In The Pink - Again

I totally missed Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day last month so I was determined to do it this time round. Walking around this morning I see I have a great deal of pinks and purples and just a smattering of other colors. I guess you can take the Barbie away from the girl, but the girl still gravitates back to her blond roots.
Here is a partial list from memory:
~ echinacea - regular purple and pink-doubles - no sign of my 'White Swan'
~ common daylilies and doubles - just ending
~ liatris

~ pickerel rush

~ water lilies
~ rose of sharon

~ cosmos

~ roses - mutabilis red and white

~ black-eyed susan

~ rose campion

~ hostas

~ liriope - white bloom stalks, purples are later in the season

~ Brazilian verbena

~ petunias

~ impatiens

~ heucheras

~ various hydrangeas - all coming up shades of pink!
~ creeping verbena - deep purple - yay!

~ lavender

~ seed geraniums

~ hollyhocks

~ buddleia

~ Phlox 'Davidii'

~ and a few blooms on my squash and tomato plants

Drive By Plantings Continue

Washington City Paper reports a lack of guerrilla gardening in this city. I'm thinking the need to open their eyes and look a bit harder. Instead of trolling the Net for links bragging about growing deeds, take a walk around the city and see them actually taking place. Just last weekend I saw some colorful, but illegal, flower boxes on an otherwise drab mid-rise apartment, a corner traffic island stuffed full of sunflowers, and a crazy quilt of veggies in a back parking lot of a Chinese restaurant.
Oh yeah, I'm posting no pictures to protect the "guilty" parties involved. I thank them all for their generosity of spirit.

Weeding is the new Knitting

My "how to weed" interview aired today on WAMU Metro Connection -- tune in and listen to it on the old-fashioned airwaves when it repeats over this weekend or on your computer here.

We talked about the joys of weeding -- how Zen it is -- and you know, as much of a chore as it can be, once you start a session weeding, it is hard to stop. You get into a rhythm and the world disappears around you. You focus on just that patch in front of you. Blissed out. The trick is the starting part. You have to get in the right frame of mind. First you get out the knee-pad and dandelion tool. Then you stroll around the garden for awhile trying to find a good spot to start. That makes you thirsty so you go inside for a drink. While in there the phone rings and oh yes, these dishes need putting away. Next you remember an urgent email that needs answering. And hey, another pops up while you are still answering that one and then another follows that. The cat bugs you next for her pre-dinner snack. You say to yourself, I'll go back to weeding next, first though that stack of bills needs stamps. Pretty soon another day has passed and no weeds have been pulled, but didn't you get a lot done while avoiding weeding? Welcome to my world, the island of paradox where procrastinating equals being ultra-productive.

We also chatted on the radio a bit about treats for critters in your garden -- the kind you want to feed like Koi and songbirds. I have not broken open my new box of Cheerios yet, but when I do my pond fish are you going to get a few Os. Heck, they can have the whole box, if proven that they like them -- I'm not a big cereal eater really. I'm more a toast or oatmeal kind of gal. I once read about an anorexic whose secret "bad" treat for herself was a slice of buttered toast. Others may mock and go for Sugar Smacks or Lucky Charms, but I'm with her there -- pure heaven.

A Lily By Any Other Name...

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Gardening Events for the week ahead on page 23 of today's print edition in the Washington Examiner. You can find the Examiner in the many red street-boxes around town. I saved a screen capture of the listing as a JPG and posted it here at left -- you can click on it to read at 100%.

Please ignore the fact that a Water Lily is shown representing the Lily Show at Brookside this weekend. I sent in tree photos to go with the Tree ID class at Green Spring Gardens, but I guess someone thought they had a better idea. Too bad they picked the wrong kind of flower.

July/August 08 Issue Now Out & Mailed

The July/August 2008 issue of Washington Gardener Magazine is now out. Highlights include:

~ Landscaping with Ornamental Grasses
~ Edible Grasses to Graze Upon

~ Slug and Snail Control

~ UK Embassy’s Head Gardener Jim Adams

~ Sage Advice: Sun-Loving Salvias

~ How to Weed

~ Treats for Your Birds, Fish, & Earthworms

~ Richmond’s Treasure — Maymont’s Gardens

~ What’s the Story, Morning Glory?

~ Nat’l Capital Daylily Club

~ Local Garden Tours’ Season Wrap-up

~ Global Warming for Gardeners

I'm pleased with it overall and am quite enamored in particular of the spring garden tour wrap-up spread. I designed it to look like it came straight out of someone's scrapbook pages. And if you haven't seen a scrapbook in the past 10 years, you haven't seen a scrapbook. Here is a great site to get you inspired. In my case, the magazine spread will serve as my own scrapbook memory pages of the tours as my scrapbook cabinet of supplies and pages has remained untouched for a couple years now except for adding photo prints of the nieces to my "to be done" drawer.

Current subscribers should get their copy of the July/August 2008 issue in the mail in the next week or two. It was mailed before the holiday weekend.

If you want to start your subscription with this issue or just but this individual issue,
Click Here.

Top Garden Events for the Holiday Week

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Gardening Events for the week ahead on page 25 of last Thursday's print edition in the Washington Examiner. You can find the Examiner in the many red street-boxes around town. I saved a screen capture of the listing as a JPG and posted it here at left -- you can click on it to read at 100%.

June 08 Contest Winners Announced

The winners of our June 2008 Washington Gardener Magazine Reader Contest are:
~ Mavis Burdett, Silver Spring, MD
~ Nancy Busick, Colonial Beach, VA
~ Mona Potter, Ellicott City MD
~ Katie Rapp, Gaithersburg MD
~ Naomi Todd, Washington, DC
Each winner of our June 2008 Washington Gardener Reader Contest received a set of two passes each (worth $10 per set) to the "Wings of Fancy" - Live Butterfly Exhibit at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD, The event runs May 3 through September 21, 2008 from 10:00am to 4:00pm daily.
Asian, Costa Rican, and North American butterflies take flight in Brookside’s international exhibit celebrating its 12th season. Be surrounded by butterflies flying freely among the tropical flowering nectar plants. Come witness the butterfly life cycle as tiny eggs hatch into crawling, chewing caterpillars, which then encase themselves in jewel-like chrysalides and emerge as sipping, flying adult butterflies. Learn about the best annual and tropical plants, and hardy shrubs that are used as nectar sources to attract butterflies to your own garden.
Stay tuned for our July contest to be announced on the 15th.

Not on Vacation - Just Busy

I've got several blog posts I'm working on furiously - all in various states of done-ness so you may see several days of no posts followed by many in one day - you'll love ;-)
Happy belated Canada Day to all my north-of-the-border friends and an early Happy Independence Days to my fellow US citizens!
Enjoy your holiday weekend!
- Kathy

Open Garden Count Down

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Gardening Events for the week ahead on page 27 of today's print edition in the Washington Examiner. You can find the Examiner in the many red street-boxes around town. I saved a screen capture of the listing as a JPG and posted it here at left -- you can click on it to read at 100%.

The #1 featured event is of course our Open Garden tomorrow night. Details here.

I've baked the cupcakes, about 50% of the garden is weeded, and I have stocked up on drinks and candles. I'll be scurrying around like crazy in prep for the Open Garden, but plan to be able to relax and enjoy the actual event. Hope to see many of you there!

Drinking Ants

Okay so I have picked no mulberries so far - unless you count the 2-3 I picked to test for ripeness as I passed the nearby trees. They were sweet and good, but I haven't had 5 minutes to go back and gather more or even check in with you all on this blog.

The July/August 08 issue of the magazine is now done, laid out, proofed, and at the printer. I've been spending the last few days furiously getting ready for our Open Garden on Friday. I have tried to get help from some local teens offering their lawn care and weeding services - so far lots of calls and none have actually showed up. Oh well, I more a DIY person anyway.

Yesterday I think I was delirious from the heat and intensive pruning because I reached for my can of Coke and drank a big long draw before I even looked at it for bees or wiped the top off. My payback? A mouthful of tiny ants! A big surprise for them and for me. I spat and rinsed and repeated, I still feel like I may have swallowed more than a few of those buggers. This is not half as cool or funny a story as Ozzy Osborne infamously snorting a "line" of ants. At least I can say I was sober for it and was not purposely consuming them. Every time I hear that Ozzy story I picture those poor ants and their last thoughts as the giant nostril nears them, "WTF?!"

It was a good lesson to learn though as it shows me that any food or drink I put out Friday can be overrun by ants within minutes so I'll be keeping a close eye on things now. Better I have eaten those ants then my guests!

(Photo by Scott Bauer USDA-ARS)

Picking Mulberries in the Summer Sunshine

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Gardening Events for the week ahead on page 25 of today's print edition in the Washington Examiner. You can find the Examiner in the many red street-boxes around town. I saved a screen capture of the listing as a JPG and posted it here -- which you can click on to read at 100%.

As previously mentioned, I'll be at the Capital Beltway Perennial Show at Behnkes in Beltsville all day on Saturday (item #1). Tomorrow I'll be at the press preview day of the Power Plants exhibit (item #2) at the USNA. Between those items I'm trying to finalize the layout and proofing of our July/August magazine issue and get it off to the printer. Then I'll turn my focus to getting renewal letters out and prepping my place for our Open Garden on the 27th. THEN I feel like maybe I can take a day or maybe half-day off to relax and enjoy the summer. One thing on my to-do list is "picking mulberries." I fear I may have already missed the window on that, but hope some are still around next week or after so I can pick and freeze them for a friend to make mulberry wine. Evidenced by all the sidewalk staining around here, I'd say the birds and I still have many left to share.