Spring Arrives in a December Mailbox

Like most of the country, here in Harrisonville (just south of Kansas city), we are hunkering down for a big freeze. The high for the Chiefs game tomorrow will be a whopping 8 degrees---with any luck. My husband, David, double checked antifreeze strengths in all three cars, something he's done only twice in the eighteen years we've been together. And, I would say this is definitely going to challenge all those marginal zone 6 perennials I planted on the advice of nursery people who assured me that our winters aren't as cold as they once were. Needless to say, and according to our weather forecasts, it's going to feel like Alaska around here for the next few days.

So imagine my delight when I opened my mailbox this afternoon and saw the vibrant, rich colors of a spring seed catalog staring out at me!!! Thrilling. And less than a week from Christmas! What caught my eye was the picture of a red and white marbled grandiflora rose called Rock & Roll. I saw this rose at The Family Tree nursery last summer. Not to be harsh, but seeing the rose in person was less spectacular than seeing it splashed across the front page of my new seed catalog. The roses were small and the variations of color weren't nearly as striated. Anyway, my mailbox is about 75 feet away from my front door. It seemed like an eternity to reach the mailbox with the bitter north wind whipping around my exposed face but with seed catalog in hand, the trip back to the house didn't seem nearly as miserable or lengthy in duration!

Tossing all other pieces of mail aside, I sat down at the kitchen table and started perusing the pages. Of course, have-to-haves immediately began jumping out at me. I'm particularly excited about a new Gaillardia called Dakota Reveille. It's the first double ball-type I've seen to withstand temperatures to zone 4. Yipppeee!!!!!!!! I have perennial Gaillardia but they are the more daisy-like type in appearance. And I love to grow Cosmos every year. I try to find a new and exciting variety to experiment with. This year, looking at the seed catalog, it appears that Double Click Rose Bonbon may just be the ticket. The blooms are fully double, rose/lavender petals borne on 36 inch stems. Perfect for the back of the border. I also have my eye on a clematis called Empress. This variety, with its candy-pink double blooms, which have darker pink midrib markings and a spiky pompon center, would be a great addition to my clematis collection. It doesn't hurt that Empress is also my favorite flower color!

As my eyes scanned the delightful pages of the seed catalog, they came to rest on the word bulbs.That's when I was ripped from my futuristic daydreaming and jarred back into the present. During the winter, my garage rarely dips below 40 degrees. However, with a wind chill factor of -20, I need to get off this computer and start helping David tote my stored bulbs to the basement.

Gifting from the Garden: Sweet Potato Pie

I have both very northern (paternal) and very southern (maternal) roots. On the southern side of things, I'm a direct descendant of Stonewall Jackson. Like any good southerner, I like things in extremes, especially hot weather and rich food. Thinking along those lines, I'd like to discuss the sweet potato in this posting.

This past garden season, I planted Beauregard sweet potato vines, a southern favorite. This particular variety produces beautifully large, red-skinned tubers with deep orange inner flesh. Beauregard is crack resistant and if stored in a cool dry place, will keep extremely well. Sweet potato slips (plant/vine starts) are sold at any nursery or seed company and should be planted only after soil temperatures stay at 50 degrees over night. Sweet potatoes are very cranky about getting cold and will quickly wither. I like Beauregard because it seems to tolerate temperature flunctuations better. I plant my slips in a mounded hill of dirt. Once the slip begins to vine, it needs plenty of room to send out its runners. The runners root and sweet potatoes are produced along these rooted portions of the vine.

At Christmas, I particularly like to give gifts that directly reflect my love of gardening. My neighbors and I participate in an annual cookie exchange---breads, candies, and even scented candles are also acceptable and have been given. Last year, I gave away dried herbs, flower seeds, and homemade potpourri in gift baskets.

Since I had an abundance of sweet potatoes in the fall, I decided to make pies for our cookie exchange. So yesterday, I set up an assembly line and began churning out pie crusts and before long, I had seven sweet potato pies ready for the oven. They baked up just lovely. Here's my recipe if you'd be so inclined to make one:

Jenn's Southern Sweet Potato Pie

1 9" pie crust, either homemade or store bought

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp cloves

2 large eggs

1 lb Beauregard sweet potatoes, cooked and drained (or 1 can of 15 0z store bought sweet potatoes)

1 12 oz can evaporated milk

Place sweet potatoes in large mixing bowl and mash. Stir in sugars, salt, and spices and mix well. Add eggs and incorporate. Gradually stir in the entire contents of the evaporated milk. Pour sweet potato mixture into pie shell. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 350 and bake for 45 minutes longer or until set. Let cool completely before serving.

If giving the pie as a gift, wrap beautifully:

Lu and Me in the Garden

Meet my garden companion, Lu. Isn't he a handsome fellow?
























Dave and I adopted Lu three years and two months ago from a rescue program. He's a wonderful dog. Unfortunately, someone treated him very poorly before he came to live with us. He has a lot of fear. He doesn't warm up to strangers and is leary even with our neighbors and friends. Lu is a mix of Boxer and German Shorthair---he's so dashing he often garners compliments when people see him. He loves to be in the gardens when I'm outside. More often than not, he stands guard while I dig or plant. He takes protecting me very seriously. However, he can be distracted by the lure of a discarded plastic pot. I think that as soon as I remove the plant and lay the pot on the ground, the pot begins to call his name in a voice only he can hear. Sneaking up on my blind side, Lu will then ease the pot up off the ground until he has a sure grip with his teeth. And that's when he explodes into a frenetic mass of churning muscle. Round and round the yard he runs, turning and twisting, leaping and lurching, the pot dancing on the end of his nose. We've given him all kinds of store-bought toys but nothing is as much fun as the discarded plastic pot.

Yesterday, we planted the bulbs I got at Ace hardware last weekend. They were beautiful and solid and much to my delight, I found that the ground was still dig-ible. Into the ground went 10 Anemone Blanda, 4 Nectaroscordum Allium, 20 Dick Wilden Double Narcissi, and 7 Mount Everest Giant Allium. Much to Lu's delight, he found the remnants of a flower pot and after running with it until he tired himself out, he settled in for some shredding. He's also very proficient at making plastic confetti.

While I was planting the bulbs, I remembered reading a helpful planting tip about bulbs that I wanted to pass on. Sometimes it's hard to tell, especially for beginning gardeners, which is the top and which is the bottom of the bulb for placement in the ground. Almost always the top is pointy. But, if you can't figure it out, plant the bulb on its side and the bulb will take care of itself. Nice.

Today, we are expecting snow. Not a lot, maybe an inch. But Lu and I don't care for the gray skies and the bitter way the wind has turned on us from the northwest. Maybe that's why I'm sitting here jabbering about dogs and bulbs and Lu is chasing rabbits from the comfort of his recliner.

Let Someone Else Judge Your View

This particular shot of my garden was taken on the south side of the house. It's not extremely colorful. It doesn't necessarily dazzle the viewer. But, I think its a great garden photo. I'm curious to know. What do you think?

Let me tell you why I like this photo so much. It captures the bones. This photo was taken in September when almost all the plants were done blooming. And yet, I think the garden looks as good then as it did when it was awash with color. That's because all the structural elements (the bones) work. The fence provides a good visual line and backdrop for the garden inside the fence. I've planted several large perennials, shrubs, and grasses to act as anchors. Because cottage gardening can border on the side of visually messy, these larger plantings or anchors provide breaks or focal points. In this photo, the two snowball viburnum (viburnum opulus sterile , large green bushes at center top) break the rambling fence and garden bed into thirds. Large spiky grasses outside the fence (upper left corner) soften the line of the fence by intruding ever so slightly. Then its all tied together by commingling smaller spiky and bushy plantings throughout the beds. The black rolled edging defines the flow, how one will move or be moved through a garden. Imagine stepping into this garden on the left side of the photo. Where would you go? What if you followed the flow and moved to the upper right side? What is just out of view around the corner? The final element of good design is surprise. The surprise could be in finding a bench or a fountain but in this case its a large wisteria arbor.

Have I done a good job designing this garden? I think so but who of us doesn't need validation? Even top garden designers need validation or they wouldn't have prestigious landscaping awards. Okay, having said that, where to get this validation? The two forms of criticism I value highly are 1) unsolicited compliments and 2) recognition by professionals.

Unsolicited compliments are a very genuine form of criticism. This past summer we had a window replaced. The man who came to estimate the cost for the new window was extremely complimentary about my gardens. It wasn't that he was just trying to sell me either. He and I started talking and I found out he was really into bonsai and Zen gardening. Another time, a complete stranger rang my door bell just to let me know how much she admired my gardens as she drove past every day on the street. You know you've made a visual impression when people you don't know are complimenting you.

Recognition by professionals is great as well. Here's my advice. Get to know your local nursery people on a first name basis. Let's face it, for the most part, people who work in nurseries do so because they love gardening. After purchasing my large cone baskets from Farrand Farms (as mentioned in my post about container gardening ), I sent a photo of my baskets with all their glorious foliage and blooms so that Keith, the owner, could see them. He emailed me back with his comments. Another way to acquire professional feedback is to enter gardening contests. What better way to know you are doing a great job than by being rewarded for what you do? I won my first gardening contest on Memorial day of this year from Johnson Farms, a family owned nursery just south of metro Kansas City. In the springtime they have a huge selection of annuals and perennials. And just last week I was notified that I had been chosen as the August 2008 garden contest winner for VanBourgondien, a mail order nursery located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. From both, I won $100 gift certificates.

Sweet!

Christmas lights and spring flowering bulbs

Winter came again to Kansas City and all at once. Some of us just weren't ready---me, for one, and this poor scabiosa who was caught blooming unaware.

Frankly, I don't know how it was still producing viable blooms. We've had several nights of freezing temps---dipping down as low as 18---but I guess our mild days kept it encouraged. This Wednesday our forecast calls for temps in the upper 50's. No wonder some of my hardier plantings are confused. And talk about confusion, this past weekend I walked into my local Ace hardware store in search of a 50 count string of green twinkle lights and ran smack into a display of spring flowering bulbs! (What were they still doing on the shelf?)

Needless to say, my husband, who'd been abandoned before we ever reached the Christmas section, found me sorting through little cardboard bins of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinth bulbs, twinkle lights all but forgotten. "I should have known," was the first thing he said, a familiar form of greeting between us when my gardening obsession derails me from my intended path. Then he asked, "Will these be okay to plant now?" At 90% off the original price, I assured him it was worth taking a chance. When will I ever again get the opportunity to buy Mount Everest Allium bulbs for roughly 30 cents each? And, if they do make it, how great will they look scattered throughout the gardens? Awesome!

Later, dressed in sixteen layers of clothing, I tottered out to the gazebo and helped string lights along its rails and posts while the north wind stabbed the exposed skin of my face with ice pellets. That's when I noticed my scabiosa, the same plant I bought half dead in the late summer from a local nursery for 75% off. Once I put it in the ground, it flourished. Hopefully, this coming spring, I'll be able to post a picture of giant snowballs sprouting from a warm sun drenched garden bed.