In our globally connected world it is hard to distinguish our garden seasons. Roses, lilies, and tulips show up in markets and bouquets every week. Asparagus and blueberries are available all year. Peony season seems an exception from this sense of timelessness. Peony season is spring and on my calendar it is May. Peony bushes were a part of my childhood landscape in Indiana. Since 1957 the state flower of Indiana is the Peony, or Paeonia so their popularity was notable. The bushes formed a line around our home and were planted right in the lawn. This meant much grumbling by my sister and I about pulling the grass out of the bushes late in the season. Initially though in the spring the grass was still short and the anticipation of their blooms was still quite pleasant. Peony season meant warmer temperatures. The temperature and the peony buds brought out the black ants. The ants hungry for the nectar surrounding the buds crawl up and down the stems. It is an often told myth that ants help the buds open but science says this isn’t so. Still the ants had to be removed from the flowers before we could bring them into the house for a bouquet for our dinner table. We would dunk the blooms into a bucket of water and wait for the ants to float off the petals.
Category: Midwest Region, US
Gazing Balls
Bright & Shiny
This time of year Christmas trees decorated with lights and ornaments are showing up all around the town. If you decorate a tree with traditional glass ornaments in red, gold, or silver you will see the beauty surrounding you reflected in their shiny surface. Stories of glass ball ornaments trace back to the 1800’s in Germany, though the origin of glass balls has been documented back to the 1300’s. Venetian glass blowers began creating colorful spheres as gazing balls to reflect the light and the view of gardens. The fragile and colorful balls were a sign of wealth and status used to accessorize the gardens of kings. King Ludwig II, King of Bavaria during the 1800’s, adorned his palace, Herrenchiemsee, his replica of Versailles, with these gazing balls. Could there be a connection?
Fancy Tulips
Winter is a long season in the middle of the country. When the limits of age restrict your range of activity to a small circle of travel, winter can be especially long. With that thought in mind my sister and I arrived at our Mom’s garden to plant a little magic for the spring. The end of the summer growing season requires putting the garden away. Various garden decorations need to be carried inside to protect them from the freezing and thawing that occurs. Favorite flower pots, a garden angel, a gazing ball, and other pretty things are carried inside to store away. A few plants are carried to the basement in hopes they can winter over to be returned to the garden in the spring. Some times they survive, other years it is so cold even the basement shelter can’t protect them.
Back home again in Indiana
October in Indiana may just be the best season of the year in that part of the country. The corn and beans are ready to harvest. The leaves are turning, the temperature dropping, the pumpkins in plentiful supply. The air is crisp, the heater kicks on as the evening comes. The dogs coats are growing longer to keep them warm in the winter. The fall season is so beautiful; there are apples, cider, harvest of the last tomatoes, soup on the stove. The great joy of returning to my childhood home for another precious visit.
Mom’s Iris
My Mother has always gardened and she has gardened in the same spot in Indiana soil for over 60 years. The garden surrounds the home she made with my Father when they moved in as newlyweds down the road from my Grandparents. Growing flowers was always secondary to farming efforts. That continues today as my brothers farm the land that has been in our family for over 100 years. So the garden, flowers, vegetables and such required an extra effort for my Mom.
Garden Gates
Enter Into The New
As the new year stretches out before us fresh and full of possibilities many of us pause to mark the transition with resolutions, lucky foods and personal traditions. These actions help frame our expectation of what the new year will bring. We approach the new year nearly holding our breath in anticipation of what will come.
Snow in Summer
Imagining Snow
As the temperature rises and it is too hot for gardening I try all manner of things to help me make it through the months of July and August. I tell myself this is our dormancy period, our non gardening time like the deep winter months in other parts of the country. I try to put my garden records in order noting successful efforts and what to plan for next season. When I am really desperate I pretend my white flowers are snow! Once on a visit to San Diego Botanic gardens as I moved from one shady spot to the next I found in full bloom a plant labeled “snow in summer.” The name just grabbed my attention. Snow! Imagining snow in the garden cooled me down.Many people think a garden of white flowers is designed to reflect the moonlight yet bright moonlight cooperates for only a brief time each month and what if the moon flowers are not yet in bloom? Compare that to every day imagining white flowers as snow! It could cool our thoughts and inspire memories of cooler times!
The Best Season
Expectations
Friends planning a visit to a new garden struggled to pick the best time to go, wanting the garden to be at its’ peak perfection. Predicting the weather, wondering if it would rain, if the climate would be just right for the flowers to bloom they struggled to match their schedules to the hoped for perfect visit. Poet William Brown wrote “There is no season such delight can bring as summer, autumn, winter, spring.” When is the best season to visit a public garden? When will the garden reach its’ perfection? Whenever you get yourself to a garden, I believe you can find something good.
Dwarf Conifers, Chicago Botanical Gardens
Writings
Conifers will be appearing all around the town in December, though most people will call them Christmas Trees. If you go for putting a live tree on display in your home then you will likely choose between a fir, pine, cedar, spruce or cypress as these are 5 of the most popular varieties for a holiday tree. This year for the first time Arizona is providing a blue spruce for the White House National Christmas Tree. Generally for a tree to hold ornaments we want it to stand straight, be cone shaped and dark green. We are happy to tie on our own “pine cones” as part of our decorations.
Container Gardens
Writings
As the weather began to change in my garden I eagerly set about planting my favorite colorful annuals in my containers. I do pots, boxes, hanging baskets, tubs, it is my favorite garden activity trying for the perfect container of flowers. A container seems so much in my control, the dirt, the size, the placement all arranged and hopefully will provide perfect results. Yet each fall I think, “Oh if I just had one more container, perhaps a bit bigger, it would be just right.” Traveling to public gardens made me realize my idea of a container is much, much too small.