What, you may ask, does HHT stand for? Well, Horticultural Hot Topics of course!
As I head into the new year I often review the past year and think about goals for the coming year. What have I accomplished, what do I need to do, what do I want to do and what do I want to learn more about? This year is going to be great! I’m excited about new gardens to create including a cloister garden, a beach side sunken hot tub, and modern garden with a Petanque. Lots of times this involves research, learning new styles of gardens, and new ways to look at things. That really keeps me interested in the overall concept of gardening within different types of spaces and in new ways. Along these lines there are always some topics to think about. I love to hear what other people say about gardening and how that all effects where horticulture goes today and tomorrow. It gives time to think and reflect about where gardening has come from and where it is going.
The term ‘garden room’ has been around several years now. As gardeners, we were excited to think of a way to bring non-gardeners into the garden to help them start gardening. Right now there is a little bit of back lash against the ‘room’ concept in horticultural circles. More of what we are seeing is hard-scape and consumer related stuff. You can fill a garden room with all kinds of brick-a-brac (my mothers word for junk). Special ‘outdoor’ seating, lamps, cushions, rugs, lighting, containers, table top water fountains and…… so on. I think (and many of my contemporaries too) that the garden room should contain more PLANTS. After all, the connection with nature that we seek to promote probably should actually have something growing in it. My dirty fingers and muddy knees would have no place in many of the garden rooms I’ve been seeing. Gardening for the pleasure of gardening is being lost. To put a seed in the ground and see it turn into a tree is an AMAZING thing. It is not instant but it is amazing. Teaching a child to plant a sunflower and have it grow taller than the house is fairly easy and could possibly create a gardener for life. Whether you’ve got new plants, old plants, grafted plants or cuttings the garden should be about growing something. Caring for a plant, figuring out what is wrong with it , how to cultivate it and how to harvest it is the gardening experience. Years ago a cutting of a rose was taken from home and given to the newlyweds to take to their new house. The neighbor down the street shared her irises with anyone who would take them. Seeds were saved from vegetables to use the next year. Seeds were sometimes stolen in secret from botanical gardens so the gardener could have some of the same in their own gardens. Admittedly, I have a habit of gathering seeds from roadsides and pathways when I travel (I declare them at the border and check to see if they are on an invasive plant species list, and, even then, only grow them inside my greenhouse). And, even though I may be unsuccessful at times, I have had more fun trying to grow these reminders of fun places and times. So, I challenge you to grow something in your garden room, don’t just buy something for it, unless, of course, it’s a plant.
Invasive plants are still a hot topic within the horticultural main stream. They get lots of press about controlling them and eradicating them from your garden, the hedgerows, highways, and byways. I ran across a couple of chef’s in Texas that are ‘Eating the Invaders’. How cool is that? They plan a whole menu from invasive Himalayan blackberry cobbler (yes even in Texas the blackberry has spread) to wild boar. Wouldn’t it be so fun to plan a menu with blackberries, dandelions, lambs quarters, wakame, bullfrog legs, mussels, and other invasive species? Have a party to spread the word in a culinary way about the dangers to our coastlines and gardens. Interested? I’ve included a couple of links to get you started on “Eradication by Mastication.”
How about eating a Cricket Protein bar on your way to work? Read about that here.
Wondering about invasive species in the Northwest? Take a look here.
And check out what’s happening in Oregon here (I’m a little worried about eating sparrows)… Bon appetit!
While on vacation this holiday season I had the privilege of watching several shows about princesses, kingdoms, princes, and fairy land with my youngest grand daughter. (Yes she is 5) And while I’ve been graduated from “fairy land” for the last few years I did get to watch one really cool movie called the ‘Snow Queen’. The best thing about it is one of the villains was a gardener. Seriously! How many times to gardeners get to be a “bad guy”? Usually we are cast as wonderful nurturing beings. Loving the earth, helping to create a lovely place to live, growing food to give to family and friends, giving away flowers to the church, and visiting the poor with our over abundance of squash. This gardener was not! She grew and nurtured an ivy plant that would creep out of the garden and capture those who passed by her garden. Ultimately she was killed by her own creation and everybody (except the gardener) lived happily ever after. Of course I thought “how could that relate to me”? I’m loving,(except to pink flowers) gentle (except to weeds), kind (except to slugs), and love to share squash with anyone. Wait a minute maybe I’m the bad one. I will try this year to be a better gardener. I will accept and embrace the existence of flowers in any color, pull weeds and continue to feed them to the chickens instead of using a chemical that harms the soil, I will give my excess squash to my chickens and the goats next door instead of forcing it on my over “squashed” neighbors. Still hard to imagine becoming a fan of slugs but I do promise to continue using Eco-friendly slug bait that doesn’t harm the birds and pets in my garden.
What things are on your HHT this year? What things are happening in your neighborhood that make you want to stand up and speak out?
