It was 60 degrees in the Berkshires yesterday. Spring spring spring is in the air, and you can smell the mud. I’ve already start making plans to get my hands seriously dirty in the garden, especially out back where I will be entering Year 9 of Landscaping The Forest. These days, I have the best inspiration yet in Margaret Roach and A Way To Garden. Margaret is a kindred sister blog-a-lot, and she and I alternated as pep talker and pep talkee as we both muddled through our dark cold days of winter blog refreshes — blog refreshes are what you do when you can’t garden. Her updates turned out great — and oh my, her site is a treasure trove. Go over and dig in — there are tips for pruning, mulching, growing tomatoes, making pickles, great shrubs, great perennials and more more more. She also has an acerbic weekly cartoon, lots of critter tales, a demon cat who would trounce my retro wonder dog, and oh — a drop-dead mouthwatering gorgeous garden, of course. Go, Margaret!

My friend Margaret is the go-to-goddess of gardening with her luminous blog, awaytogarden.com. She has an extensive list of favorite seed catalogs, and with old man winter now upon us here in New England, she recently launched a discussion of her favorite seed catalogs, old and new, and asked her readers for theirs, as well. Forget the visions of sugarplums…I’m spending my long winter nights dreaming of spring and all the little pretties to go into my garden. Image: Select Seeds Cosmos “Rubenza” – a top-10 in 2009 seed.

So what are you doing this weekend? Mick most likely is entertaining friends at his Flamingo Drive-In, the amazing backyard theater that he created behind his 1943 cabin. Ain’t got no plasma, ain’t got no hot tub — just good old-fashioned lawn chairs, a projector and click on through to see a little classic Hollywood glamour, too… Heck yeah there is more →

Longtime readers may recognize this photo, it’s one of my favorite images of idealized 50s family life ever. And ooooh, I like that colonial-modern kitchen, too! But look, it also includes pots of red geraniums on the window sill. In my detail-focused time travels back into retroworld, I have most definitively noticed a trend to include red geraniums in postwar kitchen designs. I have a few theories why: 1) Geraniums are big and bold – in synch with the times. 2) They are middle class… egalitarian. 3) They need sun, and we were California-livin’. 4) They look really good with cool colors like aqua and robin’s egg blue. 5) They also play into the patriotic sensibilities of the time. I run a flickr group called Midcentury Modern Red Geraniums -  take a look at about 50 images in all. The majority of them come from flickr friend American Vintage Home, who has quite an online archive of vintage photography. Thank, you American Vintage!

Kristin has been doing some retro renovation – of her garden. She has uncovered lots of shrubs and perennials under years of scrub. She has planted her built-in brick planter with retro style plants. And her neighbor Lee — another RR reader — nabbed this patio set for her off another neighbor’s curb. Dumpster divers unite! Hey, Kristin. You mention that your neighborhood is “newly popular.” Were you being serious? Tell us more…. Heck yeah there is more →