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Happy New Year 2012

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Another year has passed in the garden and this is what I've learned.

  • Have a plan for how you want to use your garden. This is as important as selecting the right plants for each garden room. Allowing some empty places for new plants, transplants or garden art, makes your garden your own. Add whatever  makes you happy and your heart to soar when you're in your garden.
  • Pay attention to the size that a plant will attain. This will save lots of headaches later.
  • Pruning is free therapy. What better way is there to feel good than to improve the life of a plant?
  • Your garden journal chronicles your life as well as what happens in the garden. Making frequent entries, no matter how short, will make you smile when you read it again at the end of the year. Journal your successes and failures, making notes of plants that performed well and ideas to try next year.
  • Enjoy a beverage of some kind often in your garden. That clean up or transplanting will be there tomorrow.
  • Weed regularly. The 20 minutes you spend every week or so pulling or hoeing will save hours of back bending work later.
  • You, fellow gardeners, are unique. I can't imagine any group of people more diverse and feisty and independent than gardeners. Yet we have such a connection. We love and are fascinated with nature. We find our deepest satisfaction in coaxing plants from the earth, in nurturing their growth. We are enduring pragmatists.
  • Edible gardening offers more than just vegetables and fruit trees that feed the body. They are better than a whole medicine cabinet of pills.
  • Accept a few holes in a plant: Unless it is being devoured, share a little with other creatures.

Happy New Year 2012 from The Mountain Gardener

 

California Native Plants, color in the garden, container gardening, Freeze damage, holiday gifts, holiday ideas

Art & Landscapes @ the DeYoung & Palace of Fine Arts

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Still thinking of what to give that special someone for Christmas? Recently I spent the day at the De Young Museum enjoying the Renaissance paintings on loan from Venice, Italy. Also got over the The Palace of Fine Arts for the exhibit of the the Impressionist, Passarro.

 The paintings are powerful and inspiring. I was especially drawn to the landscapes. Looking at the pomegranate, olive and apple trees gave me some ideas for holiday presents.

Because Venice was literally built on a forest of tree trunks driven into the mud of a marsh it's geography is unique. In a city built on water, plants were highly valued and nurtured on terraces and courtyards. There was a longing for natural settings and this is clear in the the Renaissance painters work. Mediterranean plants from the mainland were brought over to grace the houses of the wealthy. Laurel trees, signifying purity and chastity, are often depicted in these masterpieces.

What a great gift one of these masterpieces  would make. But what if you don't have millions to buy an original? Here are some other ideas to consider.

The landscapes depicted in many of the paintings inspired me to work on my Christmas list.  I'm a gardener starved for color, life and greenery.  It was 29 degrees in my garden in Felton this morning and I know many of you experienced even colder temps after the brightness of the stars on a clear overnight sky.

Thick frost finished off this year's garden- what was left after the wind storm anyway. Even the more sheltered places look a little winter weary this year. Winter is here a tad early for our California gardens. Make the most of those empty spaces in your garden and those of the fellow gardeners you'd like to remember during the holidays.

Are your containers looking a little sad about now? A little bleak and bare? Then so are everybody else's. Why not go beyond cabbages and pansies and give some inspiration with colorful textural combinations that will last through the darkest days of winter.

Native plants grow well in containers. Sure most are great drought tolerant additions to the garden but have you thought about putting them together in a container for giving to someone on your list? Any of the cool blue succulents in the dudleya family look breathtaking planted in blue glazed container. A manzanita like Dr. Hurd  looks quite dramatic in a large pot. Don't worry about if the plant will outgrow the container eventually. You are essentially planting a giant bonsai and root pruning every few years will keep both of you happy and healthy. Drainage is the most important aspect of planting most natives so be sure to add pumice or lava rock to your planting mix.

What else would make a good gift? There's always a new pair of gardening boots for that special gift but if you're thinking smaller, maybe a dry arrangement from seed heads, pods and foliage from your garden in a thrift shop container would fit the bill. Leaving dried perennials and grasses to overwinter in the garden is a present for our birds who appreciate the banquet. There's no need to tidy up unless they've collapsed in a slimy heap. Take advantage of the excuse to kick back over the holidays and enjoy yourself.
 

holiday gifts, holiday ideas, winter color

Holiday Wreaths

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Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Jack Frost nipping at your nose. The garden's been put to rest for the winter covered with a nice blanket of compost. The recent wind storm provided me with lots of material to make a beautiful holiday wreath for the front door or swag to decorate a window. Wreaths are easy and fun to make. They cost virtually nothing and make wonderful gifts for family, friends and neighbors, too.  I was invited to a neighbor's 8th annual holiday wreath making party.  I could hardly wait.

Kinda like a barn raising party without the barn, this fun group gets together for the first two weekends in December each year to inspire each other to create wonderfully unique wreaths and other decorations from natural materials. Each crafter is encouraged to invite another friend or relative and as many as 32 people will be joining my neighbor, Barbara, for the fun over the next two weeks.  Some will come from as far away as Folsom and Roseville and include both men and grandchildren who take part in the festivities.

Creative people amaze me. Amidst dozens of downed branches, the wreath makers started to work. Barbara and her husband started collecting foliage and berries weeks ago in their pick up truck. She laughed when she told me that this year they were very sad because they were unable to get trimmings from their favorite variegated holly as it was being guarded by a pit bull. Mostly they collect from neighbors trees. Green waste cans of friends might supply a wonderful mix of hydrangea flowers and other pruned goodies. Monterey cypress and pines from the Davenport area are coveted along with Hollywood junipers, cedar, leptospermum, eucalyptus sprays and variegated pittosporum foliage. Large piles of English laurel, purple hopseed bush, rosemary and bottlebrush surrounded us. Last year was the first for acacia branches as they didn't know if it would hold up but it worked great and is now a staple. Tristania leaves and berries are another new addition to the wreaths.

Barbara explained that she once took a floral making class at Cabrillo. "I got hooked", she says,"now I'm obsessed". Some "wreathers" as we're called work fast putting together bundles of mixed foliage with lightening speed and attaching them to the frame with wire on paddles. Others are more meticulous grouping each bundle of various foliage with exactly the same mix. That's pretty much it for required tools- gloves, clippers, a frame and paddle wire. A hot glue gun is a nice too for attaching accents like cones, berry clusters, driftwood, lichen, feathers, shells or flowers. Floral picks work nicely for small fruits like Meyer lemons, clementines or small pomegranates.

The record for most wreaths made in a single season is apparently held by Martha who created 7 in the course of two weeks to decorate her home and to give away as gifts. Our hostess, Barbara, holds the record for making the largest wreath which measured in at 36" and graced her front door last year. Wreaths for a front door, she explained, should be able to hold up to constant movement so she is careful not to use berries that might loosen and fall. California pepper and nandina berries usually work in this location. You can bet her front door this year will sport another marvelous creation.

Look outside your door for different shades of foliage and spent flower heads, With just a couple of bags worth of materials you can make wreaths with your kids for many of those on your Christmas list.

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