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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