Every year Gail and I take it upon ourselves to try a few new tools. We want to stay on the cutting edge, so to speak, of what’s handy, so to speak. We have not been offered any free trials, alas – we buy only what we think looks useful. So what follows are a couple of unsolicited reviews and previews of products that maybe you have considered trying too. (Deliberately linkless because this is currently a no-ad blog.)

The super slim lightweight hose from Gardeners Supply truly weighs next to nothing. I love that about it. What I don’t love, and what they don’t tell you, is that its tiny slimness doesn’t provide enough pressure to support a full size watering wand – we use it only with a smaller wonder waterer. It is also super kinktastic. Plus if you don’t take the time to wind the diabolical thing up exactly the way it wants to wind, it becomes a tripping snake monster. Is there no perfect hose?

Last year we purchased coir (rhymes with foyer) pots for our seedlings because they are made of coconut fiber, a renewable resource more sustainable than peat. We were also sold on them because they are supposed to break down faster than peat making it possible to actually plant them. Too good to be true? You bet. They do not break down quickly. We had a suspicion so not every plant was planted in the pot – only the ones whose roots were already tangled in the fibers. And those plants did not thrive probably because they were strangled by pots that could probably survive an apocalypse. On the upside, we will be reusing the sturdiest ones.

This year we’re trying cow pots but because they’re much more expensive, we only purchased enough for our sweet peas. Cow pots are made from composted cow manure – a genius use for a truly unlimited resource – and are also supposed to break down quickly and be plant-able. I’ll keep you posted. We also bought a soil block maker – if we can get our soil mix right, we’ll just go pot-less.

Last year we also purchased half a pallet of coir bricks for mixing our own potting soil and that we love especially because it’s re-wettable. (Peat is so not.)

I already know we’re going to like the tub trugs because I have one at home and I’m not sure what I carried everything-under-the-sun in before I owned it.

The ho-mi digger (Korean hand plow) is new to us but has been used by other gardeners for something like 5000 years. Anything that has stood that kind of test of time must be a pretty perfect tool.

Everybody raves about the Cobrahead weeder so we bought a few last year for our volunteers to try. They haven’t taken to it yet. But most of them are fiercely loyal to an old broken-down batch of Cape Cod weeders that aren’t being manufactured anymore. And I don’t use it because I carry a hori-hori – my favorite garden tool ever – in my back pocket.

Have you used any of these things? What do you think of them? Do you have any suggestions for other tools we should try?

Why is it that, on this date every year, time always seems to have flown by? Looking back at calendar entries and scrolling through pictures I can start to recall interminable weeks of rain and quite a few endlessly beautiful and eventful days. But it’s only when I think about all of the changes in the gardens that it really starts to feel like a very full year has passed. To celebrate 2009 here are 9 of my favorite plants that were, in one way or another, new this year (or if you’re reading this tomorrow, they were new last year). In alphabetical order:

Agave americana This plant was not new to us but planting it in the garden was. And despite the excessively rainy start to the summer, it thrived. As a matter of fact, it was so happy planted in the ground that Gail and I had to ask Fred and Dan – two very strong men – to dig it up in October and pot it into the most enormous container they could find. By the looks of the before and after, it must have nearly doubled in size.

Red peacock kale (Brassica) This about as ornamental as a vegetable can get, I think. It stood a good 2′ tall and was covered in blue and purple rosette frills by the end of the season (I wish I had pictures of the whole plant but as you see, the “flowers” were what captivated me.) It was tasty too! And by some miracle, the aphids and cabbage moths didn’t love it as much as I did. Close second in the ornamental veg category was Deadon Hybrid cabbage which would have been even more beautiful if the bunnies, slugs and moths didn’t love it too. Sweet and delicious!

Coreopsis ‘Sienna Sunset’ has that perfect soft orange color that just gets me. And it bloomed from the day we planted it in June until sometime in September or October without ever crying out to be deadheaded as some coreopsis do. (Our volunteers cringe to recall the punishment of  ‘Moonbeam’.) Fingers crossed that it survives the winter…

Dahlia ‘Pale Tiger’ and ‘Teesbrooke Redeye’ Gail and I were both really impressed with the dahlias we bought as cuttings from Corralitos Gardens and if I had to choose favorites, these would be them. (Today anyway. Ask me again tomorrow. ‘Florinoor’ was gorgeous too…)

Echinacea ‘Green Envy’ What can I say? I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I love love love it!

Gladiolus There’s not much new about glads – they’re about as old-fashioned as you can get. But it’s been a long time since we last used them, and I just loved seeing something come up so fresh and new in the late July heat. Two of the varieties that we planted in the North Garden were ‘Green Jade’ and ‘The Blues’.

Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ is a seed annual we purchased from Burpee because it was “NEW” and “Unlike any Globe Amaranth ever seen!” And it was, without a doubt, a winner. It grew to about 3 and a half feet, was really nicely branched and chockablock full of blooms all summer. The flowers were an indeterminate shade between pink and purple (difficult to photograph) and studded by yellow-orange tips – very cool.

Rhus typhina ‘Tigereye Bailtiger’ – Tiger eye sumac I’m not sure how I missed this plant when it lived in the nursery bed but it got my full attention this year. Fred and Dan planted it for us on the shady edge of the “kid’s bed” where the foliage stayed a lovely chartruese rather than shifting to the citronella-yellow it wants to be. And then the fall color knocked us over. It might run like sumacs do, but somehow I don’t think it will be hard to find homes for any babies.

Rubus odoratus – Flowering raspberry or eastern thimbleberry This is another plant that wasn’t on my radar at all until a visiting editor from Fine Gardening magazine asked me about it. To find out why I think it’s a great plant, check out the Plant Picks section of the latest issue!

Out with the old? Not always. In with the new? You bet. Happy New Year!!

Back in June when we planted the lavender/purple experiment in the Display Garden, I said that I would talk more about it. Since it’s officially full grown, nearly past full bloom and it’s Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (hosted by Carol of May Dreams Gardens), I figure it’s high time, now or never. First, I want to state for the record that I love the bed. It’s like a calm hush and easy-breezy on the eyes. But I also think it’s not entirely successful.

Purple is a difficult color. I knew that going in. Not only is it nearly impossible to photograph accurately (anyone have any pointers?) but it has a tendency to disappear a little in the landscape. It’s just not very assertive – that is, unless it’s paired with yellow and then – Watch Out! Perhaps here I should interject a little color theory vaguely remembered from art school: Red and Blue are both primary colors that combined, make purple.  Purple is exactly opposite to yellow (the other primary color) on the color wheel. Red is considered a hot color that appears, to our eyes, to advance while blue is a cool receder. Mix the two and you’ve got luke warm, staying put – just like green (blue + yellow) which we all know as a calm, steady ever-presence. No two purples are quite the same either – some are pinker, some are bluer and the pinkers clash with the pinker stills and the bluers dissolve into the background. It’s tough, I’m telling you.

Purple, the color of kings and bishops, is said to be a rare color in nature – though we gardeners know the truth. Gail and I chose plants like our faves African blue basil which has deep blue-ish-purple leaf backs and veins and paler purple flowers; Stachytarpheta jamaicensis which is as true a straight purple as you’ll ever see; Verbena bonariensis because it chose us and we couldn’t have edited it from the garden if we wanted to (we’ve wanted to); Gomphocarpus physocarpus (a.k.a Asclepias physocarpa ‘Oscar’ or ‘Hairy Balls’) which has just the barest tinge of purple-ish on the almost insignificant flowers, and heliotrope. We also tried a dahlia called ‘Teesbrooke Redeye’, a 4′ tall gomphrena called ‘Fireworks’, petunias, spoon shaped African daisies (Osteospermum), Brazilia button flower (Centranthemum) and a couple of other basils. — The dahlia and gomphrena are pinker rather than purpler but we love them anyway. Against and in the midst of all of that we threw in a few other colors, like green, orange and blue (I couldn’t do yellow) just to observe the relationships.

The main problem I have with the bed is that it has no snap-crackle. Not only are the colors fairly quiet but the foliage is Gail’s and my signature delicate – we’re always on the lookout for more foliage contrast and end up finding the extremes – like Gunnera. (That would have been overkill a little.) And most of the flowers in that bed are diminutive too, giving the whole thing a sort of wispy, frothy look. But when it comes right down to it, I don’t mind because now we know a lot more than we did about purple – and about our own predilections. That bed will look very different next year…

How do you feel about the color purple?