New Home

FEATURED POSTS

wildflowers from the field to your garden

You can have the same glorious color and sweet little visitors in your own gardens as our public gardens and Prairies. Wildflowers have made themselves at home in all sorts of gardens over the years, moving from the vacant lots of my youth, to carefully public gardens, and now our own yards. Our front yard growing up had big lumbering evergreen bushes. The backyard had roses, bridal wreath…

Welcome

The solution is in the design! What you plant and where you plant it are the answer to why you are planting it. Too much shade? Too much water? There’s a design for that. The Charmed Garden shares my love of gardening and designing gardens. Nature is a part of all of us and having a garden of any size connects us to the green side of us, and to each other. I share designs I have created and how to do the same in your own patch of green. Here you can find techniques, tips, and inspiration to create the garden that is all you, whether it’s a front yard, back yard, veggie garden or container garden.

 

My Recipes

Roasted Orange Tomato and Thai Basil Soup

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.;;Cut the stems out of the tomatoes and slice them in half. Lay them cut side up on the cookie sheets. I used parchment paper to cover the bottom of the cookie sheets for…

The Big Beautiful Beet

Ruby Red Beets fresh from our Garden Beets add brilliant color to the garden. They’re all kinds of red from top to bottom. They hold their tall upright shape and color until you’re ready to pick…

Recipe for Apple, Carrot and Coconut Soup

The last of the last Farmers Market near us was a couple of weeks ago.  It was cold and raining but it was the last one.  Not Even nasty Chicago weather was going to keep us from the last Farmers…

Slow Cooker Applesauce from the Windy City

Mother Nature has taken her time, but the cold has finally settled in here in the Chicago area.  Lucky for us the change in seasons has come slowly because the apple festivals and farmer’s markets…

Soup, There it is!

The official end of summer is here.  I actually saw a lone tree that beat the crowd and changed its color already. It was a young tree, probably only planted a few years ago, and it was a beautiful…