Gardening – Part Two

This should have been part one, but I accidentally mixed them up! Enjoy all the same...- Natalie

How many kinds of wildflowers grow,
In an English country garden?
We'll tell you now of some that we know,
Those we miss, you'll surely pardon!
Daffodils, heart's ease and phlox,
Meadowsweet and lady smocks,
Gentian, lupine and hollyhocks,
Roses, foxgloves, snowdrops, and forget-me-nots,
In an English country garden!

- English Folk Song

Spring has been slow in coming our way this year, but it has given us more time to look at gardening books and catalogs. I’ll discuss our vegetable garden in a future post, but for now I’d like to share a little about our flower garden.

Mom and I both enjoy the look of “English cottage” gardening. While that can be a bit hard to define, it’s basically the opposite of a “formal” look. English cottage gardening utilizes old-fashioned plants like bleeding hearts and hollyhocks, and herbs like lavender and catmint. Instead of a perfectly shaped tea rose, we delight in climbers and ramblers. So cottage gardening might be described as relaxed, informal, and homey. At least that’s how Mom and I view it!

There are several great books on cottage gardening. My favorite is Margaret Hensel’s English Cottage Gardening, worth buying for the pictures alone! There are chapters on selecting plants, color combinations, and garden layout ideas. One of the best parts is the gardens you get to “tour,” seeing exactly how people have made such beautiful spaces.

Another great book (especially for ideas and general oohing-and-ahhing) is Tasha Tudor’s Garden. This lady has the most lovely garden! Mom and I get inspired every time we page through this book. Both of these are at our local library (although we never check them out since we have them in our personal library as well).

I would post a picture of our garden, but at the moment there are just little green tufts here and there. I should call them little green toughs, because they are braving the cold and even snow that continues to hang around. As I write this, it’s 40 degrees, and we had yet another dusting of the white stuff this morning! When things warm up a bit and the garden looks better, I’ll post some pictures. For now, I’ll list some of our favorite plants:

bleeding hearts (pink and white)
columbine
Jacob’s ladder
creeping thyme
catmint
hollyhocks
purple coneflower
mountain bluet
cleome
... and of course the spring bulbs – tulips, daffodils, crocus, etc.

- by Jeannie Castleberry
March 28, 2008

Gardening Part One

The garden has grown by leaps and bounds since my last article. Yes, our cold spring has definitely slowed many blooms, but the plants are lush, green, and covered with buds. The summer promises to be lovely.

Out in the vegetable garden we're seeing some growth, as well. Lettuce and peas aren't bothered by our occasional late frosts, so we planted them quite early. The "gently undulating" rows of peas, following the "gently undulating" fence (doesn't that sound nicer than "crooked?") are sending out curly tendrils. I think they'll bloom before long.

We're trying something new in the vegetable garden this year - planting a few flowers along with the vegetables. A few packets of annual flower seeds (10 for a dollar at the local hardware store), some gladiolus bulbs from a friend, and annual poppies will add some color to the rows. I'd like to plant some nasturtiums, too.

So we still have to get the corn and potatoes planted. We've had so much rain that those gardens are too wet to work in, but hopefully this week . . . We have to wait a long time to plant corn up here. Last year we had a killing frost on June 10. But I think we're pretty much out of the "danger zone" now.

Happy gardening to all of you who know the joys of watching things grow! (And to those who don't, all I can say is, "Try it!")

- by Jeannie Castleberry
June 9, 2008