Feeling Fruity

I know you probably can't even stand one more word about food or eating after this holiday weekend of gorging and leftovers, but over at the DC Urban Gardeners blog is a good summary of growing fruit in the metro area.

One tree not mentioned in the piece is the Mulberry. Perhaps because they have done far, far too well in our urban neighborhoods and their fruit is now considered more a curse than a treat. We always disdain what is commonplace and yearn for what we cannot have. Witness that every winter, about the end of January, I find myself in a garden center eyeing the fruiting lemon trees. Oh, how tempting they are - with that luscious smell, those glossy leaves! Yet, I pull myself away, knowing how quickly they'd die in my home, and move on to the displays of more hardy plants that will stand a chance for me.

Seasons of Lights

Washington Gardener Magazine is a sponsor of Brookside's Garden of Lights and we will have a Contest for free passes to Brookside's Garden of Lights as our Reader Contest next month. The show runs 11/26/08-1/4/09 (except Christmas eve and Christmas day).

A few tips on visiting the light show:
~ Go to the Visitor Center first and buy the 3-D glasses for the kiddies and yourselves -- makes for a really fun evening and you can take the glasses home to stare at your own tree and neighborhood lights.
~ Go on "off" nights - this year they are open Mon-Thurs -- the line of cars is much shorter and it is $5 less than the busier weekend nights.
~ Don't miss the new creatures - lion, giraffe, etc. and the ever popular Nessie and croaking Frog.
~ Car or van pool! Fit in as many folks as you can as the price is per vehicle not per person.
~ Bundle up - you'll be walking outside for 30+ minutes or so - and for your own sake, don't wear heels.
~ Look down. Even though your distracted by all the gorgeous light displays, be aware that the paths are dark and there may be unexpected steps - especially be careful on wet or icy nights.
~ Bring a toy or nonperishable food item to donate.
~ Finally, fill out the visitor's survey to be eligible for a prize drawing and tell them Washington Gardener Magazine sent you :-).

Latest WAMU radio segment: Lighting the Garden

Here is our segment from WAMU's Metro Connections show last Friday. (It reran a few times over the weekend as well.)

>>This is a tough time of year for gardeners. With so many of us waking up in the dark to drive to work and then leaving the office after dusk, it sometimes seems as if we won't see the garden again until spring. Kathy Jentz, Publisher of Washington Gardener Magazine brings us some tips on how to light your garden during the winter months.<<

Listen to this segment:
Real Audio
Windows Media

Order a copy:
CD Transcript

Related Links:
Washington Gardener Magazine
Brookside Gardens - The Garden of Lights

New Poster Says It All

On my way to WUSA9TV to do the "Gifts for Gardeners" segment early this morning, I pulled out the new ReadyMade magazine to read on the bus ride. As usual, most of the projects are just not for me. Like the table made of scavenged parts including an old skateboard, pretty interesting, but I'm never do it nor would I want it in my home. But the reason I like ReadyMade so much is not necessarily that I'd actually make any of the actual projects they show, but that it gets you THINKING and inspired. And that, my friend, is pretty rare on the newsstand these days.

One cool thing in the issue was an article on reinventing the WPA-era posters for today. This one at left, has me jazzed. I want to see it on every t-shirt, tote bag, and billboard in the nation. You can get it as a PDF FREE DOWNLOAD. The art is by Christopher Silas Neal. He says, “Solving the world’s energy and food problems would do a great deal to strengthen the global economy, prevent disease, and reverse the effects of climate change. The original Victory Garden program was designed to ease pressure on the public agricultural supply and support the war effort by encouraging families to grow their own food. I wanted to expand this idea to the broader concept of buying and eating local food.” See more of Christopher’s work at redsilas.com.

Grandstanding

So I get invited to sit in the grandstand at the Silver Spring Holiday Parade. I have seen this parade for years from various points at street level and even marched in it myself as part of the Purple Line (pro-transit) group, but I had yet to see it from the VIP section. The good part is that we are right next to Channel 7(8)'s Doug Hill announcing and explaining all the parade participants. Most are self-explanatory and are well-signed, a few though I was glad to have Doug describe. You get to hear fun facts like that Miss Maryland 2008 , Louise Schlegel, is from Silver Spring, but competed as Miss Allegany County. I see after googling her that this was her second year competing for the Miss Maryland title. I don't know about you, but for me, beauty competition are so odd a concept, it is liking learning about the strange customs of a foreign country.

The other fun part was that my friend, Saunya, got to be interviewed on her favorite part of the parade -- "the Bolivian dancing groups" for the record. After the 5th Bolivian dancing group in the route though, one wonders if there were any DC-area Bolivians NOT in the parade. The other good part of the grandstand seating is that all the groups pull out the stops when they come in front of you so that they can be filmed and judged. Though that can be a mixed blessing, it gets kinda awkward when the entire marching band is inches from your face -- you sort of don't want to stare them down, but then looking aways seems rude. Then there is the up-close, high volume brass and drum section, which today was not too bad as it was so frigid (28 degrees!) that I had 3 hoods/hats on covering my ears!

Here are some pics I took - mainly of the crew from Brookside Gardens. I'm not sure who is in the Mantis outfit. Whomever it was, he definitely had his Wheaties this morning -- a lot of pep in that step!

I Lost My Impatiens

Last night's freeze was brutal and about a monthly early in my recollection. Dang, I'm wearing long johns just to retrieve the mail. What happened to autumn?! I still have many, many bulbs to put in. I'm hoping that by the weekend we get a thaw and our normal 50 degree day averages return.

Sidewalk Leaf Prints

Nature-made sidewalk leaf prints are one of the few real pleasures of autumn for me. These are a few that I took with my camera phone on the walk home from yoga yesterday.

Bundle Up - Giving Tender Plants Winter Protection

Washington Gardener Enews

Vol. 4, No. 11 ~ November 15, 2008

In This Issue:

~ Giving Tender Plants Winter Protection

~ Magazine Excerpt: How to Prune Fruit Trees, Vines, and Shrubs

~ November To-Do List

~ Spotlight Special: Brugmansia 'Angel's Dream'

~ Reader Contest: 2008 Maryland Master Gardener Handbook

~ Local Gardening Events

Gloomy Bloom Day

All my oaks dropped most of their leaves at once this week followed by three days of rain now. That means my entire place is calf-deep in wet leaves. Leaving very few blooms or much of anything to see right now until the rain leaves tonight and we have a few days o dry so I can rake these all up.

What I did manage to get a photo of today for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day was this interesting cosmos. It popped up in September and start blooming in October. Still going strong in November. I love the color variation on it and now am just waiting for it to go to seed so I can collect and save these separately. It might not come back true-to-seed, but it is worth a shot.

Top 15 Plants for Dramatic Lighting

Our cover story on Outdoor Lighting in the current issue of Washington Gardener magazine describes the many methods for lighting your garden. One thing that got bumped due to space restrictions was our top 15 listing of plants to highlight with dramatic lighting, so I thought I'd share them here. If you have any of these gorgeous trees and shrubs in your garden, take the time to look at them at different times of day and in different seasons of the year. Consider how they can be spotlighted and showcased for the best effect. Feel free to share (in the comments section) your own choices for plants that deserve spotlighting.

• Thanks to Mark Oxley of Outdoor Illumination for providing many of the plant suggestions on this listing.

The crape myrtles pictured here are at the American University campus near a stretch of turf called "the beach."

• American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana)
• Crabapple (Malus spp.)
• Crape Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica)
• Dogwood (Cornus kousa and Cornus florida)
• Golden Rain Tree (Koelreuteria paniculata)
• Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (Corylus 'Contorta' )
• Hawthorne (Crataegus oxyacantha)
• Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) and Japanese Laceleaf Maple (Acer palmatum dissectum)
• Japanese Snowbell (Styrax japonicus)
• River Birch (Betula nigra)
• Saucer Magnolia (Magnolia x soulangeana)
• Serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.)
• Stewartia (Stewartia pseudocamellia)
• Sweetbay Magnolia (Magnolia virginiana)
• Weeping Cherry (Prunus subhirtella 'Pendula')
  

Plans for the Weekend

Come in out of the rain Saturday and get your holiday groove on. Washington Gardener Magazine will have a table at the Behnke's Holiday Craft Festival & Open House this Saturday November 15 from 11am-7pm. We will be taking renewals, new subscriptions, gift subscriptions, and selling current/back issues. (Note that this is at their Beltsville, MD location.)
. Visit with OVER 25 Local Crafters & Vendors and discover unique gifts & hand-crafted treasures you’ll want to keep.
. Stroll through greenhouses full of beautiful Behnke Signature Poinsettias and many other colorful holiday plants
. Enter several Door Prize drawings
. Purchase Raffle Tickets. All proceeds to benefit: Autism Speaks / Cure Autism Now.
. Join in Fun Holiday Activities from 4 to 7pm
. And don’t miss a visit with Santa from 4-6pm.
Behnke's will be accepting Toys for Tots donations.

This is a bit early for me to get in the Christmas spirit. (Yes, I did just dare use the C-word.) But I figure I may as well give in at this point. I've already started my holiday shopping at the GreenFestival last weekend and have been perusing cookie recipes in Martha Stewart, so singing carols and hanging the lights are not far behind.