TheMondayGarden.com

picture: Digging up my mother's mailbox garden with my older brother, and nephew. May 2005 (picture credit: Gail Marmorstein Sweeney)

TheMondayGarden.com is for beginning houseplant enthusiasts, serious weekend weeders, nature-loving urbanites, tree-hugger wannabes, and people who just like pretty nature pictures.

On the site, there’s information for the beginner, who would like just one houseplant or outdoor perennial to live (please!) or who would like to be able to tell a maple from an oak, at least some of the time.

TheMondayGarden.com is also for the sub/urbanite who wonders what going on in the alley after we all go to work on Monday. On the site, you can get a sneak-peek at what nature's doing behind the parking lot when the homo sapiens aren’t looking.

For the socially conscience, please be advised that TheMondayGarden.com has a pronounced bias in favor of squirrels, and against chemicals, both of the fertilizer and pesticide kinds, whether or not the label says “natural and organic”. Please stop the chemical warfare; the results, time and again, are proving more harmfully than any of us could have imagined. Please also do what you can to feed and shelter the “homeless” critters who once lived where we now have condos and malls.

This site explores how we, the gardeners of the ever-expanding sub/urban environment, who think we know what we’re doing, collectively impact the world. This includes our impact on the wild critters forced to live much closer to us than they would choose. Much of TheMondayGarden.com is devoted to my own struggle to learn to how to pursue the pleasures of growing green things without possibly poisoning myself or the neighbors, be they humans or four-footed.

New articles are usually posted to TheMondayGarden.com weekly, usually on Sunday or Monday. If you want to be alerted to new postings, sign up here for the FREE weekly email.

HISTORY of TheMondayGarden.com: I've been interested in nature and gardening since I was a toddler in the early 1950's. After I retired from corporate life in the late 1990's, I had more time to pursue these interests. Following 9/11/01, I started to send a weekly email to my friends to share pictures from my personal garden, which then consisted of about 150 house and balcony plants. I published on Sundays so that my office-working friends would get a pretty picture first thing Monday morning. Then someone asked how to grow one of the orchids, and the publication’s content expanded from there.

In 2002, Canadian environmentalist Walter Muma began publishing some of the ecology-related articles on his sites, and advising me on digital photography. Then in August 2003, my long-time friend, and all-time best technical adviser, Mike Burger, generously offered me space on his buddanfriends.org server. Since then, Mike and I have been building the site’s look and content.

REPRINTS: Articles and photos from TheMondayGarden.com are frequently reprinted by North American eco-educational groups in their newsletters or used as handouts. If you’re working to improve the environment, feel free to do the same, on the condition that you note my copyright, and email me to make me feel good by letting me know you’re using the item. If you email me, you can also get print-quality versions of most articles and photos. If you don’t see the photo you need, please email me as I have a large bank of unpublished photos.

YOUR QUESTIONS: Got a question? Please read the articles on the site first (they aren't that long!), but then feel free to post a comment. Please keep in mind that TheMondayGarden.com is reader-supported (we don't cover the site with ads, so you can see the text). So please make your next amazon.com purchase via the site or, if you wish, you can make a contribution through the Amazon Honor System.

YOUR COMMENTS, AND PHOTOS:Email me any time. If you have a photo to post, please email it to me with the information that I need to make sure that the photographer gets credit.

Enjoy.

Sue Sweeney

picture: At the Bartlett Arboretum, summer 2004, Master Gardener- Mentor Alice Smith (left) coaches Interns Karel Banks (right) and Sue Sweeney (center) on the wonders of native boneset (picture credit: Regina Campfield).