by plantswomandesign | Aug 18, 2013 | gardening
Finally a saturday with nothing to do but garden. It has been a long time. I’ve been traveling and visiting family. While I wasn’t looking the vegie garden was planning to take over the world. The beans are up to the top of the poles and heading back down. I picked a big basket of Italian beans (romano). The pole french fillets are not quite ready and the bush french fillets are finished. I had about 15 carrots that came up. (I used the old seeds from 2011)
They were really beautiful. I tried a new recipe for firecracker carrots. They are pickled spicy carrots that sit in the refrigerator for about 2 weeks. Here is the how to:
Firecracker carrots.
1/2 lb of baby carrots or cleaned, peeled and cut carrots.
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp onion powder
2 whole dried red peppers
1 tsp dried chili flakes
Place small bite sized carrots in spring lid jar
Put all the other ingredients into a non reactive pan, bring to a boil and boil for 4 minutes.
pour boiling liquid over carrots and seal. Store in refrigerator for at least a week. The longer it sits the hotter they get!.
I planted new rows of lettuce, spinach, and arugula today. I have some arugula up and ready from the 2nd planting. Now on to the third round. We have had a great year with lots of great sun, warm days and nights, and very little rain.
I also planted walla walla sweet onion. They were fantastic this year… Now what to do with 50 walla walla sweets. I will probably make onion marmalade or onion jam. This is a wonderful condiment that is great with bread, cream cheese, other cheeses, and grilled burgers.
These onions are so sweet some people eat them like an apple. They need to be dried for a couple of days in the sun so the dirt falls off and roots dry up. (called curing). These onions bruise easily so they must be handled carefully. The best way to keep them is to use panty hose and add onions separated by knots. Cutting out the onions as you need them. They only last about 6 weeks so enjoy them while you can. Last year I left my onions in the ground but they became hotter and hotter as they sat there. Not edible by the time I got ready to eat them. They were not walla wallas but I don’t want to take a chance.
Of course I’m a landscape designer so there are some design elements in the vegetable garden also. These are the steps up a steep bank to where the vegetable garden is.
The border to the raspberries is made out of recycled metal. It was put in with long rebar stakes so I could add a lot of soil and create the bed. I use metal wire for supports in the raspberries, and in the beds after planting to keep animals from digging in the new plants
Replanted lettuce, spinach, and arugula.
by plantswomandesign | Aug 16, 2013 | gardening, plants, pond
August is such a beautiful month in my garden. I have a hard time with cutting back. Everything is so lush and over the top. The colors mix with abandon, everything striving to take center stage. Misty mornings give way to hot sunny days. I live near a bay on the Puget Sound and when I wake in the early morning it is usually clear. The mists come down from the north and swallow everything in dense fog, leaving water droplets on all the plants and giving them the only water they will see for that day. I thought you all might like some pictures from one of these early morning trips around the garden.
Heathers and miscanthus along the driveway edge.
Love the brilliant pop of purple in the heather along with the hot orange of Crocosmia walbreyes
Agapanthus blue magic with crocosmia Emily Mckenzie and penisetum orientalis.
Hydrangea paniculata, Cersis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’, and Cotinus ‘Grace’. There is a little orange glass bird bath tucked in the center.
Summer pond with geranium rozanne, knatia macedonia, and clematis integrifolia.
Persicaria ‘golden arrow’, hedychium densiflorum (from Far Reaches Farms), Red Banana (Ensete ventricosum’Maurelii’), with my rusty girl in tropical garden.
Even just variegated foliage (Canna, small bamboo, and annuals) make a lush summer statement.
I’m going out to cut a path around my gunnera and through the peony tree to get to the lower portion of the garden. I will remember and take a mental picture today. This winter I will bring it back to my mind and see again the massive leaves, beautiful flowers and sweet scents of summer.
by plantswomandesign | Jul 20, 2013 | garden travel
It is always fun to play hooky. I sometimes refer it to running away from home. Since my business office is in the basement of my house that literally means leaving work and doing something else.
This last thursday I ran away from home to the Elisabeth C Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle. I have never been before but I will go back again. It was wonderful to see 3 acres of beautiful gardens, with shade and sun, conifers, and succulents, and most things in between. Our guide was one of the head gardeners Kelly. She did a really great job of directing us around the garden. I loved the fact that she knew many plants but not all of them, and was not afraid to admit it. I believe that we plant people are always learning too. These are not all great pictures but will give you a sense of my exploration and perhaps inspire you to visit too. It was a rare hot sunny day.
Garden path around house
Lovely weeping yew
hardy orchids in the bog garden
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great plant combination
weeping camellia
If you get a chance to visit do. Only 500 visits per year are granted. I would love to go back in the fall. The mature trees will possibly be brilliant with color.
It, like all gardens, will change through the years. Trees need to be removed, winter damage, drainage issues, and plant purchases. This keeps the garden alive with new spaces and plants. I love to remind my clients that gardens are not like your living room. When you buy a new couch it is beautiful but stays the same. A plant on the other hand will grow, mature, blossom, have fragrance, fall color, winter interest, will spread, even sometimes have a sport or cross pollinate with another plant and create a new hybrid. I love that about gardens Elisabeth Miller endowed the garden so that new plants could be added as if she were still alive.
Check out their website for more information. Miller botanical garden
by plantswomandesign | Jul 19, 2013 | gardening
It’s never too late to learn something new. In the Pacific Northwest our biggest vegetable garden challenge is tomatoes. With our cool summers, short growing period and summer rain a perfectly home ripened tomato is the holy grail of vegetable gardeners.
I have tried so many different methods to get that one tomato per year. Every year there is a new product out that will ‘do the trick’. Water walls one year were expensive and the plant grew up out of them I apparently didn’t remove them in time and had to cut them off. The tops were then very heavy without the support of the wall and they had to be staked in a very strange way to keep them upright. The two tomatoes from that year were happy with all the fuss they caused. Last year I tried red plastic around the tomato cage. The result was a moldy stunted plant because the plastic kept the moisture from the rain around the plant. I finally took them off after a month threw the plants away and started over. I got 0 tomatoes from the first planting and 10 cherry tomatoes, 4 ripe tomatoes, and about 50 green tomatoes from the second planting. I’m usually so disappointed with green tomatoes that I’m not creative at all. I put them in the window where they slowly rot from the stem end.
So….this year I was prepared. I decided to put my tomato plants in the greenhouse and keep them there all season. I’m sure because of that great strategy we have had the driest warmest June and July on record for many years, you’re welcome Seattle! And now I have tomatoes growing and ripening in the greenhouse, every day I get a few more. It has been so warm in there I must water every day which is sad because I’m not at the greenhouse everyday.
I read about pruning tomatoes this year in the Gardener’s World Magazine from England. I have never pruned tomatoes before so it was an education. My tomatoes are usually sprawling, branching monsters. Monty (tv host in the UK) says to prune them like trees. They will spend all their energy making branches and leaves and not setting and ripening fruit. He recommends pruning off side shoots that are below the first set of blossoms. This should be done as soon as the plant is big enough to see blossoms. Later on as the fruit begins to set the leaves should be pruned out of the center of the plant so lots of light can get to the fruit to ripen it up .The photos below are of the greenhouse tomato pruning so you can see.
This month my plants in the ground look great too. I have pruned them and they are lovely and green. I fertilized them last week and pruned them 2 weeks ago. Obviously they are not as far along as the ones in the green house but they are setting fruit.
I’m interested to know what types of methods my gardening friends have tried to grow tomatoes. What has worked, what has not? What do you fertilize with and how often? Do you prune?
I’ll keep you all posted on the progress of the ones in the ground. I’m hoping ( yes again) to get a good crop out of the tomato plants I’ve planted. I did a siberian tomato the year I got 4. This year a purple tomato is planted.
by plantswomandesign | Jul 11, 2013 | Plantswoman Design
Here it comes, Bainbridge in Bloom. One of the best garden tours around. I love going to garden tours, they never fail to show me something new. Sometimes plant combinations, different paving ideas and specialty gardens. Bainbridge in Bloom is a garden tour that benefits a non-profit on the island, Arts and Humanities. It has been done in many different ways over the years. The first year I went I was just a beginning gardener. I traveled a good distance and had a map that was stamped as you went into each garden. I met some great people and saw some amazing gardens. It was then when I realized how great a place Bainbridge would be to start a garden design business. Once I became fully immersed in the garden culture of Bainbridge I began to covet the thrill of having one of my gardens on the tour.
I have now had several gardens featured on the tour. This year one of my client’s garden is being featured. Just a few short weeks ago it was the scene of a beautiful wedding for their son. Since everything would be in such pristine condition she decided to do the ‘Bloom’ just after it. She is a wonderful gardener with good plant knowledge and great skills in growing what is planted.
I first started working with her in 2006 and became involved again 2 years ago. The plantings benefit from the warm microclimate at the south end of the island. Tropical plants flourish here and dahlias stay in the ground year round. Gingers and Canna also overwinter and rustios thrive.
Last year my client wanted a retaining wall that would help with the slope without being a place for snakes to hide. (she hates snakes). I designed a metal wall that works great and is so beautiful. This is kept in place with rebar stakes behind it and connected in the back with wire between the panels.
This garden also has some beautiful quiet places with small plantings and ground covers. Mature trees support the rest of the garden and many special gifts from family are tucked in here and there. One tree, from her husband, is a Magnolia ‘baby grand’ to honor her granddaughter Magnolia.
Other areas include a raised vegetable garden that is made with galvanized stock tanks, (a custom outdoor sink stands nearby), flagstone sitting area with large pieces in lawn and a mini Birch walk with white birch and ground covers. Everything about this garden from the new gate by Jim Honold from Home and Garden Art, to the deer proof entry that is lovely in all seasons speaks to gardeners and non gardeners alike.
It is not too late to get tickets for this tour and see all the gardens on the tour. It is more relaxed this year with the self guided tour of old replacing the busses from previous years.
by plantswomandesign | Jul 5, 2013 | garden travel, gardening, Traveling Plantswoman
While photographing window boxes I also came across some great small courtyard gardens, Boston has such great old buildings. There are shared spaces between the houses (squares) that have huge old trees and places to gather. Often grass and benches, sometimes with shrubs to provide privacy. These are all the garden that some of these houses have access to. Several of the bigger houses had courtyards in front of them and many were wonderful serene small garden spaces.
This garden has a lovely sitting area for the times when, even though there can’t be much sun with the tall buildings on either side, it is warm enough to sit outside. The days were hot while I was there and evenings were lovely and warm with no coat needed.
Most of these fabulous gardens were fenced off from the street with ornate black iron fences. This area of Boston, just beyond Boston Commons, is one of the oldest in the city. Originally an area where statesman and writers lived it is now home to a variety of families along with some long time wealthier residents.
The details in this garden are lovely in their simplicity. The use of repeated white and green in the flowers and leaves along with the specimen arisaema and other unusual plants give it a calm quiet respite. It has a sophistication in planting that is in keeping with the house while not being busy. I will have to say I saw so many lovely hostas without any holes in them I’m thinking they don’t have slugs or snails there.
There are a few splashes of pinky red that stand out. The tri-colored beech- fagus sylvatica ‘Argenteo Marginata’. with Athyrium niponicum pictum, Japanese painted fern was stunning in the soft rain soaked air. A soft fuzzy light was filtering through the clouds and rain to make the pictures soft and fuzzy also.
Even very small spaces can entice a gardener to dig in the dirt.
The streets are narrow in this area also with very little parking and permits required for residents. There was the feeling of hushed quiet just a few steps from the bustle of downtown. This is one of the famed cobblestone streets.
I spent a great deal of time walking in Boston. It is a great way to see the city, meet people, and get a sense of the surrounding gardens and neighborhoods you walk through. Do you think you could live in a large city like this? Would you have to have enough space to garden?
by plantswomandesign | Jun 21, 2013 | gardening
Hello gardening friends! Thanks for tagging along with us as we tackled our fear of gardening this week. Today we are setting aside for a good old fashioned question and answer time. I am here to answer your gardening questions. It can be anything! I want to hear from you!!! So, let’s get started, what questions do you have?
by plantswomandesign | Jun 20, 2013 | gardening
Happy Thursday! True confessions here. Do you want to know what scares a garden designer? Vegetable gardening. Yes, those little green (and other colors) edibles. I know many landscape architects that don’t have a garden. True story! They draw landscapes and live in a condo without even a container planted at the front door. I know a botanist that works on restoration of state lands and wants to put landscape fabric, bark and gravel over all exposed ground so it doesn’t grown weeds. I know (intimately) a garden designer that is learning to plant ROWS of plants with different cultural requirements, with no thought of color palette.
Although I have grown everything imaginable and transplanted , pruned, stooled, espalliered, divided, and conquered most things in my garden, I have feared vegetables. Having now planted vegetables for many years I’m now ever expanding on my varieties. I started out with just lettuce, beans, and peas. Easy to grow, requiring the same conditions. Sometimes the peas would have to be planted twice (inoculant might help- who knew?) or I would plant too many beans and they would overwhelm everything (why don’t they stop growing when they reach the top of the pole? Can you prune them? Do they come in semi-dwarf? To be honest I’ve asked these questions at the nursery and it’s one of the few times the answers were not there, they even look at me strangely.) The lettuce would taste bitter in July. (it is a spring crop for a reason). I would usually find out about it after I had given my surplus to a neighbor. Little by little I have learned more and more about these scary plants. I usually do plant in a color scheme now (black tomatos, black beans, black peppers one year) just to feel like I’m managing it better. But I learn something new every year.
So, how do we get over our fear of growing food? I like to get the gardening magazine ‘Gardener’s world’ from the UK. The gardeners in that book grow vegetables I’ve never heard of. They are shown actually digging in the soil, talking about the soil, and have muddy knees and dirty fingers. They are in the horticultural profession and are garden designers and they have a vegetable garden. Amazing.
One of the best things about my job is getting to garden with my clients. In gardening nobody knows everything. Some of my clients are great vegetable gardeners and they help me. They tell me not to bother with red plastic tents over my tomatoes, just plant them out in a sunny area with good air circulation after most of the spring rains (in June sometimes) have ceased. Sometimes you will have a good crop sometimes you won’t. Just talking about gardening is fun and sharing experiences makes everyone a better gardener.
Heres a couple of pictures of stylish vegetable gardens and my little plot. Join us tomorrow for a Q&A session!
by plantswomandesign | Jun 19, 2013 | gardening
Welcome back gardeners! Today we tackle the fear of planting. We all know the plant hoarder. This person goes to the nursery, (or neighbor, brother, mother) and brings home a plant and another and another and so on. Soon the driveway is covered in black pots and the edges of the garage have things tucked around the corner. All these plants are ‘heeled in’ because their owner can’t commit to where to put them. I once dug a Japanese maple out of a front bed of a condo. It had been in the pot for 5 years…a small 2 gallon wooden pot. The root had grown out of the pot and under the drive way (the septic was over there). The pot was wrapped around the trunk like a tight waistband and the plant had grown sideways trying to stay upright. Unbelievably it survived the surgery required to release it into the garden and was given to a home that took many other sad unhappy plants. If you don’t look to closely it looks great. It responded well to water, manure and mulch, oh, and soil.
OK so plant it!
1. Plants can be moved. Those little babies are not meant to be permanently in nursery pots. sometimes just sticking it in the ground where it can grow will give you the inspiration you need to put it in a permanent place. It looks different in the ground believe me.
2. You can learn a lot from your plant choices. It is amazing when I see 20 kinds of Hosta and I say “I guess you like Hostas?” The answer I guess so. Pay attention to your plant choices and it will direct you to the proper planting space.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask for professional help in this area also. Many people ask at the nursery. They give vague or detailed descriptions of a area to get advice about what plant to buy. It is REALLY hard to do this without visiting the site. A garden designer knows what questions to ask (what kind of sun, when, how long, etc.) By looking at the site a professional can really help find the perfect spot to put that treasure.
4. Don’t get sucked into media that shows us new plants and fads. It is not always the plant for you. Just like the new colored skinny jeans… not everyone can or should wear them. Plant what you like and what appeals to you.
5. Most of the time I see one of each kind of plant. If you really like a plant think about adding three or more. I leave the one of a kind for a central focal point in a bed and plant companions around them to create a foil for them to shine. A bed looks much better if it is filled out right away. The weeding and upkeep is easier because the new ‘sweep’ of plants is filing the space that can be a weed problem. Sometimes I see a person with a slow growing plant by nature waiting for it to fill in when it may be 5 to 7 years before it can accomplish that.
I will confess I do have quite a few plants sitting around not planted. Usually I make myself set aside a time to plant at least once a month. I don’t plan anything else, don’t prune, don’t weed. don’t rake, just plant. My garden is full and mature and sometimes I do have to dig out a plant to plant a new one and sometimes the wander around the garden with a pot in hand trying to find the right spot… it can take a while. The upside is after the black pots are gone there is no reason not to buy more!
Here are some great examples of how planting in multiples is helpful for filling out a garden space.
Stay tuned for tomorrow when we explore growing our own food!
