February's Garden

5 February 2012

The last of the kale and parsley is being harvested now to go straight into the juicer for mid-winter bursts of energy in the form of vegetable juice.  Much planning is underway for the Community Garden happening now in my little town, which means less planning and time for my own garden – but there must be give and take.

As a result of warmer temperatures, the maple is starting its bloom and the bees are coming back on warm days laden with pollen.  Who knows what will happen when temps fall mightily, as they must.

Or must they?  This is the mildest winter I have ever seen, and we are more than midway through it.  Though the gardening chat rooms and email groups are on fire with concerns about the spring season, I have decided not to think of the pest issues and plant issues a mild winter might cause.  What is the point of worrying about something so difficult to predict?

 

11 January 2012

Still getting kale, chard and parsley out of the garden without any type of covers.  The greens are a little tougher than they are in summertime, but hey, it’s winter.  300 years ago our ancestors were eating withered carrots out of barrel and considering themselves lucky – the least I can do is munch a little tough chard.

Bees were still alive as of last weekend.  Fingers crossed the rest of the winter stays mild – our honey stores are LOW!

 

19 December 2011

And oh! how the leaves have fallen in Maryland!  Back home and some last minute jobs to finish before everything is frozen in time.  Massive amounts of raking to be done, last of the garden ornaments to be put inside and patio furniture to be tarped for the winter.

Raking reveals lunaria and larkspur seedlings, green and hopeful, under the brown mat of a million leaves.  Seems a shame to rake and remove their blanket, but I know from years gone past that there are millions of seeds lying dormant in the soil.

Getting colder by the minute.  Meanwhile, my sister in California is complaining of the sunshine ruining the Christmas feeling……but maybe she’s just trying to be cruel.

 

20 November 2011

An extended holiday in California with family means my garden is on hold but my notebook is daily being filled.  Colors are lovely here too and it looks like I am going to get a second autumn – long after the leaves have fallen back in Maryland.

17 October 2011

I was extremely lucky this weekend to be given a huge amount of shade loving plants from a friend and fellow Master Gardener who lives nearby.   Epimedium, Hosta, Brunnera and native Aquilegia and Geraniums are now dotting the north side of my house, some soon-to-be-beautiful Ostrich Ferns are now down by the bees for that primeval look…and there were some sun lovers too -  Beautyberry, Amsonia, Leucanthemum and Anemone.  Got all the shady guys and gals into the garden and just have the sun lovers left to go.

Besides the obvious advantages of fall planting, I think that the best part about doing it is the delayed satisfaction.  It’s easy to forget about some of the plants that you threw in the ground in September, and when they start to come up in the spring and summer it’s like getting forgotten Christmas presents!

11 October 2011

Fresh raspberries for breakfast this morning – gotta love those Heritage Reds!  What a yummy summertime treat in autumn.

4 October 2011

Very cold nights have crept up on me and sadly  the basil I meant to harvest for pesto is scorched.  I was beating myself up about it this morning, but it really is important to sit back and realize that you simply cannot do everything nor think of everything.  There are casualties, but there are also survivors.  If you have more survivors/victories than casualties/defeats at the end of the season, it should be a time for patting yourself on the back, not pulling out the cat-o-nine-tails for a bit of self-flagellation.

30 September 2011

All of the bulbs are in – I am particularly looking forward to the Alliums coming up next year, and a gardening friend just shared his stash of Milk & Wine Lycoris (Spider lily) which will be a real treat come the end of next summer.

We are still experiencing unbelievable rains in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast and I must say am enjoying it tremendously. Granted, a lot of warm, dry weather plants such as Cosmos, Zinnia, Tomatoes, Peppers and Petunias are sighing with a collective “What’s up?!?!”  But other plants such as Ligustrum, Caryopteris, Thuja etc etc etc.. are having a ball and looking healthier than they have in some time.  What a way to end the summer!

It’s great to be planting, and planting I have been doing.  Tore up a bed of hostas infested with a million Silver Maple roots, divided and replanted.  In two years the bed will be thick with feeder roots again, but such is the game that this tree and I play with one another.  This week I hope to dig a trench in front of the front border where the roots have started to infiltrate and soak up nutrients and water.

 

18 September 2011

I blush with shame, but it has been a month since I updated this page.  Much has been happening in the garden, although little of that had anything to do with me up until two weeks ago.  We are definitely experiencing an early fall this year.  Torrential rains, cool cool evenings, cooler mornings.  This type of weather gets me energized and back in the garden dividing and conquering early in the morning.

I have moved some peonies that were being consumed by some Thujas in the back – some have gone into the front flower border, some into other beds scattered around the house.  These were the only plants growing in my yard when we arrived 10 years ago, so I have a special place in my heart for them.  Peonies are exceptionally brittle – the tubers have “fragile” marked in big red letters all over them – and they are not supposed to enjoy the moving process.  However these have been moved twice now, and we seem to be doing great in the bloom department.  I don’t know if I will ever know the names of the two varieties I have, but perhaps next spring I will finally hit the books and try to identify them.

The Monarch Butterflies are making merry with the Zinnias.  I am making merry with them as well – enjoying the bright splashes of color throughout a dwindling fall garden.  I have just put in some Cleome and am hoping that I might just get some bloom out of them before the frost comes.

Bulbs need to be planted.  Quite a lot of bulbs.  Doing some Allium for the first time this year – Purple Sensation and Mount Everest.  How I have admired these in other gardens over the years – now, hopefully it is my turn!

Tulips and Daffs yet to be planted, and it seems that every day gets away from me.  But what a wonderful, joyous season to enjoy out in the fresh air.  They do autumn well back on the East Coast.

 

August 21, 2011

I am a closet mycophile.

Well, not so closet these days actually.  I spend a lot of time talking to people about the joy of hunting mushrooms and am always looking for further classes in mushroom IDing.

Not surprisingly, we are afraid of wild mushrooms as Americans.  We know very little about them and sadly we are not in the least bit interested in finding out more.

I am.  I spend a lot of time studying my local woods and my mushroom encyclopedia for various fungi, and always have my eyes open when I am visiting a new place, especially in the spring and fall.  This picture was taken a few days ago at the C&O canal towpath, while my children and husband laughed at me for traipsing through brambles to get to a dinner plate sized Dryad’s Saddle (Polyporus squamosus).  A beautifully intact mature specimen, it was surrounded by younger mushrooms like something out of a fairy tale.  P. squamosus is edible, but only when young – you’d have better luck chewing on the sole of your shoe than a mature specimen.

During that particular walk I also came across Jew’s Ear (Auricularia auricula-judae) and the common field mushroom.

Fall will be with us soon, and the hunt gets better and better with the passing days!

In the real garden – cleared up a bit today around the potting bench and pathways in the front, and put the last of the summer squash seedlings in.

August 9, 2011

A quick trip to the beach has me scanning my garden looking for new ways to be tropical.  The problem is, I am just not a gardener who digs up and takes in plants in the fall.  All my bedrooms are in use, my kitchen is packed and I refuse to give up my office space to refugee caladiums.  Oh well, that new adventure in gardening will have to wait for a second house in the Bahamas….

In other news, I am desperately trying to reclaim my garden after many weeks absent due to injury. My neighbors’ wild grape vine has completely taken over the fence and what used to be the chicken coop (thanks to ridiculous zoning laws), and is now threatening the vegetable beds themselves.  Stink bugs and squash bugs are quite literally crawling everywhere, making one wish for the afore mentioned chickens. The best I can do is get all of the old squash vines and debris into black plastic bin liners and get it out of here as quickly as possible.

Again, if the powers that guide this town had a bit of sense, four hens would be eating well, there would be four less bags in the landfill and four more in my compost pile. Still, much better just to SAY that you are an environmentally friendly town than to actually promote environmentally friendly practices.  Or rather, promote environmentally friendly practices that are nice and sterile and don’t offend anyone’s suburban sensitivities.

Oooh…did I just write that out loud?

 

 

August 3, 2011

Reading a wonderful new book about weeds by Richard Mayby right now, entitled:  Weeds – In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants.  Excellent narrative; pairing man with the plants that have been torturing, annoying, and surprisingly, helping him for thousands of years.

Weeds in my garden are prolific right now as very little weeding has been done.  One of the worst offenders is a weed I love to hate and hate to love – the Asiatic Dayflower (Commelina communis). This one belongs to the spiderwort family and resembles the lanky stem growth of the houseplant, Wandering Jew – except that it has the loveliest of true blue flowers.  And it’s flowering right now – which is big news in the August garden.

The problem?  Like wild violet, it knows how to outstay its welcome, and easily chokes out the competition – even if the competition are plants upon which you have spent good money.

I have literally pulled hundreds of these little offenders during the early/late spring and yet still have plenty in the garden right now.

And no – that’s not a variegated leaf – just proof that spider mite is running rampant right now.  Nice to know however that SM is an equal opportunity pest.  Thunbergia just can’t catch a break at the moment – mites are sucking it dry.

30 July 2011

With July a few days from being well and truly gone, my sights are now firmly set on the fall garden.  To that end, and with the growing mobility I am gaining every day, I have been ruthlessly cutting back annuals, perennials and vegetables, in order to glean as much regrowth and rebloom/production as possible.

Some plants will not be affected at all by my pruning and are dead as dust (until next spring that is).  Others will give me more foliage, if not flowers, and still others will bloom again with the cooler days of fall.  A vegetable like chard will start sending up healthy leaves almost immediately and allow me to stagger my harvest.

As I am not in my garden as much right now, due to my injury and to the stifling heat (101 for a few days) – cutting things like petunias back (even though they are flowering on the end of long lanky stems) is not difficult for me – I’m hardly going to appreciate those blooms right now anyway.

17 July 2011

When you are kept from being able to do any major work on your garden due to injury, the mind flies ahead to the days when you will be able to jump back in to the fray.  For me, that will be a few weeks on yet, and by that time, the squash borer will have done his worst, the squash bug will have joined him and the only hope for the vegetable garden will be fall veggies.

To that end, I spent some time sitting at the potting table yesterday on one of the finest days of the summer sowing bean, chard, beet and kale seeds.  I cannot put them in the garden for awhile due to my injuries, but quite frankly it would be condemning them to an early death if I direct sowed them anyway.  The ratio of bug to plant is definitely on the high side right now  and the little seedlings wouldn’t stand a chance.

Also sowed a couple flats worth of annual flowers for fall bloom – cleome and cosmos.

Having a potting area/table made this little foray into the garden possible.  Had I not had soil, flats and seeds at the ready, I wouldn’t have been able to do everything I did.  It really makes the case for having a potting station, no matter how informal.

5 July 2011

Although I have been completely removed from my garden now for two weeks on Friday, it is still offering up many veggies for those who will go and pick them.

Because I put in squash so early to combat borer, we have had a glut of winter squash, especially spaghetti.  Also have some new little winter squash that a  friend in England sent me the seeds for – Little Gem.  A baseball sized winter squash that has a sweet flavor and makes a lovely addition to a plate.  The difficult thing with harvesting so many winter squash this early in the season is that we cannot store them adequately at summer temperatures in the cellar.  They really need the 50 degree temps of fall down there, currently it is nearer 70 and they will rot in that warmth.

28 June 2011

Just a very quick note to apologize for the lack of posts for the last few (and the next few) days.  A horse and I had a disagreement over how long I could stay on her back having lost my stirrup.

I lost.

I lost badly.

It will be a few days before I am back in the saddle, or rather, the soil.

Now it is time to see not only how well my children can weed, harvest vegetables and trap groundhogs, but if my husband knows what to do with a spaghetti squash.

 

21 June 2011

So excited to see so many vegetable gardens of varying size taking shape in the suburban gardens around me this year.   So good to see people claiming their space and using it to provide their families and friends with homegrown food!

Now I am a flower enthusiast and always will be, but time and time again I find myself touring other people’s gardens (big and small) and getting excited when we finish traipsing through the larkspur and amsonia and come across beds growing good old fashioned vegetables.

Lately I have asked myself why my heart skips when I see cold frames lined up on the side of a house, or raised beds being constructed in a neighborhood where houses sport varying shades of “suburban taupe” like colors on a paint strip.   I often want to stop the car and ask the residents about their gardens, their plans, their successes and their failures.  But why, I ask myself?  I am not as quick to stalk  someone over their healthy privet hedge – though I did once startle a man bending over a beautiful Daphne odora once.  Why do I get so excited over vegetable gardens?

Two words (or maybe it’s technically one):  Self-sufficiency.  Growing one’s own vegetables is a small step towards recognizing the fact that food is not magic.  Sure, that first taste of your own zucchini is pretty close to magical, but bottom line, you didn’t need a commercial greenhouse, vats of pesticide, a shiny new store, and gallons of gasoline to get it from your back yard to your dinner plate.

When you start to grow some food, whether it is one pot of tomatoes or a line of ten – you assert a little bit of independence in the crazy matrix of food production that is the current status quo in America and other “developed” nations.  Not only does it help you come up for air, it often forces you to look beyond food as ‘processed fuel’ and see it for the unrefined, healthy stuff-of-life it can be.

And when we start to do that, we become more capable in other areas of our lives as a result.  It’s hard to sell processed salsa to someone who has just grown her own tomatoes and peppers, and it’s equally difficult to sell her a bag of pre-chopped carrots and call it “fresh.”

So for heaven’s sake – get out there and grow something good to eat.

_______________________________________

Currently growing and being consumed in my small town garden: kale, peas, zucchini, patty pan squash, spaghetti squash, chard, beets, lettuce, spring onions, a host of culinary herbs and, most probably, a host of culinary insects

5 June 2011

Much happening out there right now.  Larkspur and poppy volunteers have really helped in the mixed border to add color between bloom times for perennials.  I allow these little helpers to self-seed, but I usually give them a little help myself by throwing additional seed in the fall.

The rambler, Paul’s Himalayan Musk, intertwined with a White Dawn and a Jackamanii clematis have taken over the south side of the house in glorious bloom right now, and all is fragrance and joy.  What a pleasure to come to one’s front door and be hit with that kind of perfume.

The spinach is over now, though washed bags of it are taking up large parts of the refrigerator.  Sadly, I have decided to remove the strawberries from the garden once they have finished.  For my small garden, this crop is becoming more trouble than it is worth and although I grow it in many creative ways, I find that the two week payoff is no longer paying off.  I will fill the main strawberry bed with chard and beets and leave the odd berry plants dotted around the garden for the children to hunt out in the spring.

I am dusting my squash plants with diatomaceous earth this year as a preventative measure against vine borer.  I planted back in April to get an early crop in preparation for the plants’ early demise, but I thought I might try one more thing before I give up completely on trying to battle this horrible bug.  Right now we have some lovely little baby summer squash on many of the plants, so as long as the groundhog doesn’t show up, I’m looking forward to the first of the crop next week.

We had one heck of a heat wave, reminding us how bad it can get during August, but things have now cooled down considerably, so with that in mind, it’s time to leave the company of my laptop and go get some bean seeds in!

 

28 May 2011

I am sure that there are many of you out there, like me, who find themselves overwhelmed in May.  The infrequency of my posts on this page should tell the story better than I could.

May is supposed to be the best month of the year.  Warming temperatures, garden in full bore, roses in bloom, children almost out of school (as a homeschooler my perception is opposite to most parents!).  Instead, it is filled with responsibilities, chores and constant demands, and I end up feeling a bit like I do during the month of December.

Still, one mustn’t dwell on the negative, and early mornings in the garden – no matter how warm it will get that day, how many things are on the calendar, or how many plants I have left to dig holes for – are exquisite, and perfumed with honeysuckle, rose, jasmine and a host of other blooming plants.

Plus, the vegetables are giving up their bounty as well.  I have more spinach than I know what to do with (although it is bolting quickly with 95 degree days), lettuce, kale and fresh herbs, and in the next week, my first zucchini should be ripening (if the groundhog doesn’t find it first).

So, although May is beating me up a little bit right now, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Planting duties will soon be exchanged for watering timers and three trailers of mulch are one wheelbarrow away from having been spread for the season.

If you are feeling exceedingly overwhelmed with your garden and life right now, I urge you to find a few minutes just before the sun goes down, when the air is heavier and the scents higher, the temperatures cooler and the day at an end, to just sit and soak it in.

A few minutes in such a place makes a busy week float away.

 

14 May 2011

A very productive few weeks in the garden, blessed with actual spring-like temps (last year May felt like August), and a fair amount of moisture.  So much time spent in the garden that writing is not being done – this sort of thing being SO much easier in the winter.

Most of the seedlings have been planted up now, a few strays distributed to friends and all looking well.

We have started eating from the veggie garden which is tremendous.  Kale is doing great, as are the lettuces and spinach, and yesterday some baby zucchini were showing from plants ever-wearied by cool temperatures.  They’ll just have to deal with it I’m afraid, it’s the only way I can get squash before the squash borer destroys the plants come end of June.

These lovely spring days and evenings have inspired many nights on the deck with the fire pit and a few glasses of wine.  A cool chill in the air makes the fire all the better.  I know that many people are tiring of the wet, cool days, but last season is so fresh in my memory I will be happy to play this game as long as Mother Nature is setting it out for us.

Although I have a sneaking suspicion that fungicide in fairly large quantities will be called for – there was mold on the roses today, something I rarely see.

A friend just gave me a very large fall blooming Anemone (Anemone hupehemsis “Pamina”) and I have added several “always wanted” perennials to the border, so perhaps there is hope for my very common garden after all.

23 April 2011

A very interesting spring this year.  Fairly early (by at least two weeks) but vacillating between cold and very wet, and warm and very wet.  Lots of flooding everywhere makes me once again very happy that we bought a house on the top of a hill!

Decent temps meant that I could put squash seedlings in two weeks ago (covered in various ways) to thwart the dreaded borer.  They will still die of course, but hopefully not before I get at least one crop out of them.  They are not happy with the lower temperatures, but I am helping them along with upturned milk jugs and Agribon and hoop houses and all things protective.

Tomatoes will go in this weekend, possibly even today.  I have claimed a bit of space for them on the other side of my brick wall in an unused common area.  The reason for this is twofold.  One, the black hearted Black Walnut does its best every year to kill them with anthracnose from falling leaves (if the Juglans from its roots doesn’t do the job); and two, the sun/shade ratio in the back garden is about 6 hours full – which technically is the minimum needed to merit the definition “full sun”, but only to make pathetic people like me feel like there is hope for their peppers.  The reality is, if these little guys have to fight off anthracnose and juglans and now stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs, they need all the sun they can get to have a fighting chance.

Their new home should provide respite from the first two, if not the second two.

The peppers will be integrated into the front border and beds which benefit from a lovely south facing position and quite a lot of brick which radiates warmth.

Fingers crossed.

13 April 2011

We all have our little rites of spring – and one of my favorite is walking down to the C&O Canal to see the Mertensia virginica (Virginia Bluebells) with a naturalist friend and fellow plant-geek.

I am extremely fortunate in that I live within a few minutes walk of this wonderful place. The C&O canal stretches for over 150 miles from Georgetown to Cumberland, MD – and as bike or walking paths go, rivals the Netherlands for ease of use and natural beauty.

The show is early this year – perhaps by as much as two weeks – but while people may be crying into their cornflakes over global warming and all its little daemons, I for one am going to look on the bright side and turn off the pellet stove for the season.

It does play merry hell with our timing though. If I didn’t have a few Mertensia in my garden so I could gage their bloom, I might well have missed the show on display at the canal – and what a display!

Our native Dicentra was also in full show (both D. cucullaria & D. canadensis) and large swathes of Claytonia – the only native flower with pink pollen (for fashion conscious bees).

The children of course looked straight past the wildflowers to the Eastern American Toads participating in great orgies of mating frenzy. These amphibians were so bent on finding someone to go home with from the party that the children could pick them up with ease and, instead of trying to get away, the little guys grasped fingers, wrists and arms in death grips inspired by hormones and one too many sips of canal water.

For the most part, many of the spring wildflowers are ephemeral and will disappear once they have bloomed and the weather warms up. I suppose that’s what makes them so special. That and the colors.

Mertensia buds in a pink of almost iridescent quality and follows up the show with a superb yet fragile blue – popping up in moist, shady woodlands and the odd backyard. My friend and I have been going down to see them for so long that we now compare years against one another.

If I’m not careful publicizing this fact, I could very well receive my official Middle-Age card in the mail tomorrow.

If you can eek out a bit of time in what is no doubt a very busy modern schedule, I urge you to visit local woodlands and see what is blooming right now. Here it is bluebells and claytonia drawing the khaki covered trekkers, but in California, the lupines and California poppies are putting a smile on everyone’s face. Go and see what your region has to offer before they vanish!

4 April 2011

The first lot of cold tolerant seedlings have gone outside now into cold frames. But on a day like today, when 80 degrees will be the high, they actually need a bit of protection against the heat. Crazy spring weather!

21 March 2011

After quite a bit of time out of the saddle, the back is much better. And as I was not proactive enough in the fall, the first thing I must do to my recovering spine is shift a trailer load of compost into the vegetable beds. Then another one into the border. Then one more into the back flower beds – then the mulching begins.

It makes me smile to think how much hard physical labor has to be done at this time of year. When people don’t garden, they tend to think of gardeners as straw-hatted potterers lovingly tending a prize rose, then going inside for a cool drink and a check-writing session or two. What they often do not see and are taken aback by, are the aerobic training sessions going on in the shrubbery – the well-bred, straw-latted lady or gentleman wrestling to the death with a hops plant that refuses to let go of the soil. That same sweet faced lady (a little worse for wear now) taking twenty-five wheelbarrows of manure down an obstacle course of hills, roots, rocks and steps to reach a vegetable garden. Our once gentile gentleman covered from head to toe in compost and sweat willing to sell his soul for a glass of ice water.

No, they don’t tell you any of this when you start. It’s all petunias and pansies and happily ever after…

Still, we do it – and this weekend I have done it – spread more compost that is, right under the fat-budded forsythia hedge growing in rampant splendor along the top of my retaining wall. Call me house-proud, but I am supremely excited by the contrast of those bright yellow flowers against the black of crumbly compost. Had I gotten my act together in the fall, I might have been spared so much shoveling (and the plants would have been better off), but que sera sera – we do as we can, and I didn’t have time. Some jobs allow a little rule-bendage, and some make you wait until next year to try again at the right time. I chose to bend the rules.

My tête-à- tête Narcissus are blooming, bless them – little harbingers of the season. Love this variety as they give color very early on, then die back without fuss or Shakespearian drama.

13 March 2011

As there is very little going on in my garden right now due to a severe case of bad backishness (and yes, I believe that’s the clinical term), I wanted to share a few pictures of readers’ gardens that were sent to me – gardens inside and out. First off, hope for seed propagators everywhere who do not happen to own a greenhouse, hobby or otherwise. Alex Weise sends this picture of her kitchen set-up in Frederick MD, for which I give her five stars (and a bonus star for good taste in cookbooks!)

For many of us, the seed starting endeavor is not only difficult to undertake, but difficult to live with. With seed flats up and out of the way as Alex has done, life can continue fairly uninterrupted, and you’ve now got a great conversation starter when friends come over – excellent job!

Now, for those of us on the East Coast, Midwest, Canada and anywhere else that humbly recognizes we are still technically in the season of winter, the birds are only just starting to visit the single’s birdfeeders on a Saturday night, find a prospective mate and scout out new nesting sites. However, in places like Florida and California, they’ve already raised a first clutch and are well into sending the kids off to college. Laura Bowly sends this picture from Livermore, California of a proud mother hummingbird nesting quietly in Laura’s patio Oleander – a nest that Laura watched her build bit by bit from lichen, moss, grass and all things tiny and soft.

 

The eggs are the size of tic-tacs – and Laura has been so attentive with the camera over the last few weeks that she’s planning on giving each chick its own baby book. What a treat to have such a vantage point of something we don’t often see.

And here I was getting excited over my old married couple Cardinals starting to look for real estate in the Forsythia.

 

 

12 March 2011

When one has the temerity to laugh at the Gods and say something as ridiculous as “I should put my back out every March” (see below), one cannot expect anything but the vilest punishment for one’s hubris.

There is nothing funny about a severely strained back. There is nothing amusing about watching the temperatures climb outside, the sun shine after many months abroad, and the garden chores mounting up like the tasks of Hercules….all from the comfort (ha!) of your inclined seat on the other side of the window.

I am horribly behind on my inside chores, much less my outside, and now have officially lost my sense of humor about the whole situation. Fingers crossed I will be on my feet and shoveling compost before another week goes by.

5 March 2011

Indoor bulb update:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Spring. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. Oh and my tulips are blooming.

Indoor chaos update:

I am very happy to report that the seeds have been planted, filed for planting, or put away to plant next year. What a huge ordeal that was this year! Cannot believe that my husband did not blow his top over the mess that was covering the kitchen table for so long. This either says much for his patience, or proves what I have been saying for so many years….no one except me notices the mess around here.

And the final catalyst? I put my back out royally and couldn’t go skiing with my husband and children this weekend. At first a little bummed, but then…wait…a minute…house is quiet…no one wants a snack….dishes are not being dirtied…kids are not asking for friends to come over….

Seeds sorted. I should put my back out every March.

26 February 2011

Chaos Update: My kitchen table still looks like that. If I could clear the school work off of the dining room table we might have somewhere to eat in the evenings – as it is we are getting very proficient at lap-eating.

Still, I have high hopes for this weekend. The clock is starting to tick very loudly.

22 February 2011

We’ve all got our own way of doing it. Seed starting that is. A friend asked me yesterday what sort of method I used and I had to laugh, for I doubt it looks as if there is any method to be found in this mess:

But somewhere underneath all that chaos, under the seed packets and catalogs and lists of seeds to check out on the internet, there is a garden plan. A blank garden plan – but a garden plan nonetheless. The very first thing I do every year, sometimes late, sometimes early, is to photocopy of a scaled drawing of my raised vegetable beds. There are seven. Then I grab a pencil and last year’s plan and move things around the best I can, depending on the available light, what was grown in the bed the year before, and my enthusiasm (which is highly dependent on how brutal the previous season was). At this point, someone usually wants to be fed, and the kitchen table chaos is put into lock down for another day while we all eat off our laps and pretend that mommy is sane.

The next day, I clean my entire house from top to bottom in order to avoid having to approach the madness that is my kitchen table.

The following day, I do our taxes and make sure the toilets are clean.

The subsequent day I have a stern talk with myself and decide that there is no way around it, and it simply must be faced. So, seeds are sorted into two initial piles – those I will use this year and those I won’t. Then from there I sort into four piles. Flowers to start inside and those to direct seed outside, and ditto with the vegetables. Later the two horticultural groups will be put together, but this keeps my thoughts organized.

For many years, this was as far as I got in the organizational department. Every day during the planting season, I browsed through the piles of seeds to go into pots or garden beds to see what needed to be put in that week. This worked about as well as one might think: I was always behind, I was always forgetting something. Now I take 3X5 cards, put weekly Saturday dates on the top, put the seed packets into a large clear lettuce tub and file away. Each Saturday I know which need to be either put into the garden or put into starts.

Once this filing system is set up, I take my list of “wants” to the catalogs and the websites, and try to put together a modest plan at no more than two seed companies so that shipping doesn’t negate the benefits of ordering online. We have many, many nurseries and big box retailers in our area, so this is really for the “impossible to find” varieties. The ivy-leaved pelargoniums, the double cascade petunias, the have-to-have-it oak leaved coleus and the trailing Italian zucchini, to name but a few. Some are truly “impossible to find” and some are “impossible to find in my price range at the nurseries in a few months.”

I take a big gulp and prepare to give over the top of my washing machine to three hundred and fifty seedlings. And quite frankly, this is probably why I hesitate so long in approaching the whole job of starting seeds. I know that for at least the next five weeks, I will never be able to get my kitchen completely tided up – and this bothers the heck out of me. Shallow, yes. But if you have a greenhouse or a conservatory you are not allowed to judge me.

I have a good friend with a glass greenhouse stuck on the back of her gorgeous early 19^th century home. It has an automatic watering system, thermostatically controlled ventilation and a brick floor. The woman is practically foaming at the mouth to start her seeds come January 31^st. It’s a little different ballgame at Chez Willburn.

Yes…just a little different.

Still, one must bloom where one is planted (can’t believe I just wrote that) so, the shop lights are linked up to mug hooks that perpetually hang from my ceiling, and the first round of seeds are planted.

This year, I am using lettuce tubs as little mini-greenhouses stocked with end-of-season-clearance peat pellets, which have the benefit of being individually movable if necessary. In the past I have used everything from Jiffy Seed flats to cookie sheets.

I go pretty hi-tech when it comes to plant markers – toothpicks with scotch tape flags marked in pencil hold up beautifully for as long as I need them (and they’re small so they don’t hurt the seedlings). They have even been known to end up in the garden beds when I’ve been exceptionally lazy.

With two shop lights hanging side by side, I am able to keep one adjusted to a lower level and one to a higher level since seedlings do not grow at the same rates. This is also why I am using smaller containers and peat pellets this year – much easier to move around as things grow or don’t grow.

So, this morning I will take that deep gulp I was talking about earlier, hang up my lights, find another place for my washing basket, and dream of an attached Victorian greenhouse with environmental controls and not a dirty dish in sight.

 

20 February 2011

I was thinking this morning that not much is happening around here garden-wise, but had to be hit over the head by the pictures on my camera for the week. The tulips (which never made it to a dark room) are doing splendidly. Only nine days after dipping their toes in two inches of water, they are stretching to the heavens. Kids are entranced, and so, quite frankly am I. What a lift I get every time I pass the hall table.

Things aren’t quite so attractive on the other side of the front door. It’s still winter out there. We were given the gift of a few days above 65F this last week – which sets the head buzzing and the hands twitching. When temps get that high at this time of year, something is going to get pruned. Hopefully, it’s something that should be pruned right now. You can almost hear the little darlings quake as I wander around looking for errant stems and canes, trying to judge whether or not they’ll survive a February crew-cut.

Whether or not they’ll survive, I topped a couple of lavender plants next to the front door, on the premise that they might survive or they might not, but they simply could not be allowed to go another season getting woodier and woodier. I quite literally butchered them. And before you seasoned horticultural masters and mistresses out there start to throw stones, I am completely aware that they have about a ten percent chance of survival.

I think about dealing with Lavender the same way I think about dealing with children. If you are strict in the early years, and consistently loving yet stern as they grow, ticking them off when they start to get out of control, you will have lovely, well behaved plants/kids. And forget about positive reinforcement. They will only take advantage of your weakness.

And, if you have been playing the best-friend parent all these years and suddenly realize that your kids/lavender are taking over and throwing parties in your living room/herbaceous border, you might as well just sell your house and leave – because the odds are fairly stacked against you should you suddenly decide to take a militaristic approach after years of wishy-washy parenting. The kids are going to move to New York City and break your heart, and the lavender is just going to die.

I have not been severe enough with these plants in years gone by. Every year my row of Munstead gets a v. short back and sides, and these two leviathans are timidly trimmed. Why? Sentimental silliness. These two plants are the the split of one which was given to me upon the birth of my daughter nearly ten years ago. I don’t wish to accidentally kill them and every time I take heeled cuttings while trimming, I forget to bring them into the house and actually plant them – so I do not have back up propagation. This stays my hand every time.

Well, I finally brought in some cuttings. Moo ha ha ha ha ha.

BTW – Ladies and Gentlemen – please do not prune your forsythia, lilacs and wisteria right now (unless you are pulling F stems to force) – it is driving me to distraction, and much more of this and I very well may have to come up into your front yard and stop you. Honestly a little warm weather and it’s a sea of bare legs and secateurs out there!

11 February 2011

Even though the winter is long and seems unending some days, it is still possible to find oneself “behind” in the work that needs to be well timed at this point in the season. Seed starting is obviously the big chore hanging over me like the sword of Damocles – but there is another. Invariably I will be running errands in a month’s time, only to come face to face with beautiful pots of forced bulbs. And I will remember, far too late of course, ” That’s right! I needed to start my bulbs last month!”

Luckily, this occurred to me a few days ago and I have started a pot of Golden Oxford yellow tulips to brighten the last weeks of winter.

Technically, these little beauties should be sitting in a dark room, but it’s just too fun to watch their roots reaching down into the water every day, and my children get a real kick out of it. After the novelty has worn off, I may sequester them for a little bit until I have a few inches of foliage to bring out into the light of day, but this week I’m going to break the rules.

This particular forcing vessel is a vase made specifically for the purpose of bulbs en masse. It even came with a frog in the bottom to grip them tightly. I’ve only used it for tulips – but then – tulips are my favorite. These have been sitting down in the basement, stratifying since November.

In a week’s time I will bring in some stems of forsythia and perhaps a branch off the Stanley plum.

7 February 2011

Wonderful garden club trip to the Smithsonian Greenhouses yesterday – with an eye to their orchid collection. The Smithsonian Greenhouses house all of the plants for use in the museums on the National Mall and elsewhere in DC. Such an amazing collection housed in a beautiful new $12 million dollar facility.

Our timing was a little off, as the current exhibition at the Natural History Museum “Orchids: A View from The East” picked the best specimens for display, however from where I was standing, there were still tons of plants over which I and the others could drool.

At one point, one of the rooms was flooded with what our guide, Tom Mirenda, Orchid Collections Specialist, termed a “cloud bath” – it was impossible to see a foot in front of your face and I was rudely reminded of why the dry home environment is not ideal for these beauties…

However, it wasn’t just orchids of every genera – Thunbergia, Bromealiads, Adenium, even the humble Pothos were present en masse. After the tour, we went back home via the Mall with the intention of stopping by the Natural History Museum and catching the display. Alas, Sundays in DC mean Mall parking is a bit of a nightmare – and after several drive bys, up and down, we couldn’t find a parking space even remotely near by, so slated a visit in a month’s time before it closes on the 24th of April. I may be plant crazy- but after a three hour tour and a large curry lunch, even I have my limits – and finding a parking garage two miles away definitely stretched them.

3 February 2011

A good amount of snow lately has made winter a bit more bearable. Many might think this crazy, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s cold, it’s windy, and there is no getting away from the fact that it’s winter. Snow makes it alright somehow.

So speaketh a woman who grew up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, who has a 12 year old son who shovels her walkways, and who doesn’t have to commute into work every morning.

There are seeds spread out from here to eternity on the kitchen table (just like everyone else’s right now) in preparation for a Master Gardener seed swap in a few days’ time. I haven’t put in an order yet as I am hoping for a few varieties on Tuesday. Above all else, I would like to get some trailing pelargonium seeds, double cascading petunias and some little sweet pepper varieties.

Oh, and another airtight container for my seeds. I outgrew this one about two years ago.

24 January 2011

We woke up this morning to 10 degrees.

Fahrenheit, that is.

This is that point in the winter when I start to seriously debate the choices we have made in terms of location. It happens twice a year. Now; and somewhere near the middle of August. Of course, I cannot even begin to remember what August feels like right now; nor can I imagine this kind of cold when the humidity has drained me of my will to live. And this is precisely why we continue to live here – because we forget.

The minute spring dawns we forget about wind that feels like Nature armed herself with a switch blade. Suddenly God is in his Heaven and all is right with the world. When autumn makes it’s way on the scene and the woodlands erupt into great blazes of reds and yellows, we forget about heat indexes of the day before that collapsed the phlox and drained the water barrels dry.

And so we stay – because, let’s face it, the best time to move is the spring and the fall.

Nature is so tricky, so very very tricky.

21 January 2011

About nine months ago at the end of a particularly brutal winter, I went to IKEA to buy some bog standard bookcases to line an office wall. On my way out, I fell prey to one of the dirtiest Swedish marketing tricks yet – a beautiful stand of Phalaenopsis Orchids with tiny price tags begging for homes.

I have walked away from Orchids before. This has always been a plant to whom I could say a firm “no” and really mean it. Orchids were all well and good in the Botanical gardens under glass, tended by graduate students and misted with pure Amazonian water every ten minutes ( I could gape and stare like anyone else at their beauty), but in my 17% humidity house in the dead of winter? I was not even slightly interested at the mere idea of entertaining the smallest shred of the tiniest possibility. Give me a strong summer Leucanthemum or winter’s hardy Hellebore. Believe me, this home and garden is no place for nature’s fragile flowers (literal or otherwise).

March is a cruel month in Maryland. Just as you think you might be touching the hem of spring, a freezing rain coats the plum tree in an inch of glass, and you have to put away your dreams for another three weeks. I was weak. The Orchid was beautiful.

And then, like a particularly successful arranged marriage, I fell in love. I even bought him a wedding present in the form of a bronze water mister.

It had a lot to do with the length of bloom – Six weeks if a day. I couldn’t believe it, day after day of strong, succulent bloom. And then when I clipped back the stem and expected the worst – the little survivor continued to grow.

I never expected he’d survive next to my writing desk in the low-lit living room – but it was all I could offer him at the time. I guess I just got lucky, because he started putting up what I thought to be new flower stalks. They were a bit whitish, and a little twisted looking, but beggars can’t be choosers – I tied them up and watched expectantly.

Then I met an Orchid caretaker for the Smithsonian Greenhouses at a party. Turned out my flower stems were aerial roots. I don’t like to make mistakes this egregious, and I sure don’t like to admit them, but hey, it’s an orchid. Ignorance is pretty common.

It also turned out that I had accidentally given this lucky plant just the growing conditions he needed – low light and a dip in temperature (I tend to keep this room cold) to stimulate a new flower stalk.

Now, said my new friend Tom-the-Orchid-Man, I just needed to encourage what seemed to be the beginnings of a green flowering stem by bringing the temperature up a little and keeping the humidity high. I never give my indoor plants this kind of attention. The Pothos is getting a little jealous, but as I pointed out to her last night, I have yet to see her sporting an eighteen inch inflorescence like it was nothing at all.

So now, we wait. And watch. And mist like we’ve never misted before.

I may have to order a special gravel tray for my little darling.

I can’t believe I just said that.

11 January 2011

I have the overwhelming urge to put nothing more than “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” under the heading “January’s Garden”….however…I will tuck my cynicism away for a moment, because I did have a very productive week last week, inspired by a visit from a tree trimming friend.

I have always maintained that doing projects in the garden is so much more rewarding when one is doing them with someone else. In fact, I maintain this all the time with my husband, who then maintains that watching me do things in the garden from the comfort of his hammock is still more rewarding.

So, when a tree-trimming friend (for all of you in Maryland -> Tony Murdock at “Fine Pruning” – olmjr@msn.com) came to wrestle with a leviathan of a maple tree in my front yard last week, I donned jacket, scarf and gloves and busied myself with other jobs around the garden at the same time, enjoying the camaraderie and pride of doing tasks in bone numbing cold.

The final lot of leaves were swept up and dumped on the compost pile. A Buddliea davidii that the wind kept breaking was finally chopped down to size. Thousands of twigs were picked up and put in the trailer. Tools were sorted. Canker was removed from the Stanley plum. My White Dawn climbing rose was trimmed (not as much as Tony would have liked) and I got to experiment with some of the best long reach clippers I have ever used on the 25 foot Himalayan Musk. But most importantly, the Silver Maple got a long overdue haircut.

In short, things happened out there. Good things.

And I realized once again that I need to be outside every minute of my life (except those minutes used sleeping that is). Winter or no winter – it feels so good to be moving and working and breathing out there.

14 December 2010

Had some of our first snow lately. When the ground freezes, the wind starts to blow the leaves into tidy little piles, and a dusting of snow finishes off the picture, things look pretty good out there.

I’m a big fan of getting a warm coat on and facing the elements, but lately I have felt de-motivated to start little jobs outside I could very well take care of. It’s all about habit really. When you make it a habit to get out there and get started, you feel like you couldn’t do anything else. The cold air is actually refreshing when you’ve been working outside and you are dressed properly. However, when you get into the habit of peering outside and shivering inwardly, it takes a lot to break that mind-set.

Having outside animals/livestock is usually a great way of enforcing this habit. I’m not saying I’d like to have to break ice on a water trough every day, but I might feel a little less indolent at this time of the year. Unfortunately, the short-sighted powers that be in this little town have decided not to allow their residents laying hens, so I’ll have to find something else to get me out there. The bees certainly don’t need me right now.

3 December 2010

Amazingly, my reblooming iris is trying once again to send out one last hurrah for the season – shaming me for my own indolence right now.

One of the raised vegetable beds has collapsed. Good times.

Chard is still going strong. What a terrific vegetable this is – second only to Kale in my mind for hardiness. Wish I had some Kale right now, but unfortunately I do not, for what I did have in August were Harlequin Bugs, who are probably hibernating under three inches of leaves right now with bellies full of the green stuff.

Bless them.

24 November 2010

I am waiting with baited breath for all the leaves to fall from the Silver Maple so that the tree trimmer can come in and do his magical work. For the last seven years I have trimmed the lower branches of this garden leviathan, but this year, I think the job is beyond me. There are some tricky branches weaving their way though the power lines that run in front of my town garden and it’s time for a professional to give the lines some breathing room before the electric company comes in and gives the tree an unfortunate buzz cut.

Days have been breezy and cool and the rugosas have gone an absolutely beautiful amber. I hadn’t thought of them as an autumn accent, but they are certainly holding their own against the reddening dogwood. I have several “Albas” and one “Hansa”.

My chard has given me hope that I wasn’t suffering from a hallucination over the last 15 years, and I can actually grow vegetables successfully. It is literally the only vegetable that survived past September. I know that I was away for five weeks in the UK, but it doesn’t make it any easier – the writing was on the wall before I boarded that plane. Even the tomatoes were dying back before I left to see how they do things in a climate where 100 degree days aren’t a continuous feature of summer gardening.

Ah, but I am starting to wallow. Enough….stiff upper lip and all that. We will enjoy the chard and starting scanning the catalogs for new vegetable varieties and a new start in a new season.

17 November 2010

Well, it’s official. Two of my Western Red Cedars are dead. Two more are now in that gray zone, hovering between life and death. I have watered, I have fertilized, I have searched for vole holes, I have sent out plaintive help messages to fellow Master Gardeners, I have had a certified arborist look at them. I can do no more.

It’s disheartening certainly. To lose trees from a privacy line that is well beyond the planting stage is a body blow – and I think the worst thing about it is that I cannot definitively, and with 100% certainty say that it was drought stress. I think it was drought stress, it bears the hallmarks of drought stress, the drought certainly stressed me out, but drought stress just leaves a brown tree. Bagworms are kind enough to leave little cocoons, voles leave holes, spider mites leave webbing – do you see where I am going with this? Without a definite answer, I am left feeling that I failed, but I don’t know how. It’s like getting an exam back with a big “F” on the top and not a red mark to be seen.

I suppose I will lick my wounds, cut down the trees in the spring and consider my options. At least Mother Nature allows one a “re-do” for all failing work. That’s more than my Chemistry prof ever let us get away with.

11 November 2010

For many days since I had a big fall clean up in the garden, I have just been walking past it, not noticing what is going on at all – Life gets busy in one way or another and the daily interactions with my plants have slowed. Then yesterday out of the corner of my eye I glanced at the front border on my way out to some suburban errand to see that my fall re-blooming iris, Baby Blessed, is in fact blooming.

It was unexpected, although I don’t know why. I suppose that I have mentally finished the season and started thinking about the next one – my dreams filled with great swathes of color and texture and an overabundance of saving rain. This lovely little dwarf iris with a sturdy yellow bloom reminded me of the pleasures that one single plant can still inspire. Instantly, a smile is upon my lips, I am bending down and examining the petals in detail, and a few minutes have gone by before I realize that the ground is wet under my knee.

This particular iris was picked up at a garden club plant swap a year ago – after coveting it at a fellow club member’s garden during a tour. As we took turns picking our plants according to our drawn numbers, my beady little eyes fastened upon this little star and my heart raced hoping no one else had the same plans as I. Luckily I had a good number and the plant was mine. Last spring was the first occasion of its bloom – I had completely forgotten there would be an encore.

It’s appearance this late in the season will no doubt inspire late night perusals of my gardening bookshelf in a search for other plants that could extend the season out this far with little help from me. For thinking about it, this must be what made it so special – this bloom was a small gift to a gardener who was wholly, completely and entirely finished with waiting hand and foot on her garden.

7 November 2010

Temperatures have really dropped in the last few days – hoping this will seriously deter the bulbs that are starting to poke their heads out of the soil right now. Hate to pray for an end to the Indian Summer, but it’s got to come sometime and spring will be here before we know it.

Silver maple still hanging on to its leaves. Should be dropping them as soon as I’ve completed my clean up.

Sigh.

25 October 2010

A few days of wonderful temperatures and clear skies had me out in the garden this weekend, clearing up. I think the key to any good clean up in the garden is having some place to throw the vast amount of canes, foliage, leaves, stems etc…. when you have finished going through with a hack-saw and an attitude. Having a trailer on hand at least makes me feel like the mess is contained, even if it isn’t technically gone.

Came across some green bibb lettuce seedlings as I was cleaning up the deck, so I replanted them carefully (and some dill seedlings I found in the garden) and am hoping for enough cool days (not cold days) to keep them going. The dill will have to come inside, and on second thought, it’s probably going to be a pain in the neck, but at least the lettuce has a fighting chance.

Say what you will about East Coast living (extremes in temperature, humidity, BUGS)…..but we sure do autumn really well.

A second Thuja is on death’s door, and I’m not holding out much hope for a third. After I put the question out to the rest of the Frederick County Master Gardeners (i.e. What is going on here?) – the general consensus is drought loss due to differing drainage. Sigh. It’s pretty heartbreaking to lose trees out of a planted line.

13 October 2010

Back now from a very long, very wonderful trip to view gardens in the UK and Europe. Problem is, I’m back now. The garden is, very predictably, a mess; and I have, very predictably, no time to deal with it.

My garden is punishing me for going away and leaving it to its own devices after a long and intense drought. In this week’s obituary notices:

One 15 ft Thuja “Green Giant” (in a line of 10)

Two potted boxwood

One Japanese holly

One large potted Arborvitae

Oh the horror! The horror!

I’ll take it in shifts, put the children into forced labor and pray that we get it cleaned up before the ground freezes. I have no idea what to do about the Thuja (especially as two more look to be on the brink of sudden death as well). Gallons of water I suppose.