Serenity in the Garden

ZOOM TALK - June 9 at 6 pm EST  Sponsored by the Los Angeles Association of Professional Landscape Designers - Go here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gardentopia-with-jan-johnsen-tickets-106030600380 Join award-winning landscape designer and garden writer Jan Johnsen to discuss the concepts in her latest book, Gardentopia. About this Event “Gardentopia is that rare marriage of the art of landscaping and the technical knowledge of how to compose a landscape―boiled down to readily understood and easily executed actions. This book puts you in the driver’s seat and shows you how to chart the course to your own personal garden utopia.” - Margie Grace, Grace Design Associates Any backyard has the potential to refresh and inspire if you know what to do. Jan Johnsen’s new book,  Gardentopia: Design Basics for Creating Beautiful Outdoor Spaces , will delight all garden lovers with over 130 lushly illustrated landscape design and planting suggestions. Ms. Johnsen is an

Ruby Slippers Oakleaf Hydrangea - photo by Sandra Reed  So you want to plant a native shrub that tolerates half shade  (shade in afternoon),  has big blooms  in the summer  and has great Fall color? Oh yeah, and it should be compact, fairly minimum maintenance  and grow to -20 degrees F.   And it should be reddish/pink. 'RUBY SLIPPERS' OAKLEAF HYDRANGEA   is the answer.  Monrovia - Ruby Slippers close up Its 9" long flower clusters start out  white, then gradually change to pink and then red, growing above the beautiful oakleaf foliage, which also turns an amazing mahogany red in the fall.    It grows to just 3 1/2 ft. by about 5 feet wide.  Zones 5-9. Developed by the U.S. National Arboretum in McMinnville, TN in 2010,  the compact Ruby Slippers is a cross between  Snow Queen and PeeWee hydrangea. It does not grow higher than 4 feet.   It is perfect for small residential gardens (such as mine).  It also d

The French have long understood that vegetable gardens can be places of beauty. They located their traditional  potagers , or kitchen gardens, outside their kitchen windows and included vertical structures, flowers, and artistic plant groupings designed for aesthetic appeal.  Flowers look beautiful and attract the all important pollinators to your garden. Read the wonderful article I have linked here for learning how to include beautiful flowers and more in your veggie garden.  Infographic - go here for more

Now More than Ever - Lets Get Kids Gardening -  When did we abandon the simple pleasures of growing carrots in milk cartons, planting hollyhocks along old fences or having fragrant lilacs at the corner of a house?  Let's reclaim this as part of our ordinary life... Hollyhocks We all have such memories - even city kids like me... It might be the 'weed' that smelled like licorice (anise hyssop),  or the buttercups that you put under your chin,  or the honeysuckle that you could suck a teeny drop of 'honey' from,  Honeysuckle the sweet smell of roses as you walked past a certain house,  or the bright yellow daffodils in early spring that sprang up overnight it seemed. daffodils by Jan Johnsen I would like us to revive 'garden memories' - to bring flowers, plants and gardens back into our lives. This kind of knowledge has been cast aside in favor of math and physics but I say children can learn those

Every year I reprint this at dandelion time where I live-   The dreaded Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) , for which we spend tremendous amounts of weed killer money to eradicate, has been prized over the years for its medicinal and nutritious properties. In fact, dandelion roots, flowers and "dandelion greens" (leaves) are all edible! Dandelions are a rich source of vitamins A, B complex, C, and D, as well as minerals such as iron, potassium, and zinc. And in traditional medicine, dandelion roots and leaves were used to treat liver problems. Native Americans used dandelion decoctions (liquid made by boiling down the herb in water) to treat kidney disease, swelling, skin problems, heartburn, and stomach upset. Young Dandelion leaves • Dandelion roots can be roasted as a coffee-substitute, or boiled and stir-fried as a cooked vegetable. • Dandelion flowers can be made into a wine. • Dandelion greens can be boiled, as you would spinach, and serve

Just as a forest is connected by an underground fungal network, enabling individual trees to communicate with each other, and can warn each other of danger by releasing chemicals into the air, so are we all connected together deep within, sharing the wisdom and knowing of the Earth, our common home.  And this network is sending us warning signs, that our present way of life is not only unsustainable, but over .  Even when this pandemic comes to an end, we cannot afford to “return to normal” for very long. This present crisis can awaken us to the reality that we need a new way of life, one that is truly sustainable with the Earth and Her “other-than-human” inhabitants.  This virus can be heard as a part of the cry of the Earth—calling to us to change, adapt, awaken from our dream of eternal economic growth,  the nightmare that is destroying so much of Her fragile beauty and wonder. - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee go here for the entire post -   https://stethelburgas.org

On April 29, 2010 Anne Raver of the New York Times asked: "How does Tony Avent , the horticultural mythbuster, grow so many plants successfully in his garden? Rule No. 1: he uses the same mix of 40 percent native soil, dug on his own land, and 60 percent compost for every plant.   ''The soil for every plant we have is prepared exactly the same, whether it's a pitcher plant or an agave,'' .... After he switched to organics, he said, ''it took about a year before everything started jumping. Our insect problems disappeared. It was just amazing.'' ...." (Tony Avent runs the wonderful Plant Delights Nursery - offering an incredibly diverse collection of plants and the catalog is a collectors' item) This observation took me back to 1972 when I was a landscape architecture student at the University of Hawaii and also minoring in tropical agriculture The university farm was in Pearl City ( next to Pearl Harbor

In these times, I look to one of my favorite Shakespare passages. They say being outside is one of the best things you can do to stay healthy. This is so apt for these times -  "Exempt from public haunt" indeed: "Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." - Shakespeare, As You Like It

During this time of  Covid-19,  we must cultivate outselves, our well being and our gardens. Plants can be a soothing balm for troubled times.  This is modified from the National Garden Bureau - click on the words for some great and informative links.  Start  some seeds . Plan a  vegetable garden .   Plan to grow flowers for the joy they bring. Take an  online class  about plants or gardens, or watch some  YouTube instruction videos .   Plan an  herb garden.     T ake a walk in a nearby natural area:  woods, field, desert, beach or park.  Take this time to groom or repot houseplants.  Remove dead leaves, refresh the soil, take cuttings of favorites so that later you can share the wealth with friends. Create a new indoor display of plants.  Make a row of small pots in bloom on your kitchen counter or the windowsill above your sink.  Plan a new  group of containers  for your  deck, porch or patio .  Flowers, herbs, and vegetables await your creativity…go f