Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category
I was never able to measure up in the ’80s when big hair was in.
I have baby fine, straight hair. All my exertions with perms, hot hair dryers, roller brushes and sprays only emphasized my genetic shortcomings when it came to creating big hair.
Fortunately, I don’t have to rely on my shallow gene pool to create an abundant look in the garden. All I need is a good deal of compost, flowers and patience.
Sometimes though, my garden seems to be a black hole. I can’t tell you how many truckloads of compost I had added to this hardpan Maryland clay soil. As for the flowers, I keep planting and planting to achieve the riotous abundant look I adore in the cottage garden magazines and books.
Don’t get me wrong. The plants grow just fine, but there seems to be an endless amount of room for more shoving in of more plants.
The problem is that it’s expensive to buy perennials in huge quantities, so I also try to start from seed, sometimes indoors and sometimes just direct seeding. And I don’t know what will bloom when around here until I live with it for a while. That means that I have to live with a flower for at least a year, maybe two, until I really get a sense of its habits and behaviors. The I have to engage in quite a lot of moving things about.
Still…I think it’s worth it.
Lavender, lamb’s ear and astilbe border
See here. I didn’t mind weeding around the lavender in the cool hours this morning. The scent is glorious. And I rather think it looks as if I had a plan when I put the lavender, astilbe and lamb’s ear together. In truth, I had no idea they would bloom at the same time. It was just serendipity.
You would never know that this very bed used to be a swampy low spot in the yard that collected water after rains. Copious amounts of compost and deep digging solved that problem.
Thyme, pink vinca, rose campion and ice plant
And here. Although I complain about the rose campion, I do think it looks rather at home with the other pink flowers in this border. Serendipity again.
Orange coneflower, red hot poker and ?? (Sheesh, help me with this purple flower someone )
How about the orange cone flower and red hot poker? When I dragged the cone flower home from my local garden center I had no idea where I planned to put it. But the bald spot behind this red hot poker was just crying for a plant. I had no idea they would bloom together.
(By the way, I started these little purple jobs from seed last year. I have purple and white flowers like this EVERYWHERE. I cannot find the seed package. Please, someone enlighten me. I’m quite sure it’s a hideously common flower, so just stop laughing and kindly post me a comment or send me an email with the name.)
So tomorrow I head out to the garden center once again in my quest for the abundant look. Frankly, it’s much more satisfying that all that time dinking around with my hair “back in the day.”
Robin
We have a field behind our house that we call the Back Forty.
We call it that because my husband and I grew up back in the day when most of the shows on televisions were westerns rather than reality shows. It seems that someone was always referring to the Back Forty.
“Pa’s caught under a wagon on the Back Forty!”
“There’s been a lighnin’ strike and the Back Forty’s on fire!” (I’m sorry. I think that’s “far.”)
Well, I have my own problem with the Back Forty. It is most unlovely. And big. And I can see it from my carefully tended garden, which somewhat spoils the view.
A friend who works in the county’s planning and zoning office sent this shot to me today. You can probably find something similar for your house on Google Earth, but this is a more recent shot than Google Earth has of our house. Still, it’s probably about three or four years old. The photo shows the magnitude of the problem.
The red line indicates our property boundaries–about 21 acres. The cleared area is about five or six acres and our house/yard/garden is on about an acre of that. As you can see, the green patch is the yard. The line up the left hand side is our long driveway–the one we use as a running track. The rest is woods–tulip poplars, live oaks, gum trees, black locust and a bunch of others.
The problem is that the Back Forty is fairly significant. You can see it at the lower side of the photo, south of the house and green lawn. This photo must have been taken in the winter or fall, because you can see the brown areas where hay has been cut and the grass is green. Only, get this. Farmer Rudy, the fellow who tends the field for the benefit of his cows, informed me about three years ago that I should start cutting the Back Forty myself. It’s too difficult for him to get back there with the equipment.
I would estimate that the Back Forty is about an acre. Today it looks like this from the garden:
I am putting together a list of things I can do with the Back Forty. It’s not flat, but rather slopes down at the sides and has some roll to it, particularly at the back, which you cannot even see in this photo. When my Papillons chase the deer back there, they disappear without even going into the woods.
I have considered a meadow, but if you know anything about meadows, they are not easy to maintain. And I do not own farm equipment. Neither do I have the ambition to drive a tractor.
I have also considered investing in some short-term help to put in a real crop, such as herbs, which can be harvested and sold. But I really don’t have the time for another business right now. I have also considered just adding some trees here or there. But I think I really need a grand plan before hopping on that scheme.
What would you do? Any grand ideas?
(I managed to start four of the 13 paragraphs in this post with the word “I.” No, make that five out of 14 now. I don’t really think I’m that narcissistic. But let me think about myself for a while and get back to you on that.)
Robin
My greatest pleasure on this unbelievably hot day was picking peas.
It’s my first year ever growing peas. I have never before managed to get myself outside and organized early enough to get them in the ground in time. Usually it’s about June before I do the Three Stooges head-slap and say, “I should have planted peas!”
Pea Wando, Growing in Pairs
I planted the peas on March 6. I know this because I have actually started keeping a garden journal, of sorts. I’m not as faithful as I could be and it’s not all that scientific, but I can see that it will come in handy. For example, here it is some 90 plus days after I planted them and they are finally matured to the point where I can pick them. Now, I have four pea varieties, with maturity dates ranging from 60 to 68 days. By any calculation, these peas are LATE.
In the future, I’ll be keeping an eye on this whole maturity date thing so that I won’t make the same mistake I did this year–I used my Texas Tomato Cages as supports for the peas. I figured that they weren’t holding up any tomatoes and that the peas would be finished before the tomatoes needed them, so I pressed them into service.
In the interest of keepin’ it real, I will also show you my un-lovely pea patch:
The Un-Lovely Pea Patch
Yes, those are some Johnny-Jump-Ups nestled in with the peas.
I planted four varieties:
- Pea Burpeeana Early - These peas did not mature all that much earlier. They were also stingy with the actual peas, both on the plant and in the pod, with only about three or four peas per pod. I would not grow these again.
- Pea Sugar Sprint - These are supposed to have tender edible pods. Yes, indeed, the pods are edible, but I’m not so sure about tender. I would look for a different sugar snap next year.
- Pea Wando - This was the most prolofic pea, both in terms of the number of peas on the bush and the number of peas in the pod–at least six and most often eight peas per pod. They also have the habit of growing in pairs, as you can see in the photo. This seems to be what increases the number of peas on the bushes.
- Pea Thomas Laxton - This is an heirloom variety, so it has a place in my heart for that reason. I would say that it performs nearly as well as the Wando peas in terms of peas per pod, but perhaps not quite as abundant on the bush.
Now, here’s the beauty shot:
And guess what? I am the ONLY ONE in our house who likes peas! They are mine. ALL MINE!
And About Social Networking…
I have finally succumbed to the lure of social networking sites. I am currently test driving Twitter, where I am Bumblebee. I am also on Plurk, where I am BumblebeeGarden. I actually prefer Plurk, so far, because the threaded nature of the discussion makes it easier for me to follow. But there is no easy way to find friends there. And Twitter was up and running first, so there are lots of gardeners there who are easy to find. What do you think?
Robin
You know those thriller movies where the villain seems to have super-human strength?
They bounce off of cars, fall from bridges, take bullets, catch on fire. Still, they muster the energy to pursue the good guy.
Well, I know some plants like that. Here is my short list of plants I absolutely, without a doubt, cannot kill. Good thing they don’t have legs and arms or I would be in trouble.
#1 Plant I Cannot Kill - Rose Campion
I agree that this lovely pink-flowered plant on the delicate silvery stems looks innocent enough peaking through the garden gate. The problem is that the Rose Campion spreads and re-seeds virulently. For two summers I have ruthlessly yanked up all the plants I can find. Still, they manage to return again and again.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they always looked like this. They don’t. There are so many flowers that it takes a good deal of assiduous deadheading to keep them looking their finest. Basically, I find this a high-maintenance plant.
This year I have a soft heart and let a couple sneak through my weeding frenzy. I will pay for that.
#2 Plant I Cannot Kill - Johnny-Jump-Ups
Last year I planted Johnny-Jump-Up seeds outside the dwarf boxwoods in this raised bed in the Colonial theme garden. At first, I was charmed by their vigorous appearance. But when they threatened to destroy the boxwoods by mutating to some 18″ in height, I yanked them up by their little throats. Did they give up? No. They remain in the center of the bed and have re-seeded throughout the garden, including in the paths and even in my lettuce bed.
As you can see, I don’t exactly take a zero-tolerance policy. I have let the ones that sneaked past me continue to grow.
(BTW, I think the whole idea of zero tolerance is a bit scary. But then, this isn’t a political blog, is it?)
#3 Plant I Cannot Kill — Mint
I know, I know. Everyone tells you that mint spreads like crazy and you must do something to contain it. I swear on my Papillons that I did not plant this mint in the ground. It was in a pot and JUMPED out. It is everwhere, including wandering through the lawn.
My son has the habit of grabbing a sprig and chewing on it when he wanders by. At least it servers some entertainment purpose.
So Here’s What You Do…
If you know someone who claims a black thumb but also swears they are interested in gardening, get them a little box and fill it with Rose Campion, Johnny-Jump-Ups and mint and see who wins.
Robin
Conjure up in your mind your last visit to a garden center. What was it like?
Chances are good that it smelled a little funny—maybe like chemicals. There were piles of seed, soil, rocks on pallets. A variety of plastic pots were piled on industrial-looking shelves. Tools hung on pegboards. Rows and rows of plants were lined up like little green soldiers.
If you believe the surveys that say more than three-quarters of American adults claim to do some gardening, it’s astounding that our shopping resources are so meager and devoid of style.
Finally, those clever marketers that created the distinctive, hip brands Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters have decided to tackle the garden market and inject some style. And not a minute too soon, for my taste.
Earlier this month, they opened Terrain at Styer’s, the first store in a whole new garden center concept. According to John Kinsella, Terrain’s managing director, the goal of Terrain is to be a “destination” rather than the typical drive-by pit stop visit to most garden centers.
Terrain at Styer’s is located in Concordville, PA, 20 minutes south of Philadelphia. It is a massive five-acre complex with 19,000 square feet under roof. In addition to the outdoor nursery, Terrain has books, home décor, lighting, tableware, indoor plants and tropicals. Tired of shopping? Have lunch at the café, where foods are locally sourced. Need some help getting started? Call on their landscaping and design professionals.
Kinsella says that people typically stay at Terrain for three to five hours. Products include items sourced from all over the world that you wouldn’t see at other garden centers.
“If we were to be compared this to another garden center, women would feel this is a more accessible experience than going to a typical garden center or a big box store,” said Kinsella. “There is more attention to presentation. It’s a voyage of discovery with interesting ways of presenting products that will inspire people.”
Unlike Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters, which were built from the ground up, the Terrain stores will partner with existing local garden centers to create the Terrain brand. Kinsella wasn’t disclosing future locations, but he did say that they expect a new Terrain to be open by year’s end.
I put in my bid with Kinsella for Calvert County, Maryland, where I live and garden. He’s a nice man, so he didn’t shoot me down on the idea that I could get my own Terrain. But he did say that they are looking at places where people are doing some serious gardening. Philadelphia, home of the most elaborate flower show in the U.S., made the Pennsylvania location logical.
Kinsella says Terrain’s market is “everyone.” While that sounds nicely democratic, I suspect that the real market for now is the garden stylista with some money to spend.
There will always be people who prefer the utilitarian nature of the big box store garden department. But if Terrain can make gardening hip and stylish, maybe it will ignite a hot new wave of gardening enthusiasm.
I’m all for that. I’m also all for shopping. Road trip anyone?
Robin
After the rains that devastated my New Dawn roses, I had nearly given up hope of finding a solution.
But I bought my husband some brand spankin’ new post hole diggers as a Memorial Day gift–I am nothing if not considerate–and he put them to good use.
He managed to ease the roses out of the offending and broken down trellises. He then dug some impressive holes. I installed lag eye hooks and wire to support the dangerously thorned branches.
They don’t look so bountiful right now because I had to do a wee bit of pruning. Okay, it was a mambo pruning session.
I maybe got carried away in making up for neglecting to give these bountiful roses their proper prunings for a while. These are the remains of a single New Dawn pruning. (Please note by the orange paint on the grass that I called Miss Utility to mark where the power and other wires are located. I’m not ready for a new husband.)
Frankly, nothing short of a natural disaster could kill these roses. In fact, as I was paging through Barbara Damrosch’s newly revised Garden Primer the other day I happened to read her section on climbing roses in which she called the New Dawn “indestructible.” Indeed.
I am so buoyed by my husband’s skills with the post hole diggers I am plotting numerous new projects–trellises, outdoor showers, grapes. Don’t tell him. He’s still recovering from his Memorial Day project.
Robin
I don’t usually make a habit of publicizing my laziness or gardening errors.
But sometimes something so serendipitous happens that I just have to share it. Here is a spontaneous garden container.
I neglected to clean out and put away this pot that was the home for a beautiful hibiscus last year. I had nothing else planted in the pot. At all. And this spring, some pansies have self-seeded. Then, hot dog and holy moly! A small sunflower seems to have sprouted from among the dead hibiscus stems. I was so intrigued by the whole thing, I have just let it go to see what happened.
And now, I rather like it.
What about that? I have an automatic garden! What if everything were this easy?
Robin
I know that “into every life a little rain must fall…”
But four inches in 24 hours seems a tad excessive. It certainly was for my luxurious New Dawn climbing roses.
Two of the three New Dawns were ravaged by the rains and 30 MPH winds. I would sit down and have a good, long cry, but frankly, I’m more cranky and confounded than sad.
I’m cranky because these trellises cost a pretty penny and weren’t really that sturdy to begin with. (Hear that J&P?) Okay, I’m also crabby that I didn’t have a real plan for these roses when I planted them. I was a novice gardener and didn’t know that New Dawn roses are NOT delicate plants, but are really dagger-spiked behemoths, even if they are pink.
And I’m confounded as to how to support these rampaging roses without unlocking the family vault and hauling out wheelbarrows full of money to throw at the problem.
I had planned to install a fence to support them until the fence experts told me a custom fence would cost me nearly as much as a new car. Then I wanted to build a trellis system until I had to acknowledge that I’m not designed for digging two-foot deep holes in hardpan Maryland clay. I could buy some dynamite, I suppose, but I don’t like fireworks either.
So I went for what I hoped was the easy, if not necessarily cheap, solution. After two years and four inches of rain since yesterday, I concede that the easy solution was not a long-term solution.
So here we are–me and my beautiful, devastated beasts. The rain has meant more than a bit of dampness. Now I have a real dilemma.
Robin
I used to be afraid to cut the flowers in my garden to bring indoors. It was a classic case of flower fear.
Other people, I have heard, experience the same phenomenon. It is the fear that if you cut the flowers in your garden, it will take away from the outdoor beauty. Who wants a bald, flower-free garden, right?
For me, the flower fear ran so deep that I would buy flowers every week, even in the summer, to use in the kitchen, family room, bedroom and bathrooms rather than cut the ones right outside my back door.
But I want my own fabulous flowers in the house, darn it. And I also want my garden filled with an abundance of flowers. In short, I WANT IT ALL!
Why can’t I have it all? Martha Stewart has it all. Oprah has it all. Heck, Angelina Jolie has it all. Angelina even has Brad Pitt! Heck, if she can have Brad Pitt, why can’t I at least have indoor/outdoor flowers? Is that asking too much?
Last fall year I decided it face my flower fears.
I added my own little cutting beds so that I could give myself permission to invite some of them indoors. I stocked up on tulip bulbs. Red tulips, purple tulips, white tulips, pink tulips. Tulips, tulips, tulips. I think I must have been a bit single-minded the day I was stocking up on bulbs, because I came away with about six dozen tulip bulbs and very little of anything else.
If my selections lacked in imagination I can’t say that the execution was especially stellar either. I managed to get about half of the tulip bulbs planted in October before freezing rain and demanding clients drove me indoors. The unplanted tulip bulbs languished in a bucket in the garage. Every time I walked past the bucket to my car the little florist in my head would say, “You’re horrid! You’re killing the flowers. You’ll never have flowers in your house. You don’t deserve flowers in your house!”
The little florist in my head is mean. And sometimes she says bad words.
Finally, one warmish day in February I headed outside with the offending bucket of bulbs and dug them all in. I had no expectation that they would grow. After all, fall is the time to plant tulip bulbs, not February. But at least it shut that miserable little florist voice down for a while.
Amazing, but true, all of the tulip bulbs, including the February planted bulbs, grew and bloomed. And I’ve been cutting and cutting to keep the house tulip-filled for about a month now. I have another bunch of summer blooming flowers all planted and will be inviting them indoors as well.
I still don’t have Brad Pitt. And that miserable little florist in my head still nags at me about my arrangements. But I believe you can say I have recovered from my flower fears.
Robin
It was here, but somehow I missed it…
I suppose with all the travel this month I did, in fact, miss two full weeks of April in the garden. I’m seriously behind. I have little seedlings in the family room that I am desperate to take outside. I have blueberry bushes to transplant. Heirloom tomatoes are on their way from California. There is still some tidy-up work to be done.
Nevertheless, those plants seemed to have carried on without me. So here’s my April pictorial update.
The front flower beds are on the north side of the house, so they don’t get much in the way of sun. I’ve been trying to morph them away from traditional landscape plantings toward more of a true garden setting. It’s slow going as I experiment with plants that work…Oh, and find the time.
Solomon’s Seal, Azaleas and Impatiens
The azaleas have finally started to take off, as has the Solomon’s Seal. The hellebores are extremely gorgeous–So much so that I’m thinking of taking advantage of the hellebores sale from Hersonswood Nursery. They have two hellebores called Kingston Cardinal and Gold Finch that would be fabulous planted in a large group, especially since hellebores seem to like living here at Bumblebee.
Hellebores and Foo Dogs
The Dead Nettle (awful name/fabulous plant) around my adorable foo dogs is covered in little pink flowers. Tiny little plantlets are coming up around the plant through the mulch.
Dead Nettle and Hotei
I love the Dead Nettle so much that I planted a mass of it alongside the driveway–another shady spot. The whole area is in dire need of some planning and planting. It’s a very large area, which means a LOT of plants. I’m still scratching my head about how to tackle it.
Side Garden Birdhouse and Foam Flower
A few years ago my then-early-teenage son took it upon himself to whack down a small tree by the driveway with a machete. Typical boy. I left if there as I pondered what to do with the side garden. When I saw this birdhouse from Walpole Woodworkers, the little lightbulb over my head went off.
Unfortunately, the foam flowers that I planted there last year aren’t as robust as I had hoped. Perhaps they are like the hellebores and just need some time to settle in.
Green lawn and hay field at Bumblebee
Then there’s the lawn, which you heard about before. This is the view from the front of the house. Although you read a lot about lawns not being practical, when you have this much room, a lawn is a very practical thing indeed. If we ever need to have an impromptu football game, there’s room to pass the ball. And I can cut it in less than an hour when I have a working riding mower. Since there’s not a chance that I’ll ever be able to garden all this space, a pretty green lawn works quite well and gives us a nice view up the hill.
After the drought last summer the lawn looked hideous. But with aeration and seeding in the fall–and a good amount of rain this spring–it has bounced back quite nicely.
Back in the Colonial garden, the veggies are thriving. I’ve also been cutting tulips and putting them all around the house.
Herb Garden with Columbine
The herb garden is a bit mangy, but it’s still early. The columbine that I started from seed didn’t do much last year. But this year the columbine is EVERYWHERE. I had forgotten that I tucked a couple of little seedlings in the herb bed last year. But this year–here they are!
And last, but not least, the compost bins are currently under a canopy of Dogwood. Yes, that’s my clothes line. And yes, I use it.
Well, so there you have it. There are a couple of other photos of the Colonial theme garden from the last post if you want to see more.
That was a bit of a ramble, but it gave me a chance to spew out all the photos.
And as you can see, April was here because it left behind the evidence. I hope I don’t miss May!
Robin
