Gardening with Gertrude, Jim, & Grandmother: August 2012

~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!

~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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Friday, August 31, 2012

Very, large trees!

August 11, 2012

Well, we were out looking over our trees for those to cut down. Our trees are very mature and they (and our neighbor’s trees) have changed the sun patterns. Now that I am trying to re-establish my gardens, what use to be sun or shade, may or may not be so anymore! So it is time to take down some trees. There is also another reason that we and the neighborhood are thinning out trees—the amount of trees coming down in all the heavy rains and winds that we have had this year makes a person less loving of all the trees. Fortunately, our trees are mostly oak, so we get very nice firewood as a side benefit.

View of some of our very tall trees!

More very tall trees!

August 22, 2012

We had a number of trees taken down or pruned yesterday. Now I am looking over my “new” landscape—what a difference! I hope my gardens like it as much as I do! Of course, I will have to wait until next year to really see the sun patterns, but it looks so much better, and there are a number of old, mangy looking trees that are no longer here.

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Sorry, I have not been blogging very much this summer--it has been a crazy summer. I will try to be a better "blogger"!

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

No drought here!

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

I know that I have not been blogging much, but I have been in the garden. With all the rain we have had, I spend a lot of time weeding. This is very time-consuming, definitely no fun, and nothing to blog about! Well, at least I have not had to do much watering, which I appreciate especially since I have a well.

Besides weeding, other thing I have been trying to do regularly is to “foliar feed” my plants—they do respond quickly. I have a couple of plants and shrubs that need quick help, so I give extra to those plants. I use Miracle-Gro granules: 1 1/2 teaspoons per gallon in my sprayer (you can also use a watering can). I do this once a week. I try to do this early in the morning, or early enough so that the leaves are not wet overnight.

I have also had to use an insecticide and a fungicide. For many reasons I dislike having to do this, but the bugs and fungi have been out in droves. I use Bayer Advanced Rose and Flower Insect Killer in a spray bottle and EcoSMART Garden Fungicide in a spray bottle. I wear long rubber (vinyl?) gloves when I do this since both bottles leak at the spray connection. Wanting to folar feed, kill insects, and kill fungi means that I have to feed and protect on different days so that each liquid gets absorbed by the leaves before the next spray. I have been considering buying undiluted insecticide and fungicide and mixing them and the Miracle-Gro together and using my sprayer. This way, one pass over the plants does it all. I used this method when I had a much bigger garden and it worked well.

I bought another Rudbeckia “Irish Spring” from Home Depot. The one I planted last year came back and is blooming wonderfully, so perhaps this one will come next year. Rudbeckias don’t return here much in the garden varieties, and then if they return, the deer like to eat any and all new growth! The ones growing in my meadow always do well, though. We’ll see how it goes with Irish Spring.

Rudbeckia "Irish Spring"

Well, it’s rainy today—can’t do much in the garden so I will go food shopping—not as much fun. Oh well!
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Gardening with Gertrude, Jim, & Grandmother

Down the garden path ...