Gaston Alive Magazine

It’s February and once again many small miracles are happening just under the surface of the soil. Daffodils are already pushing through the dirt and beginning to show off their buds. Winter hardy succulents are emerging as tiny miniatures of their former selves, ready to spring forth with new growth. My birdbaths that I planted in the fall with succulents are emerging with the promise of a new year. My hellebores or Lenten Roses are right on schedule, plump buds seeking the sun with shinny green leaves along side.

Every year I plan a new project for my little gardens and this year I hope to develop a better butterfly garden and decided that February would be a good time to remind all my fellow gardeners of the pleasure that butterflies give to a garden. Butterflies are like living ornaments or jewels that flutter down to sip nectar from the flowers.

First I’ve researched some fun butterflies facts. If you want to impress your friends, start referring to butterflies as “leps”, short for lepidoptera, the Greek word coined by Aristotle meaning scaled wings. Surprisingly, Alaska has 78 species of leps compared to 17 species living in Hawaii. Reason being is that leps follow their favorite plants along coastlines, mountain ranges and river valleys while leps have a “hit or miss” journey over the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. A butterfly’s feet contain taste buds so when they touch nectar plants, the proboscis uncoils its two long tubes to sip nectar. The lep enthusiast handles a butterfly by grasping it by the wings just above the body and as close as possible to its shoulders. Make sure your hands are dry to avoid loss of scales. If the lep struggles too hard, turn it upside down to induce a calming effect. .

In my butterfly garden, I will have to choose both nectar plants for the mature flyers and host plants for egg laying and for feeding the caterpillars. In choosing flowers, colors matter. Yellow and purple are best, followed by white, then blue, then red. The following are some great plants for nectar feeders: Joe-Pye weed, butterfly bush, fire bush, heliotrope, lantana, pentas, asters, purple coneflowers, and cosmos. Host plants include the following: carrot, dill fennel, parsley, passionflowers, milkweed, and pipevine, I compared websites and several books to compile these lists as those deemed best for the southeast. Another bit of information all sources agreed was the need to have something blooming through out the year to keep your winged beauties in your garden space up until the time for laying of eggs.

I urge each interested gardener to plan his or her on graph paper to help allow for space for each of the plant selections. Buy seeds for annuals early and plant inside to get a jump start and buy perennial plants to have flowering plants the first year. To create a watering area, purchase a shallow saucer and fill it with stones or gravel—fill the dish with a small amount of water. The butterflies will rest on the stones and sip water from the spaces between.

I hope each of you enjoy planning your butterfly gardens as much as I have. The afternoons I drew out my garden was a pleasant way to divert my attention from the cold and bleak days of February.

It’s January and we are soon to experience longer days and shorter nights. Mother Nature has been generous with precipitation so my hellebores or Lenten and Christmas roses are in good form and the fleshy buds are beginning to swell in preparation to bloom. Instead of specific resolutions, this year I plan to garden more mindfully—to plan more and enjoy gardening in the current moment. Most good gardens owe their beauty and efficiency to proper planning. I love the process of planting so much that often my planning is more of a fleeting thought as I plop a new plant into its new home. Such impulsive planting leads to regrets and replanting. Much time, aggravation, and physical work is incurred when a minute or two of planning could have resulted in the completion of a satisfying task.

I believe good gardening practices begin not in the soil but in the mind of the gardener. The next stage is to put the plan to paper—it’s much easier to draw out the garden plan on graphing paper and evaluate the options than to be in effect a mindless gopher digging holes with abandon. Sure, such planning requires patience, commitment, and effort but planning needs to be considered as important to the act of gardening as planting the seeds and setting the plants.

Gardening is nothing if it’s not considered a process—the plans made in the cold winter with good gardening books and those beautifully printed mail order catalogs can be as fun and rewarding as actually working in the soil. I really enjoy shopping online for specific plants and doing a little “window shopping” without the guilt of knowing trees were sacrificed to bring me a printed page. I have learned that it is important to read the descriptions for matching colors than to rely on the highly variable “screen colors”. Winter is also a great time to view instructive videos made possible by our state’s extension service and presented online. I find that the videos on pruning have been invaluable and a pleasure to view. Just search under a request such as “how to plant a fruit tree” or “how to prune roses” and the extension services of many states can be accessed. Just be careful to evaluate the information as it relates to the southeast region. Some to the measures necessary to protect plants in Maine are not necessary for our warmer climate.

Winter is also a great time to make some purchases of new garden books. The prices are great at this time of year and time spent on gardening in summer months can be spent reading in a comfortable chair and in front of a warm fire (or gas logs). Reading about gardening can revive the passion of gardening as we could possibly discover a new collection of plants. I fell in love with succulents after reading Gwen Moore Kelaidis’s book titled Hardy Succulents, and am currently reading Taylor’s Guide to Ornamental Grasses edited by Roger Holmes.

I hope all of you, gardeners and non-gardeners alike have a productive and positive New Year. Remember that a little gardening with your mind will save you over working your back and hands.

December is holiday time for many of us despite our differences in religion and culture. If you are a gardener or are buying gifts for gardeners; your gift could mean more than just an obligation; it could be a challenge to recycle, beautify your neighborhood, give someone hope or delight the senses.

The obvious choice for giving to gardeners is finding the perfect tool. Such a tool that becomes an extension of the hand is more personal. Rose gardeners will love to receive leather gloves that extend to the elbow protect hands and arms. Atlas makes a wonderful small gift for any gardener since they come in various sizes. Consider tools that are ergonomic—that is designed for the human body, especially the hands.
A quality sharp set of clippers or loppers can make a difficult job manageable and aid painful joints due to arthritis. I love my hand tools with plastic handles—digging is much easier and a lot less painful.

Another favorite of mine is the gift of a plant. Please research to make sure the person you’re giving the plant to is not allergic to it and that the plant is not poisonous to small children and pets. Think small, useful, or the unexpected. My favorite plant gift is bulbs because they renew the soul and provide a gift that lasts a period of time. I give amaryllis bulbs with a nice container and instructions for growing. Try “Apple Blossom “ for a beautiful bloom in the bleak mid-winter. Herbs are a welcome addition to a kitchen-themed gift. Often you can find rosemary plants trimmed into the shape of Christmas trees during the holidays. Combine this gift with a Master Gardener cookbook and you have a great gift for the aspiring chef. Give a fresh wreath for a special friend’s door—a busy mom will thank you for relieving her of the chore of decorating.

One year I received a compost bin and a bag of compost activator. It was the gift that has kept on giving since I just recently filled it full of fallen leaves. I also have a covered compose bucket that encourages me to collect my vegetable scrapes for the compost bin. Either item would make a great gift for a young couple with a new house since it could inspire the two to do their part to make for a cleaner and more beautiful environment.

Perhaps the very best gift a gardener could either give or receive is the gift of knowledge and time. Offer to rake an elderly or disabled person’s yard. Help a new or current homeowner design a theme garden such as a butterfly or hummingbird garden. Purchase a gardening book for that special gardener that will help him or her identify existing plants in the yard. A great resource is Allan M. Armitage’s book, Herbaceous Perennial Plants. Not only does this book offer a vast amount of information, it has great photographs.

I certainly hope all you gardeners and non-gardeners have a happy holiday season full of fellowship and hope for the upcoming year. May dreams of unusual plants, tools, and books “dance in your heads” the way sugar plums dance in the heads of children. Use the patience and inner reflection winter brings to make the world a kinder, more peaceful place.

When I look out my window on this November afternoon I see the misty rain falling gently on the leaves I haven’t finished raking into my compost heap, making them slick and shiny in red, gold, and brown on the still green grass. I’m finally at peace with the change of season and ready to plan my spring bulb garden. I receive the brightly colored catalogs through the mail and over the internet. I browse and take notes as I enjoy the task.

I remember other bulb gardens of my past. The fall my beloved mother-in-law planted old heirloom daffodils from her own yard, among the trees in my then front lawn. I was pregnant with my first child and was so nauseas I couldn’t bend over to help her. The daffodils bloomed in provision and I, round and proud, gave birth to my son, Miles, in April. I fondly remember the fall after my second son, Ryan, turned one in August. I taught my two toddlers how to plant bulbs with the root end down and stem up. The next spring, my little ones ran to the red tulips and gently touched each one, huge smiles on their faces. Both sons are college graduates now. I recall the fall I helped thirty juniors and seniors after school one day plant two hundred bulbs in the Shakespearian garden I designed in the high school court yard. Most of those students didn’t know the right end of a bulb to plant; however; some of them I told me that years later they planted bulbs with their own children.

Bulb planting itself is the perfect metaphor describing the leap of faith gardeners take every time they plant something in the dirt. It’s amazing that a bunch of round roots with a papery brown husk can suffer the cold and wet of winter and emerge into the fresh green leaves and brilliant hues of daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinths.

A wonderful couple I know just celebrated their fiftieth anniversary and used two bulbs to illustrate the investment of time in their lives together and the result of three daughters and four grandchildren. The bulbs were tied in a golden burlap and tied with a scroll bearing the following hymn called “The Promise”:

“In the bulb there is a flower;
In the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise:
Butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter
There’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season,
Something God alone can see.”

Please share the delight of planting bulbs in the fall with someone you love. I have and I have memories of happy times and I plan to create more in the future.

Circle Of Life

In October it can be easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tasks, such as raking leaves and removing spent annuals, that we often miss out on some of the more pleasant activities. This fall as I fight the battle of leaves in my yard, I will be thankful for the rich compost they will produce next summer. I’ll help them along in this task by adding compost activation enzymes and providing the water needed to assist in that process. My current beds of bulbs and perennials will get a nice protective layer of these same leaves to protect them from the ravages of winter. Rather than equating leaves with drudgery, or as simply something to discard at the curb, I plan to use my leaves to enhance my garden, knowing that they will nurture future leaf, fruit, and petal.

I will take cuttings of my bright and multi-colored coleus, whose happy colors brought such joy this summer, instead of merely throwing them into the compost bin. I will allow my annuals that are not hybrids to go to seed and collect them for the next summer.

I will consider the task of separating the overcrowded perennials as a way to get free plants to exchange with my fellow gardeners instead of regarding this activity as just another boring task.

To reward myself for working hard in the garden, I’ll make a fall display with potted mums in gold, purple and burgundy. I’ll “make” a barrel of everlasting apples by painting black walnuts red and make a sheath of mixed grasses that mature in the fall.

Since fall is a better time to plant shrubs and trees, I will celebrate my personal Arbor Day in October and plant a maple to celebrate the fall, not as a time of death in the garden, but as a time to allow roots to nestle in the cool soil and develop before I ask them to complete the monumental task of budding and leafing in the spring.

I intend to make the recycling symbol with its never ending arrows pointing forward as my own symbol, reaching from season to season, each preparing for the next. Instead of submitting to a feeling of fall melancholy, I will ask other gardeners to join me as I truly celebrate fall as another season for growth, an investment for the resting season of winter, knowing that the certainty of spring and the emergence of new life are also part of nature’s plan.

A week of lower temperatures reminds us that Summer is aging into Fall. This can be a difficult time for gardeners who follow the traditional garden in the spring and summer. Sometimes we need a reminder that the change of seasons is natural, that fall and winter bring us spring and summer.

For me, that reminder came in the form of a visit to Arthur Duckworth’s Apple Orchard Farm with the Gaston County Gardeners. This is no “hobby farm”, it is a self-sustaining farm—meaning that the farm pays for itself and is not subsidized by a “real” job or a family trust. Visiting this farm was very much like the southern tradition of Home Coming to me in that I grew up on such a generalized farm and when I left home I moved to a beef cattle farm in which the cattle were fed hay from the same land in which the animals were pastured on a rotating basis

Mr. Duckworth’s love for his work was apparent as he patiently explained the process of working with bees. He described the roles of different bees in the hives and since the majority of the group were women, we were amused to learn that all the worker bees were female, that the drones (males) were used only for reproduction, and that the worker bees chewed the wings off the drones and removed the drones from the hive at the appropriate time. The men in our group were understandably less amused.

Even though the summer garden at Apple Orchard Farms was ending, it was obvious that the garden had produced well. Much research and care was implemented to create a soil mix and a garden plan that was environmentally and productively sound. In fact, there were still plump tomatoes hanging from staked plants.

All of the farm’s pork, eggs, and beef are free of hormones and antibiotics. The Master Garden group was delighted to see several baby pigs even though the smell of the hog area was less than delightful. We saw cattle grazing in a pasture and heard the cackle of the free-range chickens. Mr. Duckworth sells the eggs but leaves the production of the actual chickens to one of his neighbors.

As our group toured the farm, I felt a curious sense of peace. Here was a farm that was managed efficiently but with much pride and commitment. There was a time for every purpose on the farm. Seasons were a natural component, each one making preparation of the next growing year. The manure and plant refuse from one year was the compost that enriched the soil for another year. In other words, a good farm is one in which nothing is stagnant, each tiny task or action is the basis of some future success. This fact makes my fall blues seem trivial and self-absorbed. Perhaps this year I’ll contemplate the larger design, the ebb and flow of the seasons, and the wonder of God’s grand design.

In the Carolina’s, August can be a time of weak and needy annuals, hot and humid days, and slug-eaten hostas. (more…)