a new category: “desert-like.” Everything I thought I knew about the garden has changed. “Despite the gardener’s best intentions, Nature will improvise.” ~Michael P. Garofalo Nature will improvise. But our gardens, as we have known them may be forever altered. Plants that once sought daylong sun now shrink from the blazing afternoon heat and require […]

Categories: Gardening, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, Nature, Nature Photography • Tags: Adapting, gardening, Gardening Climate Change

Absence

June 16, 2019 by Ogee

Often, the absence of something is felt as tangibly as its presence. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one—two-legged or four—knows this. The silence when returning home or the space in a room previously occupied by their being feels loud and hollow. The empty void as weighty as their once physical presence—leaving regret for ever having taken our time with them for granted. This spring, the garden was filled with swallowtails, painted ladies and cabbage butterflies. Now, there are […]

Categories: Gardening, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, Nature, Nature Photography • Tags: butterfly disappearance, Climate Change, hummingbird disapperance, nature change

Taking the Hill

June 9, 2019 by Ogee

Originally, it was a mountain of tangled blackberries – home to snakes, thorns and the occasional bunny. The brambles were replaced with raised blueberry beds – that fried in the summer heat and invited Bermuda grass, morning glory weeds and few blueberries. Last fall, the bed frames were demolished to begin anew. The vision was an extension of the adjacent California-themed garden. The challenge: that bed sits near the top of the garden. When we get big winter rains, the […]

Categories: Gardening, Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden • Tags: California Native Plants in Garden, Mediterranean plants, Senior Dog Rescue

A Garden Is Not a Place

May 12, 2019 by Ogee

“A garden is not a place: it is a passage, a passion. We don’t know where we’re going; to pass through is enough; to pass through is to remain.” ~ Octavio Paz I am never alone in the garden. When all have left and I have it to myself, I am still surrounded by the memories of all that remain.

Categories: Gardening, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden • Tags: Clematis, gardening, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, Jupiter's Beard, Love in a Mist, Octavio Paz

Fall Garden Project Number One

October 7, 2018 by Ogee

No, really, there are no remains in the Memorial Garden…although you might suspect otherwise if you saw this. While we were away, fall signaled its arrival. Just hints so far, but the creatures know. And with cooler days come a mountain of projects. First on the list: a complete demolition and re-do of the raised bed area of the garden. Once, these housed a mountain of overgrown and deadly blackberry brambles. They spread their spikes throughout the garden, so they […]

Categories: Gardening, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, Nature • Tags: Fall Garden Project, gardening, Homeward Bound Memorial Garden Sacramento, new garden bed