I've been working on my garden pages again (almost ready to bring the reworked pages live), and came upon the fact that Tracy DiSabato-Aust is having a lecture/book signing @ the Columbus Museum of Art. I hadn't planned on it, but it looks like a great way to hear a respected Garden Writer, get an autographed copy of one of her books, AND a ticket for To Live Forever: Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. For me this is a real temptation - I had already had it in mind to see the Egyptian exhibition from the Brooklyn Museum. I let my art museum membership lapse last year, so it is just a question of how to stack this all into the equation.
The Lowdown on the Highbrow:
Sunday, March 29, 2009, 2:00 - 4:00 PM
Tickets for the event are $35 for CMA members, $40 for nonmembers
include the lecture, reception, book signing and a ticket for To Live Forever
CMA members will receive a 15 percent discount on books purchased for signing
A reception with coffee and desserts follows the lecture
The thrilling expectancy of Spring is in the air and what better way to feed the anticipation than to visit the Central Ohio Home and Garden Show which opens this Saturday, February 28th? I am so excited to go this year.
You have time to hop on over to a Home Depot store and get discount tickets for $2 off the $10.00 adult ticket price! Children 12 and under are free. So sometime between the 28th and Sunday, March 8th, you and your family can breathe in "Spring!" and see some landscaping and home remodeling exhibitions and events. What's to see and do?
Special events and days:
HGTV's Kim Myles @ 11AM and 3PM on Feb. 28
HGTV's David Bromstad @ 11AM and 1PM on Mar.7
Mel Bartholomew on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8, 'Square Foot Gardening' demonstrated in ten basic steps to achieve goals of growing your food. Courtesy of Ohio Mulch (which is where we buy our mulch, btw)
Garden Stage includes seminars, workshops, and appearances by experts and special guests
At Home Stage includes home improvement seminars, and workshops, PLUS celebrity chefs cooking demonstrations! YUM!
HGTV's David Bromstad @ 11AM and 1PM on Mar.7
Senior Day is Wed. March 4th
Kids Day is Saturday March 7th which includes Kids Korner activities and other fun stuff for kids.
What's To See?
A Hollywood Theme, The Gardens Inspired By:
Lord of the Rings : Natural beauty highlighted in the Shire
Mama Mia! : Rusticity in stone with arbors, overflowing containers,and ruins
The Terminator : "Hosta La Vista, Baby!" Hundreds of them ( we love Ahnold here in Columbus :)
The Secret Garden : Ethereal and romantic gardening filled with ferns and delicate scented blossoms , a soothing water fountain
Notting Hill and Mary Poppins : Two renditions of London, Anglophiles can revel in the English expertise interpreted locally
Under The Tuscan Sun: A group meeting place with a wood fired pizza oven, fountain, and forsythias
Jurassic Park : Franklin Park Conservatory always makes impressive displays and this one comes with Palm trees and Australian Tree Ferns
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon : A moon gate, Koi pond, and a Zen garden scintillates with Eastern beauty and style
More.... I can't write about all of them, but one garden sounds as interesting as the next and I look forward to seeing how the local landscaping companies pull it off.
For fairness, here is the list of who's behind the movie themed gardens and meeting places:
Benchmark Landscape Construction Inc. | Cedarbrook Landscaping and Garden Center | Creative Spaces Landscape Design and Construction,Ltd. | Darby Creek Nursery and Landscaping | Evergreen Landscaping, Inc. | Five Seasons Landscape Management, Inc. | M.L. Longaberger, Inc. | Oakland Nurseries | Riepenhoff Landscape,Ltd. | Seely's Landscape Nursery | Spellacy's Turf-Lawn | Warwick's Landscaping |Wood Landscape Services, Ltd. | Yard Solutions
This is Home Show, Too
Taking the economy into account, the show has lined up numerous discounts, deals, and money saving ideas. If you are a D-I-Yourself-er or thinking about it this year consider taking advantage of ideas, and experts gathered into one enjoyable experience. My husband and I have been DYI for as long as we've been married (30+ years), and I can tell you a little know-how gained from experienced craftsmen goes a long way to save a world of time, trouble, and expense. Plus it can be a lot of fun (success ups the fun factor). Many of the discounts are for people who have in mind hiring a professional, so whether you renovate on your own or hire someone to do it , the Home and Garden Show might be a good investment for you. I can't guarantee it, but you can have fun exploring the gardens and demonstrations :) I'm pretty sure about that.
Every year I patronize some of these exhibitors, like Ohio Mulch and Oakland Nursery, because I have found the combination of quality and price to be just what someone in my budget constrained and frugal-minded circumstances has found to be satisfactory. I do not mind, and hope you enjoy, giving them and the garden show some space on my blog because I know that I have been given good service from them. The Garden Shows especially helped fuel my enthusiasm for gardening in earlier years. I've spent plenty on garden magazines through the years, but nothing is like walking through real plants in a professionally designed space for inspiring ideas and giving hands and feet to your plans. JMO.
It is cold again here, and we even got a bit of snow (a bare dusting). I have been working on internet stuff, like adding links to my Green Garden search, and to the two links pages I started on "Ilona's Garden". It seems to be time consuming for me to do that- one of these days I 'll try to devote a block of hours to the task.
You have to admire people like Susan and Kathy who have compiled blog links in a directory form.
Brand-new news? I just had a greenhouse delivered. It is small, yes, but it is a greenhouse. I had wanted one for -literally- decades, but had pretty much given up on the idea. It just didn't seem like it could be worked into the budget. But recently, when my husband turned interested in producing more of our food and plants... it became a reality. Just like that! I wanted a much more expensive one, of course, but this was the only one the budget, and my inexperience using a greenhouse, could allow. Bought it at Costco.
Admittedly, money was not the only consideration: we get fierce wind conditions here. We are going to try to put it up nevertheless, and situate it as well as we can. I hope I never write a future post bemoaning what happened to my new toy in a freak 'Hurricane Ike' blowing in.
This video is for anyone who is interested in saving seeds, particularly tomato seeds, but it is most especially for my husband. Handyman has been very interested in Survival blogs and their know how... and ( happily for me) has voiced interest in helping me garden this year. This is good news, I'm tellin' ya. Well, in this video is not only some good garden advice, but the philosophical thoughts that my husband would voice himself. Enjoy ...
This month, during a couple visits to Whole Foods, I picked up some indoor pots of hellebores that were on sale. Considering that they are pricey to order, I have the enjoyment of blooms on my windowsill, and later (hopefully), three new hellebores to put into my garden this year -all for a sale price. These are true Christmas roses(H. niger), while the one that has been growing in my garden for years is a "Lenten rose" (H. orientalis) with dusky maroon spots and shadings.
I don't know why I like hellebores so much, they bloom when I have little to do with my garden, and the ones outside are very shy; but they are very fine indoor plants, at least so far. Now that I'm thinking about it, I should transplant a start of those to a more visible and prominent place. In the potting soil my new plants droop when dry, but a splash of rejuvenating water causes them to recover. The flowers also yielded some seed! I was sort of surprised about that.
The name of these newly acquired hellebores is "HGC Jacob", which is sort of an unwieldy name for a pretty flower. The "HGC" part of the name stands for "Helleborus Gold Collection".
The Christmas rose's Latin name is Hellborus niger. Of the Ranunculaceae family, related to buttercups and Trollius, and thus poisonous: "Parts of plant are poisonous if ingested". It was used medicinally in ancient times, one of the applications being a treatment for insanity, but since it can cause cardiac arrest... I doubt if that is the way you want to end your mental distress. A better way is to look at the flowers blooming away with abandon at the bleakest period of the year. That will do your heart good, does mine!
The growing conditions are part shade to shade, although some experts say full sun is fine. I bet that expert doesn't live in the South, though. They like moist soil with organic matter, but my Lenten rose grows in a somewhat dry spot under a Maple tree. I do think it would be happier with more moisture, though. I think it is safe to say that once established these plants will tolerate and survive less than ideal conditions. Originally from areas with limestone soils, Helleborus niger should like my plot just fine. It is very hardy, to zone 4, which is highly encouraging to know.
Buying plants on clearance is a favorite way of adding to my garden. My problem with indoor plants is always keeping them alive until spring, mainly due to allowing them to dry up- but the countdown to spring is on. I believe I may be able to plant these out in March if I harden them off a bit first. Regardless of their future in the garden, they have bloomed long and well inside my house, and that has been a pleasure.
Way back, ...oh, in 2005... I came across a meme that I had fun doing called the "Where I'm From" poem. It seems to have started with Fragments from Floyd, although I first ran across it @ Pratie's Place. They were all based on an original poem. Since doing the Garden Mission Statement and seeing the many inspiring ones @ Gardening With Confidence, I wondered if it would work to combine them into a Garden themed poem exercise.
The original rule went like this:
I'm going to try it here with the insertion of "My Garden is" for I am from ======
My Garden is a hoe and shovel from Union Tools and sweat from my brow.
My Garden is the rural fields, flat plains ironed by glaciers, once Indian hunting grounds now drained by immigrants looking for their paradise. Dark, rich, peppered with arrowhead relics, mysterious with fertile prairie stories. Redolent of mown grass, awakened sweet earth smells, the perfume of blossoms in nature's secret formulas.
My Garden is the old fashioned shrub rose, thorny and seductively sweet; the green grass, ever mowed and ever growing; the apple blossoms and cherries so briefly blooming, so fully fruiting; the free, self sown poppies laughing at the sky and dancing in the wind. It is red ripe tomatoes, and sweet peppers, Swiss chard glowing red ribbed, and fresh green leaf lettuces.
My Garden is Protestant work ethic and Catholic mystery, loving beauty, but sometimes unkempt and lazy, from Hungarian pastors growing roses, Ashtabula Lake breezes blowing over iris and peony, and Bakays and Ermatingers. Growing from stubborn ground, sorrowing in loss, enjoying the sunshine of the day, as well as the storm of the season. Perhaps understanding just a little too late.
My Garden is the careful design and the unfinished plan.
From "turn over a new leaf" and "This is My Father's World" hymn.
My Garden is mindful of God's creation, it is a place of solace and comfort, sometimes of prayer, sometimes understanding what a curse really consists of.
My Garden is Ohio, its plains and its Lake Erie, its creeks and runs, its farms and open horizon, its strawberries in June and its tomatoes in August.
From the grandmother who lost her troubles working long hours in her garden- forgetting dinner forgetting all in the planting of iris and flowers, the mother whose house went unkempt while her garden was well trimmed, and the father who delighted in his daffodils and daylilies and made his neat trellises for his rose and his trumpet vine. From children complaining, but growing strong in the sunshine and fresh air, hiding from their mother's call to arms crusading against the weeds.
My Garden is from old well worn trowels, carefully honed shovels, from black and white pictures and memories of egg hunts, from crumbling old garden books,well thumbed and reread, and from old neighbors grape arbors, and crocus rimmed walks, from tree lined streets and sharply trimmed privets, from an old sumac tree, and sips of honeysuckle flowers, my garden is me... where I am my best and my dreams may be seen.
You've heard of the real estate bubble, and talk of other bubbles as well, but we gardeners have our own forms of the dreaded "bubble". Remember history's "Tulipomania"? Yep, everyone had to have tulips, the latest and rarest one, and a bubble was born to illustrate all other bubbles. Wherever the tale of tulips are told, the story of tulipomania is trotted out: the beautiful tulip is showcased in Europe, the rich took notice and got involved (any patterns here ? eh?), and craziness ensued. Then, it all fell down. Humpty Dumpty was sitting on a garden wall in those times, I'm sure.
Anyway, I notice that people talk about the ups and downs of gardening popularity. They usually have jobs that involve some form of the landscape industry, so I understand their concern... While for the rest of us, we don't get interested until it starts shutting down some of our favorite publications or diminishing our plant choices - or hitting our pocketbooks with a particularly cruel and unusual punishment. So I thought of noting something I found in my internet meanderings.
"Gardeners are a conservative lot," says one[garden editor]. "You can't pretend to them that gardening is like interior decoration, a matter of instant results."
So true, that.
The article points to the instant garden "makeover" mentality of garden TV at that time as the contributing fault. It occurred to me that we had digested that thinking and made it our own over the past decade or so. It may have just been that this particular magazine, New Eden, was a little ahead of its time (or perhaps marketed poorly?). Whatever the cause at the time, I think we (culturally and collectively speaking) grew a whole crop of gardeners that loved instantaneous results. Easy Gardening gardeners, with dreams of "no maintenance" yards -"younger, trendier". This, then is the "gardening bubble". The gardeners described as "Real gardeners" ™, are these: "The experienced gardener sees through them by the way they hold a spade and the language they use". I would concur.
The conclusion was:"The key question has been whether the new instant-result gardening has a market, or whether it will be the traditionalists who triumph. So far, the traditionalists have it."
In the short term that was wrong. I think the concerns of those who worry that gardening is losing its appeal to the masses and lost sales of gardening literature are due to the fact that the "new trendier" type of gardening temporarily won out, in spite of the fact that gardeners are conservative. The larger size plants at greater costs were ubiquitous, Yards were regularly "made over" at whim, a new wardrobe for your home that mirrored the glossy pages, all the while assuring us that it was as easy as pie. And it was... for a season. But because gardening is very much a set of skills acquired over a long time (a lifetime I might say), the longterm result is that the prophetic declaration that traditionalists will triumph now rings with a bit of truth.
Garden magazine publishers were hearing the death knoll even then,"The competition is not about to get any easier." "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls..."
So where do gardeners go from here? I think because we are going into a tight economic situation that might well demand lifestyle changes, we are going to want things that hone and improve our skills and make economic sense. Everyone loves "organic" but do they know the fine tuned balance that produces good food and "sustainibility"? As a culture we jump on bandwagons, but our times demand something with more substance and rooted more deeply into the ground of our nation and tradition. And in this is the Gardener, someone for all seasons.
I'm glad to be in your number. Garden businesses that cater to the "Real gardeners" ™, and gardeners who propagate real love and learning for the craft will create something sustainable that contributes to the future generation.
For those interested in going to the Home and Garden Show this year, there are $2 off discount tickets available at Home Depot Stores beginning on February 6 ( that's tomorrow!)
The annual Home and Garden Show starts at the end of this month. It is a breath of spring for Central Ohio- which we will sorely need if Punxsutawney Phil is right about our extended winter.
It's a great place to get new ideas and see what's happening in the Landscape and D-I-Y world. The fragrance from the blooming spring flowers is welcome, and the time of year is right at the transition for most of us up here in the North... not quite ready to actually garden but just on the cusp of when the tree and perennial planting should begin. We don't get to put out annuals until after our frost date... which is in May. So you see why such events are so nice for us. I wouldn't be surprised if it was well attended this year in spite of the economy, but you really can't tell about such things.
Maybe it is because they were bitten by the seed planting bug, or maybe it's just the economy, but I've seen a number of posts on vegetable gardening.
Green Side Up! gives garden tips on cracking tomatoes. The wonderful Tracy DiSabato-Aust is suggesting ways to have an ornamental display of veggies to stave off the recession. And Beth is putting together her veggie wish list. The Well Read Gardener was early, and made her order list in a very organized way. And that is going to be one full service vegetable garden, I can tell you!
Now. Here is the hard truth. If this is your first year to experiment with growing your own food... it isn't going to save you money. It might be tastier produce, and it might be something you have fun and enjoyment doing (check back with me on that after you do the July weeding), but you are likely to put more money into it than if you took a trip to your local farm market. I'm not trying to discourage you, but I do want you to be prepared in your expectations.
And while I'm at it... there is no such thing as the "no-work" garden. All gardening involves labor, but that is actually a good thing...because it means it will help you keep fit. And the produce you grow, I think by all rights it will probably be healthier. And you will have salted it with your own efforts and grown some of your own abilities in the process -and that is as good as money, any day.
She is quite sophisticated, actually, and I like someone with her sort of know-how. Having tried some things that Granny is expert in, I can tell you it takes hard work and a killer set of skills to make homesteading look so easy. She is honest about it, and tells you winter, especially, makes some of the tasks hard. The thing is that the simple, hardworking life has many satisfactions and joys, and it is that part that made me want to share her video of life through the seasons on her farm. Enjoy! *especially the baby animals. (and read her blog when you get a chance)
