hot but productive

there's nothing quite like speding the day doing heavy yardwork in 100 degree weather. luckily, i was only the support crew and got to spend much of the day sitting in the shade repotting euphorbia and bamboo starts.

you see, in the highly fertile soil and fantastic, sheltered location that is this yard, even regular plants grow wild. throw in something even remotely invasive and you can find yourself in deep trouble as we did in this case.

still, the euphorbia is stunning in bloom and the bamboo... well, that is also lovely. it just needs to be kept in pots. and pots we had, some from an assortment of ferns that went into the ground. here are the stats:

bamboo potted: 7 - 5 gallon pots, 1 - 15 gallon pot, 1 - 25 gallon pot
euphorbia potted: 6 - 1 gallon pots, 2 - 5 gallon pots
ferns planted: 6 black-trunked tree ferns, 3 lace ferns
chip wood spread: 8 cubic yards (by someone else, thank goodness)

not bad. especially since i have the perfect (potted) place to plant one of the bamboos.

approved!

as long as no one complains and we don't attract rats or bugs i can plant whatever i want in whetever balcony planter i can find. we can plant. we can find.

building community (gardens) with what you have at hand

some of you may remember my pitch for a community garden at work that was denied. well, it may have a second, albeit much smaller, chance at life. it turns out there are planters on the balconies of some of our conference rooms. right now those planters contain dead grass. these pots aren't huge, but they are big enough and deep enough to hold, say, a dwarf orange tree or a couple of roma tomatoes or, yes, an artichoke.

i have sent an email to our facilities asking to take over ownership of these planters for a mini community container garden. will let you know how it goes.

a lovely day

today i spent the morning on my little patio communing with the plants. the tomatoes have gotten so big and one, my favorite little stupice, is full of yellow flowers. you've gotta love an early ripener. the snails have been at the rhubarb leaves and have shorn some other poor plant off right at the ground. unfortunately i failed to mark the pot so I have no idea what it was.

tomorrow, mother's may, will be spent with my parents, building a raised bed in their backyard. the soil where they live is full of rocks and gravel, so the only really viable way to grow veggies is to do it above that inhospitible ground. i hope to take some video of the process and post it to onegarden, hopefully monday, so be sure to check it out.

while i'm at the store buying materials for the bed, i have to remember to pick up a bag or two of potting soil for myself. my jerulsalem artichoke and horseradish are still in the tiny pots they came in — never a good idea for a root vegetable.

i hope the gorgeous weather holds. stacking cinderblocks in the blazine sun is never fun. but it will be worth it. mom deserved a decent vegetable bed, and she's already got the plants to fill it. we're going to have more tomatoes than we know what to do with.

a garden writer to know/remember

garden writer eleanor perenyi died yesterday. i feel a little weird posting about this because until today, i had never heard of her. then again, if my friend hadn't seen the article and sent me the link, i might never have known who she was. strange how the universe works. especially knowing that i was looking for literary inspiration. or inspiration in general. her personal history sounds fascinating and i look forward to discovering more about her.

on gardening literature

i have been thinking about books. i get like that when i go too long between bouts of fiction. not that i don’t love my gardening books, but as a writer, i am one who needs stories to keep my mind and imagination running rich, which is why i was so inspired by gayla trail’s recent post on yougrowgirl.com.

it made me think about some of my favorite works of fiction and how they weave gardening into their stories, often along with social and political commentary. here are a few of my favorites:

- the secret garden by frances hodgson burnett
- the poisonwood bible by barbara kinsolver
- the parable of the sower by octavia butler
- in the heart of the valley of love by cynthia kadohata
- swan song by robert mccammon

as a gardener with activist leanings, it’s no wonder i am drawn to these kinds of books. they speak to me on so many levels. but mostly, they speak to me of our amazing power to rebuild and renew. to reseed and become reborn. even the bleakest of these novels fills me with optimism, because wherever a seed can grow, we can see a brighter future. or, as my mother always says: “where there’s life, there’s hope.”

in short, these stories illustrate one of my most basic belief, that gardening can (and will) save the world.

and yes, i will definitely be reading some of kincaid's work as soon as i can get my hands on them:

apple blossoms, azaleas and more

the parade was lovely. the theme was "lights, cameras, apple blossoms" which meant every marching band, motorcade and float had a hollywood them. there were pink ponies and dachshunds dressed up like the wizard of oz. there were many marching renditions of the rocky theme song and the cast of the high school's production of beauty and the beast in full costume -- everything i expected and more.

what i didn't expect was a post-lunch trip to the sonoma horticultural nursery, and what an amazing surprise that was. i'd been there one before one rainy october day and was impressed even then by the different forms and shapes and greens of their specialty -- rhododendrons and azaleas -- even with nothing in bloom. but this weekend, everything was in bloom. blossom of every imaginable color spilled out into the roadway even before we reached the nursery. i had never imagined rhoddies came in so many colors. they even had a rich selection of rare yellows from cream to canary to practically orange. (yes, there will be pictures i promise.) but the garden didn't stop there. there were dogwoods in white and pink, wisteria in lavendars, pinks, whites and purples. there were flowering cherries and irises and clematis and peonies... oh, the peonies.



an arched colonnade nearly brought me to tears it was so beautiful. and it was not the only sublime surprise waiting around a corner.

a back lit white columbine bobbed its head next to a bench. a fountain spilled from a lion's mouth. a picnic bench sat resting as a breathtaking riot of flowers opened before anyone who decided to stop there. i did.

i walked out of there without a single plant -- my tiny patio doesn't have the room or the climate to support that particular variety of flower, but i packed my camera to the gills with photos. so many that i didn't have the battery left to capture the garden i visited later that same afternoon. but that's another story. perhaps tomorrow.