A Garden Journal Diary of Ilona's Garden

Gardening and the Younger Generation

2012-05-12T11:41:00.000-04:00

I was going to put up a post full of pictures of my trip to Dawes Arboretum and tell you news about what is going on there.... but I didn't get to it yet.

I gardened. I lived my Real Life.

But then Trey tweeted something about Doug Green's blogpost today, and I read that post and it inspired an old fashioned blog effort at conversation. Who knew things like that were still possible? Half kidding.

To catch you up before I start telling you what I've noticed about the trouble with lighting garden passion fires under the next generation, here are the links.

@pitsenberger tweeted "Doug Green explains why the younger generation doesn't respond to traditional attempts to get them gardening." with this link to Doug's Blog.
You Don’t Talk To A Conversation

What I Felt Differently

And while I think that Doug's analysis of what happens in the technology is accurate, and how media has changed, I am not sure that this is what is at the bottom of why (many of) our kids don't like to garden.

Some have personal issues, and that is probably part of what my own kids resist with gardening, although I notice despite their protests some of them do seem like some of the benefits of gardening. I was an obsessive gardener and my kids did not like that - just as my sisters don't like gardening and felt my mom spent too much time in her garden.

But aside from all that, I think there are some fundamental things that our children have moved away from. Like home ownership. Even if they own a home they are disillusioned with the amount of money and work a home requires. They aren't getting as much out of home ownership as our generation did. And they don't believe they will, right now.

Same with gardening.

Gardening is slow and it requires sweat. Sweat is something the younger generation doesn't mind in the gym, but heartily dislikes in their yards. That doesn't mean that this is what is wrong with them ...just that this is something about their priorities that is different from those of my hippie, baby boomer generation. We don't have the same love for the gym that our kids do, either. (And we should, believe me, we should!)

Whereas we see the challenge of nature and recoil at the challenge of software and computer troubles, it is the opposite for our kids. They are frustrated by natures challenges and we don't help it by telling them the lie that it is easy to learn and navigate. It isn't easy, it just has certain rewards.

They are not sure they need or want those rewards. We won't convince them by ranting and raving that they should.

What I Agree With

What I do agree with Doug about is the fact that we need to learn the terms of engagement... in the communication not in the warfare sense. We are not at war with our kids, just as we shouldn't have been at war with our parent when we were growing up. We have need of learning to have conversation.

We have to win each other over to healthier ways of living and relating.

We have to be truthful about all the hard work that takes... both with ourselves and with others.

We need to make a choice about how "perfect" all that is supposed to look.

We need to stop wanting to capitalize on relationship and leave capital and leveraging to goods and finance; not an easy thing to negotiate in our marketing society. But in the end, it will all come down to appreciating slower types of things in life: the beauty of nature, the importance of living things, losing out on certain advantages in order to make more of important priorities ...like kindness, magnanimity of soul, excellence of effort and work. You get the picture.

We don't have to make the next generation love to garden because we love it, we need to find out what is important to them and how gardening is part of that, and present what enlightens us all to that aspect of gardening.

That is how I see it.

I wish more things were self evident, but I wonder if even the most self evident truths require an apostle to share the truth about such things. Ranting is never the tool of an apostle, neither is complaining. Maybe words like evangelism, conversion, and preaching shouldn't have such bad connotations.... maybe those are better forms of sharing and starting a conversation than propaganda and rants. Maybe our world is so political that we have lost the art of communicating joy.

The pursuit of gardening really needs a communication of the joy, the beauty and the peace of it.

And every generation needs and wants some of that.
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© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

An Ohio View of Spring

2012-04-11T12:26:00.002-04:00

I have been gardening, but had a little motivation to take some photos between digging and weeding marathons. Here are some of the pictures from this past month's flowers. Everything was very early and now have frost damage, but it was absolutely gorgeous while it lasted.

Not as pretty as last year

These are the Renown tulips, which in the early heat put out lots of fat green leaves, but not as many blooms.

Small sample of the daffodils

The daffodils, however, were a different story. I had loads of daffodils, except for a few places where they need division. that is what I love about daffodils- they always multiply plentifully for me.

Redbud and Burkwoodii Viburnum

The Burkwoodii shrubs can also be seen in the background- they grew to be HUGE and always have a lovely scented bloom, although not as large and fragrant as my V.carlesii, they are better landscape shrubs.

One of the 'Little Girl' series of Magnolias that are the result of a cross originally made at the U.S. National Arboretum, Magnolia 'Ann'. They rebloom for me.

I took a chance on this magnolia when it was on a clearance sale at Lowes. It has proved to be a very pretty ornamental tree in my garden. It always blooms, sometimes twice.

On Easter Sunday we went to Dawes Arboretum, but that will require another post - Until then, Friends!

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© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

More Than Pretty

2012-03-16T10:01:00.000-04:00

It's true, and that was something I wrote about in these garden thoughts. But pretty can make some of life's all too real tragedy bearable. It is that fine balance, really, that the making of art revolves around. There is a time for photo documentary and there is a time for photoshop... to put it in familiar terms.

One thing that often bothered me about the art world was the restrictive elitism of all that angst which was supposed to mean you were a "real artist"; and one thing that I loved, conversely, about gardening was the way a garden was an expression of whatever you feel is wonderful or beautiful or ....yes, just plain pretty. The problem with mere prettiness in life is when it becomes a consuming editor of all our aims and thoughts.

Sometimes I don't want my garden, or my writing, or my communication to be only the merely pretty. But I do want beauty, which is sometimes wild, and sometimes quite trained and tamed.

I guess my point is that as soon as we make these odd sorts of "rules" we miss out on the wide spectrum of experience that life is supposed to contain.

Nothing is wrong with "pretty" or "pleasant" until it becomes a petty bureaucratic taskmaster. You know, the politically correct syndrome. Much of life's real beauty is about freedom is another way I would phrase it. Freedom is beautiful. Freedom flourishes with ideas and guidelines, and suffers terribly with too many rules, and martinets to enforce them. And nothing like art points that out half so well.

Which brings me to something I believe about gardening. Gardens at their best are an art expression. They are man's hand upon nature, sometimes so subtle that it is an illusion of no manipulation at all to the extremes of control and imagination, but they are most definitely an outcome of the mind, will, sweat, sometimes blood, and finances of the maker.

So yes, a garden is more than merely pretty, but pretty certainly is part of it.

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© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Inspiring English Garden Advice

2012-03-14T23:26:00.000-04:00

I enjoyed watching this video and listening to the ideas on garden color and some of the garden flowers that a talented designer uses and combines. Although we can't use all of them here in the Midwest, we are able to use some, and the ideas on color and garden methods are quite useful. Hope you like the video as well. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Garden Thoughts on a Garden Voice

2012-03-08T05:20:00.000-05:00

"The chief vice of gardens is to be merely pretty." -Fletcher Steel

I came across that quote when reading grounded design, the blog of a landscape architect, on "Why We Plant"...and it got me thinking.

It is an idea that can be extended to many an artistic endeavor. I think that people who are in the business of beauty most find themselves bored by the merely pretty and taken with a presentation of something with the ability to portray and catch more of human emotion. If you watch "Top Model", this idea pops up quite a bit: just a pretty face is considered a liability in a sea of pretty faces. Something more is wanted.

And that likely has to do with the eye's hunger for something to rest upon, something that defies a tendency to "sameness".

I had to admit to myself the fault of striving for the merely pretty. It happens in our gardens and also in our blogs. It is the easy way out, which demands little thought, but what might we be missing when overlooking the "faults" of a place? What chance for bringing out the genius loci, "the spirit of a place", or in the case of our blogs, our own voice. What might we miss in our headlong pursuit of the perceived popular? I wonder.

Another phrase from that article I read was that our aim of landscaping a garden is to "create the conditions where people can have an experience of beauty." It is an expression of an opinion I have long held, that we as humans need to connect with nature. The expansive, mind blowing experience of nature expressed in something grander than ourselves. We need our forests, lakes, canyons, and wetlands, our views of unbroken beach and ocean, mountains and all the microcosms and viewsheds that capture those experiences for us. We have a vital need of those things, and our gardens help to cement our connection with this greater experience. Our gardens are personal spaces where we explore that need, and satisfy it, where we take a piece of the greater expression of nature and craft it ...direct it... to make those conditions to notice its beauty.

But sometimes we busy ourselves with defacing the unique character of our places with those attempts at the "merely pretty".

What might this exercise in thinking otherwise inspire in us? To sit and really look at our landscape, to savor what is the feature of its own beauty, its own native components that we might celebrate and accentuate, to bring out the spirit of our place in our own expression of what a garden means to us personally. It can start out with a view we want to focus on, or a feature of our landscape that is begging to be cultivated, whether stream or grove, rocky outcropping or flat grassland. And as in art, it can also be the implantation of something of our fantasy, a little created space which we have created to remind ourselves of what we find most beautiful in the world. Between the celebration and the fantasy there is such a wide spectrum of creativity available to plumb. It is in the constant variation of that in which we find our fascination with each others gardens, and our experiences of discovery and delight in those and in our own.

Somehow it brings me around to that old adage, "Bloom where you are planted". Bring out your own beauty, and the beauty of the place... help others experience that unique perspective.

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© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Do You Like Lavender?

2012-03-01T11:33:00.000-05:00

I love it. It is a plant that I have been growing during most of my gardening career, starting with the first herb plants I tucked into my city lot garden. It was in that garden on Glen Echo Drive that I discovered how perfectly paired English lavender (Lavender vera) and dark purple petunias (Purple Sails, at that time) could be in a summer garden.

Dark purple petunias, not only for their velvety lush color, but because they have much more of the petunia fragrance that mixes intoxicatingly with lavender's fresh scent. Petunias are part of the Solanaceae family of plants, which include Nicotiana, another very fragrant planting that can make a trio of scent for summer days.

But it is the Lavender that is the perennial anchor, giving freely of its flowers through a long , and sometimes repeating bloom. I liked it so well I made a hedge of it lining my front walkway. During our winters, it has sometimes suffered damage and need replacing, but learning to make new plants of cuttings offset that liability.

Make new lavender plants from cuttings.

In the newer sensibility of growing edible landscapes, our view of many herb garden plants could be transformed into seeing them for their landscape beauty and use more of them as such.

I wrote a Squidoo lens on growing lavender to accompany the other articles that advocate this favorite plant of mine. One reason I enjoy Squidoo lenses is because they are a sort of celebration of a topic. While here on the Garden Journal, and in my garden website, I might just write on cultivating lavender and describing how to choose growing companions, in the lens I have recipes for lavender flavored cookies... and art featuring lavender. It is just one more way to have fun learning about plants. And don't get me started about Pinterest! I've only skimmed the surface on that site, but it is so much fun to make pinboards. Oh dear, I've veered off topic....

If you are not yet acquainted with the Lavender, this might be the year of introduction.

Check out the Lavender topics:
Grow Fragrant Lavender
Pruning Lavender Videos
Lavender Plant Profile

Buy This at Allposters.com

And a botanical painting by a favorite Botanical artist, Elizabeth Blackwell:

Lavender Spike,...
Elizabeth ...
Buy This at Allposters.com

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© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

March Opens the Garden Season

2012-02-29T11:49:00.001-05:00

Full fledged gardening season begins in March, an ideal time to plant trees. The ground is usually open and the new trees are dormant. It is also a time before the mad spring rush. For the past few years I have only thought of planting trees, rather than actually doing so, since there are only a few places on the property that I feel really need some.

At the front corners I had planted trees that subsequently died. Those are challenging spots ever since the county dug out my good dirt for their new ditches and replaced that dirt with horrible, no good, offscouring of the earth dirt. Who knows where it came from! Subsoil clay to cover the drainage conduits. I'm muttering out of the side of my mouth, still, after all these years. Sorry, friends.

This year I may try to put in trees, again, maybe Prairie Fire crabapple to match the ones flanking the driveway.

Rarely do I have a retrospect in March, a month of beginnings, usually... but this year is different. With our mild winter it hardly appeared as if the garden season had closed, before it reopened again. I felt I understood what it might be like to live in a mild Southern climate with their year around planting and gardening opportunities.

One reason to feel that way is largely due to the Helleborus niger,"Jacob". I can't seem to get over the fact that it has bloomed all through the winter right from the proverbial "Christmas Rose" time of Christmas week. The cold spells darkened the blooms but did not stop their appearance, and the foliage was fairly evergreen.

December blooms

It was an entirely new experience for me to see flowers in the midst of a calender winter.

My pyracantha also kept its evergreen appearance, nestled close to the house wall as it is.

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© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Garden Art- I Mean, Really.

2012-02-16T10:07:00.002-05:00

Succulent Garden Art Exhibit

Make Your Own View

This isn't a new idea- I've seen it showcased at garden shows in the past, but I think it is an example of exceptionally well done succulent planting. An idea taken to a level of an artist playing with their medium and exploring its qualities in a way that makes the observer take notice, and peer closer.

Another photo view shows that this gardener didn't limit interest to just a few frames, but a whole wall and floor containers created an artistic impact that shows what passion for something can accomplish.

An Entire Gallery

There is a lesson, here.

When we really love something, and we take time to develop our love and highlight it with our talent ... something wonderful happens.

I think this is what happens in the best gardens. The dynamic of someone who truly loves flowers and plants, especially certain expressions of them, such as a species or a style of displaying them creates something extraordinary. Too often we are caught up in Madison Avenue style thinking, led to believe that gardening is like a fashion or fad. But it isn't. It is more like art. With the same love and focus that makes anything beautiful; the same craft and attention to details. Just as couture is not simply a piece of clothing, a garden is not merely throwing the requisite plantings together.

Hope you enjoyed the show.

All photos by "FaroutFlora"
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© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Signs of Spring

2012-02-08T12:04:00.000-05:00

I woke up to snow this morning... one of winter's end of season visits, just to let Ohio know it is still around. But its days are numbered! I heard one sure sign of spring yesterday- the call of the mourning doves. When I hear that, I know we are on the way out of winter's grip (which was pretty loose this year!)

Want to know another sign of Spring? If you have an oak tree that has held onto its leaves during the winter and notice the leaves falling, guess what? It means that tree buds are beginning to grow for the coming growing season. They are pushing out the hold that the old brown leaves had... the ones that no winter winds could dislodge, but now, who can resist the power of Spring's regeneration? Not the mighty oak. I suspect that like the rest of us the oak rejoices in the coming of spring.

The oak gives useful signs to the gardener. If the oak leaf is as big as a mouse ear... it is time to plant your corn. Old saying, along with the "knee high by fourth of July" gauge for corn crops. Usually it is about as tall as a man by that time, but 2011 was one year that corn just barely made the grade on the old rule of measurement.

- The Viburnum 'Dawn' is budding out. It is one of my earliest bloomers here. -

February is actually a little early to give oneself totally to the idea of spring, despite all the attention that Punxsutawney Phil gets at the start of the month. He predicted six more weeks of winter, by the way.

Another sign of spring? My new (older, but still new) dog is a long hair breed and has been shedding. Yes, that signals spring. He is working out really well for us, and we all love him. He has a new name , though. Sometimes a name just works itself out. My husband and I refer to him as "Houdini" now that his propensity for escaping every known collar made by man and waiting for the opportune moment to scoot outside when the door opens. We took him in to get "fixed" last week. Poor thing has to wear one of those scratch preventing plastic guards. As a sight dog, it is really cramping his style. But he is a very patient and dignified dog, and we continue with the fence project that he inspired in the middle of winter,while the kids take turns with my husband on giving him walks. I will start walking him, soon. I need the exercise.

Fence building- another sign of spring. If we were New Englanders it would be wall mending, wouldn't it?

Mending Wall
By Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!" I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Yes, I like Robert Frost.

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© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

It is Springlike

2012-02-06T11:34:00.000-05:00

Did Ohio forget Winter?

This morning I woke up to hoarfrost on the ground, from the fog of last night. It seems as if we have had spring all through the winter months. Thanks to the Christmas Rose Hellebores I have had flowers in my garden all year. That never happens...until now. A real first for me.

I am going to dig out some of my saved seed packets and see if I can grow anything from them. While a bit early for serious seed planting, I think I can take a chance with a few things. Why not? A little risk might prove a return. If not, not much is lost in the trying.

I wonder what our mild winter bodes for the growing season? One thing the frigid cold is good for is diminishing the insect population. And I have to wonder what the summer will bring in terms of beetles and other such bad bugs. I hope to have a bumper crop of Praying mantis to answer to them. Years ago I bought some egg cases and I have had praying mantis populations ever since. That was a great investment in the garden :)

I am over the moon with those chance Hellborus niger I put in on a whim some years ago. That is one of the things I find most fun about gardening. It is a lottery that always pays me a good dividend. Sometimes I lose, sure, but sometimes I win big with a plant that does well for me at a bargain. Even plants I pay a pretty penny for are often multiplying in my garden for years to come.

Of course, I have to admit to a selective memory. I have killed more plants than I have grown well, if we count those that die out through neglect or freak weather patterns. But the ones that bloom and thrive always seem to make up for the losses somehow.

I wish more of life were like the garden.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ © 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Too Much Candy Is Probably Not A Good Thing

2012-02-01T13:31:00.000-05:00

Too much candy? Why is she writing about this in her garden blog? You can blame it on an article I read on garden writing, Garden Photographs – some problems. And while I am not a big fan of ranting about garden topics, occasionally I read something that resonates with some underground opinion of my own. This essay on today's method of garden writing, which is rampant in garden magazine publications and has spread into garden blogging, is one of those.

I love pretty pictures as much -and maybe more- than the next guy, just like I love chocolate. The finer the chocolate the better I like it, but too much chocolate is probably not such a good thing for me, and the proliferation of pretty picture gardening advice probably isn't in the best interest of gardening either. We all like stylists, and the imaginary worlds they conjure up for us - it is escapist fare that helps us dream and envision. But there are rude awakenings if we don't match those utopian gardens and plants up with a little nitty gritty "truth in gardening" advice.

I'll quote you a bit of the opinions and you can go read the entire essay, and maybe peruse a bit of English garden ranting in other articles at thinkingardens.co.uk.

"Awards are given to gardens on the basis of pictures of them and the common description of garden magazines as ‘garden porn’ tells its own story."

"Professional photographers know what their editors want, and they serve it up again and again. Thus few garden photos convey a personal point of view"

"much of the eye-candy that magazines at present offer their readers are attractive pictures taken in a garden, not of a garden; typical of this kind are the close-up’s of flowers with a bee collecting pollen, or a drop of dew clinging to a petal. These may be beautiful images but they tell us nothing about the garden in which the picture was shot."

" all these pretty garden photos seem to exercise a malign influence on those who are making gardens; too easily they forget they are place makers, the title ‘Capability Brown proudly gave himself, not exterior decorators."

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© 2012 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

2012 Urban Tree of the Year

2012-01-31T12:38:00.000-05:00

Accolade is one of many elms on Arthur Lee Jacobsen's page.

Ever since the demise of the American Elm tree due to the deadly combination of Dutch Elm disease and the beetle that spread it, arborists, landscapers, and gardeners alike have looked for and hoped that a replacement might be found.

Once upon a time American city streets were lined with these majestic trees. Now, the Society of Municipal Arborists has elected an Ulmus variety, 'Accolade' as their Urban Tree of the year for 2012. It is a hybrid of Ulmus japonica and U. wilsoniana, originating from seed collected at the Arnold Arboretum in 1924. There are high hopes for it to be the long awaited elm tree that will bear resemblance to those stately urban street trees of the past, since it is reputed to be resistant to Dutch Elm disease, the elm leaf beetle, and elm yellows. The tree grows to 50 to 60 feet tall, and 30 to 40 feet wide, in the famous vase shape that made the American Elm so admired. There has been a long standing effort to find a replacement for the ill fated American Elm. Maybe this is it.

Morton Arboretum has a specimen of 'Accolade'

A PDF for Accolade from Urban-Forestry.com

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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

A Little Magic in the Garden

2012-01-20T11:56:00.000-05:00

A display from one of the garden stores I visited.

It seems that the idea of creating a Fairy Garden is popular again this year, and no surprise since there is something about those itsy bitsy little worlds that catch the imagination even if you don't believe in fairies, per se. (Shhhh, don't let Tinkerbell hear that!)

Latest trend in gardening goes miniature was an article I came across that reports on some ways to make and use Fairy Gardens that are installed in containers, "They make good centerpieces for tables and are good garden decorations".

At first I thought a fairy garden would be something ideal for a project with children, and I still believe that, but like other miniatures, dollhouses, for example, some of us "girls" never quite grow up. We still like making and (secretly playing) with these enchanting, tiny gardens. Really, they are so much fun with the little furnishings, imaginative dwellings and the possibilities of creating your own homemade accessories out of acorn cups, bits of moss and twigs.

Of course, some people are too busy for all that.

But if you have a bit of time here and there, some imagination, and the desire to putter around in a miniature world, the Fairy garden might just provide the perfect little environment.

I wrote some pages on making these gardens, as well. You do want to visit them, don't you?

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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

A Robert Frost Sort of Evening

2012-01-18T19:18:00.000-05:00

Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter
by Robert Frost

The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.
In summer when I passed the place
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.
No bird was singing in it now.
A single leaf was on a bough,
And that was all there was to see
In going twice around the tree.
From my advantage on a hill
I judged that such a crystal chill
Was only adding frost to snow
As gilt to gold that wouldn't show.
A brush had left a crooked stroke
Of what was either cloud or smoke
From north to south across the blue;
A piercing little star was through.
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Goodbye and Keep Cold

THIS saying good-by on the edge of the dark
And cold to an orchard so young in the bark
Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
An orchard away at the end of the farm
All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
I don’t want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,
I don’t want it dreamily nibbled for browse
By deer, and I don’t want it budded by grouse.

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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Plotting out the Year

2012-01-15T14:54:00.000-05:00

After doing some inspired thinking on why resolutions fail, I gathered the family members together for a beginning of 2012 planning session. Just a brainstorm and planning session which situated the family vacation times well out of the early garden season. I am so glad.

This year I believe I will succeed in the garden in a way that has eluded me for the past several years.

It is not that I haven't gardened, or even that it wasn't high on the priority list, because not only do I continue to love the garden, it truly is one of my most satisfying and overall beneficial activities. But when many family members moved many states away, it required that I contribute far more time traveling. This year, more of those plans are in months where absence from the garden won't be as critical.

One thing about gardening, as with raising children, is that you have to physically be there.
I plan to be here for the important early season this year.... now, just to get those all important plans going.

I will try to be successful with the food garden. Tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, sunflowers (for the birds), swiss chard, parsley, are all on the agenda.

And in the flower garden I am plotting to again make room for more annuals, while transplanting more things into the "prairie section' and the 'look-into garden'.

Annuals:

Cosmos
Marigolds
Calendula
Nigella

Those to start with, and I don't want to get too ambitious this year. My age has been telling on me and the lesson learned is to keep a check on grandiose plans. Good luck with that!

So there is the loose plot of the garden plan for this year.
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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

What Are Your Garden Plans For 2012?

2012-01-15T13:58:00.000-05:00

I was just wondering.

It is January, and until the last week, it was weather to garden in more than weather to plan with, and that was rather strange. We were out digging postholes for the fence to corral the new dog. but now that real January weather has settled in, i.e. freezing temperatures, snow, ice, wind, and other inclement conditions, I have started to plan. Then was wondering what the general consensus is for gardening in 2012. Does the economy still influence us? Our generational values or stage of life?

For me, it is my age and plans for the year that are the main guidelines for my priorities. I'll need to account for dogs, vacation plans, and a few other factors. I began more food gardening the last two years, an those plans haven't gone so well. Whether I lost my touch, or it was the weather is still not certain in my mind. For the first time in a long time I will not be going out of state for periods during the first part of the garden season- that is bound to make a (good) difference!

How about you ...out there in blogger reader land?

And are we going to journal online, in a book, with art or charts or what? Just wondering, still. Ohyes, and is anyone going to the Columbus Garden Show this year?

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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Solace of the Garden

2012-01-05T09:24:00.000-05:00

At times when grief seems overwhelming, or when personal sorrows weigh down the spirit, people often find balm in nature. It seems to speak in a way that is healing to our souls. In a garden, where one is most intimately acquainted with nature, we often see it as a workplace, a place that invites us to active experimentation, investigative curiosity, and diligent labor. But when our hearts are most grieved we want none of that.... and it is then that we discover the garden as a place of solace, a place that waits for us.

In those times we are no longer laying plans or putting ourselves into our gardens, but simply receive the quiet lessons, comforting friendship of the earth we till. For many, a garden is where God speaks to us, still.

It has lessons and insights of the cycle of life, of the ebb and flow of the seasons, and of those things greater than ourselves. That gives comfort and peace, to know that there has been a continuum and that nothing ever really passes completely from existence, but often changes form. It tells us of our mortality, but also of our eternal hope. It tells us that life and love are stronger, in finality, than death. It reminds us that there are good things, so many good things, all around us.

Our lives are better for our gardens, and our gardens speak things to the world for us in ways without words. Sometimes those ways touch the deepest part of the human soul.

Technorati Tags: solace of nature, gardens

Goodbye 2011, I Hardly Knew Ye

2011-12-29T12:07:00.001-05:00

Winter Day in February 2011

The year not only seems to have gone fast, but it seems a stranger in the night... passing with little recognizable in it. The weather was different, my goals were different, the holidays were different, and none seem connected to either past or present.

I am sure none of that is true if I think hard enough to rein in the disconnected strings, but that is the general feel of it. I know I blogged far less here on IGJ. I'll look through and see if there were posts that qualify as "best", but I believe the poor satisfaction in the garden reflects in the dearth of posts: the garden inspires my writing. I have never been good at "just making things up".

Here are the posts I liked best:

From January, 2011...

The Night The Ice Fell for the story, which we in the family all look back on with laughing and the kind of good memories that such situations are capable of inspiring. You are never sorry when you "make the best of things", and this post has illustrative photos.

From February, 2011...
What's Wrong With Gardening Today? is something of an essay/ quasi book review. Where I pinpoint what makes gardening something to love rather than something to do. Worth re-reading.

From March, 2011...
Springs Watershed shows that at times I write better than at other times. A day in the life.

Winter Damage is a very good collection of early spring garden advice. I think I will add it to my Spring Maintenance page on the garden site.

From June, 2011
Short Reminder on Pruning Mugo Pines is very short, but this seems to be a perennial topic. By June, it is too late to ask the question, so get this info under your belt now, if you own a mugo pine.

From July, 2011...
July Chore Reminder is one I like because it marries task tips with a favorite picture that I took that month on a trip to Lake Erie ( Marblehead Lighthouse, to be exact). Though sorry it was for a family funeral, Lake Erie is a place of many good memories.

From August, 2011
Good Reason To Eat Locally Grown Tomatoes holds a good link, good book, and good recipe. All in all, a good reason to read it over again.

Chicago photos holds two collage photos (click to see full size). Best examples of front yard veggie gardens in upscale neighborhoods (the suburb of Evanston, where I used to live).

Best Butterfly Picture I ever took. For some reason my old lilac is a favorite resting place for butterflies and hummingbirds. And me, in my old lichen-covered Andirondack seat... but that is not in the photo.

From November, 2011
I Learn About Seed Bombs and share the knowledge with my readers. Good late winter project.

Short list. I blogged very sporadically, traveled quite a bit to visit family, and decided to not record my many melancholy thoughts, although as is good for melancholy I did go out into my garden more in the latter part of the year.

When I am away from the garden I always wonder why I don't take more time in it after I have returned. It always refreshes me - so long as I don't make it about tasks and projects and instead more about the daily wonder of growing things and touching the soil of this old earth. Then I understand the phrase, "grounded".

I raise my glass to the coming year of growing: plants, projects, myself, relationships, and even this blog. Cheers, my friends, may the year of 2012 find us thriving and prosperous. In all ways possible. And if not, gracefully bent into interesting shapes, and meaningful ways.

To you, to me, to our gardens!

Wrapping Up The 2011 Gardening Year

2011-12-27T13:14:00.003-05:00

Hello Dear Garden Loving Friends!

We are at the cusp of the year, and I greet you as garden-loving, rather than gardening, since some of us -as John so wisely remarked to me- have had a few barriers to doing as much as we might have wished in the garden this year. For some of us it is our health or the slowdown of age, for some it was the wild weather patterns that prove how little control we truly have. I suppose there are a whole spectrum in between, but whether we have have a banner year of bloom or a baneful one, we still remain those who love our world of beautiful gardens... something is always beautiful.

Ohio broke its precipitation record, and it has been rain, rain, all through fall and into December. We dug some post holes yesterday and the water table is very close to the surface. Postholes? In December you say? Yes! We have a new dog (story will follow), and he needs the sight barrier of a fence. So we are using a temporary snowfence along the back of the yard.

Hellebores, and Heavenly Weather

That brings me to the other point of fact: I gardened and did yard cleanup in December! And not my old Midwest Grit of " gardening in any weather", but with beautiful warm temperatures and comfortable garden conditions. For the first time, I had Christmas Roses (Hellebore niger, HGC 'Jacob') that bloomed beautifully in all its pure white glory. The rain and occasional frosts kept the flowers drooping, but they caught my eye from the window and I had to investigate. At first it seemed like white paper or a bag in the garden... but then I ventured out and saw their blooms! Caught in a picture for you.

I don't know if you are a longtime reader, if so, you may remember the story of my Christmas Rose Hellebores ...originally bought on sale as indoor plants and then put into the outside garden on the off-chance that they would survive. See my Christmas Roses indoor pictures here.

White dogs and white flowers to make up for the lack of that other white we wished for: a snowy Christmas.

The "Puppy" Our new "puppy" turned up on the doorstep right before Christmas. He was scraggly from rain and looked like he had taken a dunk in the ditch, looking forlorn and undernourished and BIG. No collar and no one who wanted to take him in. We decided to give him a chance, since we had wanted to get a dog for the past year. He looks and behaves like a textbook Great Pyrenees -except doesn't bark so much as reputed. We have had five people voting on the name and it has been a real challenge to come to a consensus.

Right now I am calling this huge dog, "puppy". My kids are used to naming the cats- and they come up with the most outlandish names possible, I have held out for something more dignified, since the dog is a serious guy. So far he behaves in the garden, but I expect some territorial marking signs on my bushes. Fairly benign with the scaredy cats, who perch on the roof and give him the eye. They are slowly back to their haunts as long as he is out of sight.

The Garden

This year the prairie patch proved to be an asset.

I did not plant new bulbs this year, although I had wanted to.

Was able to weed the entry way and the "Look Into Garden" reasonably well.

Compost pile and the vegetable garden will have to wait for spring to get in order.

Mulching will wait, didn't get to it.

The bushes, including the pyracantha were put in shape, although I think I will reduce the firethorn even more this spring.

I look forward to the new growing season, and am going to put more of my plans together during January month- what about you?

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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Autumn Garden Assessment

2011-11-04T12:04:00.001-04:00

Noting this last growing season's garden in the Garden File. Not a stellar gardening year for me in 2011.

I Learned Something - You Can Too

2011-11-04T11:02:00.000-04:00

Seed bombs

I've been doing everything except gardening and blogging for the last few weeks. It is fall, and while I usually am out in the garden planting bulbs and all sorts of autumn tasks, this year I tidied the garden and then left for the South to visit my children and grandchildren. Along the way from Ohio the beautiful leaves turning in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia satisfied my yen for natural beauty. Ohio autumn leaves seemed to have been over in a blink between rainstorms.

But what I have found for you dear readers is something which may or may not be new to you,( I had come across it a few years ago, sharing about how to become a modern Miss Jekyll ), a delightful video on how to make flower or seed bombs.

I have seed left over from a very unsatisfying growing season this past year, and I think I will make some of the bombs to pop out in my yard next spring. It should work especially well with the fact that my autumn has been dedicated to grooming the wildly overgrown beds and landscape areas that had been my gardened yard. There was no time to do much planting with all the pruning, cultivating, tearing out, and weeding.

One of the best seeds to sprout in such spaces are the hardy and half hardy annuals: Shirley poppies, Nigella, Calendulas. Wildflower perennials, such as in the video are good choices, too.

See if this idea appeals to you and the garden you wish to see growing next year.

Remember: anything you can get done in the fall and early winter is one less task for the spring.

I took a Blog Vacation

2011-10-07T23:47:00.001-04:00

I am in the 900 block of posts right now, 903 to be exact, and I made the first experimental blogpost on September 9th in 2003. Those were the days when I might post two or three things a day... in a freeform sort of way. The first one with any real content was later that day, I called it "OK" because half the time the blogposts weren't titled. And I didn't use photos or pictures hardly ever.

So, last month I passed the eighth year anniversary of my Garden Journal, here. Eight is the number of the start of a new order, the beginning of a new era. Eight represents regeneration and resurrection.

I'm telling you about the old days of blogging because I just sort of slipped into a longer than usual break, and realized that I needed to step back from the many online projects I juggle.

It didn't help that this gardening season wasn't the best. I was gone from the garden quite a bit, and this year I just plain felt overworked.

Have you ever had that feeling?

Still, it felt good when I did work hard doing work in the RL garden. Helen Weis posted a neat picture "Unplug and GO OUTSIDE" it said. It is restorative to go outside and just enjoy the great outdoors... getting work done at a sane ( as opposed to insane) pace.

I am very sorry to have neglected my friends... and much else, but I needed the time. I hope no one begrudges me that . I don't think anyone would, really.

What were the accomplished chores?

I weeded like a crazy woman. And then called in the recruits.

I pruned - broken and dead branches, overgrown shrubs, then did some edging and set the mowers in motion (I no longer do the mowing).

Together we trimmed up the badly damaged willow tree. That was quite a bit of work, but it looks passable now. We gathered and burned bonfires of broken branches from everything downed by winter's ice storm to the two violently wild summer storms we had this year. The trees are a fraction of their former selves, but this is nature's way.

The garden is groomed...gone from its unkempt slatternly ways to a decently presentable visage. Not perfect, but much,much improved.

I reinstated some things in the blogs, too. Still needs tweaking and then I hope to pursue it throughout the coming year. Was a little consternated with the recipe component of the website -but it seems to work now. Why do so many of these thngs appear to work and then oopsy the gremlins get in there and it suddenly doesn't? I wanted to photograph some scenes and do a nice blogpost for fall...but went to IKEA instead and we are updating our guestroom area.

Fall isn't over, so I might yet pull some things together with this blog.

It's October already. wow!

Missed you all, but the break did me a bit of good. How are things with you? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Amazing Collection of Garden Art from Creative Artist

2011-09-05T12:22:00.001-04:00

I don't think I've seen anything quite like it. Yes, there are terra cotta Greenmen sold in many garden outlets, but this is the art form taken to its outer limits. An entire garden filled with the most enchanting terra cotta statues, placed within lovely vignettes that make you want to see more... no overload of jumbled things placed willy nilly. This is how I like to see garden art displayed. There is a sad note, however. Apparently a massive brushfire swept through the artists town and destroyed them. But the videos tell the beautiful story: Bruno Torfs, woodcarver Just the sculptures:

Telling the story:

His site. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Hard Decisions

2011-08-28T23:38:00.000-04:00

looking toward the unsatisfactory driveway some years ago

My garden, like myself, is no longer young and freshly planted. We have been here awhile, and the signs of maturity are equal parts dignified and disconcerting. Once this property was almost a blank space with few trees and mown grass, now it holds almost thirty years worth of plantings, some grown quite large. Large enough that it is time to consider whether to keep some of the less stellar choices I have made.

This year had seen the apex of neglected gardens and the aftermath of some of Nature's affronts. January's ice storm had drawn down the branches of the trees with a merciless hand, showering the house with crashes and clatterings of broken branches throughout a night of fiercesome pruning. The spring and summer were times to reshape the willow, and pull out the broken off branches of the large Arborvitae, tasks only finished this past week.

The willow may actually be the better for its massive pruning. But the Arborvitae, a tree of some age, is looking like a balding and scruffy personage after huge branches broke under the heavy weight of the Northwesterly ice which had coated large arms of its stature with a burden that it could not withstand. Although many other trees had lost a good deal, like the pines especially, nothing took the brunt so greatly as did this particular Arborvitae.

Past experience with these plants is that they come back well after such mishandling by either nature or the gardener's hand. Some globe Arborvitae (much younger in age, but all the more roughly broken) had suffered from snow weighting their branches to the breaking point and were severely misshapen. The globes looked split down the center; surprisingly, they recovered within a year. I thought I would have to remove them, but procrastination on my part worked in their favor, for once. I now expect the regrowth to fill in the tree in a few years.

The other age related wrinkles in my garden are not so optimistically regarded.

This past week, as I mentioned, I have trimmed and pruned many shrubs and trees, and while there is still much to do, the garden is shaping up... but the mistakes of the past years are all the more exposed. I really have to remove some fringe trees which have not thrived in the too dry conditions of the driveway, and the doublefile viburnums are trimmed within an inch of their life, but still do not fit within that same area. It was a grand mistake I made that I hoped could have been mollified with efforts on my part. It is obvious that I need to remove them.... I just hate to do it, because I doubt if I can save them once they are pulled out. That area has been a challenge for me in more than one way. It remains to be seen if I learn to understand what answer it requires.

An old garden will tell you what doesn't work for it, but will still make you dig for answers on what does.

There are other parts of the garden that are not aging as well as I had hoped. The Lavender walk is suffering from the enthusiastic growth of the rue, the encroaching grass, and the awkwardness of the surviving lavenders. I've debated taking it out, although perhaps removal of some of the rue and replanting with new lavenders might be all that is needed.

The worst part of an old garden is the way weeds come to make themselves at home within the older plantings. A newly planted space has none of that.

The longer I live and the longer I garden the more I find one tip that works for many a problem. That is the power of a consistent attention to what is needed. If every day I work for a few hours or even a few minutes, if I bend down and pull some weeds here or there as I pass.... and not leave the garden neglected until there is a marathon amount of work to accomplish.... I sustain some form of victory. A garden is made of little attentions given often.... much like every other relationship we may desire to cultivate.

And with that nugget of wisdom I leave for another time, my friends.
~Ilona

Arborvitae trees and Willow in better days

August is time to divide and plant perennials

2011-08-25T13:04:00.001-04:00

Butterfly within the Lilac Branches

Every year, August feels too hot and dry to be digging and planting, but late August is an especially good time to give new perennials a start in the garden. The trouble with this time of year is mainly the hot sticky weather for the gardener, and it is often too dry for the plants. That means attention to watering is usually necessary. Yes, you can wait until September in Ohio, but it is often as dry and full of sunshine as August, and you have less time before winter conditions for those plants to get rooted into place. So, August it is. This year August is proving good for plants that need to be transplanted. We are having regular rainfall here - and moderate temperatures (relatively speaking). I have dug up an Echinacea I wanted to move, sliced it in half, and planted it in the prairie bed. To tell you what else I've been doing would infer it is the best time for it, it isn't; but like all things in life and in the garden sometimes the job must be done, even though the time is not ideal. So, all the pruning and trimming I've done is mainly for the sake of a "garden gone wild" which sorely needs to be taken in hand. This year I planted precious little due to my out of town schedule, but I am getting the yard to look more like a gardener actually lives here. Restoring the little pond is on the agenda, and I will soon dig out the overgrown iris and waterlilies. Some of the surrounding rocks need to be reset, which takes me longer now than in my youth. All in all, I am happy to be working in the garden, although there were a few days when I was literally dripping with the effort.

I have had the pleasure of observing hummingbirds and butterflies, who for some reason simply love the shelter of the old lilac (one of the bushes I have been pruning and reshaping).Hummingbirds are very curious and they whiz about my head, which is how I come to be aware of them when bending over my work. Cardinals and goldfinches have also been sighted this month. The children also obtained a new kitten. Tortoiseshell in looks mewing pitiously for its old home and companions, my old cat has not taken to it. He does not suffer fools gladly.Maybe that is why I like him so well. Enough conversation, it is a fine day for gardening and I must go back to my efforts within the garden. Til later, friends- Ilona

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© 2011 written for Ilona's Garden Journal. An excellent blog.