In our continuing effort to keep you informed about the White House grounds – not because those 17 acres are important in the grand scheme, but because it’s our beat!
On Aug. 27, Trump delivered his address formally accepting the Republican nomination on the South Lawn before an estimated 1,500 supporters seated on chairs. The president spoke from an enormous stage built in front of the South Portico of the White House. It was flanked by massive television screens and illuminated by scores of hulking spotlights — all particularly heavy equipment to position on grass.
So the turfgrass there has to be redone.
Two nights earlier, first lady Melania Trump delivered her convention address in the newly reconstructed Rose Garden, with dozens of supporters seated in chairs. *Turf was laid atop the grass as a protective measure, according to one White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because aides were not authorized to discuss some details. *Emphasis added; interpret it as “wtf?”
More new sod is needed.
CNN had the story, too. “The Trump campaign told CNN ‘The tab for the repairs to the grass will be paid for by the Trump campaign.’
No comment from ME. But y’all go ahead.
“Great American Lawn” on CBS Sunday Morning
CBS This Morning is a beloved show – especially by me, even more so after I was ON the show in a story about about coaches of various kinds, including garden coaches.
So I know this isn’t “60 Minutes,” where exposés are a regular feature. I know “Sunday Morning” is for feel-good stories, but I have to vent anyway. Their story about lawns, with correspondent Martha Teichner, includes:
Lawns like these. On the left is a lawn on top of a 24-story building in Chicago.
Ted Steinberg, author of the excellent book American Green, saying that “Coronavirus has made Americans lawn-care crazy” and “You could argue that the perfect lawn is the perfect coping mechanism in a world that’s turned upside down.” Wish he’d been used to touch on the problems. But again, not “60 Minutes.”
Then it turns into a full unpaid (or maybe paid?) ad for Scotts Miracle-Gro:
Scenes from actual ads were included in the story.
Called the company that “rallies the weed warriors,” Scotts ads are shown while we’re told its annual sales are $3 billion/year but that its lawn and garden product sales are up 24 percent this season!
I wonder – did they just coordinate with the Scotts PR team without a moment’s research into the company? They sure didn’t read my round-up of valid reasons the company is SO HATED in the gardening world: Who’s more controversial, Michelle Rhee or Scotts Miracle-Gro?
And they sure didn’t see this take-down of the company in Espoma’s brilliant video launching its organic lawn care products.
Finally, we meet a real “lawn nut” who creates perfect shapes as he mows – like the American flag above. Sigh.
But wouldn’t it be nice to see mentions of the “Great American Lawn” include the whole picture, like how Scotts ads promote unnecessary and harmful use of synthetic fertilizers, especially in the spring? Not to mention promoting the need for perfect, monocultures in the first place, instead of lawns like Ted Steinberg’s, which Teichner describes as “not perfect.”
I DO appreciate the opportunity to show off this photo of correspondent Rita Braver with her crew, my coaching client and me in 2007.
Here’s Rita sitting on my front porch during an unexpected visit. After the planned filming in a coachee’s garden, she asked to see MY garden and filmed the show’s opening from my porch. That required first moving a used toilet from said porch, where it was ready to be carted away. Glamorous times!
As a nation, we are so starved for American garden programming that we are willing to accept that a woman worth over $620 million dollars, stuck for 82 days on her 153-acre estate in Bedford, NY; with her gardener, one of her housekeepers, and one of her drivers; and joined as needed by groundskeepers and their foreman, is going to fill that need and leave us hungry for another season of down-to-earth gardening advice.
So starved, that we are willing to accept HGTV promos that tell us that this immaculately dressed and fully made-up celebrity, sans sweat, sans grimy hands, and sans, apparently, a production assistant to create some small illusion of same, is relatable; and “puts the G back in HGTV.”
So starved, that we are willing to overlook her frequent – and historical – transposition of the pronouns “I” and “they” when discussing the nitty-gritty of projects undertaken on that 153-acre estate.
So. Starved.
Six episodes worth of gilded crumbs. And I’m afraid this gardener has lost her appetite.
It’s not about the money…
Perhaps the best way to launch into my review [and accompanying visual aids] of the first season of HGTV’s Martha Knows Best, (which I watched in its entirety after Susan’s recent review here) is to make it perfectly clear that I have no problem with the [legal] accumulation of wealth.
What wrestling a tiller really looks like.
I have no problem, as it were, with the wealthy.
You earned it. You spend it. Martha Stewart is not just an extraordinary business woman, but a talented creative with an expert eye sharpened over many years.
She also has the genius to recognize, nurture, and promote that spark in other creatives.
If she insists that the 1000+ containers on her property be of the same color family (stone, concrete or marble), and never wishes to see an artistic vegetable in a flower arrangement, and lines utilitarian pathways to peacock enclosures with cut blocks of granite, who am I to criticize her from enjoying the whims that whacking great wads of cash can indulge?
I’ll have to tell my insanely talented friend Louisa Zimmermann-Roberts at Thanksgiving Farms in Frederick, MD, that her summer arrangement of Swiss chard, sweet pea, red raspberries, grapes eggplant, okra, chives, black-eyed peas and banana leaves is not officially sanctioned. She’s going to take it really well.
If I lived across the street as one of her “very many fancy neighbors” I would raise a glass to her abilities at the neighborhood block party, and conscientiously ask her advice when it came to pairing champagne and stemware for a well-lubricated celebrity crowd of twenty on a Saturday night.
I might even ask which echeveria to use in the tablescape.
Wickedly, I’d also try to tempt her hardworking gardener, Ryan McCallister, to cross the street and become my personal gardener. My current gardener, Cutout Andy (though versatile and well-traveled), doesn’t have the same twinkle in his eye.
Cutout Andy and I discussing plans for the garden.
All this to say, I respect what she has achieved and have no desire to set up a mini-guillotine in the exquisitely designed cobblestone courtyard of her horse stables. I won’t even debate aspects of her gardening advice. Susan did that already.
I also respect the fact that she is a 79-year-old woman who is a damn sight more active than your average 79-year-old American.
Let Them Eat Cake
What I don’t respect however, is this laughable attempt to appear ‘relatable’ as someone who is just like me, or like 99% of the gardening public.
I don’t respect the producers of this show having so little awareness of the current suffering going on throughout the country that they felt that a conspicuous display of fabulous wealth could feed the public’s very real (and in many cases, economic) need for gardening advice.
At a certain point it goes from being laughable, to being downright offensive. From the intro:
“I’ve lived on this farm for about 17 years. And like you I’m spending more time at home than ever before. So I’m going to take you behind the scenes as I do my gardening projects. I’m going to help my celebrity friends. And surprise new gardeners.”
Here’s one of my gardening projects – Endlessly Weeding. On my knees. On my own. And I’m one of the lucky ones.
It must be horrific to spend 82 days on 153 acres. With a modified staff.
What about 82 days on a tenth of an acre (like my last house)? What about 82 days in an apartment with a philodendron?
Uhhh….there’s a pandemic going on?
We have been six months at this pandemic. After years in cramped quarters, I now live on ten beautiful acres in a four-bedroom house. And I’m ready to bury my husband’s work-from-home body in a remote corner of the property at this point. It might even be classified as a COVID death.
And no doubt my husband feels the same way.
And yet, every evening of this mess, when I watch the news and see cities in such turmoil, I think of my 10×12′ apartment in New York, when I was 100% dependent on food service jobs and student loans to make my bills.
Each and every morning when I walk through the garden I think of our little upstairs flat in Southeast London when my son was a toddler, and how desperate I was for more than a window box and a few pots by the door.
My very first vegetable garden – a 2x17ft unpaved strip in the parking lot outside our tiny apartment in Southern California. (Photo from Big Dreams, Small Garden, 2017)
And each morning I am deeply grateful for the space around me, and painfully aware that others are struggling in this pandemic under terrible conditions with no end in sight.
No awareness from Hollywood apparently. Or from Bedford.
“When the pandemic started and quarantine became de rigueur,” says Stewart, “I invited Ryan, my gardener, I invited Carlos, one of my drivers, and one of my housekeepers Elvira, to stay with me during this time.”
Quarantine. De rigueur. Alrighty then. So is a floor length gown at a debutante ball Martha. But okay, we’ll just go with it.
Lost in Translation
And if you didn’t study French in high school and are currently running to Google Translate – keep the tab open. To Martha, soil that is ready for planting does not resemble a palm full of pastry dough, but pâte brisée.
It’s actually an excellent analogy that falls short in its delivery. As does dropping mise en place to describe setting gardening tools in place for a project.
While you’re at it, you might want to check out Île de la Cité, where Martha gets “all her seeds.”
No Chanel or Dior for this everyday gardener when she arrives in Paris, she tells us, but straight to those lovely little seed markets.
I didn’t want to bring Marie and her cake into this, but damn.
My husband and I on our way to the seed markets. Regrettably he had to drive us due to some staffing issues.
I remark upon these Gallicisms as someone with five years of French under her belt, a fair amount of experience in the kitchen and garden, and an unfortunate history of dropping sans into conversation, but a young, beginning American gardener doesn’t know her pâte brisée from her pot of ease-ay.
99.9% of low or middle-income gardeners are not jetting to Paris for their seeds and will probably see what’s available at local garden centers before they consider even splurging on shipping fees for online sources, no matter how wonderful they are.
I know I did.
And here. Here is the issue. Pretending that this is a gardening show instead of a celebrity reality show.
The wonderful thing about Cutout Andy is that he is so incredibly portable. Here he is on his way to help my mother in her garden in California.
Just Ask Martha
A few moments of FaceTiming Mitch in Lemoore, California about soil preparation for his carrots; or telling Maggie in Mississippi that she needs “ferns” for the north side of her shady house; or letting Karlin from Florida in on the not-so-little secret that she needs a coop for her ducks to keep them safe from predators; does not constitute ‘hanging with the little people.’
Especially after each performs the requisite sycophantic prelude before speaking to “the Gardening Queen Herself”
Maggie: “I almost started crying but I did keep it together.”
And then there are the celebrity cameos. Hailey Bieber needing dog grooming tips. Jay Leno showing us the kitchen in his garage and asking what a pomegranate is. Zac Posen telling Martha he’s been gardening since March in Bridgehampton.
“Well. It’s SOOO easy to garden in the Hamptons” she laughs.
I’ll just leave that right where it fell.
Cutout Andy taking a few moments away from digging out a new pathway to enjoy a warm tomato from my mother’s garden.
I made my life-long gardening mother watch two episodes with me. When Martha begged Snoop Dogg to join her in Maine on her 63-acre estate, Skylands, for her next party post-COVID, Mom turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. “It’s like digging your heel into somebody’s face.” She said quietly. “I’d be embarrassed to say that.”
Even if I gave millions of dollars to charities each year – as no doubt Martha does – I would too.
To his credit, a tee-shirted Richard Gere sat cross-legged and underneath a tree in his father’s average suburban garden where he grew up – even if they spent the entire time discussing the shade beds at his exclusive Relais & Châteaux establishment, The Bedford Post Inn. He almost seemed a little embarrassed.
Perhaps we have his friendship with the Dalai Lama to thank for that.
She knows her stuff. But she’s forgotten her audience.
Martha’s smart. She’s exceptionally talented. She built an empire.
But she is not the person to put the G back in HGTV.
Ron Finley of South Central L.A., an activist gardener who has changed thousands of lives by inspiring people living in the food deserts of inner cities to garden (Source: www.RonFinley.com)
For advanced gardeners who have yet to watch ‘Martha Knows Best,’ do. I’d like to know what you think.
But if you’re a brand-new gardener – look to the shows, feeds and podcasts of those who garden with the resources and in the region that you do. I guarantee you there are hundreds on YouTube.
Or, depart these shores altogether and take advantage of UK programming that still respects its population enough to provide polished and professional gardening programs to inspire everyday gardeners, such as Charlie Dimmock’s new endeavor, Garden Rescue, classic episodes of Ground Force, or Monty Don and others truly getting their hands dirty in BBC Gardener’s World. (Please leave your suggestions in the comments for excellent gardening programming in other parts of the world.)
Martha Knows Best is not a gardening show. It’s a celebrity reality show that takes place outside. And in the middle of a pandemic, when millions are out of work, businesses are shuttered, and large segments of the population are watching their future dreams for even a modest home and garden sabotaged by something completely out of their control, we deserve better.
Let’s hope HGTV digs a little deeper and finds it.
I would not have batted an eye at Mr. Stripey if Otis Knox had not insisted it was the best tomato—ever. It matters little whether this is true or not. Otis signed off on the heirloom, and that’s all I needed to know. For weeks this summer, I have made Mr. Stripey tomato sandwiches on toasted white bread, smothered with Duke’s mayonnaise. I haven’t jumped ship, yet.
Otis passed last month. My friend and neighbor was 82 years old.
We were an odd couple. He—the poor country boy from Gritter’s Ridge, near Rogers, in eastern Kentucky; I—the privileged suburban boy from Louisville. He tilted right; I leaned left. Neither birthright nor party affiliation was a deal breaker. Our mutual affection was forged by friends, neighbors, love of God, trees, storytelling, music and even—tomato sandwiches.
Mr. Stripey
Precious memories.
Rose and I bought ten acres in North Mercer County, on a bend of the Salt River, in 2010. Neighbors asked if we had met Otis. They rolled their eyes when I answered, “No.” I wondered, then, if this was a warning. I understand, now, it was a tip for: You’re in for a treat.
I waited to meet Otis.
Otis and his wife Ilene once owned our farm. Our county-maintained road is named Knox Lane in their honor.
Otis and Ilene in 2014
Otis came calling one day.
He heard through the North Mercer County grapevine that we had cut down a large white pine to put in a graveled driveway. He wasted no time before telling me, graciously and unequivocally, that he was sorry to see one of his precious trees cut down.
Otis had dug small, white pine seedlings from a hillside, near Ilene’s Wolfe County home place, to plant shortly after he moved to our farm in 1976.
Otis in the pines, 2015.
I tried feebly to explain that I loved trees and planned on planting more pines, oaks, hickories, sassafras, yellowwoods and persimmons here on the farm.
He remained devoted to his pines, even after he moved across the river in 1990. Rose and I planted hundreds of trees before he was convinced that he could trust me on trees.
My sister-in-law, Holly Cooper, a few years later, spotted a peculiar witches’ broom in one of Otis’s pines. Later on, my arborist friend, Robert Rollins, cut some scion sections with a pole pruner and they were grafted onto white pine seedling understock. I anointed the new, dwarf pine tree Pinus strobus ‘Otis Knox.’ I offered Otis his progeny, but he said he’d be happier if I gave it a home, where it belonged—here on the river. Otis, the tree, five years later, is a healthy, slow-poking, one footer. (An ordinary white pine seedling would grow to three to four inches in five years.)
Witches’ broom in Otis’s pine.
Karl Klein of Crestwood, KY grafts ‘Otis Knox’.
Our Salvisa farm expanded to 47 acres.
Soon Otis was visiting regularly. He brought his wife Ilene, his sister Edith, and his brother-in-law, Kenny, to show them what was going on. This was a subtle vote of confidence. Otis pointed out the crooked but still graceful chicken coop and corn crib he had built years ago.
Otis once ran cows on our place and planted corn and cut timber. He worked days as a tool and die maker at I.B.M. in Lexington. On many Saturday nights, friends came over. He and brother R.D. played music from a hay wagon, in the bottomland below the barn. R.D. passed in 2012; Ilene in 2014.
Otis and brother R.D. make music.
Otis lived alone but was not lonely. He enjoyed company. Lots of company. I began to see more of him. We loved University of Kentucky basketball. Rose and I didn’t have a TV then, so he began inviting me to his place to watch games on his big screen. He sat in his recliner; I took to the sofa. Basketball games were an excuse for storytelling. The games were muted, while Otis launched story after interesting story about his many adventures and misadventures.
Saturday evening basketball games were pushed aside for the Marty Stuart show on RFD-TV. There was little talking when Marty started picking. Rose and I became fans. We saw Marty and his band at Lexington’s Opera House on Saturday March 7th. Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives were, indeed, superlative.
Coincidentally, the first Kentucky Covid case had been diagnosed earlier in the day.
This was our last night out.
The pandemic was underway.
I continued to visit Otis, masked up, once or twice a week, and talked to him every day. Carla, his beloved niece, took care of Uncle “Oat.”
Otis had an appetite as big as his heart. Carla liked to cover fresh biscuits with chocolate gravy for breakfast and fry crappie filets for lunch. The refrigerator was always stocked to the gills.
Cleisa McCoy occasionally brought over meat loaf, and Bobby Jo Monroe delivered cornbread. Noble Boswell gathered wild morels, spring poke leaves and Shawnee salad. Freida Peachey dropped off fried grated potatoes, mixed with sausage and green beans and topped with cheese.
The Peachey family, seven of them, would also phone and sing songs that Otis loved.
Mark Peachey leased land from Otis, where he grew soybeans, hay and the most beautiful field of a sunflowers I have ever seen. Otis loved his sunflowers.
Sunflowers, July 15, 2020.
Otis called a couple of times, in late spring and early summer, and asked me to take him to drive-in church services on a hilltop at the Kirkwood Baptist Church. The congregation sang old country hymns from cars and trucks. I didn’t know the words to any of the songs. I was a woefully ignorant Episcopalian, good with Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and weak on Old Rugged Cross, but I was very happy and humbled to be here with my friend. No mask could muffle Otis’s beautiful baritone or his uncanny recollection of so many old songs that he was happy to sing anytime—anywhere.
Carla told me “Precious Memories” was Uncle “Oat’s” favorite song.
“Precious memories, how they linger
How they ever flood my soul
In the stillness of the midnight
Precious, sacred scenes unfold.”
Otis was hospitalized three previous times this year with a variety of ailments. He seemed down for the count each round but proved remarkably resilient and kept bouncing back. On his third hospital stay in July he had been unresponsive for several days, but his health improved again.
He began singing from his room at the end of the hallway. A patient across the hall, came over and said, “I know that voice.” She remembered Otis and brother R.D. singing at one of their impromptu shows long ago in the small town of Duncan, down the hill from Cornishville. Otis told me he and R.D. had sung on every hilltop in Mercer County. When Carla wheeled him out of the hospital to go home, Otis sang his way down the hallway.
The nurses loved him.
Everyone loved Otis
Otis did not survive his 4th hospital stay. He slipped away before he could return to his 150-acre farm and the little tomato patch—full of ripe Mr. Stripeys.
The past few weeks, since he left us, I have continued with a ritual, lunchtime tomato sandwich every few days.
The tomato line up at Otis’s—Mr Stripey on either end with Early Boys and Chef’s Choice (yellow).
A month ago I posted in this space about Daniel Hinkley, about his noted collector’s garden in Indianola, Washington, and his new book about it, Windcliff: A Story of People, Plants, and Gardens. I admired the book – it’s beautiful and well-written – but I didn’t, and don’t, understand the plant collecting impulse that motivates Hinkley. In the interest of fairness, however, I called Dan Hinkley a couple of weeks ago to get his side of the story.
When I asked him why, with all the plants available to American gardeners, he had to go out into the wild seeking more, he replied with his own question. Would I ask a chef why with all the recipes now current, we need new flavors? Fair enough.
Hinkley also noted that his collecting isn’t random. “I’m not a wholesale collector,” Dan stressed. “I’m not skipping through the woods merrily picking up seeds of anything I see.” A plant has to strike him as having garden merit, the ability to fill a horticultural niche, for him to collect it.
He’s interested, too, in the role the plant plays in the local environment. He has, he says, reams of notes documenting the plants he has seen on expeditions, with information about what they were growing with, where and at what altitude (remote mountain ranges have been his favorite collecting grounds). These notes present snapshots of a time and a place, and sadly may provide the only insights now, as so many natural areas Dan has visited over the last 35 years have been destroyed.
He partially allayed my fears that such importations may introduce invasive plants. Dan said that he works with botanists at the University of Washington to identify species with invasive tendencies and scrupulously avoids such introductions.
He asserted that transforming six acres of mowed turf, what his property was when he purchased it, into a dense complex of foliage and flower, has benefited local pollinators and wildlife.
This is where I still part company with Dan and other plant collectors. For them, such ecological benefits are a by-product. For me, they are increasingly the point of gardening, and I know that they can be much greater if you focus on the cultivation of locally indigenous species. Windcliff is picturesque, but from the perspective of an ecologist or an environmentally oriented gardener, not particularly functional.
If you would like to listen to the rest of my conversation with Dan Hinkley, you will find it, listed under “Growing Greener,” at thomaschristophergardens.com.
In a recent post I used this photo of what I declared was my final design for the little nook out back. You know, “Ta-da!” Well, is there ever a “final” anything in the garden? Not any garden I’ve ever had.
One comment to that earlier post really stuck with me – “Looks like a lovely space. All it needs is a small water feature/bath to bring in the birds and a nice chair for you to sit and admire.” Well, I DO have chairs nearby – on the porch and a patio – but true enough, no water feature.
But that got me wanting a bird bath to replace a plant I was unhappy with. That’s the three ‘Cheyenne Sky’ red switch grasses under the window, where they had started flopping by June. Bad grass! (Okay, maybe bad site for it.)
But doesn’t this bird bath look prettier, anyway? Me, I’m thrilled with it.
Here’s how I ended up getting it. I asked a local wildlife group if birds would actually use a bath in that location – yes, indeed, they assured me.
Then I asked where to buy one and was directed to Backyard Naturalist in Olney, MD. That’s where a friend bought hers, a wildly painted like this one above. The baths are called Bird Bath Art Poles and they’re ingenious, and so simple.
You just drive this metal pole into the ground a few inches – you turn it like an augur – then slip a hand-painted PVC pole over it. They’re stable – no tipping over – and it takes up less room in the border since the base is so slim. Made by Studio M. in Fenton, Missouri.
Here’s the selection I found at the store, and I chose the Farmhouse style with its more subdued colors. The stronger colors would be great in my front garden, though. Hmmm.
Let there be gurgling
Next, to produce the sight and sound of running water AND attract birds, I added this $20 floating solar-powered fountain, seen above through my porch screen. In full sun it shoots pretty high; in the shade there’s a short dribble. The fountain doesn’t store solar energy; so the height depends on the amount of light at the moment.
Customer reviews and others predict that this won’t last forever but at $20, I’m okay with that. Other, possibly longer-lasting models run all the time and have batteries that need replacing. This one is no hassle.
Birds, any time you’re ready
After a couple of weeks of absolutely no birds showing interest in their stunning and lively new bath, I moved it a few feet away onto the patio, close to my thistle feeder (the only feeder I have).
More weeks go by, and nothing. Then a few days ago, sitting on my porch I spied this:
This one exciting event wasn’t the start a string of regular visits, mind you, but it was sure encouraging. I’ll leave the bath here until it attracts more birds or until it’s time to move it against the house so I can plug in the heater that I bought.
Winter is usually seen as a quiet time in the garden, with not much to do or enjoy. If you miss working in the garden when the weather is cold, there is plenty to do in the garden during the colder months. Here are some ideas to get you gardening over winter.
Appreciate evergreens. Choose a range of evergreens, like box balls and topiary, or large shrubs to add some much-needed structure to your garden all year round. Choose an evergreen, so you get some shape and color even in the depths of winter.
Create cover. Winter sometimes brings bright, sunny days, even if it’s cold, so you might find yourself wanting to sit outside (well-wrapped up of course) to enjoy the sun. Make this more comfortable by creating some cover in the garden to protect you from the elements. Fence panels, climbing plants, umbrellas, or Austex pergolas all work well for this. Add a patio heater to keep you cozy.
Plant bare-root plants. Winter is the best time to plant bare-root plants. A bare-root plant is one sold without any soil around the roots. It’s an economical way of planting, and you can find a much bigger variety of fruit trees and bushes. You can also find bare-root roses, hedges, and perennials.
Enjoy winter flowers. There are several flowers that you can enjoy in winter, such as hellebores, snowdrops, crocus, aconites, and winter iris. Some of these plants, like witch hazel and daphne have strong scents. If you need a little color in the garden, look for more seasonal plants.
Tidy up. A seasonal tidy up can help you get things ready for the busy time in spring. Spend a morning outside tidying up the shed and the greenhouse. When the greenhouse is less full, you can get a good tidy in, and ready it for spring. Sharpen your tools and check your lawnmower is in good condition, so you’re ready when spring arrives.
Attract wildlife. A lot of wildlife needs some extra help in winter, and offering them something in your garden can be very rewarding. Put out more food for birds, and plant things that still flower, so there’s something for insects too.
Enjoy the greenhouse. It may be less full than usual, but you can still work in the greenhouse in the winter. Tidy up overwintering pelargoniums, grow some citrus plants, or plant a pot of succulents. In January and February, you can start to sew seeds in a heated propagate. If temperatures really drop, you can use bubble wrap to insulate the greenhouse.
Plant winter containers. Fill a container or plant pot with evergreen plans or plants with bright berries and flowers. Position these near the house to cheer up a dull garden, and where you can enjoy them. Seeing some color and something living can brighten up, even the dullest winter day.
There’s no reason your garden can’t bring you joy all year round. Prepare your garden for winter now while the weather is nice!
The jury is still out on this. For every instance of helpful fellowship and joyful sharing, I can find equal examples of myth-based misinformation and knee-jerk snap judgements (if not out-and-out trolling) made without bothering to read what has been posted.
Sadly, it’s possible to turn even the most complex issues into generalized memes. These get shared with groups of “friends,” most of whom post dittohead comments in agreement with whatever absurdity is being accepted as fact.
The most recent example is clearly Susan’s post on the White House rose garden changes and then her attempts to share further information via our Facebook page. Many commenters bothered to inform themselves and responded accordingly. Many others just made political hay out of the whole thing, though all we know about it indicates that it’s a project that could have taken place in any August, under any president.
But that was nothing compared to what I saw elsewhere. Many of my “friends” grabbed onto an ignorant meme that implied the WH garden was being destroyed by hordes of ravening fascists and their dittoheads fervently agreed. Many got the tree species wrong; all got the history wrong. I tried to introduce Susan’s detailed and informative post into some of these threads with laughable results. I shouldn’t have wasted my time.
And this is just one high profile incident. There are dumb gardening memes shared every day. Some push the vinegar/soap/salt weed remedy that will not die, others promise gardeners that they are killing monarchs by planting buddleia, others (a lot of them) talk of the evils of GMO. There are facts hidden somewhere behind a few of these, but they get unrecognizably distorted in the meme-izing process.
It’s always best to be specific when discussing gardening. The mileage varies from county to county, never mind from state to state and region to region. It’s an area where generalization can do the most harm, especially with all the beginners now starting home gardens from scratch. Memes have their place. I often enjoy them. They can make simple points entertainingly and that’s the arena where they should stay.
(I found these memes in the Gardening Professors Blog Facebook group. They usually do a meme week once a month. Check it out!)
CBS This Morning is a beloved show – especially by me, even more so after I was ON the show in a story about about coaches of various kinds, including garden coaches.
The jury is still out on this. For every instance of helpful fellowship and joyful sharing, I can find equal examples of myth-based misinformation and knee-jerk snap judgements (if not out-and-out trolling) made without bothering to read what has been posted.
But that was nothing compared to what I saw elsewhere. Many of my “friends” grabbed onto an ignorant meme that implied the WH garden was being destroyed by hordes of ravening fascists and their dittoheads fervently agreed. Many got the tree species wrong; all got the history wrong. I tried to introduce Susan’s detailed and informative post into some of these threads with laughable results. I shouldn’t have wasted my time.
It’s always best to be specific when discussing gardening. The mileage varies from county to county, never mind from state to state and region to region. It’s an area where generalization can do the most harm, especially with all the beginners now starting home gardens from scratch. Memes have their place. I often enjoy them. They can make simple points entertainingly and that’s the arena where they should stay.
