Stranded at the Philly Flower Show, plus Hits, Misses and Fun Facts by Susan Harris

Rain garden at entrance to the Show

What with snow and some winds from hell, it wasn’t a great year for the Philadelphia Flower Show, dependent as it is on decent weather to bring in the crowds that fund the PHS’s many worthy projects. But let’s get to how the weather affected ME, shall we?

I thought I was so smart this year to book an Amtrak ride from Baltimore to Philadelphia and back – barely over an hour’s trip – rather than driving. Plus, I was attending on the preview day (for members and media) when it’s free and more importantly, the crowds are light enough to SEE stuff.

Long story short, the snow and wind forced Amtrak to cancel all trains in the entire Northeast Corridor, leaving me stranded for the night in a strange-to-me city with an unfathomable public transit system.

But somewhere in the chaos I made introduced myself to a fellow traveler who, in addition to her other charms, had the good sense to book a (very nice) hotel room right away, which she was willing to share with me. She also happened to know her way around the city and its various train systems. I simply attached myself to her, and made a new gardening friend in the bargain.

Here’s my rescuer on the left – Nancy Blois, an avid gardener active in the Maryland Horticulture Society. She’s shown with our other roommate for the night, her niece Blair.

Another highlight was similarly of the human variety – meeting up with a few other intrepid garden communicators. From left in this photo by Kirk Brown, they’re Peggy Anne  Montgomery, Marcia Tate, Louise Clarke, Ruth Clausen, yours truly and Dan Benarcik. Little did we know then what a trial it would be getting home.

But about the show, with the “Wonders of Water” theme this year. I wasn’t too stressed to enjoy the show gardens, above and below.

The theme of water includes dry gardens, too.

And water-themed special effects.

My favorites are usually the smaller displays, like these rooms with plants and water features. (Above, there’s a water wall left of the bookcase, according to my source – Kirk Brown again.)

There must be a water feature somewhere on this “Zen Balcony,” though I can’t find it in this shot.

And smaller still, I always enjoy the “Pressed Plant” competition.

And would you believe plant-and-water-themed hats, jewelry and handbags? What a hoot.

I was intrigued by the exhibits about water in other countries, like India and Mexico. “Mexico has become a bottled water country.” Who knew?

Misses

At the risk of pissing off people I know and like, and with the qualification that it’s just one opinion, here goes.

Titled “Spring Thaw,” it looks hokey and fake.

Meh.

Gratuitous color with no connection to the theme?  Another meh.

Beached old boats with a few plants stuck here and there.

And my least favorite exhibit – turfgrass with a croquet set and signage that reads, “Sometimes prevention is not enough and repellent becomes essential…DEET and Picaridin (in Avon Skin So Soft) are both effective and safe if used correctly…” and so on. Wtf?

Fun Facts

From the press hand-out I learned that:

• $65 million is the economic impact of the Flower Show on the Greater Philly region.
• $1 million is raised each year by the Show to support community greening programs.
• 3,500 is the number of volunteers it takes to put on the Show.
• 42,000 is how many hors d’oeuvres were served at the Preview Party, where 1,152 bottles of wine were also served. (How did I miss that?)

Stranded at the Philly Flower Show, plus Hits, Misses and Fun Facts originally appeared on Garden Rant on March 8, 2018.

from Gardening http://gardenrant.com/2018/03/stranded-at-the-philly-flower-show-plus-hits-misses-and-fun-facts.html

Checking in on GardenWeb by Elizabeth Licata

 

When I first starting looking online for garden advice in the early 2ks, the first places I visited were gardenweb.com and the mail order ratings (Garden Watchdog) on Dave’s Garden. For a brief period, I considered using the garden journal option on DG, but then I found Blogger, which seemed better for writers. Over time, I stopped checking GardenWeb, and moved to the discussions I found in the blogosphere—but GW was instrumental in first helping me identify other garden blogs. GW was purchased by iVillage in 2005, and seemed to putter along, although its “voices” blog directory faltered. In 2015, the GardenWeb forums were purchased by the Houzz home design site; you can find them here.

I took a quick tour of the forums recently, and, overall, I’d have to say it’s a pretty quiet scene, with some hot spots. One poster, lamenting the lack of activity on many forums, states “I wish Facebook didn’t exist,” correctly identifying social media as the preoccupation that has decimated forums and, to a lesser extent, blogs, as online meeting places. Another poster forlornly notes, “I stopped by because I was looking for help turning fire extinguishers into chimes.” I hope he or she finds this information; I feel confident it is out there.

However, I did find some viable and recent discussions in landscape design, antique roses, and permaculture forums, which had been among my favorites, though some categories, like compost/mulch, seem to have disappeared. You’re also bothered by a repetitive popup asking you to join Houzz and the navigation is annoying. Visitors to Houzz will not see the GW forums unless they click on the “stories and advice” tab, and the back arrow is nonfunctional most of the time. On the other hand, Houzz does host full articles on gardening topics, most written by knowledgeable professionals, as far as I can tell, and there are links to these in the forums.

In the end, this is a story of survival. In spite of Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, the GardenWeb forums are still here, and, in some areas, still lively. I hope they stay that way.

Checking in on GardenWeb originally appeared on Garden Rant on March 6, 2018.

from Gardening http://gardenrant.com/2018/03/checking-in-on-gardenweb.html

Spring, Succulents and Scorching Blooms

Here in California, a spring garden’s most vivid blooms often are those of succulent ice plants. Aloes, bulbine and numerous arid-climate companions are bright and beautiful from March through mid-May. Increasing temps tend to put the kibosh on delicate spring flowers. If you live near the coast, you’ll enjoy a longer spring, but you may not get the sun and heat that makes many flowers blaze.

Spring is the season of flowers, so get outside and enjoy them. Soon enough, come summer, those hot colors will fade and your garden will go back to being mainly shapes and textures—which of course succulents do best. What many people  don’t realize is that flowers are ephemeral—they flash and fade, and then you’re left with foliage. (I like to say that sentence in my talks. Try it. The alliteration is luscious.)

Above: A normally uninteresting corner of my garden is stunning in spring because of all the flowers. Red ones at center are Sparaxis tricolor, a bulb from South Africa. Easy-grow shrub daisies (Euryops pectinatus) echo the yellow margins of Agave americana ‘Marginata’—which though nearly engulfed, still makes a bold statement.

California poppies pop in spring. These bright orange annuals reseed every year. Behind them is Drosanthemum floribundum (rosea ice plant). Adding contrasting form is spineless opuntia. Almost incidentally, fruit on citrus trees repeat the poppies, and elevate their color to eye level.

Scilla peruviana, returns every March. It produces large, purple-blue snowflake flowers and then disappears for nine months. It was planted by the previous owner and I don’t do a thing to keep it going. But like all bulbs, it leaves behind droopy, messy foliage which you need to leave because it feeds the bulb for the next g0-round.

And as for ice plant, don’t plant just one variety. Combine several—not curbside, though, lest they cause an accident.

Related articles:

Succulent garden design essentials

How to grow succulents

Debra’s own garden 

My succulent meditation garden

YouTube video: Debra Lee Baldwin’s Succulent Garden in Spring.

Flowering Plants in My Spring Garden: Inland Southern CA, Zone 9b

Spring (peak): mid-March to early April

Annual: California poppies

Bulbs:

Babiana stricta (baboon flower)

Scilla peruviana

         Sparaxis tricolor

Succulents:

Aeonium arboreum

         Aloe maculata

         Bulbine frutescens ‘Hallmark’

Gasteria sp.

Ice Plants:

Delosperma congestum ‘Gold Nugget’

Drosanthemum floribundum

                  Drosanthemum speciosum

         Sedum ‘Firestorm’

Perennial shrubs:

Euryops pectinatus

Gazanias (African daisies)

Pelargoniums (geraniums)

Rose, climbing: ‘Altissimo’

Wisteria

 

from Gardening https://gardeninggonewild.com/spring-succulents-and-scorching-blooms/

The Search for Arborist Wood Chips by Susan Harris

Arborist wood chips, from One Yard Revolution video

Arborist wood chips are in the gardening ether these days, with Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott herself (of Garden Professor and myth-busting fame) leading the charge to promote them above all over types of mulch. (Details in this brochure.) Just recently she’s debunked myths about them on a Joe Gardener podcast.

There’s been much discussion of arborist wood chips on the Garden Professors Facebook group over its lifetime, with more converts singing its praises. One member of the group is the terrific gardening YouTuber Patrick Dolan, whose channel One Yard Revolution: Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening has over 116,000 subscribers, which is a lot for gardening.

Dolan recently posted this video citing the many virtues of the stuff, and crediting Chalker-Scott as his source. They’re summarized in the description below the video:

7 reasons why arborist wood chips are the best wood chip mulch for your vegetable garden: they support a broad diversity of soil life and promote healthier plants; their diversity in materials and particle sizes results in less compaction compared to uniform mulches; they are large enough to remain on the soil surface; they don’t tie up nitrogen in the root zone; they break down slowly; they are local and sustainable; they are the least expensive option.

And here’s some great news – he found a website for locating arborist wood chips either free or cheap! It’s GetChipDrop.com 

Perusing the comments on the video, I found plenty of advocates, including one who wrote, “Wood chips changed my life.”

One commenter suggests yet another benefit – that wood chips they absorb water, while bark mulch repels water.

Asked where Dolan uses arborist wood chips in his vegetable garden, we learn that he mulches “pathways, perennials, and large annuals with wood chips. We don’t use them on beds of intensively planted closely spaced annuals.”

One commenter asked if the guitar introduction on the One Yard Revolution channel is by Dolan himself. Yep, that him.

For this viewer, it took seeing arborist wood chips in the video to understand what the hell they are – bits of leaves, branches, twigs, bark and trunk from a variety of tree species, in a variety of sizes.

And it turns out that I may have been getting arborist wood chips in my latest mulch run to my city’s tree-and yard-waste dump site. Here’s a shot of my latest haul, looking pretty close to the ideal. Most times of the year, however, the pile this came from is just leafmold mulch – chopped-up and partially decomposed leaves – or even worse, leaves that are fully decomposed into compost.

For a somewhat dressier look, I’ve been pitch-forking carloads from a pile of wood chips provided by my housing co-op. I’m afraid they don’t qualify as arborist-type, though – too uniform, and I see no signs of bark or leaves among the chips.

So how can local governments (or co-ops) recycling tree and yard waste create the super-special mix we’re coming to know as arborist wood chips? Anyone know? (I’ll also ask the plant geeks in the Garden Professors group.)

The Search for Arborist Wood Chips originally appeared on Garden Rant on March 2, 2018.

from Gardening http://gardenrant.com/2018/03/the-search-for-arborist-wood-chips.html

Ask your Representative to Support the Young Farmer Agenda

By enacting the Young Farmer Agenda, Congress can inspire and support an entire generation of young producers, protect the resources they steward, strengthen the communities they feed, and revitalize the rural economies they underpin. Will you call your Member of Congress today to ask them to support the Young Farmer Agenda?

from Gardening http://www.youngfarmers.org/ask-your-representative-to-support-the-young-farmer-agenda/

Alexandra Campbell on YouTube Gardening in England by Garden Rant

Award-winning English writer Alexandra Campbell, recently described what she calls YouTube Gardening in this post  on her blog The Middlesized Garden. Like me, she complains about there not being enough good gardening videos for her readers – even there in a lively gardening culture like England’s!

She wrote that “the YouTube gardening scene currently seems dominated by the US, Australia, Canada and India/Pakistan. They’re interesting and often useful channels, except when the weather is too different.”

Which is exactly my complaint – in reverse – because searching on YouTube produces a preponderance of videos from British television, usually with Alan Titchmarsh.

So to learn more about what videos pop up for YouTube searchers from England, and more about this interesting woman, I suggested to Alexandra that we Skype, and she was all-in.

English Gardening YouTubers

From left, Katie at Lavender and Leeks; Tanya at Lovely Greens; and Sean James Cameron

According to her, what the English do find on their YouTube searches are lots of allotment (community garden) videos because allotments are a big deal there, and “cool.” (There are TV shows about allotments and even allotment competitions!) One allotment YouTube channel she likes is  Lavender and Leeks. I checked it out and noticing that some are 30 minutes long, I imagine that Brits have longer attention spans than we do.

For videos about ornamental home gardening she likes Tanya at Lovely Greens: Gardening, Beauty and Bee-keeping, a channel that’s “picking up new subscribers by the thousands.” Tanya won a week’s training at a YouTube Creator Camp designed to encourage successful new YouTubers. (Tanya recounts the experience here.)

Alexandra also recommends Sean James Cameron, a “top YouTube gardening influencer.”

She also likes videos by Charles Dowding, who’s famous for his no-dig gardening technique that’s based on his own research. And of course BBC’s Gardener’s World is great, though it doesn’t seem to be available anywhere for us deprived Americans – even on BBC America.

Finally, she recommends the Royal Horticultural Society YouTube Channel, which is so exhaustive, it posted 14 hours of coverage for last year’s Chelsea Flower Show. (More proof of the superior attention span of the English?)

Moving on to the not-so-great on YouTube, I heartily agree with Alexandra here:

There are lots of videos which are essentially slide shows with music, often called something like ’20 Small Backyard Garden Ideas.’ There are also channels where people peer fuzzily at the lens and lose track of what they’re saying. They wave the camera about so much that it’s like viewing a garden from a small boat being tossed in a storm. All very like some of my own videos admittedly…

But I don’t believe that last self-deprecating bit because I’ve seen her own year-old YouTube channel, and her videos are delightful. They include a Middle-Sized Garden of the Month, and monthly tours of her own garden, somewhere in England that’s equivalent to our Zone 8. Looks damn good for February 1!

She records the videos on her phone, with one external mic and another to use indoors for voice-over, and edits in Adobe Premiere Pro. About her videos she told me “I lost my nerve for about six months” but “rediscovered my mojo” thanks to encouragement from no less than Monty Don himself! (She was able to chat with him at an event for his newest book.)

Alexandra is very multi-media, with her 9 novels and 10 nonfiction books, her garden blog, freelance writing, plus coaching others in writing/blogging. Video came next for her because it’s “an important part of building a brand.” She’s also a fan of blogs because unlike Facebook, etc, blogs are something the creator actually owns.

Alexandra Campbell on YouTube Gardening in England originally appeared on Garden Rant on February 23, 2018.

from Gardening http://gardenrant.com/2018/02/alexandra-campbell-on-youtube-gardening-in-england.html

Starting over with the terrarium by Elizabeth Licata

Here it is when it was given to me in 2008.

I have always looked at plant failure as an opportunity, but I held out against replanting my terrarium for months. It looked … ok. At first, the fact that one of the succulent varieties was pretty much taking over the thing was fine. But eventually I had to recognize that the stems were browning at the bottom, making it impossible to prune them to healthy areas. After almost ten years, it was time.

Close-up with the tiny new plants

So everything got pulled out, and I put in a few new plants, still succulents. These are not necessarily recommended for terrarium planting, but I find that their hardy natures work well in that environment. Some years ago, I lined the edges with rocks, holding the cloche away from the base enough to let some air in, and get rid of condensation issues. Which it does.

Will I get another ten years from the new array? Maybe not—and that will be an opportunity to try some different plants. Maybe I’ll finally have to read my terrarium book.

Starting over with the terrarium originally appeared on Garden Rant on February 22, 2018.

from Gardening http://gardenrant.com/2018/02/starting-over-with-the-terrarium.html

Designing with Cold-Climate Succulents

From my YouTube video: “Sedum Chicks at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show”

Becky Sell of Sedum Chicks plants cold-hardy succulents in repurposed wood-and-metal containers, hypertufa pots, wreaths and more. She grows the plants, too, where she lives in Turner, Oregon, near the Washington border.

Becky’s compositions can overwinter outdoors in northerly climates (Zones 4 to 8), providing the potting medium drains well. Cold-hardy succulents such as stonecrops and hens-and-chicks will also grow in Zones 8 and 9 if protected from heat in excess of 85 degrees and scorching sun. Some varieties, notably shrub sedums, die to the ground in any locale and come back the following spring.

In her designs, Becky often combines sedums (stonecrops), sempervivums (hens-and-chicks), and Delosperma ice plants. Of a little-known Rosularia species with soft, light green leaves, she says, “When people ask which plant is my favorite, this is definitely on the list.”

There are about 35 species in the genus Rosularia. The sempervivum-like succulents come from Europe, the Himalayas, and northern Africa.

Find more photos of succulents for Northern climates—including many of Becky’s favorites—on my website’s new Cold-Hardy Succulents page. I photographed the designs shown here during the Northwest Flower & Garden Show at the Sedum Chicks booth, which won an award for outstanding visual appeal.

Below: This bright red vertical container was a hit. At right, I darkened the photo to make plant IDs, in white letters, stand out, so you can see them better.

Below: Sempervivum ‘Jade Rose’ repeats the teal blue of a Sedum spathulifolium cultivar.

Below: In a cold-hardy wreath, Becky surrounded a large sempervivum rosette with smaller sedums, Delosperma cooperi (at lower left), and Sedum confusum (lower right).

Below: I’ve ID’d the three sedums in this wreath at right. Becky gives her plants “hair cuts” to keep them compact.

“I like its dark edges,” Becky says of Sempervivum ‘Black’, shown below in dramatic contrast with chartreuse Sedum ‘Lemon Coral’. At lower right is a succulent native to Oregon: Sedum oreganum.

Becky and husband Paul create planters from repurposed wood and metal. The bronzy succulents below are Sedum confusum, which blushes red-orange in a sunny location. When less confused, it’s bright apple green.

For wreaths and vertical gardens, Becky uses sphagnum moss to help hold plants in place. She emphasizes the importance of good drainage, which is true for all succulents, but especially those in rainy climates. Succulents from cold climates tend to have thin or small leaves and want a richer potting soil than thicker-leaved varieties from desert regions. Becky recommends Black Gold’s organic mix.

In my YouTube video, “Sedum Chicks at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show,” Becky explains how to select, cultivate and beautifully combine cold-hardy succulents.

 

Learn more about succulents for northerly climates:

On my website:

— Find tips for care and cultivation, plus resources at How to Grow Succulents in Northerly Climates

— See labeled varieties of excellent, readily available varieties on my Cold-Hardy Succulents page.

On my YouTube channel:

— Growing Succulents in Northerly Climates: Part One of my presentation at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show. See gorgeous new Sempervivum cultivars and inspiring, eye-catching design ideas.

— Growing Succulents in Northerly Climates, Part Two of my presentation at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show. More cool succulents for cold climates and how to select, grow and design with them.

— Sedum Chicks at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show. Pacific NW designer/grower Becky Sell explains how to select, care for and beautifully combine cold-hardy sedums, semps and other succulents.

— Make a Frost-Hardy Succulent Wreath with Hens-and-Chicks. Simple steps to a stunning wreath!

In my books:

— See the Cold-Climate Succulent Gardens section of Designing with Succulents (2nd ed.).

— Find info in all my books about succulents in the genera Sedum, Sempervivum, Delosperma and more.

from Gardening https://gardeninggonewild.com/designing-with-cold-climate-succulents/

On the County Line

By Eva Moss
Last January, I began leasing 16 acres of historical farmland in Randolph County, a few seconds west of the Chatham County line. Since 1988 the county line has been a divider along party lines: Chatham has consistently voted Democrat and Randolph, Republican.

from Gardening http://www.youngfarmers.org/on-the-county-line/

Saving Seeds for Biodiversity by Thomas Christopher

It’s called the ‘Mostoller Wild Goose’ bean.  Sarah Mostoller found the first seeds in the crop of a wild goose that her son had shot in a mill race in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in 1865.  Sarah planted the rescued beans the following spring and found them to be a particularly productive pole type whose harvest proved excellent for baking.  A specialist in rare beans obtained seed from her great grandson in the 1970’s and in 1981 he in turn donated some offspring to the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa.  And now the Seed Saver’s Exchange is sending a sample to Svalbard, Norway to be stored in a tunnel 500 feet beneath an icy mountain just 800 miles from the North Pole.

Photo courtesy of Seed Savers Exchange

This bean is just one of 2,000 collections that Seed Savers has sent for safe keeping to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.  Impressive as this number is, it represents only a small portion of the 20,000 varieties of heirloom food crops that Seed Savers Exchange has collected over the last 45 years. In a world of increasing agricultural uniformity –  over the last century, the United States has lost as much as 90 percent of it food crop cultivars – Seed Savers Exchange has been a leading advocate for biodiversity, preserving some 20,000 varieties and cultivars that otherwise would likely have become extinct.   Aside from the unique flavors such collections provide, they also offer adaptations to different climates and soils, and often disease resistance that could prove invaluable in the future.

In the past, Seed Savers has preserved its collection in its own vault in Iowa and at the U.S. Department of Agriculture seed bank in Fort Collins, Colorado.  Svalbard, however, provides a whole new level of security against the loss of diversity due to natural disasters, the effects of war, and changes in global farming practices.  With its dry atmosphere and permafrost, Svalbard naturally provides near ideal conditions for seed preservation, without risky dependence on refrigeration.

Seed Savers Exchange maintains rights to the collections dispersed to Svalbard and Fort Collins and continues to maintain its own collection in Iowa.    Members of the public can order seeds and plants from the Seed Savers Exchange catalogue of over 600 varieties; members have access to an exchange list for sharing and swapping thousands of seed types often unavailable anywhere else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saving Seeds for Biodiversity originally appeared on Garden Rant on February 19, 2018.

from Gardening http://gardenrant.com/2018/02/saving-seeds-for-biodiversity.html