I love it when designers take a simple motif, and turn it into a whole line of fun, cute things. Take the garden decor of J Schatz as an example. They’ve taken the humble egg and turned it into ceramic bird feeders, bird houses and planters. They also offer egg-inspired home decor. The egg style is so sweet and the vibrant colors would be an eye-catching highlight in any garden. These would make a super housewarming gift or wedding present for your favorite gardeners.

[photo by J Schatz]

As we enter the height of summer, a lot of gardeners are preparing for dry, hot weather. What types of plants should you grow to deal with drought? What types of plants do well in a dry place? Check out these articles for some suggestions.

Green gardening: Low on water? These plants don’t mind – This list of plants from The Seattle Times thrives in dry conditions. These drought-tolerant plants are also low maintenance and can look great all season long.

Gardeners go for high and dry planting – High and dry gardens conserve water. These water-wise gardens usually showcase native plants, which offer season-long color and need little maintenance.

Chicago-area gardeners thirst for rain barrels – Demand for rain barrels in many cities has outpaced supply. Gardeners, eager to conserve water and save on their water bills, have snapped them up as quickly as they come in. Makes sense, given how easy they are to install and how much money you can save by using rainwater.

Use ornamental grasses to add special dimension to any garden – During the summer, ornamental grasses can thrive in hot, dry weather. In winter, they offer stand-out structure under the snow.

Water saving garden for summer drought – This brief article offers quick tips to plant a drought-tolerant garden.

10 great garden ideas _ The Chicago Tribune photo gallery isn’t fancy, but it shows a bunch of do-it-yourself garden designs.

Garden is a seedbed for green cosmetics – A hand-tended, German garden provides the raw ingredients for an eco-conscious line of cosmetics touted by Hollywood-types as the bestest make-up evah. Interestingly, the company started focusing on herbal remedies.

Organic garden uses every sustainable trick – This eco-savvy garden shows how sustainable, organic gardening can look fit so seemlessly into conventional landscaped neighborhoods that you would never know it’s “green.”

Back to the garden – Author Michael Pollan suggests we all dig up our yards and garden not just for pleasure, but to sustain us in the “calamity to come.” He believes growing our own food we will make a bigger impact on slowing our destruction of the planet than the smaller things we are already trying.

The incredible, edible front lawn – Through the Edible Estates project, the Rodriguez family received a grant to plant a front-yard garden to feed their entire neighborhood. This is an amazing concept, and I really hope someone will create a foundation to help more people convert their lawns to vegetable gardens.

Design*Sponge blogger Grace Bonney shares her favorite outdoor furniture and accessories for under $100 over at Domino magazine.

It’s seems silly to even mention the word “green” when talking about gardening, but it’s been all about the environment in gardening articles this week. With rising food costs, many people are growing their own vegetables. But even though vegetable seeds and plants topped the to-buy lists, many gardeners still don’t grow green. Guerrilla gardeners found their way into the mix, with their stealthy greening of public spaces. Checks these links for tips on what to plant and how to plant it to have an eco-conscious garden.

Growing concerned – The Boston Globe offers tips on eco-friendly ways to garden. Ideas iclude rainwater collection, native plants, and composting.

Survey shows many gardeners skip green gardening practices- A recent survey by the National Gardening Association asked gardeners about their green growing habits. In this article, The Chicago Tribune covers the results and why the practices folks aren’t doing are important.

Amid city streets, a growing trend – Gardening continues to blossom, especially among urban-dwelling folks. This article from The Boston Globe deals out the numbers.

Guerrilla gardening – Guerrilla gardening, where gardeners stealthily fix a blighted plot of land that doesn’t belong to them, started sometime in the 1970s. This New York Times article follows Richard Reynolds and his group of guerrilla gardeners as they tidy up public spaces around London. Reynolds just released the book “On Guerrilla Gardening,” which discusses the movements history.

Easy foods for beginners – With gas prices bumping up the price of food and yet another produce-related illness outbreak, many people are growing their own vegetables this year. This San Francisco Chronicle article outlines ways to ease into growing your own vegetables at home.

The gardening life Web site features all sorts of sweet gardening inspiration. From curb appeal projects (including a contemporary Craftsman garden) to an encyclopedia of seasonal living, gardening life has tons of garden pictures that offer great ideas for landscape design and outdoor entertaining.

While the big box stores have rolled out their standard, traditionally styled arbors, trellises and gazebos, GI Designs’ 2008 catalog offers a variety of fresh, modern garden structures worth taking a look at. Some of their styles lean toward the more conventional (check out the Mission-style fence or Hoop and Arrow Trellis), and they are plenty pretty. But GI Designs really shines with its more contemporary pieces that will satisfy gardeners seeking to add a modern look to their spaces.

With similarly styled window boxes, arbors, trellises, gazebos, and fences, GI Designs also allows you to create a cohesive look with your garden structures. The company creates innovative designs using a variety of metals that come off as contemporary without leaving the best of traditional design behind. For instance, the subtle Asian styling of the New Iron Urban Arbor would fit just as nicely in a Craftsman-style garden as it would in a Mid-Century modern plot.

Besides all the garden structure loveliness, GI Designs also sells a variety of home and garden decor.

Dark flowers, especially the ones closest to black, held a special place for folks in the Victorian era. Today, these deep-toned posies have come back into style, with many gardeners creating entire gardens devoted to black or near-black blooms. This dark trend suits the upcoming Halloween holiday perfectly, so I thought I would share some dark flower resources with you in case you want to use dark blooms to decorate, or want to add them to the “must-have” list for your garden.

• Domino magazine offers a Dark Flowers slide show that shows off how to decorate with deep-colored blooms. The short photo set includes the flower names, so you can add them to your list of dark flowers to plant in next year’s garden.
• The USA Weekend article, “Add mystery to your garden with black flowers,” features a brief, but helpful list of black flowers.
• Andy Sturgeon writes about the relationship between Halloween and black flowers in “Black Flowers – Spooky!” over at BackyardGardener.com.

[photo Before the Storm German Bearded Iris - Jung Quality Seeds]

My plant budget didn’t include bulbs this year, but here are a few of my favorite suppliers for tulips, daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths and other fall-planted bulbs:

• Van Dyck’s Flower Bulbs and Perennials – A great all-around source for a ton of different bulbs. They even have giant purple alliums, which I have yet to try.
• Old House Gardens – These folks search abandoned homesteads to find sturdy, classic bulbs. I love gardening with heirloom plants because they have proven to be more disease resistant and hardy than most hybrids.
• Brent and Becky’s Bulbs – I love the sheer variety that this couple offers. Since they are in the South, they have pre-cooled bulbs and many flowers that northerners can’t overwinter.

I found these links while searching for other options besides a trusty #2 pencil and a pad of quadrille for garden design and keeping garden records:

• 3D Garden Composer – This software allows you to design your garden using digital photos of the area you want to plant in. I took a look at the demo, and think this would be great for gardeners who have a hard time visualizing how plants will work together.
• Garden Organizer Deluxe v2.8 – With separate sections for listing favorite plants, garden chores and garden design ideas, this software would go well with a traditional garden journal.
• My Garden Journal – This garden journaling software looks fairly straightforward. You can try it for 30 days before you buy it (for a whole $14.95!). I’ll download the trial and give a full report when it expires.