Alan Titchmarsh: don't be frightened of your garden The Telegraph Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Happy birthday! Plant a tree! L.A. Daily News Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Warm up at colorful orchid and garden shows Christian Science Monitor Take a look at an interesting article we found.
March 10, 2010
The tulips are blooming, bulbs are planted, the lawn is starting to grow and it's beginning to get a little warmer.
The dreaded weeding is ahead.
So is preparing the soil for veggies.
Maybe starting seeds indoors to get a 30 to 60 day jump in a sunny window.
New experimentation for your tomato patch? Might not kill them like last year.
So much on your to do list this time of year.
Just as the ancient Egyptians must have planned ahead in creating gardens with sycamores, date palms, fig, nut and pomegranate trees planted in rows.
Then there is the question:
To mulch or not to mulch?
"The unmulched garden looks to me like some naked thing which for one reason or another would be better off with a few clothes on.”
That piece of advice from Ruth Stout, master gardener, and author who is all about mulch—that layer of material covering the soil— proven to be one of the most effective methods of preventing the growth of annual weeds.
It also keeps the soil cooler in the heat of the summer and prevents erosion.
Then again, it also provides a cover and breeding place for snails and bugs.
And can cause rot.
Certainly a lot to mulch on.
Not all regions of the country do it the same.
Gardening, that is.
Southerners are passionate about their gardens.
With their long, hot, humid summers, mild winters, lots of rain and sunshine, there is the opportunity to get out those rakes, spades and hoes year round.
A plant that needs full summer sun in Michigan may look like it's baked if it gets full summer sun in Florida.
Care must be taken.
The West has a whole new set of rules.
Words like organic and questions like,"Didn't we have spring already," creep into the conversation.
Then there's the English, those hardy perennials, who are really crazy about their gardens.
Some experts think just crazy.
Author, critic, Victoria Glendinning, born in Sheffield, England:
“Science, or para-science, tells us that geraniums bloom better if they are spoken to. But a kind word every now and then is really quite enough. Too much attention, like too much feeding, and weeding and hoeing, inhibits and embarrasses them.”
We can all grow something, even if it’s keeping a ficus from turning into a stick in your living room.
Gardening is sexy.
Just ask Lady Chatterley.
As avid gardener Mirabel Osler put it in "Gentle Plea for Chaos: The Enchantment of Gardening:"
“There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.”
And maybe find the "Earth laughing" as Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested.
So tell us, how does your garden grow?
Share your thoughts about an event or topic discussed in Peterman’s Eye; if you’re not a member yet (you need to be), use the Sign Up.
Famous Gardeners jpownall.omnisite Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Mulching nrcs.usda Take a look at an interesting article we found.
The History of Gardening Timeline gardendigest.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
still thinking about today...
Some of my fondest memories are walking round the "backs" of Cambridge Colleges England in springtime, epitomized by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
it only takes two words, to excite the gardner in many men,and those two words are JOHN DEERE
Well, my garden is soon going to grow a bottle tree. Quite by chance this morning while browsing the internet I came upon bottle trees. I could hardly believe I have lived my long life to this point and never heard of such. I am totally fascinated. I am going to use all blue bottles of which I already have about 10, and you put them on the ends of upright branches of a dead tree, or you can make a tree out of 4 x 4 lumber but I will prefer a natural tree. You can insert a string of solar lights, putting one bulb in each bottle. These bottle trees are peculiar to the southern United States. Just Google bottle trees and you'll see. Oh, it is going to be perfect!
My garden grows in spite of me, not because of me. Spring 1st bloomers pop up their colorful little heads, followed by tulips. My family farmer neighbors offer John Deere to assist in plots for growing things to eat, think of corn, pole beans, squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, and a variety of peppers. Funny how the tax return will look: "Exchanged one trust agreement & living will for 1/2 day of John Deere tractoring, including gas & labor." The IRS throws their hands up in the air, no jury on planet earth would ever convince me of tax evasion, after aforementioned declaration. Did I mention "tilling nightcrawler garden, adding horse manure and mulched straw for texture, in exchange for tutoring daughter in remedial reading?" No? Just asking.....
REMEMBER Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie?" Jonquils were the flower that the girl couldn't seem to get enough of. In my perfect world, scripted out to perfection, nobody will have to wait for their "gentleman caller." everyone will find someone to get them through the night, even if it's a frog, complete with warts. "Lonely" needs to be made an eradicated state of existence, everyone needs and deserves SOMEONE. In Japan, they make a torso of cloth stuffed with padding, wiich has an arm, so the single person can sleep next to their own "soul mate," his or her arm extended around them, protecting them from demons in the night, fortifying them from existential demons, which would irrationally argue that life is meaningless.....
My favorite Garden Impliment is Fernando Linares ... He keeps everything looking like a man with a fresh haircut, and clean ... The stuff that grows ... edible, medicinal, or decorative ... all prospers, and the lone Bocce Court forever looks brand new ....... He is paid only a meager sum, but he has other Patrons that he cares for also ... and he eats here almost every nite of the week, so he does well ... He jumped at the opportunity to make this most recent move with us, and got himself three hundred miles closer to his Native Mexico ... and he transplanted all the special projects and others of his children from the beds, boxes and cauldrons ... as gently as a Stork carrying a Baby ... Two weeks after the initial move, Fernando came to me out in the Shop, smiling broadly and mildly excited and said, "Jeffe, we don gah no Roo Rah !!!" I was fog-brained with concentration trying to replace some barely visible Check-Balls in a rebuilt QuadraJet Carburetor, so I told him not to worry about it and go to Walgreens and see if they don't have some ... "Si Jeffe" he shoots back at me while simultaneously turning and taking two Giant Steps toward the Side Door ... Fernando stopped as his foot landed, turned to me with a look on his face that told me neither one of us understood what just happened, made a slight waving motion with his hand, still down by his side, and turned back toward the door carrying on both sides of an Instant Replay with himself ....... Two days later, sitting down with a lubricative libation for the joints, and punching up Fox News on the Remote ... it dawned on me that what Fernando had said was that, in all the Plants/Trees/Shrubs that he transplanted from Houston down here to the Coastal Bend, none were suffering any Root Rot or damage from being plucked up and transported three hundred miles, in the freezing weather biting all of us at the time ....... I suddenly felt a little bit like Kay Kyser, and set upon watching the News .......
I raise butterflies as a hobby. So I only plant flowers with petals that my butterflies can camouflage within the petals.
My tulips are indeed bursting through the ground and then there will be a host of flowering plants following them to entertain the hummingbirds and the butterflies, but for me the sunflower is the most majestic and symbolic for moi; casually awaiting its turn and bursting forth like a bright sunny day. It is so like a big smiling face saying "every little thing's gonna be alright.
It's all about change.
The dormant ground offering up that inimitable spring green just when it seems nothing will look alive again. A new bloom volunteering where nothing would grow last year.
To those who think living in a place where the weather is always "perfect" ... trust me, even relentless sunshine can get boring!
Hmmm.... I never thought -- while hiking through the Texas forests -- of the ground being covered in 'mulch'. I think of it as 'duff'. As for keeping the weeds down, don't count on on pine needles and oak leaves to keep the briars from coming up. Now that I know 'mulch' is good for keeping ANNUAL weeds down, I know why poison ivy seems unaffected... it's the most perennial of perennials I can think of 'on the fly'.... Yes, mulch "provides a cover and breeding place for snails and bugs. And can cause rot." Now I lay me down to sleep... with spiders and ants and rolly-pollies and chiggers and ... well you get the idea. (Oh, and let's not forget the ticks!) I hate to think what the forests would look like if all those dead leaves did NOT rot...dang, I'd never find a tent peg long enough to anchor my tarp through hundreds of feet of 'good as new' dead leaves and pine needles. Sort of like plastic: eternal. Rotting is good. It makes stuff turn into dirt. Dirt is good, too. It covers up the rock. Asteroids don't have dirt (or oak trees or pine trees). Not good places to go camping....
I am so ashamed to say that I love winter--- I like the quiet, the isolation, the sense that everyone is hibernating.
That being said I must embrace spring because it's not going to stop.......
DORA-- We live down south & two of our friends have bottle trees- they are beautiful. Good luck!
JULIA-- get out of here!!! Butterflies??? That is so cool......
Gardens... BAH. We waited until JUNE of last year before we planted our garden up in our mountain home. The little green shoots were coming up and we were so full of hope. And then it hailed on us in waves or four hours. I could watch each new massive wall of falling ice as it crested the valley opposite our house, marching toward the garden with the implacable patience of a chopping block.
That was the last straw, and now we are making preparations to move onto our boat, the Valhalla. I can see her mast out the window right now, beckoning. She says "Come inside my salon, heft your three pound hammer and cold chisel again, and remove the paneling around the forward windows... Come, thou hale and muscle-sore lad."
I hammered old epoxy and plywood out of the Valhalla for three hours yesterday. I don't think I've got three hours more left in my hands, arms, and shoulders today.
BUT IT BEATS GARDENING.
"In vacant or in pensive mood..." I love "The Daffodils" by Wordsworth!
Each season brings to me both a love for that season and a desire for the next one. I appreciate and anticipate changes, in nature and in our lives, as each one has a beauty and a promise all its own.
It was finally warm enough yesterday to venture outside, for an early spring clean-up and survey of the yard.
Poking around amongst the winter grays and browns, what a cheery sight met my eyes! My daffodils are suddenly 6 inches high! The purple crocuses are in bloom at my feet! The irises are beginning to send their green swords to the sky! It's time to put in the sugar snap peas, tout suite!
While weeding and slug hunting and working at various other gardening chores, I'm always reminded of Kipling's "The Glory of the Garden." Here's just a part...
"Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all....
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives
There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one."
My great-aunt had a huge rose garden and vegetable garden separated by a small brook (yes it was bubbling) crossed by a small arched footbridge. I was only 2 years old but I remember the smell of those roses as if I had just left. I've never enjoyed gardening, but I enjoy other people's gardens. Keep up the good work you tillers of the soil!
Update: and my Navigator's Ruler is, indeed, as right as rain. A pity, really, since the ruler's on sale and I could dollar-cost-average my way into two or three of them and feel pretty smug. Sigh...
That was a non sequitur, wasn't it... Sorry, I posted a relevant photo last night.
Spring fever in Texas is driving the highway when the large SUV in front of you slams on it's brakes, out pours the excited Mom and endless steps of children, the Mom grabs the smallest child and places it in the middle of a patch of Bluebonnets, then proceeds to take endless photographs, oblivious to all around.