Silly Garden Ornaments

I admit to aweakness for silly garden ornaments: solar powered globes, wooden flowers, funny looking birds, ... almost anything that is silly can find a place in my garden. Here are some of my favorites. I'd like to point out that the funny bird was a birthday present from my daughter Rebecca, who certainly knows my taste very well!

What's in a name?

I admit to being a little bit obsessive/compulsive about my greenhouse and plants. This might come as a surprise when you consider how often I'm surprised by a lovely flower and I have no idea what the flower is!

I have experimented with various plant labels over the years; I finally have a reasonable strategy: after I've placed my online orders for seedlings, I use my label maker to make labels. I affix the labe

ls to whatever media I've selected for that year (wood stick, plastic stick, or plastic tag). Sometimes the seed packets come with slick little tags, but these

usually have short stubby ends, so I staple them to a long plastic marker. I alphabetize the labels so that when I'm potting up the seeds it's relatively easy to find the right tag quickly and easily. Voila!

Beach Plum Seedlings

I am currently trying to grow Beach Plum seedlings in my greenhouse for transplantation to the beach in the fall. I've acquired the seedlings from the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. Last year's crop of seedlings was planted directly at the beach; all died. This year I've planted two or three seedlings as a test, but the remaining 22 seedlings are happily growing in 5 Qt pots in my greenhouse. I will plant these in the fall and hope for the best!

My Beach Garden

I am not only blessed with dense Chester County soil, but I also get to try my hand at my beach garden. My garden at the beach consists of a large front yard of sand, surrounded by Perovskia, Solidago and, of course, Rosa Rugosa. As with my garden at home, I'm not expert; I do what I love. I don't know if I'm supposed to deadhead the Rosa Rugosa, and I fear that I'm depleting the plant of essential minerals by allowing the large, juicy hips to form --- but I can't resist providing the birds with winter food. It is certainly an unusual site to see a bare wood thorny plant with bright orange rose hips, but without leaves. The Perovskia (Russian Sage) grows in two varieties - again a reminder that I'm name challenged: a lacy version, and a rougher more symmetrical leafed version. I prefer the latter; this is the variety that grows in the front of the house. Bees adore this plant!

I grow cherry tomatoes and basil in pots at the beach. The plants tend to be even hardier at the beach than at home, probably due to the stiff wind that blows off the water. Here's an early picture of the pots with basil and tomato buds. It's so nice to arrive on a Friday night to be able to pick yellow and red cherry tomatoes. On Saturday morning we visit the local Farmer's market to buy fresh mozzarella cheese which we eat with wonderful tomatoes and our basil. Mmmm!

Upside Down Tomatoes

Each year I grow tomatoes from seeds. I grow 4 varieties, typically: plum tomato (or equivalent), beefsteaks, yellow cherries/grapes, and red cherries/grapes. Each year I give away many seedlings as I don't have nearly enough space for all of them.

This year I thought that I would outsmart the space issue; I enlarged my hot, South garden to accomodate 3 dozen or so tomato plants. I fertiziled, mulched, and planted my Margerita plum seedlings and a new variety of hardy, determinate (ie, doesn't need to be staked) "regular" tomatoes.

I brought some of my cherry seedlings to the beach, planted others in tubs around the garden, and decided to build (...have built...) a pergola from which to hang cherry tomatoes upside down. I planted Cobea vines around the base of the pergola which were intended to grow large yellow flowers.

My first disappointment was that the upside-down containers I have are the cheapy variety. They have openings at the bottom, and can hold only 1 plant, not the 4-6 that I was expecting. While the tomatoes have grown well, they care down around the ground, and are no heartier than those I have planted in Home Depot paint buckets. My vines cannot attach to the pergola posts; I haven't gotten around to running string from the top to which they can attach.

Sigh. It's a beautiful Pergola (thanks to Ernie, my wonderful carpenter), but the tomatoe experiment was a bust. Next year I think I'll get different containers. As for the South garden, with the 3 dozen plants, well --- you've read about the deer already.

Ari tramples my garden!

I'm so delighted to have my beloved Ari home safe and sound that I decided to figure out some way to focus my garden blog on the dogs. Ari is the yellow fellow under the table. Rufus is his water-frolicking brother with the ball in his mouth.

My garden consists, mainly, of raised beds. I do, however, have one ground-level bed used primarily for sunflowers, etc. Rufus has always known that his place is on the gravel paths; he has never ventured into the bed. Ari is another story entirely. He runs through the bed, breaking the flowers and digging holes in the ground. I have thought about running a loop of the invisible fence around the bed, but I fear that this will discourage Ari from enjoying the garden. For now, since I'm so glad to have him around, I think I'll just ignore it.

I suppose that the only solution is to find some very strong dog-trampling resistant plants. Or, I can be philosophical about it and decide that the dog can't do anything nearly as bad as the summer-long rain has done to my beautiful flowers.

Grape Toxicity in Dogs

This is a gardening blog, but it's the only public forum available to me to discuss a very dangerous health hazard to dogs.

Several days ago my daughter and I brought home a large bag of red grapes from the supermarket. I put them in the fruit bowl on my kitchen counter, as with all fruit and vegetables that I bring home.

My two dogs, Rufus and Ari, were off kilter that evening, as the leader of the pack (aka, my husband) was out of town. Some time in the middle of the night Rufus awakened me and encouraged me to go downstairs (not exactly sure how this happened...). I found the empty bag of grapes on the floor. It took me more than an hour to remember that grapes are toxic to dogs. Some quick Internet research indicated that Ari had consumed more than the fatal dose of grapes (although not much is known about the amount that can be tolerated).

I rushed him to the animal emergency hospital, where they induced GI emptying, and admitted him to flush his kidneys. They told me that it would be touch and go for several days. Thankfully, we brought him home this morning.

My plan is to begin a grass-roots communication about the hazards of grapes. This is a perplexing toxin, as no one knows how much is fatal, or whether early intervention can be helpful. The public is not aware of this danger, but every dog lover needs to be. In addition to grapes, other common foods are also highly toxic: raisins (dehydrated grapes), onions, garlic, chocolate, and macadamia nuts.