Carolina jessamine

Carolina jessamine

Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) is a great native vine in the southeastern U.S.   But what I hadn't realized is how well it responds to pruning, with denser flowering shoots (so more prolific flowering).  A recent stay at a B&B in Chattanooga found me admiring Carolina Jessamine (pruned) in all sort of guises.  This was just one of them.

Definitely something to practice on the Carolina jessamine on our porch railing.

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Spring woodland wildflowers

A second visit to a botanical wonderland this weekend ("The Pocket" on Pigeon Mountain, GA) -- along the Shirley Miller Wildflower Trail found numerous treasures in flower.  The Pocket is a rich cove forest (so pH levels are nearly neutral), supporting a rich array of wildflowers. 

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are abundant and were in flower (actively visited by bumblebees on the day we were there).

Mertensia virginica

Spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) was still in flower (it was in flower 3 weeks ago on our first visit).

Claytonia virginica

Yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum) was in flower (younger plants and seedlings are abundant at this site). Its large flowers were impressive.

Erythronium americanum

And the fiddleheads of Christmas fern were striking!

Christmas fern fiddleheads

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A review of "Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida"

This thorough review in The Daytona Beach News Journal by Karen Gallagher is five pages long--Karen said it was 34 column-inches. I think it captures the essence of our book. It includes an interview with me, a notice of my appearance in Daytona this Wednesday, and it includes one of the many recipes in the book--Ugly Carrot Soup.

When you grow carrots, some of them may be less than perfect, but they taste terrific when you use them in this unusual soup. I've been using this recipe for years and it's changed with the times.  Now it's vegetarian using an olive oil stock made from scratch instead of chicken broth.

So now that vegetables are more expensive than ever, why not let us help you get started with "Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida"?

Green gardening Matters!
Ginny Stibolt

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The power of nature

Those of us who are walkers, gardeners, hikers, birders, and/or naturalists know the power of green nature.  Folks that just enjoy being outdoors in the park, hanging out, or having a picnic know this too.

I loved reading this piece in the NYT (in Well) about easing brain fatigue with a walk in the park, describing research documenting (positive) brain activity in response to green!

I vividly remember spending a week at a conference in NYC years ago (an BGCI International Botanical Garden Education conference, interestingly), where I felt jangled by the city surroundings at the hotel that I was staying at (in lower Manhattan), overly stimulated by the city vibe, but suddenly felt at home in the lovely forest (remnant) on our visit to the NY Botanical Garden.  It was definitely an aha! moment for me.

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Almost a full moon

An unusually chilly spring evening, crisp clear air, and an almost full moon made for a beautiful walk this evening.  The still leafless trees were silhouetted against the clouds at sunset, with the moon high in the sky.  Breathtaking.

March temperatures here in the Carolinas have been much colder than normal, even though spring flowering is advancing (the sassafras flower buds are about ready to pop & the dogwood buds are swelling).  There are even early azaleas in flower!

But a lovely evening, to be sure.

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And so the tour begins...

My vendor display includes a basket of
edible crops and a vase of wildflowers.

My three-month-long manic book tour consisting of 32 events, including 5 two-days events, started this Saturday with the Annual Wildflower Festival in Deland, FL. I'm on tour to promote my new book "Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida." I think people are so ready for this book, that it will outsell my "Sustainable Gardening for Florida" within six months even though the sustainable book has done very well.

It's great to have both books to talk about at an event like this because they each cover different aspects of gardening. I sold a lot of the vegetable book and a few of the sustainable book to folks who were more interested in getting rid of their lawn or building rain gardens.

My best show & tell item was the native wild
garlic. I gave out several of them to people who
bought my new book.

It rained a little in the morning, which probably dampened the crowd somewhat, but most of the day was sunny and quite pleasant.

I love talking to people about gardening and of all the crops I brought, I found myself talking the most about the native wild garlic (Allium canadense).  People already know about curly and flat leafed parsley, Swiss chard, rosemary, white radishes, mint, and Greek oregano.

As the season progresses, the harvest I bring for show & tell will change, but I'll always bring something to demonstrate that I'm a real gardener with real dirt under my fingernails!

If you missed this first event, I hope to see you at one of my other events. See my event calendar to find one near you. Note: the calendar does not include all 32 events because Master Gardener and some other meetings are not open to the public.

Deland is a beautiful historic town and is also the home to Stetson University. There was an art festival on the other side of town with a free shuttle between the two events.

Elephant dill.

Around the garden

I planted elephant dill for the first time this winter and was originally unhappy that more did not sprout. But then the one plant that did grow became huge--it was three-feet tall and almost as wide. Just one plant served us well through the winter months and until recently into the spring, but it had became too large for the stems and fell over.

There are a few other smaller plants around that we can use, so my husband and I are fine, but we'd seen some black swallowtail butterflies hovering around in recent weeks. Now those eggs will hatch on a dead plant, so I stuck the two stems in a bucket of water.  I'll watch for those distinctive caterpillars and when they hatch I will transfer them to the dill & parsley row that I planted for these caterpillars.

The weather has been unusual with really chilly nights. It's great for the rest of the cool-weather crops so they'll get to harvestable size, but not so good for the new warm-weather crops, which would normally be planted now

I dug up the non-native string lilies (Crinum x powellii) that were at the edge of the front meadow and have been replacing them with native bunching grasses, this provides more room for the beautyberry shrub, which has grown a lot in the last couple of years.  Also, I wanted to provide a more native mix to edge the meadow. The grasses I'm using are Elliot's love grass (Eragrostis elliottii), a bluish short, bunching grass, and muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris), a taller grass with pinkish flower heads in the fall.

I gave some of the string lilies to a neighbor and the rest I planted on the partly shady south side of the house in a bed with some daylilies. I still have some to plant, so I'll probably put the rest of them in the bed next to the screened porch.

I took a photo the other day of this native blue flag iris (Iris virginica), which was the only flower in whole mass of leaves on the far side of our front pond. Maybe sometime this summer--after the book tour is over--I'll thin the irises to spread them around and to see if I can induce more blooming.

This beautiful blue flag iris is blooming on our
pond out front. Isn't it gorgeous?

String lily bulbs are enormous.

I hope that your spring garden is growing well, and if you're in central or northern Florida, I look forward to meeting you at one of my events!

Green Gardening Matters, 
Ginny Stibolt

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Piet Oudolf's garden

back garden - Piet and Anya Oudolf's private garden

I've talked a bit about my visit last fall to naturalistic gardens in the Netherlands and Germany recently, and have been reminded, again, about how amazing they were.  Piet and Anya Oudolf's garden in Hummelo, in the Netherlands, was remarkable when I visited during their open garden days in late September, 2013.

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