RENEGADE GARDENER is the Web's best site for gardeners seeking truth, hope, and one lousy sign that someone unfettered by industry prejudice is interested in helping you become a better gardener.

     Originally designed to help gardeners banished to the forgotten USDA Zones 2-4, bold, universal content has made it one of the Web’s most-linked gardening sites. Gardening is gardening, design is design, dumb is dumb, and truth conquers all!

Gone Fishin’

8-1-08 – Hello dear and gentle comrades, it is August, you have stumbled once again into the private lair of the Renegade Gardener, and as you can see, I’m out of it.

I’m in Northwestern Ontario, once again delighting in being the only landscaper in America who regularly schedules a two-week vacation in the middle of the landscaping season. As I am fond of thinking several days after I get up here, to hell with everyone.

Here are this month’s suggested readings:

Dive In! Water Gardening Design & Construction Tips
Storm Damage!
Is Gardening Dead?

The size of the walleye, by the way, is by my eye a five-pounder. My 93 year-old father, who netted it and is partially visible behind me, says seven, however – and he caught his first walleye in Canada in 1927. So maybe it’s seven. She swam away, hard, fast, and straight down, a few seconds after this photo was taken.

Current Column will be updated September 1

The 10 Tenets of
Renegade Gardening

1. Gardening should be challenging, relaxing, and fun.
2. Renegade Gardeners are cautious and wise when perusing the plethora of products and plants sold by the commercial gardening industry.
3. Gardening involves commitment.
4. Renegade Gardeners learn the Latin names of the plants they grow.
5. Gardening is not always easy.
6. Renegade Gardeners come to realize that lawns are essentially a dumb idea.
7. Gardening and rock music do not mix.
8. Renegade Gardeners buy first from local growers.
9. There is nothing wrong with cutting down a tree on your property.
10. Irreverence is essential.