Greetings from the Midwest, Domestic Pursuits readers! First and foremost, many thanks to Beth and Lisa for letting me join the DP team. I am an enthusiast of cooking, crafting, and gardening and firmly believe that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to enjoy The Good Life.  As Beth mentioned earlier, I dabble in everything from home brewing to home improvements. I don’t claim to be an expert in any of these areas, but  I hope you’ll find in my projects some inspiration for your own space.

As a fairly new homeowner, this spring has been my first real chance to delve into the world of gardening and landscaping.   While I don’t know if I’ve inherited my mother’s green thumb yet, she did leave me her lovely green gardening hat and a plethora of gardening tools– which is more than enough to get started.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing with you some of my experiences with my first perennial gardens and highlighting some “Must Haves” for your flower beds.  One of the many beauties of a perennial garden is that these plants will bloom year after year with a little care and maintenance. Please keep in mind that I’ll be sharing plants hardy in my hardiness region (5).  Perhaps my first nugget of planting wisdom is to check out what Plant Zone you live in– just about any gardening manual or plant catalog will have a color-coded map indicating this.  While it’s not a foolproof system, it’s a pretty good starting point for your garden.  So go check out what the hardiness zone is in your region, and stay tuned!