His Eyes were Bugging Out

I’m dying to show you the work I did on the woodland garden, but I need most of a day to finish taking measurements and draw up a garden plan, and I don’t have time this week. So instead I’m going to tell a little story, and show you the view from the scenic overlook – the scenic overlook will be noted on the aforementioned garden plan. Creek

Owning the property for over twenty years, I should have walked every inch by now, so I’m a little ashamed to admit I only recently discovered the scenic overlook.

creekThe title, His Eyes were Bugging Out, refers to Jesse’s response when I showed him this view and mentioned the possibility of a zip line to the other side. Dale said we should build a second zip line back. He’s a genius. As soon as we hit the lottery, that’s what we’ll do. 

Creek

With all the rain we’ve had lately the creek is really running. When I sit on the front porch I can hear it. It’s a wonderful thing, and my life is blessed. 

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The title is also a line in a song, and I’m going off the garden shenanigans topic to tell the story. You know how at wedding receptions people clank their knives on their glass to get the happy couple to kiss; well, when my sister got married she didn’t want any of that annoying behavior, and instead made a rule that she and Dean would only kiss if you stood and sang a song. They still had to kiss every few minutes, but it provided excellent dinner theater. – I taught the head table to sing, “In heaven there is no beer. That’s why we’re drinking here.” – Anyway, cousin Bill worked very hard to compose an original work for the special occasion. My lovely and talented daughter Leandra was about three years old and insisted that the song include a reference to what she saw on TV: eyes bugging out. You know, it’s when the cartoon character sees a hot chick and his eyes leave their sockets, triple in size and hang from springs. Bill worked it in, and I’m only a little surprised that I can still remember all the lyrics. Sing it to the tune of  The Beverly Hill Billie’s.

Come and listen to my story ’bout a girl named Sue.
Sue’s dog was sick; she didn’t know what to do.
So she took him to a vet, who’s name was Dean,
and Dean made a house call, you know what I mean.
 
When Dean met Sue his eyes were bugging out.
When Sue met Dean she knew, without a doubt,
that this was a catch that she would like to win,
the next thing you know, old Dean was moving in.

 

(Note to my wonderful niece and nephew: In this context ‘moving in’ means ‘making the moves on someone’, not physically moving in, which you should only do after you get married.)

Posted in Family, The Big Picture | Leave a comment

Spring??? Already?

In my last blog I mentioned I hadn’t cleaned up all the pumpkins. – I have since accomplished that task, and Lisa was right about them fermenting. You do not want to be downwind of that wheelbarrow. – And yet, since I planted them in fall, I have found time to deadhead this patch of violas once a month.

Violas Violas and butterflyAll I can say is, it’s a lot more fun to play in the flowers than to take out the trash, and I do what I like and procrastinate what I don’t.

I’m thrilled with the violas. They have bloomed non-stop since I put them in the ground. The credit belongs to the unseasonably warm weather and the 12 inch fence that keeps out the bunnies. Yesterday was a spectacular 68 degrees. I was playing in the garden when I noticed this butterfly. At first I was thrilled at what I consider a sure sign of spring. But then I thought, “It’s too early for spring. Shouldn’t you still be sleeping in your cocoon?” Now I’m a little concerned.

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Blueberry flowerThis is the first daffodil. It’s from the mix I planted last fall.

Daffodil I wish I could treat my garden like my kids. I’d say, “It’s still too early. Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you when it’s time.”

Posted in I love this plant, What's Blooming? | Leave a comment

Just in Case

Just in case you are feeling bad because you still have some lingering Christmas decorations you haven’t put away yet…

 
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Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima 'Wind Whispers')

I really like this Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima 'Wind Whispers'), but that pumpkin needs to hit the compost pile.

Posted in Container Gardening | 2 Comments

When will I ever learn?

The first year I went to the cut-your-own Christmas tree farm, my main objective was to get a very tall tree. Admiring my selection in the open field, I never imagined how overpowering it would be once I moved it inside. The problem was the circumference at the base. It was enormous. It took up most of the living room. Only one person could watch TV from the couch, and they had to scrunch up against the armrest. I have learned my lesson with Christmas trees, and I hope this week has taught me something similar about landscape trees. River birch

A few weeks ago I bought a spectacular balled and burlapped river birch from Heatherly Farms. River birch is a native tree with wonderful exfoliating bark. Flowers come and go, but this tree will look good all year. It also ranks very high on Tallamy’s list. I borrowed a dolly from my neighbors, but when I showed up at the nursery Robin said, “That tree is laughing at your dolly. Do you want to borrow mine?” I do not mean to imply Robin loans things out willy-nilly. I’m a regular.

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Jesse left to go back to college soon after helping me plant this fabulous river birch.

This was my first experience planting a tree this size. Thinking back to all the gardening shows I’ve watched, they always use a crew of 4 or 5. My crew was Jesse, the dolly and me. It wasn’t easy, but we did it. The first planting of 2012 is complete, but as far as planting goes, 2011 is going to be hard to beat. In 2011 I added 116 new lines to my spreadsheet. The number of plants added is much higher because when I planted 3 Nellie R. Stevens hollies, I only added one line on the spreadsheet. Here’s the breakdown of what’s new in my garden for 2011: 2 trees, 23 shrubs, 8 annuals and 83 perennials. I know what you’re thinking, “I wonder how many of those are a result of Peggy’s plant ho abilities.” The answer is 27.

Posted in I love this plant, Plant Ho | Leave a comment

Parsley

ParsleyI’m usually interested in what I’ve accomplished, but even I’m getting tired of reviewing 2011. Let’s talk about something else. My most recent article for Smith Lake Living Magazine was about winter herbs, and you can read it on this page. In the article I discuss the super food qualities of my favorite winter herb, parsley, but I just learned something new; it’s also a great detox-er. And following the season of cheer with a season of dieting and healthy resolutions is a long tradition that I’m not about to brake. 

ParsleyAbove is what my 4 x 8 feet parsley bed looks like in January. The large plants are what I’ve been harvesting since mid-summer. In early spring I’ll let two of these plants go to seed. The flowers attract beneficial insects, and letting the seed mature insures I’ll never buy parsley plants or seed again. The small plants at the back of the bed were seedlings moved here last fall. Next January they will look just like the large plants.

Parsley seedlingsThis is how thick the seedlings come up. Instead of trying to thin this mess, I transplanted the nicest ones to the bed in the previous picture. I also gave away clumps to friends or picked out seedlings and potted them into individual containers. In spring, I will close my eyes and hoe the remaining plants into the soil. I get through it by remembering crop rotation is important, and I already have an entire bed of parsley for 2012, so I don’t need anymore.

Parsley after harvest

A large parsley plant just after harvest. I cut the large outer leaves, and let the center keep growing so I can harvest again in early summer.

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I had mixed feelings last summer as I sat on the front porch and watched the swallowtail butterfly flit among my parsley plants. I had a pretty good idea what she was up to. I’m not going to lie, her babies did some damage. There were a few plant casualties, but many made it through. That’s all the more reason to plant lots of parsley in many different areas of your garden. The caterpillars won’t find it all. And even though it is annoying to watch a nice big plant become a bunch of bare stems, please leave the caterpillars alone. They are an important food source for baby birds, and the butterflies bring fluttering beauty to the summer garden. 

Butterfly

These two images are the same butterfly. I’m not sure what type of butterfly this is, so I don’t mean to imply it is the adult of the caterpillar that eats my parsley. I just felt the post needed some butterfly pictures. 

Posted in Delicious!! | 8 Comments

2010 vs 2011

It was mid summer when I had the idea for this post and starting taking pictures. I wanted to compare the 6 2010 pictures Alabama Gardener Magazine printed in the article ‘My Favorite Place on Earth’ to the same pictures in 2011.

My idea was to show 2010 next to 2011 so you could easily see the improvements, but it wasn’t easy. After spending many hours either wrestling with glitchy blogging software or trying to learn a new picture editing program, I finally succeeded only to find that in most cases the improvements were minor and not very interesting, certainly not worth shrinking the pictures. So if you want to see what these views looked like in 2010, you can go to the ‘My Favorite Place on Earth’ page. Here’s how they looked in 2011.

Hidden Hills Garden

There are only a few minor improvements to the border garden.

 

Hidden Hills Garden
The kids don’t like it when I call this my pot garden.

If you want to see what this looks like early in the summer, or know what plants I used in these pots, look at my blog ‘Container Gardening – part 1’.

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Hidden Hills Garden

The front garden is my favorite.

Hidden Hills Garden

We can hear water gently flowing into the pond as we sit on the front porch.

Hidden Hills Garden - pond

I didn't plant the nicotia in the lower right. I usually pull it when it pops up in random places, but I kinda like it here.

 

The kids don't like it when I call this my pot garden.The kids don't like it when I call this my pot garden. Every spring I have a lot of fun planting the garage. By the end of summer you can't tell everything is in pots. I've posted pictures of this area before, so if you want to know what the plants are, look at Container Gardening part .After losing trees last spring, this area gets a lot more afternoon sun, and the huge kimberly queen ferns had to move to the star light lounge. This dark leaf elephant ear (Colocosia escelenta, 'Diamond Head') is spectacular. He came this spring from Plant Delights Nursery in a 4 inch pot.I didn't plant the nicotia in the lower right. I usually pull it when it pops up in random places, but I kinda like it here.

The picture on the left is from 2010 and the right is from 2011.

I showed both years so you can see how many trees we lost. We took down some to let more light into the vegetable garden, and then the spring storms took the rest. The above 6 pictures were the same views as the ones used in the article.

These final pictures give you a better feel for the changes in the woodland garden.

Hidden Hills Garden

The 2010 view from the sidwalk into the woodland garden.

I think the woodland garden needs a new name.
Hidden Hills Garden

2011

 
 

Posted in The Big Picture | 4 Comments

A New Year

Happy New Year!! Time to review old goals and set new ones. These were my gardening goals for 2011:

• Become state certified as a landscape designer

I’ve changed my mind about this. I’m a ‘go with the flow’ girl, and right now my life is flowing more towards garden writing than garden designing. Here’s a bit of exciting news I haven’t mentioned yet. I have finagled my way into being assigned a hot plant article for every issue of Alabama Gardener magazine in 2012. – Thanks so much Jennifer!! – What makes this even more thrilling is that it ups my ability to get free plants! And I’ve told you before how I feel about free plants. – Hello My Name is Peggy – When I asked Southern Living plants for one of those new Early Bird crapemyrtles, that are supposed to bloom for up to 120 days, they said, “What color, and how many of each, and would you like anything else?” – I’m grinning ear to ear just writing about this. – I didn’t want to be greedy, so I just got the one white and the one lavender and the one purple rhododendron

Southgate Rhododendron 'Radiance'

'Radiance' rhododendron is part of the new Southgate series that are advertised as more tolerant of our heat and humidity. They sent me a nice one with lots of flower buds. 🙂

 I mentioned meeting Dan, president of Terra Nova nurseries, in an earlier blog, There have been several more emails between us, and now he calls me ‘plant ho’. I like it. It suits me. In fact, I’m adding it as a new category. And yes, he is sending me lots of fabulous plants this spring.

Getting back on topic, I’d still like to do just 1 or 2 designs per year, and I found a loophole in the certification law. If I don’t get paid, I don’t need to be certified. So I ask for a donation to the botanical gardens. I get to design and volunteer at the same time. Win-Win

Cindy's backyard - before

Cindy's backyard was a blank slate.

Cindy's backyard - after

The design turned out very nice, and Cindy likes it.

 

• Have a more successful vegetable garden

I’ve done well with this goal. I sent off soil samples and found that the soil was very acidic. I added as much lime as possible without burning plants, and I’ll add more this coming spring. Dale installed a watering system, and we cleared trees to let in more light.

• Add a bottle tree

Budgetary restrictions require this be moved to a five year goal.
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Gaillardia 'Mesa Yellow'

Blanket flower (Gaillardia 'Mesa Yellow') is still blooming on New Years Eve.

• Complete a large expansion of my NW border

I scaled this back from ‘large’ to ‘small’, but it still looks nice. I have to cut myself some slack on this one. I spent much of spring moving plants when Mother Nature changed the lighting in the large front bed from shade to sun. Very unexpected and very unappreciated.

I grew this blanket flower (Gaillardia, ‘Mesa Yellow’) from seed last year. I started them inside under the grow lights about 6 weeks before frost free. They’ve been blooming since late summer. The expansion includes 5 of these, but I left room for a few more because they are fabulous.

• Excavate and plant the water garden

Here’s another goal that needs to be moved to a long term list. The area I want to convert to a rain garden is very weedy. My plan was to kill everything with solar sterilization. It’s not working at all. Instead of being killed, the weeds like the green house effect and are flourishing under the plastic. I even saw a bloom yesterday. I’m not sure how I’ll proceed.

• Work on the woodland garden

This is my greatest achievement and deserves an entire post. Stay tuned.

• Continue to move stuff around and plant new stuff

In hindsight, this was a stupid goal. I do this every year without fail. I must have included it so I would have at least one success. Yeah me!

Overall I’m happy with my accomplishments in 2011. Some are very different from what I had imagined, but that’s what makes life interesting.

I better stop working on my blog and go get ready for the party. Happy New Year everyone!

Posted in I love this plant, Plant Ho, What's Blooming? | 6 Comments

Christmas and the Creek

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I sure did! The best part is that all three of our kids are still home. And just like my garden, sometimes family is the rose, and occasionally it’s the thorn, but it’s always interesting, and it’s always loved. 

Jesse Hill

Jesse is so goofy sometimes.

Hidden Hills Garden

The view from the pier

I have been wanting to post pictures of the creek for awhile. It’s one of my favorite things about this property. It runs most of the year, but in the heat of summer you can walk along the dry creek bed.
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You cross the creek when you come to my house. (In my written directions I refer to this as “crossing the hollow.” For some reason that makes my Northern friends laugh.) 

I try to enhance what I’ve been given, but in this case nature is doing pretty good without my help. It could benefit from a little clean up, but that is very low on the priority list. Here are a few more pictures along the creek.

Posted in The Big Picture | Leave a comment

I’m not Just Whistling Dixie

 

Nandina and Ilex vomitoriaI followed through on my previous blog. During Thanksgiving break I had Jesse and his college friend dig out two of my invasive nandina. I have replanted the area with this great native plant.

Ilex vomotoria

Ilex vomitoria 'Penula'

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Nandina

Not all of the first nandina hit the burn pile. I cut off the berries so it couldn't spread its weedy seed, and then I used the foliage to put together this pot. Two weeks later it still looks good.

The third and final nandina is living on borrowed time. He’s only here so I can use him for his spectacular foliage, then he will be dug out and tossed on the burn pile with his brothers. I’ll fill a pot with used potting soil and stick the nandina branches in it. It will still be looking good on Christmas. I can hardly believe it’s that close.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Not Enough People Are Talking About This

I have been gardening a long time. For many years I have subscribed to about a half dozen magazines and read most of them cover to cover. I earned my master gardener certificate. I’m a garden club member and a garden consultant. Yet I learned something at the Central South Native Plant Conference that I never knew before, and it’s not just a little thing. This is HUGE.

Nandina

I almost titled this blog ‘I Drank the Kool-aid,’ but I didn’t want the negative connotations associated with Jonestown. What I mean is that I’ve made a commitment to a new way of thinking. Instead of drinking poison, I did something many might consider almost as extreme. I had Jesse dig these lovely, but foreign and invasive nandina out so I can replace them with native plants.

Here are the things I knew before the conference: insects eat plants, and many animals rely on insects and/or the animals that eat insects. Here is the thing I had no idea about: insects won’t eat many of the foreign plants we commonly put in our gardens. In fact, there is a plant – I wish I could remember the name – the Japanese version looks so much like the native that a butterfly will lay eggs on it, thinking it will be a food source for her children. As the newly hatched caterpillars feed, they are poisoned by this imposter and die. Isn’t that one of the saddest things you ever heard?

Maple

I never noticed the bug damage to my maple trees before. Now I think it adds to their beauty.

Douglas Tallamy, author of the book “Bringing Nature Home,” was the keynote speaker at the conference. He used the plight of birds to illustrate the problem. There were a lot of scary statistics about the decline of bird populations, and if we as a society don’t change course, it’s going to get a lot worse. About 99% of birds rely on insects and/or spiders (which eat insects) to feed their young. If we want to save the birds, we must plant things that feed the insects that feed the birds. Plants labeled as pest-free are bad. They aren’t pests, they’re bird food. For me, it’s a revelation. Hallelujah! I have seen the light!

Dogwood

Everyone likes my dogwood: me, the insects and the birds that have already stripped most of the berries.


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Here is the good news: although the average person can do very little about so many of the global issues we face today, in this case, the answer is the average person. The suburbanization of America doesn’t necessarily mean a loss of habitat for insects and other wildlife. Let’s do away with much of our foreign grass lawns, remove the invasive plants and use more natives. To get even more bang for your gardening buck, consult Tallamy’s list that ranks natives based on how many caterpillar species they feed. – Birds think caterpillars are super delicious.

Oak

Oaks are at the top of Tallamy's list.

Most people are very busy, so I try and keep my blogs short. Please read the book for more eye-opening information. Your garden matters, and what you plant in your garden matters. I want to end this blog with the words Tallamy wrote when he signed my book, “Garden as if life depended on it!”

 

Bradford Pear

Nothing ate this bradford pear. Even if it was a great tree (which it is not) that would be sufficient reason to hate it.

Posted in Tips and Stuff | 6 Comments