The Mysterious Garden Muse

“Talking Tulips with Eric Olson of DeVroomen,” By Becke Davis Tulips are one of the most easily recognized heralds of spring, providing welcome color in beds and borders. To landscape contractors, though, tulips sometimes spell trouble. “They worry about deer damage and tulips only lasting one year,” observes Eric Olson, sales and marketing adviser of De Vroomen Holland Garden Products in Holland, MI. While Olson agrees that deer can be a problem, he adds, “People need to try other types of spring flowering bulbs. Tulips are not the only spring flowering bulbs, so try some of the other spring beauties. There are no deer resistant tulip varieties yet, but researchers are working on it and getting closer. Maybe some day we will have this problem figured out. As for the other concern, we do have new research on tulips that perennialize. You can also plant a combination of early, mid and late blooming tulips you can have 40 days of bloom, from the first part of April to mid-May in the mid-...

Where Have All the Bees Gone?" By Becke Davis "Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put his head between his paws and began to think. First of all he said to himself: "That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee." Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey." And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it." Ever since A.A. Milne's tales of Winnie-the-Pooh were published more than half a century ago, Pooh's adventures with bees have made the honey bee more of a familiar face than a menace with a sharp sting. In the real world, some people are concerned that declining...

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is going to be our featured mystery for February at the BN.com Mystery Book Club. It is often listed as one of the best mysteries of all time. It's a great book by a British author who deserves more recognition. If you haven't read this yet, you're in for a treat. Sorry about the picture quality, not sure how to fix that.

This month at BN.com we are featuring these two books in the Mystery book club. I've been a fan of Greg Iles' books for awhile and these two very different books have one thing in common -- once you start reading them, you'd better make yourself comfortable because it will be a long time until you can put them down. I stayed up half the night to finish Third Degree in one sitting. Come join the discussion!

Right now it's pouring rain in Cincinnati, but I thought I'd share some pictures that I took last winter. This isn't good for the trees, but it is certainly beautiful in its own way.

Wow, I really have been a slacker about this blog. I'll try to do better in 2008 -- does that sound like a resolution? Under the heading: "Excuses, excuses" I'd just like to point out that I was away more than I was home in 2007. The new year is continuing to follow this trend. Since I last wrote, I've had so much going on I hardly know where to start. My news isn't all garden related, so somewhere along the line I may have to change the name of this blog. Oh well, if you will bear with me we'll see how it goes. In the latter part of 2007, I was in Chicago about every other week. We have been thinking about moving back up there, maybe to a small place in the city. Now that we are empty nesters the call of the big city is strong again -- we did love living in London all those years ago and we've always liked Chicago. Then again, Chicago is the "green" city not the "cheap" city -- we saw this great condo near Belmont and when we check...

This month, in addition to moderating the Garden and Mystery Book Clubs at BN.com, I am moderating a discussion of Nicholas Sparks' new book, The Choice. The discussion group kicked off on October 1st -- please join us! In November, the Mystery Book Club is going back to Agatha Christie -- this time a Miss Marple mystery: Sleeping Murder. In December, the Mystery Book Club will be talking about the new Christmas release by Janet Evanovich: Visions of Sugarplums. The Garden Book Club is more general discussion and book recommendations than discussions of individual books. Sometimes we do have an author visit, though, as when Bill Alexander joined us to talk about his great book, The $64 Tomato.

In October, the Mystery Book Club at BN.com will be talking about the Ira Levin classic (and his first book) A Kiss Before Dying. It has been made into movies twice, once in the 1950s, starring Robert Wagner and Joanne Woodward, and once in the early 1990s with Matt Dillon and Sean Young, so we'll probably talk about those, too. For those of you who aren't familiar with Ira Levin, he went on to write Rosemary's Baby and other classics. Looking ahead, our featured mystery in November will be Agatha Christie's Sleeping Murder (a Miss Marple) and in December we will feature Janet Evanovich's new Stephanie Plum, Visions of Sugarplums. Starting in either November or December, I'm not sure which, I will also start moderating a stand-alone book club featuring the new Nicholas Sparks book. In the meantime, we are still talking about Ruth Rendell's eerie book, The Water's Lovely, if you feel like joining the conversation!

This is a little advance notice for those of you who are following the Mystery Book Club at BN.com. We will be kicking off the discussion of Agatha Christie's classic, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd on Monday, August 6. We've also just made the selection for our September mystery book feature: Ruth Rendell's new non-series mystery, The Water's Lovely. Right now it's only available in hardback form but it will be published in paperback form later this month. Rendell is a great British mystery author, I think she was recently made a Dame of the British Empire (like Agatha Christie was) but her books are much darker and more complex. Join us in September if you'd like to discuss this book!

It's one day and counting until the new Harry Potter book comes out. The publishing world has never experienced anything like this and since this is the last book in the series, I'm sure they are going to milk this for all it's worth. I've read all the Harry Potter books and I've seen all the movies except the one that just came out (my kids have seen it and they loved it). I prefer the books to the movies but my favorite has to be the first book in the series. It was so much fun to meet Harry and his friends for the first time, in that magical world. I've preordered my own copy from England, but both of my kids will be at Barnes and Noble in Orlando to get their copies at midnight tomorrow night. They may even dress up for it -- I wouldn't put it past them. Oh, and did I mention these are college kids? Apparently dorkiness is an inherited trait. (Sorry, kids.) I may go to my local bookstore at midnight just to join in the fun. Anyway, stop in to the book cl...

Starting in August, the Mystery Book Club at Barnes and Noble's website (www.bn.com, click "Book Clubs") will be featuring The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the Agatha Christie classic. While it's not my favorite Christie, it is -- along with Murder on the Orient Express -- her most controversial book. A new hardcover of the book has just been published and we are using that as an excuse to get this discussion going. I'm a diehard Agatha Christie fan -- read my first one, Funerals are Fatal, at age 15 and I've been hooked ever since. I'm still moderating the Garden Book Club at BN.com but that site is quiet at this time of year -- gardeners are out in the garden in the summer! Except for me -- between writing and traveling this year, I've barely had time for my yard at all. It is unusual for me to travel this much but I figure it goes back to that "to every thing there is a season" and this year it is apparently my season to travel rather than to ...

With the chill of winter fresh in our memories, it may seem like summer with its shimmering heat is taking forever to arrive. May and June will soon be upon us, though, ushering in the seasonal craving for brightly colored flowers that seems ingrained in us all. Garden centers will soon be selling everything in bloom as fast as they can set it out, and landscape contractors will have their hands full filling beds, borders, containers and window boxes with foliage and flowers. After the grays and browns of winter, not to mention the mud-spattered, once-white snow, all a plant needs to sell itself is color, color, color. Take advantage of this seasonal madness by heating up the color palette in your plant installation and design. Crank up the heat with vivid scarlet, flaming orange and glowing yellows, whether you focus on annuals or perennials, and whether you are working in beds or containers. Perennial flowers tend to have a short bloom period but they also have the benefit of re...

I had a stopover in Dallas on my way home from McAllen. The combination of a big storm and Memorial Day weekend meant that I was stuck in Dallas for a couple of days. Luckily, I have friends and relatives in that area so it turned out to be a fun opportunity for some unplanned visits. I spent one night with my aunt and uncle in Carrollton. They have done wonders with their garden/landscape. I'm attaching some pictures of their yard. (More pictures to follow -- I have to reformat some of the best ones.)

In May I spent some time in McAllen, TX with my sister -- she's been there for several years but this was my first visit. I've been to Texas many times but never to this part of the state. McAllen is right on the border with Mexico, further south than Corpus Christie, and for some reason I was expecting it to be desert, sage-brush country, something like Amarillo. Instead, I found it very flat -- reminiscent of the part of the midwest where I grew up, in that respect -- but the plant life is actually sub-tropical. It wasn't all that different from Orlando, which really surprised me. My sister lives across from a gated estate that is beautifully landscaped. One of the residents of the estate, Mr. Larry (that's his last name, I'm not sure I've spelled it correctly), gave my sister and me a guided tour of the estate and several people let me take pictures. I'm posting a selection of them, including one of my sister and Mr. Larry. It was hot as blazes when we we...

My daughter lives in Orlando and works for Disney. I try to get down there every year for the Epcot Flower and Garden Show which runs from early April to the beginning of June. I love Epcot anyway, and the flower show is just icing on the cake. I have so many pictures from this event, it might take more than one post to show even a small sampling.

The Cincinnati Flower Show is the only flower show in the United States that has the endorsement of England's Royal Horticultural Society. Under the leadership of Mary Margaret Rochford and the Cincinnati Horticultural Society, this show draws thousands of people from all over the U.S. -- even some from around the world. I have had the privilege of working with the show for about a dozen years. I am going to attach some pictures from this year's show. Enjoy!

Another of my favorite haunts in Cincinnati is Rowe Arboretum on Muchmore Road in Indian Hill. If you go there, it's a very windy, hilly area with lots of deer. I got to know Rowe Arboretum, in a way, because of the deer problem. Chris Daeger is in charge of the grounds and pretty much everything else at Rowe Arboretum. I met Chris originally at a meeting of the American Conifer Society when it had a rare meeting in Cincinnati. Since then, I run into Chris pretty regularly when we both work on the Ask the Experts panels at the Cincinnati Flower Show. When I first met Chris, though, he was giving a talk to the Conifer Society on his problems dealing with deer at Rowe Arboretum. He made his point quickly and effectively by plonking a huge, dead shrub on the podium -- a shrub that had been killed by deer. Since then, Chris has become the person I always check with first when I'm writing about deer, because he always knows the latest deterrents -- what works, and what doesn't. ...

One of my favorite places to visit every spring is Krohn Conservatory, up by Eden Park, the art museum and Playhouse in the Park. Actually, there is something to see at the conservatory no matter what time of year you visit. Spring is my favorite because the magnolias and crabapples around the museum are in bloom then, and there are all kinds f blooming bulbs. If you go later in the year, be sure to catch the hot air balloon show at the mirror lake at Eden Park. I'll attach a photo taken by Devon Upton -- the balloons were shot by Devon, I took the plant pix. Back to the Krohn: in addition to their seasonal features, they always have a tropical rain forest in one part of the conservatory, while in other areas you can view bonsai trees, orchids, cacti and succulents. The conservatory is free to residents -- in fact, I'm not positive, but I think it's free to all visitors now.