This weekend was the tale of two vastly different weather days. We had a high 60’s day on Friday and that led to what I am officially deeming “The Great Melt of 2011”. I think two feet of snow disappeared in the course of a few hours and damn if that wasn’t needed. Here is an example:      

Friday afternoon

Thursday afternoon

I greeted my Yucca ‘Golden Sword’ with open arms and was even OK with gashing myself as I tried to hug her. Seriously, the blades are sharp as hell. I dare any of the deer to just try and give it a bite. On another note, I am so glad I finally gave these a try. What a welcome sight in the winter, just hope they continue to work well with all of their neighboring plants.  

I know I will look back on the following photo and say “Really, was that blog worthy? A little bit of green and you act like it is an award worthy shot.” Well, eff it, it’s the best I got right now and I’m going to savor it.”  

Saturday rolled around and it was like Friday never happened. We are talking some serious winds (upwards of 60 mph) and back to the nasty cold temps. Overnight, a hockey rink was constructed in our back yard. I even got a call from the New York Rangers asking if they could use the backyard as a practice facility. 

Regardless of the weather, my wife and I dropped the kids off for the night with their grandfather (can I get an amen?) and headed into New York City (or as we call it in the metropolitan area, “The city”). Even though the winds were brutal, there is no energy like there is in NYC and we could have cared less about the weather. We were “adults” for a day and enjoyed the hell out of it. We saw the musical “American Idiot” based on the Green Day album of the same name and absolutely loved it.    

I have the album ranked in my top 10 of all time so I was like a school girl screaming the entire time. The lead singer had a part in the play which made it even that much more exciting. I highly recommend it.

After the show, it was drink time and a chance to just chill along with the other couple who came with us. It was fantastic, I can’t get enough of drinks with fresh herbs in them, but hot damn was it expensive. Not that I should be surprised, but a $120 bar bill for only eight drinks is seriously insane. Oh well, what can you do, when in Rome …    

We then had an actual adult dinner at a finer NYC establishment at a very leisurely pace of about three hours.

We headed home after dinner fully satisfied and reminisced about what it was like before children. We love them to death, but it is pretty sweet to dump them off sometimes and do our own thing. I think they need it too, a chance away from evil mom and dad.

Sunday was a chance to chillax and we did just that once we were reunited with the little ones. I don’t think they missed us one bit, but that’s OK, we felt the same way (I kid). The weather was still awful and I spent most of my day longing to get out in the yard. That wasn’t going to happen, so pathetically, I just stared at the soon to be blooms on my Meyer lemon tree.          

 
We’ll get there soon, right?
ONG

I will incorporate even more natives into my landscape: 

I won’t plant shrubs in the dead of summer:

I will grow my own strawberries so we can enjoy strawberry and goat cheese bruschetta more often: 

I won’t neglect the soil quality when growing tomatoes:  

I will remember to take more photos after a rain, even of simple foliage:

I won’t allow my yard to be a nice resting place for the deer:  

I will remove my uninspiring weeping cherry tree … finally:

I won’t panic when an unexpected freeze hits and the hydrangeas react like this:

I will improve in the art of “thinning” new seedlings:

I won’t ignore the need to use gloves:

I will use more cool season ornamental grasses so the foliage fills in sooner each spring: 

I won’t give up on my Mets no matter how bad the situation may be:

I will up my creativity when it comes to design:

A PSA for you today.

PSA being a “Public Service Announcement”, or maybe a better description is “Please See what Anna has done yet again”. 

Anna Looper, author of flowergardengirl.com and the creator of Best Garden Blogs, and Guinness Book record holder for least amount of sleep over the course of a six month period, has just put the finishing touches on Toil the Soil, a new online garden magazine.

 

This is an exciting time of year to get mail. There is sure to be a plant/seed catalog received every other day and reading them gets the creative juices flowing. Not to mention the bank account flowing. I love them all, but there is one that takes it all to another level. One that makes me consider selling all of my baseball cards or renting out my kids as cheap labor. Here she is:     

RareFind Nursery is located in my home state of New Jersey (Jackson) and I’ve been purchasing from them for about five years now and THEY KICK ASS. The funny thing is that they are best known for their rhododendron and azalea collection – and I have no interest in either. Rhodies because they die instantly with my poor drainage and azaleas because I have bad childhood memories of them. OK, that might be an exaggeration, but all I remember are the hideous and obnoxious azalea blooms in May each year. Anway, if you like rhodies and/or azaleas, this place will truly blow you away.

Here are some of the plants I’ve added to my online shopping cart. I’ll let them sit there and marinate for a while until I can scale the list back enough and not have to get a second job to pay for them:               

The bark on this Acer Griseum (Paperbark Maple) needs no further explanation.

I might struggle to find a companion to match the bloom color on these Baptisia ‘Midnight Prairieblues’ but hot damn they are phenomenal.

A variegated River Birch (Betula nigra ‘Shiloh Splash’)? Um, yes please!

As usual, I am a sucker for the foliage shape and color of this Cercis canadensis ‘Hearts of gold’ (Redbud).  

I do not own a Hamamelis (witch hazel) and I’m still a bit sketchy on them, but there is no denying their unique blooms, color and most importantly, the fact that most bloom this time of year. There was a Hamamelis festival at RareFinds this past weekend and one of these year’s, I’ll make it.  

More foliage love on this Oakleaf Hydrangea ‘Little Honey’. Of course, I do need some more shade for these and will have to get creative.  

Ninebark ‘Coppertina’ has been on the must list for a while now.  

You friggin kidding me? A viburnum (‘Park Harvest’) with that foliage color? Color me impressed. 

There are so many more to check out and I’m sure my list will grow longer. The true fun is in the planning and dreaming.

ONG

A recent conversation I had with a “friend” via Facebook:

Friend – “What’s with all the flower stuff you post all the time?”
Me – “I write a gardening blog.” 
Friend – “LOL, Are you serious?”
Me – “Yeah, although it is more like a … landscaping blog.” 
Friend – “Oh, like about your lawn and stuff.”
Me – “Um … yeah.”
Friend – “Cool.”

I was annoyed that I had to dumb down the explanation of my blog and make it more “masculine”. It just seemed like an easier way out of the conversation I didn’t want to have in the first place.  

It also got me to thinking about the concept of a male actually liking flowers. Let’s face it, there is a stereotype that exists when any man likes flowers. I’ve heard them all; some times very bluntly and other times just implied. And as is the case with almost all stereotypes (and don’t I know living in New Jersey), they are frustratingly naive and an easy way to put people into nice clean boxes.

The truth is, I like this:
               

As much as I enjoy this:

Why can’t I enjoy both equally without it being questioned? Hell, I have Sade and System of a Down on my Ipod. They each represent different aspects of my personality. 

I didn’t know that liking a colorful and fragrant flower made you that much less of a man. After all, is there anything more powerful than watching a plant survive the winter, thrive through it’s ensuing growth of foliage in the spring and then reach it’s peak when the flower blooms in all it’s glory? C’mon now, that is the circle of life at it’s finest. Not to mention, flowers are the result of getting your hands dirty and full of callouses. Pretty masculine if you ask me.      

When I took the picture below so it could be used for my Facebook page and for my Twitter avatar, I intentionally set it up to represent me and my varied interests:   

The execution of the photo may be off a bit and not so obvious, but that is me (with a god awful cheesy smile by the way) holding a shovel as if it were a baseball bat. With that, I hope that I can bring a unique perspective to garden writing and even help dispel the notion that men can enjoy flowers without it seeming odd or god forbid, even feminine. 

Almost everyone I work with has no idea that I write a gardening blog, let alone that I have a strong interest in plants and flowers. I can’t tell you how much fun I have when I do get a chance to spring a little nugget on them out of the blue.

Coworker – “I grow this catmint stuff and it’s beautiful until June and then I want to rip it out.”
Me – “If you cut it back drastically in early June, you’ll get a second flush of bloom and the foliage will look fresh”
Coworker – “What is “flush” and how do YOU know that?”
Me – “I’m cool like that.”   
 
They don’t know whether to take me seriously or not and I couldn’t love it more. Always fun to keep ’em guessing.
 
So in conclusion:

• I love flowers 
• I don’t care what others think about that 
• I despise the stereotypes that go with it.
• I need to not smile in pictures any more  

ONG     

It has officially been one year since I started this blog. I honestly never thought I would stick with it this long or that people, other than my family, would even read it. My initial intention was to use the blog as a chance to share my garden photographs with friends and family. That was it. A chance to show them that all of the time spent in the garden actually resulted in something that was worthy of a photograph or two, or three.

 

Well, for me, it has grown to be much more than that.

Looking back, there were some posts that were atrocious, like this one. Some others that were creative but still a bit odd, like this one. And some that were admittedly a bit whiny like this one. But overall, I am happy with the direction the blog went as it was an accurate portrayal of what I was feeling at that time. I’ve tried my best to be honest about my many shortcomings yet share my excitement for all things foliage and flowers. Being able to write about my passion on a daily basis and to actually have people enjoy reading it, has blown me away. I still get just as fired up today to read your comments as I did when I first started.

Looking ahead, I plan on treating my gardens as more of a scientific laboratory this year with the hope that I can experiment in different ways and share those results with you. Sort of like what I did when I planted a few Hibiscus plants last summer. I also hope to visit more local gardens and share those photos with you. I have already mapped out a few potential interviews with some people in the business that will hopefully offer a glimpse into the world of gardening/horticulture in an interesting and unique way.

I’ve babbled enough, thank you for reading this blog and feeding my narcissistic ways. It has been an amazing creative outlet for me and I will continue to ride the wave wherever it may go.

Gracias
ONG       

Last spring, I purchased a few Swamp Milkweed plants (Asclepias Incarnata ‘Ice Ballet’) at my local native plant sale. I knew these were native to my region and therefore could handle my poor soil conditions. I also liked the white blooms and knew exactly where I could place them in my garden beds:    

Soon after these were planted in the ground however, the evil aphids arrived. The first reaction I had was to destroy the little f’ers but also stuck with my strong belief in not using any chemicals whatsoever when treating plant issues. I knew I could attempt to hose off the aphids but something told me to just let it be. I’m glad I did.

Within days of the aphid parade, the lady bugs showed up and started to chow down on the aphids:      

I loved watching it all go down and to my surprise, didn’t care about how the plants looked as a result. I am your typical OCD gardener when it comes to design so this was a nice development in my maturity as a gardener. And it only got more interesting from there.

I knew the swamp milkweed would attract butterflies and all sorts of other creatures, but admittedly, did not know that it was the sole host plant for the monarch caterpillar/butterfly. In early August, I snapped these shots in a manic state of excitement:

Hot damn! Sweet! I didn’t give a rat’s behind that all of my plants were getting completely destroyed and stripped of all their foliage:

 

About a week or so later, I found two beautifully sculpted chrysalis:   

And two weeks after that:

All I could think of at that moment was how sad it would be if someone were to sacrifice this incredible exhibit of nature at it’s best just to make their plants “look pretty”. This may be the greatest lesson I’ve learned over the years and I urge you to do the same.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Take a look at the photo below. This is the same previously destroyed plant from above, in early Fall. The foliage came back like gangbusters. Man, I can’t get enough of this stuff: 

Keep it real
ONG

I am super anxious for the spring to arrive to see if the kids still have any level of interest in joining me outdoors. We made some serious progress last year as I realized I needed to tailor the gardening experience differently with each of the little ones.

My eight year old son has become somewhat of a “foodie”, thanks to my wife’s incredibly diverse and damn delicious cooking (I am going to call her out and push for her to start a blog in a future post). Common sense, which can be a bit of a reach for me some times, told me to focus on the edibles with him and we did just that.

He couldn’t have been more pumped up when we went blueberry and peach picking last summer:        

While he enjoyed eating the fruit right off the branch, I think the little dude has a future as a chef. He not only loved the fruit salad my wife put together, but he also got the presentation and commented on the “nice color” combo.

I finally took the plunge last year and decided to grow all of my edibles on the back deck in containers, where not only could I control the quality of the soil but could also hide them from the lurking deer.

I grew 3 different types of lettuce, kale, spinach, peppers and two different varieties of tomatoes. The lettuce was by far the greatest success story as it produced endlessly for us into the summer and we ate some serious amount of salad:           

The greatest part of it all though, was seeing my son pull the lettuce leaves right out of the container and eat them right on the spot. I think I hear Johnson and Wales calling.  

Now my five year old daughter couldn’t be more different from my son. She is fruit and vegetable averse and she would literally kill you if you forced her to eat them. Hopefully that will change over time and from the constant exposure to fresh produce she will have to withstand.

On the other hand, she is all girl (and a damn cute one if I don’t say so myself) and loves princesses, flowers, butterflies and birds. She has an imagination and playfulness beyond words so I know what I need to tap into:

 

My little charming one would often tell me “Daddy, I love the flowers I see outside my playroom.” Well she better be ready to get her gloves because this is the year she’ll get her pruning on.    

Last year, I took each of the kids through the growing process from beginning to end:

And while there clothing of choice leaves a lot to be desired, they GOT IT and I can only hope we take it to the next level this year.

Have a great weekend my friends.
John