I have always wanted a rose garden. I’m not sure why I didn’t  start a rose garden  in the front of our house from the beginning, but I didn’t. I guess I was just rose shy?  For years I’ve been struggling with what to put in ‘The Pit’ each year. Last Summer it was Sunflowers, the two summers before that it was a variety of perennials and annuals and of course, that ‘Summer of the Potato Vine’ (all I can say is that it was one crazy Summer).  Suffice to say, although the Sunflowers were my favorite, my urge for a rose garden has only grown stronger. I decided not to fight it any longer, and here she is. Now, for a brief history..

When I was at Antioch College I wanted to major in Botany. I loved plants and did landscaping all through high school so I thought it was a perfect fit. Well, after taking about 3 classes I realized 1) it was REALLY hard and 2) I could give two hoots about the molecular structure of a leaf. In the end I changed my major to ‘Community Organization in Multi-Cultural Societies’. Quite a jump, right? From plants to people.  Lucky for me Antioch College allowed for the ’self designed’ major, so between my desire to save the world and understand who all lived in it, that’s what I came up with. So where do Roses fit in, you ask?

I’ve always loved the Rose but it didn’t really kick in until I wrote a paper on the medicinal qualities of the rose. Believe it or not, it  was a fascinating paper to write! Im amazed by how society has revered the Rose, the plant, the flower, over time.  Its beauty, its romance, its healing powers.. Anyway, long story short, I feel I have finally fulfilled my destiny (at least the one started in college).

So, this is her first year. She has a way to go, but I am seeing  a TON of buds already and I am very optimistic. Who’s in my garden you ask??  I am pleased to introduce you..but remember.. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Enjoy!

St. Patrick (the left was taken on 8/8/10 — the right was taken on 8/12/10):

Queen Elizabeth (the left was taken on 8/8/10 — the right was taken on 8/12/10):

Julia Child (the left was taken on 8/8/10 — the right was taken on 8/12/10):

And the Pit (the fourth rose bush is what I think is a ‘Blue Girl Rose’. I lost her tag, so Im not sure what she is):

Check out this HUGE caterpillar on my tomato plant. I caught this guy yesterday going to TOWN on my cherry tomatoes. I didn’t have the heart to remove him and I went out today to look at him again and he was gone.  Im really hoping one of my birds got to him because he was full of tomato and my guess is that he could easily feed a family of four.  You can’t really tell from this picture, but he was shockingly large. I mean, this guy really was amazing. Just beautiful:

Well, here it is folks. It’s that time again. Last Summer I filled the lovely ‘pit’ in the front of our yard with sunflowers and it was just glorious. This year I decided to do it again. First, because sunflowers are so beautiful and second, because my neighbor said I just had to because she loved so much how they looked. What a great feeling that was. To know that others are appreciating my flowers, too!

So, below are a few pics. Like last year, I started my sunflowers from seed in a few pots on my deck. This year I decided to do the same thing. I purchased 3 packs of sunflower seeds (all different kinds), threw them in pots and let ‘em grow. Over the weekend, I transplanted them into the ‘pit’ along with a few other perennials. I’ve decided to keep the pit primarily perennial (say THAT three times) because Im just tortured by that thing. For three years now I’ve filled that pit with annuals every summer and every winter it just looks blah, so I’ve planted some perennials that I think will look great (in a year or two) and the sunflowers I’ll just add year after year.

I am very excited to see how they will look once they bloom. I am also excited about the perennials. I planted some decorative grass, some columbine (that came back from last year), a couple of wild flower/type plants that Im not sure the name of, a few silver ball looking plants, a cool looking oriental/type miniature shrub (forget the name of that, too), and of course my rose bush (she’s been around for a couple of years now). I’m bad about remembering the names of the plants I have.. Im going to work on that.

Either way, here it is. As you’ll see it doesn’t look like much now, but just wait. Once my sunflowers bloom and the other plants mature, I think its going to look fantastic.

And.. here are my calalillies. They came back from last Summer more beautiful than ever..

No, not the prison yard. My yard. I decided to blog about this because between traveling, the weather, work, visitors, and life, it feels like forever since I’ve been able to dig in the dirt. As you know, gardening truly is ‘My Joy’, or as my father likes to say in Yiddish, “My Mechaieh”, or My Great Pleasure. So, inevitably I miss it.

Currently, my  ’To-Do’ list looks something like this: trim the hedges, weed and populate the ‘pit’, plant my vegetable garden, muck up my compost pile (in other words, till the soil so I can use it), weed eat, find some colorful annuals to fill in the gaps, and whatever else comes to me as I peruse the yard. The GOOD news is that my roses are starting to bloom, my hostas are huge, and my wild indigo, which I thought died, came back more wild, and more indigo than ever. Go Go Indigo!

In other words, I love plants and if you can’t already tell, I love writing about it. Hopefully, sometime soon I will blog about something other than what is growing in my yard, but for now I can’t help it. Right now I just want to share. Natural born beauty.

Check out my Indigo and Roses.. (to the left) The Indigo was half the size last year… and its only May.

And how about that Columbine? Gorgeous, isn’t it? Nature’s Horn.

I love the Spring. In fact, I didn’t realize how MUCH I love the Spring until last weekend. I don’t know about any of you, but this past Winter was brutal. Snowfall after snowfall. The first few were fun, but after a while it was just too much.

So, as you all know In a former life I was a landscaper. I still consider working in the yard as my form of therapy and this past weekend it was time to cut down the decorative grass in the front yard. Thankfully, I remembered an article I read in one of my gardening magazines that suggested an easy way to cut down what can sometimes be terribly difficult grass (when its dead and spreading seeds it really can be a terrible mess!). Well, I went ahead and did what my magazine suggested and wrapped my grass in duct tape and took some electric cutters and whacked it at the root. Effin brilliant. I wish I took a before and after picture, but instead all I got was an ‘in progress’ picture. Since Im the geek that I am, I just thought I’d share:

In addition to cutting down my pampas grass, I decided to experiment with hanging baskets. Apparently, people do this all the time. I, on the other hand, tend to just see a hanging basket I like and say, ‘how much?’. This Spring though, I decided to try my hand in basketry. Typically, elaborate hanging baskets can run you from $25 and up, so I thought by doing my own it would be fun AND save money. Well, one thing for sure. I really did have a great time. Didn’t save much money, but I will never buy another hanging basket again. I hate to admit how much I enjoyed perusing Strange’s Florist (which, although semi-corporate, I ADORE), and just taking in all the different kinds of plants and flowers. I tried to pick as many varieties as I could for my baskets and when I got home, I spread a tarp in the front yard, pulled out my bag of dirt and went to town planting away. I’ve taken a few pictures so you can see for yourself. Hopefully, these will live and grow to cascade down and around the pot (I specifially picked creeping varieties because I dig things that cascade). Either way, this was my weekend and it was wonderful.

I adore plants. Absolutely love them.

I’m not sure where this ‘plant appreciation’ of mine came from, but it’s there. In fact, when I was in high school, my summer job was  landscaping. I worked for a small, women owned  landscaping company called Maywood Lawn and Landscaping. During my time at Maywood, I cut grass, trimmed hedges, pulled weeds, ‘whacked’ weeds, planted plants, removed plants, sprayed herbicide (not my favorite part), shoveled mulched, spread mulch, loaded trucks, emptied trucks, drove trucks and backed up trailers that made me proud (if you’ve ever had to reverse a truck with a full size trailer, and turn it to the left or right, or both – you know what Im talking about).  It was good. It built my confidence, provided an ‘honest’ day of work, and led me to my career behind a desk, since I SWORE  I would find myself a job that included air conditioning and DIDN’T include a fear of posion ivy, hornets, sunburn and dehydration. My time in the sun served me well.

Now, I garden for fun, on MY time and not at 5AM or 3:00 PM (when the sun is nothing more than pain). I also have a ton of houseplants, which I love. You can even ask my husband. I know its strange but I regularly walk by one of my plants, hold up a leaf and say to him, ‘Isn’t this amazing? I mean look at this! Seriously, come look at this!’.  

I’m just amazed by natural diversity. Here is a picture of my newest plant. Im not sure the name (I’ll get back to you with that) but the leafs are just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. I love this plant.

My garden is a work in progress. I decided last year that I wanted to start a garden and here she is. I started with 4 varieties of tomatoes that I purchased at the annual Maymont Herb and Flower Show. I also purchased two varieties of Double Click Cosmos, Columbine and Sunflower. I also purchased Thai Basil, Sweet Basil, Italian Oregano and Greek Oregano. Later on I went to Home Depo and bought two watermelon plants, 3 sweet pepper plants and a habanero pepper plant. 

My tomato’s, especially the Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes, are exploding! They are SOOO yummy. The only problem is that the birds think so too. Funny thing.. apparently some bird thought one of my habanero peppers was a tomato. HA. I wonder if birds have taste buds. Ouch.

Many months ago I participated in a silent auction at my work and won a gift basket that included an amazing assortment of sunflowers and a bag of Caladium bulbs.

I started the sunflowers by seed in a pot on on my back deck. Within 4 weeks, the seeds had sprouted to about 3-4 inches. Over time they started to crowd each other out, which was no surprise seeing how I put the entire package of seeds into ONE starter pot.  To remedy the situation, I transplanted the sprouts into the ‘pit’ in our front yard. It was a bit difficult separating the sprouts without damaging the roots, but if you dig up a clump and very gently shake the dirt off, you can get away without any breakage. I did have to use a flower support for some of the sprouts but within 2 days they were strong and standing tall.  They are crazy tall. I would say the tallest is about 6′. 

I also received a bag of Caldium bulbs. Now, these are curious plants. I planted my bulbs in pots on my deck around the SAME time as my sunflowers and it must have been 6 to 8 weeks before anything started to happen. Its been about 3 weeks since my bulbs started sprouting so as you can see, they are still pretty young. Apparently, I can dig these up after they die, dry out the bulbs and plant them again next year. Also.. you don’t want to eat the leaves of this plant (I know, I was disappointed, too) because  Caladiums contain a toxic substance called calcium oxalate which causes swelling and burning in the mouth. I inserted a couple of pictures of my Caladiums below. They are still young, so in a month or two I’ll take a pic and show you what my beautiful little poison plants turned into.