Christmas 2009

Stone Fox

I took the two younger girl dogs out for a walk this evening. It was almost dark, but that didn't stop them from romping and snow-stomping, barking and carrying on. I saw what I thought would be a great picture: my stone fox leaning over in the snow with his head and one shoulder exposed. The day was fading fast and by next light the rain will have washed that picture away. I snapped one in the dusk.
 
The garden looks so beautiful with its brown and white color scheme today. I never got around to cutting anything down after the season and I am glad now. It doesn’t always pay to be neat and tidy. 

The winter solstice has come and gone and that means the days are getting longer (they are! My insisting the days get longer always works at this time of year. You can count on me, like clockwork). It must have been some big deal to our ancestors who farmed the land for a living. I wonder with no TV or computer to get them through the winter months how many farmers of yore watched the moon travel across the sky, and watched the lengthening days with hope, knowing the soil would warm again and accept the gift of seeds and seedlings to feed a family.

Butterflies

Chrysalis

I am overwhelmed by the butterflies, caterpillars, and bumble bees in the garden now. Two monarch caterpillars have started their journey toward their new life in front of my eyes, but I've missed the final act. I had no idea it happened so quickly. First, I saw one attached to the underside of a leaf. It slowly started to curl up. I thought I would come back down in a few hours and see what had happened. When I came back two hours later, it was a done deal! I couldn’t believe it. How could that have happen so quickly? It has to be so hard to turn from a caterpillar into a chrysalis. Doesn't it?

Two days later I happened on another caterpillar on the underside of a Salvia Indigo Spires. He was just starting the process: green, black, and white; striped, fat, and very zen.  "Ah ha!" I thought, I will come back in one hour and see how far she has progressed.  One hour later, I came into the garden and presto, all done, the green gem was already formed.

If I am so lucky to find another this year I am not leaving. I'm not even going to blink. There's some magic in this everyday miracle of nature. When you have gardens as big as we do, miracles of one type or another are an ongoing thing. This very large garden started from things so small, seeds or cuttings. Every time, they grow into just what they are programed to be.  The seeds that come from my phlox never turn into surprise frogs in the garden. Some great new colors of  phlox seedling yes, but no frogs.

Some new things we have at the moment: Epimedium ‘Orange Queen’ are great for dry shade. I love these plants, I have to admit I took one for myself. Hypericum ‘Chocolate Lion’ and ‘Pink Lion’: I am also keeping a few those beautiies for my garden. The fruit of these plants in flower arrangements is to die for. Plus those bright yellow flowers in summer are perfect. The fall blooming anemones ‘Prince Henry’ and ‘Party Dress’ both double pink spreading shade plants. These need some room to spread.

Well I have wiled away a few minutes of your time telling you about the happenings here at the moment. Always good to keep in touch. Come visit us and see the garden. We always love to have visitors!

How the Garden Gives Back to Nature

Bee enjoying a echinacea flower

It's high summer: The blue birds and cardinals have found the ripe fruit of the native pagoda dogwood. What fun! I get to watch it all happen and it’s all serendipity. George and I got the dogwoods years ago and we sold not a one. They grew crooked and stunted because we just left them in their small pots. Four years ago we put one in the ground and I saw how beautiful they were, but still no takers (maybe because the beautiful one was in our back yard that is private). Last year we put them all in the ground and I am so happy to have  bird feeders I don’t have to fill.

More signs of summer: The monarch caterpillars have found the Asclepias physocarpa (we call it monkey balls). The Asclepias are now reseeding in my display garden out front, and I just pull up the few I don’t want. I think the butterflies get hungry and feel there's an open sign that says Free Eats at the Morningside Butterfly Restaurant. Then they tell all their closest friends and relatives who also come back year after year to lay their eggs and belly up to the plant bar. And I love it. That's why I make sure those plants are in my garden every year. I love showing people their green, black, and white bodies making short work out of the leaves. One day they are fat and sassy, and the next day they are gone, having inched their way to a safe spot to prepare for the miracle of rebirth into winged messengers of future generations.

Finally, keep an eye out for the cone flowers, which are getting ready to feed the finches. Echinacea's pink, orange, white, and yellow flowers will be replaced by bright yellow wings as nature intended. Lets hear it for natives and non-natives plants that feed our inner soul and the outer world of nature. Sounds like two for one to me.

The Magic of Gardening

Ruthie and George

I have come to believe our place here is magic and that people come here to feel it. A friend who has suffered a great tragedy in her life has used gardening to ease her sadness. Working with the earth and making a special garden is her way of remembering a daughter. Gardens can be like the soul of someone we love, we are not left alone if we garden in someone's name and keep thoughts of them close. They will be with us always in the garden. I have my mother with me as I garden often.

I believe working the earth is a blessing to everyone who is open to it. We shut ourselves up and out of so much that is of the natural world, we limp along waiting for the next thing to make us happy whatever it is, and there is always a next thing. Well, you know what? I stopped looking for my happiness outside of what I already have: family, friends old and new, my happy dogs, the cats that eat their fill of mice and voles and leave the parts everywhere, what could be better then this?

This evening I picked some of my favorite zinnias tonight, like apricot. I also planted salvia ‘Phyllis Fancy’ which has pale lavender flowers because the hummingbirds know it’s better then anything else around (all you have to do is pick one of the flowers and suck on the end to see for yourself).  I DO love it when the garden is alive with bees and butterflies and hummers. Tonight I was cutting back the spent blooms of my salvia ‘Caradonna’ to encourage a second flush of flowers, but I had to be careful not to rub elbows with the bees filling up on pollen for the evening trip home.  They were honey bees and I have enjoyed watching them hover around those deep purple/blue spikes for weeks. Thinking about it now, I believe 'Caradonna' is the same color of our new shady rest pergola. Friends and family helped put it up and it’s almost time to rest in it’s shade. When life gets to hectic at the farm me and the dogs plan on resting up quite a bit.  Come and join us sometime. We will drink mint sweet tea and chat and laugh and that should be enough to make anyone happy. A bouquet of happy thoughts to you all and good night.

Spring Update

It’s been the darndest weather this spring: Cool-misty, cool-rainy, cool-cloudy, and then really hot all in the same week. The plants in the greenhouses and in the gardens certainly recover faster than I do. There is also no denying how the weather has made everything lovely this year. The gardens have had enough rain, and the world looks green and lush.

We are doing well at the nursery this year; we had no idea what it would be like. I appreciate the love and support from friends and strangers alike. I guess we are becoming known for peddling beauty to everyone who stops by. Yesterday a young family came down the driveway in the late afternoon, I smiled and said hello and they said they were just looking. They gave the the display gardens the once over before getting back in their car and heading out the driveway. Thats what I want our place to be: a respite from all of the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I believe the people who make their way here feel that as well.

Finally, next week we are putting up a shade area attached to the retail greenhouse just for sitting and relaxing (something we all need to do more of). When the breeze blows through, it will be like heaven. The new sitting space will also afford a great view of the gardens, which are now showing off false indigo, golden spiderwort, and catmint, among others things. Come and join us and talk gardening anytime.

Happy Digging!

Preparing for Spring Opening

The stage is set, the lights are coming up, and it’s almost show time.

We are rushing headlong toward our opening. It is coming so fast, as fast as the green shoots emerging from the ground all through the gardens. Our Morningside calendar has filled up with wonderful classes, check them out in events.

This year we are going to be adding a small herb cutting garden for fresh herbs. George is going to be taking some to the market and if people who come here would like fresh herbs we will go out into the garden and cut some. Of course we have to put the garden in first. We do have the spot picked out, we just have to amend the soil, figure out how many of what to put where, and plant them. Hmm Karen, and when is this going to happen? I am a firm believer in miracles, and as miracles go, this one doesn’t seem so out there. Herb cutting garden? Just make it so. Check back later to see if anyone was listening.

I also want to start including a few recipes on these pages and in our class. I love to cook (nothing fancy just what I would call good country fresh food, and the way to get fresh food is from your own yard). So we are putting in our first extensive veggie garden. That should also be fodder for a few laughs here as my small efforts with tomatoes and peppers has been spotty at best. Ornamental gardens I can handle, but the kind of garden I can eat out of, well it is my experience other things want to eat out of it as well. Fences don’t keep blister beetles out of the garden. I learned about crop rotation the hard way last year. This year I hope to fool the little suckers with a new garden location.

George is still working on his rain garden, which is coming into it’s own. He is working on a living willow fedge, which is a cross between a hedge and fence. It is an experiment, but exciting if it works. Our fascination with willows continues...they are cropping up everywhere here. I was thinking next year of having a pussy willow day so everyone who wants to can enjoy them also. Honey bees are enjoying them at the moment. Willows are good bee food as not much else has pollen at the moment. I also love to bring big bunches of all the different kinds of willows (we have about 6) into the house. Happiness is spring, fresh food and willows.

Happy Gardening!

The Call of Nature

Kumson

I think yellow is the color of early spring. It seems to be everywhere: the daffodils, the forsythia (‘Kumson’, right) blooming in pots, and the big yellow twig weeping willow. Even the finches get into the act by changing from their dull winter browns to neon yellow. It catches the eye and lifts the heart with the thought and hope of spring.

As rocky as the economy gets, gardens and gardening will always be just what it always has been, we can count on that. Garden ups and downs can only come from, say, the weather or garden-eating animals or my unwillingness to do the work I know needs to be done. We can adapt our gardens to almost all of these conditions to ride out the rocky times. Plant drought resistant plants, deer proof plants, be more diligent with weeding. In gardening we can be pro-active and take control of our gardens; we have so much control. We can make them as big or as small a garden as we feel like working in. It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. A beautiful container at the door is a garden.

This spring, thanks to a very good friend Clara’s suggestion we are going to have two classes that speak to the ability to put a garden anywhere. The first will be an English trough class and, in the next, we will be making a fairy garden in the troughs. Fairy gardens are those petite magical gardens that a fairy would love to inhabit. Gardens don’t have to be the size of Versailles to stop the heart and make you sigh. Sometimes being here at the nursery I am struck by people who like the idea of gardening but think it’s too much work The problem is just semantics. Maybe we could call it "earthly meditation" or "communing with plants" instead of "work." Remove the old idea of toiling away in the hot sun with a hoe, and replace it with the idea of a quiet time to hear the call of the natural world again. You can be anywhere, in a city on a balcony, or in the country, the natural world is always calling we just have to be quiet enough to hear it. And if we listen close enough, we might even hear one of those fairies.

Happy Spring!

What's Ahead as the Weather Warms

Days are getting longer...sigh. I can say it for sure now: our gardens are receiving more light to warm up their sleeping hearts. Sure, I'm writing this during a cold snap, but I feel spring is really on the way and the days of intense cold are on the way out. Our first greenhouse is full of herb cuttings and all of George's perennials are raising their tiny heads above the soil of their birth. We are going to have all kinds of "new-for-us" plants this year, along with some of our old favorites in smaller amounts so we can offer more variety. I will pass on a few every time I write, either new or undiscovered by most gardeners.

One of my favorites from last year that we will have again is Digitalis purpurea heywoodii "Pink Champagne." If you were one of the lucky few who bought one last year I would love to see it this year, because we forgot to keep any for ourselves! Heywoodii has beautiful silver foliage with blush pink bells.

Lonicera sempervirens 'Major Wheeler'

A new one is Lonicera sempervirens 'Major Wheeler' (right) which flowers heavily from spring through fall. It's 3 - 8 feet tall with a 1 - 10 foot spread and has crimson-red trumpet-shaped flowers. The long flowering time makes this special, who wouldn't want something that flowers from spring to fall?

Another new plant for us is Aspen Sunflower (Helianthella quinquenervis). It is a clear yellow without a hint of orange or gold. As a member of the sunflower tribe, it is a great food source for birds in fall (I love natural bird food plants).

Moving on to our display gardens: last year we were establishing a grass and sedge garden and Geo's rain garden. The whole property will soon be one giant garden for everyone to enjoy. We want customers and friends to wander our home and take whatever ideas fit for themselves. One of the best parts of this place is how it keeps us in touch with our gardening community. We hope our reach goes beyond our 4 1/2 acres and our love of gardening reaches into your heart, too.

Happy Gardening!