Serenity in the Garden

Are you feeling a little down? depressed? Well here is a way to fix that -  go out and plant something... Studies have found that an hour of gardening a day reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke and increases bone density more efficiently than aerobics or swimming! In fact, even looking at nature can result in a drop in blood pressure within five minutes and lower our stress hormones. One 16-year study in Australia revealed that those who did daily gardening even cut their risk of getting dementia in later life.    (Gardening boosts endorphins, the body’s good-mood chemicals. Personally, my theory is that we need the sunlight on our pineal gland and this can delay dementia, but I have no proof, its just a 'knowing') Here is a lovely story from  Timesonline United Kingdom,  dated March 27, 2010 "...Jane Robertson was earning a small fortune in the pressured world of derivatives markets when she had a breakdown at the age ...

Its 92 degrees outside. Sweltering. The air hangs like heavy drapes upon the landscape. There is no breeze. The garden quietly endures. So what can you do to lighten the oppressive atmosphere? ADD A BUBBLING URN -  a  recirculating water feature Japanese style bubbling urn by Jan Johnsen Why do this? Because the sound of water and its dynamic presence ( ask the great Dr. Emoto) add life and energy to a stultifying summer garden...  Bubbling urns and fountains bring sparkle to your garden. You can build a recirculating water fountain cheaply by buying parts in a hardware store or more expensively by going to a pond supplies vendor....I am not good at hardware so I buy kits. aquascape Bubbling Urns are set atop an underground reservoir that keeps re-circulating the water. Once the urn fills with water, the water spills over into the underground basin, which pumps the water back up through the urn. aquascape flavio website...

This is tip #134 from my brand new book, Gardentopia - so happy to share with you. 134. “MELLOW YELLOW” SPIREA Spirea is considered a common shrub, but ‘Mellow Yellow’ spirea (Spiraea  thunbergii ‘Ogon’) challenges that assumption. It is an early blooming,  deciduous shrub that grows 3 to 5 feet tall and wide.  Small, white  blossoms appear in profusion in March through April before the leaves  emerge, but it is the willowy, twiggy branches and leaves that make it  notable. The wispy, fine- textured foliage starts out yellow, softens  to a yellow- green in summer, and turns a lovely combination of reds,  oranges, and yellows in the fall, making it a late- season star as well. Gardentopia - Design Basics for Creating beautiful Outdoor Spaces Hardy to −30° F, it is easily pruned after flowering in spring. ‘Mellow Yellow’ spirea is a versatile, low-maintenance shrub that brightens up any plant bed. It likes sun, a...

What blooms earlier than forsythia, has a delicate fragrance and is an easy-to-care for  compact delight ?  That is also hardy to USDA Zones 6-9 and native to Japan and Taiwan? Photo by Richie Steffen - Great Plant Picks Buttercup winterhazel    ( Corylops is pauciflora)   Toward mid April (depending where you live), the bare branches of buttercup winterhazel hang with inch-long clusters of soft yellow flowers that appear as little lanterns.   The fragrance is noticeable, making it perfect near a sitting spot.   It was awarded the  Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit (AGM) in 1993.  Missouri Botanical Garden photo Winterhazel is good in a small city garden or as a woodland underplanting in open shade.  It glows in front of evergreens and is a perfect pairing with purple   Rhododendron mucronulatum  since  they flower at the exact same time. And  winterhazels look wonder...

milk carton gardening   Do you have simple summer garden memories?  I sure do.  And I hope the kids of today will have them too. I hope they remember the simple pleasure of growing carrots in milk cartons, tomatoes in large cans or maybe hollyhocks al ong old fences and lilacs at the corner of a house. We should reclaim these simple things as part of our ordinary life. Hollyhocks Honeysuckle Maybe you have some  memories like this:  It  might be the 'weed' that smelled like licorice ( anise hyssop), Blue Fortune Anise Hyssop The buttercups that you put under your chin,  buttercup reflection under chin - go here for more: Eat The Wee ds the honeysuckle that you could suck a teeny drop of 'honey' from, honey from honeysuckle - for more: Instructables  the sweet smell of roses as you walked past a certain house,  roses on trellis source: Nantucket today  the brigh...

We all know that herbicides can harm us and the environment, so it follows that scientists are studying natural weed control methods.   A team at Michigan State University  recently studied the effectiveness of   mulched maple and oak leaves on common dandelions in bluegrass lawns. The team tested chopped up leaves of red maple, silver maple, sugar maple and red oak and looked to see how they worked to suppress dandelions in a lawn. They found that after one and two mulch applications (at a high rate of mulching)  up to 80% and 53% reduction in dandelions was achieved, respectively. This makes sense since leaves lay naturally on a meadow and are not blown off. They block light and water and suppress weed growth.. But we, lawn owners, immediately blow off all the leaves on our lawn in our early spring 'clean up' which opens up sun to all weed seeds.  We then apply pre-emergent weed ...

Why do certain tree species evoke the same response from all people?  The Oak, for example, was considered  by the Celtic Druids to be the 'King of the Greenwood' . To them, oaks represented mighty and enduring power.   The ancient Greeks also revered oaks - groves of them were deemed sacred territory.   And Native Americans viewed the oak tree as a symbol of strength with supernatural powers.  In fact, the tradition of “knocking on wood” is said to be of Native American origin  - they would knock on an oak tree in order to avert the failing of a hopeful prediction. Katsura Tree This similarity is true for many other trees from Ash trees to katsura trees to maples.... So why do disparate cultures see tree 'personas' similarly?   I think Albert Einstein figured it out.   In  1905, Einstein, a young patent inspector in Switzerland,  came up with a simple e...

 O sweet spontaneous by: e.e. cummings (1894-1962)  sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting   fingers of prurient philosophers pinched and poked thee ,   has the naughty thumb of science prodded thy   beauty, how often have religions taken thee upon their scraggy knees squeezing and   buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive gods (but true   to the incomparable couch of death thy rhythmic lover   thou answerest   them only with   spring)