Author: lwcmartin@bellsouth.net

Although I profess to “love all living things,” I’m not sure that includes weeds.  I think weeds are the cockroaches of the plant world.  They are sly and devious and have a perverse sense of humor.

Weeds have an amazing capacity to actually look like the plant they are growing next to.  How dare they?  They only pretend to look like a beautiful garden plant but as we southerners say, “You can put your boots in the oven but that don’t make them biscuits.”

A great example of this is a mimosa seedling growing next to my prized ferns.  I let it grow for weeks because I thought it was a fern.  I had to stop and look and compare before I realized that I’d been tricked. If plants could laugh, this one would be, or at least until I yanked it out by the roots. Ha.  Now who has the last laugh?

Perhaps the low point of my entire gardening career occurred last fall.  I have a beautiful Japanese maple that I transplanted from my parents’ yard.  After many years, it began producing little seedlings and I was thrilled!  When I found out that my siblings were convening for a weekend at my house, I potted up four small seedlings, set them on the ledge and cared for them as if they were little babies.

And, I was smug.  This was going to be the best gift!!!  Everything was fine for a while and then they began to grow which, usually, is a good thing.  But I knew that maple seedlings should not grow a couple of inches in a few weeks.  And then they began to put out very “un-maple like” leaves. And then I knew that I had potted up and nurtured some sly little devious weeds that were only posing as maple seedlings!  Posers.  The only good thing about this story is that I realized my mistake before smugly giving them to my siblings.  I don’t know about your siblings but mine love to tease and I would have never heard the end of it!

I have learned, over the years, that it’s as important to weed by feel as it is to weed by touch.  (Do you know what the worst thing you can say when you’re weeding?  “oops.”)  When I’m pulling up grass by the handful or whacking away at vines or digging out ivy or dollar weed or any number of other botanical pests, I invariably pull out something that I should have saved.  What has saved many a treasure is that weeds have a certain feel when you pull them out and if I begin to pull and it feels differently, I’ll stop and look before continuing.

There’s a lot of discussion about the definition of a weed but generally it’s a plant growing where you don’t want it to grow, or one that has overstepped the bounds of good behavior.  There are many plants that are perfectly wonderful horticultural specimens that I won’t have in my garden because they are simply too rambunctious and don’t know when to stop.  Mint is one great example, cleome is another.  Both will absolutely take over if you let them.

Probably the most invasive weed in the South is kudzu.  It was introduced from Japan in the early 20th century as a means of controlling erosion.  It is now the “plant that ate the South.”  But kudzu, with its truly beautiful flower, is a great example of the fact that something good can be found in every creature, except maybe cockroaches. Or those darn little maple-look-alikes.

You’ve probably been celebrating for days now, but I only just found out that August 6 – 12 is National Farmer’s Market Week!  Pour some (apple) cider!  Slice the (carrot) cake!

It’s actually no surprise that we’ve set aside a week to celebrate the popular farmers’ market. Summer farm markets are probably as old as humans themselves, but as a modern phenomenon they are also relatively new.  The growth of local farmer’s markets  (aka Green markets, Saturday markets, etc.) in the past ten years has been staggering.   In an age where you can order dinner, shop for groceries and get things delivered to your front door all on the computer, it’s refreshing to be some place where you see people face to face and a joy to actually meet the person who grows your food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to obtaining incredibly delicious food, There are many, many other reasons to shop at a neighborhood farmer’s market.

•  Fresh produce makes for healthier eating.
• You are returning money to the local economy
• You are supporting the “little guy,” independent farmers working to make a living.
• Most farmers at these markets are organic growers with ethical business practices.
• You are supporting sustainable environmental practices. 85% of the farmers who sell at these markets travel less than 50 miles to get there.

I don’t take a shopping list to the market.  For me, and for hundreds of people just like me, half the fun of shopping at our local Saturday market lies in the spontaneity of making choices based on what’s available.   How delightful it is to plan dinner based on what looks good and what’s available.  It makes for some interesting meals, particularly toward the end of the week, but that’s part of the challenge of buying locally produced food.

The produce you find should not be a complete surprise because the time of year dictates much of what’s available. So, when Sadie (my dog) and I walked to our local market on Saturday,  I was not surprised that this early August market was full of heat loving vegetables such as peppers, squashes and tomatoes as well as root vegetables such as onions and carrots.

 

Sometimes I’m not sure what to do with all the produce I get but this particular Saturday, I knew exactly how to use it.  My ten year old grandson, Rivers (who is an awesome cook!), wanted to make a carrot cake so I raided the “carrot patch” and brought home bundles of fresh, delicious carrots.  As good as they were, though, they couldn’t compare to a slice of the cake we put them in.  This is the best carrot cake recipe I know of.

Enjoy!

River’s Carrot Cake

• 2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tsp.  baking soda
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs (or egg substitute)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup light tasting olive oil or other vegetable oil
• 2 cups finely grated carrots
• 1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
• Optional:  1 cup nuts and raisins mixed.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients (except for sugars) together.  In another bowl, mix the egg, oil, vanilla and sugars.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and blend.  Add the drained pineapple and nuts and raisins, if using. Bake in two prepared round pans for 35 – 40 minutes or until done.  Let it cool before icing.

Frost with cream cheese icing (8 oz. cream cheese, 1 stick butter, 1 pound XXX sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla.  Blend and add enough milk to make the right consistency to spread evenly.)

OPTIONS:

If you want to make it vegan:  Use an egg substitute in the cake and make a vegan icing by using vegan cream cheese and no butter.

If you want to make it without granulated sugar, substitute honey (1 for 1) for the sugar in the cake and make a frosting out of 12 ounces of cream cheese, 1/4 cup maple syrup and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

 

 

 

 

There is nothing that makes a house looks more loved than a bundle of fresh flowers.  It doesn’t have to be elaborate or large, just a few weeds cut from the roadside and placed on a table make a loving statement.  Place a small vase with a single flower in the bathroom and
you’ve instantly created a new focal point.  Put a few sprigs of sweetly smelling flowers on the bedside table in the guest room and your guests immediately feel welcomed.

People tend to think that fresh flowers are only for parties or special occasions.  I think that a day without flowers is somehow lacking something.

Here, in Georgia, we’re lucky to have a long flowering season.   For me, the picking season begins in February with the first Lenten roses and ends ….well, come to think of it, I’m not sure it ends.  Even in winter, I’ll cut sprigs of cedar, spruce and ivy so that we have something living and green inside all the time.

But of course mid to late summer is the height of the cut flower season.  During this time of abundance, I can turn the grandkids loose in the garden with a pair of clippers and allow them to cut to their hearts’ content.

Although you can literally spend years perfecting the art of flower arranging (especially if you take up the art of Japanese Flower arranging) anyone can create bouquets for the house that will transform a room.

There are only a couple of rules and if you follow them, you’ll have beautiful, long lasting arrangements.

1.  Cut your flowers early in the morning when they are at their fullest and freshest and immediately put them in water.

2.  Keep plenty of water in your container during the lifetime of your arrangements.  Flower stems tend to soak up a lot of water so you might have to add water to the vase daily.

As for arranging the flowers, be kind to yourself and choose vases that are easy to work with.  Little mason jars, though not as elegant as Waterford crystal, make great containers for small arrangements, especially for gifts.  Unless you want your arrangement to look like a ball (and you might!) cut the stems different lengths to add a variety of heights.

If you’re not thrilled with your results, try one or more of these these fast and easy tips:

1.  Use a “filler”, something that takes up space and supports your flowers.  Greenery from your garden, such as stems of privet (it needs taking out anyway!) or evergreens such as pines, spruce or cedar are great fillers.  Store bought fillers include baby’s breath (the best!) or ferns.
2.  Try putting a rubber band around the bundle of stems to hold them together.  If they flop over, choose a container with a narrower mouth or put fillers around the stems.
3. If your colors don’t seem to go together, take the offending flowers out and use them in a different arrangement.  The wrong colors together can kill the beauty of a bundle of flowers.
4. Place flowers in small vases and group these together to make them look like a larger arrangement.
5. Instead of making one large arrangement for a dining room table, place small vases of flowers at each place setting.

 

My front porch is one of my favorite places on earth.  With white columns   and a row of rocking chairs, it is quintessentially southern.  I’m not alone in my love of a good porch.   For many of us, a porch symbolizes a stress free zone, a place where you can sit and talk or read, or just rock and enjoy the sound of the crickets singing in the darkness.

Porches are magic.  Neither in nor out, they offer the best of both worlds.  While sitting on the porch, I am not constantly reminded of tasks that need doing inside, nor can I see all the jobs that need doing outside.   Instead, I put my feet up and rock away the hours.

The author, Paulo Coelho wrote” A best friend is someone with whom you can sit on the porch, without a word, and then walk away with the feeling it was the best conversation that you ever had in your life.”

“Porch conversations” in my household are usually not the silent kind. My husband, Jack, and I eat dinner on the porch every night during the summer.  We often linger after eating, watching as daylight fades and fireflies dazzle one another (and us!) with their bright, blinking lights.  Sometimes we sit quietly, as Coelho’s best friends do, but usually we talk.  Having already caught up with the news of the day, we take this time to share thoughts and dreams, to muse and wonder aloud about things and ideas bigger than ourselves.

This summer, the grandkids discovered the fun of sitting on the porch telling jokes.  Each of us brings a list of jokes and riddles and we take turns telling them aloud.  It’s something that even the smallest children can participate in because  everyone loves a good joke.  We could do it inside the house of course, clustered around the dining room table or sitting in the family room. Somehow, though,  gathering on the porch, rocking in the rocking chairs with kids in laps and dogs at our feet sets just the right tone for sharing this time together.

Of course, being a plant-o-phile,  I can’t help but put as many plants as possible on the front porch.  During the summer my porch becomes a jungle as all my tropical houseplants get three or four months of fresh air and sunshine.  Most of them thrive and experience a huge growth spurt, making it a challenge to find room for them in the house in the fall.  But, I don’t mind, they all seem so happy outside, like kids at summer camp.

I have to admit that my porch plants will never win any beauty contests.  Most of them I keep for sentimental reasons.  I have a huge aloe plant from my mother, a basket of ferns from my son’s wedding, lucky bamboo that our children gave us the year Jack and I met, and Jack’s mother’s rabbit foot fern which won a prize at the Atlanta Flower Show 35 years ago.

The begonias are my “arithmetic” plants as every year they multiply and I divide. Each fall I  pot up little divisions to give away at Christmas.

Occasionally, we will have a front porch party and put out long tables, hang up Christmas lights and turn on soft music.  Sometimes I’ll wander down to the street and look back at my family gathered on the porch, talking, laughing, eating and just enjoying being together and I know that someday I might be tempted to sell our house but I will never, ever want to sell the porch.

There may be no better taste in the world than corn on the cob, fresh from the garden.  And the only time to get that is summer.  Right now.  This minute. Add a little butter, a dash of salt and you’ll soon have summer dripping off your chin.

Corn is undoubtedly North America’s most successful native plant.  U.S. produced more than 15 billion bushels of corn in 2016, at an estimated value of over $50 billion dollars. Most U.S. corn is used for animal feed.  The next greatest use is for making fuel.

Corn is an ancient plant, but the original cobs look quite different than they do today.  Originally, a corn cob was only about 2 – 3 inches long and held only 5 – 12

 kernels.  Today, cobs are 12 inches long and are crammed with 500 or so soft, delicious kernels.  Corn has been cultivated for 9,000 years and, even for ancient farmers, was easy to breed.  By the time Columbus arrived in the New World, it’s estimated that there were 200 – 300 different kinds of corn. Even though you might think that today we only have white, yellow, bicolor, pop and Indian corn (Halloween candy corn doesn’t count!)  the USDA holds samples of 19,780 different kinds of corn from around the world.

Corn is unique among domesticated crops in that it can no longer exist in the wild without the intervention of human hands. When a modern corn cob falls on the ground, so many kernels sprout all at once and competition is so fierce that none survive.

There are countless ways to eat corn.  Being born and bred Southern, my favorite is a Southern skillet corn.  Full of caramelized onions, bacon and fresh corn, it is a perfect accompaniment for summer suppers.  (recipe follows)

Corn husks have long been used for crafts, the most famous of which is corn shuck dolls.  These beautiful little creations are generally made from wide, strong dried shucks and can be quite elaborate.  If you want to do something fast and simple for a summer supper, just tie a long piece of green shuck around a napkin and add a fresh flower. Choose a piece of husk that’s thin enough to tie easily but not so thin it will break.

Oh, I promised you a corny joke, but first let me explain where that phrase comes from.  It actually dates back to the beginning of jazz. Songs or music (or jokes) that seemed trite or unsophisticated were called “corny,” referring to players who came from country corn fields and weren’t playing the newest songs (or telling the best jokes).

Ok, for the joke:  Do you know why corn is such a good listener?  It’s all ears.   Aww shucks, I told you it was corny.

Laura

Southern Skillet Corn

4 strips thick bacon

1 large onion, chopped

5 fresh ears of corn, kernels cut off the cob

1 (or more) tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon AP flour

1/2 cup milk (any kind!)

1/2 cup or more water

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Cut bacon into 2 inch slices and fry in a heavy iron skillet (or other frying pan.)   Remove bacon and reserve. Drain fat off and put back 1 1/2 tablespoons of bacon fat.   (If you have lean bacon that produces little fat, add enough butter to total 1  1/2 tablespoons).  Add chopped onions and saute on medium until onion is soft and beginning to caramelize. Leave the onions in the pan,  add one more tablespoon of butter and the corn kernels and saute about 10 – 12 minutes until corn and onion are both soft.  Add the flour and stir, then pour in the milk and stir until slightly thickened.  Add enough water to get the consistency you want. Salt and pepper to taste.  Right before serving, add the bacon pieces back in.

It’s  mid –July and my summer garden is in full bloom, or at least most of it.  There are surprises every year.  Things that have not done well in the past now look glorious and happy,  and vice versa, of course.

My garden is divided by the house.  In the front, I have almost full sun and a relatively formal hardscape to work with.  In the back, close to the house,  I have part sun (and glorious flowers!). In the way back, hundred year old oak trees provide a tremendous amount of shade and the flowers (and my gardening efforts) diminish perceptively.

Whenever I step into the back yard, where I spend most of my time, I shiver with pleasure.  The wildness immediately eases the stress of living in the city.  Birds and butterflies (not to mention squirrels and chipmunks) make it all seem very alive.  Except for a few caladiums at the back patio, the garden is planted with all perennials, meaning it is very low maintenance.  Wherever there is a bit of sun, phlox, purple coneflower, blackeyed Susans and bee balm provide crayon-like colors to the landscape.

Perhaps my favorite bed, though, is one with very few flowers.  Here, ferns, hostas, Japanese Solomon’s seal, ornamental grass and elephant ears provide interesting shades and textures for the entire season.  

I keep pushing the edges of the lawn in the back, each year expanding the number of flower beds.   I keep working with the soil, pouring in organic matter so that things will be happy in their new home. Even so, there are plants that are languishing.  I simply cannot grow Heucera.  I have all the right conditions,  it just won’t grow for me.  My astilbe is puny and produces few blooms.   I’m not sure why these plants won’t perform well for me.  Maybe it’s like meeting someone for the first time.  Even though you might have a lot in common and all indications are that you should be friends, nothing quite clicks and a friendship never develops. I have plenty of things (and friends!) that do click, so I’m happy, though I’ll keep trying new relationships – with plants and people!

 It was in the front garden that I had my first stumbling block this year.  A low brick wall flanks steps and a central walkway up to the house.  I always plant a mixed border here, taller perennials in the back, full, vibrant long lasting annuals in the front and I plant only white flowers to complement the house. Last year I planted annual white vinca and in the heat and drought of the 2016 summer, they did spectacularly well.  Not so in the rainy, extremely humid 2017 Atlanta summer.   I planted white vincas twice this year and finally gave up, putting in white pentas instead.  The problem is, I was really late getting them in and it will be late summer (if at all) that they look “vibrant.”  Timing is so important when gardening.  Annuals need a chance to put down roots and become comfortable before the stress of summer weather hits, whether it is heat and drought or high humidity. Fortunately, perennials, such as this white echinacea, are looking good.

 

The main front bed is, for the most part, doing really well.  White and pink phlox rise tall and straight against a background of white and pink carefree roses, which are now reblooming after a mid-June trim.  Autumn joy sedum is already showing color while pink dahlias and Asiatic lilies provide stunning points of interest.  I stuck a couple of vegetables in toward the back. I was late putting them in (again, bad timing!) and they are shaded by taller plants that got a head start on them.  To describe them as puny is being generous.

There are few rules in gardening and if you follow them, you’ll be successful. (1) Right plant in the right place (2) Enough moisture (3) Enough sunshine and (4) Enough nutrients from the soil.  But it’s not always that easy.  The vagaries of the weather, timing, and even “personalities” always make gardening a fascinating, sometimes humbling but always interesting experience.

Just have fun in your garden.  Appreciate what you can grow, shrug off what you can’t and enjoy being out of doors.  Let me know what works for you – and what doesn’t.

Laura

 

Step into my garden first thing in the morning and it will turn all a-flutter as birds, butterflies and bees take flight at this slight disturbance to their world. The baby wrens, safe in their nesting house though, don’t seem to notice. Sounding like groupies at a rock concert, they chirp and warble constantly, only erupting into raucous cries when rock star Mom appears with an insect.

It’s nesting season in our garden and this year we have an abundance of babies.  Wrens, robins and bluebirds are all nesting at the same time.  If you think human babies are demanding, just stand near a nesting box and listen for a few moments.  Human babies seem calm and quiet in comparison.

 

The male wrens are the nest builders.  They spend three days perfecting a nest then begin advertising for a female by singing in a nearby shrub or tree at the rate of up to 600 songs an hour. Females choose a mate based on the quality of the nest he builds. Even after a male has mated, he continues to look for nesting sites for another possible family and is not above stealing a nest from another bird.

 

Wrens are little birds, measuring only 4 – 5 inches long.  They weigh .35 – .42 ounces, about the same as 3 or 4 pennies.   Wrens eat a huge number of insects and most people like having them in their yards and gardens. Besides, it’s just fun to listen to their passionate greetings to an adult arriving with food.  It’s like kids when the pizza delivery guy gets to the door.

Bluebirds are the latest babies to arrive in the garden nursery.  Bluebirds prefer houses that are on the edge of the woods, facing a large open space such as a yard or field.  Many years ago, the blue bird population was in decline but thanks to the efforts of many different organizations who encouraged home owners to put up houses, western, mountain and eastern bluebird populations have increased dramatically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s easy to attract bluebirds to your yard.  If you put up a nest box, they will most likely come.  The boxes should be about 4 – 10 feet above the ground and have a hinged side for easy cleaning once the fledglings have flown the coop. The entrance hold should be 1 1/2 inches in diameter.  The floor should be 4″ x 4″ or 5″ x 5″.

Bluebirds usually lay between 2 – 7 eggs. Adult bluebirds measure 6.3 to 8.3 inches in length and weigh about .8 to 1.09 ounces – about the same as 10 pennies.

Mama Robin was thoughtful enough to build her nest right outside the family room window.  All the kids and grandkids watched from nest building to nest emptying as the fledglings took flight, though we missed the actual take off.  Robins generally lay 3 – 4 eggs.  The fledglings leave when they are about 13 days old.  

 

 

 

Robins eat different things during different times of the day.  For “breakfast” they usually eat worms (yes, the early bird gets it!).  Lunch and dinner consist of mostly fruit and berries. According to the Cornell Lab website, All About Birds, if robins eat too many tiny honeysuckle berries, they will actually get tipsy.  It makes me want to  open a bar called “The Tipsy Robin” and serve honeysuckle cocktails.  Adult robins are 7.9 – 11 inches long and weigh 2.7 ounces – about the same as 27 pennies, or almost three times the weight of a bluebird. 

I love having the garden brimming with life.  I like the flowers, of course, but there is something very satisfying about knowing that the garden is not merely decorative, but an intimate part of an ecosystem that provides all the right elements for bringing forth new life into this miraculous world.

Laura

Just for kids:

Birdseed “cookies”

You can make some cute cookies to hang outside for the birds (and squirrels!) You’ll need a cup of birdseed (millet, sunflower seeds, amaranth, etc.) and a cup of lard, shortening or natural peanut butter.  Mix this up with your hands.  Place wax or parchment paper on a cookie sheet, then put cookie cutters on top of this.  Carefully fill the cookie cutters.  Allow to dry for several hours, turn them over, poke a hole toward the top for hanging and continue to dry for another 3 – 4 hours until hard.  If you put them in the freezer or refrigerator, you can cut the time down dramatically.  Then hang them outside for your favorite birds!

 

For about three weeks during the summer as the blackberries ripen, I eat breakfast standing up in the garden.  Feeling only slightly guilty, I stuff blackberries into my mouth like a grizzly bear preparing for winter.

The sensation is exquisite.  The first taste is tart, then the rich, full juices release and my mouth floods with summer sweetness.

 My blackberry bushes (all two of them) are in my sunny front garden, tucked into the back closest to the house. Not only does this provide me with easy access for those sudden blackberry cravings, but it also allows the front of the garden to look more formal, in keeping  with my classically southern style house.  If it were completely up to me, I’d plant rows of corn and mounds of squash all the way out to the street, but I’m conscious of “keeping up appearances,” in the very best sense of the phrase.  Vegetable plants, though beautiful in the eye of the beholder, are chosen for production not beauty.  With a limited amount of sunny space in front of the house, it makes sense to put the more beautiful plants where they are seen most often.

The blackberry bushes are only two years old.  I planted them spring of last year and though they looked healthy, they did not bloom (and, obviously,  also did not fruit.)  But this year the canes began putting out leaves in early spring and they are now arching over my head.

Hard experience with growing other fruits taught me that competition from the birds if fierce.  A net over the bushes has dramatically reduced this problem and, at the height of the harvest season, I have enough to pick bowls full of berries to use and share.

Though eating the berries warm off the vine is a spectacular way to enjoy blackberries, a very good alternative  is to mix them with sliced peaches, pour in a little maple syrup and serve over the world’s best pound cake (recipe below).  Top with a little ice cream and you have summer in a bowl.  Enjoy!!    

 Sally Lou’s Pound Cake

Sally Lou was the Martin family housekeeper, but like many women of her day and age, she was also nanny, cook, friend and soul mate for members of the family.  It took years for her to actually “remember”  all the ingredients for this recipe.  I offer it here to you with the love and longing for Sally Lou.  It is the world’s best pound cake recipe!

3 sticks butter                              1 teaspoon baking powder

3 cups sugar                                  1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring

3 cups flour                                   1 teaspoon almond flavoring

1 carton sour cream (8 oz.)        6 eggs, separated

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Thoroughly cream butter and sugar.  Add the egg yolks one at a time.  Add flavorings and mix well.  Mix together flour, baking powder and salt.  Add one cup of dry mixture to the butter and sugar and blend,  then 1/2 cup sour cream and blend.  Repeat until all the flour mixture has been used, mixing well after each addition. Beat the egg whites until fluffy but not dry.  Fold into the batter, mixing carefully.  Pour into large bundt or tube pan and bake for one hour or until cake tester comes out clean.  Cool upside down on a wire rack.  This freezes really well!

*Time saver tip:  Although separating the eggs makes an exquisite, light, fluffy cake, it is almost as good when you just add the eggs whole.

 

 

I love wildflowers.  They make me happy just to look at them. Therefore, it’s not surprising that I have planted a multitude of wildflowers right outside my back door.  But what, really did I plant?  Are these plants wild? naturalized? indigenous? Are they weeds?  There’s a lot of terminology and it can be pretty confusing.  For general purposes, I consider a native plant to be a plant that grows in a place where it first evolved.  

You could argue, of course, that my back yard is not the “place” where these plants evolved and you’d be absolutely right.  But evolving “in the neighborhood” is close enough for me.  There are purists in the gardening world who only grow plants indigenous to a specific region.  I applaud their ambitions but  I’m more casual and eclectic in my choice of flowers and my landscape is a blend of native Southern plants and cultivated varieties from all over the world. Solomon Seal arches over Siberian iris.  Bee balm blooms side by side with English roses and summer phlox makes pink exclamation points against a bank of Asiatic lilies.

My first priority is the beauty of the garden.  But beauty is only one reason (though, in my opinion, the best!) to grow native plants.  Other reasons?

• They are already adapted to your growing region
• They attract native pollinators
• They help preserve the natural ecology of an area

Just because a plant is native to your region does not mean that it will thrive anywhere you put it, though.  You still have to know what a plant likes  (sun? shade? rich, well drained soils? lots of moisture?) to be able to give it the conditions it needs. 

There are generalizations that can be made.  For the most part, woodland wildflowers bloom in spring and like slightly acidic, well drained soils that are rich in organic matter.  Most woodland spring flowers are low growing, small and delicate and include beauties such

as bloodroot, trillium, green and gold, woodland phlox, dwarf crested iris, Solomon’s Seal.  Ferns and shrubs such as native azaleas (deciduous), mountain Laurels and oak leaf hydrangeas should also be a part of a woodland spring garden.

Sun loving natives, in general, bloom in Summer.  They are hardier, bigger and more exuberant than their ephemeral spring cousins and will thrive and bloom in soils that are drier and not as rich as woodland soils.  These include bee balm, purple coneflowers, black eyed Susans, summer phlox and calendula.  Fall wildflowers need similar conditions and include goldenrods and asters.

Growing native plants is really just like growing any other kind of plant, just more fun! (My personal opinion!)  All of the natives mentioned here are perennials, saving you the time, money and effort it takes to buy and plant annuals every year.   So, give them a little TLC when they’re babies, help them get established and put down some good roots and they will repay you with years of color, beauty and joy.

For Kids!

Summer blooming wildflowers are usually abundant enough to pick and do something with.  Here are a few ideas:

1.  Pick some flowers, leaves, and even roots to make your own fantastic creatures.  Just glue them items to a piece of paper, using petals for a skirt, leaves for arms, roots for hair, etc.
2. Use brightly colored petals and rub them on white paper to make colored marks.  You can use yellow petals to make a sun, blue petals to make a sky, real dirt to make dirt and lots of green petals to make trees or grass or whatever.
3. Pick a handful of beautiful flowers with long stems.  Bring them in and put them in a jar of water, cutting the stems until they are the right length.  If you don’t have enough flowers to fill the mouth of the jar and your flowers flop to one side, pick small branches or vines or something to fill in the sides.  Have fun.

I have a small confession to make. I have a hydrangea shrub that I planted about 10 years ago

– and it’s still less than two feet tall.  It looks more like a ground cover than a shrub.  This year it has a whopping 3 blossoms on it! No, it’s not a miniature, though it is small. It’s simply not getting what it needs to thrive. It’s a great example of survival vs. thrival (? is that a word?) In any case, it’s thrival rate is about zero. Of course I could move it, put it in a sunnier spot in better soil, but the optimist in me keeps thinking that this year will be the year for it to thrive. Not yet….

I love hydrangeas, even my little stunted, non-thriving one. They bridge the gap between May roses and the summer perennials and fill in the shady spots where early blooming azaleas began the garden season.

My favorites are two ‘Vince Doolie’s’ (named after University of Georgia’s famed football coach / gardener) that my son, Dave, gave me on Moth
er’s Day several years ago. These babies are thriving and heavily laden with big balls of intense blue. I also have a couple of lace-caps, which are more natural looking and fit into the back woodsy landscape seamlessly. This is also where I grow a few oak leaf hydrangeas, transplanted from my childhood home in Sandy Springs, Georgia. In the front, sunny garden, the white hydrangeas provide a cool backdrop for the phlox, beebalm and daylilies that are beginning to bloom.

Hydrangeas will thrive in well drained soils where they receive (preferably) morning sun and afternoon shade. They don’t like to be planted under trees where the roots compete for moisture. All of this explains why my 10 year old is so scrawny and why I should move it. This year.

It’s best to plant new hydrangeas in spring or fall, but if you are transplanting one, wait until it is dormant. They like a fair amount of moisture and are not shy in telling you when they are thirsty. They simply go limp when they are not getting enough to drink.

It is true that you can change the color of a hydrangea blossom by changing the soil. It is also true that it’s not particularly easy to do it. Judith King, on her excellent website HydrangeasHydrangeas.com, says that the keyis aluminum. If you want a pink bloom, you need to take aluminum OUT of the soil. If you want a blue one, you want aluminum IN the soil. Plants take up aluminum best at a low PH so altering the acidity of the soil is also necessary. Judith suggests that if you’re determined to change a blossom color that perhaps the easiest way to do this is to grow it in a pot where you have more control over the composition and acidity of the soil. One more word about changing blossom colors – a white hydrangea will always be a white hydrangea.

Bringing hydrangea blossoms inside is easy – just cut, put in a vase full of water and enjoy, at least for a day or two before they begin to wilt. Although there are many different suggestions for drying hydrangea blossoms, the only one that works unfailingly, is to wait until they begin to dry, then cut and arrange. Once they feel crisp to the touch, you can pick them and put them in a vase – and you don’t even need water! They will last a very long time before turning brown if you pick them just at the right time.

Every winter, when hydrangea leaves drop and leave bare branches, I promise myself that I will plant more azaleas instead of more hydrangeas. But every June, when those balls of incomparably beautiful blue, pink and purple begin to bloom, I know that my love affair with hydrangeas will continue. Even for that scrawny little ten year old.