Down the garden path ...

Down the garden path ...
...and strolling through a garden of memories

~Grandmother Never Bought a Plant~

I suppose that is not literally true since in the beginning she bought vegetables and fruits for eating and then used their seeds to start plants.

Grandmother's garden was filled with many plants--I wish I could remember all of them--including Sweet Gum, Peach, Fig, Weeping Willow, and Magnolia trees; white and blue Hydrangeas, Azaleas, various Roses, Bleeding Hearts, Ferns, Periwinkle; Weigelia, Privet, and Barberry shrubs; succulents, and a vegetable garden.

Grandmother's garden was developed from "found" items, so to speak. My grandmother knew that plants could be started from the seeds they produced (no sterile hybrids for her). She also exchanged plants and cuttings with her neighbors. If she liked a plant, she made as many as she wanted from cuttings or seeds. Her neighborhood was filled with open fields (nowadays, almost gone for the rest of us), and these areas were great places to find plants.

Obviously, one of the things my grandmother brought to this garden and learned from it--was patience. In this era of instant gratification, we forget that good things are worth the wait, that patience really is a virtue, and that there is nothing wrong with frugality, either!

~Gertrude Jekyll, Jim Crockett, Grandmother, & I~

~Gertrude Jekyll, Jim Crockett, Grandmother, & I~

~Biographies~

*My grandmother started me down the garden path and Gertrude and Jim push me along. I do know that while all my mentors are deceased, I hear their voices loud and clear -- know the environment in which you want to garden, gardening is hard work, gardens take time to develop, start plants from cuttings, and that nature is not always on our side. In other words, be realistic, be frugal, and have patience.

*Gertrude Jekyll (1843 - 1932; photogragh from her book: Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden) has had the most pronounced influence on English and American gardening. She studied the landscape and designed flower borders, woodlands, and specimen tree and shrubery placement with regard to color, vista, soil, and year-round pleasure. Gertrude Jekyll approached the garden as a canvas. It has been said that Monet planted his gardens to paint them while Gertrude Jekyll's garden was the painting.

*James Underwood Crockett (1915 - 1979; photograph from his book: Crockett's Victory Garden) was the original host of PBS's The Victory Garden, then called Crockett's Victory Garden. I was fortunate to see his weekly shows. He showed that while gardening was work, it was also enjoyable with great rewards. While reading gardening books is informative, it was great to see and hear a gardener in action and see the results. It was good for morale! Jim made a statement on a show about asters that has become famous in my family because not only does it apply to gardening -- it applies to many things in life: Life is too short to stake asters.

*Painting of a child who reminds me of myself and grandmother in her garden: Monet - The Artist's Garden at Vetheuil.


~Gardening in Connecticut~

The Ice Age was not a good thing for gardeners in this area. On its march to Long Island and the sea, the glacier removed the soil down the bedrock and then when it melted, it dropped terminal moraine (rocks) in its wake -- except for southern Long Island where it was nice enough to deposit a glacial outwash plain (sand).

My family gardened on Long Island. When I moved to Connecticut and wanted to garden, I bought a shovel. What did I know? Quickly after that, my husband bought a pick axe.

Gardening here means "digging" out rocks and then going off to buy a truckload of topsoil--and while you are at it: sharp (not play or all-purpose) sand, and a ton of peat moss--to fill in the holes so that your plants may live long and prosper.

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Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Why not the whole story?

Maybe I am just getting to be a disgruntled woman (la malcontenta in Italian), but ...

I just read a good article in the email from Fine Gardening magazine about the deer repellents used by the author. Two in particular that caught my eye were Milorganite fertilizer (fine) granules and Bobbex liquid (for spraying). They seemed easy to use and effective, but having looked into deer replellents in the past, I always wonder about offensive odors to humans. Nothing about odors was mentioned. So I did some internet checking -- wow -- while these products seem to work, they are malodorous for quite a while after applying. One reviewer went so far as to say that he almost could not remove the odor from the clothes and shoes he wore while spraying!

Personally, I think the author could have "delicately" mentioned the strong odor -- that should have been part of the article. I want to repel the deer but maybe not at that price. Maybe I just have to keep looking, or at least, know what I am getting into. Fortunately, we do have internet sites with reviews of products. I used the general internet and Amazon (one of my favorite shopping places).

Oh well, I guess besides "buyer beware" we need to remember "reader beware".

Just my opinion.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Lordy, didn't it rain!

Well, between the hot weather which does me in, and the rain which keeps me in, and "imperial entanglements" which keep me elsewhere, nothing much is getting done -- except the weeds are having a field day!

Home Depot still does not have my Belgium blocks so the driveway edging is not finished. I am almost out of topsoil so I'll have to buy more before the fall planting. Of course, I can always stop buying plants and save a lot of money. I wish I had my grandmother's friends who shared plants or even my grandmother's talent ... oh well.

One bit of good news is that Perennial Gardens in Bedford sent me another "gift card" -- pretty neat -- $60 off $200 or $20 off $75! When buying plants, it is very easy to spend $75! I bought some very nice plants with their spring gift card. I wish Home Depot would have some coupons for discounts on plants. I got a good one very early in the season for "buy two plants and get a third one free", but the subsequent ones were not for things I needed.

I did buy some nice perennials from HD last week: Penstemon 'Red Riding Hood' Rudbeckia hirta 'Toto Rustic' and Alcea rosea ’Fiesta Time’ (hollyhock) . The hollyhock is a biennial but maybe it will set seed or just come back next summer anyway. All the plants have red flowers. I also bought two Virburnum dentata 'Morton' . It's a great shurb from what I have read. I planted them along the property boundary behind the Cottage Garden.

I am still working on my "new and improved" Cottage Garden plan. It's not progressing too well --it just does not want to organize! Maybe it's trying to tell me something. I have been rereading some of my flower books for ideas. I just reread Country Flowers by Rob Proctor -- it was good for morale also. He has a light and breezy and informative style. Some of his comments made me laugh. (See the book review in Books, Magazines, & Web Sites page.)