Rain gardens

Capturing water on your landscape (aka garden) is a good thing.  We DON'T want water to sheet off or run off anywhere, rather soaking in (as it does in undisturbed natural landscapes).

"Rain gardens" are a bit of an invented concept (in my opinion), but learning about how they can be used and adapted (along with other "natural" water management approaches) are certainly useful encouragement!

I've attached a link to a presentation that I've recently developed.  Check out the plant list, too, if you're interested.

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Gardening as you get older

I had the privilege of visiting a truly lovely landscape created by a devoted gardener today.  She's worked with some excellent designers and landscapers over the years, and brings her gift of loving plants and gardening to her landscape.

Now, after 15+ years in her post-work landscape, and tussles with serious illnesses, it's hard to keep up everything, even with monthly landscape help.

My advice (as we were walking through a diversity of interesting and great plants) was basically to simplify and declutter.

This is not the time to keep adding herbaceous perennials that need tending, or propping up;  it's time to edit out things as they die back (or disappear) or aren't thriving, and simply mulch, instead -- it creates soothing space, just as a lawn does.

I suggested that she read Sydney Eddison's book Gardening for a Lifetime: How to Garden Wiser as You Grow Older.  I haven't read it, but have seen very complimentary reviews. 

Eddison is now in her early 80's, so I know her book has wisdom in it, as she's a lifetime gardener, designer, etc.

I was inspired to come home and tackle a few of the messy focal points of my own garden (taking my own advice about what's currently bothering me in our landscape), and mindful that my gardening companion has been writing books for over a decade (and not spending much time gardening in the piedmont, aside from planting in our mountain landscape.)

So I was thankful for the inspiration!

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Seeds this Spring - Beans

Okay Kids, Mama always told us to eat our beans. So I am listing to mama (I can hear my mom saying 'Finally!'). I love me some bean so Here are some of the varieties that have bought this year that I have never tried before. I have never grown a pole bean, only the bush beans, Here is what I got.

I always love have teepees in the yard. I have some beautiful metal vintage ones. I want these to grow up those. Last year I had the cucumbers growing up them but the cucumbers went crazy and overtook everything. So not this year. 

Beans should be planted in the ground in Zone 5 in May 3-24th

Of course I will also do some bush beans. like this one

Update: 4/30/14

So here is me planting the beans. I soak my beans overnight so that they sprout faster. As you can tell while I was sowing my seeds i had an ice cream craving! Geez was that good! I will show you in another post how to make the newspaper pots. They will save you so much money and are so easy to make.

 
Sow the seeds 1/2" deep and I always start my seeds on a heat mat. makes things go soo fast.

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Sedums and sedum mats

I've so enjoyed our sedum bed in the mountains as it's provided all-season interest for almost 4 years. And it continues to do so.

But the combination of a cool, and very wet summer, with an extremely cold winter left me with some gaps to fill.  A non-sedum, Irish moss (Sagina subulata), was the most visible hit from the cold winter, so I've replanted the surviving bits and tidied it up (actually, it had gotten to be a bit too expansive, so this wasn't a bad thing).

Some of the sedums on the lower side, however, seem like they've totally vanished. 

So, I was delighted (and couldn't resist buying) these cool mixed sedum mats (produced by Drop and Grow, according to the label).  I don't know anything about their company or the process, but I was entranced by them at the local big box store.

Sedum mat

Now, of course the S. angelina is a bit assertive, but the mix is quite nice.

I'm planning to plug in bits in the sedum bed, but also do some new plantings at the edge of the retaining wall in the piedmont, too.

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Black swallowtail larvae in my dill

Black swallowtail cats in my dill.

Why do the native black swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs on my exotic dill and parsley?

This butterfly species (Papilio polyxenes) always lays its eggs on members of the carrot family (Apiaceae) and there are any number of natives that they could use to feed their cats, such as water hemlock, cowbane, or blacksnakeroot. But maybe my dill just tastes better than those mostly poisonous relatives. Perhaps our native plants are smarter than dill and produce chemicals that moderate herbivore activity. After all, dill has been bred to taste good to the human palate.

Swamp milkweed (Asclepias perennis)

And speaking of caterpillar food...

I recently bought these 2 swamp milkweed plants (Asclepias perennis) at a native plant sale at Morningside Nature Park over in Gainesville.

The monarch butterflies are in danger and need more milkweed planted in our yards so their caterpillars will have something to eat. Their populations have plummeted for various reasons including commercial agricultural operations planting Round-Up-Ready crops so they can spray Round-up to kill weeds, not only their fields, but also the weedy margins where milkweed used to grow. So now it's up to us.

I have planted some over the years, but most have not lived for more than a couple of years. I do have some butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa), which has hung on for 4 years or so, but it is not thriving. I hope these will be happy in my rain garden and maybe some monarchs will find them.

Dinner of fried rogue onions, a boca burger, and a tabbouleh on a
bed of oakleaf lettuce.

More rogue onions

The other night I fixed a mess of fried onions to accompany our boca burgers. I fried 3 whole rogue onions and one store-bought onion in olive oil until caramelized--very sweet! My husband had made some tabbouleh the night before and had used a rogue onion in that as well. I served the tabbouleh on a bed of oakleaf lettuce fresh from the garden.

We have the beginnings of some zebra zucchinis on two separate plants, so we'll have fun with those. I'll keep you informed, so keep reading!

Ooh, zebra zucchinis! Notice the marigolds growing on my squash mound? They are left over from my cover crop last summer. We'll see what happens with the nematode damage with all those marigolds.

A nice family at the gardenfest.

The gardenfest!

I had a great time at the gardenfest last weekend in St. Augustine. I talked to lots of wonderful people.  Thanks to everyone who stopped to talk.

I sold bunches of native garlic for $1 and probably sold 50 bunches. People who bought one of my books received the garlic as an extra bonus.

Sunrise at Spring Park on my way over to St. Augustine on Saturday morning.

The blood moon and Spica, the star in the lower right corner.

The Blood Moon!

I did get up at 3am on April 15th to witness the total eclipse of the moon. I was worried about the clouds, but they were thin and raced across the sky, so there were moments of a mostly clear sky. The star in the lower right-hand corner of the photo is Spica and it became visible only when the moon went dark. Mars was also obvious farther off the the right, but I did not include it in the photo.

I know I could have waited for the next day to see more professional shots of the moon than I could get with my point 'n shoot camera at full telephoto and no tripod.  But then I would have missed out on the barred owls hooting back and forth, the shooting star, the frog chorus from the front pond, the crickets songs, and the other natural night sounds.

A roadside ditch after a rain.

We were in the path of a big front that was predicted to deliver up to 5 inches of rain along with very high winds and a chance of a tornado. The high winds didn't come and we received only .67" of rain, but this was enough to coat the landscape with rainbow producing drops of water once this morning's sun came out.

Happy Spring, Easter, and Passover!

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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How 2's: lilies

Hey kids. How about those lilies. Yep I am a gardener, and you can tell. You all know that mostly I do the veggies, but who can resist the look... and the smell of lilies! Specifically Oriental lilies! Although their show is short, to really do put out ( flowers I mean, gosh get your mind out of the gutter!). I have decided to add some more to my collection. So come on, lets see what I got today.

When it is too wet or cold to do anything outside, I feed my addiction with going to a independent garden center. They have all sorts of unique things there. Look at the treasure trove I got there!


Among the things I bought are lilies. Aren't they pretty!

So the pictures on the bottom are what I bought and the ones on top are how I did it.

You can plant lilies in the fall or in the spring. I think you normally have a better show when you plant them in the fall, but...oops, what can I say.

• Once I got them home I soaked my Lily bulbs in a bucket of water. Don't bother taking them out of the plastic bag (as I did), just stick the whole thing in there.
• After a day of soaking place your lilies should look like this. See how they are rearing to go, they already have shoots on them 

• Plant- depending on how big the lily is, they should be planted between 6-4 inches deep. I dug 6 inches and then placed 2 inches of homemade compost (bottom left), doesn't that compost look good enough to eat, not really though. A little tip is to plant deep, the stem will form roots all the way through the soil which will give you a stronger plant in the end. So plant her deep and watch'er grow!
• Put the bulbs in and cover with more compost! Viola we are done...Now we will have to wait till July-August before I can update this!

Planted: 4/9/14

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greens in flats

I've found that growing greens in flats is definitely rewarding.  They're often above the reach of woodchucks (like this flat on my potting bench) and they're easy to harvest, too, as baby greens, with a cut-and-cut-again approach, for several cycles.

mixed greens in a flat

It's been an unusual year for spring greens -- they're bolting now everywhere, if they were planted early, or overwintered. It's a bit early, perhaps, for bolting, but the cold-warm-cold weather patterns have encouraged flowering, I'm thinking.

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Coral honeysuckle

Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) is probably my favorite native vine.  It wants to go up, without popping up everywhere else (or being too rampant in its growth).  When it's happy, it's totally delightful.

We have a number of really nice looking plants now (put in at various times).  Some look better in wetter years; others flourish in hotter and drier years.

This one, next to the porch, is looking great, after a year with MORE than abundant rain (and I just noticed that it's jumped up to the porch railing, too!)  That's not necessarily where I want it, but it's striking none the less. 

Lonicera sempervirens

I'm sure "our" hummingbird was visiting it this afternoon in the rain. I saw him out my study window visiting Carolina Jessamine (Gelsimium sempervirens) flowers in a medium-heavy rain about 2 pm.  I'm thinking that nectar from coral honeysuckle would be much "tastier" than the alkaloid-rich nectar of Gelsimium!

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DIY - Celery Pinterest

Okay, so how many of you have a Pinterest account? Now if you do, be honest with yourself. How many times have you gone on Pinterest, spent hours looking at DIYs, getting off and doing nothing. Yet, you feel SO creative... and you have done nothing! Well I know I fall prey to this. So I actually did something with all of my pins. Have you seen the Grow Your Own Celery pin yet. You guessed it, I did it, and you know what?, it worked!

My celery grew! Celery is one of those plants that I have no interest in growing from seed (it just seems so hard). This was the perfect alternative. Celery loves warm weather, so this method also gives it a head start. Plant your celery in loose soil, as that it doesn't like to get its roots boggy.

Anyways, this pin worked for me, its time for me to get back on Pinterest and feed my addiction. Catch ya on the flip side! 

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A last flirt with cold weather?

The temperatures up in the mountains are predicted to get down to 27°F, as the Tuesday night low.  Brrr.  Happily, my mountain beds only have cool-season greens, lettuce, beets, and sugar snap peas! 

I'm hoping for a cool April and May so maybe I'll actually have something to harvest.

Here in the Piedmont, my fingerling potatoes are sprouting nicely (especially evident in the grow bag) and my flats of spinach, lettuce, and mixed greens look pretty decent, too. 

The garlic, leeks, and chives are all doing well, too, undeterred by a cool March, apparently. 

I've snagged tomatoes and peppers to plant, from our spring plant sale last weekend, so I'm set (I'd better bring them inside for Tuesday evening here, too;  the temperature is forecast for 36°F, not a warm-season friendly temperature.)

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Finally, the first hummingbird(s) of the season

Yesterday evening, eating dinner on the porch, my gardening companion said "there's a hummingbird"  -- woo-hoo!  I didn't see it, but heard the whirring wings.

This morning, out my study window, was perhaps the same hummingbird, visiting Carolina Jessamine flowers.

And we saw another one this evening.

There are certainly good nectar-producing plants (for hummingbirds) in flower now in our garden -- coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), red buckeye (Aesculus pavia), columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) and crossvine (Bignonia capreolata).

The early arrivals don't always cross paths with these, but this year they have!

This image is from a lovely small pocket guide to Eastern birds: Early Birds, by Minnie Miller and Cyndi Nelson, Johnstone Books

And, of course, the feeder is out and ready, too.

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What's in the Garden

Hey kids, boy the weather has been nice here. So warm and sunny that put some of my tropicals outside for the day soak up the rays. I need to give you guys an update of my citrus trees, because my dwarf clementine has bloomed and is setting fruit!

So instead of studying for exams (like I should have been doing), I ventured outside to plant what really needed to be planted. 

Here's the run down of what I got down...

• Adirondack Blue Seed Potatoes
• White onions
• Red onions
• Peas
• Radishes
• Beets
• Lilies 

I wish I had gotten more done, but hey, that is at least something! Till next time, garden Hard!

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What to do with rogue onions?

A few of my onions have been blooming too early.

For some reason a number of our short-day onions have bloomed early this year. Once they bloom, it's time to pull them (unless you're collecting seed) because the energy stored in the bulb will be used up for the flowering.

In a normal onion crop the bulb is produced one year and then goes dormant when we harvest and dry it for storage. If it's not harvested, it will bloom the next season. The early blooming onions are not dormant and don't store well, so we needed to use them quickly. There is quite a bit of volume. While the bulb is relatively small, there are all those delicious leaves to use, too.

Stir the onions, barley, garlic, garlic chives and celery in olive oil
until the onions start to caramelize.

When our garden hands us too many rogue onions, I make rogue onion soup!

Here is the recipe for this delicious soup. You can serve it hot or cold--we had it cold.

Ingredients:
6 blooming onions, thinly sliced
1 store-bought onion, chopped
3 meadow garlic plants, chopped
1 shoot of garlic chives, chopped
1/2 cup celery, finely chopped 
1/3 cup dried barley
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped
6 cups of water
2/3 cup of dried potato
1/2 cup plain, non-fat yogurt
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Fresh dill and a flower of wild garlic for garnish.

Directions:
Stir the onions, barley, meadow garlic, garlic chives, and celery in olive oil until the onions start to caramelize. Stir in the parsley until it wilts then add the water and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from heat. At this point you could run it through the food processor for a smooth soup, but I did not go through that step. While it's still hot, stir in the potatoes, yogurt, and cheese. Serve hot or cold. Garnish with chopped dill and the tops of the wild garlic. Serves 6.

When your garden provides too many rogue onions, make rogue onion soup.

How does this beautiful patch of moss survive in this dry sandhill ecosystem?

Mother Nature's Mysteries

No matter how much we study ecosystems and think we know the answers for which plants will grow where and under which circumstances, there are many instances when there is no obvious answer.

For instance, there is a 965-acre conservation area adjacent to our neighborhood that’s owned by the St. Johns Water Management District and maintained by the county. Most of it is a dry, sandy upland dominated by longleaf pines (Pinus palustris) and oaks (Quercus spp.). It’s been managed with fire over the years to maintain the open pine ecosystem. So how does this lovely patch of moss, clubmoss, and lichen survive here? Read my latest post over on Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens blog: Mother Nature's Mysteries.

In a rain garden at the edge of the front pond, rain lilies (Zephyranthes atamasca) and a lizard's tail (Saururus cernuus), which will bloom later in the season.

A rain lily sprouting from a damp spot in our freedom lawn.

Around the yard

I love our native rain lilies. They just seems so earnest. People ask me how can we stand having a lawn where anything that's green is mowed. If I showed them a photo of this cute volunteer rain lily in a damp spot in the yard, they'd understand. I'll dig it out and move it to one of my rain gardens where it won't be mowed.

I've been busy with spring clean up and have started some new projects. Stay tuned to find out what I've been working on. 

Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) after a rain.

At last year's gardenfest in St. Augustine.

Meet me in St. Augustine!

I'll be a vendor at the EPIC Spring Celebration Gardenfest on April 12th & 13th at St. Johns County Agricultural Center St. Augustine, FL 32092 (SW of the intersection of I-95 & Rt 16.). Hours are Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm. So come and talk to me about your gardens.

I will be giving away meadow garlic (Allium canadense) plants to anyone who buys a book and selling them to others-- $1 each as long as they last. It's an excellent perennial native crop. See Harvest-directed cooking to see a photo of the garlic.

If I don't see you this weekend, I hope you are enjoying spring wherever you are.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Seeds this Spring - Radishes

Okay Kids, lets talk about some radishes, some like them plain, some like them with a lil salt, I like mine right out of the garden with a little bit of dirt still on them.

Here are a couple of raishes that I am planting. I didn't realize that you could plant these so early. I always have a problem with flea beetles eating the fleaves. Maybe if I planted them early on I wouldn't have this big of a problem. 

Here are the two radishes that I will be growing. French Breakfast and Champion.

In my zone, Zone 5, you can plant in the ground between Feb 28 - Mar 22.


Update 4/6/14
   I planted my radishes, and of course the squirrels came around and dug into the freshly turned dirt. Hopefully the didn't completely ruin where I placed my radish seeds...WHY SQUIRRELS...WHY!?!?!?!?

Update 4/15/14
   They are up, and it snowed urgh

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Greening begins

Coming down the Blue Ridge Escarpment this evening, the trees looked different. Leaves are emerging. Greening has begun.

It still looked like winter, when I drove "up the hill" to the mountains on Thursday, but not anymore.  The soft greens, pinkish-greens, and pale greens of new foliage were evident across the landscape today.

I wished that I'd had an opportunity to stop and take a photo -- I had my camera, but coming down the escarpment is steep, and there's not really a pull-off opportunity.

But spring green is welcome, for sure, after an unusually long winter.

Interesting to search my previous blog posts for "spring green" (lots of similar musings, along with some outliers).

This was the most pertinent to what I saw today.

From a couple of years ago:

Dogwoods, sassafras and expanded leaves (farther along than today)

An addedum:  I just visited Pearson's Falls today again with my garden group.  Magic.  It's a totally great botanical wonderland of rich cove forest woodland wildflowers.  Visit if you're anywhere nearby!

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Seeds this Spring - Beets

Okay, so its spring and we are all getting ready for what we will be doing in the garden. This means that we are all getting our seeds. I know that I am. I ended up buying my seeds and then noticed later that one seed company in particular had a great value to the seeds. So lets take a look shall we. Lets look at the beets that I bought.

For zone 5, you want to start seeding your beets outside April 12- May 5.

Here is what I bought

I got these 3 because I wanted a unique blend of beets. I bought Chioggia, Bulls Blood, and Golden. What I noticed was the gram size of the seed packets according to the brand. 

Livingston Seed Co. seems to be the brand to get. They have 4 times as much seed as Lake Valley Seed brand, 4 grams as compared to 1 gram. Plus here is the kicker, Libingston Seed Co. costs less, $0.70 less! Wowzer! Look and compare 

Tell me what you think. I know for sure, that Livingston Seed Co. is the way to go. Not to mention, they they were heirlooms.

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Carolina jessamine

Carolina jessamine is the state flower of South Carolina and it's in flower now.

Carpenter bees are the main visitors to its flowers that I normally see, though I have seen a couple of hummingbirds brave the alkaloid-tasting nectar, too.

view from my study window, 2009 (it could have been taken this afternoon)

I've had two sightings of hummingbird visits to the Carolina jessamine over the years outside my study window, apparently, as these posts (on a Carolina jessamine search within my blog) document.

What fun to have those records!

This will be post 1401, since I started blogging in the summer of 2007 -- I can hardly imagine that, really.

A fellow naturalist (Bill Hilton) over in York, SC, and a hummingbird expert, posted this interesting piece back in 2008. about Carolina Jessamine.  There are definitely some potent alkaloids involved!

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Seed this Spring- Peas

Okay Kids, lets talk about peas. Everyone loves peas, unless you are a 7 yr old. So I am behind in my planting, I am going to contribute it to the extremely cold weather. But hopefully you have started your peas. I am going to sow mine this week.

Here is what I have. I bought 3 packs so that I can have plenty of seeds. 

In my Zone, Zone 5, you should be planting peas around March 15 - April 5.

I always believe in soaking my seeds before planting them. It increases the germination rate and speed!

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I'm waiting for hummingbirds

My feeder has just been refreshed with new "nectar" - aka sugar water.  I refilled it several weeks ago, being hopeful (my first ever sighting here was on March 18).

My blogging friend Janet, just an hour away in Greenwood, SC has had hummers visiting her feeder today -- I hope the link to her FB post works!

Here's the current map on Journey North with hummingbird sightings:  the early male scouts are flying north, for sure and the females won't be far behind.

April 2, 2014: Journey North hummingbird sightings

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Fixing a slumping problem

We carefully propped the cement blocks to keep the barrier cloth right
next to the cement wall.

Slumping fix

We live on a lake and have an oddly-shaped section of bulkhead between our boat-lift bay and the neighbor's cement bulkhead. The soil here has been eroding from under the bulkhead and from its edge next to the cement. We've filled it a few times in the 10 years we've been here, but soil keeps disappearing.

So this time, we got serious. We removed the 2 maple saplings, a bunch of invasive wild taro, the canna lilies that I'd planted a couple years ago (which I saved for replanting) and an assortment of other weeds. We can't allow the maples to grow here because they'd destroy the bulkhead. We dug down deep to remove all the roots. Much of the soil from the bottom was pure, slimy clay. We could have made some pretty pottery with its natural colors of tan, yellow, and orange, but we put it to better use...

The cement chunks are in place.

We smeared clay over the cement to seal the area.

We used the clay to seal the bottom of the bed, then we added several loads of soil, then the plants, and finally, a layer of wood chips.

We added several loads of soil.

I replanted the cannas, added some ferns that had been growing in the bulkhead, and added some goldenrods.

We'll keep a closer eye on it to make sure it doesn't slump and that new maple trees are not allowed to grow here. Note the rounded edge of the lawn so my husband can mow by moving forward in here with the John Deere and then backing out--no weeds to trim.

Chinese cabbage salad with sunflower seeds as garnish.

It's our salad days

Chinese cabbage salad created with harvests from the garden including cabbage, parsley, meadow garlic, onion with its greens, come-again broccoli, carrots, sugarsnap peas, and rosemary. Also included are ramen noodles (soaked in hot water until they are soft and then drained), celery, green olives, and oils (olive & sesame), cider vinegar, and lemon juice. Sunflower seeds are sprinkled on top. Yummy.

Busting the old gardeners' tales...

Busting old gardeners' tales

I'm astounded that people come up with nonsense and sell it to people as some new and unexpected finding. These two were on Facebook and by reading the original explanations and the resulting comments, people seem so grateful for this crap.

For the plant cucumbers with sunflowers myth, I posted this:

"Plant sunflowers in your landscape to attract pollinators, as a crop, and for their beauty, but don't plant them near anything you care about. Sunflower are allelopathic! They emit herbicidal chemicals that inhibit or kill nearby plants. (If you have a bird feeder where you use sunflowers, you've probably noticed a lack of growth where the hulls fall.) Use spent sunflower stalks for path mulch where you don't want stuff to grow."

Busting the old gardeners' tales...

For the photo showing the difference between "male" and "female" peppers, I posted this:

"Don't fall for this baloney! There are no genders of bell pepper fruits. A fruit is never assigned a gender. Many peppers are F1 hybrids and may not have any seeds, because differences in the parents' genes, but that doesn't make them a male fruit."

My article in The Oakleaf was on page 17, but the link is no longer available.

A tickseed coreopsis seedling in the lawn. I dug it out
and put in with some of its kin.

Treasures in our
"Freedom Lawn"

Our lawn has been free of poisons and fertilizer since 2004. As a result, we have many types of plants growing in the areas we mow. We mow what grows and our lawn is just as green as our neighbors' expensive poisoned and fertilized lawns except in the winter when we let it go dormant--it's still green but not as green as those who overseed with winter rye.

This year I've dug out several of the largest blue-eyed grass plants and I dug out some of the tickseed coreopsis plants and planted them in beds where I wanted some color. If I had left them in the lawn, they would not have a chance to put on a show. I fill in the divots with compost so the lawn stays relatively even.

I hope you are finding spring treasures to enjoy.

Green Gardening Matters,

Ginny Stibolt

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