The Mysterious Garden Muse

I had a fun weekend in Robinson, Illinois at the Zwermann Arts Theater, Lincoln Trails College. I was one of several speakers at the University of Illinois Extension program, "A Winter Day in the Garden," sponsored by Crawford County Master Gardeners and Lincoln Trails College (which now offers horticulture classes). The keynote speaker was Erica Glasener, a horticulturist, author and host of HGTV's "A Gardener's Diary." Erica's presentation was "On the Road with a Gardener's Diary: People, Places and Plants." She had some amazing slides of gardeners and the people who created them from one end of the country to the other. Erica lives in Atlanta with her husband and young daughter -- she has a rich and varied background in the gardening world. The brother and sister team of Judy Burris and Wayne Richards did a fascinating and hilarious presentation called "Butterflies: Gardening with a Purpose" that covered their first baby steps ...

“Plants for Containers - Anything Goes!” By Becke Davis Containers are one of the hottest trends in gardening, a trend that continues to heat up as the marketplace tries to keep pace with consumer demands. It’s been a long time since containers were simple plastic or terra cotta pots filled with petunias, spikes and vines. As customers started experimenting with containers, the selling season began to inch back from frost-free dates to early spring, with pansies, violas and potted bulbs filling the cold season pots. The season stretched out at the autumn end, too, with ornamental grasses, topiaries of boxwood, ivy and conifers, asters, mums, cabbages and kales, with berry-covered twigs and evergreen boughs filling in after the hard frosts hit. The availability of unusual annuals has changed dramatically since containers hit the big time. Annuals are no longer just bedding plants -- they are equally container plants, if not moreso. New cultivars of old favorites abound, as well as pre...

“Old Plants Find New Popularity” By Becke Davis Not so long ago, you couldn’t give away goldenrod. It was considered weedy and sneeze-causing. The color was beautiful, adding warmth to the late summer landscape, but goldenrod was looked on with as much relish as poison ivy. Things have changed. Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) has been upgraded from a weed to a native wildflower by current attitudes, while new and improved cultivars have recently elevated this plant even higher to the status of a valuable ornamental perennial. Exonerated from its reputation as an allergy source (ragweed, which often grows nearby, was found to be the cause), with its weedlike tendencies tamed by science, hybrids and cultivars of goldenrod are now touted in prestigious gardening catalogues and publications. With more than 100 species of goldenrod -- many native to the U.S. -- availability is not a problem. Neither is hardiness, since goldenrod can survive in both extreme cold and nearly tropical heat. It is...

By Becke Davis Peonies have been around for years, but for a time they suffered from the stigma of being “old fashioned.” Today peonies are hot sellers for a number of reasons -- the “old fashioned” varieties are popular with those looking to recreate their “grandma’s gardens,” new, shorter peonies are filling a need for those with smaller landscapes, a wide variety of beautiful single-flowered peonies and those on strong stems have removed the problem of floppiness after a storm, and exciting new coral cultivars are drawing in both new gardeners and collectors. Peonies are also exceptionally popular as cut flowers, and as the model for designer textiles and home decorating items. PEONIES, TRUE AND FALSE *Ants are necessary for peony flowers to bloom False. Ants are attracted to the sugar sap produced by peonies when they are in bud. Some believe that there is a more symbiotic relationship between ants and peonies, but this has not been proven. Although some...

“Winter Interest in the Garden: Bark with Bite” By Becke Davis Seasons and that plants that are associated with them seem to have personalities much as people do. The plants and bulbs of spring seem warm and welcoming after the long winter, all yellows and pastels accented by the occasional spark of bright red tulips. Summer is all flash and show, with a rakish smile and boldly colored flowers from top to toe. Autumn is an old friend warming creaky bones by the fire, summer’s gaudy flowers replaced by a final curtain of foliage recalling all the colors on an artist’s palette. Winter might be all silvery-gray elegance iced with frost, but there is still color in aspects of the landscape that catch the eye of discerning observers. The red of winter berries, yellow catkins, wheat-colored grasses, conifer needles of green, blue, gold and bronze, and newly visible bark and branches in shades of mahogany, nearly black and earthier browns, all foreshadowing the start of another cycl...

“The Name Game” By Becke Davis Walter Jablonski of Merrillville, IN, a retired turkey farmer, needed a name for a daylily he was ready to introduce. Roy Klehm relates the story: “Walter had been working in his garden, which was about 50 yards below his house. He was hot and went to the house to get a drink. He was sitting at the table, looking out the window at his new daylilies, when he absent-mindedly picked up a cookie from a box that was on the table. The name of the cookies suddenly caught his eye – Stella D’Oro. Walter quickly verified that the name had not been previously registered.” Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’, which translates to “Star of Gold,” won the Stout award in 1975 -- the rest is history. Naming a plant is not always a simple proposition, however. People who are new to the world of plants often find plant nomenclature a confusing and complex subject, requiring knowledge of botanical latin and other mysterious terms. The term “botanical latin” is not capit...

“Creating a Butterfly Garden,” By Becke Davis Butterfly gardens are different from many other “theme” gardens -- to be successful, the garden not only needs to have a pleasing design that works with the surrounding home and landscape but it needs to perform a very specific task. Attracting butterflies may seem like a fairly straightforward task if you assume that all butterflies are attracted to all flowers. In reality, there are literally thousands of species of butterflies and each species tends to have a distinct group of plants as preferred food source. When selecting plants for a butterfly garden, it is also important to remember that a butterfly goes through four life cycles, with one set of food requirements for the larval stage and another type of food once the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. Some theme gardens need meticulous care and a neat, sometimes formal appearance to create the intended ambience. Butterflies like their surroundings to be a little messy, on the o...

Time for a little rant. Okay, I'm a word nerd. I like to use the right word in the right place and it bugs me when I come across words that have been used incorrectly. I do crosswords, sudokus, cryptograms, and other puzzles and it REALLY gets on my nerves when I find spelling or usage mistakes in those. So, last night I was working on a crossword in one of the Big John's Puzzle Books (which I like because the cultural references tend to be aimed at my baby boom generation) when I found two pet peeves in one crossword clue and had to give up out of frustration. The clue was something like "hearty plant." First of all, plants are "HARDY" -- as in able to survive in extreme conditions -- not "HEARTY" meaning jovial. Those words seem to be used interchangeably, especially by people who aren't avid gardeners and have simply misheard the word. But then when I wrote in the word "hosta" into the crossword spaces I realized it wouldn't wo...

I have no self-control when it comes to containers. My front yard gets hit with full sun all day, so anything in the front has to be able to survive heat, the occasional drought, and sun, sun, sun. Sometimes the heat is too much for me. It's kind of like the porridge in Goldlilocks and the Three Bears. My front yard gets too much sun, my backyard gets too much shade, but the three-level deck is just right. So, my deck is a garden in itself, with wisteria climbing the pergola -- and after five years or more, it finally bloomed this year! There are masses of hanging baskets and containers of all shapes and sizes. I like the deck to feel kind of like a jungle, so I go very over the top. I have morning glories and clematis in containers, too, so there are climbing plants to add height. I have some built-in containers where I grow shrubs. I mix styrofoam peanuts in with the potting mix to keep it light and aerated, and it seems to work. This year the dwarf Alberta spruces I started in t...

Here are some pictures from the 2006 Cincinnati Flower Show at Coney Island, which is on the Ohio River just across the river from Kentucky. I'm a big fan of this show, which used to be in Ault Park but moved to Coney Island about 3 years ago. I write for the Flower Show magazine on a regular basis, serve on the Ask the Experts panels and usually teach a class or two. The show has something new and exciting every year. The flower show is always at the end of April - be sure to check it out!