Garden Book Reviews November 2012

Wow!  I've been so busy lately, I almost forgot the date!  With the holidays (almost) upon us, I have been busy in the house.  Frankly, I'd much rather be outside!

Last month, I promised you that I would suggest a Christmas gift for gardeners.  Last month's book was for dreaming.  This month's book is not about dreaming, it's about action.  This book is one that I used used continually when I first started making my own garden:

Step by Step Landscaping:
Planning, Planting, Building

by Better Homes and Gardens

I have the 1991 edition (there is also a 2007 edition).  This book would be very useful for anyone that is new to gardening, planning a new garden, or planning a new garden area.  It covers practical aspects of the garden such as assessing your sun, shade, slope, privacy, views, and maintenance.  It covers design aspects such as pathways, pools, and patios that you may wish to include in your landscape plans.  There are lists of recommended plants, lots of pictures for ideas, and clear and complete steps for do-it-yourself jobs.  

It covers everything from landscape plans, pathways, drainage problems, retaining walls, shade ideas, working with concrete, building steps, erecting a gazebo, storage units, kennels, irrigation, and even wiring.  And those are just a few of the subjects covered!  If you want it in your garden, it is probably covered in this book.

If you are ready to start turning your yard into an area you will use, I highly recommend this book.  If you are looking for a good Christmas gift for a new gardener, I highly recommend this book, too.  I guarantee it will be a well-used and much-loved book for anyone that is starting out and needs step-by-step guidance.

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Now it's your turn!  You are invited to join us on the 20th of each month with your own garden book review.  Any book with a garden influence qualifies!

Thanks for joining in and be sure to visit the other participants, too!

A Song for November's Bloom Day

Do you remember the song 'So Long, Farewell' from "The Sound of Music"?  If you do, feel free to sing along:

So long, farewell

Auf Wiedersehen, good night

I hate to go 
and leave this pretty sight.

The few freezes we have had damaged the cannas, the firebush (Hamelia patens), and the Chinese Indigo (Indigofera decora).   They will come back in the spring, but for now we must say goodbye.  :(

So long, farewell

Auf Wiedersehen, adieu

Adieu, adieu

To you and you and you

Not going to bed just yet, however, are the roses.  They get to stay out and play for just a while longer.  In fact, there is quite a lot blooming for this month's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Ilse Krohn Superior

Camellia

Flower carpet 'Appleblossom'

Gaura

Lion's Fairy Tale

Caryopteris

Knock Out

Pansy

Safrano

Camellia

I wonder which plants will say goodbye next month.  I can almost hear the garden starting to sing:

The sun has gone

To bed and so must I

So long, farewell
Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye

Goodbye....

Goodbye

The Common Cold

For most gardeners, cold is a common occurrence in winter.  Each gardener's preparation for this common occurrence, however, is individual and specific to their own garden.

I am preparing for the freeze that is expected to hit tonight.  I've put the thick, fluffy comforter on my bed.  I have extra blankets just in case.  My wardrobe has changed.  Instead of short sleeved t-shirts, the turtlenecks have made an appearance, along with scarves, gloves, and winter jackets.  

Even if cold is common in winter, can you tell I don't like it?

I'd much rather stay warm by a cozy fire, drinking hot cocoa instead of being outside, with a red nose and numb toes.  Thankfully, in my garden, there is not too much preparation to be done. 

Some gardeners dig up their tender bulbs and tropical plants, storing them for winter.  Their gardens look amazing, but that is just not something I want to do.   

A couple of years ago we had a very hard winter.  So many gardeners in this area lost a number of plants.  Even I lost a few.  Lesson learned - if you want tropical plants in your garden, and you are not in a tropical area, you will have to do a lot more preparation for winter.  Being the lazy me that I am, I opted out of growing tropicals that won't live through our winters.

There are some tender plants, however, I have not planted out in the garden, but potted as annuals.  These will die in a freeze.  But that's o.k.  They were purchased with the expectation that they would only last through the summer.  I didn't spend much money and them, and I understood that this was money that was being spent for a short-lived decoration.  They were the equivalent of a pumpkin pie - sweet, but seasonal and temporary.

I do have an orange tree that was a gift, and I plan to bring it inside on freezing nights.  Since it was a gift, and since I think growing oranges would be fun, I give it special treatment.  Right now, it's small, so it's in a small pot, and no trouble to carry in and out of the house.

The only other plants I plan to baby in winter are the ones I have planted in the vegetable garden.  I have a long, heavy cloth that I use to cover the raised vegetable beds on the nights that call for it.  I hate the cold (have I told you that?), and but fresh food is worth it.  On those nights, I put on my coat, winter boots, heavy socks, warm gloves, and wool hat over my regular clothes in order to trudge outside and cover the vegetable bed.  

You're right - I don't really need all those layers.  But, did I mention how much I hate the cold?

How you prepare for a freeze may be completely different than how I prepare for one.  And even if you live in Texas, you may be thinking that all this talk about winter preparation and turtlenecks is a little overkill.  You'd be right.  The freeze will probably only last a few minutes.  In fact, it may not even actually freeze!

I just love Texas winters!

Little Green Men

Have you ever seen a UFO?  I have not, but I like to read about people who think they have had an experience with one.  Maybe I shouldn't have admitted that, but I think it's fascinating, even though I'm not quite convinced that Earth is being visited by space aliens.

However, I am beginning to wonder.

I haven't seen any UFOs around here, but something strange has been going on in my garden.  I'm beginning to suspect little green men.  After all, little green men would be appropriately camouflaged in the garden!

What makes me suspect these little green men have been experimenting in my garden?  Because they have left evidence behind.  They have made one of my rose bushes grow a bloom that has odd, extra growth in the middle of it.  It's as if the rose forgot that it had already made a bloom, and kept making more.  Must be radiation, right?

proliferation

Well, I guess I'll let you know that in reality, this is called proliferation.

Usually it occurs in spring, or when the weather fluctuates.  It can happen to just one bloom, or to every bloom on a rose.  Some people love it, and find it interesting.  Some people hate it.

It's just one of the strange occurrences that can happen in a garden sometimes.  Or, it may be that the little green men have come calling!

America the Semi-Beautiful?

I had such high hopes for America.  But, over the past several years, my hopes have turned into disappointment.  I'm beginning to doubt that America will ever grow to her full potential, and I wonder if I should hold on to my dreams, or just give up on her.

America

This is climbing America.  I love her bloom.  I love that her leaves have a bronze hue before they turn green.  I know that she can take my breath away with her beauty.

But as pretty as she is, in my garden, she's only America, the semi-beautiful.

She's quite lovely - in autumn.  And spring.  But in summer, she hates our weather.  She is never truly happy, and I'm not truly happy with her.  She grows in zones 4 through 9, so heat shouldn't be the problem.  But water (or the lack of it in summer) could be.  She grows from 10 to 15 feet high.  Mine is no where near that tall!  So, I'll just have to be patient and see what the future holds.  I'm hoping in time she'll grow into the thriving America I expect her to be.

New foliage is such a pretty color

The problem, really, is not with the rose.  It's with my expectations.  You see, I want the song 'America the Beautiful' to pop into my mind every time I see her, even in summer.  She has such a patriotic name, I want to be proud of her.  I want to show her off, and state her name proudly.  If she had a different name, I might feel differently about her.  But in my mind, a rose named for America should be great every day of the year.

Bush shot

Roses are interesting plants to grow.  Some will perform beautifully in your garden, some won't.  The problem may be that particular plant, that particular rose, your area, your garden, your soil, or - like America and me - even your expectations.

Tell me, do you grow this rose?  And if so, is your America beautiful?

October Harvest

Yes, I had a harvest in October!  Very exciting, especially since the vegetable garden was mostly neglected.

But underneath all these vines, the sweet potatoes were growing.

Sweet potato vines

And yes, the sweet potato vines were blooming!  I had begun to wonder if these weren't wild morning glories invading my bed, but upon closer inspection, I realized that yes, these blooms were from the sweet potatoes.

It was fun digging under the soil to see what was there.  Some of the sweet potatoes were small, while some were huge!

Sweet potatoes!

It doesn't look like it, but I got four grocery store bags full of sweet potatoes.  I'm in the process of curing them now, then I will have to find a cool spot to store them.  It's not easy in Texas to find a place cool enough to store them for the winter, as I don't have a root cellar or basement, so I may end up canning them.  I am definitely going to give growing sweet potatoes a try next year!  It was like digging for buried treasure.  :)

But that's not all that I harvested from the vegetable garden in October.  I also harvested jalapeno peppers.  Over 400 jalapeno peppers!  Yes, four hundred!!!  No one needs four hundred jalapenos!

400 jalapenos from two plants!

I had been ignoring these two jalapeno pepper plants all summer.  I just wanted a few, and I gave some away, but for most of the summer I've been ignoring them.  I thought if I was patient enough, they would just quit producing.  Instead, all summer they have been making jalapenos, drying up, dropping off, then making more.   They became the plants that wouldn't quit!

Finally, I decided to pull up these plants so I could plant something different in their place.  I did feel a little guilty about pulling them up while they were doing so well.  I couldn't believe that so many jalapeno peppers were on two bushes that had been ignored all summer!  I decided to roast and freeze the 400 jalapeno peppers I got off the plants, instead of canning them, thanks to a post from The Blonde Gardener.

Baby Brussels sprouts!

The fall garden is now planted.  Mostly lettuces, but I'm also trying out Brussels sprouts (I love those!), and some green peas.  We'll see how successful I'll be in a few months!

I'm joining The Gardening Blog for Garden Bloggers Harvest Day.

Mastering the Art of Eating Locally

I ran to open the draperies.  It is always the first thing I do when checking into a hotel.  I want to see outside.

Sometimes the view is one of a rooftop of air conditioning systems.  :(  Sometimes I get to see trees.  :)  Sometimes it's the twinkling of lights in the city.  :)  Sometimes it's a brick wall.  :(  But I always look.

So, never knowing what I'm going to see, when I opened the drapes to look outside on this trip, I was pleasantly surprised.  We were overlooking the outdoor terrace area.  Our room was directly above the pool, giving me a lovely view of calm, blue water.  No one was swimming - it was too cool.  So I drank in the symmetry of the rectangular pool.  I noticed the cushioned chairs.  They looked quite comfortable, even though no one was sitting in them.  My eyes shifted to the left, to the rest of the terrace.  And my heart jumped for joy.

"Look!  It's a garden!  It's a rose garden!"  I was several floors above the terrace, and from my angle, I couldn't quite make out all the plants in the garden, but I could distinctly see some roses, and pathways.

A terrace garden!

"Oh, let's go see the garden!"  I'm certain my husband rolled his eyes, but I didn't see it, because my eyes were transfixed on the garden below.

In case you're wondering, I have been gone for the last couple of days on business.  Did you miss me?  ;)

Anyway, I knew that we were going to be there for business.  The days were scheduled, hour by hour.  There would be no free time to explore.  No time for garden tours.  No reason to take my camera.  I was amazed to be wrong!

And I was even more amazed when we rode the elevators down to the terrace level, opened the doors, and stepped outside.  This was no ordinary garden.

rosemary

We were staying at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Dallas, Texas.  The restaurant inside the hotel is called the Pyramid.  And this terrace garden supplies some of the herbs, vegetables, fruit, and honey used by the Pyramid restaurant.  It is a 3,000 sq. ft. garden.  Growing there were herbs like oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, and even a bay leaf tree.  There was a fig tree, strawberry plants, and salad greens.  Ready for harvesting were cantaloupe, swiss chard, eggplant, and numerous varieties of peppers.

They even had a small greenhouse and a rotating composter at one end of the garden.  The entire garden was unexpected, and I was thrilled with each new discovery.  It was especially exciting to see beehives!  Of course, it makes sense.  I doubt there are a lot of bees flying around high rises, looking for gardens.  So, they brought the bees to the garden.  And they collect and use the honey in the restaurant, as well as all the vegetables and herbs growing here in the terrace garden.

fig

A restaurant in a large city that grows its own food.  Now, that is local - and oh, so fresh!  I was impressed.  In fact, I was so impressed, we decided to steal a few minutes out of our business schedule in order to splurge and eat at the Pyramid (in the restaurant, not in the actual garden - even though there's an option for that!).

We had a fun time discussing each bite, trying to decide which ingredients came from the terrace garden.  I have since learned that this chef is committed to serving local foods, going so far as to buy meat, cheeses, and even their olive oil, from Texas ranches.  Local and fresh.  You could taste the difference it made.  Our food was delicious.  No, it was much more than just delicious.  It was sublime.  I will dream about that meal for weeks.

Oh, and the roses?  Yes, there were some roses there.  But they were just a small part of the garden, not the main feature.  They must have been planted there just to lure me down!

The photos are from my own garden.  If you're interested in learning more about this terrace garden, click here.  And if you are patient enough to go through a slideshow of the hotel, click here, then click on the photos.  One of the slideshow photos is of the terrace garden.