Look To The Skies!

Undoubtedly there are some of you that have already noticed the sliver of a moon rising just after dusk in the southwestern sky the last few nights. And maybe you've also noticed the two bright stars in the same general vicinity, only higher. The moon is the moon, but the stars aren't stars at all. They're planets.

The brightest is Venus, as you might guess. The other one is our largest planet, Jupiter. And just after dusk on December 1st, they're all getting together for a party. Venus and Jupiter actually pass each other in the night on November 30th (that's tonight), but you can witness their closeness for several days after, and tomorrow night, the moon will be right there with them, making for a most dramatic celestial event. It will begin about 30 minutes after sunset and continue until they all three set about 2½ hours later.


Unfortunately, we'll be experiencing cloudy skies here, but we still enjoyed what we saw last night as we left Walmart while out and about, doing some Christmas shopping. We heard others talking about it too, as we passed by them.

If any of you are lucky enough to witness the event tomorrow night and are able to snap a photo or two of it, maybe you could post it on your blog and let me know through the comments here. I'll post links to your blogs so those that have to miss it (like me) can still see what it looked like. Venus and Jupiter won't come this close to each other again until March 2012.

They actually aren't close at all. On December 1st, the moon will be 250,000 miles away from Earth, Venus will be 93 million miles away, and Jupiter is way out there at 540 million miles.

Happy stargazing!

Sunita in India has some wonderful photos of the event on her blog, The Urban Gardener: A Smilie Over Mumbai!

Joy in Ontario, Canada took a few and posted them on her blog, GardenJoy4Me: Squiggles in the Sky ... or is it down to me?

Amy in British Columbia, Canada has posted a crystal clear photo on her blog, Blossom: Magical Night Sky.

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Astronomical facts taken from Astronomy.com
Here is a good simulation of what it all looks like on each night.

Tropical Illusions

Winter is here. The calendar says it doesn't officially arrive for three more weeks, but the brisk winds and occasionally snow flurries don't pay attention to that. Neither do the two tropical hibiscus that are blooming in the house right now.


Both 'Reggae Breeze' and 'Carolina 'Breeze' are blooming, as they've done outside all summer. Blooms are fewer and both lose a fair amount of leaves when they're brought in for the winter, but they still have cheery orange faces that put a smile on mine.

'Carolina Breeze'

They'll eventually slow down to the point that there aren't any blooms at all because it's really hard to get enough natural light from even a south window during a northern winter. At that point, they'll be taken to the basement greenhouse, where they'll go semi-dormant in the cool temperatures. Next spring, they'll go back outside and they'll get all pretty with blooms again.

'Reggae Breeze'
(has the dark eye)

Not bad for plants that were purchased at KMart two years ago for five dollars each.

Holiday Traditions Live On

When I think of holiday traditions, I'm taken back to the early '60s, when Mom and Dad took me to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to see the Christmas lights downtown every year. And if those weren't fabulous enough, Wolf & Dessauer department store had window after window of animated displays of Christmas scenes. Ask anyone that's middle-aged that grew up around here (northeast Indiana, northwest Ohio, and southern Michigan) and it's likely that a bigger percentage of them remember traveling to Ft. Wayne to see it all, than don't.

In time, the store was sold, the lights were stored and I have no idea what happened to the animated scenes, but some years ago, the lighting was brought out of storage and on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, those lights are now ceremoniously lit to mark the official beginning of the Christmas season.

First, there's the Santa and his reindeer, which are mounted on the side of the National City Bank Building. The display was first lit in 1937, when it hung on the side of the W & D's department store building. The current display was recently converted from incandescent to LED lights, which means a savings of 90% in energy costs to keep its 24,717 lights lit.


Then there's the large Christmas tree that is mounted over Calhoun Street. In the 'olden days,' it was put directly over a downtown intersection on large crossbeams. That intersection was pretty special on regular days, too. At different times during the hour, you could cross the street diagonally instead of at right angles as you normally would. As a kid, I thought that was pretty cool. Now the tree is mounted over a crosswalk between buildings.

The other light display was a large wreath that also used to hang on the side of the Wolf & Dessauer store. Weighing 3½ tons, the wreath is 25 feet high and has more than 40,000 lights. It now hangs on the side of One Summit Square, the tallest building in Ft. Wayne.



I'm so thankful that someone saw the value of reviving these light displays and keeping traditions alive. Romie and I drove through downtown during the lighting Wednesday night, on our way to daughter Jenna's, where we spent Thanksgiving day. I jumped out of the car while Romie was stuck in all the traffic and I snapped some pictures of the festivities.

Christmas music was playing and the trees along the sidewalks were lit up with tiny lights and big shiny pieces of 'candy.' Hundreds of parents and their children were taking it all in and creating memories, just as my parents helped create my own memories - the ones I'm sharing with you now.

The only thing missing was some snowflakes drifting down gently out of the night sky...

Thanks and Blessings

Giving Thanks for the Blessings

of Friends, Family, Readers, and Fellow Gardeners

We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

Kylee & Romie

and

Simon, Baby, Boo, Luna, Sunny, Max, Jack, Jilly and Lola

That Hurt You A Lot More Than It Hurt Me!

Back when our girls were in Junior High School, they were required to do leaf collections. When I was their age, it was a bug collection that our science teacher wanted and no one was more excited than I was when I found a Buffalo Treehopper (Stictocephala bisonia). What a cool bug! I found it in our neighbor's huge garden. In fact, I found most of my collection there.

I never had to do the leaf collection, so it was kind of fun, running the girls all over kingdom come, trying to find all the different ones on their list. A park in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, went a long way towards helping Jenna find hers. She had a tryout for a travel softball team at Harrison Smith Park, where they have many of their trees labeled.

During the course of her leaf collection, I was the one who fell in love with various trees and their leaf shapes, and made a list of those that I wanted to acquire - Ginkgo, Tulip Poplar, and Sweet Gum. The Sweet Gum (Liquidambar sp.) was the first to put roots down here at Our Little Acre. It was about about four feet tall when we planted it and the next few years saw little growth. It appeared to be merely existing and finally, one summer the leaves just dried up and fell off, so due to its myriad of past problems, we figured the tree had died.

Romie tried to dig it up, but it had too many roots and it wasn't going to be easy, so he decided to just cut it off low on the trunk and get to the rest of it sometime later. Well, you know how that goes. I don't remember how much later it was - maybe even the next spring - but when he did get back to it, he called me over to have a look. That tree had started growing from below where he'd cut it!

We decided to let it go and see what it would do and what it has done over the last few years is grow into a nice tree. It's much nicer than it ever was before it was cut. The leaves aren't deformed, the bark looks normal, and it has grown several inches every year. It turns a beautiful red color in the fall.


As long as you don't look closely at its feet, you'd never know it had such a struggling start. If you do look closely, you'll see fall-blooming crocus coming up at its base. Maybe someday we'll have some spiny fruit from the Sweet Gum lying there.

The fruit of the Sweet Gum, which I call gumballs, is one of the fascinating things about the tree, although I've heard many people grumble about them. They're round and spiny and turn brown when they're ready to fall off the tree. There is a species of Liquidambar that doesn't produce fruit, however, and we may have one of those. Since Sweet Gum trees don't produce fruit until they're 20-30 years old, it will be some time before we know what we have.

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Photo of Buffalo Treehopper from Wikimedia Commons.
Photo of Sweet Gum fruit from Missouri State University.

The Cats Have Their Say

The kitties here at Our Little Acre took me aside the other day for a chat. It was clear that they had a bone to pick with me and since they don't demand much, other than food, water, clean litter, and a scritch behind the ears now and then, I was happy to listen to what they had to say...

"You're always showing off your garden stuff, but what about us? We are as much a part of the gardens as the flowers. What about us, huh, what about us? You point that camera at us every now and then, and we pose all nicely and everything and then what do you do with our pictures?"

"Like the time Jack scared you half to death when you didn't know he was above you in the tree until he meowed..."


"Or when he tried to show off his balancing skills on the top of the garage screen door..."



"And then there was the time Jilly jumped into the plants on the shelf. She didn't even hurt a single one! You try doing that!"



"Remember when Luna heard the baby wrens peeping in the birdhouse at the top of the dead tree? He really thought he was going to get them. But he should have known you wouldn't let that happen."



"You thought it was so cute when Max fell asleep in your flower pot. He thought it was just the right cozy size for curling up for a nap."



"You know how Boo is always wanting in the house? (We'll let you in on a secret -we all do. It's 'cause you guys are in there.) He got tired of waiting to be let in and fell asleep on the mat. You thought that was adorable for some reason."



"We know you take lots of pictures of those inside cats. We know they think they're special because they get to stay inside, but we know better. Take Baby, for instance. She thinks she's your bayyy-beeee just 'cause that's her name. But we know she gets in trouble sometimes too, like when she jumped to the top of the curio cabinet and tried to get Kara's fish."



"Now Simon - oh Simon. He really is the King of the Castle. He's the biggest one around here and he has the most hair, too. His face looks like an owl and that's kind of scary to us cats. Owls eat us, you know. We don't think he'd do that, but you never know."



"Sunny feels kind of neglected - you really should take more pictures of him. He can't help it if he doesn't do cute stuff. He's a little shy."



"Then there's the new girl in town - Lola. We call her Miss Priss."


"She pranced in here all skinny and sleek and everything and you guys made such a fuss over her. She thinks she's number one around here, but what she doesn't know is that you only did for her what you did for all of us. You took us in, fed us, gave us a home and loved us. And that's why we love you back. But you really should talk about us more on your blog."

"Oh, Lola said to ask, 'What's a blog?'"

Garden Geeks Are Going to Love This!

Whenever I'm asked for my e-mail address, I usually preface it with, "Now don't laugh..." and then give them my address. They don't laugh, but I'll be darned if they don't smile when I tell them it's gardengeek......@...... Well, hey, if I'm not in the garden, I can usually be found on the computer!

So imagine my excitement when a couple of weeks ago, I received a really cool gardening tool to test called EasyBloom by Plant Sense. It's an interactive device that evaluates growing conditions in your house or in your gardens and then can be connected via USB to your computer. Once connected, it uploads data it has collected to EasyBloom's web site. There it gives you helpful information about what specifically can be done to correct any unfavorable growing conditions, such as light, moisture, and temperature levels.

Last fall, I potted up my large coleus plants that had been in the ground all summer, and brought them in for the winter. I really hoped to keep them going all winter so I could plant them in the ground this past spring. Things went well until about February or so and then it was all downhill. Leaves were lost and the spindly stems were so pathetic, I had to throw them out.

With the help of EasyBloom, I hope to be able to save this year's coleus, which were even more beautiful than last year's. I'll also use it to check on other houseplants if I experience problems with them, but I'm especially anxious to use it on the coleus.

EasyBloom

What's in the box:

• 1 Plant Sensor (top and bottom)
• 1 AAA battery
• 1 USB extension cable
• 1 stand/hanger
• 1 set of wall mount hardware
• 2 extra petals
• User Guide
• Quick Start Card

So I know you're wondering how easy this thing is to use, aren't you? What if you're not a computer geek like I am? Is it more trouble than it's worth? The short answer to these questions are - easy, not a problem, and no!


Here's all it took to get a recommendation for my coleus:

• I went to the EasyBloom website and downloaded their software. (You only have to do this once.)
  
• I plugged the EasyBloom into my computer and set it to Monitor mode.
  
• I took the EasyBloom out of my computer and stuck it in the soil of my coleus pot after giving it a good watering.
• 24 hours later, I took the EasyBloom out of the pot and plugged it into my computer.
• I was automatically taken to Plant Sense's web site as it uploaded data from the EasyBloom.
• Based on that data, it showed me any problems with temperature, watering, and light.
  

That's it! For something that uses the same technology used on NASA's Mars Phoenix mission to measure soil, it's incredibly easy to use.

For my coleus, it told me the soil drained too fast, the light level was too low, but the temperature was ideal.

In addition to checking how your present plants are doing when it's in Monitor mode, it will also recommend plants that would do well under your growing conditions (light, moisture, and temperature) when you set it to Recommend mode. It works both inside and outside, because it's built to withstand weather conditions.

With an online database of over 5000 plants, you can build a library of your own plants that you can reference at any time. It gives you valuable basic information about each plant and allows you to enter your own notes for each one.

EasyBloom takes much of the guesswork out of choosing and growing plants, which will greatly increase your success in the garden and with houseplants. New gardeners will especially love this, and experienced gardeners will appreciate the recommendations it gives as they fine tune their existing gardens.


EasyBloom can be purchased at Amazon for $59.95 with free shipping. Until December 30th, you can save $10 on any purchase over $50 when you pay with Bill Me Later®. Just enter the code BMLSAVES at checkout. Be sure to read the terms on Amazon's web site (some restrictions apply).

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The product or merchandise being reviewed in this blog post was the sole compensation for testing and reviewing the product. All opinions expressed here are mine, with no suggestions whatsoever by the manufacturer or distributor. If I like it, I'll say so. If I don't, I'll say that, too.

Roses Before the Freeze

It's like this every year - in the last weeks before the deep freeze season begins in earnest, the roses give one last show and in some cases, they produce the most beautiful blooms of the year at this time. For all that's said about how fussy roses are, I don't find them to be that way and even if I did, their gorgeous blooms would make them worth it to me.

Orange mini, with Mum 'Rhumba' in the background

An unknown mini

Red unknown mini

'Lavaglut'

'Lavaglut'

'Lavaglut'

'Cinco de Mayo'

'About Face'

'Ebb Tide'


'Disneyland'

'Disneyland'

These photos were taken within the last month or so, with the exception of 'Disneyland', which was taken at the end of September. I included it just because it's so pretty. :-)

To assure that these return next year, I make sure they've gotten a good watering, then I pile the mulch up around the base to a depth of 4-6 inches. When it starts to warm in the spring, I pull the mulch away. I never prune them any shorter than 18 inches, if possible, since there's always the possibility of that much die-back over the winter. I wouldn't prune them at all, except I want to guard against the wind whipping the canes around.

Spying on the Birds

Despite the number of cats here at Our Little Acre, we have always had our fair share of birds. There are seven feeders within view of our family room and with most of them I can capture some decent photos of the birds partaking of the seed in them.

Our local Wild Birds Unlimited (in Ft. Wayne, IN) sends out a card once a year with a discount for 20% off any item, to be used in during the month of your birthday. This year, I chose a feeder that attaches to the outside of any window, and I put it on one of the family room windows.

We have two of these, of differing designs, each on their own window. The blue jays found the larger, open one rather quickly and visit it on a regular basis. I've not yet been able to capture them with my camera, as they seem to be very cautious and sensitive to any little movement in their range of sight. I get the camera ready and they're gone. I just need to be more sneaky, I guess.


The smaller, container-type feeder on the other window was there for a few weeks before the goldfinches finally noticed it. Today, Baby was sleeping on my lap, but when she heard the tapping on the window nearby, she came alive and jumped up to check it out. She began that chattering thing that cats do, which told me the finches were feeding.

I had my camera right beside me, so I fired it up and snapped a few photos before Baby made a lunge for the window and scared them away. She then took up her post on the back of the sofa and kept her eye on the feeder for quite awhile after that.

Hopefully, other birds will make use of the "seed bars" on the windows this winter, and I'll be able to get some other photos of them. I'm thinking cardinals...

'Tis the Season

I've heard Christmas music in the stores and I've seen Christmas ads on TV. I won't whine about how these things seem to come earlier every year (though they do), because this time of year means something else for me, too. Something I look forward to every year, almost as much as Christmas.

When late September comes around and it's time to start thinking of getting the garden ready for winter, there are always a number of tender bulbs that I need to dig and bring in. The cannas, callas, dahlias, and glads have all shown their true colors and graced us with their presence in the latter half of summer, but it's time to bring them in out of the cold so we can enjoy them again next year.

And then there are those that have their own special flower bed here at Our Little Acre, though they usually produce only a bloom or two all summer and some years none at all. These spend the summer months merely biding their time, converting the nutrients in the ground and soaking up the sunshine in preparation for the winter. Then it's their turn to elicit oohs and ahhs from their adoring fans.

These are the Amaryllis - more correctly called Hippeastrum. Just as the outside gardens are winding to season's close, I look forward to the Amaryllis season. As I was putting other bulbs away for the winter, I saw tips of green peeking out from the brown bulbs that have been stored in the basement for the past 6-8 weeks. That was my cue to pot them up and by the time Christmas is here, we'll be enjoying their exquisite blooms.

Over the past few years, I've amassed a collection of Amaryllis. Here are some images of the beauty they've given to us in the past:

'Papilio'

'Picotee'



'La Paz'

'Misty'

'Red Peacock'



'Grandeur'



'Apple Blossom'



'Solomon'


'Limona'



'San Remo'



'Lemon Lime'



'Piquant'



'Royal Velvet'



'Dancing Queen'



'Rilona'



'Blossom Peacock'

Many gardeners will buy the bulbs, pot them, enjoy their blooms, then throw them out. I can't bear to do that, so I trim the flower stalk down to where it comes out of the bulb, and continue to water them as long as they are producing foliage. For most of them, the foliage will eventually begin to yellow, at which point I trim them back to the bulb, just as I do in the fall, and they go back into storage until spring, when they are planted in the ground for the summer.

At the moment, 'Blossom Peacock', 'Susan' (purchased new at Meijer last week), and 'Lemon Lime' are potted up for bloom.

Breath of Heaven

I have sung the praises of the heavenly scent of brugmansias before, but I have to do it again. It's that good. As I sit here with my laptop on Green Thumb Sunday, I don't even have to look over the back of the sofa to know that the brugmansia is blooming again. I can smell it.

It's one of those night sniffers. You could catch the faint fragrance it releases during the day if you stick your nose into one of its big trumpet-shaped blooms, but wait until dark and it announces its presence with its perfume.


There is a peachy-orange one with a single bloom down in the basement greenhouse, but the variegated one behind me has three. Right now, this is the best seat in the house.

Join

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - November 2008

You'd think with all the warm weather we've had lately, we would have more blooms for November Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, wouldn't you? There are some, but we've had a couple of hard freezes and that made all but the hardiest of blooms turn to mush.

I don't take "walk-throughs" that often in the garden anymore, because there's not that much different to see from day to day. Any changes are kind of like spring in reverse. But it is fun to spot a few blooms here and there as Thanksgiving looms right around the corner.


Chrysanthemum 'Matchsticks' had its initial flush of blooms, then put out a few more, low on the plant. The color is deeper on these late blooms than the earlier ones. Other mums are still blooming, too, and several of them have new shoots of growth spreading around the base of the plants.


The Giant Yellow Scabiosa didn't wink a bit at the freezing temperatures, but I imagine it too will stop blooming when we have temperatures below freezing on a consistent basis.


It seems the Peacock Orchids (Acidanthera) takes longer and longer to bloom each year. I thought it was going to skip this summer altogether until I noticed one lonely bloom. It was enough to allow me a whiff of its heavenly fragrance. I moved it to the front porch in hopes of keeping it just warm enough to bloom some more.

These Love-In-A-Mist (Nigella damascarena) are annuals, but they self-seed prolifically. I didn't plant these this spring, but they came up where I had them last summer and that was fine with me. I've let them drop their seeds this year, so I'll have them once again next year.


The Calendula don't seem to mind the cold either and keep right on bloomin'.


The variegated Abutilon lived outside all summer and I just recently brought it in. It may have been okay on the front porch, but I didn't want to take the chance with this one.


The full-sized roses survived several frosty nights, but the one we had a few nights ago, where the thermometer bottomed out in the lower 20s, blackened them a bit. The miniature roses, however, have all fared well and are still bringing color our way!

Other blooms that we've seen in the last few days are:

• Fall-blooming crocus
• Johnny Jump-Ups (Viola)
  
• Lobelia cardinalis
• Gaillardia (all cultivars)
• Gazania!
• October Daphne (Sedum sieboldii)
• Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana)
• Knautia macedonica
• Petunia ('Wave™')
• Heather (Calluna vulgaris)
• Coreopsis 'Limerock Dream'
  
• Xeranthemum anuum
• Ornamental strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa 'Pink Panda')
• Corydalis 'Berry Exciting' (yes, it's continuing to bloom!)
  

2005: A Garden Odyssey

As I was cleaning up in Max's Garden, I brushed the leaves away from the small cement block that has "2005" imprinted in it. The block is next to the arbor entrance and I made it two years ago to commemorate the birth of what is the largest single garden here at Our Little Acre.

It was in 2005 that I was bitten by the gardening bug - specifically at the Cleveland Botanical Garden Flower Show that spring. The flower beds near the house definitely benefited from my new obsession and I soon ran out of room for the plants that followed me home from the garden centers. Just a few years prior, we had let part of the vegetable garden at the back of the property grow back to grass, after not planting it to its capacity for several years in a row. But now that I really enjoyed gardening and was taking it to the next level, I wanted my garden back - and then some.

August 2004

Look how small that garden is!

Though it would have been helpful if I'd decided to create this new garden space a little earlier in the season, late is better than later, and it was only October. Romie tried to talk me into waiting until spring, but I would have none of that nonsense. If we worked quickly, we could get rid of a lot of grass, work the soil, and get a few things planted before winter. That would give us just that much more lead time on having a garden that actually looked like a garden the next year.

So we pondered how best to rid the area of grass. I wanted to skim the sod off the top and then till it. Romie said that would be too much work. He wanted to put Round-Up on it and wait for it to die. I said there wasn't enough time to wait for that to happen. We compromised by putting Round-Up on it and then tilling it immediately after.


This meant we ended up spending three days of raking the grass out of the newly-worked ground, because I didn't want to take a chance of having grass coming up all over my new garden next spring. Luckily, the fall weather held until we got it all ready to go and we got a few things planted.

Max's Garden - Newly created, with leaf mulch spread for winter.
November 4, 2005

Start to finish, it took us about two weeks to get the grass removed and the soil tilled up. Now, three years later, it's as if it has always been here. In fact, we worked with such fervor in the spring and summer of that next year (2006), that it was hard to believe the garden had only just completed its first growing season. No doubt the fact that we had nearly an ideal summer that year worked in our favor, because if it had been 2007 or 2008, the drought conditions would not have allowed so many plants to become so quickly established. Timing is everything!



Last year, I decided I didn't like how Max's Garden was so separated from the rest of the yard where we spent most of our time. From the house to the patio to the pool - each flowed into the other. Then there was a large expanse of lawn perfect for playing softball (which is just what was done there when the girls were on teams all those years), that you had to traverse before reaching Max's Garden and the vegetable garden.

During winter, we have plenty of time to dream and plan what changes we might want to make with the gardens. While watching the snow swirl about out my window, I came up with a plan to make the transition to Max's Garden a little more inviting. When spring came, I set that plan in motion.

I grabbed a can of spray paint and roughed out the areas I wanted worked up. To the left and right I placed abstract triangular areas, with a grassy path leading to the arbored entrance to Max's Garden. Unlike the rest of the garden, I wanted these areas to be sparsely planted with specimen shrubs and unique plants with dark mulch to set them off.



The opportunity to test a Troy-Bilt tiller couldn't have come at a better time. Our tiller was over thirty years old and just couldn't cut it anymore. But the Troy-Bilt made short work of things and soon the new garden area was done and planted, with such things as a group of three Red-Twig Dogwoods (Cornus sericea 'Cardinal'), Lilac 'Sensation', Amsonia hubrichtii, Yucca 'Colorguard', Juncus inflexus 'Afro', Agapanthus, and Summersweet (Clethra alnifolia 'Ruby Spice').

Because the trees in and around the gardens here at the back of the property are becoming larger and providing more and more shade as time goes on, the sunny part of the garden is shrinking. This past summer we expanded the east and west borders of the vegetable garden by about two feet each so that we had enough room to plant the edibles. I can foresee the need to do this again in another couple of years if we want to grow the same things we have grown in recent years.


It only took me a couple of years to figure out for myself that a garden is never truly "done." Even if the size of the garden stays the same, what we grow there changes all the time. We embrace the tried and true, yet the novel and new beckons. Gardening may tire us out, but we will never grow tired of gardening.

My Natural History by Liz Primeau - A Book Review

When gardeners get together, they like to talk about their gardens and eventually the conversation rolls around to how they became gardeners in the first place. These stories always interest me, because each is as unique as the gardeners themselves.

In her newly-released book, My Natural History: The Evolution of a Gardener, Liz Primeau, a celebrity of Canadian HGTV television, founding editor of Canadian Gardening magazine, and author of Front Yard Gardens: Growing More Than Grass, tells us of her journey of becoming a gardener. While her story isn't my story, much of what she relates here resonates with me as it will most gardeners.

"Given the opportunity to spend time in the arms of nature, all of us -- not just the obsessed gardeners among us -- realize we like the feel of earth sifting through our fingers, we relax with the warm sun on our backs, and the tired feeling after pruning the shrubs or building a fence is a good tired."
~ Liz Primeau

Liz ponders whether becoming a gardener is something you're born with or if it comes about by being nurtured by those around you. By her own admission, she's never found the definitive answer to that question, but as we all discover, gardening is a journey and in My Natural History, Liz takes us along on hers.

My Natural History: The Evolution of a Gardener by Liz Primeau
List price: $27.00
Amazon price: $19.44 (Save 28%)

_________________
The product or merchandise being reviewed in this blog post was the sole compensation for testing and reviewing the product. All opinions expressed here are mine, with no suggestions whatsoever by the manufacturer or distributor. If I like it, I'll say so. If I don't, I'll say that, too.

Plan Now To Attend the 2009 Cincinnati Flower Show

2007 Cincinnati Flower Show at Coney Island

I have attended the Cincinnati Flower Show twice with my mom and while we thought we would attend yet a third time this past year, for reasons I don't recall now, we didn't get there. Our past visits were both enjoyable and we want to share the fun with my older daughter Kara, so we are putting it on our 2009 calendar now.

2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the Show and they are offering a special price for admission to the show, which is being held April 20-26, if you purchase tickets prior to December 31, 2008. Price of admission during the Show is $20 but if you buy your ticket now, it will cost just $14. You can order them here.

For the past seven years, the Cincinnati Flower Show has been held at historic Coney Island, but in 2009, the Show will be at its new home at Symmes Township Park on North Lebanon Road on the northeast side of Cincinnati.

The Cincinnati Horticulture Society, which puts on the Flower Show, plans to transform the nearby historic Meade House into a cultural center for year-round events and displays. Eventually it is hoped that a greenhouse will be built on the 7-acre property, part of the larger 27 acres that already has walking paths and an arboretum.

For updates on the Cincinnati Flower Show, you can register here.
(Submit your e-mail on the right side of the screen).

See you there!

Growing Apples . . . Piece of Cake!

When we moved into our house in 1977, my mom and dad gave us two 'Red Delicious' apple trees - the most commonly grown apple in Ohio - and they have produced fruit every year since we planted them. They're somewhat like the oak trees with their acorns, in that some years they produce more apples than they do others.


We had an abundance of apples this year, but they were small, as they usually are. Our neighbor Tom has a couple of 'Red Delicious' apple trees, too, but for some reason his produced larger apples. He extended an invitation to us to pick as many of his as we wanted, so we took him up on his offer.


Large or small, the apples are very good and we use them in a variety of ways - apple pie, apple crisp, apple salad, and eating them fresh off the tree.

This year, I tried a new way - apple cake. When I spoke to the Master Gardeners of Defiance County a couple of weeks ago, the host for the meeting, Nancy DeTray, had made an apple cake that was just about the best stuff I'd ever eaten in quite some time. She graciously shared the recipe with me and gave me permission to publish it here. I bet you'll think it's pretty good, too.


Apple Cake

Beat until frothy:
1 cup oil
3 eggs

Add the following and blend well:
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt (optional)

Add:
4 cups diced apples (Braeburn, Fuji, or Honeycrisp are recommended)
1 cup nuts (I used pecans, but you can use walnuts)

Pour cake batter into a greased and floured 9 x 13-inch pan and bake for 45-55 minutes at 325°F.


Icing

6 ounces cream cheese
2 Tablespoons vanilla
3 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1½ cups powdered sugar

Blend and pour on hot cake.


Though 'Red Delicious' is not usually recommended for baking, they worked well for this cake.

It was a dark and stormy night...

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

Not really. But...

Until now, the average high temperature for November has been 66°. Normal is 53°. But Indian Summer has come to an end and the real November just showed up. It only reached 42° today and later tonight we're to get rain and light snow showers.

It makes me want to do like the kitties...

Baby

Jack

Max



Simon

In my dreams (and perhaps theirs), it's still summer.

Look Out Below!

When Romie was trying to sell me on buying our house back in 1977, one of the things he used as leverage was the fact that there were three large oak trees on the property, with yet another on the neighbors' property that was so close, it looked like it was part of ours.

Though the house was only two years old, the property used to be part of a woods that had been cleared quite a bit for building. These trees had undoubtedly been there for at least a couple hundred years, based on the size of their trunks and how tall they were, especially the one in the front yard. There was also a Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) and a couple of maple trees, though those were smaller.

I loved the trees too - and the house - so it didn't take much convincing for me to agree we should buy the house on its one-acre lot.

Over time, we planted trees of our own - Maples, Washington Hawthorns, Sweet Gum, Cleveland Pears, 'Red Delicious' apple, Scotch pine, Blue Spruce, Dogwoods, Bald Cypress, Ginkgo, a Juniper, Dawn Redwood, various Japanese Maples, Sumac, Austrian Pine, Tulip Poplars, River Birch, Buckeye, Cedar, Weeping Willow, Dwarf Peach, Serviceberry, and a couple that I know I'm forgetting.

Though the majestic oaks are by far the largest of the trees here, they are also the messiest. They don't lose all their leaves in the fall; they lose their leaves all fall, and winter too. In fact, by the time spring comes, you can still see dead, brown leaves on the branches, waiting for the fresh new green ones to push them off.

The fruit of the oak tree is the acorn and some years the trees have a bumper crop of them, like this year. Last year, there were plenty of acorns, but this year there are thousands and thousands. They are so thick in the yard below the trees that you have to be careful while walking, so you don't fall from your feet rolling right out from under you. On hard surfaces, where they can roll after they've fallen from the trees, it's even worse.


As we sit in the house, we can hear the nuts falling on the roof and on a windy day when they fall faster, it almost sounds like hail. The cats love them, because they make the best toys to bat around. I've been bopped on the head a couple of times, as they fell from the branches above me.

So why do the oaks produce so many acorns one year and not the next? It's a natural cycle they go through every three or four years. We've noticed this on our own, and scientists have theorized that it is related to an interaction with woodland wildlife who eat the acorns.

Acorns are a food source for mice, deer, rats, chipmunks, and of course, squirrels. In fact, just about any foraging mammal will eat them. The theory is that the trees overproduce them periodically in order to increase the chances of some acorns being left to sprout and become seedlings.

We've got more than one kind of oak on our property. The largest ones are bur oaks (Quercus macrocarpa), which have the coolest fringed acorn 'hats'. We've also got one we believe is a pin oak (Quercus palustris) that my dad and Romie dug from a nearby woods shortly after we moved here. It's the only one in our yard that turns a nice color in the fall. It becomes red, while all the rest just turn brown.


Identifying oak trees can be difficult, especially if you're trying to distinguish between pin, scarlet, black, or northern red. The Arbor Day Foundation has an online guide for identifying trees that can be helpful.

Another fun thing to do is to estimate the age of your trees. Using this formula, we have estimated the age of the largest oak tree here to be approximately 200-250 years old. Oh, if that tree could talk, it might tell us of the Ottawa tribe of Native Americans that once lived here, or the clearing of the Great Black Swamp for farming. It has been struck by lightning numerous times, as evidenced by the bulging ridges running down its trunk.

“Faith sees a beautiful blossom in a bulb,
a lovely garden in a seed,
and a giant oak in an acorn.”

~ William Arthur Ward

And You Thought My Monarch Stories Were Over

We tied the record high today with a temperature of 73°. No excuses for not finishing garden tasks, unless you're a procrastinator like I am. We've got one more day of this on tap for tomorrow before reality comes back to smack us in the face.

For the most part, things are done here, with the exception of planting some tulips I found in the garage that I'd forgotten about, gathering the Morning Glory seeds (which haven't dried out yet), and putting down extra mulch which I really don't want to do until it gets cold for good.

Our neighbor Tom has a 'Red Delicious' apple tree that bore larger apples than ours did this year, and this afternoon I saw some of our other neighbors in his yard gathering some of those, as well as some of the pears he also has. I walked over to chat with them and Tom got off his mower and joined us.

While we were chatting, something flew by and caught my eye. When my eyes caught up with what it was that captured my attention, I just stood there with my mouth hanging open.

It couldn't be...

But it was. A Monarch. A female Monarch. Flying around like a summer day.


I watched until she settled in the apple tree. I kept saying over and over, "I can't believe it. I just can't believe it." Another late traveler? Or...could it be Little Miss Monarch?


There's no way of knowing, of course, but now I'm going to worry about this one. We know that some Monarchs hang around too long and don't make it south before the weather turns hostile. And this unseasonably warm weather we're having is playing games with all of us. It fosters the state of denial we're in about the coming winter. But we have warm homes to retreat to. Monarchs aren't so fortunate.


As the cooler evening air wafted in, I wondered if the apple tree was going to be the night stop for this Monarch as she attempts to make her way to Mexico. I will check on her in the morning. I'm not going to interfere with the natural course of things this time though. Win some, lose some, and I don't want to know.

There were other things to do before day's end, so I walked back over to our yard and continued trimming dead hosta foliage, then pulled out the brown zinnia plants and put them all in the compost bin. The bluebird house on the shagbark hickory tree needed cleaning out from the tree swallow's nest that was built there earlier in the summer.

When I opened it up, there was a group of yellow jackets that were in the process of taking over the abandoned nest and I quickly brushed them out (while wearing gloves). I got it all cleaned out and ready for the next residents, which I hope will be bluebirds next spring, and closed it back up.

Wait...what is that I see on the underneath side of the birdhouse?


Look at that! A Monarch chrysalis casing! The tree is a good 40 feet from any food source, which means the caterpillar had traveled from the nearest Asclepias, across two other mulched gardens, a grassy path, and a larger grassy area of the lawn, then up the tree to the bottom of the birdhouse.

It was certainly a very safe and protected location, but that it found the perfect spot there just left me shaking my head in amazement. One thing's for sure - there's no such thing as a boring day in nature.

Womanswork™ Gloves - A Review

Time for fall cleanup! I know I should wear gloves while working in the garden at all times and while I try to do that, sometimes I just don't. But the fall season motivates me to wear them more often. Cleaning out the garden at this time of year can mean sharp edges due to the plants going dormant for the winter and drying out. Spiders and other insects abound. And pruning and raking can mean blisters if I don't wear gloves.

So when I received two pairs of Womanswork™ Garden Gloves in the mail to test, it was good timing. I have other gloves - some that I like very well - but as I looked these over, I was anxious to see how these would work for me.

The first pair was the Original Womanswork™ Work Glove. Made of sueded pigskin, it felt durable enough for heavy duty tasks, and when I put it on, it fit comfortably, though a bit looser than I was used to. A smaller size would likely be too short in the fingers for me, so it's probably the right size for me.

I went out to the garden with pruners in hand and set to work cleaning debris and clipping seed heads from the plants I wanted to save for next year. I pulled the annuals that had been killed by recent frosts. They handled those well, and when I pulled the large, tough Brandywine tomato plants out, they gave me good gripping power.

The palms of these are a bit padded, so they served me well while raking leaves. I've had many a blister from this task, but no signs of any irritation were present after wearing this glove while raking.

The glove got wet several times while I was using it, yet the pigskin remained soft when it dried. I was surprised, because previous experiences with gloves left me with stiffness in the fingers after drying, until I had the gloves on a while.

This is my first experience with a heavier glove like this and while I liked it, the elastic at the wrist wasn't enough to keep bits and pieces of leaves and plant material from finding their way into the glove. They make another heavy-duty glove with an adjustable wrist tab that likely takes care of that problem.

The other glove I tested was their High-Performance Glove. I'd seen it at one of the garden centers that Mom and I had visited earlier this year, and wondered how it compared to another company's similarly-designed glove.

The glove fit well and I liked the Velcro® tab at the wrist, which not only keeps debris out, but allows for optimum fit. It has a ventilated back that helps keep your hands cool, but the little holes aren't really open, just thinner fabric, which is a good thing. Again, no dirt or debris can get in.

The fingertips and the upper part of the palm of the gloves are reinforced with Toughtek®, a high-tech synthetic (polyester coated with Neoprene rubber) that's supposed to hold up longer and keep its grip power whether it's wet or dry. I found the latter to be true and time will tell on the former. The bottom part of the palm is lightly padded.

This is a very comfortable stretchy glove that fit me well. As with other lightweight gloves I've used, there are still tasks where I'll likely remove the glove and not wear any, but for most garden tasks, it will be one of my gloves of choice. I also won't use it for pruning roses, since the knit backing will snag, but I can use the Original Womanswork™ Work Glove for that.

Oh, and I really love this feature of the High-Performance Glove: It has tabs on each glove that loop onto a carabiner (included!) so you can attach them to your belt loop! Now that will prove to be invaluable to me, since I'm known for taking my gloves off and walking away from them, only to forget where I left them when I need them again. It comes in three fashion colors: Aqua, Pale Lime, and Pale Peach.



When I spoke to the Defiance County Master Gardeners last month, I took these gloves with me. A couple of the gardeners there had these and liked them. Another gardener who has trouble finding gloves with the proper finger length tried on the High-Performance Glove and was pleased to find out that they fit her perfectly. Both gloves are washable in cold water. The High-Performance Glove is machine washable, while it's recommended to hand wash the Original Womanswork™ Work Glove.

Womanswork™ doesn't just make gloves and they don't just make gloves for women (16 styles!). There are four styles for men. They've got other garden essentials and apparel in their online catalog. You can search for stores that carry their products here.

_________________
The product or merchandise being reviewed in this blog post was the sole compensation for testing and reviewing the product. All opinions expressed here are mine, with no suggestions whatsoever by the manufacturer or distributor. If I like it, I'll say so. If I don't, I'll say that, too.

Not Quite Serendipity, But Close Enough!

Romie and I take walks on a pretty regular basis here, weather permitting. This morning, the third day of Indian Summer, not only permitted walking, it virtually demanded it. When you know that days like this are in short supply, you just don't want to waste them. So, we headed out and down the road towards the wooded area we frequently explore.

Whenever I walk down the road, my eyes are always scanning the ditch banks and the fields for things I may have missed on earlier walks. I discovered an apple tree - with apples! - earlier this summer that I couldn't believe I'd not noticed before. No matter how observant I think I might be, it seems there's always something new to see.

And don't you know? We were no more than half a mile from home and I noticed a small tree growing on the ditch bank with some deep pink seed pods that looked strangely familiar, yet I'd not seen them there before. Hmmm... just where had I seen them? And then it came to me.

Yesterday, I was reading a blog post by Cheryl (My Wildlife Sanctuary), who lives in the U.K. She had been out on a walk too, and had seen some deep pink seed pods and wondered what they were. She had never seen them before either. Gail (Clay and Limestone) popped in to identify the pods, although she said Frances (FaireGarden) deserved the credit for the ID.

And you doubted the power of garden blogging??

Cheryl's mystery tree was Spindle Tree (Euonymus europaeus), and since I'm not in Europe where this is native, I thought it might be unlikely this is what the tree is that's growing in our ditch. But this has been introduced to the U.S. and it has become invasive in some areas. I saw five small trees scattered along the ditch bank.


Its American native counterpart could be American Spindle Tree (Euonymus americanus) or Eastern Wahoo (Euonymus atropupurea), both common in our part of the country, but the seed pods vary a bit in color and texture.

How many times has that happened to you? You've never seen or heard about a certain thing before, then you do, and within a short time you encounter it yourself. There has to be a name for such an occurrence. Is there?

Overwintering Those Geraniums

First of all, let me clarify: When I say geraniums in this post, I really mean Pelargoniums. True geraniums are hardy to our zone and I don't do anything special to winter those over. They have come back reliably for several years now.

What many people call geraniums (myself included) really aren't geraniums. Those are the Pelargoniums, and those are not hardy here, so I have to do something if I want to keep them for the next year. In the past two years, I've overwintered them inside by either keeping them in a sunny south window or in the basement greenhouse. I've only lost one by doing that and I have seven or eight of them.


I've toyed with the idea of doing the drying thing, where you dig the plant before first frost, shake the dirt off the roots, cut them back a bit if they've gotten large, and hang them in a cool, dry, dark place until spring. Once a month or so, you spritz them with a little water. In the spring, you pot them up or plant them in the ground and start watering them. Miraculously, they spring to life.

My doubts and fears about doing this were allayed this past spring. One of my potted geraniums that I'd wintered over in the basement appeared to be just a dead stick stuck in hard, dry dirt. Somehow, it had gotten tucked in between two larger plants and had been missed when I watered them all. Instead of taking it out of the pot right away, I set it aside.

About a month later, I came upon the "stick in a pot" again and moved it a few feet away. Here, it inadvertently got watered whenever I watered a nearby shrub. Some time later, I remembered the neglected geranium. When I picked the pot up, you can imagine my surprise to see several small green leaves shooting out the stem near the base of the plant!

It was at this point that I decided when fall came and it was time to bring the geraniums in, I would try the drying and hanging method. And that's just what I'm doing. If that poor neglected geranium can survive an entire winter without water and yet another several weeks in the sun outside without water, I think we'll be okay.

I'd love to hear about your experiences with this method of overwintering geraniums. Did you have good results? Any other things I should know about using this method? I'd sure hate to lose my 'Mr. Wren.'

This Blog Post Has No Agenda

I promise. And that's not a politician's promise either. I do not affiliate myself with any particular political party. I simply want to share my experiences, which were the first of this kind for me.



Last Saturday, a friend called and asked if I would want to go to hear Sarah Palin speak in nearby Fort Wayne, Indiana. "You betcha!" LOL.



The doors opened at 4:00, but we arrived at the Allen County Memorial Coliseum at 2:45 and there was already a long line forming that wound around the south side and started snaking around the parking lot. It was a windy and chilly 47° and we stood in it for over three hours. The security check was taking quite a bit of time, so the line moved slowly.

All the available tickets had been given out (7800) and there were VIP tickets in addition, which could be had for making campaign phone calls. (No thanks!) The time seemed to pass rather quickly though, because we chatted with others in line, discussing the election, the candidates, and the issues. There were interesting things to see as well.


Campaign signs...



Interesting t-shirts...



Campaign buttons...



Palin girls...



A patriotic family...


We noticed the large number of young people, which was heartening. There were lots of families with their children. Several members of our armed forces were standing in line with us. A couple of members of the Mad Ants basketball team and their mascot stopped by to say hi.

Once inside, we had to go through a security check, which involved opening our purses, removing our coats, watches, and any change in our pockets. We were required to turn on any electronics, such as our cell phone and camera. If they wouldn't turn on, they were taken if you still wanted to be admitted. We then walked through a metal detector and I was scanned with a wand because I caused the metal detector to beep. The metal button on my pants was the culprit.




We quickly took our seats and a short time later, local Republican officials gave short speeches. Then Hank Williams, Jr. took the stage and sang a few songs before introducing Sarah Palin.






With Piper leading the way, Sarah and her husband Todd, along with their older daughter Willow, walked down the runway to the stage. As you can imagine, the noise from the crowd was deafening.


Our seats were to the podium's right and though we weren't close enough for me to get good close-up photos with the zoom feature on my camera, the Jumbotron gave good views.


She spoke for 40 minutes, then she went into the crowd where she shook hands and signed a few autographs. We left while that was still going on. It was an exciting place to be, as the headlines indicated in Sunday morning's paper:



More images from the rally:

Unzoomed view from our seats

Indiana Loves Palin

Piper, Willow, and husband Todd

Just five days after the surprise of attending the Governor Palin rally, our older daughter texted me to say her boss had gotten her two tickets to attend a John McCain rally on Thursday, October 30th, in Defiance, where she and her husband live. This is just half an hour away from us and since her husband was able to get a ticket through his employer as well, she said I could use one of her tickets.

I decided to go up the night before and spend the night at Kara's, as did my niece Sarah, who was also attending the rally. Sarah's sister Renee drove up early the day of the rally and the four of us bundled up and headed downtown to get in line at 5:30 a.m. Most people know I am a night owl but I can get up early when I have to. I don't stumble around like a zombie either. My feet hit the floor and my mouth flies open. LOL.


We got down there and no, we weren't the first in line. About thirty people were ahead of us in our line and there was another one on the other side of the blocked-off area with a similar number of people in it.

Unlike Governor Palin's rally on Saturday, this one was not to be held inside. With the rally not starting until 9:00 a.m., we had a 3½-hour wait in below-freezing weather (29° F). I was glad that I'd dressed for it.

They still had to set up the magnetrons for the security checks, so we watched that. The media had already arrived and were doing some filming and even some broadcasting already. Rick Small from the Defiance radio station WDFM was giving live reports and at one point walked over to us and interviewed the four of us. He had recognized Kara from the many times she'd been to the radio station doing ads for her company.

This sign was made by a lady in line behind us. She had to leave it outside the rally area, as no signs were allowed to be brought in.

The lines grew longer and we grew colder. But soon the sun was coming up and by a little after 8:00, we had gone through security and were standing before the stage, a mere twenty feet away from the podium. The Defiance High School band was playing, as well as that of Bryan High School and Paulding High School, with radio music blaring in between their numbers.



The media was gathered in their designated area on a raised platform behind us.



We observed security on the roofs of the buildings around us.



The atmosphere became more electric as officials arrived and took their places on stage. Soon, Secret Service did a final sweep and McCain's entourage, which included his wife Cindy and daughter Meghan, arrived to cheers and applause.




Our district's state representative, Bob Latta, introduced Mrs. McCain, who gave a short speech about why her husband should be the next President.



Mrs. McCain then introduced South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who has been McCain's best friend for the last 20 years.

Senators McCain and Lindsey Graham (R - South Carolina)

Senator Graham took the podium and announced that at that moment he was John McCain's "frozen friend," then spoke about why he believed that McCain was the best choice to become the next President of the United States.



When Senator McCain took the podium, it was clear that he was among friends at this rally, though there were Obama supporters just across the street. We did see some "Democrats for McCain" in the crowd. I didn't doubt that there were some Democrats that supported McCain just as there are Republicans supporting Obama, but this was the first time I'd seen any sign of formal public support.

McCain spoke for a little less than thirty minutes, then left the stage and shook hands in the crowd before leaving for his next campaign stop in Mentor, Ohio. It was estimated that there were 10,000 people in attendance at this rally. Defiance has a population of about 16,000.




Other images from the McCain rally:

Tickets to the rally

"Hang On Sloopy" (O-H-I-O) - Ohio's Official State Song


Kara and me at the rally




Meghan and Cindy McCain



They must bring these large letters to every campaign stop. These say "VICTORY IN OHIO". At the rally with Governor Palin, they said "INDIANA (heart) PALIN".

After the rally


Media Row with satellite uplinks...and port-a-potties!

The foliage on the trees was gorgeous!

As I drove back home after the rally, I passed by the bald eagle's nest that's been high in a tree southwest of town for several years. It seemed appropriate at this election time of year that I saw the eagle sitting in its nest.