by GardenLover | Aug 23, 2013 | Special Topic
Text by Michael Leach; photos by Teresa Woodard
The past-tense season is here. More plants in my garden are past their prime than coming into it.
However, the future tense promises abundant color for me, as perhaps for you. Autumn is a spectacle. Ironweed is beginning to 
flower. Golden rod is not far behind. Buds are plumping up on asters and hardy mums. With luck, Monarchs will add even more visual pizzaz when the crabapples have turned burgundy, crimson and orange. That’s about the same time the flowers of autumn crocus and colchicum suddenly appear over night and the unimpressive flowers on the beautyberry or callicarpa become small fruit that look like clusters of lavender pearls. (Please share your fall favorites that flourish in your Midwest garden.)
The future also brings the golden grandeur of ancient sugar maples on the front lawn. They are but one dab on the autumn palette of tree and shrub color. Breathtaking autumn is the finale of growing season, which is always too short and delicious for me to release without a sigh or two.
When winter becomes the present tense we enter the hospital-waiting-room of seasons — time stands still (maybe runs backward), as the gray gloom plods imperceptibly toward spring.
Shudder as we might at that thought, gardeners spend little time looking over shoulders, being wistful about what was.
Why? Garden is both verb and noun.
This makes gardeners action people, busy in the present with an eye toward the future. We rarely stop considering ways to make our little Edens more beautiful. This will ensure the present tense, whatever the season, is lovely.
We deliberately cultivate signs of hope in the garden. Where there is hope there is life.
by GardenLover | Aug 20, 2013 | Favorite Flora
When is a green tomato ripe?
Image from Tomatogrowers.com
By Teresa Woodard
Thanks to Master Gardener intern and nutritionist Shirley Kindrick I now know when to pick a Green Giant and other non-red heirloom tomatoes. She says to start by knowing if the tomato plants are early, mid-season or later ripeners. Another clue is to check the “days to maturity”. For example, on the back of the seed packet for the classic Brandywine – a late-season heirloom tomato, the “days to maturity” is 90 days. So, if the tomato plant is planted on May 15, the harvest date would likely be August 15.
Shirley also advises to know the tomato’s color when ripe. Finally, she says to feel the tomatoes, and pick them when they are a little soft to the touch. They ripen from the inside out.
Shirley closed her presentation with a tasting of several heirloom varieties. Our favorites included Anna’s Noire, Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Green Giant and Valencia.
by GardenLover | Aug 13, 2013 | Trendspotting
By Teresa Woodard
I recently toured a 7-acre flower farm eager to photograph fields of flowers and hear the back story of the young couple that runs the urban Columbus farm but was surprised to also walk away with lessons on the economics of flower farming and many ideas that could transfer to my own backyard.
After each growing season, Steve and Gretel Adams, owners of Sunny Meadows Flower Farm, carefully evaluate their mix of flower crops. They pour over detailed logs and ask essential questions. Is it worth it to continue to battle the powdery mildew on their beloved sunflowers given the amount of land, labor and cooler space they require? Should they plant more specialty flowers like dahlias and lisianthus that command higher priced tickets? Are there ways to make the newly planted woody ornamentals more productive?
Inspired, I’ve committed to make a closer study of what’s growing in my own backyard by photographing and better recording the types of seeds and plants, planting times, bloom times, fertilizers, pest management techniques, pruning demands and weather conditions.
Call me a heart-less economist now, but look out time-sucking, resource-draining plants! If there’s no return on investment — stunning blooms, continuous flowers, beautiful foliage, sentimental ties or tasty fruits, you’re gone, especially if you’re stealing valuable real estate and resources from the star-performers in our garden.
by GardenLover | Aug 8, 2013 | Favorite Flora
By Michael Leach
Roses are back! No way, you might say. But it’s true.
Many newer roses are distinctly low-care, high-performance plants that are erasing the dreadful popular image of chemically dependent divas. Little wonder that Knock Out roses are some of the best-selling shrubs in America.
Given the challenges of Midwestern growing conditions it shouldn’t be surprising that developers of two lines of these super tough roses come from our part of the world.
Griffith Buck taught at Iowa State University and developed more than 85 roses, while he was there. His plants are noted for their free-flowering habit, disease resistance and sub-zero winter hardiness, according to Iowa State University Extension.
William Radler, breeder of the Knock Out rose family, started growing roses at the age of 9. At 17 he became a charter member of Milwaukee’s North Shore Rose Society and won lots of blue ribbons from the 200 roses he grew.
His breeding efforts were inspired by the amount of work it took. He used 18 different sprays to prevent disease and pests. “I wanted to breed the maintenance out of roses so I wouldn’t have to cut back as the years passed,” he says in an article at the Conard-Pyle website.
Now some of their plants are being evaluated in Columbus for inclusion as Earth-Kind roses, plants that need virtually no care once established. For more, please read Michael’s article in Columbus Monthly.
Update:
Earth-Kind roses are going global. To see the extent of Earth-Kind trial gardens, please visit http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkindroses/field-trials/trial-gardens/.
Only Minnesota and Wisconsin are Heartland states without an Earth-Kind garden, according to the map at the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension site.
Texas is where the testing program started, but the idea is too big even for the enormous Lone Star State. Now Bermuda, Canada, India and New Zealand have test gardens.
Who says roses have to be pampered?
by GardenLover | Jul 20, 2013 | Books Notes
By Teresa Woodard
Step inside the Victorian language of flowers in this beautiful debut novel by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Here, we meet 18-year-old Victoria Jones on her first day of emancipation from the foster-care system. In her first job at a florist’s shop, she discovers her gift of flower arranging and uses it to help change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her troubled past. Drawing on the Victorian language of flowers that she learned as a young girl from her prospective adoptive mother, she tucks messages inside her bouquets and in her exchanges with a secret admirer who shares her passion for flowers.
She eventually creates her own dictionary of flower photos and interpretations of the Victorian definitions, including several of those below.
- Aster – patience
- Forsythia – anticipation
- Jonquil – desire
- Lavendar – mistrust
- Marigold – grief
- Olive – peace
- Rose, red – love
- Rose, yellow – infidelity
- Rose, white – a heart unfamiliar with love
- Rosemary – remembrance (see Debra Knapke’s post)
- Stephanotis – happiness in marriage
- Sunflower – false riches
- Thistle – misanthropy (The flower Victoria chooses to describe herself.)
- Tulip – declaration of love
flower. Golden rod is not far behind. Buds are plumping up on asters and hardy mums. With luck, Monarchs will add even more visual pizzaz when the crabapples have turned burgundy, crimson and orange. That’s about the same time the flowers of autumn crocus and colchicum suddenly appear over night and the unimpressive flowers on the beautyberry or callicarpa become small fruit that look like clusters of lavender pearls. (Please share your fall favorites that flourish in your Midwest garden.)
Why? Garden is both verb and noun.
