Each Little World

Thank you Indian Hills Garden Club

If you garden in the Upper Midwest it's likely you recognize this scene. It's the first row of parking spaces at the Flower Factory in Stoughton. I drove out not long ago on a Sunday morning and was only the second car on the scene. The gardens were looking gorgeous and there were lots of plants still available and a number of them were also on sale.

The members of the Indian Hills Garden Club visited my garden last month and were kind enough to send me a Flower Factory gift certificate as a thank you! I'd been compiling a list of plants I was interested in as the summer went by and this was the impetus to get me out of town. 

A couple of years ago I bought a bunch of Hakonechloa macra plants to put in the former moss garden but added them to the new driveway border instead. So I needed more of those to put in the original location. Then I saw this 'Miller's Crimson' Primula and had to have it as it is a different red than my other candelabra Primroses. Two 'Norton's Gold' oreganos went into the driveway border at the foot of the big rocks where I need some color.  

I was able to find the Hostas I'd admired in Nancy Mead's garden earlier this summer (which I wrote about on Tuesday) and scored a couple more plants with reddish foliage for the very back garden, along with a Geranium sanguineum 'Elke'. I've been growing these Geraniums for years but 'Elke' is a newer variety that has flowers that are bigger and are a bright neon pink with a white center kind of like those Phlox in the first image above.

After struggling for a long time trying to find the conditions that Astilbe like, I finally hit the jackpot and all my Astilbes are doing so well I could just about divide them annually. But I wanted one with more color for more of an impact. This one below is 'Delft Lace' which should be a wow with all my orange lilies next summer. And I bought Hemerocallis 'Pardon Me.' I like the smaller scale daylilies and I wanted a reddish one that could be planted near lavender flowers. This one should fit the bill.

A wonderful haul from the Flower Factory after a great visit with the members of Indian Hills Garden Club. Thank you!

Wordless Wednesday

Tour time

When I'm not working in the garden in the summer I am visiting other local gardens, the same as most of you. I am always curious to see how others design and divide their space and to see what plants and objects they use to define their garden. It's always a treat on a tour to have a moment alone to let new flowery thoughts and ideas quietly sink in.

But it's the social moments that make a tour as memorable as the gardens themselves. Part of that socializing is a chance to get garden questions answered by the gardener as well as the pros who may be visiting at the same time as you are. Here I am picking the brains of Nancy Nedveck of The Flower Factory Nursery  (speaking) and homeowner/gardener Nancy Mead (right) and FF employee Judy Allen (left).

They were helping me to identify the varieties of the fabulous Hostas on display in Nancy's garden. The ones below are growing by the street to be enjoyed by passersby.

These days it's easy for me to enjoy what I see on tours but harder to find ideas to bring home since I've been gardening here long enough that the space is pretty much defined and chockfull. But I went gaga over these Hostas. The experts concluded H. 'Great Expectations' is the one in the image above and 'Earth Angel' (right) below. I already have H. 'Striptease' on the left below.

As I was wandering around my garden after the tour, I went by a trio of green and white "house Hostas" that I'd planted as placeholders until I had a better plan. I've just left them in peace for years without even noticing them anymore. This time I realized they were in the perfect location for "Great Expectations" and "Earth Angel."

I found both Hostas on a recent trip out to Flower Factory where I also connected again with Nancy and Judy. My new Hostas don't look quite as dramatic as the ones in Nancy Mead's garden but I am hoping they will echo hers once a few more growing seasons pass.

In a vase on Monday: flowers, food and books

Mark's book club, aka The Community of Reason, meets once a month on a Sunday morning. I am a bit of a fair weather member and only attend when I'm not otherwise engaged or I am particularly interested in the book. This month the book was "Janesville: An American Story" by Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post, which I'd read earlier this year and had recommended to the group. Since I knew we'd be sitting in the living room, I put together this quick arrangement for the coffee table that we would all be gathered around. These lilies (L. lancifolium flore pleno) have been a real joy, they've been blooming for weeks and still have a few more buds left to open. We ate the delicious Michigan peaches later that afternoon. 

One of the members of the book group who has a beautiful garden brought me this bouquet. A bit difficult to see but I love how the colors picked up the same  tones in the ceramic platter behind them. 

I put this little quickie together to enjoy while I worked in the kitchen Sunday afternoon after everyone had gone home. I roasted and froze another batch of Roma tomatoes and onions all pre-weighed for winter soup, made the green beans with olives and marinated beet salad from the NYTimes and this fabulous curried chick pea salad which I have been making once a week for the last few weeks. It's prime produce season and I am really trying to take advantage of all the delicious things available at our farmers' markets. 

I'm joining Cathy from Rambling in the Garden who hosts this Monday meme. I often make bouquets but I try not to miss this great floral outpouring each week. You can see what other gardeners have created here.

. . . 

 

If you are looking for a great book on contemporary politics, community and economic issues, I'd suggest "Janesville." Here's the review of it that I posted on Good Reads:

Like "Evicted," this is another important book coming out of Wisconsin. Ostensibly this is the story of the General Motors (GM) plant closing in Janesville from the announcement in 2008 right up till now. Author Amy Goldstein, as a Washington Post reporter and a member of a Pulitzer team, proves eminently suited to see this event from the aspect of personal stories as well as following the ever-widening ripple of repercussions that fateful decision has on the larger community.

In one sense this is another depressing story and yet the former GM workers and the town are determined to somehow overcome this dramatic change in their fortunes. The auto workers and their families, the educators, social workers and community activists we meet are hard working, sacrificing and inspiring on every level. The politicians and business leaders are folks who we already know like Paul Ryan and Diane Hendricks of ABC Supply Co. Golstein gives all sides in this story, often right from the horses’ mouths as it were. We can damn the participants or praise them based on their own words and actions. 

The hardest part of “Janesville” is not watching folks struggle to stay afloat and find new jobs. It’s the analysis and statistics that Goldstein amasses in half a dozen years covering this story that point to a critical misconception about how to retrain factory workers for new careers, whether they can be retrained and what the new work and pay will be. The government essentially has one plan and this book says it’s not working. Whether anyone is listening is the big question. 

I found this to be a great read and so much more worthy of my time than “Hillbilly Elegy.” It's been days since I finished it and I can't get these folks out of my mind.

The worm has turned and is also being surveyed

Earlier this week I dug out an old shrub that I planted years ago because I remembered one growing at my grandmother's. I decided the memory of it was much nicer than my actual ratty shrub taking up a piece of valuable real estate. It took me a good two hours or more to get that monster out of the ground. The worst part of the job, however, was that there were Asian jumping worms (Amynthas species) in every spade of dirt I turned over. Now when I see a worm it is always an enemy siting. It was a very depressing afternoon. 

The next day Mark and I cleaned up the east side of the house where our garden work area is located. Mark is going to make me a new potting bench but we needed to get all the junk out of the way so he could get started. Piles of prunings, bags of garden debris, old pots and a pile of soil he bought in early spring to re-pot our waterlilies made the space a disaster area. We dealt with all the piles of junk and then lifted up the piece of plastic that had been covering the remains of the dirt pile.

It was immediately apparent to me that jumping worms had been working there. If you look at the photo above you can see how the soil looks like the proverbial "coffee grounds" texture we've been hearing about. The pale spot by the rock in the photo below shows the untouched soil. There's lots of pebbles and debris in this image but I think the difference in soil texture is noticeable. This is the first — and so far only  — place where I have seen any effect from the jumping worms, though this is at least the second year I have seen them in the garden. The number of worms I am finding appears to be higher than last year. 

Wisconsin DNR Invasive Plants and Earthworms Outreach Specialist Bernie Williams said in the WHPS June newsletter, “The best way to get rid of the worms at present — if you are finding one of the adults — try and grab and bag as many of them as you can. At least that way, you’re alleviating that pressure of having the cocoons in your soil. If you put them in a plastic bag and then put them in the sun for 10 minutes or so, you’re going to have a congealed mess of worms ... the humane way to put them out. And then just dispose of them in the trash.”

I used this technique when I was digging out the shrub I mentioned at the top of this post. I had three lunch-sized ziplok baggies each with about a dozen worms. Put the bags on a rock in the sun for the afternoon and then into the trash. So many worms it was hard to decide if I had a chance of making any kind of a difference in my garden in the long term scheme of things. 

I am on a list for email updates from the UW-Madison Arboretum. The Arb has been at the forefront locally of dealing with, learning about and researching jumping worms. They sent me the notice that I've pasted below in its entirety. It came right after my recent jumping worm experiences and definitely got my attention. I am passing it on for anyone who might want to volunteer since so many of us locally are already dealing with this issue.

Invasive jumping worm (Amynthas species) photo from (NTL-LTER) and the UW-Madison Arboretum 

 Volunteers Needed

for Invasive Worm Survey

The North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research site (NTL-LTER) and the Arboretum will be surveying Madison properties for the invasive jumping worm (Amynthas species) on September 10. We need volunteers for two opportunities—both will be great learning experiences for those who want to know more about jumping worms:

1. People to help survey properties on September 10 
2. Madison homeowners who do not know if they have the worm and would like their residential site to be part of the survey

If you are interested in either of these opportunities, please keep reading and get in touch by the dates listed below. 

. . .

The North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research site (NTL-LTER) and the UW–Madison Arboretum are seeking volunteers to join the Madison Citywide Jumping Worm Survey on Sunday, September 10, 2017, from 1–5 p.m.

Background

The jumping worm is an earthworm native to East Asia, but invasive to Wisconsin. This pest was found in Madison in the fall of 2013, and researchers and land managers are concerned about potential negative effects on soil and plant growth. The jumping worm is also of considerable concern to local gardeners and homeowners who worry about potential damaging effects to their property. This fall, our team seeks to learn about the spread of the invasive jumping worm in the Madison area.

Project Goals

The project's research goal is to get a first assessment (which could be repeated in subsequent years) of the distribution and abundance of Amynthas spp. in the Madison metro area. Specifically we aim to determine:

1. What is the current distribution of Asian jumping worms (Amynthas spp.) in the Madison metropolitan area? (i.e., where are the worms?)
2. How do the presence and abundance of Asian jumping worms (Amynthas spp.) vary with land-cover categories? (i.e., what habitats do they prefer or avoid?)

Volunteer Information

We are seeking volunteers to help us survey for jumping worms in residential, park, prairie, and forested sites throughout the city of Madison. We are also looking for additional Madison residential properties to include in the survey, especially from homeowners who do not know if their property contains the jumping worm.

If you are interested in having your Madison property surveyed as part of the Madison Citywide Worm Survey and you are unaware if you have the jumping worm, please email your name and contact information to Kelly O’Ferrell by August 28, 2017. *Note: Residential properties will be randomly selected from responses until we have met our site quota.

If you are interested in participating as a survey volunteer in the Madison Citywide Jumping Worm Survey on Sunday September 10, 2017, from 1–5 p.m., please email your name and contact information to Kelly O’Ferrell by September 1, 2017.

Thank you!

The Madison Citywide Jumping Worm Survey Team

. . .

Here is a link to the The North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research web site if you are curious as to who they are. 

Nine years later . . .

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since I wrote my first blog post on Sunday, August 24, 2008. I was newly unemployed after the daily paper I worked for decided to go digital and stop print publication. I decided I should enter the new online world with my own publication and have never looked back. I thought it would be a good way to keep my writing skills polished while I job hunted. I loved being able to showcase as many photos as I wanted to use and not have to worry about space or color or word count or any of the concerns of print. 

After 30 years of writing for newspapers I started out with long posts very similar to the newspaper columns and feature articles I was known for at the time. Even as a columnist there was a limit to how much of myself could go into a column — even my garden columns. It took me quite a while to make the transition to blogging where it's OK if it's all about me! Unlike most bloggers I have never limited myself to one topic. All those years of being a generalist means I have too many interests and too much to say to stick to one topic. So you will find posts on food, fashion, history, politics, books and more in my little world.

Having had a successful journalism career before I ever began blogging, I don't worry about how many people are following me. So you won't find links to Amazon or giveaways or contests here. Just me writing about something I find of interest and hope you will as well. When I began the blog in 2008 I never expected to still be here nine years later. But I am a creature of habit who spent a life ruled by deadlines, so almost daily blogging seems entirely natural to me. I hope you will stay with me and we'll see if we can make it an even ten years!

Here's a link to my very first post that explains where the name of my blog originated and what it means.

Wordless Wednesday

Up and down in Red Wing, Minnesota . . .

Prepping for a garden tour

We had a gravel garden in our design plans from the get go. A number of years after the first one was completed, I suggested to Mark that we needed another one. This time in the back garden as an echo of the first one and also to keep the original one from seeming too like a pastiche. Raked gravel gardens are not something you commonly see in many American landscapes, so we're very conscious of having them look their best whenever visitors are coming to our garden.

That means we pick up any garden debris that has fallen on them from the trees above and deal with any weeds that have the temerity to seed themselves into such a prime location.

Then Mark uses the blower to achieve a perfectly clean and clear gravel surface to rake into a pattern with my garden fork. 

Looking at these pictures you can see how much effort goes into prepping this one little area of the garden for visitors. 

This pattern in the gravel is a simple geometric design with lines running perpendicular to each other. 

Obviously more simple in appearance than in execution. 

Here's how the same pattern looks in the Yin Yang Circle in the Moon Garden.

When I went to look at these two gardens after Mark had finished raking them, I realized it was the very first time he had ever raked the same pattern into the two discrete spaces in all the years he's been doing this.

I'm not sure anyone else noticed but I did. I loved seeing how different the same design looked and felt in the two gardens. And I love never knowing what kind of patterns I will see when Mark does his magic in our gravel gardens!

In a vase on Monday: How to use a wide-mouth container

One last look at Stout's Island Lodge and two more bouquets from its gorgeous gardens.

. . . 

Most of my vases have narrow openings, often only big enough for a stem or two. Though I have a few containers with flared lips whose design I really like, I've always found it hard to use them. Until I saw the arrangements below I always thought a wide opening required a big bouquet to fill it. Kelly, the gardener at Stout's Island Lodge, proved me totally wrong. 

This bouquet uses the most common garden flowers — Hosta leaves, daisies and red Begonias — put together to create a sophisticated but simplified arrangement. This type of grouping will now be my "go to" solution when I want to use one of my wide mouth containers. 

She did a similar grouping a day or so later, again using Hosta leaves and daisies but this time adding Aralia seedheads. If you described this bouquet to me I never could have imagined how elegant an arrangement it could be. Note that the first bouquet was on the screened porch in a jog in a long hallway. The one below was on a table next to one of the main doors in the Lodge. Beauty everywhere you went at Stout's Island Lodge!

To see what other gardeners have put in a vase today, visit Rambling in the Garden who hosts this meme.

Fiber Friday: Cultural Cloth

I'm not sure how I discovered Cultural Cloth online, but once I did I knew I wanted to visit them in person. It just so happened that our vacation trip took us close enough to turn my wish into reality. We spent part of an afternoon roaming through the textile-filled rooms of their old house-turned-into-a-shop in Maiden Rock on the Great River Road in Wisconsin. We didn't come home empty handed and the owners graciously let Mark snap enough photos to give you a sense of their shop and to lure you for a visit!

Cultural Cloth describes their shop as "Handmade Home Décor made by women artisans from around the world for discriminating buyers." But the real story is much deeper and more meaningful. The business is the brainchild of Mary Anne Wise and Jody Slocum who opened their doors in 2011. The two textile artists now work with women artisans around the world helping them make their indigenous artwork in a way that will attract contemporary buyers. 

They purchase work outright as well as teaching, collaborating and mentoring the artisans so they are "better prepared for the challenges of the marketplace," as they put it. The end result is that the women earn a fair wage with their work — which has a critical ripple effect which influences the welfare of their families and extends out into their wider communities. 

In essence the women who own Cultural Cloth and the women artisans are role models for social change. And we as consumers, know where the beautiful items we buy at the shop were made, often who made them and where our dollars are going. 

 And when I say beautiful items, I mean an amazing array that runs the gamut from jewelry to rugs. The rug above is one of the most incredible felted items I've ever seen.

Don't you just want to move right into these bedrooms? I love the row of tiny chairs hanging on the wall, each one with a bird making a temporary stop.

The shop had some great pieces of furniture upholstered in textiles from their artisans.

You can seem from the image below that you can find textiles with subdued colors or ones that are as bright as you wish.

Lots of wonderful blue and white textiles and many florals as well. Note the antique chair upholstered with one of CC's fabrics. 

A closeup of the bed in the photo above.

The shop has scarves, shawls, jewelry bags and all manner of adornments.

A nice array of decorative items like baskets as well.

They also offer fabric by the yard for home sewers as well as unusual trims and buttons. It was all enticing enough to make me think about buying a sewing machine again!

Looking the opposite direction from photo number 8.

We came home with a large textile to use as a throw on the bed or couch, a small rug, jewels and a shawl for me, and a little Indian doll for me and a metal man for Mark. When I first discovered Cultural Cloth online I thought about ordering because the quality of the items looked very good from the photos. Our visit only confirmed the high level of quality and creativity of the work by these world-wide artisans and the commitment of Mary Anne and Jody to fiber arts and female artists. Do check them out online or in person. 

CULTURAL CLOTH

STORE HOURS:  THURSDAY - SUNDAY 10 A.M. TO 5 P.M.

OR BY APPOINTMENT.  

PHONE:  715-607-1238

ADDRESS: W3560 STATE HWY. 35

THE GREAT RIVER ROAD

MAIDEN ROCK, WI 54750