About

I always tried to balance the needs of small children with garden “dream plans”. Keeping poisonous, but beautiful, plants (such as Aconitum Napellus) out of the garden; and a pool, when children were under five, was always more of a worry than it was worth. Time does march on, though, and I have a water garden now, of humble dimensions. I am also trying to reduce the maintenance of this garden as I grow older.

Heritage And further back than early childhood, if the genes have anything to do with it! My maternal grandfather was a grand gardener; as many clergy often are. He did not have much ground around his small parsonage, but it was fully utilized within it’s boundaries in a richly compost laden vegetable garden with beautiful old fashioned roses rimming the tiny house. Yes, I well remember hot summer evenings with the job of picking off the horrid little Japanese beetles and putting them in a jar of kerosene. The deep imprint of the smell and look of the vegetable garden soil, which I helped enrich by digging in the coffee grounds and vegetable peelings, is clear and vivid in my mind as any of Proust’s memories.

My paternal grandmother raised beautiful florist flowers of iris and peonies, but it was my mothers garden that gave me most of my experiences. To this day she far outshines me in the production of quality vegetables and the abundance of self started roses. She has a cottage gardens medley of blossoms throughout her city garden which she alone cares for. Certain plants in the garden of my early years are outstanding in memory: crocus lining the walkway, Spirea ‘Anthony Waterer‘ with their tiny fur fluff of purple flowers, the “strawberry shrub” with its clove-shaped, scented flowers, fruit laden raspberry canes on the fence, and a magnificent stand of purple Siberian irises. Of course, there were so many other things, and many still influence my garden choices today. I suppose I am a somewhat nostalgic person.

My Own Garden, in the city I did not begin my own garden until much later when my husband and I purchased our own house, although I had a small garden plot in each of our rented houses before that. They consisted of a small square of ground for tomatoes, lettuce, and parsley, and some room for Zinnias and marigolds. Wherever I have lived, I left crocus, daffodil, and tulip bulbs behind me.

It was my previous, “the city garden” that saw my development as a gardener. I had great success with it and cultivated every inch. It had started with a huge sweet cherry tree in the back and the remnants of someones effort (maybe in the fifties) to create a white garden. In a 4×2 foot space an Annabelle hydrangea, white climbing rose, white peony were planted. White spireas were along the shady side of the house, and scruffy grass covered the remains. That was what I started gardening with: a clay soil over shale which is common in Central Ohio. At that home, the front entrance consisted of a mixed dooryard garden of evergreen and deciduous plants at the foundation of the house, an enclosure of a picket fence with bushes at the corners, a honey locust planted towards the street and a small rock garden of imported Lake Erie limestone rocks, the kind with all the interesting fissures and holes, surrounded with all sorts of miniature plantings and backed with a small holly. The backyard held a winding walk with a vegetable garden and play yard to the left and a grassy area surrounded by the perennial beds. The back deck fronted with a raised bed and shaded with a Bradford pear faced a garage disguised with lush Boston ivy. That garden is fairly gone now, since one does not chose the habits of the next owners of your former home. The size of a city garden was ideal for a beginner, I was able to organically improve the soil with gypsum, peat moss, packaged cow manure, and a meager compost bin. My country garden would laugh at such minuscule amounts! I did work out a system I still use of adding shovelfuls of compost to each planting hole when putting in new plants. Compost for me is a simple affair. An above ground holding area for plant and grass clippings, vegetable refuse from the kitchen, some of autumns leaves, and the carcasses of less noxious weeds. I describe my present garden in the garden pages of my journal. Stayed tuned for the developments!

My Own Garden, in the country This country garden has ‘Kokomo soil‘ which is a dark gray, clay loam. It was once part of the tall grass prairie, a taste of what was to come for pioneers moving out West. They say the grasses and forbs which make up this prairie stood as high as a man on horseback, but there are few bits of the original landscape left now. As far as the eye can see a flat landscape stretches to the sunset, planted with wheat, corn, and soybeans, mainly; dotted on briefly with trees and farm houses, their old barns decaying into the sightline or replaced with new metal machinery “garages”. It has been a challenge to garden here, despite the good soil. Strong winds, wet springs, and dry late summers made the former grassland late to be cultivated (it was an Indian hunting ground, and then became grazing pastures in the late 1800′s) and still proves challenging for flower gardens. And now, with maturity, my reduced energies give way to a more tolerant mellowness. My ambitions are more about how to reduce the workload, than what new and rare planting I might conjure up!

Still, I am an ambitious gardener, far outstripping my abilities and finances when planning. Always optimistic for the NEXT season…this is a trait amongst gardeners; maybe that is why we congregate …we know our peculiarities and even revel in them!