Serenity in the Garden

The Foolishness of Things

2023-01-30T16:40:00.002-05:00

A gentle reminder to stop and enjoy a cup of tea. It's important and this explains why:

The Foolishness of Things

Music for the Eye - Curves in the Landscape

2022-03-30T08:06:00.002-04:00

I wrote this post in my new substack 'Jan Johnsen's Gardentopia' - go here to read it and see the photos:

https://janjohnsen.substack.com/p/music-for-the-eye?s=w

I AM MOVING TO SUBSTACK

2022-03-07T07:39:00.004-05:00

Life moves on and so do I. I am going from being a Blogger to a 'Substacker'!

Please follow me there:

Go to Jan Johnsen's Gardentopia and please subscribe.

Every week I will post something of interest to garden lovers and garden designers.

I started my new substack with a great quote. It is why I share all that I do. Please follow me on Substack.

"The world is moving into a phase when landscape design may

well be recognized as the most comprehensive of the arts.

Man creates around him an environment that is a projection into nature of his abstract ideas."

- Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe

Hip Hip Hooray for Rose Hips!

2021-11-01T19:15:00.000-04:00

rose hips photo by Jan Johnsen

Allow your roses to form hips.
Did you know that, like many plants that produce fruit, the formation of rose hips is a signal to the rose to go dormant for the season?

from Monrovia - Japanese rose

Rose hips provide wonderful color in the garden and are a good source of vitamin C for birds in the fall and winter. They are one of the highest plant sources of Vitamin C. 'Cherry Pie' Rose makes great rose hips:

Oso Easy Cherry Pie Rose -from May Dreams Garden Blog

You can eat them too. Rose hips are used for jam, jelly, syrup, soup, beverages, pies, bread, and wine. They can also be eaten raw if care is used to avoid the hairs inside the fruit. The redder they are, the softer and sweeter.

source: live by the sun blog

for more info on roses go to Chris Van Cleave - click here.

The Glorious Sunflower - the Fourth Sister in a Native American Garden

2021-05-16T07:13:00.000-04:00

In one of my earlier blog posts I wrote about the Native Americans' Three Sisters Garden (corn, beans and squash )

but I neglected to tell you of the Fourth Sister...a very important member of this family!

This is from Hubpages:

"Fourth Sister, didn't look anything like her other sisters, although she was as tall and as slender as First Sister (corn) . That seemed fair to all, because Third Sister and Second Sister shared similar but different features. They could climb and run, while their other two sisters were forced to stand tall and proud."

Mother Sun explained that each sister had her job and each had to benefit from and protect one another. But Fourth Sister's job was most important of all -- for she was the guardian of the North, planted firmly, to protect others from the robbers who soon would come.

The fourth sister was the elegant sunflower.

The Sisters are known to the Native Americans as the “mothers of life” but they all need each other to survive.

Corn uses the nitrogen supplied by the nitrogen fixing roots of the beans and provides a place for the beans to climb.
The squash suppresses weeds and keeps the soil shaded and moist.
The prickly leaves of the squash provide a deterrent from four legged raiders of corn.

So what does the Sunflower do?

Taiyo Sunflower (click here)

The sunflowers keep the birds from devouring the corn.

How? Well, true sunflowers exhibit the heliotropic habit of following the sun through the day but when they are full of sunflower seeds they stay facing the east.

Thus when sunflowers are planted to the north of the garden patch, the birds see the sunflowers first thing in the morning sun and dine on the sunflower seeds rather than the corn kernels....

from Rainy Side Gardens

The FOUR SISTERS celebrate the harmony of nature and bring abundance to farmers and happiness to the well fed home.

By the way, the true giant sunflower is used as an emblem of the philosophy of Spiritualism.

They see the sunflower as forever looking to the light and applaud its unique arithmetic: supposedly each sunflower has 12 sets of leaves ( months in a year) , 52 yellow petals (52 weeks in a year) and 365 seeds (365 days in a year). I cannot verify this but that is the story..... I hope it is true.

2021 Perennial Plant of the Year - Lesser Calamint (Deer Resistant)

2021-04-14T09:27:00.001-04:00

Montrose White Calamint from Rare Roots

I wrote this post years ago and now, in 2021, Lesser Calamintha has been named 2021Perennial Plant of the Year...

So here is my post on it and my prediction that - someday - it will be recognized. #prescient

The thing to do is PLANT FOR THE BEES. So if you join me on that important bandwagon I suggest you plant -

Dwarf Calamint 'Montrose White' (Calamintha nepeta spp nepeta 'Montrose White').

Calamintha is an herb that's native to Europe and is used in cooking in Italy under the name nepitella.

This plant, I predict, will be a 'Perennial Plant of the Year'. Why? because it is a hardy (to USDA zone 4) and delightful flowering perennial plant that is deer resistant. YAY!

Photo from Nursery Management

Calamintha nepeta spp nepeta 'Montrose White' was named by Mike Yanny of Johnson’s Nursery in Menomonee Falls, Wis.

Yanny’s wife purchased the calamint from Nancy Goodwin at Montrose Nursery.

Yanny saw that the plant thrived under benign neglect and came back every year as strong as ever. He asked Goodwin if he could name and patent this particular calamint ‘Montrose White.’ She agreed.

from a great garden blog click here

‘Montrose White’ is a compact, clump-forming, 12" - 16” high plant that is covered with tiny white flowers from June until frost. When temperatures fall in autumn the flowers turn lightly lavender. It does not get floppy and has very fragrant leaves. It can grow very wide.

'Montrose White' calamint loves full sun and well-drained soil. It will not tolerate wet soils so let it dry out between waterings. It has no special fertilizer or pH requirements.

The best thing about this flowering plant, besides the fact that it roots from cuttings in a few weeks, is that it is sterile - this means that no seed heads are formed and no seeds are produced thus it always looks great!

Important: it does not self sow as the straight calamint species does.

'Montrose White’ is ideal for sunny shrub borders, rock gardens containers. It blooms all summer and if you plant it near a path and brush against the foliage, you will smell a scent of strong peppermint.

Plant this fine textured plant next to bolder larger leafed plants like Lamb's Ears (deer resistant) or Ladies mantle (deer resistant). Or next to asters so the late summer show is wondeful.

Bees, butterflies and hummingbirds are crazy for it. In bloom, Montrose white looks like a summer snow flurry. It is perfect for a white garden.

photo from Stonehouse Nursery

This short plant is drought tolerant and looks fabulous planted beneath taller summer flowers such as Echinaceas, Phlox, Perovskia and shrub roses.

It also looks great in front of grasses and with any blue colored plant. Just remember it is a bee magnet.

All in all, a deer-proof plant that rewards us with flowers, scent and a long blooming season... and keeps the bees happy. Award winner, for sure.

by Bohns Farm

My Garden Tip Interview with Christy Wilhelmi of Gardenerd

2021-03-31T17:12:00.003-04:00

Last week I was interviewed by Christy Wilhelmi on her podcast for Gardenerd.

She has a great website and says that Gardenerd is designed for people who have a healthy sense of humor about their obsession with organic gardening, and who have a thirst for knowledge.

Christy Wilhelmi - host of Gardenerd

Her audio interviews feature a wide variety of garden experts and are quite wonderful. I am honored to be among her guests! If you want to hear our conversation about gardening tips please click here:

My Audio Interview with Gardenerd

The Famed Yellow Magnolias Bred in Ossining N.Y.

2021-03-15T18:10:00.000-04:00

'Elizabeth' Magnolia was bred by Brooklyn Botanic Garden in Ossining, NY.

I love yellow-flowering magnolias. The cover of a Garden Design Magazine features one and it makes my heart skip a beat.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden introduced the yellow-flowering magnolia to the world. BBG launched the breeding program in 1953 at its R&D facility, the Kitchawan Research Center, in Ossining, New York (the town next door to me).

They bred eight magnolias before the program shut down at Kitchawan in 1991. These BBG hybrids are still available today. These beauties flower between mid-April and mid-May.

Magnolia x ‘Elizabeth’

One of my favorites is Magnolia x ‘Elizabeth’ which was introduced in 1977. It is a cross between M. acuminata and M. denudata.

Dr. Evamaria Sperber, who helped start BBG’s breeding program bred this tree. It is valued because it flowers before the leaves come out which makes an elegant display on bare branches. The creamy-yellow flowers bloom later than other magnolias which helps it avoid damage from frost and cold snaps. The flowers bloom about a week after the saucer magnolias and two or three weeks after the star magnolias.

The hybrid’s name honors Elizabeth Van Brunt, a benefactor of Brooklyn Botanic Garden who donated the Kitchawan site for its research facility.

The Royal Horticultural Society named it as a plant of Garden Merit. For more info on this hardy tree (Zone 4) go here: https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/93009/i-Magnolia-i-Elizabeth/Details

Magnolia x Brooklynensis 'Yellow Bird'

Another stand out is Magnolia x Brooklynensis 'Yellow Bird' - was introduced in 1981 and is a cross between M. acuminata and M. liliiflora. It is considered one of the best of the yellow-flowered magnolias and, flowering in late April or early May, generally misses the frosts.

My new book, Floratopia, is Out Now!

2021-03-15T15:38:00.001-04:00

My new book Floratopia is out!

I am so happy to finally be able to share flower garden design ideas with everyone. I have been working with annual and perennial flowers in all my landscape projects for decades and yet I wrote about everything but flowers. Odd.

Well, that has now been corrected. I have amassed a collection of flower tips accompanied by my photos and categorized them in 6 sections in the book.

Osteospermum Serenity Series

Why did I write this book? Here is an excerpt from my introduction:

"Flowers are such an important part of our living world—offering food and habitat to our threat-

ened pollinators such as bees, birds, butterflies, and more. That is why I chose to write about

flowers and flower garden design. I have worked with flowers as a landscape designer and

horticulturist all my adult life, and I know how wonderful it is to open the door to the sight of

colorful blooms in the garden. More important, I believe we need flower gardens—our pollinator

havens—more than ever. The more flowers we plant, the happier our endangered pollinators will be.

Flowers should play a bigger part in the modern world we live in because they brighten every-

one’s mood. I wrote Floratopia to help in that effort. In the following pages, I profile flowers

that anyone can grow. I discuss which flowers work well together for the best effect and share a

few “secrets” for helping them thrive. And I spotlight some of my favorite flowers. I hope these

tips inspire you to try your hand at growing flowers in a pot or in a plant bed."

I am just now receiving reviews and I am thrilled to report that they are positive! Here is a great review from Teri Speight at Cottage in the Court. You can also listen to our discussion at her podcast- click here.

I will sharing ideas from Floratopia in upcoming posts. Just in time for spring!

ZOOM TALK - GARDENTOPIA June 9 - 6 pm est

2020-06-08T13:25:00.003-04:00

ZOOM TALK -

June 9 at 6 pm EST Sponsored by the Los Angeles Association of Professional Landscape Designers - Go here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gardentopia-with-jan-johnsen-tickets-106030600380

Join award-winning landscape designer and garden writer Jan Johnsen to discuss the concepts in her latest book, Gardentopia.

About this Event

“Gardentopia is that rare marriage of the art of landscaping and the technical knowledge of how to compose a landscape―boiled down to readily understood and easily executed actions. This book puts you in the driver’s seat and shows you how to chart the course to your own personal garden utopia.” - Margie Grace, Grace Design Associates

Any backyard has the potential to refresh and inspire if you know what to do. Jan Johnsen’s new book, Gardentopia: Design Basics for Creating Beautiful Outdoor Spaces, will delight all garden lovers with over 130 lushly illustrated landscape design and planting suggestions. Ms. Johnsen is an admired designer and popular speaker whose hands-on approach to “co-creating with nature” will have you saying, “I can do that!’

This info-packed, sumptuous book offers individual tips for enhancing any size landscape using ‘real world’ solutions. Gardentopia will inspire you with tips such as ‘Soften a Corner”, “Paint it Black”, and “Hide and Reveal”.

A speaker for botanical garden and garden show audiences, Jan loves to share her insights in the beneficial effects of informed garden design with others. Her unique approach, incorporating ancient practices with contemporary ideas makes for fascinating presentations. She combines the “why” with the “how-to” in an engaging and popular manner. And as always, she adds a large dose of stunning ‘eye candy’ to make everyone realize that heaven is indeed a garden.

Beautify Your Vegetable Garden with These Ideas.....

2020-04-12T07:15:00.000-04:00

The French have long understood that vegetable gardens can be places of beauty. They located their traditional potagers, or kitchen gardens, outside their kitchen windows and included vertical structures, flowers, and artistic plant groupings designed for aesthetic appeal.

Flowers look beautiful and attract the all important pollinators to your garden. Read the wonderful article I have linked here for learning how to include beautiful flowers and more in your veggie garden.

Infographic - go here for more

Milk Carton Gardening - Build those Memories

2020-04-10T09:06:00.000-04:00

Now More than Ever - Lets Get Kids Gardening -

When did we abandon the simple pleasures of growing carrots in milk cartons, planting hollyhocks along old fences or having fragrant lilacs at the corner of a house?

Let's reclaim this as part of our ordinary life...

Hollyhocks

We all have such memories - even city kids like me...

It might be the 'weed' that smelled like licorice (anise hyssop),

or the buttercups that you put under your chin,

or the honeysuckle that you could suck a teeny drop of 'honey' from,

Honeysuckle

the sweet smell of roses as you walked past a certain house,

or the bright yellow daffodils in early spring that sprang up overnight it seemed.

daffodils by Jan Johnsen

I would like us to revive 'garden memories' - to bring flowers, plants and gardens back into our lives.

This kind of knowledge has been cast aside in favor of math and physics but I say children can learn those disciplines better through understanding the phenomenal natural world around them.

So plant those sunflower seeds, pop in that Elephant Ear bulb and cut up those milk cartons....

transcendent garden memories await you and yours.

Praise for the lowly Dandelion

2020-04-07T10:44:00.000-04:00

Every year I reprint this at dandelion time where I live-

The dreaded Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), for which we spend tremendous amounts of weed killer money to eradicate, has been prized over the years for its medicinal and nutritious properties.

In fact, dandelion roots, flowers and "dandelion greens" (leaves) are all edible!

Dandelions are a rich source of vitamins A, B complex, C, and D, as well as minerals such as iron, potassium, and zinc. And in traditional medicine, dandelion roots and leaves were used to treat liver problems. Native Americans used dandelion decoctions (liquid made by boiling down the herb in water) to treat kidney disease, swelling, skin problems, heartburn, and stomach upset.

Young Dandelion leaves

• Dandelion roots can be roasted as a coffee-substitute, or boiled and stir-fried as a cooked vegetable.

• Dandelion flowers can be made into a wine.

• Dandelion greens can be boiled, as you would spinach, and served as a vegetable or can be inserted in sandwiches or used as a salad green (it has a little "bite.")

Dandelion greens are high in vitamins A and C, and iron! The French even have a well-known soup called creme de pissenlits (cream of dandelion soup), which is easy to make.

from Embracing My Health blog

Harvesting the greens (the leaves) is the most popular way to eat Dandelions. The best time to harvest the greens is in early spring, before the flowers appear, when they are the tenderest and least bitter.

Boiling them or stir frying them will further reduce their bitterness.

from the Herbwife's Kitchen website

So why pay pay extra to purchase foods with similar (or even inferior) nutritional value, when you have a free source of leafy greens in your neighborhood?

My musings: It makes sense that, at the end of winter, when our ancestors were probably hungry and vitamin deficient, that Nature would see to it that they had a great source of vitamins proliferating all around them! No one had to seed them or turn over the soil...the Dandelions appeared just for the picking!

And today we spend so much money just to make them go away....something is wrong here.

Just make sure to avoid harvesting near roads, since road salt and/or toxins may be present. Likewise, you obviously shouldn't harvest from a lawn where herbicides have been used.

Heeding the Signs...a timely thought

2020-04-04T07:59:00.001-04:00

Just as a forest is connected by an underground fungal network, enabling individual trees to communicate with each other, and can warn each other of danger by releasing chemicals into the air, so are we all connected together deep within, sharing the wisdom and knowing of the Earth, our common home.

And this network is sending us warning signs, that our present way of life is not only unsustainable, but over.

Even when this pandemic comes to an end, we cannot afford to “return to normal” for very long. This present crisis can awaken us to the reality that we need a new way of life, one that is truly sustainable with the Earth and Her “other-than-human” inhabitants.

This virus can be heard as a part of the cry of the Earth—calling to us to change, adapt, awaken from our dream of eternal economic growth,

the nightmare that is destroying so much of Her fragile beauty and wonder.

-Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

go here for the entire post - https://stethelburgas.org/the-virus-and-what-happens-next/

Pixie dust....

2020-04-02T09:33:00.001-04:00

My wonderful story about Organic Soil

2020-03-21T08:49:00.000-04:00

On April 29, 2010 Anne Raver of the New York Times asked:

"How does Tony Avent, the horticultural mythbuster, grow so many plants successfully in his garden?

Rule No. 1: he uses the same mix of 40 percent native soil, dug on his own land, and 60 percent compost for every plant.

''The soil for every plant we have is prepared exactly the same, whether it's a pitcher plant or an agave,'' ....

After he switched to organics, he said, ''it took about a year before everything started jumping. Our insect problems disappeared. It was just amazing.'' ...."

(Tony Avent runs the wonderful Plant Delights Nursery - offering an incredibly diverse collection of plants and the catalog is a collectors' item)

This observation took me back to 1972 when I was a landscape architecture student at the University of Hawaii and also minoring in tropical agriculture

The university farm was in Pearl City ( next to Pearl Harbor) and it was divided into one large section devoted to standard agriculture (agribusiness majors) plots and a very small section reluctantly relegated to organic gardens (run by us 'hippie haoles' who were studying tropical agriculture)...

I had come to Hawaii via Kenya and was very interested in saving the world through tropical organic gardening.

This is me in Pearl City, Hawaii tending to my vegetable garden years ago - note the Kenyan Kikoy I was wearing..the latest in fashionable gardening clothes.. .:-)

The agriculture students got stipends for their seeds, fertilizer and pesticides...

the organic students got nothing....and you know what happened?

Well, every semester the organic plots got better and better because the soil was being improved consistently with fish emulsion and compost ( a local health services organization was training mentally disabled students on how to make compost on premises)

while every semester the big fertilized plots run by the aggies got worse and worse...this was back when 'organic' was some weird, unrealistic approach to agriculture....and no professor back then would acknowledge what was pretty evident to the eyes.

Of course, it didn't help when the campus newspaper did a cover story on our 'new organic plots' at Pearl City..and they interviewed me.

I talked about how our crops were flourishing and about a new (ha!) organic pest control called BT -bacillus thuringensis. After that interview, I presented a report to a Hawaii legislature committee on why Oahu should use their sewage sludge in a soil fertilizer similar to Milwaukee's Milorganite ....

they didn't go for it but look at what is out there today:

Now, almost 40 years later, I marvel at how long it took society to understand what we - the hippie haoles - knew: Organic is the only way...it is Nature's Way.

And look at what they offer at Pearl City today:

Organic Gardening!

Live demonstrations by UH Master Gardeners including Organic Gardening 101, Building Healthy Soil, and Composting! First demonstration begins 9AM -10AM, next session 10:30AM -11:30AM.

Composting Worms for Hawaii

Small-Scale Vermicomposting

Backyard Composting Recycling a Natural Product

Building Healthy Garden Soil

Organic Gardening Resources

We have come a long way....

The truth is that true tranquility lies in compost and happy earthworms....

Johnsen Landscapes & Pools

And if you live in Connecticut you should know about these people too:

Sermons in Stones

2020-03-19T07:17:00.002-04:00

In these times, I look to one of my favorite Shakespare passages. They say being outside is one of the best things you can do to stay healthy. This is so apt for these times - "Exempt from public haunt" indeed:

"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."

- Shakespeare, As You Like It

Gardening Ideas for Troubled Times

2020-03-18T10:26:00.003-04:00

During this time of Covid-19, we must cultivate outselves, our well being and our gardens. Plants can be a soothing balm for troubled times.

This is modified from the National Garden Bureau - click on the words for some great and informative links.

Start some seeds.

Plan a vegetable garden.

Plan to grow flowers for the joy they bring.

Take an online class about plants or gardens, or watch some YouTube instruction videos.

Plan an herb garden.

Take a walk in a nearby natural area: woods, field, desert, beach or park.

Take this time to groom or repot houseplants. Remove dead leaves, refresh the soil, take cuttings of favorites so that later you can share the wealth with friends.

Create a new indoor display of plants. Make a row of small pots in bloom on your kitchen counter or the windowsill above your sink.

Plan a new group of containers for your deck, porch or patio. Flowers, herbs, and vegetables await your creativity…go for color, fragrance, and flavor.

Help to get a young person out into the natural world. Plan a garden for your kids or grandchildren.

Variegated Solomon's Seal - Deer resistant plant

2020-03-15T10:42:00.003-04:00

'Angel Wings' Variegated Solomon's Seal

I was talking to someone in my town who had shade in their yard and deer problems..and I suggested Variegated Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum odoratum ‘Variegatum’) to them...

It was the 2013 Perennial Plant of the Year is Award. It is deer resistant and loves shade.

This woodland gem grows 18 to 24 inches tall.

It is a great companion plant to hostas, brunnera, dicentra, ferns, and astilbes.

The sweet fragrance of its small, bell-shaped white flowers will enhance your walk along a pathway on a spring morning. You can use its variegated foliage in spring floral arrangements. And it offers yellow fall foliage color.

photo by George Weigel

It will spread by rhizomes to form colonies. Increase by dividing clumps every two to three years.

photo by Rush Creek growers

I grow this in my yard and every year it spreads and looks so wonderful.

Click here for a list of all the Perennial of the Year winners from years before.

Some Plants for a Meadow Planting

2020-01-23T09:20:00.000-05:00

The “meadow planting” style of gardening that is so popular now includes plants from various German breeders. Of course you can plant the original native species to help our pollinators... Click on the links in the captions for more information.

Karl Foerster bred tall, hardy plants suited to the northern European climate. He called grasses “Mother Nature’s hair” and one of his best known and popular plants is the strongly vertical Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster’ (a form of feather-reed grass).

Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass

Karl Foerster feather reed grass in background. Sedum Matrona on right.

Ernst Pagels developed new varieties of Miscanthus sinensis. Piet Oudolf was a friend of Pagels and uses his plants, among others. Pagels developed Miscanthus sinensis 'Malepartus' which looks like Pampas grass but blooms in midsummer so people in cooler climates can enjoy the bloom.

Hoffman Nursery photo - Miscanthus sinensis 'Malepartus'

Piet Oudolf likes the coneflower, Echinacea purpurea 'Fatal Attraction’. which has bright pink flowers held on thick, dark stems.

Echinaceas (coneflowers) are adored by butterflies and bees and thrive in cold winters.
They require good soil but, once established, tolerate dry summers. They are easily raised from seed. Coneflowers are one of our most popular perennials.

Summer echinacea in Bressingham

A great late summer flower is Helenium 'Sahin’s Early Flowerer’. It is one of the best native perennials for late season color!

It displays a profusion of flowers in the sun which open deep red then develop orange and yellow streaks on the petals.

The tall stems are excellent for cut flowers. 3 ft tall, pinch back in spring.

click here for source

And to create some interest try Eryngium 'Silver Ghost' - Teasel-like pale green flowers, which turn to steely-blue as they mature, are surrounded silvery white bracts.

A biennial plant, it will die after flowering in its second year, but self-seeds freely in a good spot.

source - The Teddington Gardener

Veronicastrum virginicum 'Lavendelturm’ is used by Tom Stuart-Smith and has 6 ft, lavender-blue , upright fingers. They provide important vertical accents to contrast with fine grasses.

Source - The Telegraph

Try some of these for a glorious summer garden!

TEXTURE in the Garden - a Guest Post by Yuliya Bellinger

2019-12-25T11:43:00.000-05:00

Lamb's Ear

One of my assignments to my graduate students in the landscape design program at Columbia University was to take a paragraph from the book, 'The Hidden Dimension' by Edward T. Hall and share a personal experience related to the topic of the selected excerpt. 'The Hidden Dimension' is a time honored classic on the role of spatial understanding in culture.

The following is an essay that the talented designer, Yuliya Bellinger, wrote. I think it is so lovely and wanted to share it with you. Simple is beautiful.

TEXTURE in the Garden By Yuliya Bellinger

“Texture, about which I have said very little, is appraised and appreciated almost entirely by touch, even when it is visually presented. With few exceptions …it is the memory of tactile experiences that enable us to appreciate texture. So far, only a few designers have paid much attention to the importance of texture and its use in architecture is largely haphazard and informal. In other worlds, textures on and in buildings are seldom used consciously and with psychological or social awareness.”

Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension, page 62

My fellow gardeners often disapprove of my compulsion to touch plants. Occasionally, I even tear a leaf, crush it in between my fingers and smell it (with their permission, of course). There is something about this interaction that makes my experience of their garden complete.

Dichondra 'Silver Falls'

It might be, that it evokes my childhood experiences of exploring the world. After spending almost every summer at my grandfather’s farm and running barefoot for those two summer months, I miss the interaction with the earth and what it sprouts.

Walking through an overgrown patch of a lawn with stalks of grass caressing my legs immediately reminds me of the carefree summer time. One of my most luxurious “touching” experiences is walking on moss. The softness and coolness of moss cannot compare with any high quality carpet.

source: Moss and Stone Gardens

My garden guests are often pleasantly surprised and even shocked how vegetation can be so unexpectedly soft, fuzzy, silky, coarse, spiky, rough, thick or thin.

Cattails

They react as if the appearance of a plant completely belied how it feels. Touching a sago palm is met with a shock of its almost synthetic smoothness, or lamb’s ears that are softer than any teddy bear.

Lambs Ears - Blue Lake Discovery Garden

Texture is an underrepresented quality of space today, and too often unexplored by visitors because of the societal constraints or visual dependency we are more likely to rely on to experience flora. Signs like “DON’T TOUCH” and “KEEP OFF” are enough to get everyone discouraged. And even when they are invited to explore and experience, people tend to be reserved about touching.

in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

I was very encouraged after visiting the Brooklyn Botanic garden’s fragrance garden, specifically “plants to touch” section. It is elevated to accommodate people in wheelchairs and the blind to make interaction with the plant life effortless. How I would love to see more outdoor spaces that encourage a tactile experience; an equally enjoyable, important, and too often neglected component of a garden.

Mood Moss from Moss and Stone Gardens

Gardening to Uplift, Heal and Keep Alert

2019-11-24T18:14:00.000-05:00

Are you feeling a little down? depressed?

Well here is a way to fix that - go out and plant something...

Studies have found that an hour of gardening a day reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke and increases bone density more efficiently than aerobics or swimming!

In fact, even looking at nature can result in a drop in blood pressure within five minutes and lower our stress hormones.

One 16-year study in Australia revealed that those who did daily gardening even cut their risk of getting dementia in later life.

(Gardening boosts endorphins, the body’s good-mood chemicals. Personally, my theory is that we need the sunlight on our pineal gland and this can delay dementia, but I have no proof, its just a 'knowing')

Here is a lovely story from Timesonline United Kingdom, dated March 27, 2010

"...Jane Robertson was earning a small fortune in the pressured world of derivatives markets when she had a breakdown at the age of 27.

A spell in a psychiatric hospital followed, then many months “just about existing” in her London flat.

When she signed up to take part in a once-weekly gardening project at Chelsea Physic Garden, it was all she could do to get out of bed to attend.

But, three years on, she has passed her horticultural exams and is training to be an arboriculturalist.

"...I felt a sense of transformation in the garden — it gave me a sense of calm that I hadn’t felt before,” says Robertson, now 32. “I think it was a combination of being outside and having contact with nature. It also helped me to talk about my feelings and difficulties. It was like a door had been held open and I could walk through it on my own.”

Amen to that!

Thank you Jane for putting into heartfelt words exactly how I feel about gardens and gardening.

And I am not alone, Thrive, a national gardening-as-therapy charity in England, helps hundreds of people with mental and physical health problems. In 2010 they exhibited their first garden at the Chelsea Flower Show in May.

How great is that!?! The Chelsea Flower Show is a big deal in the horticulture world, kind of like the Olympics of gardens.

The chief executive of Thrive, Nicola Carruthers, says “There is a massive amount of evidence about the beneficial effects of gardening, ever since the court physicians in the time of the pharaohs used to prescribe walks around the gardens to mentally disturbed royals.” (what an image, a mentally disturbed Pharoah...)

We can all benefit from gardening’s unique combination fresh air, vitamin D and exercise with a purposeful task plus the calming effect of nature.

And a tomato seedling is cheaper than an anti-depressant.

photo by Jan Johnsen

So go seek serenity in your garden..or in the planter of marigolds on your fire escape or rooftop...

Anywhere you can, plant a pot of something green today. You can thank me later...:-)

Quiet

2019-10-05T09:17:00.001-04:00

My Annual Reminder- Plant Drumstick Allium now

2019-09-15T20:06:00.000-04:00

I must admit I first discovered Drumstick Allium when I could not find any other allium bulb to buy...

It was late fall and I had waited too long to buy the popular Globemaster Alliums...

What to DO? I bought the Drumstick bulbs and was thrilled at the result.

These purplish - red blooms are small - 1" -and oval shaped. They bloom in my part of the world in June- July atop wiry 24" - 30" tall stems and wave in the breeze...

They make a superb cut flower (which you can dry to be an 'everlasting').

THEY ARE DEER RESISTANT.

Drumstick Allium bouquet - Martha Stewart Photo

Drumstick Alliums look fantastic tucked in the early summer flower border...You can add these small bulbs easily in the fall around clumps of established perennials such as Globe Thistle ( a great combo) Artemesia, Yarrow, Nepeta and Agastache.

They peek out around these plants and are a delightful addition that come back every year!

Artemesia Powis Castle - Great with Drumstick Alliums - Great deer resistant Combo!

White Flower Farm sells Drumstick Allium bulbs with Paprika Achillea (Yarrow). What a colorful combination which, yes, is DEER RESISTANT...

its Apple-red blooms stands above lovely ferny foliage. 'Achillea' is named for Achilles, who supposedly learned of Yarrow's medicinal qualities from his mentor, Chiron the Centaur, and used it to treat his men's wounds on the battlefield.

White Flower Farm Photo - deer resistant Drumstick Allium and Paprika Achillea

And here is Eryngium (Sea Holly) with Drumstick Allium:

from vanengelen nursery click here for source

'Cotton Candy' Agastache - or Hummingbird Mint - with Drumstick Allium. The website Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel recommends this combination with this fantastic photo:

HYSSOP 'COTTON CANDY' with Drumstick Allium - deer resistant

Cotton Candy Hyssop (Agastache) is a vigorous, compact grower that blooms non-stop from midsummer through fall. The dense flower spikes have light pink flowers. It grows to about 24" tall. Agastache attract hummingbirds.

close up of 'Cotton Candy' Agastache

So do not overlook the Drumstick Allium - just make sure you plant in a sunny, well drained location...

and don't worry about the deer and rabbits...YAY!

A Hummingbird Magnet-VERMILION BLUFFS® Mexican Sage

2019-08-08T21:30:00.000-04:00

Mexican Salvia - Vermilion Bluffs®

Do you want Hummngbirds to live in your garden next year? Well, hummingbirds love red and they love salvia flowers. So next spring plant the hardy Vermilion Bluffs® Mexican Sage (Salvia darcyi 'Pscarl').

This 4 foot tall, easy to grow, perennial is a show stopper with its brilliant scarlet flowers that are borne on 3 foot erect spires from July to October. Not many garden perennials can boast this length of blooming season. The foliage and stems are very aromatic. After frost, the leaves die to the ground and then return in spring.

Vermillion Blluffs Mexican Sage from Plant Select - click here

Place it in a sunny area or in containers in loamy soil with good drainage. When its starts blooming the red color and sweet nectar in the bright flowers will bring hummingbirds to your yard. Its underground runners form a tough mat that blocks weeds.

Vermillion Bluffs is a registered trademark of Plant Select.

photo by Panayoti Kelaidis - click here for his great garden blog

This selection has proven to be cold hardy to USDA hardiness zones 5-9 but for people in Zone 5 the plant should be situated in protected sunny corners or against south facing walls to ensure hardiness. An excellent choice for dry, southern exposures and for xeriscape plantings. It emerges in late spring, so be careful when hoeing until the plant emerges. In April trim the previous year’s stems to the ground.

If you live in Minnesota and still want to grow this zone 5 plant you can read how this gardener does it in the Hummingbird Forum.

And a great place to buy Salvia plants of all kinds is the wonderful Flowers By the Sea! Click here to go to their informative site !They are on Facebook too.