Art Gardener

These paintings struck me as distinctly garden oriented. Something like fifties sitcom meets millennial gardening.

Do you garden in heels and pearls?

clipped from www.scoutiegirl.com

Visit Hocking Hills- Lonadawn

I love Hocking Hills... it is a dreamy landscape that will make you think of the land of the Lord of the Rings. But those wild scenes aren't where I want you to visit today... I invite you to explore with Hocking Hills gardener, Lonadawn, as she takes you on a tour of her yard and gives a narrative of how her garden has grown.

Here are two of the many pictures on the tour.

clipped from lonadawn.blogspot.com

early bloomers

here in the ga. piedmont, we are in the full flush of spring; the many sweet smells
of a dixie springtime are almost overwhelming in the still night air. a huge wisteria
vine climbs into my old magnolia tree; they seem to co-exist well, and i havent
got the heart to do the "right"thing, which would be cutting the vines out of the tree
[ it would take a bucket truck, anyway]
i am a laissez-faire gardener, and as the magnolia seems to flourish year after year,
i see no reason to deny myself the mixture of their heady scents, come summer.

the precession of fragrant blooms begin in late january, with winter honeysuckle's
[ lonicera sp.] pale little waxy yellow blooms flooding the air with impossibly
strong lemony perfume. a "wake-up call" that winter's end is near. this year
in spite of winter's unusually cold temps, they arrived slightly later, but bloomed
profusely all through february. they are the first note in the song of fragrant early
flowers...directly after, the various narcissi appear, one by one and join their sweet
odor in harmony, onward into february's cold snaps.

march blew in like a lion, but sunshine brought out a few early gold wild jasmine blooms,
as well as brilliant new green grass. the wisteria begins to flower, culminating in the huge
lush purple column, in full bloom in early april. the wild pear and pinklipped apple
blossoms sing of the coming early summer. two ancient black locust trees add hints
of vanilla to the chorus. their blooms are in small white cascades- quite similar to wisteria
clusters. the yard gardenias [and my bonsai dwarf] are full of palegreen buds. when they
come to blooming-time, within a week. the air will be intoxicating as a carefully
constructed french perfume, with its many layers of scents blended into a glorious whole.

the nights are a bit cool- ranging in the mid 50's- but you can find me outside in the
wooden yard-chair,wrapped in a quilt...for hours i breathe this symphony of smells,
picking out the notes and harmonies until i am scent-drunk, and ready for bed.
with the nights warming and all my windows open, i rest in my bed with the
flower orchestra soothing me to sleep.

~soft hypnotic scents / floating in darkness / fragrant sedative~


vty, j-lea

Springtime Garden Tips

Planting New Trees and Shrubs

Earlier in the season my son in law asked me about planting a new arborvitae. He lives in Georgia, and I had seen his homesite for a screen he wanted in his back yard during last year's visit. Arborvitae was a fine choice for what he wanted and where the plant would be situated. Some people plant them near their house as a foundation plant, but these are true trees and get large. As a hedge or screen area, they take shearing well and grow quickly.

While answering his questions on basic transplanting of a tree, I included something controversial among gardeners, landscapers, and researchers. I gave advice to use Starter fertilizer.

Experts now give opinions ranging from saying that fertilizer will damage the roots to saying it is nothing more than a placebo for the gardener. That hasn't been my own experience, though.

Not to say that I am smarter than researchers, but I am not sure of all the factors that led to the conclusion that transplant fertilizer is an unnecessary part of the process. And the same thing applies to the now accepted view that it is better to not amend the soil for a new shrub or tree.

My inkling is that it all roots back into the American way of thinking that if a little of something is good, a lot of it is ten times better. Joe Gardener has been known to overfertilize and kill things, so no fertilizer is better until the plant gets established. Now that is just surmising on my part. What I know is that when I first gardened and added transplant solution to a new tree it thrived much better than when I followed the changed method. Perhaps because I am often sparing in such things... my results from adding in peat moss and some compost were better, and I say that after more than twenty years of observing these trees. They were once no taller than my twelve year old child, and now rival the height of my two story house. They thrived! But the ones that I took more care of at the start, they thrived better.

Old timers advised useing things like compost tea, or manure tea. I had particularly good results when I used a seaweed additive.

You don't need to use a starter fertilizer, but if you do the rule is to use it watered down and sparing. My opinion on peat moss is known... I ♥ Peat Moss

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Planting Veggies

Vegetable gardening is underway for the season. An old phenologically based garden tip for Ohio is to plant corn when the oak leaves are the size of a mouse ear. The time has come to plant those corn seeds in Central Ohio.

Two years ago I was painfully reminded of the importance of crop rotation. I had planted a mesclun mix of greens which included kale. Those kale plants persisted in my vegetable patch. I didn't think much of this until two years ago when I ramped up the food gardening again and my broccoli plants became stunted and weak. Clubroot. Easily prevented by liming the soil and rotating the crops. Which I did last year, and produced a sumptuous crop of broccoli ... my children still remember and ask for the chicken broccoli casserole.

Lesson learned: rotate your crops. Don't keep planting the same vegetable plant in the same place each year.

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It is a good time to go around and give everything its first dose of fertilizer. I'm ready to do that now. Especially the roses, as they are putting on new growth right now.

Everyone hated the snow, but my garden has had less damage than most years- the blooms are breathtaking this year.(Except for overweighted and broken evergreen shrubs... but that was winter's story). I am going to prune them a bit. Oh! That reminds me. The shoots on the mugo pines, called candles, are now ready to prune. Another task to put on my list for today- which is not at all burdensome since the sun is shining and I feel like I need to be in the calming presence of my garden. Need to know more about pruning mugo pines? Start here.

Get a good pair of pruners if you don't have some already.

Til Next time, Friends!

Beware

MrBrownthumb + MrSubjunctive discussed Farmer Fred's post on twitter. Whether this is happening on large scale or not, be sure to use caution with chemicals for the garden.

clipped from farmerfredrant.blogspot.com You may have noticed that more and more retailers as well as manufacturers have expanded their digital advertising. No longer is an e-mail blast the sole digital component of communication between a nursery and its customers. My goodness, who doesn't have a presence on Facebook or Twitter in 2010? However, there is a dangerous trend in this: many large garden retailers and product manufacturers have outsourced their digital PR work to outside firms; or, to employees who know their way around a computer better than the product aisles. For example, one large, California-based garden center sent this Tweet out to their followers last week: "Garden Tip: Do you have bug problems in your garden? Try Sevin Insect Control. It's OK to use on edibles and is environmentally-friendly." Whoa, Nellie. Let's read the label of Sevin Insect Control, shall we?

More Design Thoughts

Thanks to Rob for mentioning Terence Conran in connection with my Ikea illustration for Everyday Design. It inspired me to see what was current for this well-known designer (whose books I had read a good ten years or more ago when we were planning to remodel our kitchen). I'm a research fiend and read everything available while in the innards of redesigning something... whether kitchen or garden.

Came across some books that just might be the thing when wanting to incorporate good design into your garden spaces. And it came as no surprise then, when looking up Conran products, to find there is a line of them at the mentioned Target store.

I would like to point out that Rob of 'Our French Garden in the Dordogne' is one of the most visually beautiful examples of what is possible in gardening... in my own humble opinion. He is one of those people who take wonderful photos and at the same time offer valued information. I'm always impressed when I visit his blog. I have it in my "favorites" bookmarks in my browser. Whatever bookmarking system you use, I recommend that you include his blog. For design, he makes my short list of good blogs. There are other reasons to love a garden blog, so don't take that to mean I have a "short list" of favorites! That is his header at the beginning of the post!

Well, I meandered on too long as usual, enjoy the links and re-acquaint yourself with Terence Conran. Enjoyable!

If you would like to follow more of my adventures...

Sometimes too many blogs in the fire are too much of a good thing, I know... for reading and writing. However (you knew that was coming, right?) I had decided to break up the topics that I write on into separate blogs some time ago (before blogging, actually, when making that first Geocities website).

ANYWAY - you might be interested in following the d-i-yourself tales and the back and forth banter between my husband (aka Handyman) and I who are the two writers, and apparently the two readers, of that blog on fixing up the old house. I am also writing in the garden file with my little plans and projects for the garden. It sort of keep track of how accountable I am to my dreams and plans, etc.

Garden Beds and Your Marriage get covered in the old house. Oh the double entendres that inspires!

Garden tasks and plans for this week, in the Garden File.

Garden Update April 2010

I've been busy in the garden lately. We finally had some weather that invited work and planting, and actually became just a tad dry. Started out with the usual cleanup of branches, perennial debris from last season, etc. Then tackled the autumn clematis that had overgrown ("overgrown" is a word that could be quite descriptive of many plants in this update). I simply chopped away at it with hedge shears until the basic vine had its wildly bad hair mop turned into a well coiffed arbor. Reclaimed the area beneath the Magnolia stellata, pulling up grasses and removing an old flower container. Heavily mulched it now looks like a garden again. Cleaned up the opposite side under the Arborvitae tree (yes, they are trees) by trimming back the cotoneaster shrub and weeding out beneath it, then mulching it as well.

I don't usually mulch this early, but I have that big pile from last year, so it is being put to use. Teens load up the wheel barrow and bring it to the designated dumping area. They much prefer that sort of task to weeding.

I put in the buttercrunch lettuce and the Swiss chard after raking out the old veggie garden. Handyman made me a raised bed for the renovated one. I have my shelves along the garage, too. Tomatoes were seeded, and I feel as nervous as a newbie about them -since it has been years since I started my own. I have to stop checking them.

Today I cleared out vinca major, and some other weedy thing, which might be Symphoricarpos orbiculatus, or coralberry plant. Trimmed the mugo which looked overgrown, and had suffered in shape since I allowed the clematis to become too friendly with it the last few years. There is an oval shaped indent that I think would gently clasp a nice large urn, now. All the shrubs and small trees that I have pruned to shape look so much better now, really improved makeovers!

I've done more, but now I'm getting tired just recounting the list. On the whole I feel optimistic about my garden this year.

Oh, yes, and I made hotel reservations for this years garden blogger convention in Buffalo.