Creative-SS Lunch Bunch

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Home & Garden Events on page 22 of today's print edition in the Washington Examiner. Since some folks say they have trouble with the Examiner's PDF viewer and others can't find a copy in the many red streetboxes around town, I tried something different this time and saved a screen capture of the listing as a JPG and posted it here -- which you can now click on to read at 100%.

NOT on this list is a local networking luncheon I've started. For the past year or so I've been watching DCWebWomen gather in NoVa and Bethesda/Rockville area and thought we need a regular event like that here in Silver Spring too. So I finally dove in and sent out the invites to various creative and neighborhood list servs. From the reaction they are getting, I think the turnout is going to be big. I've called Panera to warn them. :-)

Here are the lunch details:

FIRST EVER - Creative-SS Lunch Brunch on 1/18
Please extend this invite to anyone you think might be interested:
Calling all work-from-home creative folks in the greater downtown Silver Spring area!
All are welcome -- Writers, designers, illustrators, bloggers, artists, editors, etc.
What? Buy lunch, eat, and network.
Why? Get out of the house and meet some new folks.
When? Friday, 1/18 at 12:00 noon
Where? *Panera, 8541 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910 - on the corner of Colesville & Georgia

Bring? Your business cards, work samples, candy... whatever you'd like to share.
I'll have "Creative-SS" signs up around our table so we can all recognize each other and sit together.

RSVP not necessary - just show up.
If this is first one is well-attended, we will set future dates, trade emails, and hope to make this a monthly thing.

New Year's Garden Resolutions now out in new WG Enews issue

The January 15, 2008 Washington Gardener Enews issue is now out and posted to our archives site here. The feature story is on New Year's Resolutions for the garden and gardener themselves. I have to confess that I'm not much for resolutions myself. I prefer a more seat-of-the-pants goal-setting pace -- meaning when I see a problem I try to fix it right then and there. Many times though I'm swamped with other things, so I see the problem and right it down in my To-Do list to fix it intending to do so asap, but then keep transferring that item to subsequent To-Do lists until I get sick of re-writing and finally do it or just let it fall off the list entirely at some point. Really, how many times do I need to remind myself "turn compost pile"? After a while I have to face reality of my limited time and resources and admit that it is just not doing to get done. When are my garden gnomes going to get the hint and pick up the slack?
PS To the hellebore bud pictured above, WHEN are you going to open for me. I'm waiting!

Bloom Day

I thought this month would be a bust for outdoor blooms to show as part of the Gardener Bloggers Bloom Day. and that I'd just have to list all my indoor ones. But after carefully checking I found exactly ONE early bloom on my Winter Jasmine open day and ONE late bloom on my PJM Rhododendron. If you look close at the rhododendron bloom (the pink one, for you non-plant types that might be reading this), you'll see tiny now flakes as I took these photos during the first snow flurry of the year today around noon. The snow didn't last long and nothing stuck. Sure is frigid out there now and glad I'm all cozy indoors now.

Photo Contest Heats Up a Frosty Day

Entries for our 2nd Annual Washington Gardener Photo Contest are now starting to roll in. There is still plenty of time to prepare and get your entries in to us by January 19. See the full contest details and entry form posted here.

The photos here are by frequent contributor Bob Nixon who wanted to show that even on a bleak, gray winters day there is natural beauty to be photographed in the garden. I hope his pictures inspire you and that I'm flooded with entries in the next week.

We have 3 categories -- close-ups of garden plants, garden landscapes, and garden creatures. There will be a 1st, 2nd and 3rd winners in each of these categories plus one overall grand champion. That makes 10 winners in all. Right now, the odds of wining are VERY Good - hint, hint.

The Lazy Blogger

Today I attended a party where the agenda was eat, talk, eat, more, talk more, and still eat more. Therefore, this blog entry will be short on text and long on photos. I took all of these pics within one small corner of my garden to capture all the wildlife I could witness in a few minutes.

Included here is a brand new bird's nest I discovered in a forsythia bush, what I think is two sacks full of praying mantis eggs, birds sunning and bathing themselves a the edge of my pond, more birds hanging out in a shrub, and one sneaky Chantilly unsuccessfully trying to nab on those happy birds.

I'm Getting MANTSy!

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Home & Garden Events on page 23 of today's print edition in the Washington Examiner. It was a pretty hard to gather the list this week due to Item #4 - the MANTS (the Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show) in Baltimore this Wed-Fri. Basically, the entire horticultural industry is there and no one is offering events and workshops back at the public gardens, nurseries, or anywhere.

I spent the day there today myself. I'm happy to report that the normally long and irritating registration lines weren't so bad this year. Witness the photo at left, and before you leap to the conclusion that it means attendance was down, I can assure the hall was just as crowded and aisles as jam-packed as usual. It was fun catching up with friends and acquaintances like Angela Treadwell Palmer of Plants Nouveau. She is pictured here with one of her new giant flower introductions. Okay, that one is made out of craft store materials, but she does offer some stunning (and real) plant selections that we feature in the 2008 plant preview story in our Jan/Feb '08 issue of Washington Gardener Magazine.

I would share more photos of all the cool and interesting things I saw at MANTS, but I confess to putting my camera away after the first two hours and never getting it back out again. I know, "Bad editor, bad, bad." (As I'd say to my cat, Chantilly.) My excuse is my arms were too overloaded with literature and samples. Plus, I had to leave at least one hand free for the generous candy bowls of bite-sized Snickers, Tootsie Rolls, and Jolly Ranchers! My sweet tooth bites me in the rear -- again.

Doh! A Deer

Dealing with Deer is the Jan/Feb '08 issue cover story of Washington Gardener Magazine and obviously on the minds of many local folk who have seen their yards recently decimated by hungry deer. Today's MNCPPC press release (here) describes the public's reactions to a recently announced deer-control hunt expansion and it is eye-opening. Things sure have changed in the last 10 years!
A decade ago this kind of thing was vociferously protested as cruel and inhumane. Now the hunts are actually being welcomed and encouraged by area residents. In their current large numbers they are no longer so Disney-cute. Instead, the deer are being seen as a disease-carrying, destructive scourge on the level of roaches, pigeons, and rats. See our current issue for the latest methods local gardeners are using to deal effectively with this plague.

New Gnome has a New Home

Don't you just want to give him a pinch on the cheeks? I hope he pulls his weight and a few weeds in the veggie plot. His name is Gerd the Gardener and he comes from the Alpenland catalog. I got him for Christmas from my paternal Grandmother Mamie in northwest Indiana. He is now #3 in my growing gnome collection.
I have a real soft spot for these guys because one of my fondest childhood memories is of playing in my maternal grandparent's garden plot outside of Bayreuth along side several of their vintage gnomes. My nieces enjoy visiting my gnomes and giving them names and back stories. What is it about these foot-tall vinyl garden ornaments that makes them so lovable?

Blogging Bloggers and The Bloggers That Blog About Them

This post is long overdue! Here finally is the link to a blog-writing workshop I attended last month. It was led by online writing guru and local garden gal, Merry Bruns. At left is the pic I grabbed off her "About us' page, she'll be "thrilled" that I used it. I think she looks damn good though and should post this on every one of her web pages. She used this Washington Gardener blog as a case study -- not necessarily one to use as an exemplary blogging example, mind you, but more as one that is a work-in-progress.
The "Writing for Blogs" workshop was well-attended, I think chiefly because it was free and on a fairly hot topic. Most of the attendees were professional writers of some sort -- ranging from government publications to corporate PR who seemed most interested in starting a blog in their work capacity. I don't know why I assumed before the workshop that most of the attendees would be free-lancers or writers-for-fun-not-profit who wanted to blog for a creative outlet. I thought it was going to be a bunch of hippy-dippy creative folks sitting around with their poetry journals just awaiting an online audience.
Instead, I see a room full of very serious suits and hear cranky questions like, "Just how much time is this going to take in my day?" "Is there ANY money at all in this?" "Aren't people just going to copy and steal my work?" Not bad questions per se, but none of these are big concerns to me nor to other regular bloggers I know. My head is in such a different space than these folks. "It is what it is," would be my answer to all of the above. Luckily, Merry, not I, was their instructor that day and tactfully and succinctly addressed all their concerns.
Sometimes I need a reality check and I got one that day -- reminding me that corporate DC (aka K Street Corridor) life is just not for me.

Hidden Treasures

Here is the online link to my latest garden article for the Washington Examiner. It is on page 27 of today's print edition and addresses new habits to form and bad habits to break for the new gardening year.

All of the photos with this article were taken at the Falls Church, VA Garden Tour last April. It was so gracious of these home owners to open up their spaces to garden gawkers like me that day. Looking through my photo files from the past year I realized how many stunning images I'd gathered from private gardens like these. Makes me wonder how many garden treasures are locked up in backyards and hidden behind gates away from the public eye. Such a waste and a shame so many of them are in places that no one, but the gardener themselves and a few select guests, will ever get to see.

Step Right Up!

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Home & Garden Events on page 22 of today's print edition in the Washington Examiner.

BTW if you are considering whether or not to go to the Seed Exchange based on whether you have seeds or not -- no worries! Seeds are not required. Neither is previous knowledge of gardening! We have plenty of both to share and pass along to you. That is the purpose of our event!

The 2nd Annual Washington Gardener Photo Contest is now open! We are accepting entries until Saturday, January 19. See the categories and rules posted here.

Congratulations to Ellen Johnson of Greenbelt, MD! She is the winner of our December 2007 Washington Gardener Reader Contest. We are mailing Jan today spring-blooming bulbs from our friends at Brent and Becky's Bulbs. She can still plant them up until the ground is frozen hard and unworkable, though they may be a bit shorter and later than they normally would if planted earlier. Or she can use these great bulbs as an opportunity to try her hand at indoor bulb forcing for wonderful, fragrant blooms to brighten up your late winter days. For complete instructions on indoor bulb forcing, see the “GardenBasics” column in our November/December 2007 issue of Washington Gardener magazine.

The bulbs in our giveaway include 10 each of the following:

· Hyacinthus China Pink -- a sport of 'Delft Blue' is soft pink with coral stripes on the outside. Many tubular, slightly reflexed florets cover the 8"-10" stems making one large flowerhead; two linear leaves per stem; their rigid, uniform structure lends them for use in geometric designs; plant where the sweet, reminiscent fragrance of spring, can be enjoyed.

· Narcissus La Belle -- a precious little intermediate flower that gives a garden a bright spot and lots of color punch; great in pots; 6"-10"; late-mid spring.

· Tulipa Yellow Baby -- (pictured above) cute as a button; a real half-pint that is about half the size of the popular 'Monte Carlo'; sort compace and fully double; rich buttery yellow; superb in pots and windowboxes; early midseason; 8"-10"; spectacular with Hyacinthus 'Delft Blue'; early-mid spring.

Stay tuned for news about our January '08 Washington Gardener Reader Contest.