The Rainforest Garden

A Tour of P. Allen Smith's Home

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:46:00 +0000

P. Allen Smith's home on moss mountain was a sight to behold, especially for a guy who just spent a few months writing about houseplants. Each and every scene in the home was camera-ready for content-craving bloggers, and I seriously doubt that it would have been possible to find a single unattractive shot in the whole house. This home was built for inspiration.

By the time the bus unloaded from our trip to the governor's mansion (see last post) I had gotten a bit more comfortable with the bus and had started taking pictures through the windows along the way. Eventually we turned onto a long driveway leading up a hill to a majestic looking house. Chickens greeted us with a heartfelt expression of fluttering and clucks as we poured out of the bus and into the shade of a noble post oak for our introduction to Moss Mountain. Appropriately enough, the tour would begin indoors.

Here's a little known fact: I fell in love with interior design before I had an affair with gardening. My mother and I used to watch all of the decorating shows on Discovery Channel and HGTV, that is, before they became overrun with 'reality' and real estate shows. I even met my wife when I was a manager at Bombay Company, helping customers choose the right accessories for their style of decor. As you could imagine, touring P. Allen Smith's dream home was quite an experience for me!

What struck me most about the Garden Home was how every little vignette remained cohesive and harmonious without looking the least bit cluttered. This was attained by using a restrained color palette of apple-green and lemon-drop yellow against a clean and inviting backdrop of white. Each and every object served a purpose - be it the bowls of tasty apples and lemon candies, or the fresh air afforded by the durable bird's nest ferns. Jenny Nybro Peterson and I were the two houseplant authors in the crowd, and he heartily approved of the choice. The bird's nest fern (Asplenium nidus and A. antiquum) is a very tough plant with a graceful form, lending itself to almost any style of décor.

Cut flowers and foliage were abundant in almost every room, but as in the case of the kitchen vignettes, the limited selection of colors kept them from looking like mere afterthoughts. There was even a room that appeared as if it was devoted to arranging cut flowers, and the rustic lighting made each bouquet glow with warmth in the dimly-lit room. I heard a lot of gasps when the other bloggers rounded the corner through the doorway and got their first glimpse of the scene. I stuck around for a while to enjoy the fragrance and ambience, leaving only because I knew that each room would be more inspiring than the next.

Ferns weren't the only houseplants sighted at P. Allen Smith's house, nor were they the only elements worthy of mention. The furniture, the paintings, surfaces and embellishments were all chosen with an impeccable eye for detail, yet never seeming out of reach for the average homeowner. We were told all about the artwork on the walls; some of which were bought for hefty prices at auction, while others were attained by more affordable means. Best of all, since Allen is an accomplished artist in his own right (what can't he do?) we got to see his own artwork gracing the walls.

Sure, the grand doorways and airy ceiling space would be a stretch for most of us, but it doesn't really matter. It's easy to get 'the look' of most of these rooms with nothing more than good design. Sticking to only a handful of colors, repeating certain elements (using three of the same chair instead of three different ones) and using functional (yet attractive) pieces instead of knick-knacks are guidelines that any of us can follow without breaking the bank.

I'd like to jump ahead to my last evening at Moss Mountain to show you a sneak peek behind the scenes. Allen was kind enough to show me and a couple of others around his art studio, which was one of the few places that wasn't pristinely styled for the cameras. I hope he doesn't object to me showing this, but it was one of my favorite vignettes from my entire trip and I think that it gives some insight into how creative people like P. Allen Smith really work.

There are the artists who buy a lot of art supplies and brag about being an artist while the paints and pencils sit idle in their original packaging, and there are the ones who actually use them. Opening the book on the table, Allen excitedly told us about how George O'Brien Wyndham, the 3rd Earl of Egremont gave J.M.W. Turner the opportunity to stay at his home and create artwork from the everyday scenes that unfolded there. As he explained to us the special relationship between patrons and their artists - a thought popped into my head. Was P. Allen Smith much different? By bringing people into his home on his bill and allowing them to share their experiences with the world, it seemed to me like he was different kind of patron. A patron the practical arts like gardening and homesteading, or maybe something like a patron with a purpose.

As Mimi gathered all of the bloggers for the next stop on our tour of the grounds, I hesitated. "I haven't even gone upstairs yet! Both Mimi and Allen insisted that I head upstairs before leaving, and I was very happy to do so... and my day had only just begun!

Disclosure:

The majority of this trip including room, board and a bunch of neat swag - were provided to me at no expense for participating in the Garden2Blog event. There was no obligation to write about my experiences and all opinions stated here are my own.

Garden2Blog and Humble Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Sat, 11 May 2013 02:43:00 +0000

Since garden blogging has given me the drive to share my thoughts and enthusiasm with the world, it could be said that it was gardening that cured my shyness. But even now it rears its ugly head and knocks me back down to earth when I least expect it, smacking me with a much-needed wallop of humility when I get too big for my own britches.

I was feeling pretty good about myself until it was time to board the bus to Moss Mountain for P. Allen Smith's Garden2Blog event, and I felt downright fancy after a night at the swanky Capital Hotel. After loading into the tour bus like a bunch of excitable sixth-graders, the driver began what felt like a treacherous journey through wooded rolling hills.

It only felt treacherous when we were standing up. With the bus in full motion, bloggers were then invited to stumble towards the front of the bus, where they were instructed to tell the group a little about themselves - if they survived the bus's attempts to throw them out the windows, that is. I instantly recalled those heart-stopping moments on those deceptively cheery looking yellow busses of childhood, and how I would pray for the good fortune to make it down the aisle each day without cruel jokes and jeering at my expense.

From my grade school into college, my life was hindered by a shyness so debilitating that there were times that I could barely speak at all. More than just a mere shyness, it was an unbearable fear of failure and judgment that prevented me from developing socially along with my classmates. Over the last several years though, I've finally found my voice through writing and art and have built up enough confidence to speak in polite company like a normal human being. Writing and illustration gigs helped make me feel validated and important for once in my life, and a passion for nature has given me enough motivation to share what has brought me so much happiness.

Now I was on a full sized tour bus with friends and colleagues, but I fell into my old habits of reclusiveness again and looked for a seat at the back of the bus where I could escape the notice of others as I have so many times before. As luck would have it, I was the first victim called to the front of the bus.

After negotiating the gauntlet and giving an appropriately shaky speech about myself on an even shakier bus, I crawled back to the seat that had betrayed me, amid cheers from other bloggers who noticed my pained expression and beads of sweat and applauded me for doing something that should have been so ordinary... but it was a very new experience for me. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I watched the other bloggers tackle the wicked antics of the bus for the rest of the trip. Look at the photo below to see what a wretched experience this was for us.

Laura Matthews looks like she's having fun, but she's mortified.

Okay, so not everybody was as socially awkward as me. By the grace of God we arrived at the Governor's mansion unscathed, so we stumbled out into the daylight to find ourselves facing a mansion ensconced by a glorious formal garden.

P. Allen Smith told us about the rich and varied history of the land that had once served as home for the School for the Blind and later became the site of the governor's mansion in 1950. Though Allen started out as a humble tour guide, his talents were soon recognized with an appointment as an advisor for the development of the mansion grounds, where he worked for the Clintons, Huckabees and others. Many years, acres and dollars later, Allen still seems to have the humility and tour-guiding skills intact.

Chelsea Clinton used to play in this adorable playhouse.

Clearly this German shepherd is no stranger to P. Allen Smith's food. I bet his hands smell of maple cured bacon.

I had to wonder if his years as a tour guide gave him the necessary skills to become a television personality, and then considered how each of us might use our seemingly insignificant roles to make a difference. He has been compared to Martha Stewart on numerous occasions, yet even with all of his success and notoriety, P. Allen Smith still leads garden tours to this day. He's still strikingly humble, and he urges his viewers to relax, have fun and not fret too much about perfection.

Barbara Wise awaits our lunch and keynote speaker.

We were given a tour of the flower border, herb garden and vegetable plots before being herded to the banquet hall for a delicious salad atop the governor's flatware and a presentation from Eric Decker, our keynote speaker. Before we ate, Arkansas' first lady dropped by to give Allen a hug. P. Allen Smith has been a friend to the Clintons and can casually drop names of British nobility, yet he retains the demeanor and humility of an honest and hardworking farm boy. Not once during our visit did he ever seem to brag.

P. Allen Smith outside his original garden home

A carefully curated potting shed

An iris outside the Garden Home

In an interview with the New York Times, Allen even confesses to being of all things, an introvert.

I hadn't read that article until today, but even when I was following him around his Moss Mountain farm. I felt like this successful self-made garden personality was driven not by the ordinary trappings of fame and fortune, but an urge to share his passion and knowledge with the world. Considering that it was only through garden blogging that I came out of my own hermetically sealed shell, I understood this very well. I remembered my debilitating shyness growing up, and felt a distressing sense of profound guilt.

Just as a reminder, in middle school I was far too shy to engage in even the simplest of conversations with the other kids. Well, at least with the exception of my little sister who would watch The Weather Channel with me, her dorky and socially inept brother.

While we waited for those exciting Doppler radar animations, she and I would laugh at the guy who did the gardening segments; a man with silky blonde hair who spoke of goofy sounding things like begonias and hydrangeas in a subtle southern accent. I would rarely ever resort to laughing at a fellow classmate to make up for my own shortcomings, because my mother taught me better than that, after all.

I knew that every kid had his own struggles, and I accepted that cruelty was the mask that they wore to hide their insecurities, but that guy on the Weather Channel was to me, as imaginary as Sonic the Hedgehog or Calvin and Hobbes.

Over 20 years later and finally comfortable in my own skin, there I was. Standing next to a hero who was once the butt of my childhood jokes, listening to him crack his own jokes to us bloggers about how awful those 6th and 7th grader kids can be. "So true." I thought to myself.

Footnote:

When it came time to check out of the hotel, I cheerfully greeted a man on the elevator with crisp tailored clothes that I truthfully kind of envied. He could have passed for Don Draper. Looking down at the wide brimmed garden hat I had received from the trip and my gardening-stained sneakers, he huffed. "What is that? What are you wearing?"

I meekly explained that we were a bunch of bloggers who were visiting P. Allen Smith for Garden2Blog, and that we were encouraged to dress down for the event.

"So that's P. Allen Smith's motto? To dress down? I know who he is and..." he trailed off, deciding not to waste his breath. I don't think he was a gardener.

Disclosure:

A (Probably Biased) Review of Indoor Plant Decor

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Tue, 07 May 2013 05:11:00 +0000

Having just finished a book on houseplants myself, it’s refreshing to see that someone else has made it a point to portray houseplants as more than just an afterthought in a well decorated home, but focal points on par with a prized piece of art or a favorite piece of furniture. Admittedly, it’s even more exciting to see that the authors of such a book were my good friends Kylee Baumle and Jenny Peterson.

Oh, and before I forget - be sure to enter to win a bunch of Better Homes and Gardens magazine specials by leaving a comment on this post! All you have to do is tell me about your favorite houseplant and I will choose a winner on May 12^th.

There are many books that tell you how to grow houseplants, but Indoor Plant Décor is probably the first one I’ve read that actually tells you how to have fun with them. The result of their approach is one really fun book with original ideas on nearly every page. Tabletop moss gardens, wall-mounted feed troughs filled with houseplants and repurposed chairs stuffed with succulents just the tip of the iceberg. Among other DIY projects (one of which is the driftwood and mistletoe cactus piece from my last post), there’s even a staghorn fern-planted ‘Rainforest Drop’ of sorts!

Apart from those creative DIY projects, Kylee and Jenny show the reader how to utilize plants and their containers to suit your individual decorating tastes – even if you have no idea what your style is! If a clean and uncluttered Peaceful Zen vibe is more your thing, they tell you how to use simple pots, earthy textures and bold plants to make your home look like a spa retreat. Strapped for cash? They also tell you how to hone your Cheap Chic style so that your arrangements look clever rather than tacky.

As stated in the title, this review is quite possibly biased. I consider Kylee and Jenny to be some of my best friends and am even on a plane en route to see Jenny at P. Allen Smith’s place as I type. But since I just scrambled to finish my own manuscript on a similar topic, I’ve still kept a keenly critical eye as I flipped through the pages and have noticed one thing might have been useful. There’s hardly any mention of how much light the plants need. But I don’t think it was really an oversight as much as it was a conscious choice to banish the stigma that growing houseplants requires a green thumb. Since just about every other book on indoor plants focuses on caring for them, why bog down a fun book with technicalities? After all, Indoor Plant Decor isn’t the kind of book you read from front to back, but rather one you look forward to browsing through for a jolt of inspiration. It’s an ideabook, not an instruction manual.

The irresistible photographs and friendly conversational tone are enough to get any self-proclaimed black thumb to take a chance on houseplants, and the two authors are quick to point out that houseplants can be expected to die, regardless of your skills or care. And I agree. The goal of growing houseplants isn’t merely to keep them on life support, but rather to enjoy them and learn more about their quirks along the way. Whether your idea of decorating with plants involves a single potted plant or a living work of installation art occupying your entire wall, the brilliant examples in the pages of Indoor Plant Décor encourage you to look at plants as more than just afterthoughts on the windowsill but rather exciting, living elements of your creative lifestyle. I give it two green thumbs up!

Want to win stuff from other blogs and read their reviews of the book? Here are some other contributors to the shindig.

Gossip in the Garden

Cowlick Cottage Farm

dirt du jour

The Casual Gardener

Not Just a Housewife

Personal Garden Coach

Digging

The Impatient Gardener

Gardening Gone Wild

Technical stuff: This contest is open only to US residents. I was given a free copy of the book to review. And also because I won a contest. Yeah.

Consider the Lilies

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Thu, 02 May 2013 22:44:00 +0000

This is a story of two plants, told over the course of two years. It tells of what they witnessed, as well as how they managed to keep time and continuity through the most important days of my life. It's a story about how through all of our anxiety and trials in this lifetime, nature still carries on with the same selfless routine day by day and reassures us through chaos and discord. Time marches on.

April 30^th,2011

Exactly two years ago, I was preparing to marry the love of my life. To add a special touch to our reception, I bought a purple daylily plant just so that we could use the flowers for the wedding arrangements. I was a little miffed to see that it finished blooming right before the big day, so I instead turned to the garden that I had planted for my mother. I used elephant ears and calla lilies from her garden; and orchids and mistletoe cacti from my balcony. Rather absentmindedly, (I was after all, distracted) I planted the daylily in the ground near my apartment, where it struggled to get its footing in the parking lot’s hot and sandy soil.

After the wedding I gave the arrangements to my mother, who saved the mistletoe cactus cuttings and kept them in a vase of water for almost an entire year. Actually it was a soap dispenser rather than a proper vase, but they continued to grow, flower and fruit on nothing more than water anyways, even when the vase ran dry.

That vase of mistletoe cactus watched her teach piano lessons from her power-chair, and it witnessed her laughing and smiling with family and loved ones. It also glowed in the flashing lights of fire trucks and ambulances as she passed by on a stretcher. Months went by, and the house was abandoned. I had started moving each of the plants from her garden one by one so that I could plant them on the property of our apartment complex.

My mother's garden, right after being planted at the apartment complex

Eventually I brought the vase to my own home too, where it sat on a dark bookshelf behind a pile of my mother’s belongings. Early on April 30th of 2012, I can imagine that it might have heard muffled sobbing from a few rooms away when my wife and I responded to the phone call.

April 30th, 2012

Exactly one year ago, I woke up to learn that my mother had died. Speechless, heartbroken - and somehow still relieved to know she was no longer suffering, I walked out to the apartment garden to see that the very same daylily from one year ago had started blooming. It was as if my mother herself was telling me that she was in good hands, or as if God was reminding me of the beautiful world that she loved so much.

By that point, all but one of the mistletoe cactus stems had died. I was needless to say, a bit to distracted to fill up the vase, so I was left with one stem that was starting to bloom yet again. I had to use the stem for something, so I wrapped it and a few other mistletoe cacti in spaghnum moss and attached them to a piece of driftwood. I used it for a blog post, and abandoned it yet again.

The mistletoe cactus, reincarnated yet again.

April 30th, 2013

A few days ago, we woke up to remember that it had been one year since my mother had died. Because I was understandably feeling a bit sad and needed some motivation to get started writing for the day, I walked out to the apartment complex’s garden. Though it was mostly made up of the things I planted at my mother’s garden, it was fuller and more colorful than anything she would have seen at her own house. I smelled the same confederate jasmines and crinums that were blooming during my wedding and when my mother passed, and a flood of memories and happiness came over me.

And there it was. That same purple daylily had opened up its first bloom as if by clockwork – as if it was a heartfelt message from up above, urging me to celebrate the day as earnestly as my mother had.

One year later in 2013, the garden is full.

May 2nd, 2013

A couple of weeks ago, I had learned that the mistletoe cactus and driftwood arrangement had made its way into Indoor Plant Décor, the book that had just been released by my friends Jenny Peterson and Kylee Baumle. That very same cutting that was present for the happiest day of my life - and was there for one of the happiest years of my mother’s life - had made it into a book and will be in my own book a year from today.

Right now it’s swaying and waving to me in the wind and rain on my balcony, reminding me of how nature has a way of keeping track of our most intimate thoughts through each passing year.

I woke up to a forecast of heavy downpours all day, and just couldn’t shake the sadness and anxiety, so I stepped outside into the grayness and started jogging. I smelled the crinums and the jasmines, and saw the same sights that I had seen before my wedding and after my mom died. Drenched in the cool and refreshing rain, I felt free. I felt alive and full of joy, and I felt that much like the daylily and the mistletoe cactus, I had a very important role to fill in this life.

I thought about my wife and a happy family, and I envisioned many anniversaries and many celebrations with nature serving as a sacred timepiece counting down not only the days and seconds, but the memories and triumphs that give us a sense of connection and belonging in this world.

And suddenly something felt very familiar. I had done this last year too, at around the same time. I remember running in the rain on a vacant beach and feeling my salty tears blend with the sweat, rain and sea spray while my sobbing became lost in the relentlessly crashing waves. I remember getting into my car and soaking the seats, grinning from ear to ear and feeling at peace. Was I no different than the daylily, following my own innate rhythms and rituals?

As I'm writing this, I'm just now remembering a part of the bible that was very important to my mother, and given the context, it’s important for me to share.

Matthew 6:27-30 "And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much clothe you, O you of little faith?"

Starting a Vegetable Garden for My Community

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:46:00 +0000

It's only been a little over a year since I turned some of our apartment complex's dying grass into a community garden, yet it's flourishing and bringing a touch of paradise to the lives of my friends and neighbors. But now I'm ready for the next phase: A community vegetable garden. I want to grow vegetables, fruit and herbs so that neighbors can have a free and gourmet alternative to the fast food and limited offerings of our grocery store, and I need your help.

Disclaimer: As a #Saturday6 blogger, the Troy-Bilt products in this post were provided at no cost to me. All opinions, however favorable, are my own.
I started The Rainforest Garden for my Lupus inflicted mother, but now that she has passed, I've moved what plants I could to my apartment complex. Her life was dedicated to loving and giving to her neighbors here on earth, and I fully intend to do so in my own special way. I know that would have wanted me to keep gardening for others who really need it. I might not have much money, but I can at least try to use my gardening to give others joy - not to mention some really yummy food.

But just like you wouldn't consider treating your family to a home cooked meal to be a donation, this is no charity. Gardeners share their plants with others just because they can, and not out of any moral obligation. Sharing is just what gardeners do best, and I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to pass along whatever I'm able with such wonderful people. Thanks to my property manager and neighbors, our humble apartment complex feels like a small-scale Pleasantville where everybody waves with a hearty greeting as you pass. It's a community well worth any investment.

The plantings here get no irrigation, but the vegetable gardens will be watered by hose.

The existing gardens already have bananas, fruit trees and some herbs, but what I really want to do is provide the apartment residents with a healthy diet of organic heirloom vegetables and herbs. Many of my neighbors (myself included) often get their lunches to go from nearby fast food restaurants, but I'm pretty sure that they would happily indulge in a community barbecue with fresh grilled heirloom peppers and onions for their burgers, or rosemary for their pork tenderloin. I plan on scheduling 'harvest days' on the weekends, in which I would distribute bags of free fresh produce to the neighbors on a first-come, first served basis; and might even get started making preserves while I'm at it.

I will do most of the gardening myself, but will also create a row of allotments so that neighbors can participate in the fun and socialize. I hope to install some raised beds as soon as I can find an affordable way of making them attractive enough for a commercial property. I'm all ears for any recommendations!

I apologize if the narration and camera work on these videos seems amateurish, but I just couldn't wait to share how my community garden is doing. Feel free to share any video shooting tips!

First off, here's a video showing what I've accomplished within a little over a year. Just about all of these plants were out of my own pocket, but they have already spread and multiplied enough that I might have to do some division next year!

You'll also notice the Troy-Bilt cultivator and Neighborhood Rider mower that I will be trying out shortly. I might (will) even be giving one of them away! Spoiler alert: It handles and maneuvers like a dream and turns on a dime. Check out this blog post on my adventures with the #Saturday6 to see me racing with Amy from Get Busy Gardening!

Where I will be planting the vegetable garden

In this video you'll see the future site of our vegetable garden. It isn't huge, but there's plenty of space for me to utilize via vertical gardening and (hopefully) raised beds.

Finally, here's a video showing another area that I've started landscaping. The crinums fill out the bulk of the bed and have a ragged and untidy look, but the new plantings will eventually fill out to cover the exposed crinum necks and add a lot of interest. I will also eventually plant more Russelia and Lantana along the edge of the bed.

I'm beyond thrilled to take on this new project and would love to hear your advice! What would you do if you had the chance to start your own community garden?
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Gourmet Cooking Lessons... at the Supermarket

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:25:00 +0000

I've been meaning to incorporate more of the tastier side of garden living into this blog, but with such a busy life, who has time to get creative with gourmet meals in the kitchen? It turned out to be a lot easier than we thought. Along with Mrs. Rainforest Gardener, I took a cooking course in a professional grade kitchen and learned to make steamed spring rolls, three kinds of dumplings, a dipping sauce and green tea ice cream... all at our local Publix supermarket.

Publix operates over 1000 supermarkets in the Southeast, but eight of them are doing something very special. In addition to merely selling food, they show you how to make it. Well, maybe that's an understatement. Pardon the cliché, but it's an all-out experience.

Imagine a taking a hands-on lesson on your favorite cuisine from the friendly chefs at your favorite restaurant, dining upon the delectable results - and upon leaving, getting a discount on the full selection of cooking implements and wine that you may (or may not) have used that evening. 'Why yes, I believe I'll take that Le Creuset to go, with a side of Kyocera knives and a set of Joyce Chen bamboo steamer baskets. Oh, what do I want to drink? Let me ask the chef which wines pair nicely with this flavor profile.'

We had a hard time choosing from courses like 'Herb Appeal', 'Thai for Two', 'World Street Food', 'French Bistro Dinner' and 'Basic Knife Skills' - not to mention celebrity taught classes - but ended up choosing the 'Dim Sum A Yum Yum' course so that we could recreate the meals that made our honeymoon (and many pseudo-honeymoons) so memorable. Not that we went to Asia, mind you. We just happen to spring for the spring rolls and potstickers whenever we embark on our nearsighted travels around our home state of Florida.

Since it needed to be frozen by the time dinner was ready, we started out with the green tea ice cream, which was literally homemade vanilla ice cream that was made with eight tea bags steeped into the cream. It was the best ice cream I had ever tasted.

Next we got to work on the dipping sauce. The chefs made it a point to avoid measuring cups and 'eyeball' everything with loose measurement units such as 'glugs' or 'handfuls', then having us taste the sauce and add more of what it lacked. For many of us, it was empowering to be freed from the measuring cup and our fears of failure.

Shiitake mushrooms getting sautéed for the filling

The meat and vegetable filled dumplings were made in a similarly loose manner, but since tasting raw meat was out of the question, one of the chefs would run a test batch over a skillet, which we would then taste before making any necessary adjustments to the mixture. To wrap the dumplings, we broke up into two groups and fell effortlessly into well oiled assembly lines to assemble each dumpling with our bare hands. Wrappers were laid flat and brushed with an egg wash and then stuffed with a dollop of the filling and wrapped flat or in the classic 'beggar's purse' style. We tightly wrapped an assortment of chopped veggies and herbs into the spring rolls, and laid them out on trays to be steamed, pan-fried or fried.

Once the fruits of our labor were spread out before us on a baker's rack, we started to cook the neatly arranged dumplings according to their various methods and savored the savory scents that rose with the steam.

Before I sat down to enjoy some of the best dumplings I've ever eaten, I watched as one of the attendees excitedly shot photos of the cooked potstickers and wontons to send to her mother. But there was something that made this especially moving and underscored the value of cooking lessons like these. Not only was this the first meal she had ever cooked; the young woman was Chinese and the mother that would receive the photos was from Hong Kong. The dumplings, she said, looked just like the ones that her mother would recognize.

Lessons Learned from the Desert

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 02:20:00 +0000

My trip to Arizona marked the first time I had been to the desert since 6th grade, and from the moment I knew I was going to Phoenix for the Troy-Bilt #Saturday6, the desert was all I could think about. Following the trip, I've had dreams about the desert almost every single night. If you could have seen me darting around the Desert Botanical Garden with my camera perpetually glued to my face, you would have seen a little boy caught up in the miracle of the natural world.

I'd like to think that my mother taught me to love nature, but the desert was really to blame. I spent three to four very important years of my childhood exploring the dry streambeds and creosote bushes of the Mojave desert, and came to see nature as the very best kind of Easter egg hunt; where under sun-baked rocks I found both friend and foe lurking in the shadows. Lizards and toads were obviously my best of friends, but scorpions, snakes and big butted black widows were to be respected and feared.

While I later found that it was highly illegal, I kept all sorts of lizards as pets. But hear me out. Were it not for my intervention, the neighbor kids would have blown them up with firecrackers or dissected them alive... so I prefer to think that I rescued them from a grisly fate and allowed them to be my friends. When the other kids wouldn't talk to me on account of my coke bottle glasses and beaming braces-filled smile, I could always count on 'Puffy' the horned lizard to nod at my stories with kind approval. "Don't listen to those mean kids, Steve. Your Lisa Frank folder and neon pink fanny pack are totally rad."

Chihuly sculptures guarding the entrance

When the van dropped us off at Desert Botanical Garden, I saw a scene unlike anything I had ever seen in the barren wasteland of my childhood. It turns out that Phoenix gets almost twice as much rainfall as my former home of Barstow, and it showed. The red clay hillsides were starting to turn bright green after the spring rains, and tropical trees and succulents bloomed all over the gardens in flushes of intense reds and pale purples. Compared to the Mojave's Joshua trees and tumbleweed studded sands, the Sonora was a veritable rainforest. If only I knew what I was missing!

But if there's anything the desert taught me, it was gratitude. From an early age I learned to give thanks for every drop of rain and the shortest of shadows. Gardeners are pretty grateful as it is, but I suspect that gardeners in the desert are even more so. In my agile imagination, a rivulet rolling along a sandy ditch became a waterfall with endless possibilities. The rocks that grownups took for granted were lovingly brushed clean of debris, collected and catalogued in shoeboxes as if they were precious gemstones. The sparse setting of sand and stone made each and every flower shine as if it were on display in an austere gallery; and the sight of a hummingbird or a butterfly became a cause for celebration.

At the Desert Botanical Garden, there was lots of cause for celebration. Anna's hummingbirds flitted about blooming wildflowers and shrubs, cactus wrens called from their nests and bumblebees jostled for coveted positions in the tubular flowers of Aloes and Gasteria. A quail strutted in the underbrush alongside rabbits and ground squirrels, indifferent to my presence. It seemed like all the animals of the desert were ready to get their freak on for spring.

It was sensory overload. Many of the plants growing there were already familiar to me because I grow them in my own Florida garden, yet whenever my mouth opened I became illiterate in botanical Latin and babbled like an idiot. Maybe the nostalgia was getting to be a bit too much, but for a moment I thought I saw my mother there. Her features were tight and inflated, much like my mothers once she started on steroids for Lupus, she wore a wig like that of my mother's - and she was in a powered wheelchair. Like my mom. The resemblance was so uncanny that I found myself taking photos before I realized what I was doing.

I only saw one lizard, but it would have gone unnoticed were it not for the expert lizard-tracking skills I learned as a kid. Surprisingly there were no boy scout badges to award such talents in my day, but maybe things have changed. It was a spiny lizard, which I used to treasure for their iridescent blue throats and bellies that glimmered when exposed. I leapt out in front of my group and announced my discovery with childlike glee, but nobody shared in my enthusiasm. Apparently they still don't have a badge for lizard tracking. Too bad.

A male Anna's hummingbird singing in a Joshua tree

A dry stream bed

Water dribbling down the face of a rock

Riding back to the hotel in sunset, I recalled a sobering lesson from my mother in my desert days. The town of Barstow California was a dustbin that caught the debris of Hollywood's shattered dreams and the lost riches of Las Vegas, filled with vagabonds who once listened to the voices in their head urging them to 'go west young man', only to find themselves mired in poverty and shame. Unfortunately, this meant that there was a lot of crime. My mother's purse was stolen from a church pew and found emptied in a dumpster, and my sister and I attended a Catholic school solely for the protection of its barbed wire fences.

One day on our regular trip to the grocery store, my mother and found one of the town's many homeless men outside as we always did. But this time, I insisted we helped. While she was touched, she warned that he would only use it to buy beer... so I offered up my entire allowance to help. My mother walked me back to the crumpled man, who accepted my five dollar bill with a sheepish 'God bless."

But compassionate as my mom was, she knew a thing or two about how the world worked. When our errands were done, she made sure to take a detour to the grocery store where the man still slumped - but with a new bottle of liquor by his side. It was already half empty, I cynically thought to myself.

That experience stuck with me throughout life, but instead of learning not to put much faith in humanity, it made me realize how little money has to do with happiness. How easy is it to let it blow through your fingers when you're constantly seeking for something more? By most standards our family was poor, but you try telling that to the little boy dancing in a desert rain as if it were manna from heaven, counting the rocks in his collection and counting his blessings. By making me grateful, the desert has made me very rich.

Win My Illustrated Seed Packets!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Last year I illustrated the covers for over 40 Lilly Miller seed packets, and yesterday I received seventeen of them (two of each) in the mail just in time for my birthday. Since Ferry Morse was purchased by another company, many went unreleased, but I am beyond thrilled to know that at least seventeen of them saw the light of day. So to celebrate I'll be giving all seventeen of them to you!.

Seeing the drawings on the seed packets was a strange sensation, because I could recall every layer and line of colored pencil from when they were first drawn; at my mother's bedside in the ICU, on my coffee table and in waiting rooms. I remember it all. I remember my mom showing them off to nurses, and I remember sharpening pencils from morning until night.

For each vegetable I drew, I tried to eat one as a reference so that I could capture the juiciness of a tomato or the crisp snap of a baby carrot. It was by drawing vegetables that they finally came to be appreciated. The illustration below was going to be the header for the whole seed rack display, and drawing each vegetable required several staged shots using produce from the grocery store. It was delicious!

If you're looking to buy your own, they are a lot rarer now that there have been cutbacks. I've been told that select Lowes and Ryan Turner stores in the Northwest and Midwest have them on display, and other than that I've found some by searching on eBay. All of this rarity translates into collectability! Besides my own illustrations, you'll see work from Jane Schwartz Gates and a few other talented artists.

But enough about me - you want to win some fancy seed packets!

How Do I Win?

It's really easy, and everyone will have a chance. Simply leave a comment on this post to be entered in the drawing for the day.

Every day for the next 17 days, I will choose one winner each day. You may enter once a day.

In the column to the right, you will be able to see which illustrated seed packet is being given away for the day, as well as who won on previous days.

Any prizes unclaimed after the last day of the contest will be forfeit, and a new winner will be chosen in their place.

You'll have 17 chances to win, so I would love it if you could share this contest (and my art) with your friends!

I was going to give them all away as a single prize package, but thought it would be a lot more fun if everyone had a better chance of winning. Have fun!

Ferry Morse provided these seeds at no cost to me. Any views or opinions expressed on this blog are my own.

My Arizona Adventure with the Saturday 6

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:59:00 +0000

It reads like the plot of a comic book: Six drastically different bloggers with their own unique abilities were one day summoned to the desert by a mysterious benefactor, and assembled to become a super team with remarkable powers. Together, they formed a group of superfriends called the #Saturday6; capable of crushing rocks with a single tiller, riding technologically advanced lawnmowers at epic speeds and cultivating rocky clay soil in a single instant. I was one of those six – and this is my story.

Many questions raced in my head while I made the flight to Phoenix: Who was The Mysterious Agent MJ, who summoned us that one fateful day? Why was I chosen by Troy-Bilt as part of a select team of superheroes when I clearly had no powers of my own? Among these superior garden bloggers and the skills at their disposal, I felt that my own inclusion was an oversight. I didn’t even have a plot of land to call my own! To give you an idea of their talents, allow me to introduce the other members of the Troy-Bilt #Saturday6.

David Townsend is Daddy DIY – Whose superhuman ingenuity is only exceeded by the love he has for his family. Though brilliant enough to create devices of disaster and mayhem, Daddy DIY now uses his powers for good by teaching others how to make raised beds and grow tomatoes without the aid of devices of disaster and mayhem. In fact, he has one of the most popular garden blogs. See issue 23 to learn how Daddy DIY defeats pests and weeds with his organic superpowers.

Amy Andrychowicz is Amy Android – A software developer with a name so long and hard to pronounce that she decided life would be easier if she just became an android. She would regret the decision, but as she soon found out, androids are incapable of regret. She accepts her fate by stating with a robotic Minnesotan accent, saying “Does not compoot.” Amy Android was only programmed to feel enthusiasm for her fellow gardener and love for her husband, who sustains her with his cooking. Her gardening tips encourage even the most reluctant gardener to get busy gardening.

Helen Yoest is the stylish Lady Inappropria. Atomic photobombing and planking in the face of unbearable seriousness, Lady Inappropria uses her charm and sense of style to become the life of any party. Some believe the source of her power to be her awesome kids, but others insist that her abilities can be found in the pages of Lady Inappropria, Issue 52. It has been said that Lady Inappropria is the kind of person that tends to grow on you, but they're probably referring to her Mossy Milkshake - which immobilizes enemies with a coating of verdant moss.

Noelle Johnson is The Heatwave, who uses her encyclopedic knowledge of Arizona gardening and harnesses her powers to create lush landscapes upon the desert clay. For all her superhuman skills, she embraces her human flaws and uses them to melt the hearts of others with her humility and kindness. Unfortunately she can’t get used to her new powers yet, and for all her good intent, no one has ever survived the Heatwave’s heart melting action. The Heatwave's Heart Melting Action is only suitable for children aged 3 and up.

Matt Mattus is Gumby Gardener – A creative director at Hasbro whose commitment to fun and design led him to make the most perfect toy concept ever conceived: Himself. Between Gumby Gardener and his pokey sidekick Lady Inappropria, no situation is ever too dire or boring. An inhuman flexibility allows Matt to adapt to each hobby by soaking up knowledge like a sponge, give wedgies to those wearing red Speedos many feet away and 'do the wave’ with eerie precision.

David and I were met at the baggage claim by The Mysterious Agent MJ, who whisked us away to the secret headquarters at Hotel Indigo where we met our teammates and were debriefed. Once we rebriefed ourselves, we were presented with a #Saturday6 totebag filled with uncannily thoughtful gifts that had been tailor-made for our trip; sunscreen, chapstick, a ballcap and water bottle for the desert sun; cactus seeds, an illustrated garden calendar and a handwritten note. Also included, was our mission and itinerary.

But our introductions were cut short, as we were called to complete our first assignment within the dangerously seductive Desert Botanical Garden. Upon entering the deceptively beautiful gardens, we were confronted by restless natives. Armed saguaro cacti surrounded us on all sides while jumping cholla cacti appeared to leap out of the groundcovers by way of the surrounding groundcovers' contrasting fine foliage. We managed to fend them off with the bright flashes of iPhones and cameras, but when a tequila agave threatened us with its menacing spines, we were sure that the end was upon us – that is, until Noelle excitedly explained how it was used to produce tequila and we made short work of the hapless plant.

Amy Andrychowicz going in for the kill

Matt Mattus getting a good shot

3 bees pollinating an Aloe

Agave parryi

Saguaro and desert

Matt Mattus, Amy Andrychowicz and David Townsend patrolling the wild west.

We got out by the skin of our teeth, but our insatiable hunger led us to the magical restaurant of Olive and Ivy, where Edison lamps hang suspended from the ceilings like candles at Hogwarts. I was beginning to feel like this whole trip was a lot like Hogwarts, but my miserable attempts at casting spells were met with blank stares. I resumed eating my bacon wrapped dates and sweet potato cannelloni, enjoying my time at the cool kid's table. I was taken aback at how readily we all got along, and was starting to think that there was more to this Agent MJ than met the eye. Perhaps Agent Jeweley and Commissioner Barbasol were to thank for this serendipitous reunion of kindred spirits as well, but no one person could claim responsibility. How did they just know that we would hit it off so easily?

Walking back to the hotel, I felt like the #Saturday6 was the fun-loving group of friends I never had while growing up. Up until I started garden blogging a few years back and found my confidence, socializing and making friends would have been unthinkable. Even our rooms seemed to be custom-made for the six of us. My room's wall was covered in an Echeveria mural, and the light blues and greens of the modern decor somehow matched my entire wardrobe for the trip. Looking into the unusual glowing light ringed mirror in the bathroom, I felt something begin to change within me and saw it in the reflected white ring around my pupils. Something was changing in the others too, but we were too tired to care. I fell asleep to the sound of rain, oblivious to the havoc it would wreak in the coming day.

We discussed the odd lights around the mirror over breakfast, but the subject was quickly changed when we were ushered to the Raven Golf Club for our next assignment. It was time for Spring Training, where we would learn to use our newfound powers on the golf course. I was actually quite terrified of the tiller and lawn tractors beforehand, but their ergonomic designs called to me and I felt myself relax. I was brought here for a reason. The ergonomic designs of the mowers fit me like a comfortably fitting glove, and the controls instantly became second nature. With only the bare minimum of controls, they worked how you would actually expect them to work.

Just seconds after turning the ignition on the Neighborhood Rider, my irrational fear of lawn tractors turned to putty and I found myself wanting to ride it around the neighborhood. It was so fun that I found myself in a mower race with Amy, but despite my Neighborhood Rider's responsive handling, the day belonged to Amy's mad driving skills and her tractor's bigger engine. But then the skies darkened to an ominous steely gray, the weight of which unloading upon our group photo like a million grand pianos on a coyote.

We retreated indoors to the modular wedding tent to fight another day, and the teams at MTD and Troy-Bilt began their presentations. I can't tell you all the top-secret details, but we began learning more about why we were there, and things became a lot clearer to me. These were people I would be proud to work with. The storm's intensity came to a head during Agent Sarah's presentation. The glorified tent's roof flapped furiously, the walls creaked and water began pooling up under the doors as they swung open wildly in the whipping winds. Dark and terrible things were afoot here, and we all glanced around nervously while the presentation continued.

Hail hurtled down from the sky in sheets, turning the green golf course into blankets white as snow. A golfer waded through the flooded grass to take his last shot, undeterred by the lightning punctuated shower of gravel. Ducks swirled around in confusion atop the water hazards, and bloggers raced to the windows and doors with thumbs entering tweets and updates in a blur. Amy Android scooped up a snowball of hail from just outside the door, and just as a snowball fight became imminent, Agent Sarah calmly spoke up. "If we could continue the presentation now..." The bloggers and other agents put down their phones and respectfully listened to the cool, calm and composed Sarah as all hell broke loose. Though everybody else had a fair amount of restraint, I had the self-control of an addict. I looked at the phone in my lap and saw that The Weather Channel had retweeted my photo with the #Saturday6 hashtag.

RT @rainforestgardn: That isn't snow. It's hail in #Phoenix. #Saturday6 twitter.com/rainforestgard…
— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) March 8, 2013

Eating my shrimp and grits at Beckett House was more difficult than the first night, since I was too busy talking to eat any food. While the first dinner was one of introductions and pleasantries, this night was all fun and games. We were bound together in camaraderie by our experiences, and things were just starting to get good.

Stay tuned for the next episode of the #Saturday6, dear readers!

I received compensation from Troy-Bilt® for my trip to Arizona, and the products that I've tested for Troy-Bilt® have been provided to me free of charge. The Saturday 6 partnership that I have with Troy-Bilt® includes monetary compensation. Any opinions expressed by me regarding Troy-Bilt® products or events are my own.

Container Garden Artisan: Candice 'Sweetstuff' Suter

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 06:35:00 +0000

Today’s container garden artisan is none other than the sensational Candice ‘Sweetstuff’ Suter of Sweetstuff’s Sassy Succulents, who is probably best known for upcycling unusual things into succulent stuffed works of found art. No object is safe from Sweetstuff and her playful ingenuity; birdcages, barbecue grills and handmade pottery are all fair game! Read on to learn more about Sweetstuff and to take a peek at some of her colorful projects.

Sidenote: Appropriately enough, I’m blogging from a jetliner to the succulent-rich city of Phoenix Arizona, where I’ll be participating in Troy-Bilt’s Spring Training Event along with the other five #Saturday6 bloggers. We’ll be visiting Desert Botanical Garden, testing Troy-Bilt products, enjoying fine dining and attending a spring training baseball game! The other bloggers selected this year were Amy Andrychowics of Get Busy Gardening, Matt Mattus of Growing with Plants, Dave Townsend of Growing the Home Garden, Helen Yoest of Gardening with Confidence and Noelle Johnson of www.azplantlady.com. I’m thrilled to be included in such a great group! Now where was I?

If Debra Lee Baldwin is the queen of succulents, Sweetstuff is their court jester. Her colorful arrangements are pure laughter manifested in physical form; fun and irreverent concoctions made up of plants that anybody could grow... even her. Candice first started growing succulents because they were the only thing she could keep alive, even in her decidedly cooler home of Sacramento California.

Burro's tail sedum in a pot with... a croquet ball?

This birdcage belonged to Candice's mother, and reminds her of her love of plants each day.

Portulacaria stands in stark contrast to a cobalt blue birdbath.

A barbecue grill as a succulent planter: Why not?

I would love to see this inventive vertical garden once it fills in!

Candice's creations are wonderful examples of how much you can accomplish with succulents in the home and garden, with or without containers. She lives to show others how it's done, and does so via videos on Youtube, blog posts and her Facebook page. Be sure to check her out!

Container Garden Artisan Kris Blevons

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:20:00 +0000

While I'm working on the book, I thought it would be appropriate to share the work of other 'Container Garden Artisans' so that you can see all of the different ways to artistically combine plants. First up is Kris Blevons, who manages the boutique chic Oak Street Garden Shop in Birmingham Alabama. Her arrangements are filled with drama and thoughtful touches, and range from bountiful blasts of orchids and curly willow to modern pairings of snake plant and Tillandsia. You guys are in for a treat!

Kris has been managing Oak Street Garden Shop for over 20 years, and has just gotten their beautiful new website up and running. She didn't always manage a garden shop, but she tells me that it still plays a huge role in her creative process and that 'My background is actually in the theater arts, and I love that I'm still doing something that I believe to be truly artistic in nature.' I can definitely see the influence. In many of her pieces the plantings appear to be intricately designed sets with orchid blooms playing the lead roles, graceful dancers suspended in space.

A blast of orange orchids erupts like fireworks from a blue-and-white dish, mimicking the color and shape of the little orange flourishes on the pot. I'm not sure how much this one would have cost, but how can you put a price tag on a veritable garden full of orchids that blooms throughout the year? The credit for this one goes to her talented greenhouse manager, Jamie Cross.

In what is probably her most daring combination, Kris combines Sansevieria cylindrica with some Tillandsias (that have taken on a flush of red before blooming) against white rocks in an open-face terrarium. Unlike her other designs, this one is jarring and intense.

I think that Kris Blevons' trademark twist is the way she stakes the orchid blooms using decorative elements such as curly willow or pussy willow. It not only gives the orchids support, but makes her arrangements look natural and exuberant.

This arrangement highlights terrariums as a way to display orchids, and the addition of decorative moss, Tillandsias and the finishing touch of a tied off ribbon makes the entire design just as interesting as the purple Phalaenopsis orchids floating above.

If Attempting These Yourself...

Have fun! Other than that, some of the glass containers lack drainage holes and will need special consideration since orchids and succulents do not like to stand in water. Add a drainage layer of sand or gravel (along with a bit of activated charcoal if available) to the bottom and water carefully or with a spray mister so that the roots absorb the water before it collects at the bottom.

A New Kind of Garden Center

The Oak Street Garden Shop is at once old fashioned and cutting edge: Along with trendy Tillandsias, succulents and miniature gardens, you can find a tastier display of heirloom tomatoes, squashes and just about everything else in season. The Oak Street Local Market works with local gardeners and farmers to sell a fresh, diverse assortment of produce, eggs, nuts, honey and preserves to the public, and I can only hope that such an idea catches on in my hometown. In the most literal sense of the phrase, you might say that Oak Street is the best way to get a bit of Birmingham's local flavor.

More Inspiration from Kris and Oak Street

Kris is very proud of her hardworking and creative staff and hopes that you'll stop by to see what they've cooked up. Until then, be sure to check out these links to see more of their work.

Oak Street Garden Center's Website
Oak Street Garden Center's Facebook Page
Oak Street Garden Center's Pinterest

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Handcrafted Velvet Paper Roses

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 21:48:00 +0000

This year I opted for a more indie take on the tired tradition of giving the obligatory dozen red roses for valentines day. Mrs. Rainforest Gardener and I both love roses and all, but the annual spectacle of a million desperate men dutifully standing in line and grudgingly forking over twice as much for sloppy seconds somehow cheapens the idea. When I saw Julie Godzicki's paper roses on Facebook however, I sensed a revolution... or at least a great gift idea.

I can think of no better way to affordably show off your romantic individuality than to give handcrafted paper flowers that can be cherished for years. Thanks to Julie and a little help from my wife's sneaky coworker, I was able to surprise the love of my life at work with lunch, a bag of goodies and a dozen paper roses. Mrs. Rainforest Gardener loved them so much that she wants to permanently display them on her desk!

The Paper Flower Maker
Julie started making these paper flowers when she became a volunteer for her local Jacksonville, FL troop; first giving them to girls for their bridging ceremonies and eventually selling as many as 100 of them at a craft fair to benefit her troop. Between Julie’s day job, her scouts and the occasional night of sleep, she’s taking the time to turn her hobby into something bigger. Now she has her sights set on Etsy and has already started a Facebook page called Zicki Creates to get the word out about her product before she makes the jump.

"I have always been crafty. I started hand-sewing Barbie doll clothes when I was a little girl until my mom let me start using a real sewing machine." Even as my coworker, Julie Godzicki (Zicki for short) has always made time to be creative. In addition to feeding us an endless supply of baked goods, paper was her specialty and the walls of our workplace were always covered with handcrafted motivational displays.

"People are amazed at what can be done with paper"

One of those displays featured some Angry Birds that she crafted out of cut construction paper to make our ‘team building’ exercise more bearable. Upper management divided us into groups of Angry Birds to emphasize our individual strengths, but those of you who have actually played the game would understand the frustration of the poor saps in the Red Bird group. I mean, he does nothing but knock over a few blocks and go ‘ppffftt!’ in a puff of mediocrity. Julie’s beautiful construction paper rendition, however, was anything but mediocre.

Strangers always do a double take upon first seeing her flowers when they realize that they're not real flowers, but meticulously crafted works of art - and made from something so readily available and taken for granted. "People are amazed what can be done with paper" she explains, telling me about the extra effort she puts into finding the right accessories and materials to really make her work stand out.

Making your own?

I don't want to give away all of Julie's secrets so soon, but I will tell you how to get similar results.

1. Cut Paper - Cut paper into a five basic flower shapes, with five rounded petals. The roses pictured were made with velvet textured scrapbooking paper available from a crafting store. Cut one of the petals off of the last cutout, all the way to the middle as if you're slicing a pizza. Save both parts of the 'pizza' as these pieces will be used last.

2. Quill Paper - The edges of each petal are 'quilled' - or rolled up - with a tool such as a pen or chopstick to attain their curly volume. Roll the paper under for a natural look.

3. Skewer - Punch florist wire through the center of the first 'flower' cutout, leaving about an inch of wire above.

4. Wrap Stem - The stem can be made by wrapping the wire with green florist tape, all the way up to the base of the first flower cutout. A hot glue gun may be used to secure the cutout in place.

5. Add Three Cutouts - Punch three additional flower cutouts through the wire, above the first cutout.

6. Add Last Cutout - Now add the cutout with four petals - the one with the missing 'pizza slice' - and firmly push down in the center so that it looks like a finished rose.

7. Finish Flower - Bend a small 'crook' in the wire to hold your place and cut off any excess wire above the bend. Now apply a bit of glue to the narrow end of the last petal (the pizza slice, remember?) and carefully place in the center so that it covers up the wire.

I'm sure that Julie's own method is more specific than mine, but these instructions should give you something close to what you see in the photos.

If you have any questions or would like to buy your own, let Julie know on her Facebook page Zicki Creates or leave a comment below!

DIY Coral Reef Succulent Container Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 03:08:00 +0000

Sometimes the coolest plants are the ones that don't really look like plants at all, making you crane in for a second look. A lifestyle of hardcore survival has endowed succulents with a dazzling assortment of wacky forms in every color imaginable, making some look more like sea anemones or coral polyps rather than proper and well behaved plants. This container was created for my book (tentatively titled) Plant By Numbers, but today I'll show you how to make one of your own.

You'll Need

A wide pot
Enough succulents to fill said pot
Barnacles, coral or seashells (prewashed)
Cactus potting mix

How to Do It

Choose the Container - Choose a pot that complements - rather than competes with - the colorful succulents that will be planted inside. I chose a light blue pot since I planned on combining succulents of pink and light blue.

Choose the Succulents - Head to the cactus and succulent section of your local garden center and go crazy! Pick healthy plants with bright colors and odd shapes, and arrange them together to visualize the design. Try to steer clear of green leaved succulents, unless you're trying to recreate the look of seaweed. Before you make your purchase, check out the labels and make sure that each of the succulents chosen has similar requirements.

Cover Drainage Hole - Before filling the container with potting mix, place pottery shards or packing peanuts over the drainage hole to prevent the soil from draining out.

Fill with Cactus Mix - Use a well draining mix that has been amended with perlite or vermiculite, such as a 'cactus mix'. Regular potting soil retains water and can rot the plants before you even know what hit them. Leave about an inch of the pot free so you'll have room for the marine life and plant life.

Add 'Reef' - Nestle any large barnacle clumps or coral chunks into the soil first, since you'll be tucking the plants in around the 'reef'. Alternately, use a large scallop or clam shell and plant succulents between the two shells.

Plant Succulents - Pop the succulents out of their pots one by one, and arrange them in the pot as desired. You can hold them in place by mounding potting mix around their roots. Keep adding a little potting mix as you go. There is no wrong way to design your planting, but it will look more balanced and natural if you scatter the succulents randomly.

Finishing Touches - You can tuck some succulents into the openings of the barnacles and shells for a lifelike effect, but just make sure to look for a shell with some sort of drainage hole so that the roots don't sit in water

Disclaimer: Potting soil provided by Sungro
.

Beautiful Edible Gardens for Any Situation

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:20:00 +0000

Repeat after me: "No backyard is too dry, wet, or shady to grow my own food." I'm going to take that statement a step further and say that you can make it so attractive that neighbors will have no idea that those beautiful plantings are edible too! To show you just how 'ornamental' you can make your edible garden, I'm sharing some photos from my latest trip to Trad's Garden Center here in Jacksonville.

Edibles for Everyone

When I tell strangers that I'm a gardener, they usually say something along the lines of "Oh, you grow tomatoes?" or "What kind of food do you grow?" forcing me to backtrack and clarify. I used to regretfully tell them that I couldn't grow that many herbs and vegetables because I garden for a hot and sandy apartment complex with no irrigation to speak of. To make things more difficult, I also have to grow plants that are attractive and uniform enough to 'work' for a business landscape.

Well, I was wrong. You can make vegetables 'work' in a public environment, just as long as you choose varieties that can tolerate the conditions and blend in with the more permanent plantings. Evergreens, groundcovers and structural plants make up the bones of my landscape, but edibles fill the niches in between, making for new surprises every day.

The Right Edibles for the Right Places

This fig tree withstands drought so well because it originates in a dry climate.

Edibles for Dry Gardens.

They might not have the drought resistance of say, succulents or native grasses, but there are many vegetables and herbs that can pull through in dry and sandy soil. It helps if the plants themselves are already equipped to handle drought, so choose plants that are already commonly grown in dry regions such as the Mediterranean and Mexico.

The peppers in the photo above are indeed irrigated, but will readily soldier through droughts and still look attractive. Mediterranean plants like the Marina di Chioggio heirloom squash, rosemary, figs and thyme appreciate a little extra water when possible, but they can all handle dry and sandy soil. Black eye peas, watermelon and okra have long been popular in the southern US because they're so adaptable to a wide variety of conditions.

Finally, use plenty of soil amendments and mulch. If you're lucky enough to have some irrigation, drip irrigation is efficient and gets more water to the root zone.

Edibles for Shady Gardens

If anybody tells you that vegetables don't grow in shade, they're probably just growing the wrong veggies. So before you cut down that tree in your backyard, maybe you should take a gander at Shawna Coronado's shady potager garden. Shawna has grown a staggering amount of nutritious edibles in her shady backyard and has even managed to make it look good!

The trick is to select plants that are eaten for their green leaves rather than fruits, which require a lot more energy to produce. Greens all handle shade well, and so do most herbs. Shawna says that the best performing plants in her shady veggie garden are dinosaur kale, celery and basil.

If your shady garden is still too dark for veggies, you can always hire an arborist to thin out a few branches from overhanging trees.

Edibles for Wet Gardens

I know, I know. Every vegetable or herb seems to require that wonderful and elusive thing called 'moist, well drained soil.' The garden I planted for my mother was so soggy that it often flooded, yet I was able to grow a pretty respectable variety of edible plants, including arrowroot, lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, Mexican tarragon sweetflag and taro. I didn't grow rice myself, but have seen rice plants grown by immigrants sold at the flea market and it's also known for growing in periodically flooded 'paddies. Most of the flood tolerant edibles listed are indeed tropical, but can easily be dug up in fall and replanted in spring for those of you with colder winters.

Pennyroyal cascading from a tiered fountain

A pot sunken into a bed of mints allows for a dash of interest and control

If the other plants I've listed seem hard to find, there's always mint! Mint is known for being aggressive and weedy in herb gardens, but Trad's Garden Center has grown them in hypertufa troughs and even a tiered fountain to keep them from taking over.

If the soil is still too soggy for the veggies you want to grow, create hills or raised beds that give roots plenty of room to breathe.

Edibles for Ornamental Gardens

This shouldn't be too hard, since many edibles such as rosettes of ruffled lettuce and tightly packed heads of cabbage are pretty enough to get by on looks alone. Nonetheless, some neighbors don't appreciate the sight of full blown veggie gardens in the front yard. Luckily it's pretty easy to include edibles as part of the landscaping just as easily as you would pop in some annuals.

This Dianthus has edible clove flavored flower petals and looks good in its own right mixed with other colorful edibles. The kale and assorted greens pictured above can be tucked into the border for their foliage, and the surrounding perennials will fill in the gaps after harvesting.

Grow plants that thrive in your conditions and then give them some TLC with mulch, fertilizer and the occasional bug patrol. Use repetition of forms, create structure, contrast textures and colors, give the eye a place to rest... you know the drill. To break away from the run-of-the-mill stripes of crops so commonly seen in veggie beds, try planting them in different angles and curves that lead the eye around your garden, possibly pointing to a piece of garden art or a colorful door.

Chamomile is edible AND attracts pollinators! Illustration by Steve Asbell

NOT Edible, but Alyssum's honey scented flowers attract pollinators to your vegetables

NOT edible, but Iceland poppy's buttery smooth orange flowers also attract pollinators.

As if you needed another good reason to mix edibles into your garden, surrounding flowers like the alyssum and Iceland poppy (pictured above) attract pollinators like honeybees and butterflies to your vegetables. Helen Yoest also recommends adding herbs like parsley and dill to the garden, which serve as butterfly host plants and give larvae a food source before they become butterflies. And we could all use more butterflies in our garden, right?

Since there's no way I could cover everything on the topic, I have to recommend both Ivette Soler's outstanding book The Edible Front Yard and Shawna Coronado's blog. Both have shown the world how to make veggie gardening ornamental again!

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Shoot Beautiful Plant Photos for $1

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 22:42:00 +0000

Is it too cold or dreary outside for garden photography? You'd be surprised at the gorgeous plant shots you can get with nothing more than your camera, your favorite indoor plant and a one dollar purchase from the drug store. Here's a hint: You probably haven't used it since the science fair.

My one dollar photography secret is to use black posterboard as a backdrop. That's it! Here's why it works: By isolating your subject against a blank background, you take away all the distractions and clutter, putting all the focus on the patterning of a leaf or the translucence of a flower.

You can attach it to the wall with double-sided tape, and can even line them up for larger subjects. like the one above. Of course you can use different colors too. Black posterboard lends a Caravaggio-esque moodiness, while a white background imparts a light and airy feel. Neon pink would be a bit gaudy, but why not give it a shot?

When shooting against a black backdrop, point a desk lamp towards the plant from the side so that the poster board stays in the shadows. You can also darken the shadows in a photo editing program like Photoshop or one of many free programs and apps.

The simplest way to shoot against posterboard is to lay it down flat and place the plant right on top. Aim the camera downwards so that the backdrop fills the frame, play around with the lighting and 'click' goes the dynamite. The above photo of a Pachypodium was shot with a narrow depth of field, which made the soil and posterboard blurry and kept my subject sharp. If you have a point-and-shoot, using a close-up mode will produce similar results.

This Crassula might have looked unkempt otherwise, but a dark backdrop makes the arching stems pop out like sparks or splashes of water.

If this orchid looks familiar, it's because it's the same Eplc. 'Butterfly Kisses' that I drew for this blog's header. It's interesting how different it looks against black instead of white!

For a different approach, let the light hit the posterboard as well. The rough slate gray background complements the textured pink leaves of this Episcia nicely.

Finally, try shooting plants in a setting of the same color (as I have with this black Cryptanthus) to draw attention to the patterning or texture.

Have any other neat photography tips you'd like to share? Be sure to let me know in the comments!
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Becoming a More Productive Garden Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:07:00 +0000

It's a beautiful day at the botanical garden, and each visitor is dazzled by nature's splendor in all its variety; from the songbirds in the treetops to the tiniest details of each intricate flower. Everybody is enjoying the gardens except for one gentleman shuffling through the park with his eyes and thumbs glued to his smartphone, live-tweeting and status-updating while those songbirds watch on with pity. That would be the garden blogger.

That's the tricky thing about combining social media with nature. At some point, you just have to stop tweeting and 'liking' so that you can listen to the real live tweeting and look upon the garden with such emotion that it can't be expressed in 140 characters or less. Social media has become so portable that for many (myself included) it has become a distraction from the real world. I've noticed that people who constantly 'share' to Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest often have very little to share of their own making.

While they're a welcome relief from my ancient and lagging computer, my iPad and Blackberry have been accomplices in my negligence. I'm pretty sure that I've spent more time checking for updates than I've spent posting anything useful, and apart from editors and clients, most of my email is just fluff.

So here's what I hope to do this year. I'm making an effort to be less active on social media and more active when it comes to the important stuff: Writing and illustrating. Rather than post ten status updates a day, I hope to post a single one that made ten people smile.

Since a big part of the problem has been my incredibly slow computer, I've decided to get a laptop instead. With Windows 8 apps and a touch screen, it effectively replaces both my computer and the iPad, which means I'm less likely to get distracted by games. (It's an Asus X202E and it cost me less than an iPad, by the way)

I've used the new Metro 'Livetiles' to categorize my day and make me more productive. The goal is to structure my day and put the important stuff front and center so that my ADD doesn't get the best of me.

The first category contains a to-do list, calendar, social media apps and other apps that I use for writing. The second category contains live feeds of blogs that I hope to read, (let me know if I should add yours!) news and weather.

The third category contains all the apps I need to upload and edit photos. A week ago, if I wanted to add six photos to a blog I was forced to upload them to my slow PC and edit them in Photoshop. While Photoshop is great for specific projects, this everyday task took me thirty minutes to complete. Now I can do all of that in a few minutes, thanks to a speedier computer and fast touch-screen apps.

Every photo from this blog post was edited in either Fotor or Photoroom, and both turned out to be lightning fast and easy to use. My only complaint is that while Fotor has the coolest effects and best interface, only Photoroom lets you change the image size. But there is plenty of time for updates and new apps to turn up.

Here's a question for other writers: How do you get things done? Do you use a traditional desktop or a mobile device? Photoshop or Picasa? What tips would you have for being more productive? Be sure to let me know in the comments

Annie Haven and the Future of Gardening

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 01:57:00 +0000

Annie Haven is not your typical entrepreneur. She starts her workday at four in the morning by drinking a cup of coffee - just like so many others who work from home, but that's where the familiarity ends. Annie then puts on her high topped wellington boots, steps outside into the darkness and checks on her employees, who respond to her greeting with a hearty 'moo.'

After checking in with her staff, the rancher heads back inside to check the email and work on her social media marketing efforts so that she can build friendships and get new clients. Next she heads back out to the ranch to harvest, process, package and ship the product that gardeners all over the social networks are buzzing about; Authentic Haven Brand manure tea.

Manure is Annie's passion and her paycheck, but she succeeds by taking the ultimate dirty job and then doing it very, very well. Her cows are fed a diet of native chemical free grasses, and all the manure is packed by hand into attractive tea bags with professionally designed labels before they're shipped off to boutiques, garden centers and homeowners nationwide.

Her cult following just can’t get enough of what they call 'Moo Poo Tea’. Rosarian Chris VanCleave uses it exclusively for his award winning miniature roses, orchid growers spray it on their prized specimens and legions of vegetable growers rely on it for healthy crops.

Her mission is to revive the age-old practice of gardening organically with compost teas, thus carrying on the Haven family legacy. Annie and her compost stuffed tea bags are a living link to over a century of America's horticultural heritage, and her 150 years worth of documents, photos, order forms and seed catalogs from her family's company are a daily reminder.

"It started back with my great grandfather Edwin Haven" she explains. Haven Seed Company was founded in 1853 in Bloomingdale Michigan, but by 1910 they had set up operations in Orange County California where they continued to supply treasured varieties of tomato seeds for the lavishly decorated catalogues of Burpee, D. Landreth and Comstock Ferre. It's very likely that your tomato seeds are the offspring of seed stock sold by Haven Seed Company long ago.

Today Annie is betting it all on cow chips. While most manure is a messy and smelly proposition, Authentic Haven Brand manure tea is fragrant, convenient and mess free. You simply steep the 'tea bags' in water for one to three days for a 100% organic liquid fertilizer that can be used to spray and water plants as often as desired.

That pleasant aroma is all thanks to the cows' grassy meals. Cows' digestive systems are meant to process grass, but most farmers feed them corn instead corn instead which makes the cow produce more smelly methane gas and leaves them more susceptible to E. coli bacteria. Annie advises that customers should still wash their hands after handling the manure tea, just as you would with any other fertilizer.

Annie's cows have never even known the taste of corn, so her manure tea is 'cleaner' and smells more pleasant as a result. With no machinery to cross contaminate her manure with hormones or pesticides, she can guarantee the same quality in every tea bag.

It was Annie's father Paul who started selling manure tea to local farmers in 1928, but when in 2003 he was killed in an auto accident, it was Annie and her brother Paul Jr. that would carry the torch. Together they collaborated on creating the branding, marketing elements and packaging that are still used today, and they even used their father's cattle 'brand' symbol as the starting point in the design.

Her world was again turned upside down when Annie's brother passed away in 2009. Annie was left not only heartbroken and lonely, but without any marketing experience to keep the business afloat.

But then the old fashioned rancher found an unlikely ally in what was then a new social media platform, Twitter. Annie introduced herself to the internet as "A woman rancher in Southern California with a 100% natural garden product" and was soon accepted with open arms by an enthusiastic community of gardeners. Using nothing more than a dial-up connection, she built her business on social media.

Her ever-present smile dissipates when she tells me about the untimely demise of Ecke Poinsettias; once America's greatest Poinsettia supplier and just a stone's throw from Annie's ranch. She explains how her grandfather and Mr. Ecke were good friends back when the Ecke family dominated the poinsettia industry by closely guarding their secrets for compact and attractive plants. That all changed in the 90's when those trade secrets were published, allowing other growers to flourish by growing them overseas. In August of 2012, Paul Ecke III sold what remained of his family's empire to a Dutch group.

Though rising giants like Proven Winners are a short drive away from Annie's ranch, many of the great seed catalogs, nurseries and farms in Southern California have suffered the fate of Ecke and Annie worries that her once-great family name will fizzle into distant memory.

Shortly after Annie's brother passed away, a group wanted to invest in Authentic Haven compost tea, but with a caveat: She had to give up her traditional methods in favor of automation and machinery. Turning them down was incredibly risky but Annie stood her ground and continued to make a product that she could stand behind.

Right before I spoke with her, Annie returned from a successful speaking engagement for the Los Angeles Rose Society with a broken fuel pump and farm insurance bills made higher by record breaking drought. Still, she reads me a shining testimonial of her compost tea and celebrates what she calls a "another champagne cork popping moment."

Carolyn Binder and I brewing our Moopoo Tea

She believes in her manure tea, and the testimonials flooding her inbox would seem to indicate that gardeners do too. She says that "When you are determined and you have a product you know is worthy, you find a way" but an appropriated translation might be "When life gives you manure, make compost tea."

To learn more about Authentic Haven Brand compost tea or to make a purchase, visit www.ahavenbrand.com. If you've tried it for yourself, let me know in the comments!

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Nancy Asbell's Home Page and Obituary

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:22:00 +0000

Photo by Kelly Edens

My resolution for the new year was to create a 'home' for my mother online so that her friends, fans and family could access everything in one place. Rather than just tell you about my resolution, I've just decided to do it right now. I've included videos, testimonials, quotes, interviews, stories and links to inspire you to 'celebrate the day' whenever you're feeling down.

Nancy Asbell never got a traditional obituary in the newspaper, but since she used social media to touch lives with her infectious joy, it seemed fitting to use a more dynamic format. While this might seem like an odd fit for a garden lifestyle blog, at least to new readers, those of you who've stuck around over the last couple of years are well aware of the special link between the Rainforest Garden and Nancy Asbell.

Many of you have become friends with my mother after reading the posts about her here, and a handful of you have even received her colorful hand drawn notecards or pep talks on the phone. Remarkably, other gardeners have even gone out of their ways to send get well cards or generously assist her financially, which is a testament to both the character of those friends and to that of my mother.

Nancy Asbell built her career from home using her gifts as an artist, piano teacher and musician, but what she considered to be her greatest gift was the disease that brought her immense pain and eventually took her life. Lupus, along with its complications and treatments, has torn searing hot wounds all over her body, broken her spine, given her a brain stem stroke that left her severely impaired, ruptured her stomach, robbed her of hair, energy and (eventually) vision, bloated her face and body, and took her ability to walk. For many people this would have been a living hell, but thanks to her faith and inner strength, Nancy Asbell became known for her ever present smile.

Nancy Asbell's Story

To avoid repeating myself and to show the scope of her legacy, I've included links to blog posts that I've written about my mother and listed them in order. Each 'chapter' highlights her resilient joy in the face of trials such as incredible pain, disfigurement, poverty and disability. Long story short, she managed to not only stay happy through each of these obstacles but use them to reach out to others whenever she could.

1. The Garden is Dying and My Mother is Living

2. The Healing Process

3. The World is Your Garden

4. Falling Forward

5. Celebrate the Day

6. A Gardener Grieves

Bonus Blog Post - Gardening Gone Wild: What Our Mother's Taught Us

Nancy's Legacy - Testimonials

This is one of the hundreds of notecards that Nancy Asbell would draw for friends, family and strangers.

In keeping with Nancy Asbell's goal of spending each dying minute reaching out to strangers, I thought it would be best to share the words of some of those 'strangers' themselves.

"I loved the determination that your mother had. She refused to be defined by her illness. She was grateful for every little thing and taught us all to stop and smell the roses and take nothing for granted. She was an amazing individual whose kindness was unreal! When I was quite sick, she sent me special hand drawn cards and then a wonderful small watercolor of a palm tree which she knew I loved. It sits framed on my desk and I think of your mom daily. I was blessed to have known her." - Nina Neville Wormuth

"A couple years ago, Steve, who I was FB friends with, shared some of Nancy Asbell's artwork. I kinda clicked through some more photos and captions, and got caught up in Nancy's story... Nancy's grace notes were always uplifting, and her signature sign-off of "Celebrate the Day" just said so much with those 3 little words. Somehow, in our chats, she must have coaxed a mailing address out of me, because one day, we received one of her sketches. Never asked for, it was just there in the mail one day. Then, last December, towards Christmas, we got another sketch - recently drawn, with a holiday theme. I really am clueless why we were so fortunate to have received these. All I ever did, as far as I know, was wish her a good morning, or thank her for that day's Grace Notes." - Tom Mann

"I remember 'meeting' Nancy thru someone's FB page ... after seeing her artwork. I went to her website and came across her Grace Notes! Immediately, I thought 'what a positive attitude' she had. I began following Nancy's Grace Notes and then sent her a friend request. I have dealt with a multitude of health issues for many years, but I don't dwell on them like I did before Nancy came along! She's such an inspiration ... I know that word defined her!! The 'inappropriate happiness' statement she made still rings in my spirit!! She was so willing (effortlessly, it seemed) and freely giving of art biz advice too! I know I learned quite a bit from her in that area. I don't think it really set in with me as to how big her heart was until you wrote the piece about her joy in the face of such suffering (I think it was last year). I treasure the painting she did for me. I only wish I'd gotten to meet her personally..." - Terri Keller

Links to Nancy's Work

Nancy Asbell's Art

Nancy Asbell's Grace Notes Blog, Part 1

Nancy Asbell's Grace Notes Blog, Part 2

Lupus Awareness and Research Website

Media

An Interview with Nancy Asbell

Listen to internet radio with In The Moment on Blog Talk Radio

A Few Quotes from Nancy Asbell

"Your darkest hour will only ever last 60 minutes"

"That which is to burn brightly must be able to endure burning."

"Your success will be measured only in terms of the love
you leave behind when you’re gone."

"This too will pass."

"Breath in, breath out – repeat as necessary."

"Happiness can be found sipping a fine white wine on a balcony overlooking a vineyard in Italy.

Happiness can be found drinking a cup of Folgers Coffee on the back cement stoop of a mobile home.
Happiness can be found in a prison, a woman's shelter, or in ICU units when they tell you that they will have to amputate your legs in the morning and you'll probably not live.
Happiness can be found when a woman can slide out of her own bed, into her wheelchair to live an independent day in her own home and begin to celebrate yet one more day.
I have found happiness...and it has found me. Celebrate the day!"

"I hide my "suffering legs" from view at all times from children and adults. Well unfortunately my sock slipped down a bit and one of my younger student saw only a view of my ankle. "Wow! Why is your leg so black?" Since he is VERY very smart, we quickly discussed my being in a wheel chair and how my blood doesn't know how to run around and play in my body very well, especially in my legs. To which he replied "Wow! If I want to change colors I have to change to a different color of socks" and we just continued our lesson. Do you see why I love my art/music "jobs" so very much?" Never hold any pity for me. I am one of the lucky ones."

To Be Continued...

In the future I plan to continue sharing more blog posts inspired by my mother's compassion and positive attitude, and I also plan on updating this blog post with more quotes as time goes on. If you would like to share your own story or have something to add, please leave a comment in her memory. Thank you!

7 Garden DIY Ideas from the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 21:29:00 +0000

To announce the winners of my gardening giveaway and thank the many people who entered, I'd like to share some very cool DIY gardening ideas that come courtesy of the brilliant staff of the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens. There's a keyhole garden, a fairy house with a living roof, a vertical cinderblock succulent garden and so many more ideas that promise to defrost your gardening creativity in the coming winter months.

I've been sharing my love affair with the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens for some time now, but after meeting horticultural manager Chris Dailey I've started to appreciate some of the finer details that before went unnoticed. But then again, my distraction is perfectly understandable considering the grand impressions of areas like the Savanna Blooms Garden or the authentic atmosphere of their Range of the Jaguar exhibit.

In my opinion, it is the Jacksonville Zoo's supremely designed gardens and exhibits that set them apart from the rest. Surrounded by bromeliads and Latin American blooms in the dappled shade of palms and tropical trees like Jacarandas, it's easy to forget for a moment that you're not in the lush rainforests of the Central American tropics but rather in Northeast Florida, which is just warm enough for them to grow the plants that create the illusion.

The gardens set the perfect stage for their collection of animals, which can often be seen both at a distance and up close and personal with few obstructions to interrupt your animal encounter. Giraffes and lorikeets take food right from your hand, and stingrays gently glide across the water to give 'high fives' to delighted kids. Of course, the experience is made even more authentic when the environment is right. If you want to feed the giraffes, you're enticed to travel through an African grassland with succulent planted rocky outcrops rising from a sea of feathery grasses and flower stalks.

And eventually, like me, you'll discover the humble and authentic details that went unnoticed like the supporting cast that makes the stars shine; dutifully recreated African keyhole gardens made from recycled concrete, a ticket booth made to look like a fairy house with the addition of a living roof, and a sign with letters made up of twisting grapevine. You say to yourself: "I can do that!"

1. Make a Playhouse with a Living Roof

The fairy themed butterfly garden exhibit has ended for the season, but little reminders of its magic spring up in the form of hypertufa mushrooms and this fairy house with a lushly planted living roof. If you're thinking what I'm thinking, this would be the icing on the cake for a kid's clubhouse or a garden shed.

Only incorporate a green roof like this one if the structure is strong enough to support the growing plants and moist soil. Line the bed with pond liner to prevent a leaky ceiling, and leave small openings on the bottom of the bed's edge so that water to drain away.

2. Plant a Keyhole Garden

While keyhole gardens aren't necessarily African in origin, organizations like www.sendacow.org have revived a permaculture tradition and put it to use fighting malnourishment in African countries like Lesotho.

It's a brilliant, yet simple concept: The basket in the center collects compost and holds moisture, thus keeping the surrounding garden bed fed and watered. The horticulture team gave us a sustainable double whammy by building the walls with reclaimed concrete!

3. Craft a Sign of Grape Vines

Whimsical grapevine letters set the perfect tone for the Butterfly Hollow exhibit earlier this year. (The rooftop garden was also at the entrance) Here's how to make your own: Just plan out your design on a piece of paper, lightly sketch out your design on a board of wood, and harvest lengths of vine that are just limber enough to be bent when wet. Hold each segment of vine against the outline, cut to the proper length and secure in place with wood screws.

4. Add Windows to the Garden

In keeping with the authentic design of the Asian Bamboo Gardens, the horticultural staff and Terra Design Studios included little details such as this 'window' through a hedge of Podocarpus that allows a framed view of the bridge and Orchid Pavillion.

There are lots of ways to open up framed views in your garden, but if pruning a hedge like this one, they should be set widely apart so that they have room to grow. A window like this takes years of training and careful pruning, so don't expect overnight results.

5. Plant a Veggie Garden at Work

I don't know I was surprised that a cutting-edge zoo like the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens grew their own vegetables, but while taking the train tour I have to admit that I was blown away. Even if your workplace doesn't have room for a miniature farm like this one, I'm sure that many of you could put this idea to use as a 'team-building exercise' and spend your lunch break harvesting your own lunch.

6. Make a Bamboo Fence

Need to find a use for that thicket of bamboo on your property? The Jacksonville Zoo used it to great effect as a fence in their Bamboo Mist Forest. By drilling holes at even lengths and lashing them together with a strong twine, you can make a charming and whimsical fence for your vegetable garden, Asian themed garden or compost heap.

7. Make A Cinderblock Garden

You may have seen these cinderblock vertical succulent gardens on Facebook or Pinterest lately, but I'm not sure I've seen one as nicely done as this. You're not likely to find this feature in the zoo since it's tucked away in the horticulture staff's secret lair, but I just had to share.

If you're attempting this project yourself, use poured concrete and rebar well into the ground to prevent your wall from toppling over. Use construction adhesive to help adhere the blocks together. To keep soil from spilling out of the openings, line the bottom with mesh and adhere with construction adhesive.

To Read More of my Posts About the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens:

Range of the Jaguar
Asian Bamboo Gardens
Container Gardens
Garden Photography

The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens. To learn more, visit www.jacksonvillezoo.org

Finally, Announcing the Winners of the Gardening Giveaway!

Adam Miglorski – Vertical Vegetable Garden Package

William P. - DIY Succulent Garden Package

Chris George – Gardener’s Bookshelf Package

Daricia - Handmade Gift Package

If you're one of the fantastic four that I named, email your address to me at steve_asbell@yahoo.com so that the generous contributors and I can have these goodies sent out to you after the holiday rush.

Thank you all for entering and sharing the contest! With over 70 entries, I think that it's safe to say that the donors of all these gardening gifts deserve a hand too. Stand up and take a bow!
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I'm Giving Away Gardening Prize Packages!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:48:00 +0000

Close your eyes, hold out your hands and get ready for some groovy gardening gifts. Thanks to some very generous contributors, we're giving away well over $200 worth of gardening prize packages to four lucky readers! From a vertical gardening prize package to a collection of gardening books, we're giving away something for everyone! Just leave a comment to enter.

The Gardener's Bookshelf Prize Package

This is a quintessential collection of books for new and experienced gardeners alike and contains everything you need to know about completing just about any gardening task.

Helen Yoest's Gardening with Confidence will help you do exactly what the title promises, giving gardeners permission to be creative in their own gardens without fear of being judged by others. She doesn't talk down to you when dispensing her invaluable advice, but rather gets you excited about whipping your own landscape into check with projects like planning a garden, planting containers and adding interest with fragrance, water features and structures.

Once Helen's book gets you excited about taking on all of those gardening projects, Katie Elzer-Peters tells you precisely how to do everything in easy steps with her book the Beginner's Illustrated Guide to Gardening. Katie has been my editor and good friend for a few years now, but I was honestly blown away when I saw her book for the first time. She explains every gardening task with so much detail, yet in a simple and easy to follow way. The photo illustrations outline all of the steps visually, making every project not only easy, but a whole lot of fun.

Maybe you're just making the switch to gardening organically. Well, I can't think of a better guide than Joe Lamp'l, host of the PBS show Growing a Greener World. What I love about Joe is that while other 'green' gurus make the green lifestyle expensive and complicated, Joe manages to make sustainable practices look so affordable, simple and sensible that you'll wonder how you got along without him. Joe has two books in this prize package: Over the Fence with Joe Gardener and the Green Gardener's Guide.

DIY Succulent Garden Prize Package

This prize package contains everything you need to make your own miniature succulent garden, but let's start with the succulents themselves. Candice Suter of Sweetstuff's Sassy Succulents will be providing a healthy helping of succulent cuttings to get you started. Oh, and if her blog's endless supply of horticultural eye candy doesn't get you excited about succulents, nothing will.

Next you'll need a container, and this wood stamped cement planter from Nativecast is a perfect complement to the often muted hues of succulents. I used a larger version of this planter (pictured above) for a container combination in my upcoming book, and I think it turned out nicely.

Every good recipe starts with good ingredients, the best cars run on premium fuel and the finest artists use quality paints. So instead of planting your precious succulents in regular potting soil, use this Cactus Potting Mix from Black Gold and never watch another aloe rot away in soggy soil.

Finally, how about a handcrafted top notch soil scoop from Garden Tool Co.? My balcony is a mess right now, all thanks to my standard issue garden trowel that tends to spill potting soil all over the place. Shawna Coronado had this problem too, so when DeWit tools invited her to their blacksmithing workshop, she actually took a plane to the Netherlands and designed a new one along with Derk DeWit. It's U shaped to keep soil from falling over the sides, has a sharp bottom edge for removing old rootballs and comes equipped with a sharp hook to the side that tears open soil bags with ease.

Vertical Veggie Garden Prize Package

Who wouldn't want to grow their own veggies in a limited space? Well, this package has just what you need... except pots, since they're cheaper to buy than they are to ship. What the heck. I WILL include a bag of Black Gold Potting Mix. and a bag of Annie Haven's 'Moo Poo Tea' to keep your vegetables nice and healthy from sprout to salad. Seedlings get a nice boost with a little soak in compost tea!

To get you inspired, have a copy of Vertical Vegetable Gardening by Chris McLaughlin. It promises to be a real treat for those of us with balconies or shady gardens, or just those who want vegetables right outside the kitchen door. Chris is the fastest writer I know and her writing is always to the point and approachable. Other than that, I'd like to add that she's a wonderful friend.

Okay, enough of the sappy stuff and on to the veggie stuff. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds was kind enough to provide a $10 gift card for seeds as a part of this prize package. I have their winter annuals, greens and heirloom squash growing in the garden as we speak and I'd love to introduce more people to their heirloom vegetables rescued from obscurity (and possibly extinction) from all around the world.

I'm also giving away some of Sierra Rose Creations' EZ Mount Plant Pot Hangers to get you started growing up on your own. These things are a lifesaver. Just get a pole from the hardware store, slip on the plant pot hangers and watch your vertical garden grow. While I can't include their redwood stand in the giveaway, you might consider getting one. I now grow fifteen plants in a space that would normally only allow for four, which is a pretty big deal since my apartment is filled with plants.

Handmade Gift Prize Package

This might be the smallest prize package of the four, but you'll learn how to make your own creative DIY projects and have a tasty snack to fuel your creativity!

Stephanie Rose's Garden Therapy Handmade Gifts e-book walks you through DIY beauty products, decor projects and even living art! I'm a huge fan of Stephanie's Garden Therapy blog for its creative and classy craft projects, which are often so popular that I see them on Pinterest before I even visit her blog on my own.

The second part of this prize package is a homemade gift from Carolyn Binder to you. She's wishing you a merry Christmas with a pound of her sweet and salty candied pecans, and having tried her food before myself, I guarantee that her pecans will make your holidays very merry indeed. All in all, this is a very big prize in a small package.

Here's How to Win

Leave a comment on this post telling me which of these presents you'd like to win the most. You can enter once a day from now until next Wednesday December 19th at 10 pm Eastern Time, meaning you have seven opportunities to enter! I will draw the winning names from a hat on Thursday December 20th and announce the winners here at The Rainforest Garden.

Since some prizes will be sent by me and others will be sent by the kind contributors, I can't make any promises that you'll receive everything by Christmas day... but we'll all do our best!

Unfortunately, this is only open to US residents.

As stated earlier, many of these gifts were provided at no cost to me so that they can be given away at no cost to you. Thanks generous donors!

(Oh, and how could I forget? I'm giving away THREE more things: Carolyn Binder is giving away three of my best illustrations over at her blog Cowlick Cottage Farm and all you have to do is leave a comment over there to win my illustrations and lots of other great prizes.)

Eating Healthy and Fancy on a Budget

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 02:57:00 +0000

Since my wife and I were treated to a taste of the good life at Carolyn Binder's Cowlick Cottage Farm, we've been a lot more health conscious. Why? Because she made eating veggies look that much cooler! To demonstrate how fun, easy and affordable it can be to eat fresh local produce, I'll show you how we got bunches of fancypants veggies for $14 and just how far those groceries can go.

Since we live at an apartment complex without much direct sunlight to work with, growing our own food like Carolyn hasn't been much of a possibility. I have planted gardens on the grounds but have been limited to ornamentals for obvious reasons so unlike so many lucky gardeners, we have to buy our produce.

I know that the boring selection of veggies at the nearest Wal-Mart or grocery store is technically every bit as healthy as the fresh and locally grown stuff at the farmer's market, yet knowing that my watermelon radish was harvested the very same morning by area farmers makes it that much cooler. In any case, I would have a hard time finding unusual radishes anywhere else.

Watermelon radish

The Farmer's Market

I remember complaining to Carolyn about the lack of decent farmer's markets here in Jacksonville, but today we discovered that freshly harvested local veggies were right under our noses at the Riverside Arts Market. Every other time that we went there the selection wasn't really that special, but with new vendors turning up, we were thrilled to see treats like arugula, rainbow beets and Chinese broccoli.

The Riverside Arts Market takes place every Saturday from March to the middle of December under the Fuller Warren Bridge, and (thank goodness) the farmer's market continues in January. We could see the Jacksonville skyline under a shroud of fog, and vendors sold eggnog and cider to add a holiday vibe.

For lunch we went to a vendor called Alligator Pear and shared a bank mi sandwich with spicy Korean beef, topped with pickled daikon radish, aioli sauce, along with cooling cucumber and cilantro. It was divine and worth every dollar, but not really affordable enough to fit in with this post. Our dessert was a poppy seed pastry that brought me back to my childhood in Germany but was neither affordable or healthy enough to really match this post. But they were so good!

But we were talking about eating healthy, right? For fourteen dollars we ended up with a head of cauliflower the size of a watermelon, a big head of oak leaf lettuce, a bunch of fat carrots with billowing leafy tops and lots of fresh radishes with their nutritious leaves still intact. This will be enough to keep us fed for a week if necessary. By the way, the coolest veggies could be found at Black Hog Organics and Down to Earth Farm, if you happen to be looking around yourself someday.

When we got home we snacked on slices of the watermelon radish, which smacked us with a nice kick of spice after about ten seconds. They would be great dipped in ranch dressing!

Cabbage is so much prettier with the outer leaves

Freshly dug carrots. They were brushing the dirt off behind the table.

Cauliflower, bigger than a basketball

Chinese broccoli

Oakleaf lettuce

Long radishes

These radishes remind me of easter eggs

I think these radishes added up to $4.50

The Easiest Homemade Chicken Soup Ever

Tonight I used a small portion of our haul to make some delicious chicken soup. I had to get some rotisserie chicken and a shallot from the grocery store, but the rotisserie chicken cost little more than an uncooked chicken. Carrot and radish leaves are normally overlooked by most, but they turned out to be the 'secret ingredient' in my dish and even had nice texture.

Monday we'll make a salad with the oak leaf lettuce, carrot greens and radishes, followed by the roasted cauliflower that Carolyn taught us to make. Throughout the week we'll use the greens and radishes in sandwiches, and by the end of the week we'll likely still have cauliflower to cook.

Before

After

To make the soup, all I did was combine the rotisserie chicken (Precooked and affordable) with a sliced shallot, two sliced carrots, a couple cups of cauliflower florets and some rinsed off carrot and radish tops. The leafy tops add nutrition and flavor to the soup, but mostly they add color and interest. I've also added bay leaves, (which will be removed before eating) salt and pepper to taste.

The soup was brought to a boil and has been allowed to simmer on low for a couple of hours as I write this, but you don't have to wait that long. It's ready when the veggies are tender and the broth becomes cloudy.

Tasting time, and it was the best soup I’ve ever had. My wife was surprised to learn that the chicken ‘broth’ was not from a can, but rather two hours of simmering on low. The chicken was wonderfully tender, the cauliflower light and fluffy and the carrot greens ended up with a texture akin to the cooked chicken and with just a hint of flavor.

The best part? We have four servings of that decadent chicken soup left over and a fridge full of veggies. Our twelve dollar Chinese takeout dinners are starting to look pretty expensive compared to the farmer's market.

DIY Mossy Tillandsia Wreath

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 22:27:00 +0000

We will not be putting up a tree this year since the house is filled with plants for the book, but there's always room for a festive wreath, right? I've been wanting to make a Tillandsia wreath for some time now, but I decided to use some craft moss to give it a more natural 'rainforest' look than the others I've seen. Like most of my projects, this wreath was very easy to assemble and didn't take much time at all.

You'll Need:

1 grapevine wreath
1 bag of decorative deer moss (lichen)
Several Tillandsias (air plants)
Wire or twine

Directions:

1. Plan your design. It helps to have a game plan before you start, whether you're covering the whole wreath with Tillandsias or just adding a cluster. Lay the Tillandsias out over the wreath to see where they look best.

2. Attach the Tillandsias. Using wire or twine, gently tie the base of each plant to the wreath. Some Tillandsias have tough stolons or stems that can be directly inserted into the wreath, but others have brittle and fragile leaves. For the smaller or more fragile types, use twine or a hot glue gun.

3. Tuck moss into the wreath. To keep my arrangement looking natural, I limited my moss to the area that I planted Tillandsias. That way it looks as if they were growing there naturally.

4. Hang the wreath on the wall. If you live in zones 9 and up, it's possible to hang it outdoors and bring it inside during frosts. Spray the Tillandsias periodically with a mister, using more water for green leaved varieties and less water for the silver or white leaved varieties.

You're done! The beauty of a Tillandsia wreath is that while it does fit in perfectly with holiday decor, it's versatile enough that you can leave it up year-round. The tillandsias will continue to grow, bloom and produce offsets, and each year your wreath will become more impressive!

Make Your Own Miniature Mountaintop

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:12:00 +0000

My newest garden design stands no more than a foot tall, yet it still manages to feel larger than life, like an unexplored mountain range. This hybrid between a miniature garden, bonsai and rock garden took me no more than ten minutes to create and will provide endless diversion on my desktop while my imagination runs amok in the tiny details. Want to see how to make one for yourself or as a gift? Sure you do!

I've always been captivated by the elfin gnarled forms of bonsai, but the strict rules and guidelines of the craft have prevented me from making my own. After all, rules can definitely get in the way of creativity! After reading Keshiki Bonsai by Kenji Kobayashi, however, his playful pseudo-bonsai creations have assured me that I'm really missing out on a lot of fun. In Keshiki Bonsai, the author shows us all sorts of creative ways to make living arrangements; some like miniature worlds and others like little pieces of sculpture. After thumbing through that book for a while, I was really encouraged to think outside the flowerpot, so to speak.

Of course, it helps that my good friend Nancy McDonald gave me a couple of mossy lava rocks to play around with, and I already had a bonsai that was generously gifted to me after my mother passed by an as yet anonymous donor. All in all, this creation was mostly made up of generous gifts. In the spirit of giving, I should add that these DIY bonsai rocks make for excellent gifts.

I was surprised to learn that not only is it common to grow Schefflera in lava rocks (often pumice), but that they are also a popular gift and souvenir from Hawaii! What better way to commemorate a trip to a big tropical volcanic island than by bringing home a tropically planted volcanic rock?

The reason I chose to plant the rock with a Schefflera as opposed to succulents, was that I really like the aerial roots that tend to form on Scheffleras, creating a multi-trunked and magical looking specimen. If you've ever seen a banyan tree, you know what I'm talking about. When my sister-in-law came over, I called it 'Little Middle Earth.' The joke fell flat, but the description fits.

A Selaginella cutting was rooted several weeks ago and is happily creeping along the cliff face.

Planting and caring for this miniature mountaintop is easy.
You'll Need

1-2 Lava rocks (available at pet stores)
1 Small tree (Could be a rooted cutting, sapling or ready-made bonsai)
1 Small companion plant (Optional)
Bonsai soil (Premixed soil, clay gravel, perlite or crushed lava rock)
1 Saucer

Instructions

1. Choose a suitable tree to 'bonsai'. It could have already begun training, or it could be a cutting, sapling or division from another plant. Keep in mind that if your specimen is to be grown indoors, you must choose an indoor plant. Suitable choices for a jungle look include money tree (Pachira aquatica), Ficus spp. or Schefflera arboricola, but if if it's a desert scene you're after, try Desert Rose (Adenium spp.), jade plant or any caudex forming plants.

2. Prepare your planting hole. If your rock doesn't already have a hole or crevice, you can easily carve your own with a file or a drill. Be sure to save the resulting debris so that you can use it as a decorative soil or mulch! Gently remove the plant from its pot and rinse away any unsuitable soil from the roots.

3. Place the tree. Hold the plant in the hole at the level it will be grown, and start slowly adding soil to the hole, using your fingers to pack it in loosely. If there is a crevice along the side of the rock, be sure to drape one of the plant's roots over the edge and pack it tightly with sphagnum moss so that roots will eventually cling to the edge in a picturesque way.

4. Add any 'companion' plants. On a whim, I added a couple of Selaginella cuttings which quickly began rooting along the side of the rock, clinging to the edge. My rock already had moss, but you can easily add your own over time. I added an extra planted rock with a dwarf mondo grass and Rhipsalis seedlings to complete the illusion of a miniature world.

5. Place in a saucer. It could be empty or lined with decorative gravel, but be sure to choose one that complements your arrangement. I've been using a square one that looks horrible, but will soon upgrade to an elongated oval or rectangle.

Care:

Watering is simple, really. Just keep the rock moist, but not soggy. You could achieve this filling the saucer a bit at a time and letting the rock soak it all in, but the safest and most attractive method is to keep it on a tray filled with gravel and remove the rock when it's time to water. That way you never have to worry about overwatering!

Fertilize lightly with time release granules so that the nutrients don't drain out all at once while watering. Prune as needed to create the look that most appeals to you. I actually removed all of the leaves from my bonsai a few months back which has resulted in smaller, more compact growth.

Your Turn!
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Living Mistletoe Cactus for the Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 21:25:00 +0000

As many of you know, I'm a big fan of the epiphytic cactus known as mistletoe cactus, but I have a new use for those durable Rhipsalis species: Living mistletoe. The real mistletoe species are parasitic plants that live fused to oak trees, but mistletoe cactus is an incredibly easy houseplant that can be grown in nothing more than a small bundle of sphagnum moss.

Mistletoe cactus will bloom and produce white berries

You can hang mistletoe cactus over doorways, at weddings or on the wall for a never-ending supply of kisses all year. Rhipsalis is, in my opinion, the easiest houseplant available.

To give you an idea of its durability, a year and a half ago I used a cutting in a flower arrangement for my wedding. For almost a year it sat in a vase at my mother's house, blooming and fruiting despite being nearly neglected. Six months ago I moved the vase to a bookshelf in a dim corner of my living room, and still it thrived. Actually, I ended up using it in this arrangement! The small cuttings that I gave out as wedding favors are now growing at our guest's homes... as far away as Canada.

Grow mistletoe cactus in potting soil or sphagnum moss, and water as little or often as you like. Too much water will eventually kill Rhipsalis, but it's a lot more tolerant than other houseplants.

To show you guys just how versatile mistletoe cactus can be in holiday decor, I've created a hanging arrangement using driftwood, sphagnum moss and twine. An air plant (Tillandsia) provides the finishing touch, though you could always substitute with a bright red ribbon.

Want a simpler version of this arrangement? Just wrap a single cutting of mistletoe cactus in sphagnum moss and hang it on the Christmas tree, over your headboard or even around your neck as living jewelry.

Ingredients

Driftwood (cleaned and free of salts)
Sphagnum Moss (long grain works best)
Twine
Tillandsia (Air Plant)
Mistletoe Cactus (Look for Rhipsalis with the Exotic Angel houseplants)

Directions

Using sharp and clean scissors or pruning shears, clip off some stems of the Rhipsalis plant.

For the very best results, let the mistletoe cactus cuttings heal for a few days before dipping the cut end in rooting hormone. While this isn't necessary, it will help the plants establish faster.

Hold the cut end of the mistletoe cactus to the driftwood, and wrap sphagnum moss around the stem and driftwood using twine. It doesn't have to be perfect!

Continue adding mistletoe cactus cuttings. When you're done, ensure that everything is tight enough to stay in place, yet loose enough for the cuttings to form roots.

Gently tie the airplant to a bare portion of the driftwood. If it is tied to the sphagnum moss, it will rot.

You're done! Hang your living art on the wall or over a doorway, and then get ready for the kisses.

Care

Caring for your living mistletoe is easy. Just remove the whole display and hold it under lightly running water until the moss is saturated. Hang it back up until it has dried out again. You can feed your mistletoe cactus and Tillandsia every few months by either briefly soaking them in compost tea (I swear by Authentic Haven Brand) or a diluted orchid fertilizer. When the mistletoe cactus cuttings grow too large, you can either add more sphagnum moss or prune the stems.

Want more mistletoe cactus ideas?

Rainforest Drops
Birdcage Planter
DIY Tropical Wedding

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A Gardener Grieves

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Asbell) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:58:00 +0000

It's been over half a year since I lost my mother and close friend, Nancy Asbell, yet I haven't felt the unbearable sadness that one would expect. This isn't to say that I haven't grieved or don't think of her every other hour, but strangely her memory leaves me with the same inexplicable joy that my mother carried with her through unbearable pain and disability. My education as a gardener has also helped.

Gardening has been more than a therapeutic escape for me; it's become a deep seated philosophy that has intermingled with my faith and brought me a peaceful acceptance of life in all its seasons. I'd like to share my own way of coping with death so that those of you who are suffering might find a single morsel of truth to help you move towards a feeling of acceptance. I'm not a professional, and don't claim to have the answers. Just think of this as a heartfelt bereavement card from a friend who's been there. If you know somebody else who could benefit from this, feel free to pass it along.

Keep Gardening, Keep Dancing, Keep Creating

Keep doing whatever it is that brings you joy and fulfillment. In my own experience, I've found that it was pretty pointless to deny myself happiness, because to do so would be unfair to my family and dying mother. Don't get me wrong; I wallowed in self pity all through my teenage years, but after a while I realized that against all odds my mother was still alive and happy and the whole depression thing seemed a bit pointless. Who was that helping?

It's perfectly normal and healthy to feel sadness, but because it's so easy to let healthy grieving devolve into unhealthy depression and self pity, I urge you to keep gardening. Keep fishing, cooking, hiking, crafting, designing and marketing. Create as a meditation or as a prayer, and as a lifeline to the greater world's beauty. If you're doing nothing productive and fulfilling, the silence can become unbearable.

Nancy Asbell and me, her son. This was a year before she passed.

For those of you who didn't know, I started gardening when my forty-something mother became handicapped and started to lose her vision as a result of Lupus. In the months leading up to her departure, the endless phone calls from the bank made it painfully clear that she would lose her home as well as the garden that I planted, so out of necessity I had to dig everything up to be replanted at my apartment complex. Gardening made me feel as if I was accomplishing something; bringing life and beauty into the world that at times felt pretty screwed up. I felt the same way when I was writing or drawing and it helped to ground me in the moment as well as the future. To quote that prolific poet by the name of Anonymous: "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."

One of my more... creative seed packet illustration drawn from the waiting room

My happiest memories with my mother were spent in the doctor's waiting rooms and the ICU, where we brought sketchbooks and reading material, but would instead end up chattering on about our creative ideas and dreams of bringing others joy. When we finally settled down, I would write out articles and draw seed packet illustrations while she jotted down new ways to market her artwork and share her story.

My mom in a ten minute still life, posing in the ER

During one of my mother's closer brushes with death, all I wanted was a chance to sing with her again... but her body wasn't cooperative. I did have three colored pencils and a pad of paper though, so I wanted her to wake up to find me drawing. She was expected to die right there in front of me, but I was able to lose myself mapping out her bald head and swollen face in a series of furious scribbles. When she miraculously awoke, she beamed with pride and stammered to tell the medic about her "talented son". Despite all the pain, discomfort and imminent death, she was pretty darned happy.

Find Beauty in Winter

Perhaps being a gardener has taught me to embrace the everyday comings and goings of life, death and dormancy. A gardener looks at the bare and skeletal trees in winter and sees a healthy life-filled vessel, merely sleeping until the sun returns in spring to bring the barren landscape back to life. The sap has only retreated to the roots beneath the soil so that the tree can rest up to return stronger than ever next time around.


Magnolias signalling the end of winter at the Atlanta Botanical Garden

This metaphor might leave out the fact that this tree will eventually actually die, but then look at all the seedlings sprouting up miles away in richer soils. Listen to the birds that were born from its branches, singing songs for the world to hear. Think of what your husband, sister or best friend brought to your life, and realize that even though nothing could ever fill the distinct hole left behind in his wake, you still have those gifts with which to do what you will. I still have all the truths, laughter and purposes that my mother gave me and those gifts are now mine to share.

Beyond Buying a Garden Bench

When my mother passed, my wife and I checked with all of the botanical gardens so that we could place a bench in her honor. While there's nothing wrong with donating a large sum of cash for a lasting memorial, I'm choosing to live my life as a tribute. It sounds pretty dramatic, but living in honor of my mom could be as simple as making more of the home cooked and healthy meals she used to make, in her memory. As we lose weight by cooking what she liked to cook, we remember making meals by her side and know that we're doing her proud. Because another thing I loved about her was her compassion towards friends and strangers alike, I hope that I can learn to be a better person in her honor.

"Golden Oak" by Nancy Asbell

What my mother and I really shared was our love of art. She trained me as an artist, and we both looked at the world with artist's eyes. I wanted to do a showing of her artwork in her memory, but poverty in the end forced her to sell much of her work. She also gave a lot of it away out of the kindness of her heart. In lieu of a Nancy Asbell art exhibit, I'm taking the torch and reinterpreting her artistic vision in my own way: With plants. I am a botanical illustrator to begin with, but my mother didn't merely capture a likeness on a canvas. Her landscapes were an experience crafted by a pain riddled, nearly blind and handicapped woman who found her inspiration in drainage ditches and retention ponds.

I've been playing around with some really exciting concepts for living installation art, but in this case, the art was right under my nose. Mindlessly placing Haworthia offsets in a wide propagation tray to make new plants, I slowly started to realize that the lowly plastic tray was a canvas and the succulent plants were my brushstrokes. The next thing I knew, there was a whole landscape in miniature that I created in minutes.

The glorified dish garden found a home beneath one of my mother's paintings in my bedroom, but one day I saw the similarity between the planting and the painting and thought to do something different. I placed the painting directly above the tray and in an instant the short, choppy brushstrokes seemed to fuse with the fat and transparent Haworthia leaves. Seven months after her passing, my mother and I were making art together. I could still imagine her rambling ideas racing through my head, telling me about depth and dimension, hue and composition. My enthusiasm and drive remains undiminished in her absence, and it's as if she never left.

A Remembrance Plant

Gardeners often have memories attached to certain plants. Some look forward to the blooms on a rosebush because their mother would always tend to her rose garden. Others grow scented plants like jasmines and gardenias to add an extra sense to the treasured memory.

But rosebushes and gardenias need pampering and are often prone to dying, so I opted for a plant that would prove to be as resilient and prolific as my mom. Every week, bright pink rain lilies pop up along the parking lot of my apartment complex. I originally planted them by my mother's doorstep so that she would always find happiness when it was least expected, but when she died, I was the one who needed that constant reminder. They've multiplied admirably in the dry and sandy soil, and every time they open their cheery blooms for a few days, I think of my mother giving me a hug and asking about my day.

In Closing

One of the hardest obstacles when a loved one passes is dealing with the feeling that nobody understands the pain that you're going through. I don't claim to understand your own unique pain; be it sharply gut wrenching or inconsolably hollow and lonely. I had the advantage of knowing about my mom's dire situation years in advance, so most of the hurt was spread out earlier in life compared to the seismically devastating shock of a car accident or suicide.

While I don't know precisely what you're experiencing, I do know that the world is beautiful in all its ups and downs and that it continues to march on for us with its own subtle consolations. A smile breaks on the innocent face of a child at the grocery store, and it reminds you of a smile you once knew. A joke on TV makes you burst into unexpected laughter, and then, a stream of happy tears when you think "she would have thought that was hilarious." An ordinary flower blooms on an overcast and dewy morning, and suddenly you're reminded of a beauty that was once overlooked but can only now be embraced.

Despite a debilitating, disfiguring and excruciating illness, my mother was often described as being inappropriately happy. Before she died, I asked her if she was afraid of dying, and her primary concern was my happiness when she was gone. Chances are, your loved one wants you to be happy too. While choosing to be happy seems like a bit of a stretch, keep doing the things you love and the joy will follow. When you start feeling happiness even though you feel as if you shouldn't, don't fight the urge. Work on that novel you've been putting off, and dust off the old piano. Keep gardening, and keep living.