Monthly Archives: September 2010
Late last night, as I was taking the dog for a walk in the deep fog, this phallic creature below greeted me at the bottom of my front stairs.
My first thought was that I was about to be attacked by a snake so I took the proper precautions and shoved the dog in front of me so she could take the brunt of the attack. But there was no movement so I was able to calm down a bit.
I then got closer to the creature and the smell became overwhelming. It was like feces flavored …. feces. No lie, it was awful and that is coming from someone with a deviated septum.
I eventually figured out it was some type of mushroom (hence the post title) and waited until early this morning to take a photo. And with the wonders of Google, quickly learned what I had on my hands (and nose). It is a Stinkhorn mushroom, specifically a “dog Stinkhorn”. Now the best part, I found this information on a website dedicated to phallic mushrooms in New Jersey and the name of the website is (insert childlike chuckle here) www.richard-seaman.com. You can’t make this stuff up!
Some other factoids:
- Falls under the family Phallaceae (also known as Stinkhorn)
- Notorious for popping up very quickly, usually in urban areas
- Found all over the world but most common in tropical areas
- If in non tropical areas, believed to be due to transportation of soil, wood chips,etc.
- Known for their spore masses smelling like, you guessed it, “dung”
- Not harmful to people or animals
May smell like death, but what a cool discovery. I am now more educated on mushrooms and fear not if you see one of these emerge in your yard overnight.
I ran through a number of Sunday themed songs when trying to come up with the title for this post.
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2? Little too violent and political for today’s mood
“Lazing On A Sunday afternoon” by Queen? Fantastic song, their best album, but nope.
“Sunday Morning” by No Doubt? Eh, not mellow enough for me.
Lyrically, not perfect, but with the title and overall vibe, The Commodore’s, 1977 number one hit, “Easy” (like Sunday Morning) wins. Wanna join the laid back party vibe? Click here and play the song while you read this.
We all awoke at 7:00 AM to the sight of six hot air balloons floating directly over the house. No matter how many times we see them, we all get really fired up when we hear the sound of the flames keeping the balloons afloat.
Pot of coffee on, big ass mug in hand, sauntered outside to enjoy the new and improved stone driveway
Digging the berries starting to appear on the Hypericum ‘Albury Purple’
Ilex meservae ‘Blue Princess’ has successfully been impregnated by a nearby ‘Blue Prince’ as we are also on to a second set of flowering.
Some newly received plants were put in the ground, here we have Persicaria ‘Red Dragon’
A few Cornus ‘Arctic Fire’ (Redtwig Dogwood) were planted (small yet affordable)
The Eupatorium ‘Chocolate’ are blooming
Strolled through the back of the yard near the woods to enjoy the weeds … I mean wildflowers.
And with the wife’s flower arranging abilities, turned them into a bouquet
And finally, my son and I played a vicious and competitive game of two hand touch and the little guy beat me (he was the Giants of course). When do I stop letting him win?
Enjoy your “Manic Monday”.
ONG
All gardeners are in search of plants that offer multi-seasonal interest, especially those of us living in colder climates. We also love plants that are dynamic and change throughout the seasons; plants that reinvent themselves as the months go by. Well ladies and gents, I would like to share one of those with you today.
I have lived in my current home for about six years and when we moved in, we had a completely blank slate. Not a plant to be found other than one large tree at the back of the property. The first shrub I planted was a Viburnum Plicatum ‘Shoshoni’. I had never had owned one before (do we really own our plants? A debate for another day) since I didn’t have enough space. Viburnums are typically large specimens but when I found ‘Shoshoni’ at the local nursery (thank you Rutgers Nursery) I was pumped to see that is was more diminutive than most.
Some of it’s attributes:
- It is a doublefile viburnum and a seedling of the larger, more well known ‘Shasta’
- It reaches a height of 5 feet and a width of 8 feet
- Survives from zone 5 to zone 8
- Deciduous shrub
- It has been deer resistant so far for me (although now jinxed)
- Blooms in the late Spring, typically for 2-3 weeks in May
- The flowers are flat topped and are not fragrant (although I have no sense of smell and cannot confirm officially)
- Thrive in part shade to full sun
- Produces red berries in August that mature black (I must admit I do not know if the fact that I have other viburnums present lead to the production of berries since this was my first year with berries )
- Tolerant of most soil types (including NJ clay)
Here it is fully leafed out in early spring
In full bloom in May
The leaves curled after blooming giving it an interesting design appeal
The berries emerging in August (which were quickly eaten by the birds)
Phenomenal fall color prior to the leaves falling off
I am feeling so blessed today so I figured why not express that joy with you all. My little way of sharing a cup of awesomeness with you. And please, feel free to share your tales of happiness as well. Let’s take all of these positive anecdotes and smush them together, roll them out with a rolling pin and bake one giant loaf of fantasticness. We’ll even add a pat of sweet butter to each glorious slice and chase it down with a glass (half full of course) of freshly squeezed orange juice. You with me? Super duper.
I just love the deer waltzing all over my property each morning and each evening:
It is such a sight to behold. And a funny story for you; they pulled this cute little stunt the other night. All spring and summer these darling little creatures stayed away from all of the plants near the house. I figured it was their gift to me for not shooting them on sight. Well, the little buggers got all nutty the other night, and this part is hysterical, they ate all of the sedums in my yard. How adorable:
I am just so excited to not see the blooms during their peak time. The chewed stems and leaves lend so much character to the beds. What an unexpected surprise! That is the beauty of gardening, you never know what is going to happen and it is such a special feeling to baby plants all year only to have them destroyed when they are supposed to take center stage in the Fall garden.
A bit amateurish, but the colors were too good to pass up. And apologies for my son butting in at the very end, still trying to learn how to edit these videos.
“Do as I say not as I do.”
I find myself saying this to my kids all the time. Well maybe not EXACTLY that way. More like, “Listen you little dope, I’m 38, your 8, and I know more than you do. I can eat cookies on the couch, you unfortunately cannot. Vamanos!” (Yes, an intentional Dora the Explorer reference).
This fun little saying (which by the way dates back to the late 1600’s), unfortunately applies to a lot of my so called gardening “skills”. Today’s example has to do with cutting back perennials for height control. I kid you not, I have an Excel spreadsheet with detailed instructions for each and every perennial I own. I am great at sharing this knowledge with my friends and family but guess how many of these “rules” I followed this year? A whopping 0.0. In most cases it works out OK but there are a few examples where this has gone awry.
Exhibit A your honor:
Asclepias Incarnata ‘Ice Ballet’ (Swamp Milkweed)
I have three of these planted, two were decimated by the monarch caterpillars (with my blessing of course) but this one exploded within the past few weeks and the blooms have toppled over.
Exhibit B:
Boltonia Asteroides (Wild Aster)
I knew these needed to be cut back by half in June but nope, didn’t do it. They held up well for a while but then reached a height of about four feet and boom, they toppled on to the neighboring Miscanthus.
Exhibit C:
Helenium Autumnale (Sneezeweed)
Should have cut them back by a third or even a half in June or at least have pinched the new shoots throughout the Spring. Again, nope, nada.
I have made a conscious effort to add more and more native plants and because they perform so well in their native and preferred locale, I really need to stay on top of these during the growing season.
Another gardening lesson learned.
Ciao
ONG
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Fall
Fall who?
Um … it’s not a joke, Fall is officially upon us.
Before I get to the photos, check out The Fall Color Project. At this site, there will be a collection of awesome Fall foliage photos from all over the blogosphere. Check it out already!
Crabapple ‘Prairie Fire’
Itea ‘Henry’s Garnet’ (named after it’s Fall color)
Eastern Bluestar (Amsonia Tabernaemontana) moving towards it’s outstanding yellow Fall color
Northern Sea Oats with it’s “oats” changing to it’s Fall/Winter color
Viburnum Plicatum ‘Shoshoni’
Yes … weeds running rampant … but can’t deny the color works this time of year
Sedum ‘Matrona’
Viburnum Carlesii ‘Aurora’
Note to self – after visiting ridiculously sweet gardens for three days, prepare yourself for the mother of all let downs when you get home.
My gardens are LAME, or at least I can’t get that thought out of my head after visiting numerous gardens in Dallas last weekend. I feel like I committed infidelity and I can’t look my own gardens directly in the eye. They can tell I’ve changed and they are walking on egg shells around me. They can smell the nectar on my shirts and I think they have footage of me sticking a dollar bill in the soil around a Limelight Hydrangea. I wouldn’t call it a one night stand, really more like a weekend fling, but I will deny deny until I die.
OK, seriously, add in the fact that Fall has arrived and my gardens look like … um … there is a scientific name for it … oh yeah … crap. There are phrases bouncing in my head as I try to sleep each night:
Plant in greater drifts
Add more and different containers into the beds
Focal points
Get more creative
Structure, structure, structure
Interesting note – I had to make the list above an odd number or else the shaking wouldn’t stop. OCD or good garden design principle?
Anyway, the garden design mess is for me to work out. I now give you photos from my tours and I won’t even bother with any comments, the pictures describe it all. Enjoy.
Where to begin?
I am back home and finally have internet access again. I’ve had twenty four hours to let the events of the past four days really sink in and I am ready to share those with you. Ideally, I would have loved to have shared my thoughts/feelings at the end of each day while still there, but a nasty, filthy minded virus intervened (my apologies to housekeeping if they saw anything that poisoned their minds).
I have so much to share but in the interest of time and attention span, I will break these up over the course of the week. Today, I’ll cover my emotions, what I took away from it all and a general review of what went on. That will be followed by a ton of photos and what I got out of the many visits to some seriously kick ass gardens.
So, after arriving on Friday morning, I will admit I was even more nervous than I expected to be. I had reviewed the membership listing on the plane and as if I didn’t know already, I was in the company of some seriously talented individuals. I contemplated spending the weekend hitting up the local bars and lying to everyone back home that I actually attended. A blogger for six months, really, why are you here? Well, I persevered, threw caution to the wind and registered:
I quickly realized that the “first timer” badge draws a lot of attention. “Who are you with?” Um, myself, I like write a blog. But, to calm the nerves, I attended the:
We were assigned a mentor and introduced to a ton of different people. And drank … OK I am relaxing. After that, we attended the trade show:
And scored some major cool stuff – plants, seeds, tools (thank you Corona Tools) and:
Way cool! The swag piled up quickly:
That night I attended a Tweet-up (no laughing please, it was a party organized through Twitter) and that is where I learned quickly how damn friendly, supportive and super interesting everyone was. A TV personality, growers, a designer, book authors, social media marketers and bloggers all chatted it up with the common love of gardening of all types. Home boy was hooked!
The days to follow included seminars touching on topics all over the map (social media, how to earn money writrting, the story of design) and visits to numerous gardens all over Dallas. One special moment for me was meeting a couple at the Botanical Gardens, near the bar below, who were both professional photographers also from NJ. They took the time out to sit and talk for 45 minutes and share their stories with me and also listen to where I was coming from. I’ll never forget it.
While the garden tours were crowded, it didn’t impact my enjoyment one bit; it honestly felt like a common bond amongst us all and it was invigorating.
While I love plants on their own, the garden tours opened my eyes to the fact that I truly love “design”:
And, more importantly, I am inspired to get involved with my son’s school like the amazing garden we saw at a local elementary school (more in a post to follow).
In summary, I could go on and on but will keep it short. ALL of the people I met were incredibly warm, from such diverse backgrounds and fascinating to learn from. To attend this conference was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and I’m not stopping here.