Eclectic Gardening 101

Eclectic design? What the heck is that? I'm glad you asked. There is no plan past the path versus the planting spaces. Bush pilot design. Gardening on the edge. Growing by the skin of your teeth. Scientific plotting ... where one just buys whatever they please and plops it down where it seems to want to go. If you don't fill that naked space each plant will soon grow to fill with annuals you will over plant your beds!

How do I know this? Because I have a huge amount of experience in this method of creating a garden. I doubt that I created it but I am an expert. To test your level of expertise ... answer the following questions:

1) Did you measure the amount of space you have completely vacant before you went off to the garden center to buy more plants?

2) Did you measure the space and check the available room against the information on the tag before settling the wee bugger in that new hole?

3) Do you find yourself having to bend over and pick up branches of larger plants to peek at the ones hidden from view under there?

4) Have you in early summer found a surprise tuberous Begonia or Dahlia suddenly appear out of thin air that wasn't there last fall?

5) Do you know there are plants in there somewhere and have just up and disappeared?

*** Score yourself 2 points for every correctly answered question. 1) No. 2) No. 3) Yes. 4) Yes. 5) Yes.

How Do YOU Rank?

• 10 points : You are and Expert Eclectic Garden Designer and abhor planning.
  
• 6-8 points: You are getting close, time to brush up on ignoring rules better.
  
• 4 points: You just like to have a little fun once in a while but prefer following rules.
• 0-2points: You are too organized to become an Eclectic Designer and crave rules.
  

When a garden is new there is lots of space to tuck in annual flowers. They make great filler so you aren't looking at a bunch of immature green things that will give you a couple of blooms. When it starts there is just way too much vacant space in a perennial garden. So to get that pizzazz - that gee that's gorgeous result it is best to add color with Alyssum, Begonias and other season long bloomers.

Over the course of the next three years the space for annuals will get smaller and smaller. If you don't plan for a few areas to keep space for annuals you will wind up with a lot of green space unless your garden area is pretty large and in one area. Look what happens to the eclectic garden designer over the span of 8 years.


Yes that is the very same corner. The photo was taken from a different angle, but look at it ... its a jungle! A lovely jungle but there isn't a spot anywhere for a begonia in there. The path is half covered up with hostages too. (Hostages - hostas they're all one in the same.) I tore up all those huge hostas and split them to stop the over crowding. Evidently, this is the perfect place for hostas to live because within 2 more years they were out of control again. I gave them all away because they were just far too happy for me!

Seriously though, even though I crave a brilliant cacophony of color, this corner was so soothing and peaceful it grew on me. The scene reminded me of a Victorian wedding all dark green with some pinstriped trousers and frothy white lace for a head piece. It didn't help any that after inadvertantly watering that tree for years on end it took off and grew like it was on steroids. There wasn't a lot of sun in this corner anymore.

The loss of sun actually was a blessing on a hot summer day. This spot was 10 to 15 degrees cooler than anywhere else in the yard. It made the perfect outdoor studio for doing landscape designs. I mean just look at the wallpaper, its totally unique and so realistic too. The windows never get foggy or smeared up and there are no walls to make you feel hemmed in. Of course it a storm blew in things would get a bit frantic saving that paper from damage. Better than a fire alarm and you are stuck in a big building far from the fire escape though. Nope, that door to dryness was about 20 feet from the table.

Go Eclectic ... it is far more interesting and exciting than any scaled plan could ever turn out. A garden created by impulse will be so much more passionate than one where you follow all those rules. Rules were made to be broken. I mean really, why sweat it so much? Unless it is a tree or an unforgiving shrub, plants are perfectly mobile after all. Just run with it and see what happens.

Wild Thing ... I Think I Love You

It is weird, somewhat wacky yet wildly wonderful. Probably one of the strangest plants I have ever watched grow! Like something from another planet, this one is best kept potted so you can enjoy it up close and personal. Seeing it go from normal-looking to bizarre is most entertaining. I am a tuned in plant person to be sure, but this strange being is just too bizarre to plant out where it will have any competition masking the daily activity.

I had never heard of this plant when a friend sent me a few seeds. She said it was cool. I looked for photos online and found nothing, so the experimental factor was high. It wasn't until a few years later that any mention of this plant popped up on the Internet. May I say that she is lacking the art of conveying a good picture? But then again, I have seen her idea of creativity, so why would I expect an apt description?

It was only potted to get the seed started ... I had grand plans for an herbary. Suffice it to say, life has a way of mucking up a plan. Instead, the subject remained basking in the intensified heat of full sun on the stone patio. Definitely, living large in that black plastic condo. All the while I raced around it working like the mad hatter at keeping the circus afloat. The herbary now a distant memory.

The blooms appeared atop the stems, so I knew the plant was doing well though set aside for later. As the bulblets grew fatter, I checked on them periodically not sure when to harvest. Lo and behold as I waited for a sureness of proper timing, a most fascinating thing occurred. Another layer of stems shot out of the original clusters and set bloom as well. How queer. Their unfolding was like the most bizarre form of modern art and I raced to freeze the image.

Presenting - Le Onion as art. Perhaps the entertainment factor dims after watching the performance year in and year out like reruns of Star Trek. Not just any old onion, mind you. Rather this one they named the Egyptian Onion Tree. The flavor of which is more than one expects from an onion. I mean , like wow! Wild thing ... I think I love you!

While small (meaning you need quite a few for a small pile of garnish) and not so easy to peel, they are worth all the effort. The flavor is more like a cross between onion and garlic. If you are into Mexican food this is the ticket for a special zip to flavor. They are wonderful on fresh salad as well. If you haven't ever grown or eaten them it is worth hunting down a few seed bulbs to get yourself started.

I suggest pot or tub growing over placing them in the ground. Onions prefer it drier than many other plants and don't get too freaked out if they go without a spritz of moisture one day. One name for this really old plant I discovered is Walking Onion because in the garden it will travel all over from dropping bulblets. Of course if you really want to get a nice sized pile of diced produce to put in some spaghetti sauce, you're going to need more plants than a tub full. I would never have the time to peel that many!

Make sure you set aside a few for next year's seed in case winter's weather causes the original plants to rot out. This little note comes from personal experience. I am now fresh out of Le Onion thanks to a particularly cold, rainy spring that left the tub saturated and half frozen stopping any drainage. Leaving my artsy salad crop roots reduced to rotted mush. Live and learn its a gardener's motto. I will restore Le Onion to a rightful spot in the potted jungle again one day.

G.G.

Share your own Wild Thing story with me - I'll make us both famous!
In the meantime - help me buy a new flowerpot!

Dances With Dirt

Dances With Dirt requires appropriate shoes

While besotted with plants, it is good emotional therapy to engage in some outside interest(s) or activities. Your outward balance needs some exterior influences for variety. It is also a great camouflage tactic announcing that you do think about other things. To remain undercover, be sure to choose a left field object or activity completely alien to gardening.

Did you think today's photo was about that rich blue delphinium sets off the intense red of the monarda so nicely? No the image is really fixated on my smoke screen of choice. That gorgeous curvaceous creature you see glimmering in the background. Sex kitten strutting her stuff at the corner of Nothing and Nowhere coveted by testosterone on any road she bounced along. Silly farmer ... trucks are for girls!

"Randy, I need a set of 38" Mud Boggers. Call me when they come in, I want them put on before the weekend."

"Don't you think its time you grew up?" he inquired.

"I am grown up, but my truck isn't. She begs to wear high heels." I parried.

"Its your money, honey." The tractor tire king sighed. "I'll have them in by Wednesday at 10:00. Bring it in anytime after lunch and we'll' get you right in the shop."

"Great! See you then." I hung up the phone and went back to potting up plugs. Thrilled with my $900 accent to the freshly installed oogah horn. Life was good.

Wednesday dawned a sunny day without a cloud in the late June sky. I headed toward town an hour ahead of my spot in the tire shop bay. Determined to finish all errands before to have the afternoon to see the world. Missions accomplished, I pulled into Randy's lot and motored up to the back bay door. The automatic eyed kicked on and the panes of glass rumbled magically upward to allow our entrance.

The stood old Randy with a ear splittin' grin shaking his head and directing my stopping point with motions of the hand. As I cut the engine, he walked around to the driver's door and looked up through the window so high above his head.

"Well, you weren't crazy after all," came the voice from below. "She definitely begs to wear high heels."

I looked in the rear view mirror as I drove back out into the sunshine. Every man that was inside the shop stood crowded in the yawning big rig door. I blasted the horn and headed west toward miles of smooth pavement and rolling corn and soybean fields. Enjoying the thrill of being eye to eye with each passing semi-truck I met along the way. The circuitous route back to my out of control gardens peppered with thumbs up hand signals, air horn blasts and people waving from their yards. Aaaah, the power of possession found only in heavy metal, chrome shiny hormonal overload on wheels.

G.G.

Hey - great to see you here today!
While you're enjoying this unique blog read - help me buy a new set of floor mats.

Memoirs of a Hot Afternoon

professional footwear provided by Dollar Dazzle

The cool thing about running a mail order collector's nursery is that not many people see you. Except the ladies at the bank and the Post Office people, and they never seemed to mind. Farm casual is the dress code when you are half soaked and covered with mud. This allows you to shock everyone in town should they happen to see you clean, dry and dressed like a normal employed person. These events cause great concern and you are likely to be asked what exactly you are up to.

My red polished toes and star spangled flip flops were not the lens's subject. I was trying to get a clear shot of two hotshot new Echinacea releases without the deck railing behind them. Naturally, the breeze I had been praying for all day came up at this precise moment. Just as I was going to delete it from the computer the image seemed to beg to be black and white.

Some days it really pays to listen to that little voice in your head.

Oh, and in case you were wondering ...

this is chilly day - hole digging - lawn mowing footwear. The laces are just there to keep the tongues from obnoxiously flopping about. Tying them makes it a hassle to constantly dump soil out of them. Easy on - easy off, just right for the woman on the go.

Check back in a couple of days if you like the Memoirs of a Hot Afternoon photo. The note cards featuring this snazzy art photo will be available for purchase right here from the Guilty Gardener.

Cooling Water

There is nothing like water mists to cool an area off on a hot summer day. This waterfall is man made yet one would think this was just stumbled upon in a natural area somewhere. Yet it is found in a small backyard outdoor living room. This backyard makeover has changed the entire center of their home. The couple have moved their life to the patio, they even watch television out there.

Constructed of the two most beautiful landscape stones available in the eastern United States. Tumbled Bluestone and Pennsylvania Lilac (sometimes labeled Lilac Bluestone). The color combination of these two stones used as a mixed lot is absolutely wonderful. While not large as their yard is very small, there is a fall of 3feet from the top of the waterway to the pool below.

When planning your landscape's new water feature remember to include on fashioned to mimic something that could have actually occurred on your terrain's contouring. If your yard is very flat, nature would never have built a steep falls. Designers who install a heap of rocks to create this look on a flat as paper lay of land have missed the point entirely!

Beautiful landscape design mimics nature when adding supposedly natural features. Forget that and it will look rather tacky. No one wants a boulder pile that looks like a volcano eruption. Go with the grain, not against it.

A Gardening Hobby?

Obviously, the person(s) who arrived at this notion were not gardeners! I wonder if they also felt that parenthood was a past time too. Is being an accomplished cellist also considered a hobby? A hobby would be building tiny ship models inside a bottle or creating airplane out of beer cans. A hobby is something that is inanimate, a past time you could put away and pay no attention to for weeks or months on end.

Gardening is done in the soil. It is the daily care and life support of living things that are literally stuck in the mud. Gardening is sweating and getting dirty. It is feeding hundreds, even thousands of thirsty or hungry souls whatever and whenever they require it. Gardening is like being the conductor of the most beautiful orchestra anywhere.

Gardening is a lifestyle. A passion that creates an entirely unique world where ever the bug takes root. You cannot be a part-time gardener; if you try that you will quickly be without a garden. Anyone with any understanding of what is entailed in gardening would never be so silly as to call it a hobby. A hobby does not require one to learn so many things of widely varying subjects in order to succeed. A hobby comes with simple to follow instructions, not vague signals one must interpret without so much as a word in print or spoken.

True gardening is rewarding on a level that I just cannot see being compared to the thrill of say creating a picture from little stitches in fabric. Once done it is framed, hung on the wall or laid across the bed and never changes at all and so becomes static - a predictable never wavering thing that becomes unnoticeable. One could never say anything remotely like this about a garden. It is not the same for more than two days in a row! Gardens constantly change and never seem to lack something new and captivating. I mean when was the last time you felt the magic of a cross-stitch kit overwhelm you completely?

You really shouldn't dine on a hobby, unless it is baking sumptuous cookies. Plastic and glue are said to not be good for your health. Yet a garden can sustain your heart, mind, soul and erase hunger pangs all from one small piece of earth. There is more good packed into a garden than any other place of equal size found anywhere else. Gardens are a place to find healing, peace, love and charity growing so comfortably beside obsession. None of this is found in an airplane fashioned from empty beer cans!

Get down and dirty gardeners are guilty of allowing their passion to spill over into containers. Potted extensions of the soiled world will litter the cleaner outdoor spaces connected to and adjacent from their house. They would not settle for one or two vessels crammed with 20 different plants all fighting over food, foot space and air to breathe. Though this would be the only time they would consider growing a new adoptee in something other that real gritty dirt. Bonafide gardeners start their seeds and cuttings on the deck, front porch and patio ... anywhere they can keep a close eye on and protect from the elements those small and helpless things they are patiently raising to a point they can survive out there in the jungle of planting beds.

How can we define a hobby gardener? After giving this a bit of thought I have the answer to this misconception at labeling. A hobby gardener grows only in containers. Container gardening compared to digging in the dirt and pulling weeds on your day off while fending off Mother Nature's latest twist in your plot ... is NOT gardening. Container gardening is far too controlled and contrived to be truly called gardening.

While I realize that a huge number of people would not be able to enjoy the beauty and miracle of growing live plants without this container method, it really is nothing like gardening and should not be lumped into the same division as naturally dirt grown beauty or food. Two sets of rules govern each of these divisions until you come to pests and diseases, that unfortunately remains the same. One can not enjoy dinner inside a container, yet one can turn a garden into their own little outdoor world.

In conclusion, there is no such thing as a hobby in gardening, unless you have thrown in the trowel over the latest lesson in defeat. Gardening is more like being in charge of a wild little orphanage, though you personally have fallen in love with each being in residence and carted it home to watch it become so much more. Someone really needs to print a lot of retractions before more of the world at large is so grossly misinformed too far into the future. Though instinct tells me they get away with this labeling it a hobby because trying to make a living from growing plants has become almost impossible in today's retail environment. Though if you honestly consider the realities, a garden never was, nor never could be just a hobby.

G.G.

You know, it's great to see you here! So glad you came by.
Sure would be nice if you could help a poor girl buy one more plant.

The Perfect Posie

the list is long, the perfect colors all chosen

the fresh plot stretches out vast and open
visions of treasured blooms flitting about
it will be so beautiful - you have no doubt

the destination lies there, just ahead
fresh is the day, your wallet not yet bled
the scene of tinted chaos beckons you forth
to gleefully adopt far more than you're worth

rioting splotches, a quilt of squares marching
just one or two more, the mind's silent declare
list forgotten, abandoned, lost while crazed
gone - left somewhere in there, amid the maze

at least the plan so contrived was rigidly adhered to
proud of your solid stance as the plants choose you
carts (yes plural) through the register are rung
surprise! - it is clear that today the plants have won

hours have slipped away unnoticed, you in a daze
nose a tad blistered shopping beneath sun blaze
wallet and plastic now flatter, you arrive home
family looking at you like your mouth doth foam

big sale - great deals - just couldn't pass this by
uttered while plotting how hot dogs are disguised
of course, i found the perfect posie just as promised
defending today's purchase, hoard of blossoms

G.G.

Grow Your Own

Why do people grow gardens? For some it is the fresh vegetables. But there is so much more you can grow in a garden. You can grow love, health, a place of escape or simply develop the perfect compost. Take a peek at Little Eden ...



I'll be looking for this one at the video store. It must be on video - it was in British theaters spring 2007. Wonder it it will be as comic and heart warming as Saving Grace was.

Most Beautiful Garden Center in America

In the most unexpected place, lies America's best kept secret. The beauty begins at the highway curb and must create traffic jams. On the side of the long driveway gorgeous beds distract you from moving along. Over the years I have been to countless garden centers, wholesale nurseries and greenhouses. Some of my past haunts have had some impressive displays ....


none of them holds a candle to this place! The riveting waves of color and texture frolicking down the side of the drive makes it impossible to just drive on by. I suspect the white posts are there to stop gawkers from accidentally steering off into the flowers.

They are a bit distracting and they could paint them green, but if it stops vehicles from drifting off into the petunias we shall just have to ignore the intermittent disruption. The play of shrub against perennial and wild wafting of annual color is breath taking. This is all very unexpected to the newbie in town, an oasis one must leave the highway to acknowledge. Tucked away in an old and historical mill town in South Carolina where wealth and affluence is not found dripping onto the sidewalks ....


This is probably only two thirds of the drive way gardens, and as you pull past the fence and berm the entire parking lot is a wonderland as well. All of this before you even get into the garden center. I wanted to photograph all of it, but a storm came in cutting short my glee of capturing the scenery.

It isn't just the plants - the place is as manicured as any mansion's grounds in its hey day and so clean you could eat off the pavements. The plants displayed inside and out are without one small hint of distress or thirst. Stepping into the main annual bedding plant building it is the most beautiful sight on earth! Nonstop color from the floor to the rafters popping from some of the most vigorous plants you have ever seen. I don't know how I actually drug myself away and back onto the highway. Most likely it was adult guilt of needing to accomplish X amount of errands before the work day ended.

Yes, I was working when I stumbled upon this gem. The quest for the right plants for my client's gardens takes me far and wide; this most maddening quest faces me almost every day Monday through Friday. I constantly lament over the shortsightedness of the greenhouses and nurseries that bring it all to market.

As I was checking out with my new found hoard of color, I commented to the gal at the register,
"This has got to be the most beautiful garden center ever, and I have seen a lot of them
over the years."
To which she replied,
"Yes! This has got to be America's best kept secret. When I first came here to apply for
a job I was blown away at just how beautiful this place is hidden away down here in this
little ole town."

Have you been to Home Depot or Lowe's garden center and seen racks of plants with metal tags on the ends that have word STACY'S cut into it? Welcome to the retail side of Stacy's Greenhouse. It is rather sad that so many of you live too far away from York to take in the sight and enjoy the thrill of visiting America's best kept gardening secret.

Poppies, Irise and Ice Plant

Here's another section of that roadside botanical wonder from yesterday's post. This photo was shot the same day as the first, the breeze has let up in this one. Just look at those marvelous purple Poppies (Papaver)! I didn't realize they came in this color until I saw these up close. That poppy color is really set off with the vast clump of cobalt blue Iris in the background.

Japanese Iris (I. ensata) are just awesome in full bloom. A rugged garden rhizome that has been a gardener's favorite for a very long time. Most Iris need full sun to perform well, Iris ensata will flower quite nicely in a pretty shady situation. Notice the other poppies in the background - a lovely bubblegum pink on such nice tall stems. One day I shall have to meet this woman and find out exactly what poppy variety she has planted in here.

In the foreground is the powerful blooming Ice Plant (Delosperma cooperi) which is an evergreen mat forming plant in zone 7 and south. North of there it is a drought tolerant
beauty that can establish itself to an impressive four foot wide mass. Blooming in blued pink that leans toward lavender from one end of the season to the other. This under used plant really should be taken notice by home gardeners more often.

G.G.