Some Noteworthy Gardening Blogs

Thank you to the following blogs for their links and referrals to Heirloom Gardener over the past month:

1. http://www.gardeningonewild.com/ - this is a group effort with great writers, photographers, the Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop, the Picture This Photo Contest, the Plant Pick of the Month and more: "The idea for Gardening Gone Wild came out of the wonderful interactions I have had over several years with gardening professionals throughout North America, all of whom are passionate gardeners."

2. http://www.kenschill.blogspot.com/ - if I lived in Sweden, this is what my garden might look like: "We are two amateur gardeners. We are interested in everything in the garden both plants and garden-design."

3. http://www.blotanical.com/ - of all of the lists of gardening blogs out there, I still think that this is the best one: "where garden blogs bloom."

4. http://www.phillipoliver.blogspot.com/ - from Alabama, a great personal gardening blog: "...creating and maintaining a 3/4 acre garden for 15 years now which I have chronicled on my web site. I also enjoy movies, reading and photography."

5. http://www.thequeenofseaford.com/ - from Virginia, another great personal gardening blog: "After gardening in Texas, Florida, and Germany I am now in Tidewater...trying to have an attractive garden while battling dogs and tidal inflows of mysterious seeds."

6. http://www.maydreamsgardens.blogspot.com/ - from Indiana, the well-known host of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: "Eccentric gardener? Gardening geek? Passionate about plants? Join me in my Zone 5 garden in Indiana!"

7. http://www.queenmothermamaw.blogspot.com/ - from Kentucky, a blog about more than just gardening: "Retired RN loving time with my children, grands, art, literature and blogging and loving the creativity. My name comes from my dear grandchildren. I called them all princess, then their moms queens and my sons kings. They started to call me Queenmother Mamaw."

8. http://www.flowerhillfarm.blogspot.om/ - from Massachusetts, Carol lives on a dream, twenty acre property: "Farming, observing and documenting a twenty acre hillside paradise, which includes organically cultivated rambling gardens, fields of organic blueberries, forest, fabulous views and expanse of sky."

9. http://www.northmobilegardensociety.blogspot.com/ - from Alabama, I share Dirt Princess's feelings about spending everyday outside in the yard: "I live in the deep south, where everyday is a bad hair day. I am married to my best friend (The Hunter) and we do everything together (except garden). I would spend everyday outside in my yard if I could."

10. http://www.acornergarden.blogspot.com/ - from Nebraska, Sue is a dedicated suburban gardener: "I am married with 2 grown children and a grandson. We live in the house on a corner lot that my husband grew up in. I have been talking him out of more grass over time in order to increase space for gardening. I like growing veggies, flowers, and herbs."

Correction: American (not Painted) Lady Butterfly, Vanessa virgiensis, on Butterfly Bush

Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly, Papilio troilus, on Pink Phlox

Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop: Time in the Garden

This month's Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop at Gardening Gone Wild is on Time in the Garden. I love the kick-off photos on the post, as gardens are never "done" and always evolving, season to season, and year to year. Thinking through posts and photos that I could use to contribute to this subject, the best I have to offer is a post from last year, "Heirloom Gardener's Four Year Makeover of Her Front Garden - How to Improve Boring Suburban Landscaping," with pictures of the significant changes made from 2004-2008, including the replacement of a pathway and the continuation of a stone staircase to the front door. The foll0w-up post, "Front Yard Garden Design Challenge - Five Ideas For the Downward Sloping Front Yard," provides updated pictures from 2009, including the plantings that were added around the new hardscaping. Here are some of the "before" and "after" shots from those posts:

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The Front Garden, 2004

The Front Garden, 2009

The Egg Garden, 2004

The Egg Garden, 2009

NYT: How to Sip a Flower Garden

We all know about edible flowers, but I never thought about adding them to mixed drinks. Laura M. Holson writes in The New York Times:

"Red sunflower petals and cucumbers are bathed in gin. Syrup made from dried lavender blossoms is muddled with mint leaves to lend mojitos a Provençal air. And the fizz of Champagne is quieted by wild elderflower liqueur.
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'People are realizing there are a lot of edible flowers or flavored liqueurs that taste beautiful in a cocktail glass,' said Junior Merino, a bartender and consultant who came up with a drink for the Modern in Manhattan called Coming Up Roses, a bouquet of rum, rose syrup and crushed rose petals. 'It’s a discovery for many: interesting flavors and tastes they never knew existed.'"

For the full article, click here.

This Cucumber Looks Like a Duck

This cucumber got stuck in the netting of the eight foot tall screen around the raised vegetable bed and my children thought it was blog-worthy.

Ten Tips for Starting an Employee Garden

As a follow-up to my post "WSJ: Adding a Vegetable Garden to a Small Business," Twisted Limb Paperbacks, one of the businesses featured in the article, has a blog post, Ten Tips for Starting an Employee Garden:

"Twisted Limb Paperworks is a recycled handmade paper and invitation business in the countryside of South Central Indiana. We started a company garden last year, as a benefit to employees who at the time, had to reduce their hours and forgo raises. Everyone enjoyed getting their share of produce so well, that this year we increased the plot to 30x50 feet. We grow ten different herbs and twenty-four different vegetables, many of those in several different varieties. I’ll admit that it’s a lot to manage for the five of us. We certainly haven’t taken our own advice about starting small and easy, but that’s OK. It’s my pet project and I absolutely love it..."

Some of This Year's Heirloom Tomatoes

As readers of this blog know, I am primarily a flower gardener. However, the children love growing and eating vegetables, so the Children's Garden is now primarily a vegetable garden. Each year, I learn more about growing heirloom vegetables, but my yields have been limited due to the pests who like to eat our vegetables before we do. This year, we built eight foot tall screens around the raised beds and have been rewarded with our best harvest yet.

Purple Angelica in the Front Border

Dahlia 'Arab Queen' on Goldberry Hill

Dahlia 'Gloria Van Heemstede' in the Cutting Garden

A Summer Visit to the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG): the Four Season Border by Piet Oudolf

I was reading The New York Times when a photograph from the New York Botanical Garden caught my eye. It was in an article by Anne Raver about the new Four Season Border designed by Piet Oudolf and it was almost the exact same picture that I took a couple of weeks ago.
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According to the website for the garden (www.seasonwalk.com):
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"In 2008, The New York Botanical Garden invited two international garden design superstars, Piet Oudolf of Hummelo, NL and Jacqueline van der Kloet of Weesp, NL, to create a custom four-season garden installation to delight New Yorkers. Both designers are known for sophisticated plant mixes, an artist’s eye for form and color, and complex naturalized plantings that evolve over the seasons."
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The Seasonwalk website includes photographs of the every-changing border every couple of weeks. Check out The New York Times photograph here.
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