Video Wednesday: What is an Herb?

Chrissie Moore of the US National Arboretum's herb garden defines an herb.

Sourcing Locally Grown Plants ~ Washington Gardener Enews ~ July 2012

Open publication - Free publishing - More dc

Washington Gardener Enews ~ July 2012
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
~ Sourcing Locally Grown Plants
~ Magazine Excerpt: Carrot Rust Fly
~ Mid-Atlantic Garden To-Do List for July-August
~ Reader Contest: Win a copy of "Homegrown Harvest"
~ Washington Gardener's Recent Blog Post Highlights
~ Spotlights Special: New Geranium Hybrid from Syngenta Flowers, Inc.
~ Top Local Garden Events Calendar for July-August
~ Washington Gardener Magazine Back Issue Sale!
and much more...

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: Contained

It is an overcast and EXTREMELY humid morning here in the Mid-Atlantic ISA (zone 7 - DC/MD border to be precise). This Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day I thought I'd share a few of my mixed containers now that they are starting to fill in nicely. I have about 20 large planters going, but will share a sampling of just three. (If you are viewing this on my blog at washingtongardener.blogspot.com, you can click on any of the photos to look at them in detail at full-size.

At top, Petunia Debonair Black Cherry with Fuseables Chocolate Symphony Coleus (that is one coleus bright green and burgundy edged with green). In the middle of it is an elephant ear that I cannot recall if I received for trial or got at a plant swap this spring.

At middle, Petunia Shock Wave Rose Improved with Angelonia Serenita Lavender Pink. In the middleof it is a yellow Brugmansia that I got a plant swap this spring.

At bottom, Colorblaze Marooned Coleus with Superbells Lemon Slice Calibrochoa peaking out below it. There are two other plants in this container, but the coleus has "proven" to be a container hog.

So what is blooming in your garden today?

Whole Foods Local Business Expo

Washington Gardener Magazine will have a table at Whole Foods Market Silver Spring (MD) on Sunday 7/15 from 12noon-4pm at their Local Business Expo. Stop by for gardening tips, information on how to subscribe, and free seed packs while supplies last.

Fenton Friday: Mini-Harvest

We had a monsoon on Tuesday evening. It was a really gully-washer that last about an hour. I was afraid my new seedlings were swept away, but they are still there and everything at the community garden plot got a good 2+ inches.

I picked several mini bell peppers, a couple 'SunGreen' tomatoes, one red cherry tomato (cannot recall variety), and lots of carrots plus salad greens.

I don't know HOW my salad greens have not bolted yet, but they haven't so I'm letting a half-row of them stay for now.

Also pinched back some of my basil plants which are starting to flower and ripped out my old Calendula. It was still flowering, but was looking rather woody, overgrown, and sad. It had made several babies around it so I thinned them and hope a few take its place.

Video Wednesday: How to Water a Tree

This video courtesy of Casey Trees gives some good tips on watering street trees. Many of us got deluged in the storm last night, but we are still below the normal rain amounts for area and it could be a long, hot summer ahead, so keep these guidelines in mind over the weeks ahead.

Fenton Friday: New Herb Markers

With temps hovering around 100 for the last week (and a water-use restriction over last weekend), there was not much to do at my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Garden except pick carrots and salad greens to eat each night, pinch back flowering basil, and water when I could.

My nieces came to visit and since they enjoy arts-and-crafts, we spent an afternoon creating new herb markers for the community garden's shared herb space. I went to the local Ace hardware and asked for extra paint stir sticks. We used acrylic paints and gave each one a base-coat in lime green then the nieces set to work painting the herb names in purple and painting a small picture of each herb. While they did that, I grabbed a spare piece of wood and painted a welcome sign to go near the front gate of the garden. I hope our fellow gardeners and passers-by enjoy the garden art.

Gardening and Immediacy

My little one and my father transplanting a Chinese herb

GUEST BLOG by Wendy Kiang-Spray

I had a great neighbor who has since moved away. On day one, he invited us over for empanadas. He and his wife were perfect neighbors for first-time homeowners to have. Old enough to know the neighborhood stories, young enough to hang out from time to time and share a bottle of wine. As we settled in and began to make some changes around the house, the well-intentioned nay-saying began, "The city is not going to take those boards away unless you take all the nails out." "Every piece of tinsel has to be removed or they won't recycle the tree." "You shouldn't go up on the slope because there is poison ivy there." "You can't grow vegetables here because the soil is all clay." It got to the point where I tried to do household tasks at odd hours hoping I wouldn't get caught.

Good thing we're stubborn. My husband didn't remove the nails nor the tinsel, and I both climbed the slope and grew vegetables in the clay.

This posting is a little late, but I attended the International Master Gardener's Conference back in October of 2011. The sessions have been largely forgotten, but I did attend a session by speakers Janet Macunovich and Steven Nikkila. I'm not a handout keeper, and in classes, I prefer to listen rather than take notes, so I probably don't retain as much info as your average attendee, but there are many parts of Janet and Steve's lecture that were so interesting and important and pieces keep coming back to me in my life.

One point they made was about IMMEDIACY. As a gardener, if someone asks you for help, avoid jargon.  SHOW them how to do what they need to do You want to make it do-able for the novice gardener -- and for them to feel the excitement of it. She shared an example of an inexperienced gardener friend who was suddenly motivated to move a tree. And during the worst part of the year to do it! Despite the chance that the tree might suffer or not even make it, she helped him move it anyway. There's an excitement that gets into us -- you're a gardener -- you know this feeling too.

This makes me think of my neighbor. It's true there was poison ivy on the slope. I got a case so bad I went to the hospital (and I'm a tough cookie). But when I got better, I got back on the slope to do more work up there. It's true it's VERY difficult to grow vegetables in clay. But I tried, and then I learned.

This also makes me think of an interaction I recently had at work. Some of our students held a plant sale -- everything was $1! I bought things like chives, ferns, parsley. Great deal. Later, one of my friends (a particularly exuberant friend) bought some seedlings too and was so incredibly delighted about it!  In her box, that she was showing me, she had a lettuce seedling and a beet seedling and was telling me she was going to have fresh salads for her family all summer. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the lettuce seedling wouldn't provide enough leaves for one salad, that the plant would probably bolt in a couple of weeks, and that the one beet seedling she bought would produce exactly one beet. A beet she paid a dollar for. I felt a little badly about not sharing the information, but I thought of my neighbor, and I thought of Janet and Steve.  I figure if she gets her hands dirty and does a little experimenting, she may catch the gardening bug -- it's not difficult. She may complain that the lettuce didn't produce enough to garnish a sandwich. She may ask questions. And that is when I'll show her how to sow her own row of beets and how to start her own salad bed. 

About the Author:
Wendy blogs at http://www.greenishthumb.net. She is a high school counselor by day and a landscape architect or possibly farmer in her dreams. She volunteesr as a DC Master Gardener. In spare moments, she is a freelance writer with national publication credits.

Video Wednesday: How Plants are Bred to Become Proven Winners Plants

This week's video comes from friend of Washington Gardener Magazine, Shirley Bovshow. Watch "How Plants are Bred to Become Proven Winners Plants" with Shirley Bovshow and Chris Berg. Plant trials are a combination beauty pageant/Olympic games where only the most beautiful and most vigorous plants make the cut for development. Next time you see a branded plant at the garden center, you'll understand what makes this plant different from plants with "no name" distinction!

Red, White, and Blue Container Garden: You Can Grow That!

The 4th of every month is "Garden Bloggers: You Can Grow That" Day, the brain child of C. L Fornari.

Since tomorrow is Independence Day* I thought I would share this new container I created for the occasion. Very easy to do and you CAN grow that!

I took a large container, you can use anything with good drainage holes and at least 18" wide. In this case, I have a pot left from a small tree planting.

So that I did not use a fortune in potting soil and to keep the container fairly light, I filled the bottom in with empty plastic soda bottles with the tops screwed back on.

I then add a layer of bark mulch over the bottles and fill in the next third with good potting soil.

Next I placed my plants. To the back is a "Big Blonde" Coleus from the Stained Glassworks™ that take a good deal of sun. To the left, I placed a red Verbena. In the middle front, a white Wave petunia, and on the right a blue Lobelia (it looks more blue in real life). I then filled in around the plants with more potting soil and watered everything in well and placed it in a sunny, high-traffic corner of my garden.

In the middle I stuck an American flag. You can, of course, eliminate the flag and let the red, white, and blue speak for themselves.

You can also substitute other plants that may suit your climate better or that are more available to you. For the red, you could do a red coleus or zonal geranium or a Fire begonia. There are lots of white annuals from impatiens to alyssum to snapdragons. For the blues, you could go into the purple range of petunias or pop in a sage.

For large containers like this, you will want to check daily to see if it needs watering. Also, add a liquid fertilizer to your watering about every two weeks. Pinch back any flower spikes forming on the coleus to keep it full. The three flowering plants I selected are basically self-deadheading, but if you see anything looking tired or damaged, you can cut it off or shear it back.

Garden Bloggers You Can Grow That! Day was started by C. L. Fornari of Whole Life Gardening because she believes “Gardening is one of the most life-affirming things we can do.…We need to thoroughly saturate people with the belief that plants and gardening are worth doing because of the benefits gained.” Garden bloggers who agree post about something worth growing on the fourth day of every month. Read this month’s You Can Grow That! posts.


*Minor pet peeve: when people call it "the 4th of July." Yes, it is on the 4th, but that is not the holiday we are celebrating. Do you also celebrate "the 14th of February" and "the 25th of December?"

Favorite Summer Edibles

The winner of our June 2012 Washington Gardener Reader Contest is Faith Hood of Falls Church, VA. Congratulations, Faith! She was chosen at random among the entries received to win a stunning Black Rose Necklace from Minou Bazaar (a $26 value).

We asked our June contest : What is your favorite summer edible?

Faith said: "My favorite summer edible has to be melons. I love my watermelon and cantaloupe isn't far behind"

Cindy Walczak of Olney, MD commented that her favorite summer edible is a juicy ripe nectarine.

Sue Hauser of Kensington, MD chimed in: "My favorite summer edible is okra. It is easy to grow, yummy to eat, and bears an exquisite blossom."

"My favorite summer edibles are giant, sweet, juicy Brandywine tomatoes," said Dani Sandler of Washington, DC.  

So what is your favorite summer edible?