Oh Joy

Plant of the Month Sedum Autumn Joy
We are edging towards the end of August and even though the temperature is dropping slightly too where we can once again stand to spend some time in the garden, unfortunately you will find that many of the perennials have already peaked and it won’t be long before you need to cut them back all-together. But this is the time when Sedum Autumn Joy really begins to stand out on its own. This is a great three-season perennial which starts out the spring season looking like tiny heads of cabbage. As spring & summer progress, the stems lengthen and leaves broaden to a very distinctive, succulent look. The foliage has a nice bright green color and makes a great filler. By mid-summer the flower buds begin to form and cover the plant with open sprays of chartreuse. I was wandering my flower beds today and noticed that the flower heads have tightened up into umbels and while some still remain a bright green, others are turning several shades of pink; from very pale pink to a deeper rose.

     As autumn continues, the colors will deepen to cranberry and then garnet. By winter, these seed heads will have turned brown and can be cut off or left for some winter interest. They look lovely dusted with snow. Sedums don’t require much during the growing season. If you find they get too tall and splay open in your garden, pinch them back early in the summer before flowers form. This will force the plant to branch-out and stay dense and compact. Sedum Autumn Joy reaches two feet in height and does best if planted in full sun. Small fritillary butterflies flock to Sedums in August and September.
     This plant is a good companion with Russian Sage, Coneflowers or Black-eyed- Susan’s, but I love to team it with Solidago Fireworks (next month’s pick) for a beautiful autumn combination.

The Doctor Is In

   After the wild week on Capitol Hill and the melt down on Wall Street, it’s best to turn off the TV, put down the newspaper and go outside.  American naturalist, John Burroughs stated, ‘I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order’.  This is advice we should all heed.   Many of us find a favorite place outside to sit and get away from the daily stress, finding our gardens to be a wonderful cure-all.  The truth is, there is a great deal of therapeutic benefits in gardens and gardening. 

     Studies have shown that hospital patients who had a view of nature rather than a brick wall complained less, required less pain medication and made faster recoveries.  Plants in an office setting improved worker satisfaction, creativity and productivity.   We all know that landscaping our yard and tending to the grass increases the value of our homes and sometimes it inspires the neighbors to do the same, and so on and so forth.  Residents of areas with more trees and grass reported that they knew their neighbors better, socialized with them more often, had stronger feelings of community, and felt safer and better adjusted.  Trees, greenery and other vegetation make neighborhoods safer and more desirable.  They even play a role in boosting students’ grades and reducing the risk of domestic violence.  As little as 10 minutes spent outside improves attention in children with ADHD:  neighborhoods with more green space improve body mass index of children and youth.  Gardening improves health and happiness, including reducing heart rate and blood pressure. 
     The therapeutic value of a garden can’t be overstated.  Digging, smelling, touching, looking and learning about the workings of the natural world is you connecting to something greater than yourself.
      So the next time you tell someone you’re a ‘Gardener’, you may want to add, Therapist, Social Organizer, Child Advocate and Health Care Provider.  Wow!  I don’t know about you, but I need a bigger business card.

I Wish, I Wish

 

    We are in the Nursery & Landscape business so our job is to design, grow, install and maintain our customers’ yards.  A job we love.  A little stressful when we see plants struggling in this heat, a fungus developing in the middle of a green lawn or, gasp, weeds.  Weeds is a four letter word - with an s at the end.  When I waited tables in college and someone said they were ‘in the weeds’ that meant they were way behind and needed help.  Even outside the nursery industry, weeds are a bad thing!   We own 25 plus acres and try to keep our weeds to the naturalized area, away from the nursery.  That is the area where I sometimes see deer and turkey, so one evening I took my camera to look for something interesting to snap a picture of.  What I found were wildflowers or weeds to a manicured lawn. 

  

There was an abundance of delicate Queen Ann’s Lace, roadside asters, purple thistles and some strange reddish thing with green treadles which was really cool.  Some of the wild grasses with the arching habits and golden tones, rivaled some of the ornamental grasses I sell at the Garden Center.  There were wild daisies to petal-pluck to see if you were loved and buttercups to hold under someone’s chin to find out who loved butter. Heading back to the house I caught sight of a dandelion puff-ball.  In our household a dried dandelion becomes a wishing flower. 

My daughter would see a wishing flower, dash over to it, and carefully pick it, so as not to release its magic accidently.  Holding it firmly yet carefully she would close her eyes and say ‘I wish, I wish, I was a Princess’ then blow the magic into the air.  And it really worked!  Upon opening her eyes, she had become a Princess, and I dare anyone to argue with me.  So a weed is in the eye of the beholder…a rose is a weed in a cornfield and a dried dandelion becomes a wishing flower in the hands of a child.

Sounds of Water

         Simon and Garfunkel wrote about the ‘Sounds of Silence’ but nothing compares to the sound of water.  If you have traveled Highway 16 in the Old Whitt area, you have probably noticed the waterfall project we have going on.  It has been quite the project.  Lots of rock…tons of rock, and big ones at that, compounded by a lot of heat…tons of heat.  My husband called me one afternoon and over the phone said ‘can you hear that?’  No, I could not, but I knew what he meant and I jumped in the car and headed over because I could not wait to hear the sound it made.  It was wonderful.  The sound of water immediately made it seem slightly cooler out, all psychological, but in this heat, I’ll take it.  You can buy CD’s of running water and babbling brooks as stress relievers, but nothing comes close to the real thing.  I have gone over there several times, fascinated by the sound and amazed at how memorizing it can be.  The sound, tone and volume change as you move around the falls, creating a sound you can never get tired of.  I went by yesterday and the waterfall was off because some pipe gluing needed to be done and was surprised at the void created by the absence of running water. 

     Soon the water will be back on permanently and our crew will leave the site after the landscaping is done.  It is at that time that nature will also be drawn to the sound of water.  Deer, raccoons, and birds of all kinds will find their way to it.  And maybe a bride or two will ask to use the waterfall as a photo backdrop.  The owners are good people and will probably oblige.   I know these customers will be spending many evenings enjoying the sound of their waterfall, the stress from the day floating away, as the fish glide gracefully through the water lilies and a chorus of frogs drown out the sound of the world and listen to the Sounds of Water. 

Russian Sage - a plant that even a Czar would envy

I don’t need to tell you it is HOT out there.  I walk out to my nursery and cringe when I see what southern summers can do to plants, then I spot my Russian Sage and wish all my plants could tolerate this heat and dry days with as much dignity.  Russian sage actually comes to us from Afghanistan, but I guess Afghanistan Sage is less marketable, so it was named after a Russian Imperial General, Vasily Alekseevich Perovsky, but for what reason, I have no idea.  No matter the region of origin, this plant is a real trooper in the garden when every other plant is withering away. 

Russian sage loves lots of sun and once established is very drought tolerant.  Its four foot height and three foot spread is covered in light lavender flowers from June to September.  This perennial has silvery-green leaves with a gently serrated edge and if you rub the leaves between your fingers they emanate a strong yet fantastic smell. That pungent sage-like smell makes it a good deer resistant perennial with no know pests.  Though, not used in cooking, its smell might work in a dried floral arrangement or in a potpourri mixture.  This plant has a very elegant, architectural form.  Its wispiness teams nicely with purple Coneflowers (Echinacea) or Black-eyed Susan’s (Rudbeckia Goldstrum) and bees and butterflies will love you for it.  Come winter, you will have the silver twisting branches to give some interest to your garden.  And do leave the stems in the winter because Russian sage is a sub-shrub.  Sub-shrubs do not achieve a true dormant stage.  Instead, they are resting, which allows them to respond more quickly to warmer conditions and since pruning can induce new growth, they are very prone to winter damage.  So leave them alone and wait till early spring to prune.

      So plant some Russian sage en masse for a head turning display, and even if you and your garden look a bit wilted, your Russian sage will look marvelous.

HOT HOT HOT

For the times I compained about the snow, I am truly sorry.

Herbs do not a Chef make....

And I am living proof of that statement.  We have several different herbs at the garden center, from Corsican, chocolate and orange mints to pineapple and tri-color sages.  We have Italian, Greek & regular oregano, along with lemon balm and lemon basil. 

 I love herbs.  I love the look and the smell of them and the endless possibility of uses amaze me.  I have had a rosemary bush in the garden for several years and each Thanksgiving I pull the weeds off it, cut a sprig and put it in with my turkey to cook.  The house is filled with its heavenly aroma, and that concludes my use of herbs.  There is a chef inside me trying to get out and experiment with all these herbs.  I can tell you what to do with them, but somewhere between the plant and the oven, things go down hill.  Case in point, my chicken spaghetti. 

How could such a delicious sounding recipe go so wrong?  I have had friends make good-hearted jest on facebook about my chicken spaghetti (you know who you are).  I’m beginning to fear that it will be used to scare young children…’If you don’t behave, Mrs. Rubner will make you some chicken spaghetti.’   So I will stick with growing herbs for customers, pass on some advice and as they drive off, wonder what culinary delights they will create using herbs.  In the mean time, I will decide what new and interesting herbs to carry next year.  But I will put my cooking skills to good use, I will tell the kids that if they do not clean their rooms this weekend I will make chicken spaghetti for dinner.  I’ll bet the rooms will be clean and maybe my husband will take me out for dinner…Hmmm, I could be onto something.