Test Site for What Grows On in Rhode Island!

If you’ve been by in the last couple of days you may have noticed that the usually colorful blog has become a somewhat starker landscape (where did all the pictures go?!) that is not unlike my actual view out the potting shed window at the moment.  While the blank blog is experiencing technical difficulties (help is on the way!), Blithewold is resting under a blanket of snow.  Here are a few gray and white snow day pictures from my walks around the property yesterday that will have to tide us over until all the other colors on the property (and the blog) come back.  Please stand by!

Depending on where you live, it can take a treasure hunt to find something blooming during the middle of winter.  Some people go south to find color - the Caribbean, for instance, would be a brilliant treasure trove right about now.  Other people (like me) stay close to home and go out to greenhouses to find blooms.  And we’re the lucky ones who can sometimes bring blooming things back home.

Winter in a cold climate is tough season for houseplants though.  Most indoor heat is too dry for humidity loving plants to thrive.  There are things we can do to mitigate the dryness though, and our bodies (the insides of our noses, elbow skin…) might appreciate the effort as much as the plants.  Place bowls or kettles of water on stoves/heaters/radiators - you’d be surprised how quickly the water evaporates.  Keep your plants in dishes filled with pebbles and a little water - only make sure that the plant is not left in standing water unless that’s the culture it prefers.  And get more plants!  The more plants you have, the more humid your home will be because plants transpire out the water they have taken in.  That’s why walking into a full greenhouse feels so good this time of year.  Sounds skeevy to say it but we crave plants’ moist breath.

Some plants like these Camellias really need more humidity that the average warm home can provide.  Logee’s Greenhouse website recommends 50% humidity and nights below 60 Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 < ![endif]--> degrees (down to 35 Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 < ![endif]-->) for the plants to be healthy and set buds.  Other than that they’re easy - they only need partial sun, water when dry and they don’t want fertilizer.  (That’s my kind of plant.)

Gail and I and a friend took a quick last minute trip to Logee’s in Danielson, CT earlier this week.  Even if you live with or work in a greenhouse like we do, it’s good to get out and breathe in another.  And that one is amazing.  It’s full of venerable specimens and ginormous stock plants growing, flowering and fruiting like miracles out of the floor.  If you can get there, do!  And, of course, if you’re near to here, you’re more than welcome to stop by our chilly but deliciously humid greenhouses for a breather too - the door is open!  (Figuratively speaking - it’s still wicked cold outside!)

Many thanks as always to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for keeping us searching for blooms the middle of every month.  Where did you find blooms this month?

We’re bracing for a chilly visitor coming this week from the Great Lakes and although we’re not exactly rolling out the red carpet for her, we’re stocking the cupboards and making sure there’s plenty of cocoa on hand.  When we’re told that the temperatures are going to dip into the single digits with forecasts of windchill in the negative 20’s my anxiety gene kicks on.  I start worrying like I’m told my great grandfather did, over the fate of our precious plants.

The greenhouse has a sophisticated system of furnaces that keeps the temperature of the houses within a very reliable range and the structure is as solid and tight as anything made mostly of glass and aluminum can be.  The only thing we’re lacking is the assurance of a good back up heating system in the worst-case-scenario of the power going out.  What we do have is a temperature sensor hooked up through the phones lines and set up to call us at home if the greenhouse temperature plunges.  And there’s a heater or two ready to go that will probably send out enough heat to keep the houses from falling below freezing.  What would be more reassuring of course is having a generator that could power the furnaces - but that’s a pie in the sky for another budget year.  For now, we’ll bundle up, crank the heat and cross our fingers and toes that our arctic visitor goes back to Canada without stealing any of our stuff for souvenirs.  And since our “stuff” is a large priceless part of what makes the Blithewold gardens the Blithewold gardens and represents hours, days, months, years, decades of work, it’s no wonder that Gail and I get nervous about the worst case scenario.

How do you prepare for cold weather?  Do you worry excessively (like me)?  Do you have a backup plan?

I’m beginning to think that the task Gail and I are working on now might be the most physically exhausting of all the jobs we do.  Forget dividing daylilies, planting, lugging bags of soil or watering at noon during a heat wave.  Sitting in the chilly potting shed, trolling magazines for ideas and browsing seed catalogs has flattened me.  I feel like the bamboo looked this past Tuesday morning.  I feel glazed.  I feel heavy.  I feel like lying down for a while.

A “wintry mix” encapsulated the gardens earlier this week and if it hadn’t turned to plain rain and kept on dripping, I might have lingered outside with my camera to try to capture more frozen images.  But instead Gail and I sat right down at the potting shed table, leaned our elbows on the radiator and began flipping through magazines and catalogs and talking about what we want to see in the gardens this coming year.  And I’m finding that if I don’t invent an excuse to get up and move actively around the greenhouse, I’m liable to sink into a stupor.  Occasionally a plant (a variegated eryngium!) or a germ of an idea for one of the gardens perks me back up like the bamboo which is (mostly) vertical again.  And hopefully as we go through and complete this task (we’ll have the orders sent by the end of January), I’ll get more and more enlivened about the gardens we’re planning and less inclined to glaze over.

Please don’t get me wrong - I’m not complaining.  I love this part of our job - the dreaming and planning and browsing - and I’d much rather be doing this than outside digging holes with Fred and Dan!  But is sitting still difficult for you too?  (Maybe Gail and I should set up treadmills side by side in the potting shed for the month of January…)  What do you do to stay alert and focused during your garden’s dream stage?

It’s time to dive into catalogs!  I’ve been staring at the growing stack of them on the potting shed table for nearly 2 weeks now, waiting for Gail to return from vacation, and resisting the urge to begin the browse.  (We shop as a team.)  But there are a couple of catalogs that I just can’t keep myself from flipping through and others that I’m inclined to recycle without a glance because of where my head is this year.  Over the summer I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
by Barbara and Camille Kingsolver and Stephen L. Hopp; last month I read In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan and right now I’m in the middle of The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, also by M. Pollan.  These three books have me thinking differently not only about food but about ordering seeds.  Call me naive, but this time last year I didn’t know that most of the seed companies we order from are either owned by Monsanto (the largest producer of genetically engineered seeds and the largest seed company in the world) or buy seeds from them.  I also didn’t know that

…in 1981 there were approximately 5,000 vegetable seed varieties available in U.S. catalogs. Today there are less than 500, a 90 percent reduction.

-from The gardening game By Jerri Cook Wisconsin

Gail and I will be shopping primarily for ornamentals - mostly flowers, some veggies (Super Volunteer Dick orders seeds for the vegetable bed) - and we’ll still order from our usual array of companies (including Johnny’s, Territorial, Stokes, Burpee, Thompson & Morgan, Seeds of Change, Jung, and Pinetree) because they do carry seeds for some of the plants we love to grow and I’m all for encouraging those sources to keep providing our favorites.  But I’m really looking forward to placing big orders (maybe larger than usual) with Seed Savers Exchange and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds because that’s where my head is.  These companies (Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit membership organization) sell open pollinated seeds even though (and because) it means we might save seed (we do!) and not have to buy the same thing from them again.  They sell heirloom varieties that our grandparents might have grown.  The cool thing is that, like me, more and more people are interested in these varieties and the selection grows every year.

Have you read any of the books I mentioned?  (Have they changed your life?)  If you’re in the area and have read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - or want to, it happens to be the selection for the very first “Book Worms” Book Club meeting on February 23rd hosted by Blithewold and the Norman Bird Sanctuary.  Please join us!

Do you have favorite seed catalogs?  Do you make a point of ordering heirloom varieties?  Do you save seed?

With the finish line of Christmas behind us and an official fresh start still days away, this week feels a little slack-tide to me.  I’ve been torn between taking a winter’s nap and projecting (day dreaming) about what’s next.  But before diving headfirst into the next garden year and the stack of catalogs waiting for orders, I’m taking this time for reflection.  One of my end of the year tasks is to organize the hundreds of pictures I’ve taken on the property since last January and aside from re-reading the blog, there’s no better way for me to look back on the year.

I’ve been reminded about some of the things we learned - like:

A little Espoma Bulb-Tone fertilizer (4-10-6) thrown in with the annuals when we planted them made them sing like rockstars.

And after 3 straight summers of raking dead leaves out from under the roses twice a week, we learned that good hygiene really can slow down black spot.

When we planned for the ‘Karma Fuchsiana’ dahlias to be a major bright spot in the North Garden, we learned that it’s not a good idea to lean heavily on mail order plants.  (Alas, the tubers we ordered were duds.)

I’ve been reminded about plants I loved and plants I loathed:  I loved the towering teasel and cardoons.  I also adored the tiny basil blobs and ornamental hot peppers.  I was thrilled by the way the Display Garden came together with Fred and Dan’s new design and Gail’s and my plant combinations.  But I didn’t much like the daylilies or the phlox in the North Garden.

And I’ve been reminded to remember the people who have come into this garden over this past year and those who have gone.  Amazingly, visitation was up at Blithewold even though gas prices spiked.  Gail and I worked with the most wonderful volunteer crew on the planet and an incredibly dedicated team on staff.  And I am so lucky to have you out there in the world, reading this.

Are you going through your pictures and reflecting on the past year in your garden too?  What have you learned?  What did you love?

In the middle of a cold blast, chilly on the heels of a dark and snowy Solstice storm, I’m on the lookout for Joy (’Tis the season, Fa la la la la).  But, luckily, I don’t have to look hard to find it.  No matter how stressful the holidays can be with family weirdness, travel difficulties and financial worries, we gardeners know where to look for - and find - a whole bunch of Joy.

It’s in the lengthening days from here on in and the optimism of another spring, summer and fall to come.

It’s in our faces and the faces of our friends when we laugh.

It’s in the frogs and bees and praying mantises that we know will be back.

It’s in the plants we love-love-love to grow.

It’s in bark and Swiss chard and the opinions of fellow gardeners.

We have so much to look forward to and so much to look back on - all that Joy is almost overwhelming.  ‘Tis the season to pass it on!  Joy to the World, friends and gardeners and Happy Holidays!

Terrariums are (still) cool.  Last year I wrote a post (Terrariums are cool (again)) on how I make - and became addicted to - terrariums.  And if you were inspired then to make one (or ten), they might be in need of a little rehabilitation by now.  One of the coolest things about terrariums is that you can ignore them once the initial fascination wears off.  And that’s kind of the whole point:  Terrariums should be able to take care of themselves for a while.  But then there does come a point when we need to pay them some attention again.

In order to be truly neglect-able terrariums need to have the right balance of light, air and plant material (among other things like soil and drainage).  These terrariums (above) dried out completely.  According to their owners, the tops were never opened so they really “shouldn’t have dried out - it’s not our fault!”.  Look familiar?  I suspect that they were not given enough light.  The light requirement is a delicate issue — too much sun and the terrarium cooks like a little oven.  With no sun at all, the plants transpire too slowly to produce the condensation that waters the soil - and without a vigilant gardener adding water and changing its location, everything crispifies.  There was no resuscitating these terrariums.  I started over from scratch and I’ll give them back to their owners for another go at neglect in a sunnier spot.  Winter sun is generally weak enough for placement near a west or south window if not right in it.  And I keep some of my mason jar terrariums on an east facing windowsill all year round.  A sunbeam at some point in the day is important for creating foggy condensation.

This terrarium thrived in a college dorm room window that got late afternoon sun.  According to Gail’s son, it was a curiosity and conversation piece - everyone thought there was something … else … living in it.  But as you can see the plants had gone beyond friendly competition and were strangling each other.  Look familiar?  Gail removed the overtaking Selaginella fern which had started out as a tiny cutting; the 10 strawberry begonias (Saxifraga stolonifera) which started with one; she divided the creeping fig (Ficus pumila) and the button fern (Pellaea rotundifolia) and ended up creating a whole new terrarium from pieces of the old.  If you check on it, a little trim of overgrowth now and then would save you having to start over.  But I really think half the fun of having terrariums is making them - I just adore the look of a freshly planted jar.  (And that’s when my craving kicks in all over again and have to make or redo at least 4 more.)

Do you have any terrariums?  Are they thriving or suffering?  Are you as addicted to them as we are?

Stay tuned for more posts about houseplants.  - Anyone care to join me on the topic?  Create a link and leave comments, if you do!

Since I can’t top last year’s December Bloom Day (Garden Bloggers Bloom Day is hosted the 15th of every month by Carol at May Dreams Gardens) when the Autumn flowering cherry bloomed in the snow, I’d like to propose a bloom related challenge for the gray days of December instead.

Gail and I are starting to nail down ideas and themes for next year’s Display Garden design and I have suggested that in one of the beds at least, we try to work especially with colors that neither of us likes.  Bloom color is just one of the design elements that we gardeners work with every year and I, for one, am growing tired of certain self imposed limitations and restrictions.  I don’t want the color of a flower on an otherwise worthy plant to hold me back!  And I want to like it.

We all have a particular relationship to color - some of us enjoy hues that are loud and hot while for others bright reds and oranges would bring on a migraine.  Some like baby-cheek pink while others hate it with a passion and are in love with maroon.  I have a dysfunctional relationship with purple and a resentment of yellow.  And for me when they’re together, those complementary colors, rather than complimenting each other (like blue and orange do), hurl insults.  My challenge is to be able to use purple and maybe just a touch of yellow without wincing.  And I have started to look for hints and insights.  For instance, thinking about this has caused me to question what it is about lavender plants (besides the scent, obviously) that makes me love them despite their typical bloom color.  Is it the gray foliage?  Could I learn to love purple if it occurred in a combination with gray plants?  And would I like yellow if, like a close-up of a Hakonechloa leaf, it was placed with pinkish and greenish?

This is a challenge that Gail and I might be willing to take on because at least in theory we’re making these gardens for visitors’ enjoyment rather than our own.  That gives us a certain freedom - in a way we don’t have to like what we do as long as it works really well for somebody else.   I know it’s different at home.  At home we have even tighter budgets and we will probably always gravitate towards plants that don’t argue with us.  But even at home I get a little tired of the same-old, same-old and maybe I’ll promise to shake it up there this coming year too.  At the very least it’s a fun mental exercise and I can see from looking back at pictures that there are occasions when my least favorite colors don’t make me want to look away.  What colors do you avoid like the plague?  Do you think there’s anything you could do - any combination of ugly and pretty colors that could induce love rather than eye pain?  Are you up for the challenge?

I thought the tide was high during the Nor’easter of spring 2007 - and it was - but this morning’s moon tide storm sure did flood Blithewold.  I took these pictures about an hour after high tide so we’ll all just have to imagine what it must have looked like earlier.  If only I had been a little speedier leaving the comfort of home this morning…  If you’re at all familiar with Blithewold, then you are accustomed to the Narragansett Bay quietly lapping up a certain part of the view.  When the Bay shifts its shores, it’s easy, especially looking through snapshots, to become a bit disoriented.  So I’ve included a couple/three pictures of what “normal” looks like down near the water.  Click on pictures for a larger look and hover over for captions.

Unlike my great-grandfather who would worry and go out to check on his gardens during any kind of weather, I’m always a little thrilled to forgetfulness by a good storm.  But I can sober right up when faced with the aftermath.  The grounds, aside from the flooding, didn’t seem to fare too badly - no major limbs or trees down that I saw.  But we’ll likely have our work cut out for us in the Rock Garden - maybe especially in this spot. (In the top right photo, this section of the garden is beyond the winterberry…)

Over the years we’ve learned the hard way what-not-to-plant there and we’ll have to wait and see if we’ll be adding to that list.

How did your garden survive the last storm?  Did you worry during or did you enjoy the ride?

How many of us want to keep it simple for the holidays?  Especially now.  I, for one have been shamed out of wanting to shop by the atrocious behavior of fellow consumers.  And aren’t we all feeling a little pinched money wise this year?  I’d love to keep Christmas simple and for me that means giving gifts to my family and friends that are meaningful rather than frivolous and I have just a couple of recommendations to share if anyone else out there is so inclined.

How about giving a loved one the gift of membership to your favorite non-profit organization like … say, Blithewold?!  It’s the kind of gift that not only benefits the recipient (for a list of membership perks click here) but also helps your favorite organization stay afloat in rough waters.  Don’t forget that if you click through the membership link in the side bar (or here) you, as a blog reader, are entitled to a 20% discount.  Such a deal!  And what about giving the gift of an outing?  I know a lot of families that make an annual pilgrimage to Christmas at Blithewold - why not bring a friend too?  Or you could plan ahead for a walk in the spring…

I’ve heard a lot of people lately talking about shopping locally and that’s a terrific idea for boosting your town’s economy - plus your gifts are more likely to be thoughtful and unique.  BUT if you can only find that most perfect thing for Auntie on Amazon, please enter their site via ours (or your other favorite non-profit).  By clicking on the link in the sidebar (you can peruse my garden book recommendations but you’re by no means limited to purchasing those) and following through with a purchase of any kind, Blithewold receives a small percentage of the sale.  It’s a really easy way to make a donation and shop “locally”!  (If you’re like me and you forget and always click your browser’s Amazon bookmark instead, make a new bookmark for the blog and title it “Amazon”.  Easy-peasy.)

Gifts of time and creativity are also extra special.  You could give the gift of a hand in the garden come spring - or you could do as I like to do and make terrariums for everyone!  It turns out that terrariums can be the kind of gift you can give again next year if the plants have petrified…  The parentals who gave these terrariums back to me asked for new ones - that certainly solves the dilemma of what to make for them this year!  For anyone who has a terrarium that’s limping along in need of a little TLC, I’m planning to write a terrarium rehab post in the near future.

Are you keeping it simple this year?  Do you have any other gift ideas to share?

I’m stuck on a baublular theme because I have to rave about what Fred and Dan have hung from the trees this year.  Each year the staff, volunteers and visitors are surprised by yet another spectacular light show - from a star topped Giant Sequoia one year, to a Ginkgo with huge “fruit”, to last year’s flowering Star Magnolia.  And every year I think - “Whoa!  OK, this is my favorite!”  Well.  This year’s night lights are my total top favorite of all time.  (At least until next year.)

In honor of Blithewold’s Centennial Anniversary, Fred and Dan didn’t hold back.  At all.  Seeing is believing that they used 1000 linear feet of bamboo and 10,000 lights to decorate two front lawn Beech trees with 50 stars each.   And you have to see it for yourself - I’ll show a photo (if I get any good ones) only after everyone in the vicinity (a 1000 mile radius?) has had a chance to see it live first.  Ferry Road traffic has slowed for gaping rubberneckers - it’s a little scary to think you might be hit by someone who’s not watching the road anymore.  But it’s so worth the worry for a drive by and even better, a stop in - I know I’ve already mentioned that the inside of the mansion is bedecked to the very nines too and not to be missed for all the dust in fairyland.

What is it about Christmas lights?  Is it an inner kid thing that makes me grin and want to clap when I see a good display?  Am I already so starved for daylight that I’ll settle for staring at 10,000 tiny bulbs on a string?  Do you decorate with lights?  Why?

‘Tis the season to hang stuff from branches - even the trees are doing it!  - Hey, maybe that’s where Martha and the rest of us got the idea…  And when the trees drop their decorations, I think it’s totally fair game for us to pick some of it up and hang it somewhere else.

Gail and I - Gail especially maybe  - have been getting a little sidetracked with the abundance of visible cones and pods all over the property.  She’s been picking them up by the armful and I’ve been studying their whorls, patterns and the Fibonacci sequence like there’s going to be a test.  How well do you know your cones?  Quiz yourself on the pictures below and hover over for the answers (no cheating! - Just kidding - it’s ok to cheat.)  Can you guess which one is not a cone but a pod?  Do you know what makes a cone a cone and not a pod?*

How did you do?  There’s only one cone I know well enough to call by its first name when I meet it on the street.  A few years ago I was asked to draw a picture of a Giant Sequoia cone for Blithewold’s tree map and I must say there’s nothing like turning something over and over in one hand and drawing it over and over with the other to learn it by heart.  I’m inspired to draw the others now that I remember that trick.  Or maybe I’ll just spraypaint them silver and hang them from a new branch…  Do you collect cones and pods and other garden baubles?

*A cone is a woody, scaly structure on gymnosperms (conifers) from which naked seeds are dispersed.  A pod, loosely defined, is a dry fruit that splits open to disperse seed.