Garden

The Curious Garden
$16.99
This was a great book. I heard it on the Today Show and checked it out. I gave it to my husband, a nature lover, to read to our 1 year old and he just fell in love with the story and the images. I thought the deal on Amazon was a steal.

Garden Spells (Bantam Discovery)
$5.99
Garden of Spells was an excellent surprise! I only heard about this book because I'm participating in a reading challenge and one of the challenges was to read a book with an apple in the cover. So, after reading the flap of this one, I decided to use it. At first I thought that this sounded a little bit too much like Practical Magic. And while I love the movie, I found the book really disappointing. So, I thought that Garden of Spells would be just as disappointing, but it wasn't.

This book had a smidge of drama in it, some humor, and a lot of whimsy. Yeah, I think that word best describes this book. It was whimsical. The magic in the book wasn't obvious, which I liked. It was mostly understated. It wasn't like black cats and love potions, but mostly energy and orbs, and a really loveable apple tree.

This is something that I say in almost all my reviews, but I have an intense love for supporting characters and I tend to like them more than the main characters. The supporting characters in Garden of Spells were great. They were loveable, eccentric, and unique. That's not to say that I didn't love the main characters, Claire and Sydney, because I did. It was interesting to me that neither sister was regarded as the "bad one". Usually in books with troubled sibling relations, you have one that's sort of saint-like and one that's clearly at fault for how the relationship has turned out. This wasn't like that. Both women had their faults and tried to mend them and their relationship as much as possible.

My absolute favorite part of the book was the aforementioned apple tree. It was a character all on it's own. And what a marvelous character! This tree's personality, I feel, was stronger than it's more human counterparts. It was an affectionate, stubborn, and best of all, mischevious tree. It's escapades truly made the book for me. It also added a bit more to the magic angle and made me understand some of the characters a little bit more.

Anyway, so this has definitely gone on my list of favorites for this year and of all time. If you want to read a book with great characters, a touch of magic, with a loveable tree, and more than a smidge of whimsy, pick up this book. Trust me when I say you won't regret it.

MidWest Gloves 64A7-4 Ladies Garden Gripping Glove Combo Pack, 4-Pack
$23.96
I do a lot of gardening in a zone 9a garden. I have plants in both clay and sand, with and without thorns, in heavy and light containers, and I do a lot of DIY-type projects. I also go through about 2 pairs of good rose-gardening gloves a year. So, although these gloves sounded good in the description, I admit to being skeptical as the last pair of inexpensive gloves I bought lasted about 2 projects before tearing at the fingertips. Not so with this set. Thus far, through 2 heavy-duty DIYs (moving larger landscaping shrubs/trees, putting casters on and moving huge double-entry doghouse) and numerous small, normal gardening projects, these gloves have been great.

These gloves are made of a tough, grippy outer material and the elasticized wrist cuffs bind without being too tight. The cuffs would likely not keep out dirt if buried up to elbows, though -- they are not rose gloves and they don't bind tightly. However, they still protected my wrists/hands nicely while working with thorny lemon trees, so although the gloves don't provide protection all the way up to the elbows, I am confident when pruning. They have not ripped, torn, or even stretched at the finger tips which is where gloves tend to give out first, even when I've been digging with fingers instead of a tool. And I've been pleasantly surprised by just how "grippy" they are; this is a great help to me as I've got arthritis and anything that helps stabilize my grip is a blessing. These gloves also worked well in transplanting and container planting, though I think they are probably too thick feeling for delicate work. Because I bought these during winter, I can't attest to their breathability or comfort during hot weather.

All in all, these were a terrific value -- having 4 pairs in the pack means I can have gloves at several different places where I use them rather than carrying them about the yard (I have 5 acres, so this really is a convenience!). I plan on buying more. These are a great value and deliver on what they promise.

AeroGrow AeroGarden with Gourmet Herb Seed Kit, Black
$199.95
The AeroGarden works well and I am happy with my plants. It is, as another review commented, a bit noisy. My three star rating is not because of the product, but because the company's customer service is basically non-existent. If you have a problem with the product, forget about getting any support. They don't answer their phones, they don't return calls, and they don't respond to email.