Spring Day Garden Tour

HAPPY SPRING!

Whoa....Spring is here finally...YAY!    Yup...I am sick of winter and this winter wasn't even that bad here.  I am so excited I had to go grab the camera.  Come on, lets go see what is happenin' in my garden!  Oh and bring a cup of coffee...its chilly out and this might take a few minutes.

Licorice flavored very pretty leaves

Yumminess is happening in the back yard...and some flowers too but I'm hungry so where is that kale?

This buds for you...yummy!

Hey this isn't cheating, they are doing the sowing not me

I am not an addict...I am not an addict

Garden shame...we all have it...here's mine.  That bunch of pots...all the stuff I bought and never got planted and some that I dug up...and never got replanted. 

Last year's Pansies thriving and blooming again

Lets see what the Prims are doing....(moving a chair)...LOOK!

A plant from my past as a propagator

Wanda never disappoints and is so easy to grow

Let me show you a weed over here that you don't want going to seed...Galium, or Cleavers as a lot of folks call it.  The seeds are like velcro and it sticks to everything...especially sock, cat's tails and curly haired dogs.  It is a useful plant but just don't let it get out of control.  I call it Velcro weed because the leaves and stems have little hooks on them.

Oh and one more...yup...Labrador Violet...it goes everywhere...pretty and pretty invasive, at least in my garden.

Oh look...LETTUCE SEEDLINGS!  Nope...they are from last year's seed.  They wintered over so now I will have fresh lettuce without sowing a thing this year.  (I am right on task with my no seed sowing aren't you proud of me?)

Lets to out to the front...here we go down the side yard...oh look at that...red violets...I love violets.

I like getting up close and personal with my plants

If I ever am without this next plant I will be sad...David Ward is a man from my past...er a plant from my past.  I adore this plant.  Those leaves lighten up the shade and the flowers are such a sweet salmon pink.  Be still my beating heart!

Another plant from my past

Historically favorites in the garden

Oh no...more garden shame...actually it's not really shame its just the garden being itself.  That's what happens when you can no longer whip it into submission. (lol)  Sword Fern, Carex, Scilla and Orris root all fighting for land rights.  I wonder who will win?  Oh and yes I made the hyper tuffa planter.  Nice moss huh?

"Out of my way." "NO out of MY way!" (You mean you can't hear that?)

You gotta see this Hellabore...its just the sweetest little thing....here she is.

The sweetest seedling in the garden.

Well here we are at the front porch...yeah the Ribes is pretty isn't it.  The humming birds just go nuts over those ruby red flowers.  I like it because it blooms over my birthday...oh and we really needed something against this white wall and this worked great.

Thank you for taking the time to humor me and take a look at my garden.  It's funny writing this post because I am really doing nothing in the garden but letting it do it's own thing...proof that there is still beauty to be had when things are taken out of your control and that different doesn't necessarily mean bad...it's just different.

~Happy Spring and Happy Gardening ~

Weedy Wednesday: Is That A Real Dandelion?

Welcome to another Weedy Wednesday post. Today I thought I would focus on how to properly identify two very similar weeds, Dandelion and Cat's Ears or False Dandelion.  We all know the Dandelion but I'm guessing that some of you may be unfamiliar with the fact that there is an imposter afoot...the False Dandelion.  It came by that name for good reason as it is very often improperly identified as Dandelion.  I would put together a little quiz with eight images to help you see how much you really do know about how to tell these two plants apart.  Keep track of your answers and when you get to the bottom you can see how well you did.

Is this Dandelion with the nearly smooth stem...

or is it this one with clearly ridged stem?

These smooth serrated leaves...

or these hairy lobed leaves?

This common weed is actually one of the most beneficial plants in our garden when we take a closer look.  That long taproot we find impossible to dig out with one try is able to bring up nutrients for plants with shallower root systems and adds minerals and nitrogen to the soil too. It is one of the earliest flowers to bloom, attracting beneficial insects to the garden.  It is also a food source for some moths and butterflies.

Not only is Dandelion good for the garden but it is also to us for food and medicine as well and it's not just one part of the plant but the entire thing that is edible. It's flowers are turned into wine, leaves become a salad and the root become a coffee substitute.  I am guessing that may be the reason it is now found on every continent on the planet.  If you keep track of which image you think is what it will teach you more than if you don't and get some wrong...you won't know what you didn't see that you may need to if you want to gather flowers for wine or leaves for a salad.

Whose petals appear to some to more of a point?

Who has these squared off petals?

My parents did not have the affinity for Dandelion that I do.  Their only interest was in how to be rid of them in the lawn.  I remember my brother and I being sent out to dig Dandelions out of lawn using a Dandelion fork and a big screwdriver.  I never liked doing it as I much preferred being able to gather up the pretty yellow flowers for bouquets and watching bees gather nectar and pollen from the blooms.  And who doesn't like to blow on the puffballs and make a wish?  The Germans call these puffballs "Pusteblume" which means "blowing flower".  Personally I like calling the parachute filled puffballs "Wish Flowers" and by the looks of our yard this year we must have made a lot of wishes last year because the Dandelions are everywhere!

I just picked these flowers.  Can you tell which is the Dandelion and which is Cat's Ear?

Which plant has a clean white seed head and which has this dirty white seed head?

Okay, are you ready?  Lets see how well you did...
In all the photographs the top image was of the Dandelion and the bottom was the Cat's ear, including the one photo showing the freshly picked stems.  So how did you do?

By the way, there is a clue in our English name "Dandelion" that will always help you identify this plant and it comes from the French who, thinking the sharply serrated leaves looked like the teeth of a lion, called it dent-de-lion. So I hope you enjoyed the little tutorial quiz today.  It was a lot of fun putting it together and if you ever forget, you know where to come look for the answer.


If you have weeds that you are having trouble not confusing with other weeds let me know and I'll see if I can put together a quiz like the one I did here and we'll see how everyone fairs trying to tell your weeds apart.


Copyright © 2011 by Patty Hicks
All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

Teasel, A Weed No More

Teasel has transitioned from weed to a plant worthy of some attention in my world.  It's not like I am going to go out and sow it willy-nilly in the garden but I do grow it every year and have for some time now, finding it rather entertaining.

Because it is a roadside weed,  people pass it by, never really looking at it normally but they do see it in my garden and are often amazed when they find out what it actually is.  Oh sure, I get some who wonder why I would bother growing it too but that's all part of the fun of it.

It was several years before I actually saw one bloom.  I was obviously not paying very close attention because the darn things grow all over the waste places along roadsides and near ditches.  When I finally did see one bloom I remember how awestruck I was.  I'm sure if anyone had seen me and been within earshot they would have thought I had lost my mind as a stood looking up babbling in amazement.  Instead of  blooming all at once the blooms begin at the middle middle of the oval shaped head/cone, progressing up and down at the same time.  Its fascinating.


It is a biennial plant forming a rosette of lance shaped leaves the first year and the flowering stems the following year.  It grows to between three and six feet tall unless it is this one in my garden.  Its more like eight feet tall.

Nearly eight feet tall.

The lance shaped leaves are fused together on the stem at their base which creates a basin where water collects when it rains creating a good watering hole for insects though some drown after falling into the water.  The Greeks called this basin Venus' Basin and in Europe it was called Mary's Basin.  Some say that water is a good cure for warts if there are dead bugs in the water and is good for an eye wash if the water is clear and clean.  I have yet to not see dead bugs in it though so stick with the wart remedy if you want to try it on something.

The leaves, branches and bracts all have short spines on them making them tricky to harvest if you forget to wear gloves. The branching each produce a cone shaped flower head at their tip.

I love the linear shaped bracts that cradel the flower head.

So why did I soften to this roadside weed...because it has too many good qualities for me to consider it any more a weed than the herbs I cultivate in my garden...and it is just a cool plant to look at.

It was used over the centuries as a medicinal herb, fell out of favor and is again being used for medicine. The dried flower cones were used to raise the nap of wool fabric back in the day in a practice known as fulling or brushing and thus the name "Fuller's Teasel" or Teasel.  The bees, blow flies and butterflies enjoy the flowers of this plant and the birds, especially Gold Finches love the seeds making it a great plant for wildlife.

Just finishing its bloom it will begin to dry and be ready for harvesting for crafting.

Teasel has long been used in dried arrangements, painted and used for seasonal decor and Christmas ornaments.  You can also create cute little hedgehogs out of them too...just remember to wear gloves, the other nickname for it is Johnny-prick-finger.

Copyright © 2011 by Patty Hicks
All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

Choking On Weedy Lies

This morning I was sitting here ruminating and writing in my little red book about why I begin a project and end up choking and not finishing I decided to share my thoughts with you.  I know I am not the only one who ever suffered with this feeling insecurity, thinking things need to come out perfect or that it won't be good enough and others won't like it.  These thoughts cause me to not follow through in bringing to life the creative ideas I have, starting but never finishing.

It recently came to the surface again as I began working on an idea I have for this little purple basket which I knew almost immediately what I wanted to make out of when I found it...so why the self doubting?

I am hearing the voice of self doubt very loud even in spite of all the wonderful things I hear from so many of my friends and followers here on my blog who love how I write, who want to know how I do what I do and who truly enjoy and are inspired by what I share here.  I'm not saying this in pride it is just what is happening ALL THE TIME right now...a lot of you are saying really nice and encouraging things to me and I so appreciate it and I REALLY NEED TO HEAR what everyone is saying.  Your voices of encouragement are there for a reason.

It is a battlefield in my heart and head right now, discouragement on one side and all of you on the other.  The enemy of my soul would love nothing more than to squelch the creativity God has placed in me.  That is why I need to hear what you are saying.  Thank you, thank you, thank you and please don't stop!

That voice of self doubt and discouragement in my head is not a strange thing as it happens to people all the time.  In my head I liken its affect to that of "Nasty grass", a grassy weed that crops up in my garden that is so darn hard to eradicate.  It makes me feel at times like I will be forever doomed to never prevail against it.

The thing with "Nasty grass" is it can be overcome but it takes work.  One cannot just yank it out of the ground, oh no...it needs to be dug out, its roots eradicated or will send out more and more underground stolons/roots and soon choke out the entire garden.   If you pull it out you will always leave behind those underground runners and before long, will find a new plant or plants growing to replace what you just pulled up.  Once well established it is very difficult to even dig out as it grows through the root systems of other plants further securing its future habitation in the garden.  It has such a nasty habit of reappearing just when you think you have it licked.  Nasty nasty stuff.

Nasty Grass...The white portions break off very easily to form new plants

"Nasty grass" must be dug out or killed using an herbicide, the herbicide being the most effective way of killing it.  I went out and dug some up so you could see what I mean by the underground runners/roots. The battle for victory in my mind is similar to my battle with this weed.  I have to apply the truth of God's word as the herbicide to the roots of these lies that I am a failure and unworthy to succeed or they will continue to choke out the beautiful creative nature God has placed within me.

Tough woody stoleniferous root that at each joint will send up a plant if left in the ground.

The lies in my life are a lot like a well established patch of "Nasty grass" that has been enjoying the space in my mind and heart since I was a child.  It has grown into and through every area of our life the same as it does the root zones of the plants that inhabit the garden until they weaken and even die out unable to compete.  If I am to win this war in my mind I will need to go deep, employing the herbicide of truth of God's Word to the roots of these nasty lies.  I have a lot of work to do...but I am ready.

I am bolstered by a confidence I cannot explain, that its time to come forth like blooms on a rose and bloom I shall and those lying weeds in my brain...they are going DOWN!  I am so excited I feel like I could just explode with joy at times.  I never used to feel this way ever...its amazing and truly something God has done in me and for me.

As a Christian, facing fear and living by faith is a way of life.  I either trust God or I remain increasingly anxious about my life.  There is a reason that we are admonished to "Be anxious for nothing, but with prayer and thanksgiving let our requests be made known before God."    That opens the door for God's peace to be spread abroad in our hearts, to cover them and we find rest for our souls!

It took me 5.6 years to learn this as I went through circumstances I would have never thought I would go through.  My faith was stretched and tried like never before.  But God showed He was always faithful, always there and attending to my needs and to my future.  So now as I look at these weedy lies about my creative abilities I see they are just another part of learning to trust my Creator with my future, my life and now my business.  I am also leaning on Him to help me get to the root of these lies that have held me back for so long.

I will be spending time in prayer and studying what the Bible has to say on this subject.  I am so excited to see the new growth of this gift of creativity come forth as the binding forces of these lies are laid to waste in my life in a greater way than ever before.

To everything there is a season and this is my season to bloom!

I am even a little amazed that I am here writing this right now, but God being faithful is bringing to pass exactly what He said that He would accomplish in my life, that the discouragement would be lifted from my life and I would grow and flourish.  And I am so excited and so very ready.

God does not want us to be bound by the voice of discouragement.  If you are in one of those times know that is not time lost.  With all your heart seek God, to spend time in His presence, to hear what He has to say about who you are and to take to heart those truths and wait...wait for God's power to set you free.


Copyright © 2011 by Patty Hicks
All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

Weedy Wednesday: Plantain By Any Other Name Is Still A WEED!

When does a weed become a desirable plant?  It happens you know.  All it takes is some plant addicted person finding a weed that is sporting something unusual, like variegated or reddish leaves instead of just green and suddenly we find that plant marketed as the latest coolest thing and rocketing to garden stardom.  It will be found in magazines and in the gardens of plant collectors and addicts alike.  That is exactly where I found Plantago major 'Atropurpurea', AKA Purple leaf Plantain the first time I saw it, in a well thought of national gardening magazine.  I think every magazine featured it at one time or another.  Resistance was futile.

Early in the season in my good friend Rae's garden.

I remember when I first saw it in that photo, grown so perfectly, so lush looking, I moaned with desire.  At that moment it seemed all self control fell away and that feeling that I had to have that plant or I was gonna die came over me.  So the first chance I got I bought one for some ridiculous price.  Yes, I paid money for a weed! Then as luck would have it, somehow I managed to kill my designer weed!  Can you believe it!?!  Why doesn't common Plantain that grows everywhere in my garden die?  Why does it have to be the designer version that I PAID for!  As I've said before, Murphy, the one who wrote those laws, he works in my garden evidently.

Another cousin, Plantago lanceolata in the Hell strip at the end of the driveway.

Because this plant by nature is really no different than its weedy cousin, it will more than likely haunt the gardens of the future.  I knew this before I planted it but felt sure I would be able to control its bad habit and I made sure I gathered the seeds.  But I couldn't just throw them away!  Being a good plant addict I shared them with my gardening pals too.  I figured if I missed a few that was all right too because I'd have starts to share next year at plant swaps.  What was I thinking?  I shared weed seeds and plants with my buddies!!! Ugh...

Up close and playing well with others it seems to be so benign.

The American Indians have a name for Plantain...“White Man’s Footprint”.  They named it that because it grew where ever white men had been which gives us a HUGE clue as to how it spread across the country.  You think we would take note of such historic monikers but oh no, not us.  We plant addicts are an odd breed and because we/I distinguished it's progeny as desirable and even fashionable and usable in our gardens we ignore such neon warnings.  Its glory days are numbered though and it will be a fond memory for some of us and for others...just another weed.

This brings me to this thought; when it comes to plants, one man’s treasure is another man’s curse and so I can see quite easily how this designer weed will someday be added to the "plants of my ongoing suffering" list.  Just look at how history has proven that to be the case.  Will we ever learn...probably not, history says we are who we are and plant addicts are quite visible in every generation.  Well, at least I'm in good company.


Copyright © 2011 by Patty Hicks
All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

Weedy Wednesday

Well if you have followed me for a while you know I don't think like most people...or maybe a little off to the side from how most people think.  So with that said I came up with my own version of a series of Wednesday's special posts.  We are not going to have any wordless around here.  I won't stand for it.  I like words too much.   So what each Wednesday we are having Weedy Wednesday instead.

Weeds in the perennial beds...oh but it makes it look like a prairie!

We all have weeds, but weeds versus garden plants, what makes the difference?  For me it is more of a "what I can put up with" sort of thing than anything else.  I actually like many weeds.  After all they are plants.  Some of them have a rich history, some are edible and some are actually kind of pretty.  And personally I think as gardeners, we get too fussy about our plant collections and even snobbish and miss out on things because of it.

Plant brat, Rosa gallica 'Versicolor'

Sometimes that snobbery reaches around and bites us in the fanny when a plant we think we are so smart planting gets away from us and takes over our garden.  Case in point; I have plants I thought were so cool to have in my garden that I have discovered aren't really so cool after all and consider to be bigger weeds than a lot of common weeds that reside in my garden naturally.  Such is, Rosa gallica 'Versicolor' for me.  She is an absolute brat!

Brat thicket before I got after her.

She has this rather thuggish, not-so-lovely habit of sending out underground runners that pop up everywhere and of course by everywhere I mean in the middle of a clump of favorite perennials or next to a shrub where I specifically only wanted my crocus to be.  Someone told me once, "Oh just dig out what you don't want." Well, that my dear, is easier said than done as one must perform horticultural surgery to extract her completely from such situations which means digging her and the other plant up and if she can't be pulled out cleanly she will have to be cut out and roots severed.  So instead I tried killing it off last fall with stump and vine killer painted onto the freshly cut off stems.

It worked really well or so I thought until I looked around this spring and found she was a sneaky little rose and had managed to get further out of bounds than I thought.  I can hear her sniggering at me as I write this.  I may as well relax about it for now and get the benefit of her blooms this spring.  Who knows, maybe I'll find a good spot to let her run wild.  Now that would be nice.

Copyright © 2011 by Patty Hicks
All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.