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So How Did I Do With Those Gardening Resolutions?

Dec30

You may remember that back last January I made some “gardening resolutions” (for those of you who would like to read the whole post, you can see it here).

My number 1 resolution was to “garden and let garden:” in other words, to try to do less garden shaming here. I think I was better at that. I am not really the one to judge, however. That would be up to you. But I don’t recall expressing any really strong opinions like I did in 2015 that got everyone all riled up.

My second resolution was to try new things. That was more of a mixed bag. I did more of that earlier on in the season, before I realized just how bad our drought was going to be–or should I say, how much the continued drought was going to affect how I wanted to garden.

So the first thing I did was to rip out my David Austin roses–and that was still probably a good thing because I replaced them with easier care Drift™ roses. And while they still needed more water this season than I wanted to give them, should they survive the winter, they’ll be far more drought tolerant than the Austin roses were in coming years. And that’s a good thing.

But once I saw how bad the continuing drought was, I didn’t try much else that was new or innovative. Most of that would have required water, and water was too much of a precious resource to waste on mere “novelty.”

So as this year draws to a close and the next year dawns, I will have to think of some more gardening resolutions. Stay tuned.

Right “Plant”, Right Place

Dec9

It’s the season for holiday parties. I’ve attended two already this past week and I am not a social butterfly. In the language of gardeners, I  am a wallflower. I get to a party, I stay at my table, I talk to those I am seated near, or those I came with, and that’s that, usually.

But, as gardeners, we are blessed if we find ourselves with other gardeners in our midst. I have had the most delightful time at weddings or at the Spoiler’s college reunions when I unexpectedly found myself seated near a gardener. Suddenly, I have something in common with others in the room (besides perhaps a spouse, an address or a friendship with the bride or groom).

And the language of gardening is rarely controversial enough to cause upset. At one of the parties this past weekend, a tablemate was engaging in heated political discussion that was very inappropriate.

It’s hard to conceive of a situation where a similar offense could be given or perceived while discussing gardening (maybe folks might not want to hear about manure tea, but otherwise?)

I suppose it’s possible to offend (correction: it’s always possible to offend somehow) when discussing organic versus conventional gardening methods. But so long as everyone remembers that most people truly believe that what they are doing is okay and no one wants to truly harm the place where they live (at least not backyard gardeners!), it should all turn out fine.

(Mind you, as an organic gardener for over two decades, I have been lecturing for 16 years to “mixed” crowds. I am thrilled that the more I talk about organic gardening, the more I see people embracing it. But not everyone still does. And you get no where by offending those who don’t.)

So if you are a gardener, and somewhat quiet, or shy, or introverted (or whatever the new word is for the wallflowers like me who don’t like to shine in large groups), just try to find the gardener in the group. You’ll have a great time. And when the end of the evening comes, you’ll say, “Oh? Already?”

Wordless Wednesday–Flame

Dec7

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This year I am just entranced with my zygocacti. One is more spectacular than the next. And the colors of the flowers–the multiple colors within a single flower, particularly as it transitions from but to blossom–leave me almost speechless.

Wordless Wednesday–A Closer Focus

Nov2

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Now that we have had snow, outdoor gardening is pretty much done for me.  So I will need to content myself with house  plants  (and it’s going to be a love/hate relationship, as it always is) for the next 7 months or so until I can get back out into the garden.

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I planted this container for a lecture I had last March .  As a general rule ,  I don’t plant mixed house plant containers. They are problematic .  But this one has worked out  very well .  It went outside for the summer and survived the transition back indoors .

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And I just love the pilea. It winds its way through the other plants and emerges at the top with these sweet leaf clusters.

I have been very happy with the way the colors of the leaves echo each other as well. This has been a very pleasant combination. I am surprised that it worked out so well .

And Now, A Gardening Public Service Announcement

Oct28

This is a topic I have been a little oblique about in past blog posts. I have talked about “a little problem with my shoulder” and I have referenced an unexpected problem that caused my gardening season to be cut short.

I think it’s time to talk about what’s really happened and ironically, seeing a post on Martha Stewart’s blog where she showed great machines hauling in her house plants made me think of this.

I am the “great machine” that hauls my 100 or so house plants in and out every year. Granted, I don’t have them in huge concrete urns as Martha does, but I do have some of them in some fairly large pots–and they get larger every year because that’s what happens–plants grow (if any of you happen to meet the Spoiler, you can ask him about hauling in my banana–that’s the only one I didn’t get in before the “incident.”)

In any event, this year, for whatever reason, I chose to bring my 100 or so house plants in ridiculously early–earlier than I have ever done–except for the banana. I ran out of energy and that one got marooned outside and the Spoiler wound up having to bring it in for reasons that will become clear in a moment.

On September 16, I went for what I hoped was going to be a routine dermatology visit. It turned out to be anything but. That same day, they took a chunk out of my shoulder that they sent off to biopsy. But from the response in the room prior to biopsy, I already knew I had cancer–and sure enough, a week later, the call came back that I had melanoma.

So this is the public service portion announcement of the post, folks. We’re gardeners. I hope we all wear sunscreen. I do now but of course I haven’t all my life. And this was a mole that I had had since I was a teenager, perhaps earlier than that. I actually brought to the dermatology group’s attention that it had changed. I found it and saw it first.

So the two take-aways from this post are these: please pay attention to your skin. Something you have had since childhood could suddenly look very different. Don’t ignore it. You literally could save your own life.

And the second take away is that while 99.9% of folks have been wonderful and understanding and caring and thoughtful–almost to the point where I was embarrassed by the outpouring of kindness, prayers and good wishes–there is always that .01% that found my cancer an “inconvenience” to whatever it is that they might have planned.

And while I am not in the habit of making a big deal out of illness–having had migraine and now chronic migraine for the last 50 years, you get over yourself pretty fast–I can tell you that surgery for cancer, followed by a major infection is a pretty big deal.  So to those of you who accused me of causing inconvenience: let me tell you, cancer is no party. Just sayin’

Wordless Wednesday

Sep21

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These days, I can’t even park my car overnight without having a spider make a little home for itself.  I’ve remarked before that I know the seasons are changing when I start seeing all these spiders all over. There’s a huge one out the back door of my screen porch. It’s body and legs together are larger than a silver dollar. That’s one web–or worse yet, spider–I don’t want to encounter accidentally.

This actually looks almost like a double web.  There’s one web that stretches from my car to the outer edge of the mirror, and a second that stretches from the lower right hand corner to the upper. I didn’t notice that when I originally took the photo.

Either way, I always feel bad when I have to get in the car and drive. The morning I took this photo, I used the passenger door so that I could alert the spider that something was happening. I went into hiding behind the mirror. I never noticed what happened to the web, but I am sure it was gone by the time I got to work.

These spiders will be around until the first hard freezes. And then, if it warms back up, many of them will be around until the snows. We’ve had a lot of foggy mornings so far so I fear we will have a snowy winter. But that will mean the end to this punishing drought at least.  There are always blessings. I just have to try to remember to tell myself that when it’s snowing!

 

Wordless Wednesday–Fern Grotto Update

Sep14

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Remember this photo from back in late May? A lot has changed.

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Actually it looks much better in this photo than I expected.  Perhaps it’s just my perception that a lot has changed.  Interesting.

For plants that have gone all summer with very little supplemental water,  things aren’t nearly as bad as I feared. Whew!