Free Plants

One of the perks of editing a garden magazine and writing garden stories for other publications is the surprise boxes of plants delivered to my from doorstep. Pictured here is a recent delivery from Burpee of tomato plants along with a shipment from Spring Meadows of various annuals. The downside to this is finding places in my garden to stick these fun, new items. I'd already bought tomato plants for the season so now have four more I need to find a sunny spot for in my yard. I've already taken over the street-side median strips to set out the annuals labeled as heat, drought, and stress-tolerant. This will be their ultimate test. Now I have my eyes on a strip of land near the railroad tracks that as far as I can tell is maintained by nobody and may benefit from a few additions that I can keep an eye on when I pass that direction on the way to catch the subway. For the rest that I can't find homes for, I'm thinking they'll be perfect for giveaways or prizes to the volunteer reader panel or to the readership in general.

Milestone

I just reordered our Seed Packs - I'm down to my last 3. That means I've given away 1,000 seed packs since last year. Wow! We order custom packs of Eastern Native wildflower mix from http://www.edhumeseeds.com/. Last year I gave the seeds to anyone and everyone we saw at garden events. On the pack is printed our subscription details. However, I believe little new business resulted from the seed pack giveaway and it was virtually impossible to track in any case. This year, we are doing a "get a free pack with each new subscription" deal at in-person events. We're hoping to give them just a nudge of incentive to sign-up right there and not wait until later - which usually translated into never since people easily forget or misplace things in our too-busy lives these days. This also rewards folks who come out to area garden events in some small way. It seems to be working out well and I have had good feedback at the events we've recently attended. Will see how it works this year and maybe change it up again next year.

Gardener's Paradise

Wolfgang Oehme (http://www.ovsla.com/) of Oehme, van Sweden & Associates, Inc. is a big name in the world of DC gardens in the way that Placido Domingo is a big name in opera or Steven Spielberg in movies. So when a magazine reader, now friend, called and said the American Bamboo Society (http://www.americanbamboo.org) was holding a meeting which included a you of Oehme's home garden and would I like to accompany her.
Uh, yeah! You bet I leapt at the chance. Well, it did not disappoint -hard to do justice to it in words. But I'm posting a photo here to give an idea of it. He is just a few blocks from downtown Towson, MD, and definitely has developed a little slice of paradise at the Towson Courthouse grounds as well. If you are ever by the Baltimore area, do yourself a favor and get to the courthouse. It used to be just a flat mowed-lawn and boring would be a compliment. Here is a photo of it as it looks now.
Oh yes, the tour also included the home gardens of Paul Babikow (http://www.babikow.com/) and Kurt Bluemel (http://www.kurtbluemel.com/) - both well-known wholesale nurserymen. They have had a tremendous influence on not just what is offered in our area but internationally as well. Kurt was preparing an order for the Biltmore Estate in his greenhouses. He said he mostly sells to landscapers or large installations now. He is not so much into nursery retail centers and the same with Paul whose plant selection catalog would make anyone drool. They also concentrate on the landscape supply business and are strictly wholesale.
I'm still recovering from this day-long excursion to plant heaven and I'm sure I'll be using more photos from this visit in the magazine as well as much background information in future stories on what is in store for DC-area gardeners.

Updates & Catching Up

I've decided to expand the focus of this blog to my garden and not just the garden magazine. I keep getting garden questions. Also, I just feel more like talking about what great things are blooming right now than totally focusing on dry business discourse :-). After all, gardening passion IS why I started this publication. I considered started a second blog just for my garden - but realized my time constraints and that I'd probably ignore one blog over the other (guess which one that would be!) - so better to combine and address all here.
A few folks have asked about follow-up to a few previous posts. Read on for answers.

What Happened to the Tree?
The tree remains are now removed from my front lawn. Still waiting to see which, if any, of the shrubs and perennials recover before pulling them out. I'm putting a crape myrtle in where the birch was and may move some perennials from a side bed to fill in if needed.
How Did Concrete Plaques Turn Out?
The concrete plaques are still looking like grey bricks and are just as heavy. I think the mix I bought was the wrong formula and need to go back to buy something lighter and not so quick-drying.
How was Open Garden?
The first Open Garden went well last Friday (aside from the car-crash ending) and I was able to get a lot done in the yard during it. This week's Open Garden I'll finish setting up my pond for the season. I already have two hardy water lilies blooming this week!
Can You Help with Regional Gardening Magazine Networking?
I'm starting a private discussion list for regional gardening magazine staffers (publishers, editors, etc.). If you'd like to join as well - please email me and let me know what publication you are with. The case study on our magazine a MagazineLaunch.com has attracted a lot of attention from fellow publishers and those who are looking to start a regional garden publication themselves. I think we can help each other and maybe get some kind of ad space bundle going as well that we can offer to national advertisers.

A Car Ate My Tree

This was NOT the blog entry I'd hope to do this evening. I'm fine - everyone is okay. No pedestrians, bikers, or other drivers were involved. The driver himself was shaken, but is physically fine - thanks to his airbag. By the grace of God, I was in the backyard during this incident. I heard it, but did not see it. What I did see was the look of horror on the faces of those who were looking in that direction.

I live on a very busy intersection and once before a car ran into the front yard hill and took out several of my lavender plants. They were easily replaced. This time though, the driver went over the sidewalk, past the border rocks, up a steep hill, through the groundcover rose bushes and completely demolished birch tree, before hitting the houses' brick wall and coming to a stop.

I loved that tree. Newly planted when I moved in about 5-6 years ago, it had just started to peel its bark in interesting ways. Pictured here is the car exactly where the tree used to be. I'm looking through my collection, but not many show the tree as I'd always focused on the perennials surrounding it or did tight close-ups of the bark.

Amazingly, the car looks pretty unscathed as does my house. Again, no one was hurt and it was quite the show for my surrounding neighbors. I wanted to kick the tow-truck driver who tromped through my perennial beds. Isn't that always the way? Why do the "helpers" actually cause additional damage!

I'll be contacting my insurance company shortly - at this point it looks like replacing the tree is the major thing - then getting the groundcover roses and perennials to fill back in as well. I may have lost an azalea or two - hard to tell as they are under the tree debris and I'll need a saw plus assistance to movie it.

Did I mention all this happened during my first "Open Garden" hours? Luckily my only visitors for it today were neighbors and a few passing motorists who saw the sign and asked where to purchase the magazine. I'll be doing the Open Garden again next week and keeping one eye on passing cars as I weed and tend my front yard.

Open Garden Hours

I had a brainstorm during the Faerie Fest this weekend - actually, it had crossed my mind before, but sitting in the strong winds and threat of rain really brought it to a point of action - we will now have "open garden" hours for the magazine.

Starting this week, anyone who likes can drop by to sign up for subscriptions or renew in person. Folks can also buy back issues, current issues, and gift subscriptions. Additionally, we will have various plants for sale (mostly sun perennials).

The hours will be Friday afternoons from 3:00-6:00 pm starting May 26 and running through August 18. We are located at 826 Philadelphia Ave (Rt. 410), Silver Spring, MD.

Should these hours prove popular, we will extend them through the fall or even expand the days/times of them. I'm really not anticipating many folks, just those who've called and asked when they can come by to purchase extra issues or were interested a look around my gardens.

This allows me to have a specific time to see these folks every week instead of one here and one there eating up my already overextended schedule. It also gives me a dedicated three hours each week to work in the garden, something that the garden and I desperately need at this point!

Diversify the Product Line

Because I'll be at the Maryland Faerie Fest all this weekend (their second annual event and my first), I'm not sure if that crowd will be into signing up for the magazine or buying individual issues. So I thought, why not make a little extra cash and having some fun on the side by potting up my tons of extra plants and by making little concrete word plaques.

Well, the plants are easy - just got to find a few hours between now and Saturday early AM to do them and label them well. The other project concrete word plaques have not been so easy - my first batch I followed kit instructions precisely and the concrete hardened up immediately - not a chance of pressing in words or scratching in letters! I had my sayings all worked out too! From "my herb garden" to "faeries welcome." I'm going to try it again tonight with a different concrete mix - this time not really for resale, but for some fun gift items. Will see how those do and how well they go over with the giftees.

Yes, That's Me

Thanks to Susan Harris aka President of the Takoma Horticulture Club aka The Gardening Coach aka The Takoma Gardener, I'm now famous in this section of the world. She did a profile of me that is in the current issue of both the Takoma Voice and Silver Spring Voice. It is now linked online here at:
http://takomavoice.com/archives/copy/2006/05/features_gardencoach0506.html

The Voice was delivered to all neighborhood households last week and is at street boxes all over town for commuters and other folks. I've gotten stopped so many times this past week by strangers and passing acquaintances that I've lost track. One person even accused me of wearing dark glasses and a hat to remain incognito. (Actually, that is how I normally dress on at Noon on sunny days with my fair skin.)

It is fun to see people's reactions to this piece - I get a lot of "you never told me that" - which is funny as I don't think of myself as a secretive person, but them again they never asked! :-) Nothing like a profile in the paper to break the ice.

I'm going to send out a press release today on the May/June 'Natives' issue and will include this profile reference. Not sure if it is a good or bad thing to tell other reporters of this piece - would it make them what to do one of their own more or less, if they knew one had just recently been done? I'd guess "less" as no one wants to copycat, but then again I've witnessed the herd-mentality in so many things in my life - that perhaps seeing someone else do it will give them the nudge to do it themselves.

So odd to me how folks are afraid to try or attempt something so benign unless someone else does it first. At my previous job in the school supply trade, there was one lady who everyone else worshipped - if she said to order a product for your teacher catalog or educational toy store, they all did. If she ignored something, they all did is well. She could really make or break a company. It was bizarre to watch and a bit frightening in a way to see so much power wielded by one person -- she truly was shaping the education of children and what their parents and teachers had access to purchase. If you ever wonder why every store seems to carry the same thing, you know now - people are just scared to deviate from the norm and lose their shirts in the process.

Banner Results

From the weekend test at Baltimore FlowerMart - I think the new banner worked well - the only drawback is that it is bigger and therefore had to hand from the front of the table rather than from the top of the tent - so it gets blocked when anyone stands in front of it. This happened often but we had another name banner across the tent top and it worked well.

We didn't win or place this year for booth decor - last year we placed 2nd in the commercial booth category - just think we had stiffer competition and some very creative folks out there willing to put a lot more into it money- and time-wise. :-)

New Banner

I've ordered a new booth banner and hope to pick it up today for the shows this weekend. Our old banner, which I will still use perhaps as a table skirt, was simply the magazine's nameplate (what some folks erroneously call the *masthead*). The old banner was great, but I found that just "Washington Gardener" was not cutting it. I cannot count the number of times people walked by without stopping and maybe later came by again and in passing heard my spiel, then said: "Oh, this is a magazine?" That was not good for branding, to say the least. I'm not sure what people thought we were just from our nameplate logo (a landscape service? a local club?), but whatever it was it didn't interest them enough to slow down and take a look nor even to break their stride. The new banner will have the nameplate plus tag lines saying "YOUR local gardening magazine" and "subscribe today." I'm hoping this will at least save me some lung power and also some possible confusion as to what we are and do. I'll report after the next few events if there is any difference in crowd reactions.

*The masthead is that section of a mag/newsletter, "typically found on the second page (but could be on any page) that lists the name of the publisher and other pertinent data. May include staff names, contributors, subscription information, addresses, logo, etc."

Cover Girl

Is it bad of me to say I'm in love with our new (May/June 2006) cover photo? Here it is at left. First of all, it took me forever to find a photo to go with this issue's 'natives' cover theme. Every single photo that was submitted was not a native, too crowded, too dark/light, without vertical interest, or just not attractive. The cover photo I had first settled on - a bay-side house and landscape featuring natives went to the printer but turned out to be too low-res and would've been a grainy mess. Going back to my files - I searched and searched - almost giving up and going with one I thought was pass-able but not very nice, I stumbled across this shot I took in a friend's garden of her American Wisteria. It was probably one of the first ever I took with my current (Canon A90) digital camera and was pur luck that it came out so crisp and well-framed. The reason I love it so much is the colors are our Washington Gardener purple and green plus it is exactly what I'm now aiming for in covers - one strong, clear focal point to grab readers. Then there is the fact that it looks like the Asian Wisteria and for some folks will push a real hot-button with that "natives" cover tag - I can see the emails now! Can't wait to set them straight (and we do have a detailed "on the cover" cut-line on our table of contents page) that, "Yes, this IS a native and shame on you for not knowing there is an American variety of this hated invasive vine." Okay, that will be fun - but most of all, I just think it is a gorgeous plant and one I wish more folks grew in this area.