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Ilona's Garden Journal

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I Have A Thing For Bicolor Bulbs, Especially Tulips

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spring

Garden Logistics

Ilona Erwin

Garden advice

Spring season is always a matter of logistics when you live in a cold climate. In temperate Ohio we go from cold-can’t-do-anything conditions to hot-don’t-want-to-do-anything weather with only a fleeting spring in between. We can count on two months to get soil prepared and everything planted. Some years there may be some earlier breaks and […]

garden chores+ spring+ Weeding the Garden Ilona Erwin

In Touch with the Weather

Ilona Erwin

A definite benefit of gardening is being in touch with the weather. It’s a necessity, and counters the tendency of a modern life to live in isolation from nature. Of course, mankind has always been in something of a struggle with natural forces; but that is just an explanation for why we complain so much […]

How's the weather?+ spring Ilona Erwin

April in the Garden, One of the Busiest Times

Ilona Erwin

A photo posted by Ilona (@ilonagarden) on Mar 30, 2016 at 11:22am PDT April is always one of the busiest times in the spring garden season. If perennials didn’t go in during March, they will definitely need to be planted during April. Getting the earliest crops of the vegetable patch planted, whatever new trees are to […]

April Ilona Erwin

My Rural Life

Ilona Erwin

My husband and I bought and started homesteading this place in the mid 1980’s. I had no skills, and plenty of dreams. I never managed to have that flock of sheep I envisioned, but instead raised a flock of children. That became my main crop. We all worked hard. I sure wish we had used […]

Day in the life+ My Place+ spring Ilona Erwin

A Nice Early Spring Visit To Inniswood

Ilona Erwin

I keep working on trying to make videos of garden subjects. Early spring in the morning meant a quiet visit with no distractions, as my husband and I walked around the garden.

March+ Places Ilona Erwin

It Is Still Freezing, Cold, And Snowing

Ilona Erwin

Yes, playing with Picmonkey. What else on the rainy/snowy/frozen days we are having? Housework, you say? What is that? Yes, the weather again. We are still in the throes of winter. Throes I say! Everyone says they are tired of it, but we really don’t have any say in the weather, do we? It will […]

How's the weather?+ March+ winter Ilona Erwin

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Oh, hi there!

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

Ilona Erwin: View My Blog Posts

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About The Plants

red daylilies

10 Best Perennial Plants for Anyone’s Garden

Dependable Blooms to Brighten Your Landscape Everyone wants a beautiful garden, but not everyone … [Read More...] about 10 Best Perennial Plants for Anyone’s Garden

10 Useful Gardening Tips For Spring

I gathered up some expert gardening tips from around the web, from beginners to a few unusual … [Read More...] about 10 Useful Gardening Tips For Spring

more perennials

The thrilling expectancy of Spring is in the air and what better way to feed the anticipation than to visit the Central Ohio Home and Garden Show which opens this Saturday, February 28th? I am so excited to go this year. You have time to hop on over to a Home Depot store and get […]

flowering almond

Witch Hazel ushers in Spring On the whole, deciduous, flowering shrubs get short shrift in modern gardens. We know about lilacs and weigelas, perhaps, but are often discouraged from planting them given “lack of seasonal interest” as the rationalization for such advice. It is true that some of them shine only when in bloom. Flowering […]

Start Spring with a Big Pop of Color   Though the usual sequence is to plant the bulbs in the fall for bloom in the spring, some growers cheat the system by chilling those sold for spring bloom. This is necessary for Southern gardens which don’t get the required cold temperatures. Presented here are some […]

Garden advice

It is increasingly the Holy Grail of garden designs: making a landscape low maintenance. For many reasons, reducing the work load of our outdoor spaces has become a priority. We are busy with many activities We are aging Viewing flowers rather than weeding flowerbeds is preferable That is not the definitive list, by any means, […]

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