Our Little Acre

Heave Ho - Garden Style

2012-02-06T09:48:00.000-05:00

A few years ago, I wrote about heaving in the garden. When you live where I do, and have winters where the ground freezes for several months, it's unavoidable. It isn't the freezing itself that causes a plant or bulb to heave out of the ground, it's the repeated cycle of freezing and thawing and freezing again that does it.

In most so-called "normal" winters, the season reaches a point where the ground freezes and stays that way for awhile, then as spring approaches, the air temperatures start to fluctuate and so does that of the ground. But in this strangest of winters, where with a couple exceptions we've had early spring weather the entire season, the ground hasn't really frozen and stayed that way.

As a result, we're experiencing excessive heaving and it's happening earlier than usual. This is important to note, because as roots become exposed and in some case, entire bulbs, they're at the mercy of Mother Nature's whims.

I walked through Max's Garden earlier this week and noticed unusual amounts of heaving, first in the plant tags as they lay scattered across the garden, out of their proper locations. I tried to put them back as best I could, but it will be spring before I really know where some of them belong. I usually make proper tags that go deep into the ground and stay in place during heaving, but I neglected to do it with several new plants.

Heuchera 'Amber Waves' has heaved a couple of inches out of the ground.

Then I noticed the heucheras, which are notoriously bad heavers. No surprise there, but it was happening in January, not March. And the Asiatic lily bulblets were peppered around the location of their mother plants. Again, pretty normal stuff, just earlier.

Asiatic lily bulblets lay heaved out of the ground.

But what really surprised me were the crocuses. Entire bulbs had sprouted and were sitting on top of the ground, despite them being planted at the proper depth and using several inches of mulch on my gardens to help modulate the ground temperatures. Even though these bulbs would freeze if they were in the ground too, exposure to the light and heat of the sun as well as the drying winter winds wouldn't bode well for them.

Trying to find a bag of mulch to buy in the middle of winter in a northern climate in a rural location is next to impossible. Not much demand for it, I suppose. Most of the independent garden centers are closed for the season here and the big box stores haven't started stocking it yet.

So I took some mulch and leaves from parts of the garden where it isn't needed for its function and after gently pressing the bulbs back into the ground, I mulched them some more. For the heucheras, I didn't try to push them down into the ground too much; I simply piled more mulch around them.

Meyer Lemon in the Making

2012-02-02T23:20:00.009-05:00

It was a little over a year ago that I made a trip to Toledo with the specific intent of purchasing a Meyer lemon tree (Citrus x meyeri 'Improved'). Because I made a silly assumption, that trip didn't have the ending I anticipated. You know what they say about assuming.

However, being a good sport, I had a good laugh over it all and the opportunity to purchase a decent-sized Meyer lemon plant came several months later. And now I find myself with two in my living room. One of them isn't mine; it's my mom's and I'm keeping it over the winter for her. She thinks she's getting it back come spring.

See the sleeping kitty?

12 August 2011

Hers is more than twice the size of mine and it's bloomed more than twice as much as mine. But mine has a lemon on it! It was a bitty thing when I bought the plant in August. It's now full-sized and has begun to ripen. It takes a long time to make a lemon! I estimate that it will be fully ripe and yellow tinged with orange sometime in March.

Just beginning to turn yellow...

The Meyer lemon is the result of a cross between a traditional lemon and either a mandarin or common orange and because of this, it's sweeter than a traditional lemon. It's Chinese in origin and was introduced in the United States in 1908. Its use by chef Alice Waters and Martha Stewart are thought to be responsible for its rise in popularity.

Meyer lemon bloom

The Meyer lemons we grow today are actually 'Improved' Meyer lemons. Many of the original plants were found to carry a virus in the 1940s and most were destroyed so that they didn't infect other citrus fruit trees. In the 1950s, a virus-free version was found and in 1975, the 'Improved' Meyer lemon was introduced for sale.¹

I read a fun book earlier this winter called Paradise Under Glass by Ruth Kassinger, which I reviewed here. I learned that conservatories and greenhouses got their start as "orangeries" - a place for gardeners to keep their citrus trees in the winter in colder climates. When glass became available in larger sizes, this allowed it to be used in the construction of elaborate buildings, with the first ones being built in Italy in the 16th century.

The first known orangery in the U.S. was thought to be in Annapolis, Maryland, when it was discovered during excavation of Calvert House, once home to the governors of that state. It was about 10 feet square and estimated to have been constructed around 1770. What remains of it can be seen today through a glass floor at Governor Calvert House, a luxury hotel on the original site.²

A more detailed history of orangeries can be found here.

An early Dutch orangerie (1779) (Wikimedia)

_____________________
¹Wikipedia, Meyer lemon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_lemon
²Richmond Oak Conservatories Ltd., Orangeries - A History of the Orangery: http://www.oakconservatories.co.uk/orangeries.htm

Smiley Park Children's Garden in Horticulture Magazine

2012-02-01T15:00:00.001-05:00

If there was anyone more excited than I was to see the Smiley Park Children's Garden featured in Horticulture magazine's current issue, it was likely my mother. If you've ever met her or you've been a follower of this blog for awhile, you probably know that she had a lot to do with its creation. There isn't another single person out there that can top her promotion of that garden, because from the start, it was something that she wanted for the children of the community and she believed it could happen.

She used all of her abilities (and that's a good many) to help make it the success it is today. Mom is a Master Gardener and she submitted the idea, which was voted on and chosen by her particular class (2005) as their class project. The Master Gardeners of Van Wert County have continued to maintain the garden since its creation.

The Recognition Garden, where donors are
recognized for their contributions.

She loves to tell the stories of the wonderful businesses and people from all over the country as well as local residents, that joined forces to create a true oasis of color, fun, and learning about gardening for all ages, not just children. The Master Gardeners of Van Wert County have maintained the garden since its creation.

So she was tickled when she found out that I'd been asked to write a story about the garden that would be in the Destination Gardens Issue of Horticulture. I was happy to write it because not only did I know that it would make her smile, I'd also watched over the last few years as the garden took shape, and got to hear stories about it that most people have never heard. There are so many little tales of triumph and tears that have been borne out of that garden.

The Rainbow Garden

If you're in the bookstore or walk by the news stand and see the January/February issue of Horticulture, pick it up, take it home, and have a look at the Smiley Park Children's Garden. It's on pages 56-59. And if you're ever in the Northwest Ohio area, driving along U.S. 30, take a slight detour into Van Wert and see the garden for yourself. You won't be disappointed. I promise.

The Petals and Feathers Garden welcomes birds, while the Butterfly House in the
background is a haven for butterflies. It has been repainted since the
photographs in the Horticulture article were taken.

Coming Soon! The 2012 Northwest Flower & Garden Show

2012-01-30T10:59:00.000-05:00

This is the time in winter when I start to get twitchy. I look outside and though I love seeing the snow showers we're receiving right now, I'm tired of having to bundle up every time I go outside to do anything. My indoor growing keeps me going, garden-wise, but I really long for the fresh smell of spring and the sounds of birds singing in the mornings.

That's not likely to happen here for awhile yet, so I have to come up with other ways to pass the time until it does. Last year, I really wanted to attend the Northwest Flower & Garden Show in Seattle, but just couldn't swing it. I told myself I was going to go in 2012. And I am.

Next Wednesday, Mom and I will wing our way across the country, back to one of our favorite destinations - the Pacific Northwest. We spent 11 days there last July and I was ready to move. This time, we'll be inside most of the time, but I'm just as excited about going.

The Northwest Flower & Garden Show takes place at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle every year, and is well-known to showcase the latest and greatest garden designs to thrill show-goers. There will also be presentations by those in the garden industry to entertain and educate those in attendance. And I'm excited to meet up with my fellow garden writer friends, some for first time in person.

There are 22 show gardens, with such themes as "April in Paris," "Birdsong," "Grunge Garden," "Rhythm and Roots," and "Symphony Orchidstra." It will be fun to see how these are interpreted using plants and landscaping materials.

There are oodles of interesting seminars (over 120!) and these are just a few that I plan on attending: Jessi Bloom's "What the Cluck?"; "Creating Harmony in the Garden" with Rebecca Sweet; and "Creative Flower and Garden Photography" with Charles Needle. I've got chickens, I'm design-challenged, and who can't use a little help with their photography skills?

Joe Lamp'l will be there, as will Jamie Durie, and wait until my girls hear that Chris Balew, the lead singer for The Presidents of the United States of America will be performing (except that here he's performing as Caspar Babypants). I remember them listening to his music back in the '90s.

The show runs February 8-12, and we'll be in attendance for most of each of those days. I'm hoping to be inspired by what I see and learn there. One of the advantages to seeing garden shows in different parts of the country is that they each have their own flavor, just as the places where they're held do.

For more information about the show, visit their website: Northwest Flower & Garden Show.

Update on the National Wildlife Federation - Scotts Partnership That Isn't

2012-01-29T16:28:00.002-05:00

I'll make this brief, quoting a joint statement released by the National Wildlife Federation and Scotts Miracle-Gro today (January 29, 2012):

"The National Wildlife Federation has worked together with ScottsMiracle-Gro over the past two years on programs to educate gardeners about global warming, connect children to the outdoors and help restore habitat following the Gulf oil disaster. Both parties recently announced plans for an even broader partnership that was based on our common interests.

Since that time, Scotts announced a pending legal settlement related to events in 2008 that predate our partnership, which has made it clear that the partnership is not viable. Therefore, NWF and Scotts will work together to end the partnership in a friendly and mutually beneficial way."

Source

In case you aren't familiar with the "pending legal settlement," it was announced on Friday that Scotts was charged with selling bird seed tainted with chemicals intended to keep insects from eating it, while knowing that it was toxic for birds, fish and other wildlife. They are charged with doing so for more than two years. More on that here:

Scotts to pay $4.5 million in fines - Columbus Dispatch, January 27, 2012

Sweet on the Queen's Tears

2012-01-28T23:38:00.001-05:00

About a year ago, I came across a photo online of a beautiful bloom. I read the caption, then read more about the plant sporting it. Ah...it was a tropical, so I kind of dismissed it because finding certain tropicals in the north can be as much a waste of time as shoveling the snow while it's still snowing.

Just a few short weeks later, I attended the Fort Wayne Home and Garden Show, as I usually do each year. Making a bee line for the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory's booth, I was anxious to see what they had to offer for sale. They have great stuff and sometimes unusual plants, for quite reasonable prices.

I picked a couple of things out, paid for them, and had them hold them until I was ready to leave the show. As I was walking away to see what else was at the show, something caught my eye that I hadn't seen, somehow. It wasn't in bloom, but the stiff spears of foliage made me take a closer look. When I read the tag - Billbergia nutans or Queen's Tears - I couldn't believe it. This was the plant that I'd read about.

This one wasn't in bloom and wasn't exactly something that would warrant anything more than a passing glance. I'm not sure why I checked it out, but I snatched it right up and took it home with the rest of my treasures. It was bursting out of its small plastic pot, so much so that it was misshapen, so I made a mental note to repot it into something slightly larger when I got the time. I put it in the conservatory.

I forgot about the repotting, but it must not have minded, because it bloomed a few weeks later. It was as beautiful as I'd seen, even though it only had a couple of blooms.

Spring came and things got busy around here. The Billbergia finished blooming and I kept putting off the repotting. I left it in the conservatory for the summer, watering it as it needed. Soon it was fall and time to start loading up the conservatory with the tender plants that had enjoyed the summer outside. Still, the Billbergia was waiting for repotting, and I knew I couldn't put it off any longer.

Earlier this week, it rewarded me for giving it more room. There are eight shoots of blooms on it this year and I'm not sure it's done shooting them out yet. Normal time for them to bloom is mid-spring, so it's early. Last year, it bloomed in mid-April.

They're as beautiful as ever, as seen in the photos here. This plant, which is a terrestrial epiphyte, couldn't be easier to care for, in fact, it tends to thrive on neglect, I've found. It's also called Friendship Plant because it produces "pups," which can eventually be separated from the mother plant and potted up.

While they might be common in warmer climates, they aren't that easily found here where I live. Keep your eyes open and you might find one, too.

Billbergia nutans
Zone 9-11
Bright indirect light. If grown outside, keep in shade.

In Case You Haven't Heard About the NWF/Scotts Affair

2012-01-26T22:01:00.006-05:00

If you monitor the goings-on in the gardening world, you know that a firestorm is raging that began with the announcement by the National Wildlife Federation that they're partnering with Scotts Miracle-Gro. If you haven't heard about it, I want to make you aware of the impact of this quite frankly, puzzling, partnership.

Snowberry clearwing moth (Hemaris diffinis) aka
Hummingbird Moth on Bee Balm (Monarda sp.)

The National Wildlife Federation has historically been an advocate for wildlife. Their latest move has many of us questioning just how deeply their commitment goes. After all, an organization that claims to care about the environment as it directly relates to living things surely wouldn't partner with a company that does billions of dollars of business a year selling chemicals known to be harmful to the environment, would it?

They did. And many many of us can't understand why. They seem to be strange bedfellows, to say the least.

Roundup® is especially toxic to amphibians.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Scotts is the devil, as some do. And I'm not for throwing out the baby with the bathwater; Scotts is working towards producing more organic products. I don't want to take away from that. But they do produce many products that are known to harm the very things that the NWF claims to care about. (Roundup®, for one, and it's a BIG one.)

It remains to be seen how this will all play out. The NWF is surprised by the public outcry over their decision to partner with Scotts. It amazes me that they didn't think about the reaction that they might receive before they made that decision. There's been a call for boycotting all things made by Scotts to hit them where it hurts, but as someone has said (sorry, I've read so much I don't recall who it was), many of the people that object the most don't buy Scotts products anyway.

I had our garden here at Our Little Acre certified as a "Wildlife Habitat" in 2008. (See certificate in right sidebar.) The fact that I desire to reduce any harmful effects on the environment and those who live here with me in it by providing a relatively safe place for all of us to live, means that I keep my chemical use to a minimum, if using any at all. (I honestly can't remember the last time I used anything that wasn't organic.) I thought this was the philosophy that the NWF embraced, too. This hook-up leaves many of us not as sure about that as we once were.

Unlike many of those who object to this partnership, I'm not going to tell you how you should feel about it. That's for you to decide. But I did want to help raise awareness of the controversy if you weren't already aware of it. And I have meager hopes that something good might come of this. I am a glass-half-full kind of gal, after all.

For further reading:

UPDATE: NWF posted this on their site today, in an attempt to answer to the concerns of so many:

An Open Letter from Larry Schweiger to NWF's Friends and Supporters

I sincerely hope that these goals can be met. I have some doubts, due to incongruous statements in Mr. Schweiger's letter. Time will tell. But I think NWF now knows that they've got their work cut out for them, both in achieving their goals and winning back the trust of those supporters they've lost by this action.

The Owl and the Pussycat

2012-01-25T16:37:00.000-05:00

We love our cats. We love our Great Horned Owl, too. But they don't love each other. Well, one of them does, but not for reasons we particularly are fond of. This was brought home to us this week.

A couple of weeks ago, Tinker Belle, the latest stray to find its way to Our Little Acre, and who is normally the sweetest, most loving kitty you'd ever meet, was ouchy. Downright grumpy and growly. As near as we could determine, she was hurting in her hind quarters, but she wouldn't really let us investigate things very well without protest.

She seemed to be eating okay and getting around all right, so we kept an eye on her until a couple of days later, she went missing. That wasn't like her, since she was always around, once she'd chosen this as her home.

When the second morning dawned with no Tinker Belle, the thought went through my mind that perhaps she was really ill and had wandered away to die, as cats have been known to do. But later that afternoon, there she was, right on time for the afternoon feeding. This time, she let us pick her up and she seemed to be back to her normal adorable self.

Not quite.

We found an inch-in-diameter open sore on her back, near the base of her tail, that was starting to scab over. Since we'd been meaning to take her in to find out if she'd been spayed by her previous owner, this seemed like a good time to get her to the vet. (She showed up here several months ago, with a collar, and in asking around, no one knew who she belonged to.)

He looked at her and said it looked like she'd probably had a puncture wound and that it had abscessed, burst, and was trying to heal. A round of antibiotics were in order and we left the office with an appointment for about ten days later to have her spayed.

I arrived to pick her up after the neutering yesterday and Vicky informed me that I'd be surprised when I saw Tinker Belle. While she was under the anesthetic, the doctor had shaved the wound area and cleaned it out. As he did so, he found many more puncture wounds. When Tinker Belle was brought out, my only reaction was, "Oh my..."

Poor little baby. What on earth had she come into contact with?? I took her home and Romie and I discussed it. A dog? Perhaps, but with the number and nature of the wounds, that didn't really seem right. But there are any number of things out there that can be dangerous for little kitties.

This morning, I believe Romie put his finger on the cause of all those wounds. Our resident Great Horned Owl was hooting in the front oak tree and suddenly, it made sense. Talons. Talons could make wounds like Tinker Belle's.

Raptors are known to snatch cats for food. There are reports of cat collars being found in eagles' nests. (I couldn't find any substantiated reports of this in a quick Google search - only hearsay.) Owls are raptors too, and are apparently much more likely to grab cats than eagles, from what I could find out.

We'll never know for sure if it was our owl that did this to Tinker Belle, but given the fact that Hootie hangs out here on a regular basis and we've heard him quite a bit lately, it's a distinct possibility. We'll never know what happened to Jilly either - yet another of our cats that was not known to wander.

We're calling the feral cat Bandit. If I hadn't been inside the
house, taking this photo with my zoom through the front
door, I could never have gotten this photo.

Before any of you take us to task for not keeping all of our cats in (three of them never go outside), I'll give you the shortest answer possible. We have ten of them. All rescues, except for the one we've had the longest (Simon), whom we got from a cousin. Only two of our cats were chosen by us. The others chose us. Yet another stray (feral) has been hanging out here for many months, but only for a bite to eat. So we're feeding 11 cats at present.

We do what we can for them: neutering, vaccinations, flea medication, feeding, medical care when they need it. It's expensive. But we choose not to take them somewhere that we know they'll be euthanized in three days. The no-kill shelter is always full. Several of our cats spray. You wouldn't want cats spraying in your house either. So we provide a place for them to get out of the weather outside.

We do the best we can. But sometimes things happen. What we really wish is that people would take responsibility for their animals, because sometimes they end up being that of someone else.

Linnaeus Day: Cornus sericea 'Cardinal'

2012-01-23T01:50:00.018-05:00

Carl Linnaaus

My friend, Christopher Tidrick (From the Soil blog), has a new meme launching today that he calls Linnaeus Day. It is so named in honor of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the Swede who is credited with the origin of plant taxonomy, or the naming of plants. He prepared the way for the use of binomial nomenclature, using Latin to provide each living thing with a unique name.

On Linnaeus Day, Chris challenges us to pick a plant from our garden and find out more about it. This is a wonderful project for information junkies like me. I find history of just about anything to be fascinating and when it involves one of my favorite pastimes, it’s irresistible.

Since I have an acre to work with here, I’m doing my best to fill it up, growing hundreds of different plants in the gardens and landscape. How could I choose one to research? My inspiration came in the form of a beautiful red bird that frequents our bird feeders and it so happened that it posed for my camera yesterday, as I was trying to think of which plant I'd research.

Ohio's state bird, the cardinal, just outside our window

What does that have to do with my choice of plants for Linnaeus Day? I grow a red-twig dogwood in our gardens – three of them, in fact – whose botanical name is Cornus sericea ‘Cardinal’. Winter is its true time to shine, because once it’s lost its leaves for the winter, it allows the branches to be seen. And in winter, their normally green branches turn bright red. (Dirr notes that the red winter color is not as good in Zone 7, where it’s more of a yellow, with a trace of orange.)

Cornus sericea 'Cardinal' with Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' in December

To keep this shrub producing the best red branches in winter, it’s advised to prune the older branches in the spring, as the deepest red color is shown on the younger growth. Pruning isn’t necessary though for growth's sake, unless you want to rein in this fast grower.

I remember when I got mine (2008) and I planted them in a group of three. My mom came for a visit and promptly advised me that I’d better spread them apart a little more, unless I wanted one ginormous shrub, because she knew their growth habit. I promptly followed her advice, and it wasn't long before I was glad I did.

Azure butterfly on Geranium phaeum 'Lavender Pinwheel'

While researching information about this particular shrub, I learned that it’s a host plant for the spring and summer azure butterflies. We have both azures, but they look so similar, I can’t tell them apart when I see them flitting about in the yard and gardens.

‘Cardinal’ was developed by Dr. Harold Pellet in conjunction with the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, which released it in 1987. The University’s Woody Landscape Plant Breeding and Genetics program was formally initiated in 1954 to breed trees and shrubs capable of withstanding Minnesota's harsh climate. Since that time, the program has been responsible for the release of 46 cold hardy woody landscape plants.¹

Cornus sericea ‘Cardinal’

Deciduous shrub – Hardy in Zones 2-7

Light: Full sun to Part shade
Soil: Moist, acidic to mildly alkaline
Mature size: 8-10 feet wide and high
Fruit: Clusters of white berries follow tiny white spring blooms

__________________________________

Information gathered from the following sources:

Wikipedia, "Carl Linnaeus"
Dirr’s Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs , Timber Press, 2011 ed., pp. 222-223.
Missouri Botanical Garden
¹University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

All Seeds Considered

2012-01-17T22:56:00.001-05:00

The seed catalogs are coming fast and furiously now. The companies are playing to our weakness, especially those of us that live in the north. We're all rested from last year's hectic gardening season and we're ready to get back at it. The beautiful photos of the flowers and seed packets make us want to roll up our sleeves, grab our gloves and get planting!

But we're still in the planning season because the weather dictates it. It's still too early to start seeds inside. And I don't know about you, but I can't exactly make up my mind just what I want to grow this year. I always want to try a couple of new things and I'll be doing that again, but there are just so many wonderful things to choose from! And those seeds hold so much promise...

Lycopersicon esculentum 'Sungold'

"Who plants a seed beneath the sod

And waits to see, believes in God."

~ Unknown

I know I told Romie that I don't want a larger garden, but unless I tear some existing things out, I'm not going to have nearly enough room (again) to grow all the veggies and annual flowers that have made it onto my list for the coming season.

It isn't as if I really even need to buy any seeds at all. I've got three Seedkeeper Kits full of seeds and another box full of big bags of saved seed from previous seasons. I took inventory of my seed stash last weekend and honestly, I could probably supply my entire hometown with seeds for this year. (My hometown boasts a population of only 180, but still.)

The thing is, what I have here doesn't contain packets of some of the things I want. As I said before, I want to grow Brussels sprouts this year. Since they have a long growing season, I've considered buying young plants, but I've grown them from seed before and it's quite doable. Maybe I'll even grow the purple ones ('Red Rubine').

I want to grow tree cabbage, too. Not for eating, but for the novelty of it. Native to the Channel Islands, that cabbage grows to heights nearing seven feet tall! How fun would that be? And it's doable here. 'Megaton' would be fun, too. Imagine a cabbage that grows to 22 inches in diameter! If we grow that, we're definitely going to need a bigger garden, because I'm not giving up bean or beet space.

'Tuscan' kale makes the list. I've never grown kale before and I've never eaten it before either, but I want to make some of those kale chips everyone was raving about last summer.

Purple okra bloom from my 2008 garden

There was a big bag of purple okra seeds in my saved seeds collection. It's been several years since I grew it, so I know the seeds aren't all that fresh. I'll overplant and thin them if I have to. The plants are gorgeous and okra is great to add to vegetable soup.

There are some annual flowers on my list, too. I skipped a year growing calendulas and I missed them. It's such an easy annual to grow and it will self-seed if you let it. Commonly called pot marigold, there are several varieties, and don't you know, I didn't find a single packet in my seed stash. Must buy some.

Moluccella laevis in my 2008 garden

I might try Bells of Ireland again. I've tried to grow this annual several times and while I get some seedlings, few of them ever make it to a large enough stage to produce those über cool stalks of green bells. Only once did I get to see them in my own garden.

If there's one flower that I've tried unsuccessfully to grow more than any other, it's the elusive Himalayan blue poppy. I bought seeds (again) when I was at Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island last summer. I've never had the privilege of seeing one in bloom in person and it might be that I never will. But I'm willing to give it another go.

Are you going to be trying something new this year?

Spring in the Heartland

2012-01-11T23:01:00.005-05:00

Anemone coronaria

I love spring. Especially when it's in winter.

Except for a couple of times when we got some snow and ice, this winter has been anything but wintery. It doesn't feel like an extension of fall; it feels more like early spring. In just three more weeks, Punxsutawney Phil and Buckeye Chuck will be crawling out of their holes and telling us if we can expect an early spring or not.

I've got news for them - spring is already here.

All over the country, we hear about temperatures way above normal and it isn't just a fluke of a day here and there either. It's been like this for weeks, and plants are confused.

The daffodils are up...

Narcissus sp.

So are the Crocus...

Crocus fusctotinctus

The irises never really died down...

And the Dutch irises came up several weeks ago. Now all they need are blooms.

Iris x hollandica 'Silvery Beauty' and Felis catus 'Jack'

Magnolia 'Leonard Messel'

I worry about the magnolias, which always form their buds in fall, as do many other shrubs. I worry because they might take this warm weather as a sign that it's okay to just open up and bloom.

But there's no way we'll have extended warm weather. Will we?

If we do, the quince will surely bloom...

Chaenomeles superba 'Crimson and Gold'

Some of the roses still have flower buds on them - "frozen" in time - while others are leafing out.

The Snow in Summer (Cerastium tomentosum) foliage looks as good in winter as it does in summer - although a little shorter.

The 'Autumn Brilliance' fern looks gorgeous as the late day sun shines through its fronds.

Dryopteris erythrosora 'Brilliance'

The red-twig dogwood (Cornus sericea 'Cardinal') has it right, with its wintery red branches, which provide great contrast with the 'Color Guard' Yucca filamentosa.

Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' and Cornus sericea 'Cardinal'

The hellebores have beautiful green foliage (this is normal) and emerging flower buds (also normal)...

Helleborus sp.

The newly-planted golden feverfew looks as fresh as spring, despite being previously covered by the last snow. I love the frilly chartreuse foliage.

Golden Feverfew (Tanacetum partheneum 'Aureum')

"Best Winter Foliage" award probably goes to Arum italicum. Winter? What's winter?

Arum italicum

The vernal witch hazel is definitely early this year - about two months early.

Hamamelis vernalis

Who would have thought we'd still have petunias growing green in January???

Offspring of Wave™ Petunia, below the flower boxes where the
original Waves™ grew. No blooms, but still...

The biggest surprise in the January garden goes to the hydrangeas, which are leafing out.

St. Francis of Assisi stands watch over the
Hydrangea macrophylla, in leaf.
In January.

The birds are singing like it's spring too, but I'm certain winter will make a comeback soon. In fact, word on the street is that we're in for some very cold weather by late Thursday, with 2-4 inches of snow expected. Isn't that just like the Midwest?

Winter. Just when we were enjoying spring.

Maybe There's a Reason You Don't Like Brussels Sprouts

2012-01-09T23:08:00.001-05:00

Ask me if I like Brussels sprouts and I'm likely to turn up my nose. But I really don't have a good reason to do that, because to be honest, I've never tasted them. But now I want to.

I grew Brussels sprouts in 2008, but I never ate them.
It wasn't because of the aphids either.

Annie White, Editor-at-Large of Inside Grower, brought an interesting little tidbit of information to my attention in her latest newsletter. It seems that there is a genetic predisposition for liking Brussels sprouts or disliking them. About half the population has a gene type that causes the vegetable to taste bitter to them. The other half has a mutation of the gene that allows them to eat Brussels sprouts without tasting the bitterness.

Brussels sprouts contain PTC - Phenylthiocarbamide - and people who can't taste it are more likely to enjoy eating them. This discovery was made by the Eden Project in Cornwall, Great Britain.

I grew Brussels sprouts once, four years ago, but I never ate them. Now that there's this genetic link to liking these or not, I want to grow them again and this time, I'll eat them. I'll eat them at least once, just to find out if I'm a "taster" or not. Then I'll make my husband eat them to see if he likes them. And then - you know what's coming, don't you? - I'll make our girls eat them to see whose genes they inherited.

Yeah, it will be a downright scientific experiment.

Save the Heirlooms! (And a Giveaway)

2012-01-06T23:37:00.010-05:00

When our grandparents were busy plowing the fields and hoeing the gardens, they were likely growing plants from seeds that were saved from year to year. They saved the seeds from the best plants each season and each year the results were [theoretically] better than the year before. Why were they better? Because the plants that did well in their unique growing situation were more likely to do well in that same situation again. They thrived because they adapted to their environment. Same plants, only better.

'Sun, Moon and Stars' Watermelon
(Heirloom, introduced commercially in 1926)
Yes, it's usually larger than this!

Seeds that are saved in this way are open-pollinated, meaning one kind of plant wasn’t purposely pollinated with another to create a specific and different plant. They simply were pollinated naturally by insects, the wind, or birds. With hybrids, two different plants are purposely cross-pollinated with a specific purpose in mind – to create a plant with a specific color, growth habit, hardiness, or some other desirable trait.

As more and more plants are created by the hybridizers, the heirlooms (as those plants that have been passed down over the years via saving seeds are called) are disappearing. This is especially worrisome when it comes to seeds that grow edibles. Many of the varieties that our ancestors enjoyed are becoming scarce, if not non-existent. The diversity of crops, which is vital to the health of our homegrown food supply as well as the insect population (the balance of good guys to bad guys), is taking a huge hit.

The purple streaked beans are 'Dragon Tongue', an heirloom from 18th
century The Netherlands.

I’m not against hybrids. Thousands of beautiful and delicious plants have been created by hybridization and I grow many of them in my gardens. I just hate to see so many of the heirlooms disappearing. We need to grow more of them to assure that they won't be lost. Hopefully, you're already growing some heirlooms in your gardens!

Emilee and Jere Gettle,
with daughter Sasha

Jere and Emilee Gettle, owners of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company in Mansfield, MO (home of Laura Ingalls Wilder), have devoted their lives to the preservation of heirloom seeds. They recently wrote a book about it. The Heirloom Life Gardener is a great read on the subject of heirlooms and how to grow them.

You can see my review of their book on my garden book review site, Gardening by the Book, as well as on Horticulture magazine’s website.

And, since I received two copies of their new book, I’m giving one away to one lucky reader! All you need to do to be entered to win is leave a comment to this blog post and tell me what heirlooms you plan to grow this year. Are you trying a new one or do you have a favorite that you grow every year? Be sure to fill out the Rafflecopter form too, so I’ll have a way to contact you if you win. The giveaway ends in three days, at midnight EST this coming Monday, so don't wait to enter!

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New Beginnings and Second Chances

2012-01-02T23:54:00.001-05:00

Dear Readers,

This blog post is very personal in nature. I realize that many of you won’t care to read it and that’s okay. While this is mostly a blog about gardening, it’s also an expression of who I am. Writing it fulfills something in me that I find difficult to explain to others, so I don’t usually try.

Before I’ve finished letting the words spill out onto the page today - the fifth anniversary of the beginning of this blog - gardening will emerge as a major player in the story, but the real deal is that it’s a reflection of past events and an appreciation for new beginnings. I’m grateful for each of them and for you, because you too are an important part of the path my life has taken.

~Kylee

For as much as I dislike winter – more and more as the years go by – January has historically been a good month for me. It has brought new beginnings, as it traditionally does for many. Many make New Year’s resolutions, but none of the events that I am going to tell you about here today really happened in January by design; that was purely coincidental.

I do like the idea of making resolutions, many of which can be life changing, if you stick with them. But there’s the problem I have – that stick-to-itiveness. My level of distractibility is something I battle constantly. I second guess myself on many levels and sometimes this is so overwhelming that I can’t deal with it and I abandon the project or idea altogether.

So these new beginnings I speak of were mostly thrust upon me through no choice of my own, with one exception. The first January event that I can remember having a profound effect on my life happened 48 years ago.

1963

In the fall of 1963, I entered first grade. My September birthday was late, by school entrance standards at the time, so I was actually four years old when I began kindergarten, and five when I walked into Mrs. Gantt’s first grade classroom. Three weeks later, I had my sixth birthday, which then put me at the same numeric age as my classmates.

One day, right before Christmas break, the school psychologist walked into our classroom, went to the blackboard and wrote a word on it: forsythia. She asked if anyone knew what the word was. I knew it, but not wanting to call attention to myself, I kept quiet. After she left the room, I got up and walked to my teacher’s desk and discreetly told her what the word was.

I don’t recall what my teacher said, but in the next few weeks, I remember going through some testing, and when semester break came in January, she changed my seat to the other side of our room. Ours was a split class – common in our small school – with half of it consisting of first graders and the other half of second graders.

That year, I spent the first semester in first grade and the second semester in second grade. The next year, I went on to third grade. This was both a blessing and a curse. It wasn’t all that common to accelerate students back then and now being the extreme “baby” of the class, I felt a constant pressure to do well - to live up to the expectations my teachers and my parents had of me.

This wasn’t an entirely bad thing, because it came more in the form of encouragement from others, but I also put a certain amount of pressure on myself so that I wouldn’t suffer embarrassment if the move turned out to be a bad one.

Academically, this was a life-changer, to be sure, but at that young age, academic excellence wasn’t the most important thing to me. Changing grades determined who my classmates would be and who my friends were. Learning has always come easily to me (in most things!) and I had great friends, many of whom are still good friends decades later. But there is no doubt that that day in January affected my life in a big way.

Fast forward to 1999…

I’ve spoken of the events of the third week of January of that year many times on this blog. I contracted bacterial meningitis and partly due to its being misdiagnosed on my first trip to the emergency room as the flu, I became gravely ill to the point that my infectious disease doctors didn’t think I would live. In fact, one of them told me later that they weren’t sure why I did.

My explanation for why I’m still here and why I don’t have more lingering physical or mental effects from the disease than I do, is divine in nature. While I believe that God gave us free will, and that the decisions we make greatly affect the course of our lives, I also believe that He intervenes for reasons perhaps unknown to us, and in ways that work for our own good or for the good of others.

Hundreds of prayers were spoken on my behalf and in the end, it’s my belief that my life was spared for the sake of my family, not for me. As the father of 16-year-old and 18-year-old daughters, Romie’s life and theirs would have been vastly different if I had died.

When January comes around each year, I look back on the events of the past year and whisper a prayer of gratitude for another year of life and all the wonderful things that it held. I am not oblivious to the fact that others have been in similar or worse situations and that they did not have their prayers answered. I don’t presume to know the answer why. But I continue to pray for others and to give thanks for the blessings in my own life.

I hate writing.

Nah, that’s not true, but I’ve had a fickle affair with writing for years. I’ve always leaned toward the literary end of the scale when it comes to favorite pastimes, being an avid reader since the age of four. (Thanks, Grandma!) And there haven’t been more than a few weeks in my life when I didn’t have my nose in a book. I was one of those kids who used a flashlight to read under the covers at night so that I wouldn’t get in trouble for not going to sleep when I was supposed to.

Several years ago, I was asked to be an editor of an online magazine that later also published in print. As sometimes happens, deadlines occasionally weren’t met and I was asked to supply an article real quick-like. This wasn’t my favorite thing to do. My motto was, “You write it; I’ll fix it.” But after having written a few articles, I decided it wasn’t so bad after all, this story-telling.

Around Christmas of 2006, our older daughter Kara, who was 26 at the time, challenged me to start a blog, writing about my passion for gardening. I had only begun seriously gardening the year before and I found it hard to curb my enthusiasm. Writing turned out to be a great outlet of expression for me as I began Our Little Acre with its first post on January 2, 2007.

Today is the fifth anniversary of my beginning what eventually became a second career for me – one that I never could have predicted. A dental hygienist since 1977, I thought that was how I would spend the rest of my working days. I still work as a hygienist, though not on a regular basis and due to wonderful and unexpected opportunities that have come my way because of my blog, I now consider writing to be my principal source of income.

I write for several publications on a regular basis and thoroughly love it. In the process of getting from there to here, I've learned much and I’ve met some incredible people that are now my colleagues. Many have become close friends. And this is where I thank you, dear readers, for coming along on the ride and offering encouragement by way of your comments and your conversation that has spilled over into social media venues like Facebook and Twitter. That has been the highlight of it all for me - you make it more fun.

January is indeed a month that holds new beginnings and a world of possibilities. I wonder what it will bring this year...

Our Incredible Edible Eggs (And a Recipe!)

2011-12-23T21:54:00.004-05:00

As of today, our eight hens have given us a total of 350 eggs, since Pippa first started laying in mid-September. It took until the middle of November for all eight to start laying, and though we rarely have an eight-egg day, we're pretty consistently getting 5-7 eggs per day now. Last week we got 38 eggs.

That's a lot of eggs.

We keep our two daughters and their husbands supplied with eggs and we also share with our parents. We love eggs and are thrilled to be able to walk to the back of our property and collect them from the coop. Sometimes they're so freshly-laid and warm that they steam as they hit the cold outside air when I remove them from the nesting box.

But as much as we like scrambled eggs, boiled eggs on salads, fried eggs, deviled eggs, egg salad, and baked eggs, we can't eat them as fast as the hens lay them. So we often offer them to friends and neighbors for sale. Our hens are not only feeding us breakfast, but now they're helping to pay for their own food!

I learned a few things about eggs last week. Eggs contain all nine essential amino acids which the body requires in order to maintain good muscle tissue health. We have to get these from our diet, because we can't make these from other foods like we can the non-essential amino acids.

The protein in eggs is high quality, too. In fact, all other proteins are measured against that contained in eggs. Eggs also help the kidneys and liver to purify our body of toxins. The incredible edible egg, indeed.

And this fun fact: There are only two true colors of egg shells - blue and white. All other colors are added by the chicken to the outside of the egg. If you take a newly laid brown egg and it's still wet, you can wipe the color off. But once it's dried, you can't wash the color off. Don't believe it? Next time you crack open a brown egg, see what color the shell is on the inside.

When we were first married, I made a dish called simply "Baked Eggs." My mom made it when I was living at home and it's one of the recipes I still make nearly 40 years later. Here's the recipe, in case you want to make it, too.

Baked Eggs

Ready for the oven

3 T. butter
3 T. flour
¾ t. salt
2 cups milk
1 t. prepared mustard
Dash of pepper
Dash of Tabasco sauce
⅛ t. Worcestershire sauce
4 oz. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
6-8 eggs
½ t. paprika

Make a white sauce with butter, flour, salt and milk. Add mustard, pepper, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce and blend well. Add grated cheese and stir until melted. Pour sauce into a greased 10" x 6" x 2" baking dish. Break eggs side-by-side on top of the sauce mixture. Sprinkle paprika on top either before or after baking.

Bake at 325°F for 25 minutes or until eggs are thoroughly baked. Serve by spooning each egg on top of a toasted English muffin half, along with some sauce. Serves 4-6, depending on the number of eggs used.

When Bulbs Emerge Too Soon

2011-12-20T14:23:00.007-05:00

This is a conversation I'm witness to every fall and winter:

"Oh no! My bulbs are coming up! It's not time!"
"Mine are too! This can't be good. What's going to happen to them when spring gets here?"

I learned several years ago that certain bulbs will make an appearance in the fall as a normal and expected occurrence. Grape hyacinths do it. So do most bulbs in the Allium family, including garlic. As a fellow gardener once told me, "It's their way of saying, 'Don't dig here!'" as you're looking for yet another place to put fall-planted bulbs.

Most of us would agree that this has been an unusual weather year. Here in Ohio, we had way too much rain in May, which delayed planting for both the farmers and the home gardeners. Then in June, it was as if someone turned the faucet off and didn't turn it back on until August. Someone turned the thermostat up too, as we experienced above normal temperatures for much of the summer.

The fall season was beautiful. It stayed warmer longer than usual. We got a nice amount of rain and the gardens perked up. Then there were a couple bouts with winter. Just two weeks ago, we had night temperatures in the low to mid-teens. 13°F is br-r-r cold. Last week, it was 53°F at midnight. While fickle weather is characteristic of the Midwest, this is not really normal.

Our gardens are a little bit confused too. With bulbs relying on temperatures to regulate their growth and blooming schedules, some of them just don't know whether to sleep or leap. My snow crocus are up about two inches all over the gardens. I took notice and though it's unusual for the crocus to do this, I didn't get too worried until I took a closer look.

16 December 2011
Daffodils (Narcissus bulbocodium) on the left, crocus on the right

Not only is the foliage well out of the ground, the crocuses have got buds. Not good.

I did a little research online and found that this isn't unusual when warm winters happen in cold climates. Yes, spring bloom can be affected and that's something that only time will tell. But just about the only thing you can do is add some mulch to the early emergers and hope for the best.

They'll either make it okay through the winter and bloom as spring is springing, or they won't. I'll be disappointed if our warm fall weather robs us of the marvelous burst of color these and other spring bulbs bring, just when we think we can't take another wintry day.

Some years are like that.

Got Snow? Win a Snow Thrower!

2011-12-19T14:36:00.007-05:00

We've had some snow here at Our Little Acre already this season, even though winter doesn't technically arrive until Wednesday morning. It hasn't been anything that we needed to shovel by any means, but it's only a matter of time before we get a snowfall that requires a method of removal.

9 December 2011

The easiest way for us to take care of snowdrifts in the driveway and walkways is to use our Troy-Bilt Storm 3090 XP Snow Thrower we received from Troy-Bilt last winter for testing and review. You can read our review here, complete with video.

January 2011

If you have a winter snow issue, you just might want to enter this giveaway, because the nice people at Troy-Bilt are allowing me to give away a snow thrower again this year!! And the one they're providing for the giveaway is the very one we tested and have, the Troy-Bilt Storm 3090 XP. It really is a great snow thrower.

By leaving a comment on this blog post and entering your information in the Rafflecopter form, that gives you two entries into the giveaway. Just tell me what you would suggest as a Christmas gift for a 97-year-old woman in assisted living. (Hey, I'm desperate!)

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Giving Plants the Cold Shoulder

2011-12-15T23:27:00.013-05:00

Herbaceous peony

It came as a shock to me when I first began gardening that not everyone can grow tulips and peonies. If you live in the south, most spring bulbs that we in the north take for granted, like tulips, daffodils, crocuses and such, just won't make it down there. But of course, they have things that we can't grow in the ground year round either.

The problem with trying to grow tulips in the warmer climates is that these bulbs and plants need a period of cold weather - typically below 45°F - in order to flower. This is called vernalization. Bulbs can be pre-chilled and then planted, but southerners may not want to be bothered, just as many northerners may not want to dig up tender bulbs/corms/tubers in the fall, such as dahlias and gladiolus.

Cold temperatures also affect warm climate plants in a similar way when it comes to producing blooms. Several years ago, I purchased some Amazon lily (Eucharis grandiflora) bulbs while on a visit to Florida. I was taken by their beautiful white blooms and large, shiny green leaves. I brought them home, potted them up, and they grew wonderfully. But they didn't bloom.

Amazon Lily
Eucharis grandiflora

The lush green foliage of my Amazon lilies made for a beautiful house plant, but I longed for those gorgeous flowers. Why wouldn't my plants bloom? Quite by accident, I discovered that this is one of several plants that need cooler night temperatures in order to produce flowers. One winter, I put the Amazon lily in a spare bedroom that we only heat to about 55-60°F. When spring came, I put the plant back in the living room and one day I walked in there and found several blooms had appeared!

Christmas Cactus
Schlumbergera x buckleyi

Other plants that require this cooling off period in order to bloom are Thanksgiving and Christmas cacti, which are also responsive to the shorter daylight hours. Some orchids can be spurred to bloom by keeping them cool for a period of time as well.

Sometimes it takes awhile for the lights to come on in my brain, but I had a thought a couple of weeks ago about this cool temperature thing. In all the years I've had jade plants, both common and variegated, I've never had a single one of them bloom. I didn't even realize that they were capable of producing beautiful flowers until I saw a large plant in full bloom last year at Planterra in Michigan.

Jade Plant
Crassula ovata

So what I'm going to do is put my jade plants in the cooler bedroom for the winter, then bring them out when spring gets here. No, that isn't exactly how things would be in their native environment, but plants can be fooled and coerced in many ways. This won't hurt them and maybe, just maybe, they'll pop out blooms.

Amaryllis Season Has Begun!

2011-12-09T23:58:00.003-05:00

When winter comes, and the outside garden is fast asleep, it's time to grab color inside where you can find it. The winters are long and cold here in Ohio and each year I think I can't bear another one. I look for ways to lift my spirits, which can become as gray as the skies. I'm here to tell you that SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is a very real thing.

Hippeastrum papilio

Almost as soon as I fell in love with gardening, I thankfully discovered amaryllis (Hippeastrum sp.). It was the butterfly amaryllis (Hippeastrum papilio) that drew me in, with its burgundy striping and indeed, petals that resemble butterfly wings.

Once the world of amaryllis was opened up to me, their siren song was strong and clear, and soon I had a collection. The bulbs were more pricey then (2005-2006) than they are now, although some companies still maintain what I consider to be prices higher than they should be. They may argue quality of bulbs as explanation and in some cases, it may be true, but I've always been able to find large, healthy bulbs in just about any cultivar that catches my eye, at a reasonable cost.

I keep my amaryllis bulbs from year to year, growing them outside in the summer and bringing them in for their resting period when frost comes. After six to eight weeks, I bring them up out of the basement, pot them up if they aren't already in pots. I water them a little bit and they're off and running, bringing my home that longed for color and me the joy of living with them.

'Zombie'

Amaryllis blooms bring a fifth season to Our Little Acre and as of today, it's officially begun. The first 'Zombie' has opened and there are more on the way. More 'Zombie' and 'Blooming Bells' and 'Cherry Crush'. 'Dancing Queen' and my favorite, 'Blossom Peacock'. 'Rembrandt van Rijn' and 'Solomon' and 'Rilona'. 'Lemon-Lime' and 'White Peacock'. 'Benfica' and ... you get the picture. What a pretty picture it is - all winter long.

And sometimes, one will surprise me in summer, too.

'Blossom Peacock'

Wordless Wednesday: Never, Never, Never, Never Give Up

2011-12-07T10:14:00.000-05:00


Petunia x hybrida 'Improved Purple Wave™ '

"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

Sir Winston Churchill, Speech, 1941, Harrow School

British politician (1874 - 1965)

"Our Little Acre" - The Story Behind the Name

2011-12-06T13:35:00.001-05:00

Monica Milla (Garden Faerie's Musings) and Brenda Haas (BGgarden) were having a Twitter discussion one day, talking about how their blogs got their names. I knew how Bren's had gotten hers, but Monica's story was new to me. They decided to ask other bloggers to share their stories of how their blogs got their names. Here's mine:

August 2004

Since 1977, we have lived in rural northwest Ohio on a small plot of land. We've always had a vegetable garden, but it was only since 2005 that I got involved with gardening in a big way, and started growing ornamental plants, too. Lots of them. As my passion for growing deepened, our older daughter Kara recognized that I needed a way to share what was happening in our gardens. She suggested I start a blog.

I gave it some thought and decided to just do it. Younger daughter Jenna had this idea that I sat around all day eating bonbons and watching soap operas on the days I didn't work as a dental hygienist. (I had cut back dramatically on my work schedule to just half a day a week.)

June 2008

Sometimes I wrote it as a story, and sometimes in journal form. Initially, it was started just to share things with family and maybe some friends. But soon there were comments from people I didn't know. I had a Julie and Julia moment. ("People are actually reading what I wrote!")

That was almost five years ago now; my first post was published on January 2, 2007. Much has happened in those years - so many wonderful friendships formed and opportunities presented. Writing Our Little Acre has changed my life in ways that I could never have imagined and I'm grateful for Kara's suggestion. I used to hate writing (seriously!) and now I have to write, much as a runner just has to run.

Oh...the name? We live on an acre, of course.

To read The Story Behind the Name of other bloggers, visit Monica's post at Garden Faerie's Musings.

Fields & Lane Gloves - A Review and Giveaway!

2011-12-05T10:40:00.014-05:00

I used to be one of those people who dug right in and worked about in my garden, sans gloves. At the end of the day, my hands would be dry, my fingernails packed with dirt (no shame in that, though), and I’d have a few scrapes on my knuckles. Romie would berate me, saying, “Why don’t you wear your gloves??”

Lily

After a few times with sore hands, I finally got smart and did the glove thing. Besides, we’ve got cats and you know what “cats + dirt” equals. Now gloves are a valuable gardening tool for me and I’m a staunch advocate of wearing them. I’ve got a couple of brands that I especially like and now I’ve got another one.

When Fields & Lane contacted me about trying out a pair of their leather gloves, my first reaction was, “Sure!” Then I visited their website, because to be honest, I’d never heard of them before. The first thing I do when checking out a company is to read their About Us page. Before I tell you how I liked their gloves, let me tell you about the company.

Fields & Lane

They’re a family-owned business in Oregon, with the factory that makes these gloves (from U.S. materials) in Costa Rica. Not only do they provide a quality work environment for their employees there, but they’re also committed to helping special needs individuals through their donations to organizations in both the U.S. and Costa Rica.

They set up the Bonnie Jean Laughlin Foundation in 1998, named for their daughter, who had cerebral palsy and they donated thousands of gloves to workers after 9/11 and the earthquake in Haiti. This is a company that cares.

What about the gloves?

I tested The Forester, which is a partially-lined leather glove. They feel wonderful because they’re made from goatskin. Super soft, yet extremely durable, these gloves will go the distance. No, I haven’t had time to wear them out, but as someone who has used many, many different gloves over the last few years, I can spot quality.

The Forester

Goatskin is known for its durability, yet it doesn’t dry out or crack when it gets wet (after it dries). This is important for a gardening glove, since they can get muddy and wet as you use them, and they’ll need to be cleaned from time to time. (They recommend spot cleaning.)

One of the things that has consistently been irritating (in several ways) when I’ve worn some other gloves is the seaming. Some of them have the seams in the fingers placed right where they either rub in a bad spot or they’re in a place where it affects my tactile sense. But not the Fields and Lane gloves. Ideally, a glove would have no seams, but that’s not possible in a leather glove and the seams are in a good place on The Forester.

These gloves are lined on the palm side with a soft, slightly fuzzy polyester (87% recycled), nylon, and spandex fabric that provides some warmth and comfort. The back of the glove has a narrow gusset across the back of the hand with stretchy fabric that allows for flex as you grip your gardening tools.

Sizing

I normally wear a size small in gloves, but the website has a size chart and when I measured my hand, it fell at the high end of small and low end of medium. I chose the medium, because they were leather and leather doesn’t give quite as much as fabric. When I first put them on, I thought they were the perfect size, but as I wore them and used them, I kind of wish I’d chosen the small. The leather gives more than I expected (though it doesn’t stretch out) and it starts to shape to your hand. They were still pretty comfortable to use though.

Using the gloves

I still hadn’t pruned my roses for winter, so I took advantage of the relatively nice day we had on Sunday, and did that. These gloves worked great – no thorny pricks for me!

I also needed to lay some mulch around the base of the roses as well as other plants, in preparation for winter’s cold, and though they got pretty dirty, they proved easy enough to clean. Once they dried and I put my hands into them again, the gloves were still supple.

The bottom line

The Flex

I like these gloves. They aren’t as bulky as some leather gloves I've tried and I feel like I could do just about any garden chore with them, except for weeding. I’ll always use the thinnest glove I can find for that. The company makes other gardening gloves too, and from the description, it looks like The Flex would work well for that (as well as other tasks). It still has the durability of goatskin, while being a lighter weight glove.

Now for the giveaway!!!

GUESS WHAT? Fields & Lane is allowing me to give away a prize package consisting of TWO pairs of their gloves! One lucky reader will receive one pair of The Forester and one pair of The Flex in the size of their choice. The Forester comes in men's sizes, too.

All you need to do to enter is:

Leave a comment to this blog post, telling me if you’re a faithful glove user or not.
Enter your information on the Rafflecopter form.
Sign up for the Fields & Lane newsletter via their Facebook page

Do so by midnight, Sunday, December 11, 2011. Good luck!

WINNER!! Random.org has chosen a winner, and it's Rebecca Burlingham! Congratulations, Rebecca! Enjoy your Fields & Lane gloves!

*Fields & Lane provided me with The Forester gloves, as well as compensation for my review. That said, they wanted my honest opinion of their gloves, and as always, that’s what you get here at Our Little Acre.

The Toledo Museum of Art

2011-12-03T23:56:00.003-05:00

What’s that they say? You never take advantage of things in your own backyard? Toledo isn’t technically in my backyard – it’s about 85 miles away – but when we’re talking about an internationally known museum, that’s pretty close. I made my first visit to the Toledo Museum of Art on Friday and I can’t believe it’s taken me 54 years to get there.

Monroe Street facade of the Toledo Museum of Art with
Alexander Calder's Stegosaurus (1978)

Beaded wall at the entrance of the café

I met my friend Jan (TwoWomenandaHoe.com) there in the morning and though we didn’t think we’d stay more than a couple of hours, it turned into a all-too-short, all-day experience. Both of us were so taken with the beauty and history that we stayed on the premises and had lunch at their café, because we didn’t want to waste time going somewhere else. That turned out to be a delightful and delicious choice.

Homemade potato soup and a salad with spinach, lettuces, red grapes, sheep’s milk feta cheese, spiced pecans, honey wheat croutons (did I forget anything?), topped with a sweet onion vinaigrette dressing and a cheese roll hit the spot.

We were taken on a tour of the main parts of the museum by David Urbank, Membership Sales Manager at the museum, and given that he had no warning of our visit, he was extremely gracious. In fact, every single employee of the museum was both personable and knowledgeable. Even when Jan broke a couple of rules, they were polite and understanding. To be fair, by the time I left, I too did a no-no (by accident!) and was treated with the same kindness.

What rules, you say? They’re very lenient about photography, by museum standards, but no flash is allowed because of the effect it has on the fragile artwork. Close-up images of special exhibits are not allowed, although they offer images for press of those items if needed. Also, no gum chewing allowed. That’s because they’ve had problems with inconsiderate people leaving it in inappropriate places when they’re finished with it.

The West Wing

Water Lilies, ca. 1922, is one of a series of 250 oil paintings
by Claude Monet, featuring his flower gardens at Giverny

When I stepped into the West Wing and saw Monet’s Water Lilies painting to my left, I had a feeling of standing on hallowed ground. That feeling would be repeated throughout the museum as I came upon one great painting after another: Rembrandt, Degas, Matisse, Rubens, Fragonard, Homer, van Gogh, Gaugin, Goya, Munch, Picasso, O'Keeffe, Klee, Remington, Wyeth, Miró, and Cézanne, just to name a few. There are other artistic greats, too: Brancusi, Chihuly, Ansel Adams, and Lalique. Impressive is the fact that not only does the Toledo museum have works by so many great artists, they have several by the same artist.

History

The museum was begun in 1901, the vision of members of the Tile Club, who took their idea to Edward Drummond Libbey, a local resident and business owner (Libbey Glass Company). Stockholders joined together and in December of that year, they had their first exhibition. Over the years, they outgrew several locations and the present structure on Monroe Street was built in 1912. Additions were constructed and opened in 1926 and 1933, thanks in great part to Florence Scott Libbey, wife of Edward, leaving the bulk of her estate to the museum.

The Peristyle, a Greek Revival style theater and concert hall, seats 1710, and is the winter home to the Toledo Symphony and the Toledo Opera. It was part of the 1933 museum building expansion. Mr. Urbank had the key to the doors and so let Jan and me go inside for a bird's eye view of the beautiful venue.

The Peristyle (1933)

Of interest to gardeners, the museum participated in the 1914 City Beautiful Campaign. This campaign encouraged the city’s residents to transform Toledo into the garden city of Ohio by planting flower and vegetable gardens. A horticulturist, W.H. Steffens, gave lectures on soils and plants and a local merchant donated gardening equipment. More than 200,000 flower and vegetable seed packets were sold at a penny apiece. When the campaign ended, 255 cash prizes were awarded to the best gardeners and the museum held a flower and vegetable exhibition in its galleries. Today, the museum is partnered with Toledo Grows, the community garden outreach program of Toledo Botanical Garden.

Children’s Programs and Education

From its beginning, the museum has made a special effort to welcome children. In its early days, young teens served as assistant docents. Regular visits by children and schools take advantage of their educational programs and since 1921, the museum has been partnered with the University of Toledo’s School of Design.

Here in the East Wing, we saw one of many groups of children that were
visiting the museum on Friday.

Just east of the museum sits the Center for the Visual Arts, a building designed by Frank Gehry, the same architect who designed Chicago’s Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park and the BP Pedestrian Bridge, which I've seen several times. He also designed the Seattle Music Project, which I saw during our Seattle trip this past summer. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the CVA, so I didn't seek it out. That's just one of the things I missed on my first visit, to be seen on the next.

The history of the buildings and programs aside, it’s the artwork contained within its walls that draws most people in. It seemed as though there was just one famous artists' work after another and I learned there were others that though I'd not heard of them before, I found I liked their work.

The Open Air Breakfast
William Merritt Chase
1887

One of my very favorite paintings in the museum is The Open Air Breakfast by William Merritt Chase. I'd heard of Chase, but only vaguely remembered him to be an artist. Upon further exploration of his works, I found that he's widely considered to be the greatest American Impressionist painter. What I should have known before, I know now.

The museum's two copies of early first editions of the King James Bible
(1604 -1611) were on display for a limited time. We were fortunate to see them
as the display period ended the day after our visit.

Alabaster Head of a Female Votive Figure
(2600 B.C.), found in eastern Iraq

In addition to the numerous Masters' paintings, the museum has a vast inventory of ancient artifacts. Some are as old as the 26th century B.C. It's astounding that items survive that long when most of them weren't created with that kind of longevity in mind.

Across the street is the Glass Pavilion, where a beautiful representation of the history of glass is displayed. Jan and I watched a glass blowing demonstration and now have a new appreciation for the fine art. Glass is a very important part of Toledo's history and industry, and it's known as The Glass City.

Large Leaping Hare (1982)
Barry Flanagan

On the main museum side of Monroe street, extending the length of the building is a sculpture garden, containing 22 sculptures in landscaped gardens. The time of year and weather wasn't conducive to an all-out stroll through the gardens, but that will keep for another visit.

There is so much more to tell about the Toledo Museum of Art - more than I can tell in a blog post.There's still the art of Asia and Africa, the Paper Galleries, the Small Worlds Exhibit (through March 25, 2012), The Egypt Experience (through January 12, 2012), The Cloister, and the contemporary and modern art exhibits. More than 30,000 pieces of art are housed in these two buildings.

I've posted my photos in their entirety on Our Little Acre's Facebook page, so you can see more of what impressed me at the museum. My single favorite thing? Impossible to choose, although the feeling of standing a couple of feet away, face-to-face, with a Rembrandt is hard to forget.

Young Man With Plumed Hat
Rembrandt van Rijn
1631

The Museum is just west of Toledo’s downtown business district, directly off Interstate 75, at 2445 Monroe Street at Scottwood Avenue. Their main business line is 800-255-8000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 800-255-8000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

Admission

Admission to the Museum is always FREE. Special exhibitions or events may require purchased tickets. Members are admitted free to all exhibitions and receive free admission and discounts for special programs, events, and Museum Store purchases. Hours
Tuesday–Thursday 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Friday 10 a.m.–10 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Sunday Noon–6 p.m.

Closed Mondays, New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day

*My thanks to the Toledo Museum of Art for providing much of the historical information I've shared here.

Wordless Wednesday: First Snow

2011-11-30T23:19:00.004-05:00

'Autumn Brilliance' fern is brilliant in winter, too.

Sedum seed heads catch some ice.

The miniature red rose bush is still stunning.

A little snow won't stop the spinach.

At least the white mulberry tree we've tried to kill is good for something.

Lily tries to get a drink from the iced over pond.

The maiden grass takes a bow to the cairn under the weight of snow and ice.

A warm blanket of snow for the garden

Ajania pacificum - always a late bloomer

Ice and duckweed frozen in the little pond

The chickens' first snow! (It bored them.)

Got Moss? Moss Rocks! - Win One!

2011-11-29T22:16:00.017-05:00

Bryum moss grows in between the brick pavers
on our walkways

Moss is cool. We have a fair amount of it growing all around here at Our Little Acre and it's fascinating. Think about it - it's one of those native plants that needs such little tending to, and it almost always looks perfect. It's a rich shade of green and ooooh, the textures! But it might just be one of the most unappreciated wonders of the natural world.

Scotch moss (Sagina subulata) fills in the spaces between flagstones
in a much more interesting way than grass or sand.

David Spain and Ken Gergle are moss mavens. They are the proprietors of Moss and Stone Gardens, located in the Piedmonts of North Carolina. Designing shade gardens, using stone, water, and moss as the main elements is their specialty.

David Spain (right) and Ken Gergle (left) show P. Allen Smith the new
Moss Rocks!™

This summer, I had the pleasure of meeting both David and Ken at the Independent Garden Center Show in Chicago. They were there to debut the hottest thing to hit the gardening world since...oh, Chia Pets. Now before someone gets all upset about me comparing their Moss Rocks!™ to Chia Pets, I mean this in the best way.

Let's take a look at them both:

They're living things
They're adorable
They come in a choice of "models"
They fit on a tabletop
They're easy to care for
They make great gifts
They're affordable

In the case of Moss Rocks!™, we can add "They're classy" to the list. And if you don't think so, David was a guest on The Martha Stewart Show last month, showing and telling about moss. Guess what each of the audience members went home with that day?

Photo courtesy of Moss and Stone Gardens

Moss Rocks!™ are ceramic pottery with a shiny crackle finish that contain Dicranum moss. They come in three sizes - Pebble, Cobble, and Boulder - and four colors - Toadstool, Bark, Raindrop, and Lichen. They're virtually maintenance-free, except for watering once a week.

There is no soil, they don't need to be fertilized, and they're drought tolerant, which means if you happen to miss watering them by a few days, they'll forgive you. And because moss grows well in shade, the lower light levels typical of most homes will suit them just fine, although it's recommended they receive bright indirect light.

David sent a Moss Rock!™ to me and as it sits on the end table next to the sofa, I find myself running my fingers over the top of the moss. It's almost like having one of the cats nearby - I can't resist petting it.

Now how would you like to have a Moss Rock!™ of your very own? One lucky reader is going to win a Cobble Moss Rock!™ (that's the medium size) in the color of their choice. All you have to do to be entered into the giveaway is leave a comment to this blog post telling which is your favorite color of Moss Rock!™ AND enter your information on the Rafflecopter form. You must do both things to qualify for the drawing, and do them by midnight, Sunday, December 4th, 2011.

If you can't wait until you see if you've won, or you want to buy some for gifts this holiday season (or for a birthday, or anniversary, or just because they're cool and you really want one of each color and size), you can purchase them on the website. You might find them locally too, just like I did when I attended the Tapestry of Tables celebration in nearby Napoleon, Ohio, a couple of weeks ago.

Here's the Rafflecopter form to fill out and don't forget to leave a comment, telling your favorite color of Moss Rock!™ Good luck!

WINNER!! Random.org has chosen a winner, and it's Diane McCarthy! Congratulations, Diane! Enjoy your Moss Rock!™