Squash Rules! First harvest of squash at the Food Bank Community Garden here in Winston-Salem,NC

The Good, the Bad and It Depends Where You Are

I haven't blogged for a while and have a lot of catching up to do. Of course, everyone out there knows that this time of year is more doing than thinking and I have been totally immersed in the world outdoors, plus my computer died. Now I'm back in action during the middle of the day when it's just too hot to be outside in North Carolina.

I decided to write about my experience in NC vs. my experience in Brooklyn, NY. It's amazing that even though I garden in both which share Zone 7, there is a huge difference in what goes well here and there and here and there.

Comparison of specific plants that grow well for me here (in my sunny hot location) and there (in my Brooklyn shade garden). Lest you say, aha, it's sun vs. shade, I know many of these plants growing in full sun at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in NYC and Reynolda Gardens here in NC.

Shasta Daisies.....totally a winner in NC and always a failure for my in Blyn.
Hydrangeas........totally a winner in NYC and not so hot for me here in NC
Oakleaf Hydrangeas.....the MOST beautiful flowers in my Brooklyn shade garden; just planted one here in NC....we will see. After all it's a native to the south east.
Day lilies..............totally a winner in NC and not so hot in NYC, except the NY Botanical garden where they have an extraordinary day lily collection
Hostas........I guess it depends on the variety as some do well here in NC but one which was spectacular in my Brooklyn garden did not do well as a transplant here. I tried seveal times iin the shadiest part of my garden; meanwhile,other hostas are doing great. Conclusion is that it depends on the variety.
Cercis canadensis "Redbud" ....Fabulous in NC, the woods are full of them blooming in the spring; a rarity in NYC
Crape Myrtles.....Fabulous and probably over used in NC; just beginning to be known and popular in NY.. Brooklyn Botanic garden has a terrific collection.
Balloon flowers....great in NC; never grew them in NYC
Lavender....Have great luck in NC with plants I bought in Long Island; never could grow them in NYC
Nepeta....Grows well here but really falls apart when it gets hot; much longer bloom time in NYC
Echinacea....They are fabulous in NYC and I wasn't able to get much bloom until this year, 3 years after planting
Rudbekkia....Great in both places
Lilacs...Unbelievable in NYC and very rare in NC. I've seen one this season.

Why these differences....Soil is VERY different. In NC it's clay and in Brooklyn, well it has more organic material and lots more rock. In NC the winter is about a month shorter so everything is at least two to four weeks ahead. Heat and humidity....higer in NC. Amount of rain; can vary totally. This year NC is having fair amount of rain and NYC is having huge amounts of rain. When I recently visited NY I can never remember, in the 40 years of living there that the tree canopy from the air was as green and lush as it is now.

Of course, the fall leaves are another topic as they are very different in NC and NY. Will wait for that until my October report. Meanwhile Ithink I'll go have a glass of sweet ice tea.

My organic roses

What can be more beautiful than the first roses of spring? These blooms, photographed on Mother's Day are my gift to myself. I am trying to use all organic practices....constantly enriching the soil, mulching, using organic spray, removing Japanese beetles by hand, organic fertilizers, etc. The proof will be as the summer progresses. I also water with underground irrigation and also my rain barrel collection. All of the collected water goes into my roses. I'm in Zone 7 in Winston-Salem, NC.

More later as the summer progresses and I get more photos. For more on roses, also see the post on my friend Kay's beautiful rose garden in Raleigh, NC.

Zephrin Drouhin....an heirloom French rose

Summer Bliss

Community Gardening Guidebook Goes into Second Printing!

 A much needed resource for starting a community garden or for learning more about it....Available from bbg.org and amazon.com. See sidebar for details about contents.  Photos alone are worth the price and tell the story.                                                                                

Installing a Rain Barrel Step by Step

Installing a rain barrel is great fun and terribly satisfying. We can collect 55 gallons in this barrel with less than 1 " of rain off our roof. See right hand column for all the steps to installing your own barrel. With a drip hose channeled from the barrel we can water our ten rose bushes with a steady slow watering for over an hour. Try it. You'll love it!

Community Gardens Grow Healthy Food!

With all the alarm these days about getting safe food, it's no wonder many people are looking for a community garden to get their own tomatoes, lettuce, watermelons or whatever suits them. Folks like a community garden because they can learn from each other the best practices. I find food crops a lot harder to manage than oramentals. Seems as if they are more prone to disease. To be an organic gardener you need as much advice as you can get. Organic Gardening magazine has always been a great resource for me. In Brooklyn, where I have gardened a lot, youth have developed a farmers market from their produce. They've learned business skills as well as horticulture. If you want to grow food for your family, a community garden is a great way to go. Get ideas on how to start a community garden from www.communitygarden.org. Also, check out the new guidebook COMMUNITY GARDENING from bbg.org or from AMAZON.COM

COMPOSTING

Although this photo of Susan JOhnson in Brooklyn was taken last fall, it oculd have been here in Winston-Salem yesterday. It was in the mid 50 degrees and sunny. After several days of temps in the mid 50's it was a great day to work the soil Such a day gives a healthy dose of spring fever! I ventured into my garden to take soil test samples. I'm sending four to the Ag Extension Service in Raleigh (see my column on soil testing). I took samples from each of four gardens; rose garden, little forest area, perennial flower border and vegetable garden. It was great to dig in the soil. But, the real excitement came from harvesting compost! We put all our kitchen cuttings and coffee grounds (filters and all) into the compost on a regular basis. However, the fall leaves are the biggest part and I had to plow through a pile of them to get to the rich compost at the bottom of the bin. (Yes, I know I should be layering the leaves and the kitchen material to get a proper carbon nitrogen mix, but I will do that task later). I have a three level bin made of recycled plastic (purchased from Smith and Hawken) so I took off the top section and removed the contents then the second section. I got to the compost in the bottom section. Rich, finished and full of earthworms. The sight of the earthworms gave me the biggest thrill because that tells me the compost system is really working. I removed about 30 gallons of finished compost and put that into our vegetable beds (we have raised beds) as well as several large containers which I will spread into other parts of the garden. The photos are ones of the compost harvest in the Schaef Earth Garden. I will add some photos of my compost here in North Carolina asap.

Compost is the supreme soil amendment to add structure and organic material to your soil, something we DESPERATELY need with our clay soil here in North Carolina. It enhances plant growth, helps with water retention (especially to create a drought tolerant garden) and is easy to make yourself. Winter is a great time to add to the garden before the spring rush of planting.

Home composting saves money too and you know what's in it because you put it there.

Winter Sowing Containers

I decided to see how many different kinds of containers I could use. And, I wanted to recycle as many different things as I could. Now, I look at every container to think about it's potential to plant seeds. The ones I have used so far are:

Large clear plastic container (as you put under your bed to store sweaters) with plastic baggies. I removed the plastic top but be sure to put it on and to drill holes in the top. Photo 3.

Other examples: Ice cream cartons, Soda bottles, Empty Canola Oil bottle, Styrofoam cups, strawberry container from grocery store. If you go to the winter sowing website they have more details and even more container options. Photo 2.

The first seeds that sprouted were mesclun seeds (took about ten days). The temps have been below freezing all the way up to the 50's but it doesn't seem to matter. Chard is also coming up. Don't forget to keep the containers covered with a baggie but make little vent holes.

Also, these styrofoam cups in photo 2 were cut in half and I will use both the tops and the bottoms.

Winter sowing is addictive. This is my first year and I'm already convinced it works. It's so much easier than seed starting indoors as you are letting nature take care of all the guesswork, etc. For a comparison I'm also planting seeds indoors of similar or same varieties. Will try to see what does best and is the most successful. Watch for future reports.

Winter Container Gardening

I decided to add an evergreen to the containers on my stoop when the summer and fall plants bit the dust. I figured I could move the plant to my perennial border in the spring and start all over again. I found these Dwarf Hinoki Cypress (Chamecyparis obtusa 'Golden Sprite' that were about the right size. They are very compact and do just the trick to bring some green into the otherwise bare containers.

Grasses (miscanthus zebrina)

Ornamental grasses have year round beauty. They come up with new green shoots in the spring, grow tall and striking in the summer, send up beautiful plumes in the fall, give structure to the landscape in the winter. I never cut mine back until early spring, just when the new shoots begin to appear.

New Dawn Roses Climb Kay's Fence in Raleigh, NC

Kay's Rose Garden in Raleigh NC

My friend Kay has been growing roses in a lovely space beside her home with a backdrop of New Dawn's on a fence and a collection of nearly twenty varieties including St. Patrick, Touch of Class, Mr. Lincoln, Voluptuous, Mr. Lincoln, Garden Party among others. Her home is filled with vases of the finest roses and she gives away roses to friends and family. One of her rose photos was featured in the Raleigh News and Observer.

Exploring the Master Gardener Display Garden in Winston-Salem, NC

Children's Garden at Tanglewood Park, Winston- Salem, NC

CHILDREN'S GARDEN AT TANGLEWOOD

Iris Farm in Winston-Salem, NC

About - www.GardenBloggers.com

About - www.GardenBloggers.com My blog is primarily and educational blog based on my experience as a botanic garden staff, community gardener and an home gardener. Current topics include, roses, rain barrels, drought tolerant gardeningI have a garden coaching service in Winston-Salem, NC where my blog is gardencoachws.blogspot.com Thanks for your blog; it's a great service to all.

Plant Shares....just after I wrote about the "white garden" with the Gaura and possible Shasta Daisies, my neighbor across the street brought me several Shasta Daisy transplants from her garden. Now they are added to the Gaura and the white Annabelle hydrangea in the backyard garden. I gave her a handful of cosmos volunteers to make the swap complete. I have discovered that plant swaps are a great way to spread the wealth of our gardens and to get to know our neighbors. Shasta Daisies are another of the plants that do extremely well in drought and have a long blooming season.

Favorite Plant Today

Gaura does extremely well here in Winston-Salem. It's tall, blooms all summer, stands up to drought. Looking for pure white, I found 'So White' at the Farmstand on Peace Haven Rd., one of the best small nurseries I have found here in WS. Since I want to use lots of white in the backyard garden so we can enjoy in the evenings, I am planting these in several places around the border along with white Annabelle Hydrangea (which the rabbits ate last year, but so far my Deer Off is working), white vincas, etc. Another white plant that does extremely well in the drought and heat here is the Shasta Daisy, so I'm going to move some of those from other places into the back.

The RED Garden

I wanted something in front of the house that would blend in with the red brick of the house. There's a spot in front of the porch where there are large shrubs and a flower bed in front. So...after some thinking I decide on two red Knock Out Roses, verbena, dianthus (yes, there is red dianthus). Richard adores boxwoods so he planted five small English ones for the very front of the bed so that we'd have something there in the winter. My Brooklyn hostas (huge leaves gold and chartreuse) were there too but, alas,had to be moved again. (They were in my garden in Brooklyn in the shade and we just can't find the right spot for them here..can always raid more from Brooklyn if needed). On the stoop I put red caladiums and begonias. Hopefully all of this will give some color without going overboard in front of the house. To top it off I'm adding touches of .....orange. We'll see. Photo to be added when everything starts to fill in. Orange is supposed to be the "in" flower color this year and seems to blend in well with the red. We'll see...can always move it out.

Our path is laid

It was exciting to make a stepping stone path through the new perennial border. Richard and I got the stones at Lowe's and he laid them. It's amazing how much it enhances the design and helps me with planting, weeding and watering.

Spring 2008 "The Path is Laid"

Now in the second year of gardening in Winston-Salem, I realized we are about six weeks ahead of New York, maybe even a bit longer because of the full sun. Daffodils were up in February. today is May 10 and we've got salvia, nepeta and roses in full bloom.
Richard put in a wonderful path with stones we got at Lowe's (See photo above). They look so real and add a practical and lovely addition to my bed which is about 15 x 10 ' and visible from the street. It's fun to talk to people when they walk by.

I've used purple and blue as my theme with some wine thrown in. Some of the plants are nepeta,snapdragons,salvias(three types),verbena,monarda,peroskia,pansies,mugo pine,boxwoods, abelia (Little Richard!), nandina, malva, balloon flower,sedum Autum Joy, echinacea,lavender (Provence), cosmos, ....

Richard also gave me a great idea to put names of the plants on small rocks so I've been trying to keep my list current. This is a great idea cause it's free or cheap, permanent, easy to see (they are on the ground), and helps to "mark the spot" for the winter.

Poll Results for December

Welcome visitors to my blog. Thank you! I am running a monthly poll to get an idea of your thoughts on each month, a la gardening. For those who participated in December, here are the results:

Thoughts about December:


Too dark: 2
Too cold: 2
Too hot: 0 (where are all the southern hemisphere folks?)
My favorite season: 0
Love evergreens: 2
Want more evergreens: 3

If you want to vote on the January poll, please check the preferences at the top right of this page. Results will be posted in February. Happy New Year to all!

February Poll...Vote Soon!

My February poll is almost finished. Please add your voice; poll results to be announced in early March... spring is coming!

Poll Results for January

Thanks for your interest in the January poll. Look for February in the top right column. Cast your vote early and often.

Here are the results

January is too dark......11
Too cold.........................15
Too hot............................0
My favorite month........0
I enjoy snow..................6
I leave seed pods, grasses, etc.................12
I cut everything to the ground................2
I continue my compost.............................11

Participation went up this time from about 10 in December to 57 in January. That's a good sign.

Many folks leave their seed pods, grasses, etc. for winter interest. I notice how few people in my neighborhood do this leaving ugly "chopped off" grasses when they could have beautiful stems and pods blowing in the wind or providing a fabulous sculpture when it snows. Between the evergreens and the grasses, with a bit of planning, the winter garden can bring the garden alive. I even see the birds rustling around the grasses or perched on top. It was also great to see how many people keep their compost going. I remember one time turning my compost in sub freezing weather and finding a whole cluster of worms even though I could have sworn they went underground in the coldest time of winter. The compost pile obviously was still active enough (thanks to those worms) that the heat level maintained an environment to keep the worms a live.

Please take a look at the February poll. Vote for as many as you wish.

Hollies

I am beginning to learn that hollies (Ilex) have numerous varieties in common use. In addition to my favorite Winterberry, I love the 'Nellie Moser" variety that we have as a border on our lot. this year it produced berries whereas last year there were none. I think this is becuae of a frost in the spring 0f 2007 that nipped the flowers. I know the birds are pleased.