Favorite new gardening tool---A Garden Knife

For those waging a war against a particular kind of weed, I've found the best new weapon. I'm obsessed with a new gardening tool I was sent to test---OXO Good Grips new Garden Knife. It's the first garden knife I've owned. I wielded this sturdy stainless steel knife against my arch enemy weed---the Asian Knotweed yesterday and came out victorious. It's the best tool I've ever used for deeply cutting into the earth and removing the root structure, along with the stem and leaves of this persistent weed. I love that it comes with a safety sheath with belt clip too, to keep it handy, yet not accidentally digging into my thigh when I drop to the ground in a weeding frenzy. Ahhh my little weed friend, you have met your match!

($24.99; www.oxo.com) 

http://www.oxo.com/OA_HTML/xxoxo_ibeCCtpOXOPrdDtl.jsp?a=b&item=67815&section=10503

--Monica Forrestall

Hovering Hummingbirds make Beach Rose Cottage a stopping spot

The bright red Bee Balm flowers AND the two hummingbird feeders my son Max and I put up are attracting several of these hovering miraculous beauties around our house. One red-throated male hovered outside of the kitchen window this morning starring in at me for a few seconds. They are tough to photograph! 

Everything's Coming up Roses!

July is rose month in Nova Scotia. Everything is either just past blooming, in full bloom or about to bloom.  Here are a few of the roses from around our little house "Beach Rose Cottage", which I am deliriously gathering by the armload and filling up every vase and container in sight with.

The jaw-dropping American Pillar Rambling Rose climbs up our 1940's era workshop.

"Big Pink" climbs the old workshop.

A curtain of Dorothy Perkins pink roses cover a living room window.

Morning sun on the blooming roses.

Max and me with Big (American Pillar) Pink on July 13th.

--Monica Forrestall