Garden Rant

Build a directory and they will come

by Susan
COACHING ON THE RISE
In June of '07 the New York Times ran the first article in history about garden coaches and started a firestorm of media attention, the first hint of which was CBS calling the very morning the story hit the stands.  So I impulsively created a little directory of garden coaches, starting with the four included in the Times story, and promoted the directory here and elsewhere.

Since then, reporters doing stories about coaches have found the directory, contacted coaches near them for interviews, and further promoted the new endeavor while connecting coaches to coachees. 

As for the listees, some are adding coaching to the services they currently offer, others popping up to say they've been doing it for years under another name.  Master Gardeners are starting new part-time careers in their retirement.  A recent hort-degree grad is looking for a different business model and likes the coaching concept.  A few of them have picked my brain for ideas and it's fun to get in on their career schemes.

The big news is that as of today the The Worldwide Directory of Garden Coaches has grown from 4 to - drumroll, please - 89 coaches, and counting.  We also have our Gardening Coach Blog, with several contributors.  (Gotta love team blogs.)

GARDENBLOGS BY REGION
On a roll and being a big fan of regionality in gardening, I created Gardenblogs by Region and blogs are being added almost daily.  And they're teaching me something about geography - no, Rhode Island is NOT in the Mid-Atlantic  region (it's SO easy to confuse it with that other tiny state, Delaware!) and honestly, I have very little notion of the Plains and Mountain and Central and all those big geometrically shaped states. 

To get listed just comment on this post or shoot me an email.

BUT NOT ENOUGH GURUS - YET
Another directory that's small and slower to grow is the Regional Garden Gurus, launched in February of this year.  We're looking for a few large, content-heavy sites, the more regional, the better, and it turns out that not all regions have them.  Or in the case of Texas there IS one, but he doesn't respond to emails OR phone messages to his "assistant" - clearly not the partnering type.

But where's the gardening website for the Southwest, for Southern California, for those big geometrically shaped states?  The good news is I've been contacted by garden writers in several guru-less regions, telling me the Guru website was just the motivation they needed to create a regional gardening site, and they're working hard to get it launched so they can join us. 

So gardeners in guru-less regions, stay tuned.

Photos from GardenBlogs by Region, via Fotolia.com.

Last day to vote for Mouse and Trowel Awards

It's time to get off the fence if you haven't yet voted to encourage your favorite gardening sites and blogs.   The nominees are all here, with links to ballots at the bottom of the page.

Of course the Ranters Four appreciate your votes - you know that.  But register your support for the hard work of webmasters and podcasters by voting in those categories, too, will ya?  Because websites don't HAVE their own community to vote for them and need blogger and blog-reader support.  Maybe it'll encourage Colleen, the already hard-working Mousie creator, to add a couple more categories for them - like Best New and Best Informational Site. 

Yes, I lobby, and lucky for me, Colleen hasn't just told me where to stick it - yet.

More from the LA Garden Show: The Egg Chair

Thanks to the folks at Potted for sharing this photo of the truly fabulous Egg Chair. I fell in love with the orange one, but the black and white versions are cool, too.  This, they tell me, is a retro Latin American design that they've resurrected.  It's made out of tough but  flexible vinyl, and it's oh-so-loungeworthy.

Potted brought only a few simple, modern pieces to the LA Garden Show, but it was enough to convince me that I should make a trip to their shop on Los Feliz Blvd next time I'm in LA.  Anybody in LA been there?

Spotted in LA: The Ultimate Topiary

This dinosaur in Santa Monica was covered in some kind of sweet-smelling vine I didn't recognize:  little white flowers and unremarkable leaves.  But it made for a very huggable topiary.

Gardening on the decline? Not so fast!

Check out this great post by Gayla/You Grow Girl, whom I’ve been following on Twitter, as well as reading her blog. (Her tweat alerted me to this post.) It’s not news to many of us, but she weaves together the various reports on how food gardening is on the rise very nicely.

I’ve been seeing these stats both in the gardening press and the mainstream media, and I know the other Ranters have been mentioning this. In fact, the issue of American Gardener I wrote about today reports on several surveys that show vegetable seed sales up 10 percent and vegetables/fruit outperforming all other plants in garden centers. Except lawn supplies, of course.

Here’s an excerpt from Gayla’s post:

And sure enough we are seeing proof positive that gardening with plants wasn’t dead in the least, it was just quietly shifting gears and growing in places where no one would have expected it.

What I love is that many of the food growers are younger gardeners.

Will I become a convert? Fill in my pond? Dig up my lily bulbs? Rip out the maples so I can grow tomatoes in my front yard? Absolutely not. But this trend makes me very happy. I'd much rather hear about people growing food than hear about them installing outdoor kitchens.

The tulip trials

Short story? Everything came up. Remember when I had some free tulips from Color Blends to give away to readers? I’ve heard from almost everyone who got some, and it seems as though they worked out OK. There was a blend of red and white Triumphs and a blend of red and lavender double lates. The timing was all over the place, thanks to the zone range.

Carol/May Dreams liked that her red doubles were like peonies, but what bothered me is that the two varieties ought to have opened at the same time. And what's that white one in there?

Chris C./Outside of Clyde’s (top) opened as advertised, as did Alison’s (who did not plant hers until 1/13), above.

Personally, I liked the two triumphs. Here are Gina’s (above). Mine are still in bloom, but here they are at their best a week or so ago.

Chris also posted on the bulbs I sent him as well as those sent by other bloggers—wow, did he ever feel the bulb love! Peter Hoh , who is probably in the coldest spot, posted, but I would bet that his stuff is much further along by this time.

Finally, remember how I bragged about my “throw them in a big hole” tulip-planted strategy? Well, here is the before (November)

and the after (May)

These are two single lates: Queen of the Night and Menton. Due to the dryness and the unusual sun and heat this spring, they were much shorter than they ought to have been. You can see the Triumphs on the stoop, in the background. All will be compost soon enough!

Though I think I sent 7 boxes of tulips, these were all the responses I could find—I bet some ended up in the spam folder.

Extraordinary ordinary plants

The May/June issue of American Gardener brought delight and a thrill of vindication to this Buffalo gardener. Three feature articles focus on plants that have long been mainstays in my garden—even though one of them is commonly reviled in many gardening circles, for its … well … commonness.

First up: a nice survey of cranesbills/hardy geraniums. (Will the day come when you can just say geranium and everyone will know exactly what you mean?) Well, we all know the many superlative qualities of these plants: easy maintenance, lovely foliage, shade-tolerance, long flowering seasons with a great variety of dainty flower forms, and an excellent groundcover alternative for almost any situation. But even though I knew all this, it was still fascinating to once more explore the different types. Reminded me of the good old days of the Heronswood catalog; they were geranium connoisseurs and offered a huge variety to their customers. I believe my macrorrhizum and phaeum “Samobar” are from them; both are a reliable source of late spring pleasure.

Richard Hawke’s article surveys the various types, makes recommendations for various situations and geographic regions, and gives culture advice. It’s not an exciting article; I guess these aren’t exciting plants to many, but I love my old friends among them and am always willing to add new ones. In fact, I have a spot right now where a maculatum “Espresso” would be perfect.

Then there is Brian Bell’s profile of lily breeder Dave Sims, who started his love affair with lilium at the age of 9. Lilies are the absolute raison d’etre of my garden: I grow them from June through early September. And Sims’ favorites are my favorites: regale, henryi, and martagon among the species; Black Beauty, Scheherazade, and Silk Road among the orienpet hybrids. Unlike geraniums, well-grown lilium (species and hybrid) are anything but subtle. They’re so flamboyant that I am regularly asked if I have to overwinter them or feed them anything special. But that’s the kicker with lilies—they come back every year and need no special treatment other than a well-placed stake. I particularly liked Sims’ emphasis on martagons (shown at top), probably the only lily with good-looking foliage.

Finally, AG devotes 5 pages to one of the most overused, abused, and denigrated plants in the world of ornamental gardening: impatiens. Sure, we all see miles of aisles of these in the garden centers every summer—BUT. If you have as much shade as I do, and love abundant color all season long, impatiens must be at least considered. And, as this article makes clear, there are now plenty of unusual varieties available. I grew one of them, the Fusion “Glow,” last summer (shown above with elephant ear and coleus) and got tons of compliments. The thing was practically a bush by the end of the season. Claire Wood of Annie’s Annuals was interviewed for this, and actually says she loves impatiens for “their air of mystery,” adding “We don’t yet know all about them.”

All plants have their mysteries, their undiscovered corners, and even plants we thought we knew can offer unexpected rewards. American Gardener clearly gets that. I may throw down the next issue in disgust, but this month, AG, you’re OK by me.

Trees and global warming in your garden

by Susan
We've all read what experts in global warming have to say about the environmental benefits of trees.  And from the gardening world we see articles offering "Tips for Choosing Small Trees for your Yard".  But when carbon counts are tallied by an experienced gardener, it suddenly gets more interesting to people like us, so I recommend to you this piece by Adrian Higgins in the Washington Post.  Here are my favorite bits.

CARBON COUNTING
People who study this stuff say that an 18-inch-diameter white oak will remove 622 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air every year.  Sounds good, right?  But the average two-person household in the U.S. releases 41,500 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air annually.  So if you don't have room for the hundreds of mature trees required to remove that much, Higgins suggests donating to American Forests - they'll plant them somewhere else.

Then you can increase the carbon benefits of a tree 15-fold by using it to shade the house in summer. Remember the solar panel v. tree battle that recently got so much news?  More to come.

And of course the benefits of trees go beyond carbon sequestration to filtering pollution, preventing erosion, providing wildlife habitat and making us all happier.

Go to Casey Trees' website to use their "neat" calculator of carbon sequestration. You can determine exactly how much carbon is being sequestered by the trees on your property, as Higgins did for his.

AND WHAT GARDENERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TREES

A lot of people are surprised when small trees become large trees and the altered light conditions reduce the number of flowering plants to choose from, or the chances of raising a tomato vine or growing grass.  It changes the character of a garden, which is fine, but you should know that. 

If you plant a tree, you should do your best to keep it alive...Some experts believe it takes five years to plant a tree.

Beyond all the obvious reasons to keep our trees alive, Higgins reminds us that dead trees stop capturing carbon.  Then when they're chopped up into mulch and start decomposing, most of the carbon stored in those chips is released right back into the atmosphere.  There's that damn cycle of life going on.

Gardening Teacher as Gift Item

by Susan
Call it consulting, coaching, mentoring or teaching - I don't care.  But when Mike O'Grady's wife read about us in Washington Magazine she decided to give him some garden coaching for Father's Day - smart idea, huh?  She hired me via email, including a nice note about liking the sustainable approach she found on my website. 

See, Mike knows a lot about the benefits of trees and is determined to increase their numbers on his property.  He's planting for posterity - his kids' and the planet's.  And he knows how harmful conventional American lawn care is to the environment and wants nothing to do with it.  He even composts!  But when it comes to gardening itself - making the combination of plants around your home function well and look good - that's something he'd never researched.

So here's what we covered in an hour and 15 minutes.

• How to beef up the shade-challenged lawn organically.
• How to create edges between lawn and borders using Victorian trenches.
• How to deal with major weed encroachment from all directions.
• How to do corrective pruning on an assortment of shrubs.
• Suggestions about where more plants could be added around the property, and which ones.
• Much about mulch.
• Even more about how to water.

In response to "Anything else you'd suggest?" I got gushy about oakleaf hydrangeas, encouraging him to plant three of them in a spot that's very visible from the patio.  "Year-round impact!" I exclaimed more than once, I'm afraid.  But I wanted to introduce the notion of buying plants for the sheer pleasure of looking at them, over and above their contributions to wildlife, air quality and water retention.  I wanted to introduce the retro notion that human enjoyment might count in this whole equation and why not treat yourself to some plants that'll make you swoon?  You never know when that first swoon will turn into a consuming passion called gardening - eco-gardening, of course, but still gardening.   

So readers, what do you think it takes to turn a nature-lover into a nature-loving gardener, someone who buys perennials, gets into pruning, reads a 318-page book about composting?  Someone who occasionally swoons over the beauty he's created in his very own garden.

Now because it's almost Mother's Day, I'll remind readers that a loving son or daughter could also hire someone to teach their mother to garden, whether for Mother's Day or just because.  Here's my 2006 story about the "movie star" client Amy mentioned recently in her newspaper column.

Garish

The great thing about spring bulbs is the voyage of self-discovery that they launch. By the time they come up, you have forgotten entirely what you've planted...or what kind of mood prompted such interesting decisions.

I'm still a little stumped as to what I was thinking last August.  While I've always liked bright-colored tulips, this year, I've got a color scheme that verges on obnoxious: purple, tomato red, and greenish yellow. Of course, the display is getting loads of attention from passing strangers. It's kind of embarrassing.

Still, it's not all bad.  The red and yellow fringed tulip, a variety called 'Davenport,' is really fun.

And while I generally don't like daffodils except in very natural settings, I'm really enjoying a completely unnatural-looking double called 'Bridal Crown.  Of course, its cream color doesn't do much to help this color scheme.  Nothing will help that but the arrival of June.'

Why Most Gardening Advice Is Worthless

Violets as Dr. Jekyll

Elizabeth's valentine this week to sweet violet--and the yes, no, yes comments that followed--reminded me why one-size-fits-all gardening advice is such a crock. Two years ago, I wrote a post defending viola odorata as "the world's prettiest edging plant." Which it remains in my front yard, blooming with the tulips and looking charming and declining to interfere with the front flower bed's deeper regions, while still filling out the hell strip nicely.

Violets as Mr. Hyde

In the back, however, which is slightly shadier, it is inserting itself parasitically into other perennials, seeding at a scary rate, and threatening to turn the whole place into a sweet little monoculture. Two years ago, the front-yard gardener said, "They're lovely.  Not at all invasive."  But if you spoke this year to the woman who gardens in the backyard, she'd say, "I think they'd be really nice...in the alley next to the garbage can."

The only advice that's worth anything is local.  Really, really local. 

A Girl's First Power Tool

I never once went "vroom vroom" as a kid. I hate mechanical noise, think the internal combustion engine is the worst thing that's ever happened on the planet, and believe power tools make a culture soft and allow Asian nations to beat us on science and math tests.

But last summer, I just gave up on the ancient reel mower I'd been using for the past five years. It was given to me by a friend who works for Environmental Defense. He's spending his career trying to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but NO WAY was he using such a thing.

It made mowing the lawn a sweaty, difficult job and then made me feel foolish and taken advantage of to boot.  It wouldn't even cut a seed stalk in the grass, let alone a dandelion stem.  I'd get done mowing and have to go out with scissors to finish the job. So I tried to have its blades sharpened last summer and spent a day being sent from one machine shop to another, all over Saratoga County, vainly trying to find someone willing to do the job. That was it for me--basta!

So I bought the Black & Decker corded electric model above for about $230. The model with a battery was about $400, and since I'm only mowing a small urban yard within cord distance of my garage, it works fine.  Yeah, I do have to flip the cord over myself all the time, though I think it you were less spatially retarded than I am, you could figure out a way to keep the cord behind the mower most of the time.

But basically, I am deeply grateful to Black & Decker. I love the fact that the machine is on only when you lift a lever to the handle. Stop squeezing the handle, and it's off. That means that when I stop every ten seconds to get pine cones out of the lawn up ahead, I don't have to listen to an idling machine while I pitch them into my flower beds. I love the fact that it no longer takes an hour to mow my bit of lawn, it takes ten minutes. And while I have zero interest in the lawn, it is the frame for the garden, and I feel about an unmowed lawn the same way I used to feel back when I colored my hair and my roots were showing.

Of course, Black & Decker hasn't solved every problem with my mangy-looking lawn--like the fact that lawn grasses don't want to grow in such extremely sandy and acidic soil.  Or the fact that the homeowner refuses to give something as boring as a lawn a drop of supplementary water or a lick of fertilizer. Someday, the mower will be replaced...with bluestone. Or the homeowner will be replaced with somebody richer and more fastidious. Until then, great piece of equipment.

Rant on the Road: See You in Albuquerque

If you're in Albuquerque on Saturday, I hope you'll stop by  Bookworks at 3 pm and say hello.  It is great fun to meet GardenRant readers on the road.  You're all so much better-looking in person than you are in the comments.

The LA Garden Show--Who Knew?

I spent Sunday at the LA Garden  Show  at the  LA  Arboretum in Arcadia, near Pasadena. And even though I knew, on some level, that the show would be outside--it's at the arboretum, after all--it wasn't until I got there that I thought:  Wow.  An outdoor garden show.  What a concept.

I understand why most garden shows have to be indoors--they are held in early spring, presumably to give gardeners a fix before the snow melts, and in most parts of the country, that means that they have to be at a convention center, not a botanical garden.  And in those climates, it just doesn't make sense to wait until summer to have a garden show--it sort of misses the point.

Or does it?  In LA's mild climate, they could hold an outdoor garden show just about any time of the year, but this one comes in early May, well into the gardening season.  Here are the advantages to their approach--and all the reasons why I highly recommend this show. If you're going to be in LA this time next year, make a point of going to this show. And you magazine editors who say you check GardenRant every morning: Give this show more coverage!  It's incredibly cool!

Mature and realistic display gardens.  No hustling your show garden into the convention center three days before the event.  These gardens set up right on the lawn (the lawn needs a little TLC after this is all over, but nobody seems to mind), and they have close to 3 weeks to set up.

Display gardens blend in with real gardens.  With the actual arboretum gardens in the background, these show gardens look like they've been there forever.  Look at this Monrovia demo garden--can you tell where the display ends and the real garden begins?  (Sorry  about the crappy cell phone photos)

No piped-in pre-recorded bird calls. At the LA Arboretum, actual birds twitter in the trees, and actual peacocks stroll the grounds.  It is very charming to be standing at the Smith & Hawken booth contemplating their garden tools and to have a peacock stroll up to you and proposition you with a display of feathers.  (Sorry, mister, I'm married.)

More kid-friendly, and by that I don't really mean kid-friendly.  I mean:  less annoying, stroller-wise.  It's just hard to navigate a crowded convention center with kids and strollers, and it's harder for everyone else to navigate around the kids and strollers.  But this is a wide open space, so there's plenty of room to let the kids run around or do whatever they need to do.  You can bring a picnic, you can let Junior take a nap under a tree.  Nice.

TONS of plants for sale.  Big, healthy plants that are ready to go in the ground.

VERY multicultural.  This has nothing to do with the fact that the show is outdoors; it's just LA.  Lots of people talking about gardening in lots of different languages.  Lots of Asian and Latino families. I love that.

I'm really not knocking the early spring convention center model.  By February, I am totally ready for a fix.  The Seattle show, for example, in cosmopolitan downtown Seattle, is a FABULOUS way to spend a chilly February weekend--gardens, shopping, and cocktails, all within walking distance of each other.

But I ask you: if LA does this in early May, couldn't it happen anywhere in early May?  Would you rather go to a garden show at a convention center in February or March, or wait until May and see the same show outdoors at an arboretum or botanical garden?

Urban Agriculture in the News

The director of DC's 7th Street Garden told me about this terrific story about urban farming in the New York Times and observed that reports of the rise of urban agriculture are all OVER the media these days.  Good news!

So when I went online last night to find the story,  just look what was was front and center on the Times website - a "zen gardener" turning her compost pile!  I'm talking page 1 above the fold - if web pages could be folded.  Since then it's been shuttled to the Home and Garden Section but screen shots don't lie.  Here's the story, where unfortunately I found this: "An unapologetic 60, Ms. Johnson has earthmother-y white hair, liver spots, knee socks and gnarly rose-scratched hands that horrify her two fashionable younger sisters in New York and Los Angeles."  Well, as a bottle-blond 59-year-old myself, what horrifies ME is that description.  Is 60 so old that it needs to be apologized for? 

I find this stuff so you don't have to: Gorilla in the Greenhouse and Singing Plant

First Gorilla in the Greenhouse: Although I found this intensely annoying and barely got past the intro, it does have the virtue of being intended to help teach kids about sustainable living. It doesn’t look that far removed from morning cartoons, which I only see because sometimes my husband watches them, so I guess they’re on the right track. The little animation and interactive website tell a story about how kids can help address the problem of plastic bags, as well as generally raises their awareness of environmental issues. HT Reality Sandwich (which is a very cool site) for the link and info on this.

I also found Singing Plant on the RS site. I’m always on the lookout for nature/gardening-based conceptual art installations (I may be in a very small group here), and this one seems kind of wacky. From what I can tell, stroking some of the plants, including a sansevieria (certainly a plant that can take the punishment) and a guzmania, among other plants, cause all kinds of far-out sound and light effects to occur. I’m all for anything that gets people into their local botanical gardens, which need their attention and support. This one is in Copenhagan, but I can see something like this being the attraction for a cool party/benefit at our local gardens. And, again, fun for the kids.

You Can Plant It day? Safe to Plant day? Plant Now day? Got a better idea?

There should be a catchy name for it, like Super Tuesday or Black Friday. Isn’t the day when it’s safe to plant out annual flowers and young vegetables just as important as a primary that may or may not mean anything, or a day when shopping is like fighting for the last seat on the last Titanic lifeboat?

But there isn’t a name. Perhaps the fact that this date changes from zone to zone—and in some zones does not even exist—has something to do with it. I don’t know about you, but the day when we can plant feeling relatively secure from frost is a pretty big deal around here. The nurseries have great fun teasing us, filling their indoor spaces with diascia, pelargoniums, ipomoea, coleus, heliotrope, and petunia. “Look but don’t touch,” they say, “Don’t even think of buying these before … drumroll … MAY 15!” Out of sheer frustration, we end up buying about 6 flats too many of the short-lived pansies that are the only annuals they’ll sell (see above).

Meanwhile, it’s even scarier for our little tiny seedlings. When to risk exposing those to a possible 35-or-under night?

It used to be later. Memorial Day was the wisdom. But now, May 15 seems fine—as far as recent experience goes—and none too soon in terms of the seedlings I have from my mail order purchases. These really seem to detest their cramped black plastic quarters. Worse yet, I have colacasia from Bent and Becky’s that have been sitting in a sunny room for maybe three weeks.

Dates are so ridiculous and arbitrary in this context; anything can happen at any time. Yet, I feel absurdly comforted by the oft-repeated mantra of May 15. I know I will be planting on that day.

It should have a name.

When an actual garden photographer comes to shoot

by Susan
Suddenly, gardenbloggers and coaches are in the news a LOT, and a secret pleasure for anyone who's been interviewed is to compare really stupid questions that nongardening journalists ask and the sometimes ridiculous things they want us to do for their cameras.  And here at GardenRant we've all hooted over a publicity shot of some model pretending to garden - in blindingly white slacks! 

But when Organic Gardening Magazine comes to town, there ARE no smirks of superiority on the gardener's face.  Just the opposite, especially when the photographer involved is one Rob Cardillo (whom I'd coincidentally interviewed a while back), because he knows his gardens and how to capture them for the pages of a magazine. (Go ahead and drool over his portfolio of gardens.)

To begin with, he takes his time.  He arrived from Philadelphia about 3 in the afternoon and worked til 7, then showed up the next morning for another few hours.  I'd been asked to write a detailed outline ahead of time so he'd know exactly what the article would cover (about coaching, of course, but specifically my "tips" for spring) and he drew up a plan for illustrating all those tips.  But he didn't just want to show color and any old fake action shot - no cliches, please!  And he didn't want to demonstrate the same old advice that OG readers have seen so many times before.  So I was encouraged to suggest my own quirky tips and to hell with conventional wisdom!

See, a photographer with Rob's background knows what's new information for the readers and knows which shots are cliches - like the lady gardener carrying a pretty flower-filled basket - yech!  He knows how to create vignettes that tell a story.  And he knows exactly what it takes to create a winning cover - or so we hope!!  But that's enough hints for now.  We'll all have to wait til the issue comes out next spring to see the final result.

At  the risk of over-gushing, I'll just add that when you're busting your butt to get the garden ready and even running the vacuum indoors, then submitting to hours of bullying instructions from a camera operator or photographer, a little courtesy goes a looong way and Rob was a total prince.  He loaned me his hot-shot camera with the super-wide angle lens to capture my back yard and helped me find a wide angle camera that I could afford.  And he'll be GIVING me the entire batch of photos after the article's been published.  Woo-hoo!

I just hope these photos show how hard a real garden photographer works, whether by arranging some sedums in pots for just the right effect or closing in on some teeny tiny vegetables.

ALL-TIME DUMBEST QUESTIONS OF GARDENERS
All right, gang, let's get snarky!  My personal favorites are:

• "What's your favorite evergreen for spring?"
• For the April issue of a magazine, "How do you install a spring garden?" The news that spring-blooming bulbs are planted in the fall really bummed her out.
• "How many gardens do you have?"
• Having just been told that many coaching clients need to be taught to prune because it's complicated and hard to learn from a book, "So, how DO you prune?"

Anybody have some to contribute?  No names, please, just the juicy quotes.  I'm hoping that if we compile a list that's ridiculous enough it'll convince some editor somewhere to take the bold step next time of hiring an actual garden writer for that piece about gardening.  That was the reaction we had here at the Rant to some nonsensical questions by a freelancer for a women's magazine: Gee, why didn't they hire a freelancer who knows the subject?

Gardening with Mary Jane

It is a sign of my utter lack of connection to the local pot growing community that the only photo I have of marijuana was taken in Amsterdam.  But in response to Susan's request, I'll give you my impressions of life behind the Redwood Curtain.

First, as much as we might like to brag, Humboldt County is not the marijuana growing capitol of California, at least according to law enforcement statistics. In fact, we barely make the top 10.  Then again, those are the growers who that caught. Maybe Humboldt growers are just smarter.

As a gardener, it is fascinating to me to think that there is a plant that I am not allowed to grow. So I follow Humboldt's pot growing community with great interest, although I can honestly say that the only thing the sheriff would find under the grow lights in my attic are a couple of tomato seedlings. (we did find traces of a more profitable venture that took place in the house before we bought it, though.  There's not a house around here that didn't have a few grow lights tucked in a corner at one time or another.)

The way it works around these parts is that if you have a medical marijuana card -- which is a pretty easy thing to get from a physician -- you can possess or grow a limited amount of pot.  The district attorney and the Board of Supervisors issued guidelines that make it clear to law enforcement that 3 pounds of dried bud, or a 100 square-foot canopy of female cannabis plants, would be considered a reasonable amount for a person in possession of a medical marijuana card to have.

The result?  A lot of indoor grow operations.  A community that is tolerant of small amounts of homegrown pot.  A fire department that would rather come and inspect the wiring in your grow op than risk their lives putting out fire later.  A code enforcement department that has to figure out how to carry out building inspections while somehow not noticing what may be growing inside. Conservative ranchers who lease out remote, unused pastureland to growers and call it "running hippies on the back 40."

What else?  Cash.  Lots of it. My husband wrote an article for our local paper in which he reported that the wicked weed pumps about $100 million into our small, rural economy every year. Businesses look forward to harvest season, when cash just pours through the economy.  One local public radio station puts a locked cashbox in its parking lot during pledge drive season, because that's the way the growers like to make their contributions.

Doesn't sound too bad, does it?  Kind of kooky and friendly. But there are some downsides, too.

Dishing the dirt on Garden Voices

Ever wondered about the evolution of Garden Voice, its ups and downs, including the corporate takeovers? Of course you have. Check out this great interview on Human Flower Project with Caren White, moderator of Garden Voices. Other blogs are mentioned, as well as trends in the garden blogging world. Fascinating!

Always a soft spot for a weed

Michele is trying to eradicate them from her flower beds, and many of my neighbors won’t even allow them in their hellstrips, but I can’t do it. Violets were my favorite flower as a child—just edging out lily of the valley, another aggressor—and I still love them at this time of year.

After they’ve bloomed, I do pull them from a few areas, but only in a desultory manner. The foliage serves as ground cover in a few difficult areas, though it doesn’t quite last the season. Now, of course, we have new and improved hybrids: violas that supposedly bloom all season like Rebecca and Etain (I think I tried one of them and it was no such thing). And then there are the big cold-weather pansies that are supposed to do whatever they’re supposed to do. I’ve used some of these in containers; the vibrant pansies are great for window boxes. But I like my weeds best.

The bees are worth it

Have you seen Häagen Dazs’s help the honey bees site? Do visit, if not. It’s a charming and I would think effective awareness-raising project. The company explains why they care—many of their ingredients are dependent on bee pollination—explains how they’re donating to research on the bee problem, and offers some fun interactive features and a store.

Sadly, ice cream has been on my list of forbidden foods for some time now, but maybe my thin slim husband would like some of the bee-dependent flavors, the purchase of which will help support Penn State and UC Davis research. In fact, it was he who found the site and, after reading it, asked me if I was growing any of the plants they list as attracting bees. It’s the most interested I’ve seen him in plant types, ever. (He’s in charge of hardscaping, lighting, and the watering system.)

Their bee-friendly plant list is actually kind of strange, but I believe is meant to reach across a wide range of zones. Anyway, even though this is the brainchild of a General Mills subsidiary, I like the website. I can’t help but think it will succeed in making more people care about honeybees.

You can personalize your own bee and email it; above is the one I made.

Money back, replacement, or tough luck?

Did it survive, did it die, or is it yet to emerge? I don’t know about you, but every spring morning I make my tour of the front, side, and back: Ah, finally, the blooms-on-old-wood macrophylla is showing some green! Thank god, only one of the fancy heucheras I spent a fortune on died! What do you know, the ground cover the roofers buried under debris came back!

There are always some casualties. I dug up a bounteous Carefree Beauty rose bush (above, prior to the assassination) and planted it in a new spot late in the season and it didn’t make it. It was a bonehead move; I’m still kicking myself.

This is all standard angst-of-the-gardener stuff. In fact, I kind of want a few things to die to make room for new purchases. But sometimes, the losses are tougher to accept. Take my friend. We’ll call her C. She bought a young red maple, a smoke bush, and two other ornamental shrubs I don’t remember the name of from a local nursery last fall. Dead, dead, dead, and dead. This particular nursery does not guarantee its large plants; i.e.,