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August 31, 2007
Olivia White Hospice Garden Project
On Thursday we had a small crew of our regular volunteers (Karen Kent, Marcia Lamkin, Elsie Ellis and Leslie Penick), because we all were meeting in the garden later (530pm) to say thank you and goodbye to our fearless leader - Laura Davis.
We haven't seen her in the garden much this season, because of work and getting ready to move to Tucson, but she helped water occasionally and worked on the Tea Garden.
In the morning in addition to work on the Faerie Garden, native pathway, caring for roses and watering, we entertained a few visitors. Two of the painters who contributed to our summer tea stopped by (Catherine Sickafoose and Lynn Overend) and Dana Prom Smith stopped by to deliver another load of that "black gold" for the Faerie Garden.
In the evening besides our regular volunteers, we were joined by Hattie Braun, Charlie Taylor (Northland Hospice Director), Doug Grant (Volunteer Coordinator) and Laura's husband Phil. We enjoyed a delicious dinner in the gazebo catered by all, shared some stories, laughed frequently, and watched Laura open gifts and place a brick in her name in the gazebo. She has worked long (5 years) and hard in realizing her vision in the Olivia White Hospice Garden. She now moves to Tucson and who knows may create another vision for hospice there. Because her son lives in Flagstaff, we still hope to see her from time to time consulting in our garden.
Thanks this week to:
Our regular volunteers (Karen Kent, Leslie Penick, Marcia Lamkin and Elsie Ellis)
Dana Prom Smith for a load of "black gold" which was used in the Faerie Garden
Catherine Sickafoose for a columbine.
New plantings:
In the inferno strip: 3 cinquefoil, 3 scarlet gilia and a sacred datura
In the Faerie Garden: columbine, pussy toes, cutleaf alpine fleabane, St. John's wort, peacock-eye pink
New blooms in the garden:
The return of the varigated phlox, a late rose (Tropicanna) and more fall asters.
Plans for 9/6/07:
Continued work on the Native Garden pathway, and the Faerie Garden
Cleaning - birdbaths and dropping throughout the walkways
Rose Garden - powdery mildew control on some of the roses more prone to this problem
Weeding as usual
Planting some fall color - asters
Moving some iris and other plants that have grown too much
Deadheading the 1st "Inferno Strip'
Fundraising
We do have note cards (prints of the paintings of the garden) available for sale at the Northland Hospice Office and Hodge Podge. The cards come in a package of 4 for $10. We still have photo note cards and bookmarks with flowers from the garden available at the Northland Hospice office. Profits from all items are used for creating our beautiful gardens.
Come join us in the garden any Thursday - from 8am-12pm. The work that remains includes watering, weeding, deadheading and some special projects. - the Faerie Garden, the Native Plant garden walkway, restaining the gazebo and beginning installing of the drip system. Call or e-mail if you have interest in helping.
Get out in your garden or find one to visit or help in.
Thanks, Loni Shapiro
928-522-8635 maxmaddy@infomagic.net
Posted by maxmaddy at 7:37 AM
August 25, 2007
THE BEAUTY OF COMPOST
Master Gardener Column 8/25/07
As I was turning my compost with a pitchfork, meine rothaarige Überfrau, leaning over the railing of our deck, informed me that Martha Stewart uses only the best and freshest ingredients. I had just dumped coffee grounds, grass clippings, beer mash, garden cuttings, kitchen scraps, and horse manure into the composter. I replied that Martha was talking about the end of the food chain while I was working at its beginning. The fact is that soil is enriched with horticultural off-scourings, gardening beginning with depleted organic refuse transformed by decomposition into fresh nutrients.
As I contemplate the many meanings of turning eighty, I’m grateful to my father for many things, his insistence on education, his Scottish Calvinism, his good humor and generosity, his moral and physical courage, his love for my mother, his ability to tell a great story (my mother accused him of “witty improvisations on the truth”), his love of the Bible, Shakespeare, and Rabbie Burns, and his devotion to fly fishing and gardening. He taught me love of the soil which in these days of asphalt, concrete, and gravel is a great gift. I never quite got the hang of Scotch (Aye, a wee dram), golf, and haggis (oats and sheep innards boiled in a sheep’s stomach), but I did get the hang of fly fishing, gardening, and love of the soil.
Love of the soil is at the heart of gardening. It’s not seeds, plants, vegetables, flowers, trees, and bushes because they all assume soil. Whether people advocate native plants, immigrant plants, or adaptive plants, they all beg the question of soil. Now, soil is not dirt which is usually clay, sand, and silt. Our dirt in the High Country doesn’t have much silt. It has some sand and has lots of clay which means the need for even more compost. However, we do have the advantage of nutrient rich volcanic rubble which can substitute for our shortage of sand to break up the clay.
Soil has a steady charm. It arrests a person’s attention. In short, soil is a spiritual experience. We come from the soil. Genesis has it that the Lord God fashioned us from the earth, as though we were breath-infused mud pies. We’ve all heard, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We’ll all eventually return to the soil. We are of the earth, earthy, for all of our ethereal pretensions.
Enriching the soil, we enrich ourselves, but more importantly, enriching the soil, we become involved in the ongoing processes of creation. When we explore the soil with our hands, we’re no longer observing creation, but entangling ourselves in it. As the great Jewish theologian and philosopher, Martin Buber, might have said, “Working with the soil is an I-It encounter which leads to an I-Thou encounter.” In short, gardening is not merely an avocation, it’s a spiritual quest because spirituality is not experienced ephemerally, but tangibly by touch. Enriching soil is a naturally occurring sacrament, the tactile experience in which we enrich ourselves as well as the soil.
While visiting the gardens at the Olivia White Hospice Home during its annual tea, it hit home once again the spiritual significance of soil. In a facility that deals with the penultimates of life, there is a garden, a garden that is not merely a diversion of beauty but an experience of renewal.
The trails in the garden wind amidst a soil so enriched with compost that it blooms with beauty, each turn of the trail leading to a fresh enchantment and finally a graceful gazebo. Its floor carpeted with paving stones of remembrance, it is a fitting place amidst beauty’s bloom to recall those whom we’ve loved and more importantly those who’ve loved us. As Loni Shapiro, the garden’s major domo, said, “We began with truck loads of compost from Fort Tuthill, and it worked miracles in our garden.” The beauty of the garden bears witness to the miracles of its humble origin.
Gardeners treasure water. A soil enriched with compost saves water, making for a water-wise garden. Compost begins with the commonest of the common, refuse. “Waste not, want not.” Compost gardening is more than a mere minimal sustainability, it’s an affluent luxury.
Changes concerning the Native Plant Garden and Xeriscape Tour: The tour will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Also, garden location #2 3081 S. Holland Rd. has been cancelled.
By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. If you have a gardening question, call the Master Gardener hotline at 774-1868 ext. 19 or visit our Web site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.
Posted by maxmaddy at 4:50 PM
August 24, 2007
Olivia White Hospice Garden Project
On Thursday we resumed work in the garden after our Saturday Tea. Many of our regular crew came (Karen Kent, David Hockman, Leslie Penick, Elsie Ellis and Nancy Palmer) along with an occasional volunteer Linda Daugherty all the way from Ash Fork. Work for the day included the Native Garden walkway (Karen, David & Leslie), the Faerie Garden (Nancy), moving irises and planting a few plants(Linda), cleaning & filling bird baths and watering (Elsie). I spent most of my time watering with this dry spell we are having.
While working in the Faerie Garden Nancy spotted our new face in the garden with a tear coming down from his right eye. It is probably from the nail she put in to place his eye - but one never knows!
Thanks this week to:
Our regular volunteers and Linda Daugherty all the way from Ash Fork.
Dana Prom Smith for a load of "black gold" which was used in the Faerie Garden
Catherine Sickafoose for a penstemon palmeri.
New blooms in the garden:
Yellow bush clematis and pea vine.
Plans for 8/30/07:
Continued work on the Native Garden pathway, and the Faerie Garden
Cleaning - birdbaths and dropping throughout the walkways
Rose Garden - powdery mildew control on some of the roses more prone to this problem
Weeding a small area near the Faerie Garden
Deadheading the 1st "Inferno Strip'
Fundraising
We do have note cards (prints of the paintings of the garden) available for sale at the Northland Hospice Office and Hodge Podge. The cards come in a package of 4 for $10. We still have photo note cards and bookmarks with flowers from the garden available at the Northland Hospice office. Profits from all items are used for creating our beautiful gardens.
Come join us in the garden any Thursday - from 8am-12pm. The work that remains includes watering, weeding, deadheading and some special projects. - the Faerie Garden, the Native Plant garden walkway, restaining the gazebo and beginning installing of the drip system. Call or e-mail if you have interest in helping.
Get out in your garden or find one to visit or help in.
Thanks, Loni Shapiro
928-522-8635 maxmaddy@infomagic.net
Posted by maxmaddy at 6:24 AM
August 22, 2007
Calling all Litter Lifters, Weed Warriors & Thistle Thugs
Northern Arizona Audubon is having another work day on the east Rio de Flag. We will be picking up trash and digging up non-native, invasive thistle and other noxious weeds.
Date:
Saturday, September 1st
Time: 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. (or whenever you get tired and decide to leave)
Directions:
From Flagstaff, go north on Hwy 89 toward Page, past the Mall
Turn right onto Townsend/Winona road
Go approx 4.5 miles and turn left onto dirt road. (If you get to Slayton Ranch Rd, you've just passed us).
Go left at the fork in the road and follow it down to the Rio (you'll see all the other cars there).
We will have a banner and a couple of folks out by the road at 9:00, so we shouldn't be hard to find.
Please bring:
Gloves, hat, sunscreen, water and a folding chair or bucket to sit on for lunch. Shovels, spades and other implements of weed destruction. I also recommend wearing long pants and a long-sleeved shirt.
County Supervisor Deb Hill has graciously offered to provide lunch for our volunteers, so PLEASE let me know if you are planning to come out and help, no later than Tuesday, August28th, so we can plan for enough food.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Kathie Satterfield
N. AZ Audubon
Volunteer Coordinator
928-522-0375
k.satterfield@yahoo.com
Posted by lunaticchick at 10:23 AM
August 20, 2007
Flagstaff Garden Club Visits
Saturday, September 8th 10 a.m.Gardening in Small Spaces
Two gardeners in Continental who have made the best use of small spaces invite The Garden Club and friends to visit.
We will first go to the garden of Karen Kent where native a drought resistant plants are bordered with natural rock.
Address: 2020 Starling Way. Directions: Butler to Continental. At the Aspen Golf Course parking lot turn left to Timberline. Turn right at the first street to High Timber. Go to Starling, the first right.
Cheryl Bridgman, a recent graduate of the Master Gardener Program, has incorporated new colors and varieties of old favorite plants, and solar fountains and lights into her towne home garden. Her goal is a four-season perennial xeriscape English garden in memory of her grandparents who were English. Because Cheryl's two loves are gardening and cooking, she will offer refreshments and tea.
Address: 4451 East Savannah - towne homes on Butler at the corner of Continental. Park on Continental.
Saturday and Sunday September 15 and 16
Take a peek at their gardens when you visit the artists OPEN STUDIOS. For details go to www.FlagstaffArts.org
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The Garden Club meets when we have an invitation to visit a garden or to hear a presentation on a gardening topic There are no dues. To receive email announcements of events send your name, email address and your phone number to Jean Hockman at djhockman@npgcable.com . or phone 928 526 5813. If you do not want to receive these announcements please send a note to djhockman@npgcable.com
Posted by hockmanj at 11:24 AM
August 19, 2007
Arizona Highlands Garden Conference
Arizona Highlands Garden Conference
Oct. 11 & 12, 2007 (Thurs-Friday)
Apache Gold Casino San Carlos, Arizona (Located 5 miles east of Globe on Hwy 70)
Hotel Information: Best Western Apache Gold Hotel (Hwy 70, 5 mi. east of Globe) Call 928-475-7600 to make reservation.Group rate: $55.00/night (Mention UofA for group rate). Reservations must be placed before September 10 for group rate.
• This conference is open to the public and will be unique as we offer three concurrent sessions addressing high-country landscape issues, including a hands-on workshop track!
• Lunches, continental breakfast, coffee, tea & juice, breaks, literature folder, hand-sewn goody bags, door prizes, parking and more are included in the registration. Workshop signup available at an additional nominal fee.
• Pre-registration is required. Seating is limited. Walk-ins will not be accepted.
• Persons with a disability may request reasonable accommodation, such as a sign language interpreter, by contacting Susan Bolt, (928) 474-4160. Requests should be made as early as possible to allow time to arrange the accommodation.
• Contact Gila County Cooperative Extension (928)402-8585 for more information and specifics on the speakers or go to their web site at www.cals.arizona.edu/gila/horticulture.
Posted by maxmaddy at 5:12 AM
Native Plant and Xeriscape Garden Tour
Master Gardener Column 8/18/07
There is beauty in conservation. No where is it more evident than in the gardens to be featured in the upcoming Native Plant and Xeriscape Garden Tour. Flagstaff and the surrounding area had both native plant and xeriscape garden contests this summer. The tour will feature 15 gardens from the contests as well as several from last year’s Xeriscape contest.
The tour is Sunday, August 26, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Maps should be, promised by Ellen Ryan, available on August 22 at both libraries, the Visitors' Center, City Hall and Coconino County Extension Service office. Only the Visitors' Center will be open on Sunday, the day of the tour, so intended visitors should pick up their maps by Saturday, the day before the tour if the Visitors' Center is a strenuous detour, or VC maps may be gone by then.
Tour will showcase gardens that highlight landscaping practices that are environmentally responsible such as water conservation, correct mulching techniques, and water harvesting systems. All gardens feature native plants. Here’s a sample of what you can see on the tour.
One garden in the Timberline neighborhood is a shady oasis that blends the surrounding environment with the cultivated landscape using blue elderberry, a mix of native grasses, yellow coneflower and more. A pond with sedge and horsetail provides a sanctuary for mammals and birds.
At least 130 native species can be found in a garden in Cheshire. Native wildflowers and clumps of Arizona fescue and blue fescue look at home among lichen-covered rocks. Big tooth maple, a gorgeous bristlecone pine, pussytoes, and native clematis are a few of the plants that highlight this garden.
A garden in Sinagua Heights, which was an honorable mention in the 2006 Xeriscape Contest, features a blue grama grass lawn that looks as good if not better than a traditional Kentucky blue grass lawn. Next door, a corner lot brims with penstemon and native grasses. A rocky wash drains rain water away from the house.
In Pioneer Valley, a naturally landscaped front garden is a magnet for hummingbirds with an eye-catching drift of western columbine. Masses of the endemic Sunset Crater penstemon and showy desert four-o’clock provide plenty of color.
Another honorable mention from last year’s Xeriscape Contest is an inviting cottage garden full of color, texture and fragrance. The owner has created several garden nooks that are designed with people in mind yet are lush, low maintenance and use little water.
The tour is free of charge. To attend, you need to pick up a map of the gardens at City Hall, either branch of the Flagstaff public library, the Coconino Cooperative Extension office, or at the Flagstaff Visitor’s Center. Maps will be available on August 22.
The tour is made possible through the partnership of the City of Flagstaff Water Conservation, the Arizona Native Plant Society Flagstaff Chapter, Coconino Cooperative Extension, the Flagstaff Xeriscape Council, and the contest participants.
In addition, you can attend an award presentation for the best native plant gardens on Tuesday, August 21, 7-9 p.m. The program will be in the Liberal Arts Room 135. Enter front door of Liberal Arts Building and walk all the way down the corridor to Room (auditorium) 135 on left. Parking is at southern most end of Beaver Street. Walk west around Biological Sciences Building, past attached green house and LA front door is on right. Photos of the gardens will be shown and described by the judges and the gardeners. Awards will be presented and proclamations signed by Mayor Donaldson and the Coconino County Board of Supervisors proclaiming August 21 to be "Native Plant Gardening Day" and the month of August as "Native Plant Gardening Month" will be read.
And if you can’t attend the garden tour, be sure and stop by the Floriculture Building during the Coconino County Fair to see photos of the all of the native plant and xeriscape gardens in the contests. These photos will also be on display at the main branch of the Flagstaff Public Library during the month of September.
With 15 gardens on the tour, only the most energetic attendees will be able to visit all gardens. The map contains short phases about each garden to help you choose which ones to visit. Or visit the gardens on your side of town to get ideas that will work in your neighborhood.
Information tel. nos.: (928) 527-3702/774-1868, ext. 19.
Elaine Ferris is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension and a member of the Arizona Native Plant Society Flagstaff Chapter. Hattie Braun is the Master Gardener Program Coordinator for Coconino Cooperative Extension. If you have a gardening question, call the Master Gardener hotline at 774-1868 ext. 19 or visit our Web site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.
Posted by maxmaddy at 4:55 AM
August 12, 2007
Olivia White Hospice Home Tea Auction/Raffle
Master Gardener Column 8/11/07
In 2002 the Olivia White Hospice Home opened to residents. The community of Flagstaff is blessed with the availability of a hospice home that provides a comfortable home environment for compassionate end-of-life care to those who may not have adequate care-giving or personal resources to receive hospice care at home.
Before the home opened, Norm Erickson, a friend of Northland Hospice, began a garden at the corner of Turquoise and Switzer Canyon by planting hollyhock, yarrow, cluster bellflower and lilac. He continues to work on the garden in front of the home.
After the home was completed, Master Gardener Laura Davis began planning for the remaining gardens, including a gazebo, two “inferno” strips, a rose garden, raised beds, a faerie garden and a tea garden. She was assisted by many Master Gardeners, hospice supporters, church groups, school groups, boy scouts, NAU and CCC faculty and students, AmeriCorps and the Youth Corp as well as local businesses. I joined the group in 2004 and this year I took over coordination with Davis’s planned move to Tucson.
The gardens were designed with residents and family in mind, providing a large variety of plants, shrubs and trees to enjoy as well as food. The gazebo is a wonderful place to share memories of loved ones and offers a view of the rose garden, faerie garden and birdhouse trellis. The faerie garden, which is under construction, is designed for children or those who are young at heart. Some of the plants include sweet woodruff, coral bells, columbine and bleeding heart.
A series of sensory pots (touch, sight, taste, smell) packed with mint, rosemary, scented geranium and lily and a variety of other herbs, sit on the back pathway and are easily accessible for those with limited sensory input. Standing and sitting raised beds have been built for those residents who want to continue to garden but have limited mobility.
The garden has been certified as a “Wildlife Habitat” by the National Wildlife Federation. We have a large variety of birds, butterflies, bees, and mammals (deer, skunk, fox, raccoon, chipmunk, and ground and rock squirrels) that residents, family and staff enjoy.
This year we are celebrating the 5th year of operation for the home and garden. To help us celebrate, four wonderful members of the Artist’s Coalition - Roberta Rogers, Lynn Overend, Mary Swanson, and Catherine Sickafoose – have painted original watercolors that showcase the gardens. Their works will be raffled/auctioned off this weekend and they all agreed to let us make note cards from them for a continuing fundraiser.
These original works have inspired us to share the garden with others. On August 18th from 2:30 to 4:30pm, we will have a Tea in the garden. The Tea will be catered by Thornagers with music provided by harpist Jan Torney. Informal garden tours will be provided and a raffle and auction featuring the four original watercolor. Beside the watercolors many local businesses and artists have donated a variety of garden and art items for the auction.
Please come and join us for this special celebration in the garden. Tickets are available for $20 and can be purchased from Northland Hospice by calling 779-1227. Advanced purchase is required as tickets are limited due to the size of the home and garden, as well as parking. If you are unable to attend, you can support the garden by purchasing raffle tickets or original note cards made from the paintings. Raffle tickets are $3 each or 6 for $15 and the note cards are 4 for $10, and are available at Northland Hospice and Hodge Podge. All proceeds from the Tea Raffle/Auction will be use to benefit the gardens at Olivia White.
By Loni Shapiro
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. If you have a gardening question, call 774-1868, Ext. 19 or visit our Web site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.
Posted by maxmaddy at 7:48 PM
August 6, 2007
Olivia White Hospice Garden Project
On Thursday last week we spent our time getting the garden ready for our Saturday tea. Weeding and general clean-up was the focus of the day for many of our regulars (David Hockman, Karen Kent, Nancy Palmer, Marcia Lamkin, Elsie Ellis, Laura Davis and Cynthia Katte). We also had a couple of seasonal loyal volunteers come to help weed Marion Lopez, Carol Scholing and Linda Daugherty all the way from Ash Fork.
On Saturday we all (Alan Katte, David Hockman, Marcia Lamkin, Bruce and Nancy Palmer, Dick Shapiro and Leslie Penick) arrived about 9am and put up tents donated from Norvel Owens Mortuary. Cynthia Katte and Laura Davis put together bouquets for the tables. I came back and helped Cynthia Davis and Betty Marcus put up parking signs, balloons and tables for the event. It was a busy but successful day with about 50 participants. The White's who had donated the house, Marilyn Pate (former director), Charlene Taylor, current director and many master gardener and hospice volunteers joined us in the garden. Thornager's catered the event and harp music was provided by Jan Torney. The day was warm and slightly cloudy but the rain did not happen until 4:30, almost on cue as the tea ended. It was a perfect day - the garden at it's peak, warm sunny weather, and good friends. The raffle-auction completed the end of a two year journey for the volunteer gardeners. Thank you all for your support - physical and financial.
Thanks this week to:
Our regular volunteers and their spouses, Betty Marcus, Carol Scholing, Linda Daugherty and the staff and residents of Olivia White and Northland Hospice.
Plans for 8/23/07:
Continued work on the Native Garden pathway, and the Faerie Garden
Cleaning - birdbaths and dropping throughout the walkways
Rose Garden - powdery mildew control on some of the roses more prone to this problem
Putting in more weed cloth on areas requiring more weed control
Weeding a small area near the Faerie Garden
Deadheading the 1st "Inferno Strip'
Fundraising
We do have note cards (prints of the paintings of the garden) available for sale at the Northland Hospice Office and Hodge Podge. The cards come in a package of 4 for $10. We still have photo note cards and bookmarks with flowers from the garden available at the Northland Hospice office. Profits from all items are used for creating our beautiful gardens.
Come join us in the garden any Thursday - from 8am-12pm. The work that remains includes watering, weeding, deadheading and some special projects. - the Faerie Garden, the Native Plant garden walkway, restaining the gazebo and beginning installing of the drip system. Call or e-mail if you have interest in helping.
Get out in your garden or find one to visit or help in.
Thanks, Loni Shapiro
928-522-8635 maxmaddy@infomagic.net
Posted by maxmaddy at 7:39 PM
August 5, 2007
Mountain Meadow Farm Tour and Sale
FARM TOURS
Friday, August 17, Private Tour. Offered for the Coconino Community College, Teaching and Learning Conference, 2007, "Transforming Learning into Action -- Sustainable Initiatives in Higher Education", http://www.coconino.edu/tlc/conference.html
Saturday, August 18, 9–10a.m. Mountain Meadow Farm Open to the Public
See and hear how our farm uses the permaculture design system. Wherever you live, permaculture can assist you in creating a more sustainable future with your gardening, landscaping, farming, ranching or construction.
The Saturday farm tour includes a 10 minute bee-keeping intro by local bee-keeper and educator, Patrick Pynes.
A $5.00-$10,000 (but not more than that) per person donation to benefit Flagstaff Foodlink and Flagstaff Youth Gardens is requested. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
FARM PRODUCTS SALE
Saturday, August 18, 9a.m. to 1p.m.
Sales at the Farm feature farm-grown native plants, herb and vegetable starts, plus newly harvested garlic. Native and edible perennial plants from Jan Busco's nursery and composting red worms are for sale. A listing of plants (subject to availability) is on our web site. Advance orders welcome.
Directions: Rt 66 to Locket (turn north at the old "76" station, now a "Chevron"), immediate right onto Kasper to N Mt Meadow Dr. We are at the end of the street at the base of Mt Elden. Map at: http://www.mountainmeadowfarm.org/about_directions.html
At the Farm, 100% of tour donations and 10% of plant sales benefit Flagstaff Foodlink and Flagstaff Youth Gardens.
Flagstaff Community Market Sunday Mornings, 8a.m. - noon
Chuck McDougal, Farmer
Jan Busco, Horticulturist
Mountain Meadow Farm
4509 N. Mountain Meadow Drive
Flagstaff, AZ 86004
928.527.0986
Posted by maxmaddy at 3:17 PM
The Slothful Gardener
Master Gardener Column 8/4/07
Slothful gardeners deserve a good word. Some people are just naturally inert. Medieval and renaissance physicians called them phlegmatic. Their system for analyzing human personalities was built on the foundation of bodily fluids called “humours.” It was simple. They identified four humours, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, and various combinations of the four to identify types of personality.
The theory was that bodily fluids were like sap in a vascular plant. As life-forces they affected the physique while also emitting vapors which influenced the personality.
The sanguine’s humour was blood. Energetically cheerful, as gardeners, the sanguine like bright, cheery flower gardens bursting with annuals. The choleric’s humour, the spleen’s yellow bile, makes for aggressive gardeners who love to prune, dig out old, diseased plants, and unleash pesticides on the infected. The phlegmatic’s humour, the lung’s phlegm, produces slow moving, viscous, and sluggish gardeners, big into energy conservation. A minimal gardener, the phlegmatic, favors a low maintenance, sheep fescue lawn. A melancholic’s humour, the gall bladder’s black bile, produces a cool, dour gardener whose garden consists of gravel-covered black plastic sheets in place of a lawn, a couple of ponderosa pines, and instead of flowers a collection of weeds sticking out here and there through the decaying plastic and around its edges.
If genteel, high-toned gardeners are discovered sniffing their underarms on a hot, muggy day during monsoon, they’re checking their humourous vapors. A sanguine gardener may need a few whiffs of yellow bile to fight off an invasion of grasshoppers. Of course, a well-rounded gardener has all the humours in balance as in Antony’s eulogy of Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “His life was gentle, and the elements\ So mix’d in him that Nature might step up\ And say to all the world, ‘This was a man’” (V.v.74-76.) A gardener with the elements “so mix’d” would have a balanced garden, but our concern is with the phlegmatic, the lazy lout who wants to take it easy and have a beautiful garden.
“Take it easy” gardening begins with bulbs, rhizomes, corms, tuberous roots, and fleshy roots, those things a gardener plants and pretty much forgets. They are the garden introverts. Make things comfortable for them, feed and water them now and then, and leave them alone to do their own thing. They want their space. Don’t even pick up their dirty clothes where they’ve left them after blooming at a garden party. Daffodils and tulips need to suck the life-juices (humours) out of the leaves to store them in their tear-drop shaped bulbs for their next blooming season a year away. Both are notoriously slovenly but beautiful introverts.
Bearded irides are rhizomes, abstemious but elegant beauties. Their rhizomes are finger-like, fat roots, which are planted horizontally to the soil almost at its surface. Feed them a couple of times a year and water them once a week during dry spells. Let them alone during the winter. All they want is sunlight. Party animals they aren’t. Beautiful and aloof, they are a sloth master’s dream.
Another fetching rhizome is the Lily of the Valley. A tasty rhizome is the subtropical ginger root, a sure loser for the lazy in the high country.
The dahlia is a finger-like tuberous root whose fingers point down rather than horizontally. Sadly, it’s demanding. A native of Central America and Mexico, it doesn’t winter well in the high country and has to be dug up and carefully kept warm during the cold months wrapped in peat moss. Although it’s extraordinarily beautiful, it’s a bother for the slothful.
Another useful tuberous root is the daylily, a bright cheerful flower although not a true lily. It demands little, survives the winter, and blooms for most of the summer, the lazy lout’s best friend.
Nix the gladiolus. A corm of varied and elegant beauty, it has to be dug up in the fall, preserved during the winter, and replanted in the spring. All that extra work just for beauty and grace, how disgusting!
As usual, the French have a word for it. Ennui, tiredness and boredom. However, ennui can be beautiful. Vive le ennuyé jardinière.
By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. If you have a gardening question, call the Master Gardener hotline at 774-1868 ext. 19 or visit our Web site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.
Posted by maxmaddy at 6:04 AM
August 3, 2007
Olivia White Hospice Project Workday 8/16/07
Our regular workcrew was in the garden on Thursday with some extra help weeding from Carol. Karen Kent continued to work on the Native Garden pathway on the north end of the house. She also planted a couple of miniture roses for the fairy garden and treated some roses with powdery mildew. Nancy Palmer and Marcia Lamkin worked on planting and hardscape in the Faerie Garden. David Hockman moved another plant and worked on weeding in preparation for the Tea next week. Allen Katte came to repair and clean our fountain and Cynthia weeded and deadheaded. Our new helper Carol did a superb job on weeding a large long neglected area just west of the Rose garden. I spent my day cleaning birdbaths, doing some transplanting, and weeding. If we wanted to go into business we could start a Russian elm tree farm. We must have several thousand seedlings in the garden.
Thank-yous this week to:
Our regular crew - Nancy Palmer, Marcia Lamkin, Karen Kent, David Hockman, Cynthia & Allen Katte, Cynthia Davis and Carol a new volunteer.
New blooms:
Clematis, pink and white cleome, asters.
Plans for 8/9/07
Weeding many parts of the garden - due to all the wonderful rain
Deadheading and general garden clean-up in preparation for the tea
Continuing work on the brick pathway
Place ID tags for trees and shrubs
August 18 - Garden Tea - Auction/Raffle at Olivia White Hospice Garden
2:30-4:30 pm in the garden
Tours, food, music, and raffle-auction at 3:30pm
Parking at the 1st Congregational Church
Tickets $20 - available through the Northland Hospice Office and Hodge Podge
779-1227
Fundraising
We do have note cards (prints of the paintings of the garden) and raffle tickets for 2 of the paintings available for sale at the Northland Hospice Office and Hodge Podge. The cards come in a package of 4 for $10. The raffle tickets for original watercolors by Mary Swanson and Lynn Overend are $3 each or 6 for $15. The paintings by Roberta Rogers and Catherine Sickafoose will be auctioned at our tea.. Tickets are available through Northland Hospice.
We still have photo note cards and bookmarks with flowers from the garden available at the Northland Hospice office. Profits from all items are used for creating our beautiful gardens.
Get out in your garden or find one to visit or help in.
Come join us next week and/or drop by and purchase tickets for our summer Tea.
Thanks, Loni Shapiro
Posted by maxmaddy at 5:06 AM
Olivia White Hospice Home Garden Tea Auction/Raffle
Garden Tea Auction/Raffle
Saturday, August 18, 2007 2:30-4:30 pm
Olivia White Hospice Home
Catered by Thornagers
Garden tours and live auction/raffle
Original watercolors of the garden by Roberta Rogers, Lynn Overend, Catherine Sickafoose and Mary Swanson will be auctioned and raffled along with other items donated by hospice supporters.
Music by Jan Torney
Tickets $20 per person.
Tickets are limited – advanced purchase required.
If unable to attend you can support the garden by purchasing raffle tickets.
To purchase tickets or for more information please call Northland Hospice 779-1227
All proceeds to benefit the beautiful gardens at Oliva White Hospice Home
Posted by maxmaddy at 5:03 AM
August 2, 2007
Garden Club meets August 11
Linda Giesecke will host a discussion "Favorite Summer Reading - Fiction/Nonfiction" in her garden on Saturday, August 11 at 10 a.m. Linda says, "We did this last summer and it was fun to sip coffee/tea and share laughts." We who attended last year also remember how much we enjoyed her extensive gardens.
Address: 420 W. Havasupai at the corner of Ft. Valley Road and Havasupai.
Posted by hockmanj at 9:17 AM
Olivia White Garden Project Workday 8/9/07
On Thursday, many of our regular crew came to help in the garden. Karen Kent and David Hockman continued work on the brick pathway on the north end of the house. Leslie Penick came later and helped them haul bricks. Cynthia Katte worked on Wed. and Thurs. She is working with Kathy Pate on finishing the re-mapping of the garden and helped us weed today. Nancy Palmer did some planting in the new beds of the Faerie Garden, and Elsie Ellis did her usual cleaning and filling birdbaths and general cleaning of the garden areas. We had a couple of visitors from the Arboretum (Nathan McLeod and Hanna Raiter). They both offered ideas for the new greenhouse project. We all began work on deadheading many of the spent lambs ears that have been battered by heavy rains. We finished up with a short meeting about our scheduled August 18th Tea and enjoyed some zucchini bread made from our first crop of squashes.
Thank-yous this week to:
Our regular crew - Leslie Penick, Nancy Palmer, Karen Kent, David Hockman, Elsie Ellis, Cynthia Katte, Cynthia Davis and Kathy Pate.
New blooms:
Many colors of coneflower, aster, and the clary sage in the Tea Garden.
New plantings in the Faerie Garden:
Coral bells, miniture roses, black bugbane, prairie smoke, columbine, sweet woodruff, bleeding heart, lily of the valley and Rodgersia.
Plans for 8/9/07
Finishing planting the Faerie garden
Weeding many parts of the garden - due to all the wonderful rain
Deadheading and general garden clean-up in preparation for the tea
Continuing work on the brick pathway
August 18 - Garden Tea - Auction/Raffle at Olivia White Hospice Garden
2:30-4:30 pm in the garden
Tours, food, music, and raffle-auction at 3:30pm
Parking at the 1st Congregational Church
Tickets $20 - available through the Northland Hospice Office and Hodge Podge
779-1227
Fundraising
We do have note cards (prints of the paintings of the garden) and raffle tickets for 2 of the paintings available for sale at the Northland Hospice Office and Hodge Podge. The cards come in a package of 4 for $10. The raffle tickets for original watercolors by Mary Swanson and Lynn Overend are $3 each or 6 for $15. The paintings by Roberta Rogers and Catherine Sickafoose will be auctioned at our tea in August. Tickets are available through Northland Hospice.
We still have photo note cards and bookmarks with flowers from the garden available at the Northland Hospice office. Profits from all items are used for creating our beautiful gardens.
Get out in your garden or find one to visit or help in.
Come join us next week and/or drop by and purchase tickets for our summer Tea.
Thanks, Loni Shapiro
Posted by maxmaddy at 6:14 AM