Helping gardeners grow.
Gardeners from all skill levels have come together to re-create this club of enthusiasts. Please share your comments and ideas as we work together to plan the purpose and direction for our group. News, photos and events will be posted on this site as they become available. Please check back often, or better yet, click to “subscribe” on the left.
For all you gardeners that enjoy birdfeeding I would like to spread the word about Mahomet-Seymour High School’s AG SUPPLY store located near the greenhouse on the north side of the school. It is run by the students and they have a great selection of birdseed formulated to attract certain species. The store hours are Tuesdays, 3:30-6:00 p.m. and Saturday, 8:00 a.m.-noon. All proceeds benefit the students’ college scholarship fund. Check it out!
Emily Kroner
Today I will take the old window screens off the top of my small fishpond. I use them to keep the pond from filling up with leaves during autumn, but the birds have been hopping around, looking a bit thirsty so I need to uncover it. I have a horse trough heater in the pond to keep it above freezing temperature. The fish rest the entire winter at the bottom of pond; no food is necessary. Happy winter, fishes- see you in the spring!
Emily Kroner
For those of us who seek to create a garden developed from deep within our souls, here is an introductory quote from Julie Moir Messervy’s extraordinary book entitled THE INWARD GARDEN.
“Deep within each one of us lies a garden. An intensely personal place, this landscape grows from a rich blend of ingredients – imagination, memory, character, and dreams – that combine in wonderful ways in our innermost selves. Throughout most of our lives, this garden remains hidden from view save for brief glimpses during moments spent daydreaming or in quiet contemplation. But many of us long to make this garden real: to sit in it, stroll in it, to palpably possess it on our land. We seek to give form to our inward garden as an ornamental landscape – an outward garden in our own backyard.
Your inward garden exists in your imagination; your outward garden lies upon your land?–?a private landscape for wandering, for dancing, for daydreaming. Both gardens represent your personal paradise – a beautiful place designed specifically to capture the most positive and refreshing landscape memories; a place that is both a sanctuary from the stress of everyday life and a place of rejuvenation; a place available to you at all times.”
If you have found inspiration in these passages, consider posting a comment by clicking on “leave a comment” above, after which I will contribute another passage from her book in the near future.
Carolyn Haines
Hi Garden friends,
I need information on the way that you retain perennials over the winter.
Recently I read that perennials winter over better, with less stem or root
rot, if they are not mulched. Well, all of my perennials have wood mulch or
dry leaves, or both of these next to their crowns or root systems if there
are no crowns. What is your take on this?
I have so many perennials and I want them to come through the winter
unscathed, if at all possible.
Let me know your advice by clicking on “leave comment” above, and many thanks for your help,
Carolyn
Are you trying to find just the right tree, shrub, or vine for that tough spot in your garden? Try out this online plant database from the University of Connecticut. There are many plant-finders on the internet. I like this one because you can specify many different details in the search. Sorry if you are hunting a perennial, this one it is only for woody-stemmed plants.
Daylilies are a surprisingly simple plant to hybridize. A little pollen from this one placed on the stamen of that one and you will have a good chance at having a pod filled with seeds at the end of the season. A year or two later you will see your first blooms. The picture above if one of my first crosses (starting with great parents is helpful). Like most gardening, there is a degree of patients involved, but you are rewarded with a unique flower of your own design.
GARDEN - This garden’s colorful design uses diverse textures, heights, repetition and patterns of plant layering to provide dramatic contrast and rhythm for the viewer. It’s amazing what can be accomplished in just one season!
Composed of diverse annuals, perennials, shrubs, bulbs and grasses, the garden was designed, installed and grown in only one summer by the homeowner. The new 70’x15’ bed’s clay-like soil was mounded to present the garden well and twice rototilled with copious amounts of well-rotted compost. During planting, additional compost was added to each planting hole. Then, prior to planting drip irrigation was installed to increase each plant’s growth and length of bloom time.
WALKWAY – Even in an early morning shadow, the fullness and patterned rhythm of this garden is evident. Lime Sweet Potato vines repeat themselves, cascading and softening the walkway’s hardscaped brick edges. The bright lime color offers texture and contrast to visually balance the background’s dramatic burgundy Cana. Touches of the garden’s main color theme is evident in the homegrown annuals of Blue Salvia “Evolution”, Nicotiana “Sensation”, Cosmos “Bright Lights”, Petunias “limoncello”, and two Rudbeckias, – “Capuccino” and “Prairie Sun”. The stacked grey limestone rocks repeat the grey in the distant walkway edge, adding yet another textural repetition to reinforce the balance and rhythm of the garden’s walkway pattern.
Carolyn Haines (garden designer)
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