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...
Saturday, 26 April 2014
Tuesday, 22 April 2014
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...
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...
Monday, 21 April 2014
Sedums and sedum mats
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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...
Saturday, 19 April 2014
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...
Friday, 18 April 2014
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...
Thursday, 17 April 2014
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 flatIt's been an unusual year...
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Carolina jessamine, coral honeysuckle, Gelsimium sempervirens, Lonicera sempervirens, male ruby-throated hummingbird, natural gardening, ruby-throated hummingbirds
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). ...
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,...
Monday, 14 April 2014
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)...
Thursday, 10 April 2014
Finally, the first hummingbird(s) of the season
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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...
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...
Wednesday, 9 April 2014
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...
Tuesday, 8 April 2014
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...
Sunday, 6 April 2014
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...
Saturday, 5 April 2014
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....
Thursday, 3 April 2014
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...
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...
Wednesday, 2 April 2014
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...
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...