Happenings at Garden Consultant HQ

Irene was nice to Garden Consultant HQ last week

2011-09-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

As you are all aware, Tropical Storm Irene came a knockin' the other weekend. I won't lie and say that I wasn't wringing my hands over her. The weather geeks made it sound like she was the real deal...and for some people she was. We had minimal damage here at our place...we just lost a couple of big limbs in the back yard. We had a bunch of leaf litter and little branches all over the ground. It only took us one day to clean up after her...and it almost looked like nothing even happened here.

One decent sized limb out of the last of the junky red maples in the back yard. Eric really wanted to take that tree down but decided not to because he wasn't going to do the shed this season. That junky tree does provide us a lot of privacy from the deck off of the neighbor behind us.

The top of a sassafrass tree fell down into the back forty. There are a couple of limbs that got all broken and twisted up in another red maple back there. They haven't fallen, but I think I'm going to take the loppers to them with a ladder.

Lake Larson made it through the storm completely unscathed. I was really worried about this because of potential power loss. We only lost power for about 8 hours. Once again, we were lucky because there were hundreds of thousands of Rhode Islanders who didn't have power for days on end. Why power outages are bad for water gardens is the waterfalls which supply oxygen to the fish shut down. The fish can actually smother to death without waterfalls or air stones aerating the water. Thank goodness, that was a non issue. Eric has been toying with the idea of putting the waterfalls on solar panels on the garage roof. I think I may make a push for that, not only for the savings on the power bill but also so the waterfalls and wet pets aren't completely reliant on National Grid.

Probably the worst of the damage we sustained...our neighbor lost a good sized dead limb out of his oak and it squashed part of Agility Land's fence. Oh well...we straightened it out the best we could. It still does the job of keeping Lars from saying hi to the neighbor and his little boy.

Again, we were lucky. We saw this on our ride back from the marina to check on Eric's boat and to grab his power inverter. That puts things into perspective doesn't it.

Wordless water garden Wednesday

2011-08-24T11:28:00.001-04:00

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Big Brother is watching!

2011-08-18T14:14:00.002-04:00

I will every once in a while go on Google Maps or Live Maps and stalk clients gardens just for the heck of it. I think it's fun to see what season the satellite was over head or to see if the photo was snapped before or after the landscape was installed. I checked out one of my favorite projects in Portsmouth and I wasn't ready for what I saw...

See that red jeep in the driveway?? That's mine. See those two figures with the shadows in the garden in the backyard...that's me having a consultation with Kelly, my client. How freaky (and a little disturbing) is that!!

You never know when Big Brother is watching...

(oh and FYI, this was early spring and after the installation! LOL)

Window Box Wednesday

2011-08-17T09:22:00.000-04:00

I do love creating this window box every season and then changing it out. I actually did put pansies in it early this spring. I think I was so over the glum and snowy winter we had here in New England and really felt the need to have some spring where I could see it. Our couch is on the other side of the window and I (and Lars) perch there a lot.

When we first moved into the house, the light exposure was way different than what is there now. I could plant full sun annuals and have them do well...but now? Not so much. Because of the large oak that is growing on the opposite side of the walkway and the house corner to the left of the box sits due south, this area is now solidly part sun/shade. The gardens in front of the house under the box have changed too and are still in a state of flux. Over the seasons the window box has had more and more shady annuals, starting with impatiens and coleus. Now's it's primary shady annuals with the same impatiens, large leave begonias (who are getting eaten by the impatiens,) Tri-color sweet potato vine and the two full sun annuals who are holding their own - eucalyptus and the diamond frost Euphorbia in the center of the box. I think this is a winning match for right now and I'll stick with it. I'll probably do some minor changes like in placement of the annuals and the colors for years to come...but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I think more people in gardening need to follow that mantra! :)

Bluesday Tuesday

2011-08-16T17:01:00.001-04:00

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Oh yeah...about that grass.

2011-08-15T14:25:00.002-04:00

Grass seed really likes 4+ inches of rain in little over week. This area was nothing but dust not too long ago. Now, it looks like Ireland back there. The turf gods apparently approve of agility land.

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Since it's soggy today -

2011-08-15T09:40:00.001-04:00

The only gripe I have about my new iphone is it doesn't seem to take good pics of the water lilies. It takes fantastic photos overall but for some reason it washes out the colors of the lilies. The lilies yield has been respectable. We've had numerous yellow ones (which is what is featured above) and peach ones. I have to say, the peach are my favorite! I need to get some pics of them soon. There is a white and baby pink lily out there which we've had very few flowers on. I wonder if the fish are messing with the root system like they have with some of the other lilies that have passed on.

I am very pleased at seeing inches of rain fall again in August. As of right now, we've had 3.8" of rain which the gardens and lawns have been drinking up. We put down grass seed in agility land last week right before the rains started...and we have grass back there...lots of it.

This was last Wednesday and you can see the hint of green which came to our surprise. Over the weekend, it continued to shoot up and now it's approaching lush. I'll have to take photos in a couple of days to show the progress. Granted it's not wicked sunny back there...but you can grow grass seed in the summer if you have the right amount of water and temperatures that aren't blistering.

There is a lot of stuff I didn't talk about this season!

2011-08-12T09:57:00.000-04:00

As with any garden, things are in flux all year round. Here, we (well...Eric) did some hardscape stuff which we've been toying with since we moved in here 7 years ago. True to his nickname at work - The Larsonist - Eric scored a ton of pavers and stone which was destined to the grinder at a gravel yard. Here was our crappy asphalt walkway before:

And this is what I came home to one night after work:

as you can see...this would most definitely qualify as an "Oh Crap" project! LOL It was fun trying to figure out with Eric how the walkway was going to work with a mix of materials. He had grabbed a bunch of Unilock pavers in tan and these beyond wonderful, large tan/gray/pink stones. Luckily the colors worked well with the pavers and the bluestone caps he had for the stairs. We decided to make the stones the featured part of the walkway and used the pavers as a border, more or less. Luckily as well, the old walkway's width worked beautifully with what we thought up:

The finished product ended up being stunning if I don't say so myself! I am so blessed I have a husband who can "do stuff."

Love it!!!

Considering it's something more than the spring crush...

2011-08-11T11:09:00.003-04:00

That's kept me from posting on my blog on a regular basis. I've been grappling with a feeling I haven't been quite able to put my finger on this spring and summer. But I think these past two weeks I've identified what I haven't been wanting to admit. I'm suffering from burnout. There, I said it. This post isn't going to be about gardens and plants...it's going to be more cathartic of where I am in my place on this planet.

This spring and summer I have been running around like a complete lunatic and there were beyond numerous weeks where I wasn't home at night. Between meetings, the spring work load, nursery and landscape association stuff, agility classes several times a week, me teaching dog training classes, and then working or dog showing weekends...I have no candle left because I burned it up months ago. I've made promises to clients I can't keep without killing myself this year in order to cinch projects. I haven't done newsletters for clients for two quarters now, and there's this general apathy that looms over me. That was the feeling I couldn't describe...the overall "Meh" feeling about my business, work, and my own gardens. Most of what I was doing felt like it was "one more freakin' thing I have to worry about." Then there was the anxiety I was feeling over what was supposed to be a fun hobby with Lars...we weren't progressing fast enough at the agility shows and we started to backslide in fact. It become something that wasn't fun anymore and there was one glaring moment in a class where I had an epiphany that ultimately lead me to putting my finger on what this post is about.

What it boils down to is "I do too much." and I am exhausted by it.

Agility Land complete with newly sprouted grass!

It was about 5 years ago where I felt like I felt overwhelmed by life. Sure, I have felt times where my life is spinning out of control...but those were usually short lived for a couple of weeks. But this is the first time I've felt burned out. I stepped away from all of the agility classes I had been taking. I didn't realize how important it was for me to not have to go someplace every night. Eric and I have been working on in area in the waste land that is the foam finger that is a couple of weeks shy of officially becoming my own "agility land." I can train and practice at home now when I feel like it without an hour drive each way. I actually made this week in the office meeting free for the most part and it's made a big difference for my psyche. I've taken the time to work in my own yard a little bit at night and it feels really nice to have leisurely evenings.

I need to be way more honest with myself about what I feasibly can and what I can't do. I need to look at why am I doing things in my life both work and personally and who am I really doing this for. There's an inventory that needs to be taken and I have a feeling I need to really cut things that aren't working for me or my self care. I think being centered and content needs to win out over "look what I have accomplished." I need to simplify my life and start enjoying all of the aspects of it again.

The big guys, Chunk and Rorschach, snooping for munchies.

Arising from the spring crush again

2011-07-03T19:54:00.001-04:00

Happy 4th of July everyone!!! I found this handy app that allows me to post to my blogs with my phone. I think may make it easier for me to update things more frequently.

This spring has been pretty normal weather wise and the gardens here are loving life. I have been commenting to Eric this is the year everything looks really robust. I'm willing to bet it's because of our shift to more organic methods like mulching with compost and using exclusively organic fertilizers. I'm sold on the benefits and the results.

I haven't really done anything new gardens around the yard other than extending a bed near the pond. I think I have a few holes in various beds but they won't be a big deal to fix. I am gathering some inspiration on perimeter plantings along the fence and what will become agility land soon. I probably will start moving on those this fall. So stay tuned!

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April Fools Indeed Mother Nature

2011-04-01T14:07:00.005-04:00

Conflicting messages abound this spring!!! Mother Nature said last night "Winter's not over!" as the huge snowflakes fell from the sky. I will say, I am 100% officially over Winter 2011. I'm really, really hoping that was her last snowy hurrah. The snow wasn't that big of a deal...an inch or so of slop fell from the sky. It was pretty much gone by morning. I even think the rain is over today which will be nice.

Someone else in my in my yard who refuses to let go of winter (but this is okay in my book.)

The Jelena Witch Hazel is still blooming for almost 6 weeks!!! She's never bloomed this long before. Normally 4 weeks is how long she grants us her beauty. The blooms are starting to get tired looking now and I suspect they'll drop in about a week. If it stays cold, we'll see...maybe she'll go 7 - 8 weeks in flower!

But, like me, there are a lot of things in the garden and in my plant world that says..."Come on Spring!!" The fig below has started to fire out some serious growth these past couple of weeks. It may actually balance itself out soon.

The Crocus popped their heads about the soil in the last two days. I welcome them and their violet/blue blooms. I only have a couple of clusters around the Lake. I need to plant more just so I can really feel like spring is coming this time of year.

Surprise!!

2011-03-29T09:48:00.002-04:00

Last week, I glanced at the big picture window in the living room and noticed the passion flower was peeking over the curtain rod. And here I thought it was just in suspended animation. That's cool. I was looking at it from the couch Sunday and notice it had a bud...double cool. This morning I wanted to see if the bud was getting ready to flower...and what do I see??

3 spent blooms!!! Really? I would have loved to know that was going on just mere inches from where I sit/knit/watch TV. UGH! But, at least I know now and there are a ton of buds snaking up this one vine. I don't think I'm going to pollinate any of them this time around. I need to get in touch with Logee's and find out where we went awry with the epic passion fruit fail from this fall. I'm psyched though I have some really neat, tropical flowers kicking around to get me through the last, lagging cold days of the winter that refuses to die.

Other breaking news at Garden Consultant HQ is....check this out:

These things had better taste really good after waiting since the beginning of December. I'm just saying...

Signs of life...

2011-03-25T13:32:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, we woke up to about .5" of snow on the ground and intermittent flurries through out the day. Thankfully, it melted by late morning and the stuff that fell later in the day never stood a chance on the ground. Cruel joke, Mother Nature....just cruel. :( The weather looks very promising though these next seven days of sunshine and temps in the 40's and low 50's. Definitely a far cry from last year this time of year with the pouring rain that lead to the office and basement flooding.

Tuesday and today I've been popping out off and on and taking stock of what's happening outside. This pic below is a welcome sight for winter weary eyes. These guys are facing on my south wall and a) they are probably an early season daff and b) this wall is warmer than the others so things progress faster than others.

Sedum 'Matrona' getting her "brussell sprout" look on. Note to self...no fertilizer for her or my other sedums this year. They grew like hell and then flopped over mid June. If they do it again, they're getting pinched and hard.

I love emerging Lady Mantle leaves...they are adorable!

My dusty rose/orange lilies are popping up against that south wall. I'm waging a full out war against red lily leaf beetle this year and I'll have Eric get on top of that soon. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the evil little bug, here's a great link for educating yourself on them: http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/neweng/2002040522017914.html The good news is, URI has been releasing a parasitic wasp in different areas of Rhode Island to combat these little nasties. Dr. Cassagrande who is involved with their study is very optimistic the wasps will be successful in controlling red lily leaf beetle.

All of the other hostas are sleeping still but this one - Hosta 'Aureo-marginata.' This variety is one of the first to emerge in the spring. It's a gorgeous yellow and green variegated leaf with a vase like growing habit. Very, very striking in the shade garden.

I'm getting psyched for this growing season...let's hope that Mother Nature wants to play nice this year.

Hey....wait a minute...

2011-03-24T10:09:00.002-04:00

Dare I say...I see a hint of red on my perma-green cherry tomatoes??

O. M. G.

I haven't detected any change of color on the yellow cherries yet. And, that is fine because they did start flowering later than that left corner red cherry. I am happy to report that the slacker red cherry tomato plant on the right corner is now happily blooming (and setting fruit) it's little head off. Patience does indeed pay off.

Aerogarden update - early March

2011-03-09T10:09:00.006-05:00

It's been about 3 to 4 months since I've started up the tomatoes and the flower 3 pod aerogardens. I've been using an oscillating fan to create enough of a breeze to pollinate the tomato plants. It has been working really well and I have a TON of little cherry tomatoes coming. I'm not sure if I am super anxious because of the suspense of having cherry tomatoes I grew in winter. But...it feels like it is taking forever for them to ripen. I'm almost tempted to pick them and then ripen them on the windowsill like you do with greenies from outside. Must be patient....gardening teaches patience. I'm not following the wise words I constantly tell my clients. :/

Anyway, below are the red cherries on the far left:

Here are my yellow cherries in the middle. The fruit seem smaller than the reds and I am totally chalking that up to difference in cultivars:

The red cherry tomato on the far right hasn't produced any fruit at all...some flowers, but nothing that has gone on to fruit. I think it could be the lights from the 3 pod AG which shut off a lot later than the 7 pod. I wonder if that red guy isn't getting the darkness the other two are. Several weeks ago, I did move the 3 pod closer to my desk and further away from the big AG. I'm curious to see if that 2 foot distance will make a difference.

As I suspected, the house plants I brought downstairs to share the lighting wealth the AG's throw out are happy as clams. I did end up bringing the yellow Moth Orchid down here too because it was suffering from bud blast upstairs. Bud Blast is when buds will start to mature, turn yellow, and then fall off. One of the main causes of bud blast is major swings in temperature. Opening and closing the sliding glass door when it's frigid out and this orchid was the closest to the door. Since it has come down to the basement...I haven't lost any more buds.

As you can see here, the streptocarpus is loving life while leeching off of the extra light:

I've actually had a really nice display of Stock from the 3 pod AG. I just deadheaded it before I snapped the pic here. Now I have some white coming through which is a pleasant surprise. The oscillating fan does move their fragrance around the office and I have moments of where I feel like I'm at the flower show again. :) The petuntias are totally thriving and I'm hoping to see some flowers soon. I did end up pinching it back some after I took these pics because it was starting to get taller than the Stock. I'm sure I did set it back some from pinching off some of the buds. I started to change over the nutrients to support more flowering two weeks ago. Hopefully, I can push things along. The Zinnia I stuck in there is slowly growing but has a bud coming. It's literally 2" tall and looks kind of dumb next to it's neighbors. They got much, much taller in the 7 pod last summer. Whatever. These things are like one huge science experiment...and I find them fascinating.

Flashback Friday

2011-03-04T12:21:00.002-05:00

Guess this gardening thing I do was really meant to be afterall. :)

No wonder why weeding is my least favorite of all gardening jobs - I've been picking weeds for the last 36 - 37 years.

The Wet Pets Emerge!

2011-03-03T10:35:00.003-05:00

These orange blobbish shapes gliding slowly under the ice were a welcome sight this morning. Lake Larson has finally lost it's blanket of snow on the shallow side and I can see what's going on in there. The deeper side, the ice is opaque and I can't see anyone who may be still snoozing under there. But, it's a big sigh of relief when Chunk, Rorschach, and their smaller buddies are looking at you from under their glass ceiling. Welcome back guys, I know you probably felt like those Chilean miners this winter under multiple feet of snow. It won't be long now, I promise. :)

I posted this on my personal facebook page last night. One of my Flower Show neighbors offered to snap a pic of me in my booth before the doors opened up on Sunday. I want to give a shout out to Paula from Simply Paula - http://www.simplypaula.com/ for being kind enough to capture me in my little Garden Consultant world last week.

It's actually not a bad photo considering we were on our final stretch of four days! I was expecting me to look like a horrible driver license pic. Thanks again Paula! :)

Spring's knocking on the door

2011-03-01T11:48:00.002-05:00

LOL...well, I'll give myself a big ol' F for my attempt at Project 365. Life got in the way and so goes my good intentions. Oh well. :)

Eventhough I haven't had much opportunity to post...stuff has been carrying on as usual. The RI Spring and Flower Show came and went last week. This was the sixth year for me in Booth 313 and it was a pleasure to be there again. I got the chance to see clients who have found me over the years there and to meet people who may join my ranks of clients/friends. I changed the layout of the booth a little bit this year and I really like the little changes I made. I got a lot of wonderful feedback on my work and the booth itself which is always good to hear.

The witch hazel 'Jelena' was a little bit early this season and missed the mark of her flower show week appearance. She was about 5 days early and I think she's as eager for spring to start up as we all are. Jelena is finally getting a little height on her and I can see her better over the picket fence from the kitchen window.

The snow is virtually gone this week after all of the rain we had last Friday and yesterday. I was wandering around picking fallen debris and branches from the back yard this morning. I've got some stuff to do this spring for a clean up but it won't be that bad. I think if it's nice this weekend, I may start a little sooner than I normally do. The itch to get my hands dirty is strong this year.

Lake Larson takes FIRST PLACE!!

2011-01-26T18:04:00.004-05:00

I have been waiting to enter Lake Larson in the RI Nursery and Landscape Association's Excellence Award pretty much when Eric built it. This was the year that it looked like it was really ready. I guess the judges agreed with me. ;)

I dedicate this award to Eric's back and the numerous surgeries it's suffered. :)

January Orchid Paradox - Day 14

2011-01-23T22:38:00.002-05:00

When it's 11 degrees out this evening with a wind chill of -3...it doesn't seem right. It seems really, really right!

Feathered friends - Day 13

2011-01-22T11:47:00.002-05:00

Bird Central was the place to be yesterday...I've got 2 suet cages, two feeder with black sunflower seeds, and the thistle tube feeder up this year. One suet cage is over on the fence but the hole in Lake Larson from the air stone. We get a nice mix of birds...here's the downy woodpecker who comes a lot and a sparrow of some sort (I can't tell from the pic.) We were in the hot tub this morning and the downy showed up. He made a couple of loud calls and then a bunch of birds came to feed. It was sort of neat...like he was the sentry and gave everyone else the okay to come and dine.

Aerogarden update - Day 12

2011-01-21T11:56:00.003-05:00

I'm going to cheat and do two pics because I had a little bit of a busy week this week.

We've had another winter storm warning today and I think we got around 3 or so inches of snow on the ground. Thankfully, this was a lighter snow and it's been pretty easy to shovel. I do like snow but wish it was a little softer out there because it makes for some difficult walking. Lars has been pretty much a shut in with the exceptions of going to rides in the car and walks with Eric.

On this snowy morning, I see peeks of color on my stock in the 3 podder. I just switched over to the liquid fertilizer and I'm very interested to see how much of a change I see in the plants. Those tablets that came with the kit were really bad at dissolving. The petunias have really started to grow and the zinnias are coming along...but they were also planted weeks after these other two pods. I think it will be a pretty little mix when they all start to do their thing.

This is what really makes my smile...tomato blooms. I have the fan on them today and I'll have it on them every day while they are blooming to help them pollinate. I finally pinched them lightly yesterday. The light hood has a couple of more levels it can be raised but figured trying to get them to bush out at this point would be a good thing. I read someplace online that someone had tomatoes in their aerogarden for 14 months. We'll see how long these guys produce for us. Exciting stuff!!

2011's Orchid crop: very promising - Day 7

2011-01-16T17:28:00.003-05:00

The upstairs orchids have been gearing up for their show this winter. The photo above is of the light yellow one with pink highlights. This one didn't flower last winter and I think it was in protest of me putting it outside in a place I thought would work. It didn't...and it took a while for them to get over it. Too much sun (and it was just morning sun) didn't agree and they got burnt.

But it's a new year, and they didn't go outside. So, right now 4 out of my 6 orchids are forming flower scapes. I did decide the mini one downstairs is getting ready to flower and I'm really excited about that. I love my orchids...who knew they would be so easy to grow!

Baby, It's cold outside...Day 6

2011-01-15T21:51:00.002-05:00

Yes, Friday was one of those days where I was out of the office all day with meetings and running around. So, I'll skip it for the P365...no biggie.

I had to run to CT for a preliminary design meeting this morning. It was in the low teens as I ran out to fire and warm up the jeep. As I was coming back inside to get the rest of my stuff together, I notice the 'Purple Passion' Rhododendron completely collapsed down.

You know it's frigid when you see this...almost like mother nature's thermometer. But this is actually a survival method the Rhodies will use when it's cold like this outside. Plants lose water through pores on the undersides of their leaves. The rolling that Rhodies do helps the plant reduce the water they lose through those pores. Kind of neat, huh??

Aerogarden update - Day 4

2011-01-13T09:39:00.008-05:00

This post will be heavy with pics instead of the single ones as of late. I finally snapped some recent photos of the aerogardens with the regular camera. It doesn't pick up the flickering of the lights on the small one. So, I now have some pics of those plants.

The red cherries:

The yellow cherry:

I think it's been about 6 weeks that these guys have been growing along. I said to Eric our outdoor tomatoes don't look this good. I've been using the liquid fertilizer packs that came with the kit and apparently, they agree with the plants. I know there are people with aerogardens who get crazy about the water specific gravity, using distilled water, and this, that, and the other thing with the water. I haven't gotten all of the wild meters and stuff like that...I doubt I'll get that nuts over this. They are supposed to be easy and since I have been having fairly decent success with what I'm doing...I'll keep on keeping on.

I was suprised to notice yesterday that I see something that looks an awful lot like flower buds forming on the tomatoes. I popped up the height of the lights to give them a little bit of room. I think what I'm going to do in regards to pruning is pinch them right above the flowers that are coming. Some of you may be wondering how will the plants get pollinated while indoors. Luckily, tomatoes are pollinated by wind or by shaking the plants. So, I have my little mini space heater down here with a fan option and I'll let that blow on the plants for an hour or so and see if that works. Now on to the discussion of the 3 pod garden -

The Zinnia 'White Profusion' which replaced the phlox that never came up. I know that aerogarden will replace dud pods...but I'm not going to make a stink over one little pod. I have a ton of various seeds and it was much, much easier to toss some of them in it.

Petunias - no variety listed, just called Mini Pink

Stock - no variety listed.

The stock has had a little bit of blotchy yellow coloring on the leaves. I'm not that familiar with stock and what it does so I'm not sure if it is nutrient deficiency or just how the leaves look when they are young. I am using the fertilizer tablets that came with the kit. With these, you just toss them in whole into the water reservoir. After using liquid fertilizer in my big aerogarden, I'm not a big fan of the tablets. I did consider not using them when I started this garden up and using the liquid fertilizers I have for gardens I make myself. I may switch over to them soon and see if there is a bigger difference.

Winter Wonderland....NOT - day 3

2011-01-12T15:59:00.002-05:00

Ugh....heavy wet snow and my plants don't get along. Eric was a dear and braved the elements with Lars to rescue the arborvitae and the rhododendron (which is normally the height of the house.)

He got most of the ice and snow off with a telescopic brush he uses for his boat and they sort of snapped back. I think he was more worried about them breaking and then losing privacy for the hot tub. I am pleased to report that the hot tub and a path to it has been shoveled out (Priorities!!!) and I did eventually dig a path from the front door. As of right now at 4 pm...there looks like a little lull in the radar but the snow is far from over.

Horticultural hope - Day 2

2011-01-12T09:29:00.002-05:00

I fully intended on posting this last night after I got home from my last RINLA board meeting, but fell asleep on the couch. So I will still call this day 2. :)

I'm trying a little experiment with some of my regular houseplants and the aerogardens to see if the light they give off will sustain plants in the basement office. I have 2 moth orchids and a streptocarpus down here with me. I am happy to report that they all seem to be doing very well with the artificial light. The streptocarpus had longish light green leaves when it came down here and has been replacing them with shorter, sturdier dark green leaves.

Below is my mini moth orchid I got from last year's flower show and A & P Orchids from Seekonk. Moth Orchids need night temperatures to be around 55 degrees at night in order for them to initiate flower buds. It's easily that cool down here at night...

I have been watching this little side growth with much interest. I've been fooled in the past by things that I thought where flower scapes then to have them turn into those big fleshy roots. I'm becoming more hopeful this could be a flower scape. Stay tuned....

Winter weather rhodies - day 1

2011-01-10T10:56:00.004-05:00

I made a decision and figured I would attempt a 365-ish type format for a year and see how it turns out. I know there will be some days where I may not get to it, especially if I have a marathon day out of the office or if Lars and I are off showing for a weekend. But I'm going to try my best.

Saturday morning I was out and about in the yard with Lars as he was making sure he let every creature that that our yard was his. Our large, run of the mill Rhododendron looked really pretty with the light dusting of snow we had gotten over night...so I captured it with the phone camera.

The snow didn't last very long because the sun was really strong that afternoon...but I was able to enjoy the look of it when I was out there.

Tomato update and thoughts of direction

2011-01-07T11:53:00.002-05:00

Operation Winter Tomatoes seems to be fairly extremely well! This photo was taken on January 3rd, 2011 and I don't have one uploaded anywhere of them today. I will report the plants are very beefy and healthy looking. I think I have to pinch/prune them soon from what I have gathered from an aerogarden message board I lurk on. Maybe next week I'll give them a trim. I'm just so pleased with how they look and I'm dying to taste my first aeroponic tomatoes.

The other little aerogarden has lift off with the Stock and Petunia pods. The Phlox pod was a big dud but that's fine...I got it off of ebay and I have no idea how old the seeds where. I added some Zinnia 'White Profusion' seeds to it a couple of days ago and I know they grow like gang busters in an aerogarden. I have been having bad luck with taking photos with my phone (which took the above photo) with the lighting on the 3 pod one. The photos come out weird with vertical lines across them. So, I'm going to have to use my regular camera I think. That's why I haven't had any update on here with that one. I have to charge the batteries in my camera and I've been lazy with that.

As for the direction in my title, I just heard about this "project 365" from a friend's blog I read. Apparently the deal is you post a photo a day on your blog to represent your life in pics. It's supposedly so you take better and more meaningful photos of things in your life. I'm intrigued by this idea for both this blog and the one I have on Lars' escapades (that I shamelessly ignore.) I'm seriously thinking about trying it. Who knows, maybe tomorrow there will be another blog posting on here with a pic...we'll see.

Even winter gardens bring me joy

2011-01-03T10:23:00.014-05:00

Happy New Year Everyone!! I know that I welcome 2011 with open arms and can't wait to see what this year brings me. December was a little bit of a wonky month here...Eric had yet another back surgery early in the month and it was another spinal fusion. So, December was more or less a loss month for me between getting measurements done for winter projects, being a caretaker, having a revolving door for family visiting Eric and lastly the holidays. I did manage to run out and take some neat pics of the yard on this one spectacularly sunny (but frigid) morning right after Eric came home from the hospital.

The strawberries in the glazed strawberry pots...I loved the color of the foliage against the color of the container. I learned something about squirrels and strawberries...they will eat the leaves if they are hungry enough. Who knew...

The sun gave me some wonderful effects with the plants in the yard like this Leucothoe 'Nana' next to Lake Larson. I like this plant and I have tried it with mixed success in both my yard and client's yards. I have two rainbow Leucothoe in different places in the yard and they have some dieback on them. They don't like exposed spaces and so places with wind are out of the question. They really do like a protected, wooded place to call home.

The bold seed heads of my Black Fountain Grass...I'm ready to pull the countless volunteers from this plant in the spring. This plant seeds like crazy and I'm sure I mentioned it before. But, it's not so evil I'll yank it out. I think dividing it is on the menu for this spring.

I do love my winter hydrangeas...I think they are as pretty in the winter as they are in the summer.

My Lavender scoffs at the cold weather and continues to look wonderful (not so much now after a foot of heavy snow though.)

This rose floored me this winter...it held it's shape and color until about a week for before Christmas. (It looks like hell now. LOL) But it stayed in suspended animation for weeks in front of the kitchen window. I wrestled with should I cut it and bring it in or not for as long as it looked good. I decided against it because I was sure it was going to disintegrate inside once it thawed.

Sun makes Japanese Silver Feather Maiden Grass glow even this time of year.

Everyone asks me about the wet pets and this time of year and how to they make it in the pond in the winter. When I took this photo...there was about a good inch of ice on the Lake. They just hang out and move around slowly throughout the pond. They will seek out areas under the ice where the sun hits the Lake and then when it goes away, they go back to the deep side. We do have a heater and the air stone running to keep two holes in the ice so gas exchange can happen. If we didn't do that...they would die due to lack of oxygen. But they hang and lounge around until spring under there.

We kept the little waterfall running until we got ice dams on it and the water start to flow around them. We started to get some serious water running out of the falls and into the garden around it. I shut them down for the winter right before I snapped these last two photos. It's too bad I can't run them the entire winter because I love the look of iced up waterfalls...both man-made and natural ones.

Mum's the word Monday - Middletown Heart and Soul project

2010-12-27T21:18:00.001-05:00

Silent Saturday - bird central's new location

2010-12-11T17:21:00.003-05:00

Up, up and away - tomatoes for the winter!

2010-12-07T19:56:00.008-05:00

The cherry tomato seed kit for the aerogarden came since I last wrote and I have it all set up. In the kit comes two red seed pods and one yellow cherry pod. They give you some blanks so the plants have some room to grow. I stuck the yellow one in front and the two reds in back. I started the pods on Thursday and really wasn't expecting to see much in the way of life for about a week.

By Saturday, I had lift off in the yellow pod! That was a very pleasant surprise. I did see some germination in the two reds but their varieties are definitely not as fast moving as the yellow.

I wasn't really in the office much yesterday or Sunday and was again pleasantly surprised that the yellow cherry had "left the mothership" and is about 1/4" tall. I'm still keeping the domes on them until they get bigger, but I take them off so I can snap pics.

Here is the progress on the red cherries...they are coming, but slow going.

But my newest aero-acquisition showed up this morning!!! I bought a 3 pod garden off of ebay and I was the highest bidder. (I wanted it pretty badly...LOL) It came with a nice set of stock, petunias, and I think verbena...I can't remember for sure. But I am so excited that I now have one for flowers and one for edibles. I'll have plenty to write about this winter!!!

Winding down the 2010 gardening season

2010-11-30T10:43:00.007-05:00

I can't believe tomorrow is December 1st...I know everyone uses this cliche of "Where did the year go?" I really do ask, where did the year go!! I pretty much have most of the yard buttoned up for the winter and have to do a clean up/compost topdress on only a bed or two. I've been known to do more spring clean ups than fall. But with Lars and how actively we've been showing last year, thought it would relieve some of the stress I feel in the spring as work is gearing up and Lars is working in the spring shows.

Eric completed the momentous job of cleaning out Lake Larson and we finally have some clear water. He drained most of it and vacuumed, shovelled, and netted all of the gunk out of there. I think that's something we're just going to have to do every year or two. The fish numbers are good and we didn't lose as many as I had feared to the heron. I'll have to snap a picture of the wet pets in their deep side as they start to go into their winter's nap too.

This is the view from my kitchen window...I have one Mr. Lincoln Rose that is in suspended animation. I've been waiting for this to open for a couple of weeks now and I'm doubting it will. We've had some pretty serious freezes here now. I'm curious to see how long it lasts in this state before it turns to mush.

I think I mentioned that I moved the fig inside earlier this fall. After I did that, it continued to drop it's leaves and I eagerly waited to see what it would do with the 3 fruit that had formed. Now several weeks later, it has two little leaves at the top that look pretty good. One of the figs ripened and I cut it open today. How cool is this!

That makes up for the epic failure of the passion fruit. I was brave and ate it this morning. To my surprise, it was awesome and very sweet! I have the two left and I'll let Eric have the other ones. I'm hoping that it will break some leaf buds and push some new foliage over the winter. If it doesn't, I'll stick it down in the basement where it can go dormant. I'll have to do some pruning because it has that one huge branch sticking off of it and it needs some re-balancing.

Let's see, what else is going on around here plant-wise? The orchid season is starting up and I have noticed some new buds and flower scapes starting to form. I moved a couple of them and a streptocarpus downstairs to the office where I have the aerogarden still running. I want to see if the surrounding light from the aerogarden is strong enough where other plants can benefit from it. So far, so good. I have just one zinnia that is doing fairly and a ailing dwarf sunflower left in the aerogarden. It's well past the time they should have gone to the big compost pile in the sky. I do have a dwarf cherry tomato seed pack coming from Aerogarden and I'm going to attempt them downstairs for the winter. I did get a thermometer for the basement/office to see how cool it is down there. It seems to be holding at about 65 degrees which I think Tomatoes will work. If it is indeed too cold, I'll bring them upstairs into the kitchen. I'm pretty excited about this little experiment because it would be really cool to have fresh tomatoes all winter long. (I'm seriously thinking about getting another 3 pod Aerogarden just for flowers.)

Editing to add: I do share one quality with Lars...no self control. I just bid on an inexpensive 3 pod Aerogarden I found on eBay. Keeping my fingers crossed that I'll still be the highest bidder in another 2 days.

Mum's the word Monday

2010-11-15T17:30:00.002-05:00

Lake Larson's Fall Show

2010-11-10T14:31:00.005-05:00

Despite it being dry, the fall color around the yard has been pretty decent. Granted some of the beds got regular water throughout the summer, but the back of the water garden didn't get much until later. But the viburnum and my little cut leaf Japanese Maple didn't disappoint this year. I was pleasantly surprised with my Hosta 'Big Daddy' who decided to turn bright gold this fall. I don't remember it ever being this bright before and it was really striking in the garden.

Mr. fake Heron looks like he's had a few too many in that photo above. I don't know why I still but him out because the real heron pays him no mind.

The mix of the Spirea "Anthony Waterer', Double File Viburnum, and the Cut Leaf Maple 'Viridis' definitely represents in the autumnal color department.

Here's a close up of the fall color on my little maple on the waterfall. I cannot wait for it to get really wide.

Passion fruit FAIL!

2010-11-04T17:01:00.005-04:00

I thought I was going to have this post about the awesomeness that was to be our home grown passion fruit. Boy was I wrong! Eric and I have been watching and studying the passion fruit seeing if we could figure out when it was ripe. When it started to turn cold, we brought inside to the big front picture window and that is a lot of sun. The banana for cripes sake is growing like crazy in that window! I learned online that ripe passion fruit will drop off of the vine and I kept waiting for that to happen. Then last week, the fruit started to look lumpy and that's not what I've seen them look like in photos.

This is what Logee's shows their fruit to look like -

http://www.logees.com/prodinfo.asp?number=R1477-2

Hmmmmm.... so I go to feel it and it drops off into my hand. I'm thinking it's ripe and I wait to Eric to get home to try it. He cuts into it and it's HOLLOW inside!!! WHAT? It looked like white styrofoam lining the inside of the rind...and it tasted like white styrofoam. I'm not really sure what happened there...maybe we need to pollinate the flowers with other flowers on the same vine. I'll have to email Logees and see if they have any recommendations for good fruit set. But...at least it's still throwing out cool looking flowers. I think we're going to wait pollinating them until I figure out what the heck happened.

Landscaping Numbskulls Strike Again!

2010-10-29T10:38:00.006-04:00

Last year I posted about the gas station down the street from me that I have seen some bad pruning. Remember this??

**Shudder**
(I am happy to report someone removed this poor cedar soul this year)

Well, these chainsaw wielding jackasses were at it again and decided to attack the street trees in front of the station. Usually I write about "professionals" and their jackassery in a tongue and cheek manner to keep it light but to get my point across to the readers that they need to stay away from that sort of company. This work at this gas station pissed me off and I'm not going to sugar coat this.

They completely topped this tree by cutting the main trunk and removed 3/4th of the canopy. There is absolutely no reason to do that other than shear ignorance and stupidity.

Look at that cut they made. I am that angry that I am seriously considering going into the station, ask who does the work there, and figure out some way to throw them "under the bus". Stuff like this infuriates me...because it makes all of the green professionals and particularly licensed arborists look horrible.

This is the stuff what happens when the "cheap company" get hired. I'm 99.9% sure whoever did this wasn't a licensed arborist. Whoever did this probably figures it's too much work, or money, or unnecessary to become licensed. You get what you pay for...and this is just another sad instance of that.

October bounties from the fading garden.

2010-10-25T10:15:00.003-04:00

This time of year things are starting to wind down for the garden as you all know. Outside my kitchen window is a Mr. Lincoln hybrid tea rose bush that Eric rescued from a job site about 4 years ago. I'm not particularly a big fan of hybrid teas because their lack of disease resistance. But I tolerate Mr. Lincoln because it's the classic cut red rose complete with a nice spicy fragrance. I had this one big bud forming on the bush and I wanted to bring it inside before the cold weather nailed it. That idea grew into my little late season arrangement down there.

I grabbed a bunch of my Knock Out Roses to compliment the big Mr. Lincon bloom and opening bud...some Maiden Grass Tassels, some Switch Grass Switches and some of the Papyrus "flowers" from the water garden. It's kind of neat and for some reason I rarely make arrangements from my flowers. Maybe next year, I'll get over that.

The veggie garden is limping along and still producing some things. I'm surprised the eggplant are still looking good and flowering away. I would have figured they would have faded away like the tomatoes. I have some tomatoes hanging on...primarily the grapes. The rest of them have started to turn that miserable brown. I'm going to pull them soon. My white icicle radishes are starting to get ready to pick...and I have a couple down in the photo. Peas were "Meh" as was the lettuce I planted this fall. The seeds were old and my attention has been more on showing Lars in agility. So, I'll take the blame on the lame fall veggie garden. But what I picked Saturday night wasn't too shabby for late October.

Flower Power Friday

2010-10-22T14:09:00.003-04:00

October Flower Power in full force!

We'll have to see if the flower gods will be willing to smile upon my Knock Out Roses and Jackmanii Clematis into November. We shall see!

New additions and why you don't deadhead hydrangea

2010-10-19T14:36:00.002-04:00

Finally, I was able to pick up a specimen of a plant I use a lot in my designs - Variegated Solomon Seal. It's a wonderful little plant for shady spots and it is about as low maintenance as it gets. I love the soft variegation of creamy white rimming those green leaves. It's a medium sized plant, reaching about 24" tall and it does spread slowly. I cannot wait for it to spread so I can start dividing it and using it in other shady nooks in the yard.

It has these little bell shaped, white flowers that show up in the spring. I consider them to be inconspicuous because they get lost with the white variegation. The one thing I particularly like about Variegated Solomon's Seal is the texture and growth habit it brings to the shade garden. The upright arching shape and oval shaped leaves are welcome against the bold, coarse foliage of the hostas and the finely cut leaves of the astilbe and the ferns. I am so thrilled I finally grabbed this for myself!

My 'Alpengluhen' Hydrangea a couple of days ago...they are just as pretty now as they were when they were bright blue and purple. I'll be very eager to use them in dried bouquets in the house and for my winter windowboxes in a couple of months.

Fall Color Friday!

2010-10-15T13:39:00.003-04:00

Here's the wild sassafrass that towers over Lake Larson.

I know I post of this every year but because it's the first tree in my yard to really start to show color. It's so striking because everyone else is green. It really pops!

URI's conversatory greenhouses...packed with neat things!

2010-10-12T13:34:00.019-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I ended up down at URI's botanical garden for a RINLA Twilight Meeting. As current chairperson for the RINLA Publicity Committee, I was there for photo ops of the meeting and took a couple of minutes to wander around their greenhouses. I had never had an opportunity to visit them and doing so brought back fond memories of all of the time I spent in Cornell's greenhouses.

I have to open up this photo montage with a curious plant I found in the conservatory...upon first glance, it looks like something from the tomato family. The fruit looks very much like an inverted yellow pear tomato. So, curiosity got the best of me and I had to look at the tag....

Well, wasn't expecting that name! Hmmmm.....indeed (I guess if I look at it long enough, through squinted eyes.) And, I am not above mentioning...I giggled like a 12 year old at the common name.

They have a really neat succulent and cactus section in the front of the first greenhouse. It was pretty cool seeing these plants all planted in the ground instead of in individual pots. I could really appreciate the interest they all have.

A big Agave in full, funky flower:

An awesome specimen of pink Brugmansia:

Allamanda cathartica: Golden trumpet (I can't seem to get the italics to shut off...sorry.)

This is a plant I would like to try to grow myself but don't know much about it's culture. This beauty is called Plumeria.

A view from the middle of the first greenhouse looking out to the road.

Wicked cool! Their carnivorous plant collection!! WANT!

Here's their monstrous fig tree that puts mine to shame! Granted my little tree is a dwarf and really shouldn't get bigger than 4' tall. But, to have something like this would be wild.

This pic was for more my nerd side...you can air layer figs for propagation. Note taken...

If you're looking for a little nook on campus where you can get your tropical plant fix met, check out URI's green houses. You will be pleasantly surprised!

It's amazing what you can do with a q-tip

2010-10-05T10:46:00.004-04:00

I can't believe how little time a pollinated flower can form a fruit. My last post I had made the mention that Eric had tried his hand at plant propagation with a q-tip and our passion vine. Within a day the flower shriveled up and a couple of days later I could see a little fruit start to show up. I left for the Wine Country Dog Show Cluster on the 28th of September...that was when the little fruit started to develop. When I came back on the 3rd, this is what was growing.

OMG, tomatoes don't even develop that fast!!! We have no idea how to tell if the fruit is ripe or not. I'm hoping that it turns some cool color to let us know. I'm very curious to see how it tastes.
Another fruit we had I wasn't sure how to tell if it was ripe was the figs...but since I have been gone, they are starting to let me know it's time to pick. I'll let it go another day or two and see if it's easily removable from the tree. Way cool...I'm hoping this tastes good too.

I know I have been making comments about how dry this summer has been. I have been able to post a couple of pics on little things I've seen around here showing drought stress. I was stunned at what I saw on the way back from NY this weekend in the Bershire Mountains in MA.

That's not fall color. That's fried, burnt foliage...a whole hillside of it. I was blown away. So, if you have lost plants this summer to drought....yes, it was that dry.

Summer's fleeting good bye

2010-09-21T21:45:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I've written on here...September has been a little bit of a trying month. My laptop crashed at the very first part of the month and we had to wipe almost everything off of it. Thank God I back up work stuff, my music, and photos on my external hard drive. The most recent photos I had taken from August and planned to show on here of the gardens, The Farmer's Daughter and other stuff had been purged. Alas, I didn't have much to share. I had a few things on my iPhone but had uploaded most of them to the laptop before the crash. We had a "hurricane" to deal with...or shall I say a rain storm to deal with. I will admit, I did get all of my preparations ready for the storm to end all storms and I'm convinced that's why nothing happened. I was a little disappointed we got weather that didn't even come close to even a Nor'easter.

But at the same time, with Lake Larson looking as great as this a couple of days before Earl was supposed to come...I was relieved I didn't have a huge mess to clean up.

My passion flower 'McCain' has been flowering over the past month or so. It's one flower at a time and I think we're getting close to the last one opening I bet tomorrow or Thursday. It's a self pollinating variety and we haven't had any fruit set on it. I'm thinking it's not getting pollinated and I haven't seen any bees hovering around it (but boy, they love my sedums!) So, Eric is going to be pollinating this one with a q-tip when it opens soon. I have to give him a lesson on how to do it so he can be the designated pollinator of the Passiflora. LOL

That flower is just too cool!

The most exciting addition to Garden Consultant HQ this past month wasn't of the plant persuasion, rather a deck accessory. Eric was finally able to add the one thing he really built Deckzilla for - a hot tub. I actually found the hot tub and it was a circumstance of being in the right place at the right time. I had met with someone who is now a design client and had it in their backyard. They had just bought the house and wanted to hire me to design their landscape. They asked me if I knew of anyone who wanted a free hot tub. Yes, yes I did. We got it here, hooked it up and lo and behold it works! Eric has now granted me the rights to his nickname of "The Larsonist" because I have proven I have worthy talent of acquiring things. ;) I just say "if you built it....it will come."

Edible Landscaping at the HQ

2010-08-25T23:14:00.007-04:00

I have been a little quiet on the blogger front just because I have been busy with a couple of big designs. They have been a little bit consuming and between that and nothing going on in the garden other than watering, there hasn't been too much to share with everyone.
Thankfully, we've just had 4 days of good, slow rain which I know all plants in New England are sighing in relief. It has been very dry and windy here since the beginning of the month which has had me watering something pretty much every day. My soil is very sandy as I am sure I have mentioned before and anything I add to it in the way of moisture is quickly wicked away by the surrounding dry soil. Soaker hoses can only do so much and I was running them pretty much non stop when I was home. It wasn't a total fix but at least I could get some water on the root zones of my plants. I had to purchase a bunch more so I could have the vegetable garden set up with individual soakers for each raised bed and get some hoses around the back of Lake Larson and deck gardens. I started to get concerned about the lack of rain when I started to see plants around RI and MA starting to show considerable fall color in the middle of August. I took that as them going into survival mode by shutting down some of their canopy.

Viburnum in Taunton looking sad in their red leaves last week.

Hopefully, this is the end of our dry spell and we can go back to a more regular rain pattern which will make life easier for both us gardeners and our plants.

Despite the lack of rain, the edible side of the Garden Consultant has been pretty successful this season. I have tried some new things and some things we've grown time and time again. Squash was fairly miserable this season and we only got zucchini and yellow squash for a couple of weeks. Then the striped squash bug moved in and it was a slow and agonizing defeat. I attempted to make sure the plants wouldn't be stressed through lack of water and fed them very regularly with fish emulsion. I eventually lost the war even after I broke out some safer sprays to try to control them. Oh well, I'll be ready for them next year and I'm going to try some companion plants or more conventional methods of control. Cukes had been pretty decent this year and I have been pleased with them. I grow the little picklers and we eat them fresh because I always seem to throw out half eaten cukes. I just ordered a cuke trellis from Gardener's Supply Catalog and I'm dying to try it next year to lift them cukes up and plant the lettuce under it. I think it will be a good way to maximize space.

Eggplants where something we haven't grown before and I can't believe how easy they were to grow. I think I will try them again next year but do some weird ones like long asian ones and the white ones. With regular feedings and harvesting, they have been great producers. They have been taking a little bit of a break but I see new flowers coming at the top.

Tomatoes...what can I say. They are the staple of the home vegetable garden. Once again, I planted 4 plants and all different varieties. They have been fruiting their fool heads off...especially the yellow pear and grape tomatoes. Before the soaker hoses were installed, I noticed the romas had some flowers that shriveled from irregular waterings. With the fish emulsion and regular water, I see them beginning to produce fruit again.

Our little banana tree has been growing nicely this summer. I'm really excited about this plant because it is just so funky. I think it will add something fun in the living room this winter and I love the bold texture and the patterned colors on the leaves. This little guy won't set fruit, but he's cool just the same. Our passion flower bloomed over the weekend and I missed it with the camera. That one is supposed to bear fruit and it is self pollinating. The flower is a whitish with purple/blue highlights. It was super wild! I have a couple of buds ready to pop and I will be waiting with my camera for this time around.

Last but not least, my fig tree....yes, that is a fig on it! I cannot get over the growth it has thrown out this summer. It's about 3' tall and that's a long way from the spindly little thing I brought home from Logee's in February. The fig is taking a while to ripen and to be truthful, I'm not sure how to tell if it is ripened. I'm sure the fruit will soften and change color...but for now I wait. I just noticed today there are more little figs coming which is so very cool.

For my fall crops, I just planted a new crop of lettuce seedlings where the previous crop was. I also seeded white, french radishes, peas, and tat soi. I'm wondering if I should try to seed some beets for fall harvest...but I'm leaning towards not because I don't know if I have time for them to mature.

Phantastical Phlox!!!!

2010-08-10T22:46:00.002-04:00

Phlowering in all of it's glory by Lake Larson. This is called 'David's Lavender' and it's a relatively new variety. It's a very nice pink/purple with a lighter pink eye and as you can see...it blooms heavily and this is in a location I consider to be partial shade. It's about 4' tall and even though it's been marketed as being mildew resistant...I do have a touch of powdery mildew on it this season. But, it's nothing serious and something I can totally over look.

How does your garden grow - Pawtucket RI

2010-07-26T15:37:00.003-04:00

Three years ago I was contacted by a couple in Pawtucket, RI who are very gifted gardeners. They had done some wonderful stuff in their backyard shade gardens. This side of the house was a barren wasteland of a couple of shrubs and a slope covered with ailing grass. Her husband had the vision of the wall and the grass strip and he took that part of the project on himself with the mason. I was given the task of helping the wife with choices of plants and placement of the shrubs they had in the stone wall gardens to come.

They had a mix of sun and shade with the dogwood in the corner of the wall by the street and the north facing house. The side of the house is blazing west sun and they wanted something that would give them all year interest. We chose red twigged dogwood 'Ivory Halo', winterberry 'Red Sprite', Globe Blue Spruce for some of the new shrubs. They had quite a few perennials around the yard that needed to be moved. We also utilized a clematis that never flowered for them before until it was moved to this garden.

They installed the gardens themselves last June during the torrents of rain which became a god send for all of the newly planted plants. These photos are of the gardens in their second year. As far as I know, they didn't have any failures and everything came back.

We used mostly the shade plants they had in the back yard to build this bed here by the street. I did suggest some new things for textural differences which the clients really enjoy.

I'm very pleased with how this project turned out as are the clients.

Waterlily Wednesday!

2010-07-14T09:52:00.002-04:00

Watching me trying to get these shots must have been entertaining....I was teetering on the pond edge with my camera set of super zoom to get these. But I **heart** waterlilies. I think this little one is darling. I used to know who was what...but over the years, variety names have become lost in the recesses of my mind.

This is my kind of yellow....soft and muted.

I've had water hyacinths off and on in Lake Larson but they have never flowered for me until this year...I've had two now! I know...they aren't waterlilies. But they are pretty just the same.

Oooo...someone forgot to turn on the A/C

2010-07-06T16:08:00.002-04:00

If you're in the Northeast, I don't have to tell you it's brutally hot. I just checked the Weather Channel's website and it's 98 degrees out with a heat index of 103 at 4:15 pm. Ugh. I don't do heat...Lars doesn't even do this kind of heat. So, we're holed up down in the basement where the office used to be. I don't have walls or a floor, but it's cool...and that's all that matters. I actually moved back down here a couple of weeks ago because I just got tired of staring at all of the work stuff all the time. At least down here, I can close the door and walk away from it.

I let the garden be for a couple of weekends and got back into weeding and deadheading over the first part of the weekend. We haven't had much rain these past couple of weeks and watering has been my big priority the past several days. I have had all of the soaker hoses running off and on. I have been seeing some stress on some of my plants which I'm bummed about. It's mostly in areas where there are no soakers at the moment and I have been leaving the hose on a trickle on individual plants. I have been keeping the rain barrels fairly full after the thunderstorms from last Monday. I've been adding the water from the dehumidifiers down here. We do pull a lot of water out of the air in the basement which is surprising. Watering can be a big job around here especially with the sandy soil. Right now, it's like a desert here. I think the next opportunity for rain will be on Saturday which some scattered thunderstorms. It's hard to believe this past March a lot of RI was under water and now...here we sit scrambling with hoses.

I have a potpourri of photos today and we'll start with the wet pets. Chunk is getting bigger and bigger...dare I say he's getting close to 18" long. He's the most friendly out of the koi and will come say hi when he feels your footsteps in the yard. We have another spotted koi who is almost and if not as big as Chunk. We've never given that one a name and I sort of feel badly about it...I'll have to come up with one. Maybe I'll call him/her "Rorschach" after the ink blot tests. :)

I'm on a mission right now to clear up Lake Larson with polyester batting. It's acting as a cheap and throw away filter medium. I am filling porous water plant pots with it and place them in the skimmer where the pots are. There's just a lot of sediment floating in the water and it's very cloudy. It's not algae, but sludge/dirt. I think it's going to take me a while to do this and it will probably become something we always have to do with the amount on junk that falls in the pond from the fish waste, dead water plants and the trees. Once again...the un-glamorous side of water gardening no one ever tells you about - the battle of sludge loaded batting.

I took this photo below a couple of weeks ago and it's of my new Oakleaf Hydrangea I planted last summer. I won it at a Plant ID contest at the RINLA Summer Meeting! I have always liked Oakleaf Hydrangea but had never really been able to appreciate the flowers because I have never been up close and personal with them. After having them this year, I will say I think they are out of this world!! I love the contrast of the creamy white blooms against the dark purple leaves of my Palace Purple Heuchera. Oakleafs have a nice burgundy fall color that sets them apart from the other hydrangeas. Most of the other species don't offer much in the way of fall foliage color.

Last but not least, I promised some photos of the other edible oddity of ours this year. Here it is...our little fig tree. I grabbed this from Logee's earlier this winter and it didn't do much other than go partially dormant in my kitchen this spring. Once the weather got nicer and the threat of a hard freeze passed, I potted it up and moved it outside. Then it started to grow and I had to move it up to a bigger pot. Right now, it's in a #5 container and I think it can stay there for a while. I might have to shift it up again later this summer if it keeps growing the way it is. I think this winter I'll store it down in the basement and let it go dormant for real. I think this guy is hardy to zone 7/8 but I won't risk it keeping it outside.

Mum's the word Monday

2010-06-28T09:53:00.003-04:00

The edible section of Garden Consultant HQ

2010-06-17T11:50:00.006-04:00

Last year's vegetable gardening foray was pretty bleak with cool temperatures and loads of rain. This year is a completely different story and the veggies show it. I've rearranged some things this year to maximize light for those who need it and those who don't as well as rotating crops. Here's a basic view of the raised beds. The one on the far right is filled with strawberries. We had a great and early crop this season. Eric was able to get the nets out there early enough that we didn't lose much at all to birds and squirrels. I even made strawberry shortcake with our bountiful crop!

The bed to the left of the strawberries are green and yellow squash and onions. I really have to look up when to harvest onions because I have no clue. They are setting these fantastically tall white Allium flower buds and I'm eagerly awaiting what they will look like. Always thinking like a landscape designer I am! I took these photos a couple of weeks ago and the plants are much further along than they look here. We have several green squash coming and a couple of yellow ones developing. Again, things are a little early. I have also been fertilizing like crazy with fish emulsion and bat guano fertilizers just to see what would happen. I'm very pleased at the results to be completely honest.

In the far back bed which is getting shaded now from the neighbor's oak tree, I thought I would try to place some things that need it to be cooler. I have three types of lettuce there - bibb, red leaf and green leaf. The lettuces are thriving in their new box and I think that's where they will stay from now on. I have broccoli, cauliflower and pickling cukes in the front part of the bed. I'm wondering if the cukes will have enough light, but hey, this whole garden is one big yearly experiment on what will work and what won't.

The bed in front of the onions and squash house our beans, eggplant, and peppers. Something is really going after the peppers and I need to investigate who the culprit it. I think they will recover from the damage and I am seeing some flowers now.

In the last bed, I have the tomatoes. I have finally resigned to the fact 4 plants are enough for us because we end up throwing out piles of tomatoes that go bad before we can eat them. We actually did get sick of tomatoes after having mounds of them show up in the kitchen. So, this year, I have a red cherry, a yellow pear, a beefsteak, and romas. It's enough of a variety that I can make salads, cook, and eat fresh with.

Last but not least, one of our oddities this season - I purchased a banana tree from The Farmer's Daughter. Eric likes them and since I really don't have a place just yet for a hardy Banana, I thought one in a pot is the next best thing. I'm going to have to research this a little bit more and see if it will indeed fruit. I also just now realized, I am missing a couple of photos of the other edible oddities I have this year. I have a fig tree and a fruit bearing passion flower I bought this winter from Logee's. The fig is much more impressive than the passion flower is at the moment. I'll have to take some pictures of that and the new location of my herb pot ghetto for next time.

Water Garden Wednesday!

2010-06-09T09:08:00.005-04:00

Lake Larson in its June glory - this has been a good year for the gardens.

I have a few holes to fill around the pond, but that will be an easy job to find some suitable candidates. I'm actually have had a hell of time finding water lettuce this year to float in the pond. Reluctantly, I got a couple of water hyacinths which the fish are beating the daylights out of! Hungry little beasties!!

HQ Fauna

2010-05-18T21:38:00.004-04:00

Since we've put in Lake Larson, filling spaces with plants, and using more earth friendly gardening practices, I have noticed a big influx in wildlife in the yard. We have a ton of nesting bird this year...cardinals, blue jays, sparrows, and robins. These little guys are in the blue spruce we planted behind Lake Larson and I think they will be out of the nest by next week. I feel like a slum lord with them all crammed into that little nest like that.

This dude is an import...Eric's friend of a friend owns a pet store and they dropped Mr. Bullfrog off here. He was living in a 10 gallon tank at the shop and he was outgrowing his living quarters. I haven't seen him much since last week...I hope he chooses to stick around. We did have a green frog who hung out last year and sang all summer long, I'm hoping he comes back too.

One feathered guest I am glad not to have seen thus far is the heron. I think since I'm still upstairs in the kitchen as my office, there's too much movement inside the house for the heron's liking. Soon, I'll move the office to Deckzilla then Lars and I can do some serious heron patrol. I can report the foxes are back this spring much to Lars' chagrin. I have been seeing them primarily at dusk and in the morning around 8 - 9 am. I wonder if they are hunkered down with a litter of kits someplace close.

How does your garden grow - reprised for spring 2010

2010-05-11T20:58:00.010-04:00

I had a visit with a client who has been with me for several years a couple of weeks ago. The gardens featured above were designed and planted...oh, I want to say about 7 or so years ago. We have also planned other areas of her yard since then and we have created a wonderful friendship as well as some great gardens. Her gardens are a riot of bold colors in the summer from both perennials and annuals. We went chose this color scheme because her husband is legally blind but can see the boldness and not to mention it works well with the color of the house.

I come over here regularly because Rosemary takes care of the gardens herself for the most part. She is great about asking questions or for help if she needs it. She's a really fun client and I'll show you something really cool about her gardens that you don't notice unless you're up close and personal.

Rosemary is a retired art teacher and is still actively sculpting. It's always a treat to see what's new in her garden or what has been brought back from the gallery she showcases her sculptures. A lot of her pieces have significant meaning and I love to hear her explain why she made something.

How cool are all of these guys!

I think the armadillo has been in the garden the longest...

Hee....a toad abode!

Free is for me!!!

2010-04-27T22:43:00.004-04:00

Compost is something that all gardens can benefit from as I'm sure you've heard about. I compost but I often burn through the amounts my little bin makes in a bed or two. That's kind of a let down especially if you've been tending to your pile all season long. But, luckily...I have another source at my disposal.

The City of Warwick composts all of the yard waste they collect from their residents and offers it back to them...for free. You need to be a resident (and have proof) and be able to haul it away. Landscapers can't come and take it away in their business vehicles. However, if they were in an unmarked truck and was using it for their own gardens, that's okay. I've told many a Warwick client about the compost program but they have their reservations about the quality of it. A lot of people are worried if it is broken down enough or if they would find things in it. This is the second time we've gotten a truck full and both times I've been happy with the compost.

If you click on the photo, it should give you a larger version. You should be able to see the consistency of it then.

What the city produces in their compost piles is very similar to what I haul out of my bin. So, if you're from Warwick and you're reading this, don't fear the municipal compost. If you aren't a Warwick resident, check with your city or town and see if they have a composting program. If they do, they just may save you a lot of compost turning.

Good bye and good riddence evil yellow flag irises..

2010-04-20T15:21:00.004-04:00

There's a funny (well, funny now) story about these plants I bid a gleeful farewell to. I had gotten them from someone who worked at Chaves years ago. I had thought they were kind of cool because they were supposed to have yellow flowers and had variegated leaves. They never did well...they just kind of languished in my soil at both the Coast Guard house and now this house. Last year, it dawned on my what they were - Yellow Flag Iris which are a water plant. Cool, right? I figured I'll put them in pots and throw them into Lake Larson. Since they were in a pot, they can't spread....right??

Well, let me tell you, they were very happy in Lake Larson. They grew to almost 5' tall. 5' tall plants in little 12" diameter pots fall over...a lot. I spent most of last summer righting these stupid things where they sitting on the pond liner. We had some near the large flat rock we stand on to feed the fish and they were in the view path of Deckzilla. I never, ever expected to grow like they were on steroids and boy, did they look dumb there.

After two years of having them annoy me with their brazen growth and they started to break the pots, I felt it was time to go on to a better place (like my compost bin, for example.) Eric was a sweet guy and started to remove them from the pond when he was doing a spring clean up. All of them he removed on his own until he got to the ones by the feeding rock and this is what he had to battle -

**gasp**

It took the both of us to get that out of the pond...the roots had grabbed a hold of every rock it could reach. Within that mess is one 12" pot and a little 4" pot...those two pots produced Frankeniris. Now, I see very clearly why CT and MA both have this plant on their invasive plant lists. They did this in my pond in pots, could you imagine what this could do to a natural pond or lake. You would have nothing by iris in a very short matter of time.

How does your garden grow and your walkways go??

2010-04-14T00:00:00.005-04:00

This spring I have been slowly overhauling the entire website myself. (That's why you see some pages in my new, cool earthy style and some in the older sage green style.) I also do a pre-season survey of my current clients to see if there's anything they need from me during the upcoming spring. I've been asking them to share photos of their projects so I can update photos or add sections of past projects or works in progress. These photos below are from a job that we wrapped up in Fairhaven, MA in 2007 and was started to be installed later that same year.

The client had some random square cut stones laid in the turf as their pathway from the driveway to the large stairs. They really, really hated how that looked. They are right across the street from the ocean and they really wanted to have a new walkway that reflected the coastal landscape that surrounded them. Below is what I came up with...and I think this is hands down the coolest walkway I have come up with to date.

Here's the detail of the pebbles and the cobblestone skirt. OMG, I am totally in love with how awesome this turned out. They love it just as much because this was something that completely fit their architecture and existing stonework and their coastal surroundings.

I think this photo below was taken when the stones where wet so you can see the contrast of the different pebbles. So cool if I say so myself.

They have also built a stone wall across the street on the lot they own that goes down to the water. They wanted something once again that would fit the stonework on their house and the coastal feel. The clients really wanted to have some separation from the street so people would realize that someone actually owned that piece of land. They were having an issue with trespassers on that lot and since the wall has been built, the problem did decrease. For the meantime, the clients are holding off on the plantings for the front of the house and surrounding the wall across the street. As much as I love the hardscape on this property, I cannot wait to see it accented with the plants we chose.

LOVE IT!!!!

How not to prune trees...

2010-04-06T12:40:00.009-04:00

WOW....I didn't realize over a month has passed since I last made a blog posting. I'm really sorry about that...spring has sprung and I have been busy showing the Boy Wonder. So, the blog has been neglected. :( But now we have flowers popping up and large amounts of growth (thanks to the monumental rains), I'll have plenty of things to write about and take photos of. Speaking of those rains...Garden Consultant HQ got flooded out and now my office is in my kitchen which is a bummer. FEMA just left here this morning and hopefully, they will deem us worthy of assistance and we can put the office back together quickly.
Anyway, on to today's post and lesson of how not to prune trees. Just when I think I've seen it all when it comes to bad pruning...I see something that surpasses it. I'll go from bad to worse in this post on things I see around town...most of these photos are the work of professionals **shakes head** and one is a residential property in my neighborhood.

Here's a nice naturally shaped flowering pear in Middletown, RI.

Here's another flowering pear in Middletown that someone decided to prune and I honestly can't figure out why they would. There are no wires nearby, there are no limbs that could damage cars, and the canopy is high enough people can walk underneath them. This tree looked like it is trimmed regularly into this shape....WHY??? I'll give this person an C - for effort because they did attempt to make it a pyramid so they could maximize leaf surface area for the sun.

Now, both of these next photos I shall also give a wag of my finger (a la Stephen Colbert) for both horrific pruning practices and equally horrific design practices. Below is a Cryptomeria...beautiful tree when allowed to grow to it's natural size of 50 -60' tall and 25 - 30' wide. If you would like to see what one should look like check out this link - http://www.cnr.vt.edu/Dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=458 Why someone decided to plant one here baffles me....it's going to be WAY too large for this spot!!! So to take care of this "problem" the landscaper decides they must top it. Nice.....

This photo was taken at the same gas station. This poor suffering soul is a Cypress. Really?? You really had to plant a tree that is going to be 10+' right next to the stop sign? What's wrong with you?? What was the landscaper thinking when they cut it like this?? They should just put the poor plant out of it's misery and just remove it. Sheesh.

Oh...and this place. I totally could tear into the topiaries but am choosing not to. You can see the lovely Japanese Maple to the left of the front door. It's never been touched from what I can see. Look right in front of that pole one in from the right....see the stumps? That was another Japanese Maple the same size as it's mate....they decided for some insane reason to reduce it to 5' stumps. I thought they were going to remove it...oh no, I think that was their way of "pruning" it. Then there are the three little mushroom trees near the street and the driveway. Two of them are Japanese Maples...not the type that are the cut leaf weeping forms...but the same type as the big one. Hmmmmmm. Then the mushroom closest to the garage is a dogwood...tree. Good lord...I can't wrap my head around this at all. My brain hurts just trying to think of a remote reason for why this would be good horticultural practices.

So kids, that is today's lesson of how not to prune trees.

Gardens - the gift that keep on giving.

2010-02-26T14:46:00.003-05:00

I know I have posted links to a client of mine's blog before. She's an artist and she and her husband hired me last year to help them plan the landscape for their new house. They had the typical icky landscaping contractors throw in to sell the house. Well, we changed all of that and created a never ending supply of art subjects for her.

Sunrise Garden by Roxanne Steed

Hepa filter? You don't need no stinkin' hepa filter! Plants that clean air.

2010-02-16T11:04:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine sent me this link and it just reinforces now neat plants are.

Kamal Meattle on how to grow fresh air | Video on TED.com

I have a "Money plant" here at the house...but I know it as a Pothos and I think that's how you would find them marketed out in retail land. All of these plants they mention are very easy to find and grow. I have some allergies myself and maybe I'll grab a few more for around the house. Hmmmmmm

Thanks Scott for the link! :)

Aerogarden lettuce - WIN!!!

2010-02-12T11:31:00.003-05:00

I've been slacking on writing this week's blog post but not without a good reason. The common cold from hell came and whomped me good. I'm still getting over it and am glad this came this week instead of next week which is flower show week! If you find yourself in the Providence area next week, come on over and visit the show. I'm in booth 313 in the marketplace for the 5th year in a row. I didn't design the RINLA exhibit this season because my other roles in the organization was going to take up way more time and energy. But, after doing it for 4 years, it was time for someone else to take the job. ;)

I've been taking weekly pics of the aerogarden lettuce crop and I will admit I am shocked at how well it grows lettuce. I had to finally add some fertilizer tabs early this past week and the rate of growth is insane after I dropped them in. I know I have only grown lettuce for just under three weeks, but I would definitely recommend this little gadget for anyone who wants to grow veggies in the winter or if they have limited or no space outside. I'm almost dying to get another one and try something else in it. Maybe after the flower show I'll indulge myself with a three pod aerogarden.

Below are the photos I took last week and you can see the growth is really good from the photos I posted on here last time. I am using just tap water for this crop to see what happens and the quality of the foliage. I found this wonderful place - Areogarden Growers Community and a lot of them recommend distilled water for other crops like tomatoes and peppers. According to them, some municipalities have decent water and one could get away with using your tap water. I think I may use distilled water for some other crops because I don't want to take a chance with crappy results.

These are the pics I took a couple of days ago after adding the fertilizer tabs. Look at that difference!! I even lifted the lights up one notch because of the height of the plants. They said in the literature you can harvest lettuce three weeks into the growing process. I will admit, I was skeptical about that premonition. But now, I can see it is completely feasible. I think you almost have to harvest at three weeks just so the plants can be maintained.

My name is Cris, and I am now officially an Aerogarden junkie.

Tit for Tat

2010-01-29T17:25:00.010-05:00

Eric couldn't let me be the only one with stuff in print! LOL So he had to out do me and get himself in an herbicide ad campaign in a national magazine!!! I'm married to a model!!! This product is an herbicide for ground ivy and Eric had given them a raving review for it's effectiveness. So they decided to have him be the spokesperson! This ad is from Lawn and Landscape Magazine. I guess it's supposed to be in others and he has another company talking to him and trying out their products.

"Buy this product or I'll knock your lights out" (ROFL!!!) Apparently the photographer told him to look serious. This is the "I mean business" look he mastered in the Coast Guard dealing with people breaking the law.

Cool Stuff for Mr. Larson...before I know it, he's going to have "people" and a posse. LOL Anyway...on to plants.

I acutally had germination a couple of days after we set everything up. I'm glad I started with lettuce because they germinate fast and so far have been easy. The above photos was as of the beginning of this week. The greenery is just cotyledons or the very first set of baby leaves.

I took these below photos just yesterday and now the real leaves are starting to emerge. Some are just green and some are speckled with red spots which I know is a variety of lettuce because I've grown something like this outside before. I've only had to add just a little bit of water since it's been running...I totally could have left it alone and for a while. But I'm like a mother hen with this crop because it's my first. I'm really using great self control on not buying a 3 pod Aerogarden off of eBay for just flowers on my marker desk next to my drafting table. I would like to get one...I don't think my self control will last much longer.

New Garden Gadets and Lake Larson is famous

2010-01-21T15:37:00.005-05:00

I'll start with the cool news that just happened today. A year or two ago, Laura Rice (the author of Practical Horticulture - a college horticulture textbook) contacted me and wanted to use some photos of Lake Larson, a tigerlily of mine, and another garden I had designed. I said okay and then didn't hear anything about it again...until today. So, the Fedex truck shows up and dropped something off at the door...I thought Eric had ordered something because I wasn't expecting anything. This was in the package -

My tiger lily photo!! (I'm not particularly fond of them...but I guess they will have to stay now)

Lake Larson back during the first season we had the wet pets -

Lake Larson as the focal point as you start the book....freakin' cool!!!

I didn't see the other photo she had asked for which is a bummer for the client...I had told them about it when she first contacted me. I wonder since all of the pics are in black and white, it didn't have the pop that it has in color. :(

But, on to the rest of my post! I have been toying with the idea of getting an aerogarden after talking with a client of mine who had one. I looked and read the reviews online from people who had them and that sealed my decision. The only thing that kept me from getting it was the price...for a good sized one, they are around $150 - $200. Um, yeah...I couldn't really justify that. So, I started looking on Craigslist for one and got it for half of the price. That I can justify especially if it can take some $$ off of weekly groceries, I'm all for that. I decided to start out with the lettuce greens pack. I have been researching and learned that you can resuse the pods for your own seeds which I plan on doing once the lettuce goes by. Yesterday, the pods came and after a little technical difficulties with the water pump - we're up and running!!! I have it down in the basement because the thing is bright and I can also keep an eye on it since the office is down there too.

The close up of the pods....

My anti-cat device...high-tech isn't it. But, knowing how evil my cat is, I can see him ruining this in 10 seconds flat.

Birds of a feather feed together!

2010-01-13T09:35:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year everyone!! I decided to take a little breather from posting over the holidays...not to mention, there wasn't a whole lot going on gardening wise either. It's been frigid here and I haven't been spending much time outside at all. I think throwing a ball around for Lars has been just about it for outside activities. I do have a new gardening toy I grabbed off of Craigslist I'll debut next week when I have it all set up.

Bird central has been very busy these past several weeks. I really have been enjoying the feathered visitors who come and have dinner with us. I added some suet cages for the Carolina Wren and the Woodpeckers. I snapped a couple of photos of the woodpecker a week or two ago (the last time we've had snow)....

I had a goldfinch who was coming regularly to the thistle feeder for a couple of days but I haven't seen him much this past week. The guests to Bird Central have been primarily the juncos, my pair of cardinals, house finches, and the chickadees. I have sparrows thrown in the mix there but they are not as plentiful. I haven't seen much in the way of nuthatches and titmice which I kind of find suprising.

The other night, we had a visitor of the furry persuasion. I was up late playing Wii **blushes** and heard this banging around outside on the deck. After I figured out it probably wasn't the wind, I peeked outside and saw this -

I'm fairly certain Lars could smell him...because he was all fired up that there was something outside. Lars (and Sam) have discovered opossums before and I can only imagine what they think of them...probably something along the lines of "ugly kitties". I grabbed my camera and popped it out the door so Lars couldn't go busting out there to investigate. Ugly kitty, indeed.

Snopocalyptic Monday

2009-12-21T18:58:00.008-05:00

I think this blog posting is going to be a big one...I had planned on talking about my shift from gardening to birding over the winter. Well, then Old Man Winter stepped in and clobbered us over the head. So, I am going to talk about both. As I'm sure you are well aware of by now, the east coast got nailed by a blizzard and heavy rains. This storm was pretty rare for us in RI because we normally get heavy wet snows in small quantities if it does snow in December. This one set records...it was in the top ten for heaviest snow fall ever for RI and was the biggest snow fall ever for RI in December. Below is our little circle on mid Sunday morning...we didn't get freed by the plow until almost 11:30 am. Thank goodness I didn't have any place to be.

Here in Warwick, we got about 15 or so inches. Since it was light, it blew around a lot. Some places in my yard looked like we had a couple of inches and in some spots it was mid chest on Lars. Aquidneck Island got slammed with 20 - 24" which high winds formed into monstrous drifts . Eric has been plowing over there Saturday night, Sunday, and most of today. The drifts won't quit...some are as tall as Eric. I was over there today and the main roads are so bad with drifts they are controlling them with loaders on the side of the roads. I've never seen anything like it including when I lived in Central NY...now that's saying something. Eric thinks he may be home before midnight...he's being hopeful.

Lake Larson has been reduced to large piles of snow and some stakes sticking out of the ground where the nets are for the heron. They flash froze in there...looks like they may be there until spring. There is one little hole in the snow where the air stone bubbles away keeping a hole open for gas exchange.

Bird Central was a happenin' place to be on Sunday. There was bird feeder gridlock at some points.

Of course, after a snow storm, one has to go out and play with their dog. I'm not sure if Lars remembered snow from last winter, but he sure had a blast out there. He kept going to the door asking to head back out there and romp some more. After Old Man Winter dealt us a punishing blow earlier in the day, he softened and painted the sky with a sunset which I haven't seen the likes of in a long time.

Red sky at night, snow plowers' delight...

It was such an intense sunset, the snow reflected the colors....so cool.

Lars was not as impressed with the sunset as I was...all he wanted to do was chase his ball which was behind me. Sometimes he just humors me and my need to pose him in my photos.

Just this last week, I had moved the bird feeders up close to the house where I can easily see who's coming to dinner. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly they find them. I decided not to do the Great American Bird Feeder Count with Cornell's Department of Ornithology. I always have great intentions, log my birds for about a month, then I forget. So, I'm just going to enjoy the birds this winter. Just an informal tally of who's shown up so far: Cardinals, Juncos, Titmice, Chickadees, Nuthatches, House Sparrows, House Finches, Goldfinches, Blue Jays, White Throated Sparrows, and Carolina Wrens. Now that I have written it all out, that's a healthy guest list.

Happy Holidays!!!

2009-12-14T12:50:00.003-05:00

Indoor gardening takes over - the sexy orchids.

2009-12-10T12:59:00.011-05:00

It's about that time of year where I pack it in, store away all of my tools and bid the garden farwell until about March. I now turn my eye to indoor horticulture where it is much more warm and colorful. Right now I have 4 phalaenopsis orchids which I really have come to love. I was all about african violets up until a couple of years ago. I don't know if I got bored of them or what...but I made the switch. I find the phalaenopsis orchids to be really easy to grow in my house. The slider must have the right light for them to be really happy. We also let our house drop in temperature at night and they really like that too. This is (I think) my 3rd year growing them and I tried something different this summer which I may not try again.

I attempted to place them outside and let them hang out there for the summer over by Lake Larson and the garage. I thought that may be just enough light but not too much for them. Well, when the sun did decide to shine, they got a little fried and had some sun scald on their leaves. Then the rains came...and why I didn't pull them back inside is beyond me. Maybe I had too much on my plate at the time to think about it. But, despite the rain, they flowered all summer...and because of the rain the flowers were riddled with black spots. Yuck. I should have brought them back inside. Oh well. This coming summer, they will be staying inside.

One thing people say to me all the time when they hear I do orchids is theirs never bloom again after they get them. I think one of the main reason is because people take off the flower stems when the blooms drop. Don't do that...you have to leave them on because that's where most of my flowers come from. You can see in the photo above, there's a new sprig shooting off of that spent one. 80% of my flowers come from old stems so leave them on.

This winter I'm also attempting something I haven't done before and that is a new organic fertilizer for the orchids. Phalaenopsis orchids typically bloom from December through May and I'm going to use Neptune's Hydrolized Fish Fertilizer and it's make up is 2 - 4 - 1. It's basically a fish emulsion and I'm using it once a week just to see what results I get. I will say that Lars is fascinated with the plants after I water/feed them. I'm not sure if that's going to be the case with all dogs since he has been graced with a super sniffer, but I'm just saying. I will report, my cat couldn't care less about it.

You guys all know how I feel about Home Cheapo but I am not above rescuing plants from there if they are in good shape. I picked up this little orchid from there around Thanksgiving for 8 bucks...how could I resist. I do have to repot it though because that is a tiny little pot. I was aghast at the instructions on how to care for this poor thing...water it with melting ice cubes once a week. Seriously? **face palm** Is gardening becoming so dumbed down that watering plants has been reduced to leaving ice cubes to melt on them? Ugh. "Gardeners" like that should just do themselves a favor and get a silk orchid from Home Goods.

This pot has three different orchids in it I don't dare separate...there's a plain white, a white with some pink hints, and the white with the purple netting. I have a yellow one that took the most of the beating this summer and it's just hanging out growing more roots. I hope it flowers this winter, but we'll see. I did repot everyone up this fall into much bigger and shallow pots with orchid substrate. I think they are going to like their new homes.

I did get to my winter window boxes this year! I never got around to it last year because Sam took up a lot of my time . I really like how these turned out and I have to get a better photo of the big one featured above...sometimes the iphone camera just sucks at taking photos. I'll have to use my real camera for it. I used cut holly, rhododendron, norway spruce, juniper, variegated boxwood, and lavender. For the accents, I used maiden grass, switch grass, hydrangea flowers, and crabapples. In the past, I have used cut white pine. But this year, I scored a ton of cut holly from some bushes I pruned back for a client. I LOVE IT!!!

Here's the garage window box and this photo was taken with my real camera (what a difference) It's similar to the big one but I kept a sedge in the front that was left over from the summer box and I used cut sweet fern from around the pond. I used the cut holly, lavender, switch grass, and hydrangea. I think it's darling. ;)

Um, the last time I checked...that looks like the color lavender

2009-12-02T10:50:00.004-05:00

I want to know what kind of crack these geneticists are smoking...that's not a blue rose. Why do we even need blue roses? Roses come in every color under the sun as it is. If you want blue in your garden, there are umpteen different hydrangea and perennials you can use to achieve that. I can only imagine the hardiness issues and disease/pest issues this plant would have in the landscape. Yellow roses aren't very hardy because yellow is a massively recessive gene in roses...OMG, blue isn't even in the rose color wheel.

Before these scientists get all excited about their discovery....Conard Pyle already sells something "Blue"

Floribunda Rose "Singing the Blues" (Dare I say it...that's a better blue than the Frankenstein rose they featured in the video.

How does your garden Grow??

2009-11-24T11:12:00.007-05:00

This week I'll do another dramatic transformation of one of my projects. This one is still a work in progress...we've been slowly chipping away at this garden since 2007. I met Kelly who was a referral from another past client of mine. She had bought a house and in the back was this mess (these photos aren't even remotely close to how bad it was.) of plants, weeds, and invasives. She was a novice gardener and was completely overwhelmed with the disaster behind her house. I'll admit now...I was overwhelmed too with the mess.

As we pulled and cleaned and pulled some more, an abandoned formal english herb garden started to appear. The photos here of the before were taken when this was discovered. There were some great plants hidden in the mess of bittersweet, stinging nettles, and overrun crap. Later I learned, the previous owner had worked at Blithewold, the arboretum in Bristol, RI. But, she had developed a phobia of going outside and the garden suffered because of that. So, we took an inventory of what was there and Kelly had me draft up a plan using the things she had and some new things she liked.

The entire garden had been surrounded by a wall of yews and the east side of them were removed to reveal the water view behind them. From a cultural standpoint, this was a good thing so we could open up the garden for air circulation and light. 2008 to this fall, we moved plants, shifted things to temporary places, and kept pulling out things we didn't want. Kelly was great through this whole project and I have to say the level of trust she put in me was huge. But, she has become a wonderful and talented gardener through all of this. I have been with her the whole way digging with her and teaching her what to do and how to take care of her new emerging landscape.

These photos below were taken on a whim with my phone in the middle of October. I do really need to take some real photos for the website because I think this garden is destined for some greatness. Her pink Knockout Roses and Geranium 'Rozanne' have been blooming like crazy all summer long and are still rocking and rolling as of last week when I stopped by for the last time this year. She couldn't be more happy with her garden and she tells me all the time how much joy they bring her. Once again, that's the real reason I do this job.

We've got about 85% percent of the moved plants moved and parts of the garden are completely planted. I think we just have to fill some holes with things we couldn't find or holes that housed something that had been moved this year. Next year, we're going to work on the shade side where the last wall of yews are now. It's close to being done and I think we can do it next year.

This corner below....is both of our favorite spot in the garden. The camera cannot capture how cool this little nook is.

What's the big deal about invasives anyway?

2009-11-17T11:30:00.010-05:00

Invasive plant material has become really pretty contraversial over the past couple of years. Most of the plants that are deemed invasives are plants that have become mainstays in the landscape - Norway Maple, Burning Bushes, Japanese honeysuckle, Japanese Barberry, Purple Loosestrife and so on. What makes these plants so durable in the landscape - nothing will eat them, they grow fast, and they are extremely adaptable. Well, those qualities carry over into natural areas too...nothing will eat them, so they grow with no checks and balances. They grow fast....they are the first to leaf out and the last to drop their leaves and native plants can't compete for space, light, nutrients, and water. They are extremely adaptable...they grow anywhere, under any conditions. You can sort of see where there's a problem starting to form. The icing on the cake that really isn't a landscape attribute is these plants produce a lot of seeds and these seed are capable of widespread dispersal. That is bad, really bad. Why this bad is that these plants are out competing our native plants which provide food for our native wildlife. No food means no wildlife and you can see the domino effect that has. Not to mention, if the naturalized areas begin to fill up with plants that deer can't eat, they are going to start looking for things they can...in your front yard.

When people tell me they like the main offenders of being invasive and they would like to see Burning Bush or whatever in their landscape. They are gobsmacked when I tell them they are invasive and I would rather not plant them. Usually, they will say- "well, I've grown it for years and I never had a problem with it taking over my yard." Well, they are thinking of plants I like to call "garden thugs". Garden thugs are plant bullies and will try to overrun their immediate neighbors in their beds. True invasives cause issues mostly in areas we don't tend to.

Over this fall, I have found myself in the woods a bit with Eric and his friend Leo scoping out prime places for deer hunting or with Lars. My Lars missions are usually geocaching and they take us in some pretty secluded places. I have been taking pictures of where things are growing where they shouldn't be.

Japanese Honeysuckle growing in a DEM area in Smithfield. Um yeah...a million dollars says that no one planted that there.

Here I am in Goddard Park in East Greenwich walking the trails and I found these different burning bushes along a short part of the path. Two of them were taller than I am...deer won't touch burning bush and that's why they are so tall out there.

Once again in Goddard, now it's barberry which is a plant that deer won't touch with a 10' pole. Barberry is a huge problem in Maine that they are doing tons of research on finding herbicides to wipe out the barberry in the woods. They are doing this because the deer populations are really suffering up there because of the lack of food source from the competition of barberry in the woods.

So, hopefully these photos will show gardeners who think Burning Bush doesn't really cause a problem just because they don't have them popping up all over their yards. It's not the yards that the problem lies, it's the places Mother Nature gardens instead.

Calling all of you Facebook junkies (like me)

2009-11-13T01:08:00.005-05:00

I love facebook. No, I really love facebook. I fall for a good "time sucker" - hook, line, and sinker. People have stopped emailing me on my personal home email and now contact me on facebook because they know I check that place way more than I do my email. LOL

I also know that Facebook has about a gazillion people on it now. So, I know there are many others out there with this hopeless Facebook addiction like me. So, I thought I should take the leap and make a business page for The Garden Consultant. Through the wonders of technology, they have this handy, dandy little fan box widget you can add to various places like blogs. I thought that would be a great idea as well.

So, if you are so inclined and as much of a "crackbook" addict as me, please feel free to visit and become a fan of The Garden Consultant! As you can see on the right side of my blog, I have the fan box and you can find my page through that. I've always been one of those jump in feet first sort of folks and did it with Facebook and the page. Which direction it will go, I'm not sure. But I know it's going to be cool!

Root Flares in the wild

2009-11-10T00:08:00.005-05:00

I think one of the things I talk about the most lately is the root flare on woody plant material and why it is important. There's a big problem of root flares being buried too deeply in the nursery pots or the field for B&B material. If the root flare is buried below the surface of the soil...the plant will either a) languish in plant purgatory or b) just die. The tissue beneath the bark moves the water and nutrients between the leaves and the roots. If that is buried too deeply, that tissue can rot and die and then the plant dies.

So, one of the questions I get is what does the root flare look like and where should I plant it. This oak tree in my neighborhood is the best example I have ever seen of what we should strive for in planting. The roots on that tree break just under the soil and you can clearly see the flaring of the trunk. That is what we should do when transplanting a woody plant.

How does your garden grow??

2009-10-29T14:06:00.014-04:00

I haven't posted much about my work outside of my own garden on here. I've been taking some pics of various clients' projects this year and maybe I'll start doing some of that on here over the winter.

This project is in Rehoboth, MA and the clients own a bed and breakfast. I had met them at the Rhode Island Flower Show. They had taken a tree down before they met me and decided they needed to spruce (hah, pun not intended) up the area since it was the first thing you saw as you pulled in the driveway. It was interesting because there was an old foundation of an ancient greenhouse next to the parking lot we had to work around and incorporate into the design. Here's the before -

Ugh...

After working together and developing a landscape plan, the clients planted this area during this spring of 2009. They couldn't have lucked out more with the rain and they said they barely had to water at all! Here are some photos of the garden in June of this year...I think a month or so after the clients had installed it themselves. They even had their garden on the Rehoboth Garden Club Tour! I swung by that day and took these photos.

Later this past summer, their daughter had her wedding on the property so they had filled the holes with annuals and pots. I had popped over this past late September to check in and meet with the garden club about a lecture I was going to give to them.

So you've been able to see how one of my gardens progressed over the course of a season. Granted we had stupid amounts of rain which pushed a lot of growth from perennials this year. But you can also see how I leave space between the plants in order for them to grow (unlike some architects and designers who design for now and not 5 years from now.) I've seen perennials in my designs come into their own around 3 year and shrubs by year 5. The clients installed about 2/3rds of the entire design this year and they have some more to plant around the large pine towards the house and around the outer foundation wall where the walkway stops in the turf. They are excited about what happened in their landscape this year and even more excited to finish it next year!

Late season visit to The Farmer's Daughter

2009-10-21T11:39:00.009-04:00

If you know me, you know that I yell from the mountain tops my love for The Farmer's Daughter in South County, Rhode Island. I dare say they are the best (hands down) garden center in the state in my book. Rhode Island Monthly has awarded them that award themselves. I love their creativity with displays, the quality of their plant stock and the variety of plant stock. Oh, this garden center is delightful.

A huge urn full of foliage plants...please note there are no flowers blooming in this pot, and it is still dynamic! They used cabbages, kales, and potato vine. This thing was about as tall as I am.

I love how they used the succulents in this shallow container. So cool! Most of these aren't hardy for a New England winter, but they can be brought inside near a very bright window.

I was down there about a week ago picking up some fall annuals for a garden club lecture I was doing on autumnal interest in the landscape.
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Here is the basic fake layout of the container I was going to make for them. I had that upright brown colored plant (which I can't find the tag for and the name is totally escaping me at the moment), Swiss Chard 'Bright Lights', Artemisia absinthium (this is a perennial), Ornamental hot peppers, yellow and green variegated culinary sage, and last but not least - purple asters. I have a personal boycott on mums for fall annuals because I find them insanely overused and therefore, boring.

Their perennials and trees are packing up for the season, but they still had some killer displays. What struck me about the displays I saw was they were loaded with edible plants. The shift in gardening, especially in this recession, has been to people growing their own food. A lot of people will express their desire to grow their own food but have limited space in their yards for both ornamental plantings and functional vegetable, fruit, or herb gardens. I have always thought, why not have both. Both can be stunning if planned correctly.

These photos below are primarily edible leaf veggies, culinary herbs like sage and thyme and some flowering annuals. But it is fantastic nonetheless.

This photo below is near the tool shed and they used mums, big edible cabbages, rosemary, and parsely...and it was beautful! My iphone didn't really catch the wow factor of this bed as it comes across in real life.

Close encounters of the tortured nature kind.

2009-10-13T20:57:00.004-04:00

Several weeks ago, I had mentioned that I had a photo of "professional landscaping" which I felt I had to share with my readers. I couldn't find it on my laptop and I was bummed I couldn't discuss the techniques used at this one particular site. Well, I just located it on my external hard drive...bring on the snark!

BEHOLD THE AWFULNESS!!!!

DEAR GOD!!! I don't even know where to start but I will preface my comments with how I came across this sight. I had pulled into a local McDonalds' drive thru one morning this early summer for a much needed extra large coffee. After fidgeting with the radio a little bit, I turned and saw this to the left of me. It begged me to snap a photo and try to help spread the word of please don't do this to plants.

Maybe I'll start with the horrible orange mulch...something I like to call Gas Station Mulch. There is no wood that is naturally that color...anywhere. You know how they get it that color? Orange dye. That's not "cedar" as so many people are lead to believe. I am pleased to see that the popularity of day-glo orange mulch is waning and the major culprits are low grade landscapers and people over the age of 95. When I was doing the retail scene over 10 years ago, it seemed like the older crowd seemed to love that orange mulch. Thank god most of my clients like the more natural colored mulches like dark brown and black which are much more useful for setting off the plants nicely. Day-glo orange mulch doesn't even set off that red wall or those poor, suffering gold thread cypress. **shudder**

That's as good of a segway as any to discuss the pruning. Those cypress in that photo are about 2 feet by 2 feet in a neat, little hockey puck. I can't even call them "muffins" like I like to refer to massive sheared green foundation plants. For my readers who are not familiar with what gold thread cypress looks like in the wild, here you go -

http://www.uah.edu/admin/Fac/grounds/FILIFERA.HTM

Depending on the variety, these guys can get get anywhere from 4' tall to 10' tall. They aren't meant to stay 2' by 2' in a weird puck shape. It's completely obvious that whoever pruned them didn't give two darns about the natural drooping habit. If they did, they wouldn't shape them into mini-ufo's. It completely boggles my mind why landscape "professionals" think it is perfectly okay to do this to plants. Do they not care, do they not know, or is it a mix of both? One thing I probably can bet that whoever did this were the cheapest company who bid on this job.

Talk about a perfect example of "you get what you pay for."

Back to old stomping grounds

2009-10-06T23:51:00.008-04:00

I've been a little quiet on there these past two weeks because I did a little traveling the last weekend of September. My trip took me and Lars back to the home land of the Finger Lakes region for a dog show where we were showing in Rally Obedience. Of course I couldn't head out there without going back to where the whole Garden Consultant journey of mine started....

Lars hangin' with Ezra on Cornell's art quad.

Cornell's Plant Science building - the real birth place of The Garden Consultant and my second home from 1991 - 1995.

Outside of the Plant Science building is a display garden called the Minns Garden. It was originally planted by Lua Minns, the first professor of herbaceous plant material and it was named for her after she passed away. When I was there, we had a lot of labs for the ornamental horticulture ID classes in the Minns Gardens. I can't believe how much it has changed over the past 14 years. I discovered the Gardens actually have a blog that you can read and follow what's going on in the gardens - http://blogs.cornell.edu/minnsgarden/ I so bookmarked this one!

This arbor definitely is something new since the last time I was on campus in 2003. I think it is sooooooo cool! Below is the gate on the west side of the garden that opens up to the ag quad.

They have really gone more into the more funky annuals (like that fantastic banana tree in the photo above) and woody plants since I was here. Back in the nineties, it was only perennials, some annuals and a big bulb display in the spring of tulips and daffs. When I was hanging out in the gardens as a student, the selection of plants was still pretty limited when compared to what is available today. The gardens were pretty back when I was in school, but what they are today completely blows away the gardens I remember. I'll have to see if I can locate some of the photos I have of the gardens from the nineties and scan them for you all.

The boy wonder in the garden how I think he should enjoy them...

And this is Lars' idea of how he should enjoy the gardens...with a very vigorous back scratch in their grass. LOL

On to the show results from our weekend - Lars was a working machine both days. Saturday he showed very well for an outdoor show (it was our second one ever) and earned a 96 out of 100, a second place, and a new rally advanced title. Then Sunday, the weather was wicked...cold, windy and rainy. We had never worked in the rain before....ever. But, Lars rose to the occasion and earned a 100 and a first place in rally advanced for an extra qualifying score. He worked like a dream for me and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Lars strutting in the driving rain to the tune of a 100. I knew he was going to be a superstar in the making. This is just the beginning too... :)

Good God! I got interviewed by the Mayor of Providence's office

2009-09-24T16:36:00.004-04:00

Feature: My Business
Cris Larson Digs into the Roots of a Greener Landscape

As thirty Providence residents prepare to train for careers in the sustainable landscaping industry (thanks to a partnership between Groundwork Providence and the Providence Housing Authority launched this week) local experts in this sector of the green industry have designed a curriculum that will prepare students to compete for better-paying jobs in the future. One of those experts is Cris Larson, a landscape designer and current president of the Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association.

According to Larson, “Probably one of the biggest challenges that the green industry faces is trying to find qualified workers … so what this program is doing is giving those potential employees the knowledge and that edge over the inexperienced labor that you might typically see in the landscaping world.” Participants of the program will be receiving 6 weeks of instruction in sustainable landscaping and urban maintenance.

City News caught up with Larson, also known professionally as The Garden Consultant, at the Groundwork Providence community garden on Grove Street to dig into the roots of her field.

How is your field (landscape design) contributing to the creation of green jobs in Providence?

I’m the ideas person. I’m a one-woman show and I don’t have any employees myself but what I do is create the designs for my clients and then they will either give it to a landscape company or install it themselves. As the designer, I’m kinda’ the first step at creating different landscapes so it’s like a trickle-down effect almost. So I would work with, let’s say, a landscape company that would employ someone from Groundwork Providence. You know, keep a steady flow of work for them coming.

Describe the kind of training that takes place in order for an individual to be a landscaper.

You don’t really have to have any kind of qualification to do landscaping right now. In my travels as a landscape designer and horticultural consultant, I see a lot of the aftermath of work by people who don’t know what they’re doing. A lot of it can result in bad outcomes like trees dying or mulch being improperly planted, or even hardscapes that aren’t installed correctly.

An organization like RINLA (RI Nursery & Landscape Association) tries to promote professionalism in the field. We try to promote the certified horticulturist program. It’s kinda’ like a step above being a master gardener. They have to take a course and a test and have to maintain their certification with so many hours of volunteer work within the field.

So what role is RINLA going to play in the training being offered to potential landscapers?

Groundwork Providence contacted RINLA and a couple of faculty from URI, folks from the garden world, and folks from the landscape world – a well-rounded group – to ask us to provide input on the pertinent information that landscapers should learn. So they based the curriculum on the information we had given them. They’ve been working with us very closely. Some of us will be teaching some of the classes too. I will be teaching the urban landscape plant class. Another RINLA board member will be teaching the permeable paver class. So they’re getting people that know their stuff and are also able to convey their information and knowledge to the students.

In your opinion, how is a program like this beneficial to the green workforce?

I have a lot of friends who are landscapers and a lot their angst is driven by this challenge – the workers might come from a temp agency, or they don’t have the interest or the knowledge to really do the work well. I hear the same anxieties from my clients. So what this program is doing is giving those potential employees the knowledge and that edge over the inexperienced labor that you might typically see in the landscaping world. We need those educated people.

On the other hand, too, these potential employees and workers might also be able to garner better-paying jobs in the industry. If you’re educated you might be able to get a foreman’s job, for example. So I think this Sustainable Landscaping Curriculum through Groundwork Providence will give people that edge over others.

Why did you choose this profession?

I started off wanting to be an environmental lawyer. My dad was an attorney in upstate New York. I went to Cornell, which really doesn’t have a true pre-law program. So I took some plant sciences courses. In my junior year I started taking business law classes and that’s when I started thinking, ‘wow, I really don’t want to do this!’ So I graduated with a bachelors’ degree in plant sciences and a minor in ornamental horticulture. I worked for an industry in Middletown and they made me their landscape designer. One day I had an epiphany. Why am I not doing this for myself? And so I went and started The Garden Consultant in 2000.

Every year, it’s been getting a little bit better. The past couple of years I’ve been cranking out the work and I can’t complain! I’ve got clients all over the state and in New England and do a lot of work in Providence. In my designs, I use all native plants. I do more stuff with drought-resistant material and things like that. The push for green industry and with programs like what Groundwork Providence is doing, and with the push for more green space in inner cities and urban areas, I think there’ll be more demand for these types of eco-friendly materials and landscaping.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

Every design is different. I enjoy that a lot of my clients become friends. When their gardens have grown into maturity, they’ll come back to me and say, ‘I really like what you’ve done.’ To have someone love their yard and once I bring that happiness to people, that’s when I feel like I’m helping to make the world a better place. It sounds cheesy but that’s what I like most about it.

How would you encourage others to get excited about this field?

There’s almost a stigma that goes with being a landscaper. But I think there’s going to be a big shift with the new green industry. As it becomes a more popular field, it’s going to be cooler. I have to say it’s actually a pretty cool job! I love my job! At the end of the day, people in my field look at their work and think ‘wow, I really accomplished something!’ There’s a great deal of satisfaction that comes with this job.

For more on Cris Larson’s work, go to http://crissyh.tripod.com/ and to find out more about the programs offered by the RI Nursery and Landscape Association, go to http://www.rinla.org/index.asp.

(As seen in Providence's City News. I have to apologize for the crazy font sizes, I had to tweak it so it would fit.)

Interesting article about thirsty landscapes from the WSJ -

2009-09-18T13:59:00.001-04:00

Home & Family

Turf Battle Heats Up Over Limits on Water-Guzzling Landscapes

By GWENDOLYN BOUNDS

There's a turf war under way over America 's lawns, and it may be headed for your yard.

Later this year, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to expand its WaterSense conservation program to include a voluntary label for newly built homes. Homes could win certification if they consume roughly 20% less water than standard new homes. Along with criteria for high-efficiency toilets and faucets, the program has a landscaping clause that could strictly limit the amount of turfgrass participating builders plant. The rationale: Homeowners waste a lot of water laboring to keep lawns lush.

Before & After

Southern Nevada Water Authority (2)

This Las Vegas home's owner got a rebate for replacing 2,200 square feet of lawn with water-efficient plants.

Locally, some cities and water utilities, in Florida, Nevada and Texas, for example, already offer homeowners and builders financial incentives for taking steps to decrease water usage, including reducing the amount of lawn in residential yards. But the EPA's latest bid to go green would take the movement national, and that has the turfgrass industry up in arms.

"It puts a label on grass as bad that it's not something to be used," says Kris Kiser, executive vice president of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, a trade group representing equipment manufacturers for the landscape, lawn and other industries. Mr. Kiser says his group and other landscape-trade organizations are lobbying legislators to oppose the proposed WaterSense criteria for landscaping. And Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., the world's largest lawn and garden company, has criticized the EPA's outdoor plan as "arbitrary" and "not supported by science."

Under the plan, WaterSense would give participating builders two options for landscaping new homes. The first: Turfgrass can't exceed 40% of the landscapable area. The second: Builders may use a "water-budget" approach and an EPA-provided online tool to design landscape based on a regionally appropriate amount of water, as well as individual plants' water needs. "So basically, a yard in Maine or Minnesota could have larger turf area than Las Vegas ," says Virginia Lee, EPA's WaterSense program team leader.

Ms. Lee says the average home in America uses 30% of its water outdoors, and in some areas of the country that number soars to 70%. While there's nothing to stop homeowners from planting all the turfgrass they want once they move in, with WaterSense landscaping as an initial template, she says, "we are trying to teach people to plant appropriate landscapes."

Looming Water Shortages

That the nation's water supplies need closer monitoring and preservation is generally not in dispute. Water managers in 36 states anticipate shortages by 2013, according to a report by the U.S. General Accounting Office. Between 1950 and 2000, the U.S. population nearly doubled, but public demand for water more than tripled, according to the EPA.

The problem is particularly severe in regions battling competing forces of drought and heavy population growth, such as Las Vegas , Texas , Florida and Atlanta . A five-year study of Nevada homes that converted lawn to Xeriscape a broad term for water-efficient landscape that includes flowers, plants and trees found converted areas used 75% less water on average. The study was conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Turf Tear-Up

Homeowners in some towns can get financial incentives to replace certain types of turfgrass with plants deemed more water efficient. Here's a sampling (some awards are capped and funds may be limited):

Perk

Water-bill credit of up to 75 cents a square foot for converting landscape designated as "high water use" such as Kentucky bluegrass and sheep fescue to lower-water-use plantings. Plus, 25% off the cost of renting equipment for grass removal.

Rebate of $1 to $1.50 per square foot of grass removed and replaced with desert landscaping.

$200 to $600 rebate for replacing turf areas with "non-grass," low-water-use, drought-tolerant plants.

$100 gift certificate to nursery for, among other things, "having no more than 50% of the landscape planted in turf" (only Bermuda, buffalo or zoysia varieties no St. Augustine ). Additional water bill credit of $50 to $300 for low water usage.

"Xeriscape Rebate" offers residential customers up to $1 per square foot for replacing turf grass with low-water-use plant material.

The EPA hopes its WaterSense program, launched in 2006, can mimic the success of Energy Star, the federal program created in 1992 to identify and champion products that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Energy Star label is now on thousands of items. By year-end, nearly one million new homes will have been Energy Star certified meaning built with qualifying materials and equipment that make them roughly 30% more efficient than standard new homes. While purchases of government-certified products are voluntary, over time they can skew the market toward products meeting the criteria. Over the Labor Day weekend, for instance, Sears and Lowe's hawked 20% discounts on appliances bearing the Energy Star label.

Opponents of the WaterSense landscape criteria worry the EPA certification, as currently proposed, might eventually gain similar traction as Energy Star among home builders. Some WaterSense labeled products, such as toilets, qualify for rebates in places such as Cobb County, Ga. , and Durham , N.C. Proposed legislation would give a federal tax credit to purchasers of WaterSense-labeled homes. Other water-saving rebates are listed at www.epa.gov/watersense.

But while significant strides have been made to reduce residential indoor water use with low-flow faucets, shower heads and other water-conserving appliances, outdoor usage remains difficult to curtail. "Indoors, water conservation is based on installing technologies that don't require significant changes in behavior you can still flush the toilet and do laundry," says Heather Cooley, senior research associate at the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit research group. Outdoors, there is more behavior change involved with educating people about the volume of water being used and alternatives to lawns and irrigation technologies."

Public officials are trying financial persuasion to convince consumers to ditch grass. The Southern Nevada Water Authority runs a Get Off Your Grass, We'll Pay Cash program that pays customers between $1 and $1.50 per square foot of grass removed and replaced with desert landscaping. To date the program has converted turf equivalent to roughly 2,400 football fields. Building codes in the Las Vegas area also require that new homes cannot have any lawn in the front yard and only 50% lawn in back, says Doug Bennett, conservation manager at SNWA.

What Neighbors Think

Florida has its own voluntary program, called Water Star, that limits how much high-volume-irrigation landscape often that's turfgrass participating builders can install. But that can conflict with rules enforced by many homeowners associations that require well-maintained grass landscaping. This spring, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist stepped in and signed a bill permitting homeowners to replace lawns with more " Florida friendly" plants, regardless of neighborhood covenants. Some cities, such as Apopka , Fla. , even regulate the type of grass permitted for new homes to favor more drought-tolerant varieties such as Bahia and Bermuda over St. Augustine .

Such moves have met with mixed reviews. "No one here wants to see Xeriscape next door to them for the most part," says Greg Kullman, resident and former president of Silverthorn, a gated golf-course community in Hernando County , Fla. He estimates grass takes up about 90% of a Silverthorn home's yard. "Grass is a part of everyone's life from when you are first born. Without grass, a home would be bland, and if a home is bland, its value drops."

Virtues of Grass

Others say grass's own environmental benefits are being sold short. Scotts Miracle-Gro this year launched a Love Your Lawn consumer Web site. In its public comments opposing WaterSense's landscape criteria, the company asserts that healthy turf reduces soil erosion, traps dust and dirt and reduces surface temperatures. Scotts and other grass sellers are developing new seed varieties that need less water.

The EPA aims to implement the WaterSense program for new homes in early December but the agency could still modify the landscape criteria. One alternative model is Florida 's Water Star program, which doesn't directly limit turfgrass but rather the amount of landscape that uses high-volume irrigation. That distinction forces participating home builders to plant more drought-tolerant grass varieties or other water-saving plants without demonizing grass, says Deirdre Irwin, Water Star coordinator for the St. Johns Water Management District, one of five such agencies in Florida .

"Our agency has a strong position that it isn't turfgrass that wastes water but the irrigation and the wrong species in the wrong place," Ms. Irwin says.

Hush Hush Friday

2009-09-11T12:11:00.003-04:00

Sounds like Late Blight can't cut the cold...

2009-09-03T14:36:00.005-04:00

For the first time in many weeks, I finally made it outside and did some stuff around the backyard. Holy crap, did I have some weeds. The one good thing about monstrous weeds is they are fairly easy to pull. The backyard looks somewhat like what is it supposed to now. I never did get to thinning the water lettuce in the Lake but there's always this weekend coming up. Below is the one window box on the side of my garage that overlooks Lake Larson. Not too bad for a complete afterthought. It's the only container I have that doesn't look like complete and utter garbage from the rains and that's because it faces northeast and has a little bit of an overhang. So, It didn't get hammered with water. The other showpiece window box on the front of the house did horrible and unspeakable things this year. The only thing left standing in it is the coleus, begonias, and the carex. The fushcia rotted totally away.

I'm starting to scheme about the new beds around the deck I want to start and soon. I think the next several weeks will be me ripping sod to audio books on my ipod. Then I can start to move stuff from the front that desparately needs more sun. How dare that big oak grow and cast shade in my yard over the past 5 years.

If you grow tomatoes, live in New England, and don't live under a rock you know that we have been having quite a time with potato Late Blight. I know, I know...potato diseases striking tomatoes?? That doesn't sound right! But in fact, tomatoes and potatoes are very closely related...closely enough that they can get sick from the same diseases. On Gardenweb, I have read a lot of accounts of Late Blight around the Northeast so it is here and not some big marketing ploy by Ortho or MiracleGro. My tomatoes may be showing a touch of it but I'm not that stressed about how they look because it has been a momumentally awful gardening year. I'm just glad that I got some tomatoes this season. Thankfully it has dried out and things aren't as water stressed as they were the majority of the "summer" (and I do use the term summer, loosely.)

I was just sent this article re: Late Blight and how it won't survive our winter from a gardening colleague -

From http://www.gardencentermagazine.com/late_blight_wont_overwinter.aspx

Late blight won’t overwinter in Northeast, experts say

8/31/2009

Retailers can share some good news with customers: Late blight won’t overwinter in the area, except in infected potato tubers

Late blight (Phytophthora infestans) has caused big headaches for vegetable gardeners in New England . But retailers can share some good news with customers: Late blight won’t overwinter in the area, except in infected potato tubers according to UConn Home and Garden Education Center .

Here’s the latest from Floriculture Greenhouse Update:
The pathogen, Phytophthora infestans, survives in living tissue and will be killed by freezing temperatures. Therefore, your customers do not need to be concerned about their soil harboring this pathogen and creating a source of infection for next year. Most years, late blight is sporadic or absent in our area because it spreads from the south on wind currents and arrives late in the season, causing far less damage. This year, the pathogen was introduced on tomato transplants carrying the disease so it arrived early and then we had very favorable weather for disease development and spread. If your customers grow potatoes and they have been infected with late blight, it is important to advise that they destroy or bury infected tubers. They should be buried two feet deep. Crop rotation and a thorough fall clean-up of any diseased plants in garden beds are still important practices for reducing the incidence of other diseases.

Some of my readings suggest that the Big Box stores like Lowes, Home "Cheapo", Walmart, and etc. were responsible for having the fungus on tomato plants brought in from god knows where. Tomatoes started from seed or from mom and pop garden centers were safer bets. Hmmmm...sounds like a great reason for the "Buy Local" push that has been gaining popularity out there.

Speaking of Tomatoes, you may remember that I had bought one of those upside down tomato planters from Gardener Supply Catalog this past spring. The jury is out and yes, they do work!!! I put a patio tomato in there so it wouldn't be a huge plant and I'm impressed. The one thing I will say is make sure you have something sturdy enough to hold it...I almost broke the railing on deckzilla when I first hung it. Eric had to rig something on the roof of the house next to the desk.

All about the purples

2009-08-25T11:52:00.004-04:00

Purple foliage - Smoke Bush 'Royal Purple' (Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple') This guy has the coolest foam/smoke like blooms. It didn't flower this year since this is it's first full year in the ground. Sometimes plants will sacrifice flowers for a good root system which is fine by me. Rooting and flowering take the same nutrients and one may win out over the other. This plant was actually a refugee from Jim's yard (he's the guy who's yard is in the banner) because his yard is a bit too wet for Smoke bush to be happy. It has pushed a ton of new growth this summer with the rains of June and July. They get an awesome orange fall color and I can't wait to see that!!!

I finally got some clematis for the fence this season! I picked up Clematis 'Jackmanii' which is pictured above and Clematis 'H. F. Young'. The latter one is more blue than Jackmanii. I don't have any photos of it because it was a tiny little thing that was quickly overpowered by some astilbe in the area. It had one flower which suprised me and it's growing....slowly. Jackmanii was much bigger but also grew like gang busters! as you can see from the photo. It's probably one of the easier clematis to grow and easiest to prune. This guy you prune back to 14" tall in the late winter and leave a couple of buds on the old growth. It will be back in it's full glory before you know it.

I have to get back outside with my camera because I'm quickly running out of photos for the blog. I think the craptastic weather of July totally cramped my photo taking...not to mention now the garden looks like it should in late September after the unrelenting bad weather this summer.

Remember when we complained about it being too cold?

2009-08-18T14:21:00.005-04:00

Jeez Lousie it's hot outside today! Lars and I are down in the underground bunker, uh, office drafting (he's sleeping) where it's cooler. According to Weather Bug, it's 92 outside. Welcome back summer!

Hmph....I had a post already figured out and I was going to have a discussion about an atrocity I had seen a landscape "professional" do. I can't seem to find the photo of some seriously bad pruning complete with orange, dyed mulch. Bummer. I was in the mood to be snarky too. I guess I must wing my post today then!

Earlier this year I had mentioned the foxes that have come to our neighborhood. A couple of weeks ago, I had gotten some great photos from the safety of our living room window. These guys, I think, are youngsters and the numbers of them are making think they are litter mates. Lars was causing a ruckus that would pierce through 3" lead and they didn't seem to be too bothered by it.

They were playing almost like young dogs do out there and I took these around 7:30/8 pm at night. They haven't been as high profile since I took these and my sightings have been sporadic. But I did see a spike buck white deer on the side yard where the picket fence it one morning as I was making my coffee. I ran to get my camera and by the time I got back, he was gone. Hopefully, he won't be back because I really don't want to have to deal with deer damage in my yard full of non deer tolerant plants.

Super sad day at Garden Consultant HQ

2009-08-12T22:47:00.003-04:00

Fair winds and following seas, Sam. You were the bestest boy ever.

Sam Its 5 Oclock Somewhere CD RN CGC TDIA

11/98 - 8/12/09

Wet pets and plants

2009-08-11T12:11:00.006-04:00

Summer has come and made it's appearance with a vengence this week. It's hot and muggy. I think Mother Nature decided to shut us all up about our missing summer from going from 70 degrees this weekend to over 90 degrees in the span of 12 hours. I'm hiding down in the basement office with Lars and Sam is in the bedroom with the AC on as I type. Ugh, I hate weather like this but I find I am more tolerant of it as I get older. That I don't get. But watch, I'll be one those old ladies walking around in winter coat when it's 75 degrees out if this new trend of mine keeps up.

I wasn't sure what to write about today as I signed in here, but I think water gardening is cooling to the mind. The waterlilies have been very nice this year. I had to secure them a couple of years ago in huge shallow pots with no holes with weedfabric and big stones covering it. I didn't realize that koi LOVE to eat waterlily roots. In fact, it's one of their favorite things to eat. After having a number of waterlilies fail and me discovering their root systems were gone, I decided to outsmart my wet pets. I created little fort knoxes for the lilies and it's worked wonderfully! I have a couple of different colors - dark pink, peach, yellow and white/light pink. I haven't gotten into the tropical ones that open at night yet because I just don't know what I would do with them during the winter. Below are a couple of flowers I snapped from the larger side of Lake Larson. I did know what the varieties were at one point, but I lost the tags. (See that even happens to us pros too)

The Wet Pets are doing well and we've only lost one fish that we know of to the heron this year. I have a great covering of water lettuce as you can see in the lily photos and that offers great protection against herons. The lettuce also has done a wonderful job of clearing up the water too. I was having a big problem with algae and murk this spring and early summer. Everyone always says you need more plants to keep that from happening and they are right. Due to the cool temps of the early summer, it took forever for the lettuce to take off...but now it's over due for me to thin it. It still blows my mind that 5 little lettuce plant will fill the Lake in the matter of a couple of months. Chunk is the big orange blob in the bottom photo and they like to nibble on the water lettuce but the fish never seem to make a dent in it. But, I learned they will chomp on water mint. The fish actually removed the mint from the pot it was in and started to really damage it. I had tucked some of it in behind those horrid yellow flag iris I have and some in the top waterfall. So far, so good.

We have some new residents to the pond this summer. Eric's best friend brought over all of his fish, catfish, snails, and a turtle because he's thinking about selling his house. We also have some little koi I don't think Leo brought over so, they could be babies of our existing fish. That does happen and they do make it. We have a white/light yellow butterfly koi who just showed up one year. I have yet to see the turtle but I guess the plant material will keep him in food so he won't be looking for fish food. But the dark catfish will make regular appearances to the top when I feed the rest of the fish. Our frog who I posted photos of earlier this season is happy as a clam in the Lake. I hear him all the time singing like a cello stuck on one note. He sings during the day and all night long (I've ever heard him signing at 3 am when I've gotten up for some water.) I hardly ever see him now....but he makes sure we and all of our neighbors know he's out there.

Favorites

2009-08-01T12:54:00.007-04:00

A lot of people ask me what's my favorite flower and it's a hard question for me to answer. I think there are many flowers I like and like equally. I think it's more of a color thing for me than the acutal flower. I love deep, rich blues and purples. I think my Rhododendron 'Purple Passion' is in the top 5. But this plant is probably is in my top 5, if not at the very top - Hydrangea macrophylla 'Alpengluhen'. It's a lesser known hydrangea but if you get a design by me, you get this plant. The colors work in both hot color palettes as well as cool ones. I'm underwhelmed by the washed out light blues of the lace caps and the Nikko Blue and Endless Summer. They're okay but they don't make me stop in my tracks like 'Alpengluhen' does. It blooms later and much longer than 'Nikko Blue' does and the colors change on 'Alpengluhen' as the flower matures as you can see in these different pics below.

As the flowers go past maturity, they turn maroon red and dry that color on the bush. The foliage and flowers of 'Alpengluhen' are much more substantial than on other hydrangeas. They almost are waxy in look and that lends well in the hot sun of summer. They will weep if it is really hot but not as badly as some of the other varieties. Since the flowers are thicker, they do well as cut flowers and for drying.

I'm not a big fan of hosta flowers but thought these guys were neat and it was a cool angle. Well played, Hosta and Alpengluhen!

9.95"

2009-07-25T21:53:00.005-04:00

That's what the Weather Channel said this morning for this month's rain. Seriously, Mother Nature? What the hell?? That is almost 1/4 of the entire average rainfall for the YEAR in one month (41" of preciptation.) We're also eyeing the second coolest July on record, which actually is okay in my book. I hate the heat and the humidity. Everyone who has been in the landscaping business forever say they have never seen anything like this before in all of years of being in business. We're supposed to get more rain tomorrow and off and on the rest of the week which will push us well over 10" of rain for July.

The edible side of Garden Consultant HQ has been teetering on successful and not so much this year with no thanks to the cool damp weather. There's actually been a huge boom in Late Blight in both tomatoes and potatoes this year because of all of the rain. Yeah, that's the same type of blight that caused the Irish Potato Famine of 1845. I haven't seen it here in my garden, thank goodness. That would probably be the straw that broke the camel's back this year. Below are my Grape Tomatoes on crack....they are huge, loaded full of flowers as you can see - tons of GREEN tomatoes. That insanely sad looking tomato over on the left of the photo is an heirloom. I really, really wanted to have them do well because I love heirloom tomatoes. But good grief, it's withered, yellowed and just pathetic. Maybe I will give the heirlooms one more chance but in my upside down tomato grower (which has a decent plant with fruit coming)

Here are the sole three ripe tomatoes I've had all season! I picked a couple today but they are totally ripe. We need some heat that lasts for more than a day for these guys to ripen. I have so many romas, cherries, and yellow tomatoes coming...I just need them to ripen and not all at once!

I have to ask....lettuce in July?!?!?!?! Yes, if you have May weather in July.

I have finally given in to lesser organic methods to get the veggies to grow this summer. With all of this rain, nutrients are just being washed away from the soil. I broke out the water soluble 20-20-20 blue fertilizer. It's pretty much a plant steroid and it's doing just that....pumping up the veggies quickly, very quickly. I really felt I didn't have a choice with this season. I started to use the fertilizer about 3 weeks ago when I noticed my veggies hadn't grown, at all - nothing - since I planted them in May. I finally got a pickler cuke off of one of the plants. I planted them to eat fresh because Eric and I never can finish off a cuke before it turns to slimy, mush. Normally I would apologize for the weeds in the photo....but there isn't a garden in New England that isn't loaded full of weeds this summer. I have to go out and feed the veggies again tomorrow morning if it isn't pouring out.

I took this photo of my herbs in their containers late last month and like the veggies, the annual ones like parsley and basil where just like they were back in May. The rains of June started to rot out my basil which there wasn't much I could do about that. The rains of this month has started to take it's toll on the perennial herbs now....they are showing bad signs of overwatering AND nutrient deficiency. Ugh. This was not the year to do herbs in containers. The basil has seemed to stop rotting and has recovered. I'm going to make some pesto pasta sauce with it this week and that will feel like summer eventhough Mother Nature has other seasons in mind.

Reds, reds, and more (unconventional) reds

2009-07-18T11:38:00.008-04:00

Personally, I'm more of a cool colored person....pinks, purples, blues and the such. But in my full sun side garden, I placed a lot of plants I had inherited from others that would clash with my color scheme. I have some golds and funky oranges lilies and daylilies. So I introduced a bunch of warmer colors like the reds, deep violets and the blues to blend with them. Today I'm focusing on the reds.

Eric has been known to bring me home things that had made their way to the trash from where he works. It's actually earned him the nickname "the Larsonist" with his co-workers. LOL This rose below is one of his "treasures." It's a hybrid tea rose and I'm suspecting it could be Mr. Lincoln which is a timeless classic for fragrant, red roses. There were two of them that made their way to my house and this one is the sole survivor which was amazing because neither of them had much in the way of roots when I planted them. It's been here for about four years and it's taken it all of that time to finally look good this year. The past several years, blackspot had plagued it and it usually lost most of it's foliage by this time of year. If you know me, I don't tolerate crappy plants in my garden and can be pretty ruthless about it. I normally give a plant three years to prove to me they deserve to be here. The fourth year - you're gone. I told Eric this was it and I was digging it out. He begged me to leave it. He hates killing plants (what a great pair we make.) So, I agreed and secretly threatened the rose's life if it didn't do something this year. I think it heard me, or it finally developed a sustaining root system, or the regular feedings of Rose Tone this year made a big difference. It's grown some substantial canes and the foliage has stayed fairly clean despite the rains and cold of June. It's had some nice roses on it which I have cut and brought inside. I'll keep feeding it monthly until August and we'll see if it is as successful next year as it was this one.

My 'Knock Out' Roses have had a wonderful year this season...they have bloomed really nicely and were covered with flowers. Right now, they are taking a little breather and forming more buds for another riot of color in a couple of weeks. I love this family of shrub rose and use them and their different colored cousins in my designs all of the time. They are very low maintenance and take just monthly feedings of rose food and deadheading. These roses never have fungal problems ever which is so great. The 'Knock Out' Roses now come in double reds, pink, double pink, yellow, pink/yellow, and white. They have a color that will suit any color scheme. I think they would reach 5 - 6' tall easily and I have been pruning my back in the spring for the past couple of seasons. Mine usually get 4 - 4.5' tall by the end of the season.

And here's my little "red" visitor who has been becoming a regular feature in my yard. I took this photo from my front stairs one morning as I was getting ready to take Lars outside. Luckily, Lars didn't see him/her and I shoved him back inside before Lars did notice. The fox was sitting in my neighbor's front yard about 50' away from me and wasn't at all bothered by my being there. I was talking with another neighbor on the street and she said they have about 4- 5 foxes that gather in their backyard at dusk. So, I think I'm seeing multiple foxes. Just yesterday, I was on the deck talking on the phone and one of them just trotted by and glanced at me. Later last night I saw one crossing the street as I took Lars outside. They are also having a little bit of a "marking the territory" war with Lars which is starting to bug him. LOL I just hope one them doesn't trot through my yard when I'm practicing obedience/agility with Lars or playing with him. I don't want to even think what would happen.

These guys don't really bother me other than if Lars meets one face to face. I have noticed the squirrel population is down which isn't a bad thing considering they had been horrid with my containers and vegatable garden. They are kind of cool to watch trot by as I'm hanging out on the deck.

Silent Sunday...windowboxes 2009

2009-07-12T23:56:00.003-04:00