Blooming Now!

Around here, it seems like everything is “hurrrying”.  It’s only mid-June but I’ve seen some latter summer perennials coming into bloom.   Perhaps they’re making up for lost time because of the very long winter we just had or maybe they know something we don’t—yet.

One perennial that’s blooming now and you should take note of, if you haven’t before is Lysimachia punctata or Yellow Loosestrife.  It’s an old-fashioned heirloom perennial that’s been around for a long time but you don’t see much of anymore.  This is probably because it can be a bit of a thug and overrun the garden if not kept in check.  But thugs aren’t all bad, in my book.  When you have a lot of space to fill and not a lot a money, a few “thugs” can give you a good show quick, you just make sure you pick the right “thugs”.

Last year was the first time that I planted Yellow Loosestrife in my garden and so far I’m very happy with it.   Yellow Loosestrife isn’t a plant you’ll find at the big box store garden centers.  I got mine at the plant sale and it came from another gardener who probably got it from someone else’s garden, etc. etc.

The nice thing about this perennial is that it tolerates a broad range of growing conditions.  Mine is growing on a very sunny hill that drains fast and dries out quickly but I have a friend who grows hers under a tree in partially shaded garden that only gets morning sun for a few hours a day. 

There are a few fancy varieties with variegated leaves and even dark red leaves (I have another one called “Firecracker”) but all of them make a wonderful statement when grown in a decent sized patch and that  won’t take long since they spread reasonably fast.

Garden Club Plant Sales

Yesterday was our garden club’s fourth annual plant sale.  Looking back at the first plant sale, I still can’t believe how far we’ve come since then in knowledge and organization. 

Back then our membership was larger but it was made up of mostly novice gardeners who had little experience identifying, digging and dividing, and to save money we used too little dirt to repot the plants and lost a lot of them before the sale.  I think we all wince a little when we think how many of them were probably mislabeled.

We’re a much more organized and experienced bunch now.  This year we had over 1,200 plants that were in top condition.  All of the plants came from local gardens and were dug by members, who then repotted and cared for them at their homes till the sale.  We start the whole process in early April by advertising on the local access cable channel and in the two small newspapers that service our area, offering to visit gardens and divide or remove perennials that have outgrown their current location or are no longer wanted.   The weekend following the plant sale is “Pot Collecting & Recycling Day”  We will collect the used pots, wash them and store them for next year’s digs.

Plant sales are a great way to buy quality plants and support your community organization at the same time.  Because the plants have been growing in a local  garden and not a commercial field in another part of the US, you know that they will do well in yours. 

Most of the perennials at a plant sale sell for 50 to 75 percent less than what they would cost if you bought them from a garden center or big box store.  Since a lot of the plants come from the members own gardens, there’s usually helpful information available on the spot.  The trade off is that you may not always be able to get as many plants of one type or variety as you need and they may be past bloom for this year.   But where else can you buy a magnificent giant-leaved blue hosta or a Japanese painted fern for less than $5.00!

Peonies - “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride”

Roses are red, Violets are blue.

Given a choice, I’d pick a peony or two!

The ROSE has always been the official flower of June but for my money it should have been the peony. For generations, roses have been glorified and romanticized by kings, poets, artists and wedding planners and the poor peony has gotten the short end of the stick.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love roses, but I’m not sure why peonies have always been the “bridesmaid”, unless it’s because peonies only bloom once per season so they’re easy to forget in July when the re-blooming roses put out their second flush of flowers or maybe it’s because the breeders of herbaceous peonies have never been able to get past a limited palette of color.   

Herbaceous peonies--herbaceous meaning that plants die down to the ground every winter, will live for decades if planted in a suitable location and unlike roses are almost disease, pest and care free.  My dad has some that we know for certain were planted when my parents house was built back in the 1920’s and they’re still blooming and thriving to this day.

Peonies grow from woody root divisions and the flowers come in several types including double, semi-double and anemone (single).  The most fragrant varieties are usually the doubles.  However not all peonies are scented and if that’s what you’re looking for, be sure you read the description before purchasing.

The only “defect” they have, if you can call it that, is that the stems of peonies aren’t always able to support the large heavy blooms, especially after it rains, and need to be supported.  There are special peony “hoops” that you can buy and place around the plant in early spring when it’s just starting to get leaves. These are made of green wire and disappear in the foliage but still support the heavy blossoms.

Peonies also make magnificent cut flowers that will last a full week, if they’re picked in the morning when the buds are one-third to half open.  Even after they finish blooming the dark fern-leaf foliage makes a nice backdrop for perennials that bloom later.

HOW TO GROW:  Peonies do best in cold climates (Zones 4 to 8).  Root divisions which you can purchase from mail order sources are usually planted in fall and can take a couple of years before the plant is large enough to produce flowers but when you consider how long they can live and the number of blooms they produce per plant it’s well worth the wait.  If you’re in a hurry, you can also purchase potted plants that are blooming size but be prepared to spend $25 or more for a blooming size plant.

Peonies flourish in well-drained soil and it’s best to start out with a large hole (2 feet wide by 1+1/2 feet deep) that you fill up with a mix of well composted manure and leaf mold or peat moss.  If that seems like a  big hole—remember, they can’t get up and walk to a new location, when they run out of food, so they need a nice home.  You can add a handful of ground limestone and bone meal but I prefer organic fertilizer like Plantone to bone meal because bone meal will sometimes attract rodents and dogs who like to dig up bones!  It’s very important that the the “eyes” or stem buds  aren’t buried any deeper than 2 inches below the surface.

A mature peony can reach a height of 36" inches and 4 feet in diameter so keep that in mind if you’re planting them near a fence or foundation.  They’re a good choice for lining walkways and driveways though because they die back to the ground making room for snow removal.  

I add a new layer of compost around my plants every spring and fertilize them at the same time by scratching in a little  Plantone organic fertilizer.  I’ll do it again once more after they bloom.  I don’t mulch them because I don’t want to create a cozy environment for botrytis fungus which is about the only thing that can do a peony in.  Botrytis is a smelly fungal rot that spreads from the top of the plant down to the tuber and is pretty much incurable.  Once the plants die down, any dead leaves or stems should be removed to prevent botrytis. 

WHY DOESN’T MY PEONY HAVE FLOWERS?

I get this question all the time from friends and neighbors who have otherwise thriving vigorous plants and 99% of the time,  the answer can be traced to three causes.

The first is the depth at which the root divisions are planted.   The “eyes” ( stem buds) should be planted up and about one and a half to two inches beneath the surface—any deeper and the plant won’t bloom.  I err on the side of 1+1/2 inches because the soil will settle and you can always add a little more if you need to.   If after three years, your peonies still aren’t producing any flowers—this is most likely the reason.

The second reason for not blooming is lack of sun.  Peonies like full sun (about 6 hours a day) but will tolerate a small amount of afternoon shade, especially in the warmer zones,  as long as they don’t have to compete with tree roots. 

The third reason peonies don’t bloom is ANTS or should I say, LACK OF ANTS.  Yes, I do mean the tiny crawling insects that can be a nuisance so we buy sprays and traps to get rid of them.  Unlike ants and humans, ants and peonies have a symbiotic relationship—meaning that they get along pretty well and both mutually benefit from it.

My dad,  hates ants and has been on a warpath with them for as long as I remember.  One June he sprayed the beautiful Festiva Maxima peonies that lined our driveway because he thought the peonies were attracting ants (little did he know). The chemical repellent worked great—no ants—but the peony buds failed to open—so no flowers either that year. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

What my dad, and most people don’t know is that peonies secrete a sweet waxy nectar that seals the flower buds as they develop, The ants, attracted to the sweetness, chew off the wax which allows the buds to swell and open.  Once the flowers open, the ants lose interest and disappear, leaving behind the glorious flowers for us, humans, to enjoy.   

Geraniums for Memorial Day—Remembering

My grandmother always called it “Decoration Day” but every Memorial Day, when I was living at home and even long after I’d started a family, my mom, grandmother, kids and I would get into my Uncle Sonny’s big Ford Fairlane and drive to New Calvary & Mt. Hope Cemetery to decorate the graves where my grandfather, aunts, uncles and great-grandparents were buried.  Along the way, we’d stop at one of the roadside vendors and buy red, pink and white geraniums in 4” pots for each grave.

It was my job to choose the best looking geraniums with the brightest color and most buds.  Geraniums could take the heat, poor soil, lack of water and didn’t have to be deadheaded to keep blooming like petunias did. 

As they pulled weeds and planted geraniums, My grandmother and mother would recall stories about the relatives, I’d never met.  I would catch my grandmother, gently touching my grandfather’s name and getting misty-eyed as she knelt in front of the markers for her little brother, a six-year old victim of diphtheria in the early 1900’s and her father who died from TB when she was only seven years old, leaving her mother a widow with three young children to raise alone in South Boston. 

My mother and uncle would remember out loud their only uncle, Tim, a blacksmith, who made them puzzles and rings from horseshoe nails and died from a broken heart when a fire swept though the stable and the draft horses that he loved were lost.

My grandmother and Uncle Sonny are gone now.  Nana Ford is buried next to her beloved husband in New Calvary and Uncle Sonny rests alone in a military cemetery on Cape Cod.  No one visits New Calvary or Mt. Hope Cemetery anymore.  The surviving aunts and uncles, now in their 80’s and 90’s no longer drive and the next generations--first and second cousins are spread out across the country.  

My mom is elderly now too, has memory problems and is unstable on her feet sometimes.  We  talk every year about making the trip out to New Calvary and “decorating” the graves.  Years ago we would stop at the cemetery Gatehouse and my mother would look up the row numbers and street name.  She’s not sure she still remembers any of them, but this year we are going again—it may be the last year we can. 

We’ll bring the 4-inch geraniums in pink, white and red along with some small pebbles that we’ve collected from my mom’s house, my house and the beach where my grandparents had a summer cottage. 

There is a beautiful Jewish custom of leaving small pebbles on a gravesite that inspires me to do this.  It  originated in ancient times when graves were marked only with piles of rocks and adding more was a way to let others know that here lies a person worth remembering. 

Happy Memorial Day.

The Fairy Gardener Returns

I’m back for good this time.  No more unexplained absences or disappearances---I’ve missed all of you and I’ve missed writing about gardening and quilting.   I had planned to post the pictures of my Avon Walk weekend before now but Calvin’s first birthday and a little “accident” (hmmm) delayed this post a bit.  More on the accident later—let’s just say I’m NOT grace, charm and elegance rolled into one package, LOL.

The Avon Walk  is over, I did finish the entire two days and 39.9 miles without so much as a blister or shin splint!

I want to thank all of you who supported me with your good thoughts and donations.  There were times during the first day when I thought I wouldn’t be able to finish the 26 miles but somehow I’d get a second wind and I know it was those good thoughts coming at me. 

I had two great walking companions that also helped me make it—Dawn, a PBS Producer, completed her 7th walk  and Kelley, the Director of Diesel E-Books who walked the entire 26 miles with Dawn and I on Saturday, caught a train back to NYC that night, got up at 6:00 am on Sunday morning to attend another event and at noontime was on a cruise to the Bahamas! 

We raised over $5.2 million dollars to fight breast cancer just in Boston and that number still climbs as the final donations are processed!

A good chunk of that money was awarded to local charities on Sunday, May 15th at the Closing Ceremony.  

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center of Boston received $1.5 million. The grant will support HER2 positive breast cancer research, as well as programs that help low income women receive care at the Avon Center at Mass General and community clinics.

University of Massachusetts - Amherst received $300,000 to develop a test to identify premalignant breast lesions that have a high risk of progressing to breast cancer and differentiate them from those unlikely to advance.

Silent Spring Institute of Newton, MA, received $175,000 to support a research fellowship looking at the potential role of the environment in breast cancer development

Community Servings of Jamaica Plain, MA, received $100,000 to support the Avon Door-to-Door Delivery Program, which brings thousands of meals to breast cancer patients and their families.

The Avon Foundation also awarded four grants during the Closing Ceremony to further strengthen the Avon Safety Net program, which consists of more than 100 hospitals across the country that ensure women and men who might otherwise fall through the cracks of the healthcare system have access to high quality breast cancer services. The Safety Net grants include:

- LifeSpan Foundation of Providence, RI received a grant of $250,000

- Boston Medical Center received a grant of $250,000

- Cambridge Health Alliance of Boston received a grant of $125,000

- Central Maine Medical Center of Lewiston, ME, received a grant of $62,000

Now do you feel good inside?   I do and  I hope you do too, because you made this possible.

One of the greatest things about this walk was the number of people that turned out along our walk route, which I have to say covered some of the prettiest areas in Boston and the suburbs.   So many of the houses in the neighborhoods we walked through were decorated with pink balloons, pink ribbons and signs.  People offered us water, snacks, flowers and trinkets and all of them said “Thank you for walking!”

So I’d like to leave you with some pictures of the walk and some information about the Leopard’s Bane and Basket of Gold Allysum that I planted in between rain showers-–of which we’ve had a lot lately. 

Avon Walk - Boston 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

Keeping leopards away—if you have any!

I’ve admired Leopard’s Bane for many years now, since seeing a rambunctious patch of it growing beneath a flowering cherry tree in a beautiful hilltop garden overlooking the Merrimack River.  

Leopard’s Bane (Doronicum) is one of the oldest cultivated plants and  the earliest perennials to bloom in spring beating out ground phlox by a couple of weeks.  There are several species and crosses ranging from 6 inches to 30 inches tall but the average is about 14 inches. 

Its bright yellow daisy-like flowers are born singly on top of stiff stems and are 2” across.  They look lovely when  planted in among spring flowering bulbs like tulips, and grape hyacinths. It’s also a tough rugged plant that spreads easily.  Originating in Eurasia it grows in many different habitats from dry open meadows to alpine rockeries.

Leopard’s bane likes evenly moist soil and will grow in full sun or partial shade, but in hot dry conditions it will go “summer dormant” like oriental poppies sometimes do.  That means it dies all the way down to the ground and hides till cooler weather arrives.

The entire plant is poisonous but  deer and  rabbits leave it alone, so it’s a good choice for those of us that have to compete with voracious wildlife next door. 

As a matter of fact, I often plant a species that’s not attractive to deer or rodents in with a species that is.  You might have heard of this method called “companion planting”.  I used to have a terrible time with deer eating my Rubrum Lilies from the top and voles and chipmunks eating the bulbs underground till I accidentally planted some giant allium bulbs in the same spot—evidently the alliums, which are a member of the onion family, nauseated the voles, deer and chipmunks so much that they left the lilies alone too.

Deadheading the flowers on Leopard’s Bane right after they bloom sometimes stimulates a second flush of flowers but for the most part they are one-time per season bloomers.  Every three or four years, clumps should be divided or they tend to get weak and die off.   The best time to divide the clumps is late summer or early fall but I’ve seen them divided in spring and still do fine. 

Oh, and  if that’s not enough reason to plant Leopard’s Bane, they make great cut flowers too.

Till next time,

Gail  

Where’s The Fairy Gardener???

That seems a logical question to ask, in light of the fact that she has been absent from Blog World for a whole month!  

Believe me, it hasn’t been for lack of words or news—I love to talk--and there is plenty to write about and share with you now that spring has finally arrived here in the northeast.   It just so happens that about a month ago, I was asked if I was interested in working a temporary assignment for a new company that could turn into a permanent job—maybe!

It feels good to be a contributing member of society again, lol but it sure cuts into the available time for the other parts of one’s life, like family, friends, chores, grocery shopping, gardening and blogging!   My weekends have been super busy—holidays, birthdays, errands, car repair and everything else that can’t be done during the 9 hours of a person’s workday and commute.

This weekend is “WALK WEEKEND” and once it’s over, I’ll have more time to concentrate on gardening and my other love—sewing and quilting and blogging about both!

I’m excited, nervous and anxious all rolled into one.  Last night I had a conference call with my two Avon Walk teammates.  We are meeting up in Boston on Friday the day before the walk to sign in and pick up our pre-walk paperwork.

It feels wonderful to know that some of this money we raise will provide screening services, health care and cancer treatment to women who can’t afford health insurance but who’s earned income is too high to qualify for medicaid.  

Who are they?  They are your coffee shop waitresses, your part-time retail clerks, the part-time help you see in garden centers and dry cleaners, divorced mothers, single women and down-sized office workers who’s benefits have run out—like me and maybe some of you too.

Every four and a half minutes a diagnosis of breast cancer is made in the US so screening and early detection saves lives. 

Thanks to so many wonderful and generous people, I’ve raised 56% of my goal of $1,800 in donations but I still need to raise about $800 and so I’m again asking for your help.   

Just eighty blogging followers and friends who can find it in their hearts to donate $10 each and I’ll make my goal.

Please consider making a donation today.   Everyone who makes a donation will be entered into the drawing for my quilt, “Hope’s Garden”. 

To make a donation online, please visit my Avon Page or Click the “AVON” button in the top left corner.   And know that I’ll be walking for you, me, our loved ones and the next generation!  

BE  In it to end it!

Hugs,

Gail

  

Sunday - My Avon Walk Update and the Kindness of Strangers….

Wednesday I had to take my poor fourteen year old car in for repairs and decided to walk home instead of asking a friend to give me a lift.  

From my mechanic’s garage to my front door is a a ten-mile trek and the longest walk I’ve done so far but there’s less than a month till the Avon 40-mile walk for breast cancer and I need to get my body prepared for the two days of 8-hour walks.

So after dropping off the car at 8:30 am.   I started out on foot towards home with my backpack, water, a snack, camera, lip gloss and some of my donation cards to hand out.  

My first stop was at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. I handed out a few of my Avon Page donation cards, told my story and asked a few people to sponsor me. 

One man was very direct and told me that he couldn’t. He said his wife died from lymphoma and he had just lost house to foreclosure.   I told him I understood and was very sorry to learn about his misfortunes, after all, these are very tough times we’re living in, but a few minutes later when I was sitting at a table with my coffee and breakfast sandwich he came over and handed me a $20 bill and told me about his sister-in-law, aunt and several other women in his family who had all died in just the last ten years from breast cancer.

Let’s just say it was everything I could do to keep from tearing up. 

The rest of the walk took me three hours and 20 minutes and that included a stretching stop, water stop, breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and some picture taking.

Some scenic spots that I passed along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aside from being mildly sore and really tired which had nothing to do with walking and everything to do with not sleeping well the night before, I felt great!   In fact I felt good enough to walk another five miles the following day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m getting fitter with each walk.

As of today I’ve reached about 50% of my fundraising goal but here is where the kindness of strangers comes into play…

There’s less than 35 days till my walk on May 14th and I still have about $900 to raise.   Maybe that seems like a lot but I think of it as $10 from 90 believers, 90 followers and 90 friends who are like me and have a family member or friend who’s been affected with this disease or who don’t want to see the next generation at risk.

Remember it’s not just breast cancer that’s benefitting from this fundraising—it’s all cancers because many of the new treatments that are developed to treat breast cancer will  also be used in treating other aggressive cancers.

Won’t you help me meet my goal—$10.00, that’s all I ask. 

What would you be willing to give up in order to donate $10.00? 

Lets see… $10.00 will buy five FQ’s or a couple of dahlia bulbs, two flats of summer annuals, six packages of seeds, two value meals at McDonalds.  Would it be worth giving up just one of those things to end breast cancer?   To me it would be.

Please click on the “PINK” Avon Walk button in the top left of the page or go  HERE to support my walk today.  I do need your help.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Gail

P.S.  In case you need another incentive to donate how about a super FREE give-away because every one who sponsors my walk will be entered into the drawing for my Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, “Hope’s Garden”