Holland

This Summer I was very lucky & with permission from the Garden Time gang, I went off on vacation to The Netherlands or as most of us call it - Holland. My family converged on my niece's house in Amsterdam. Not only was I seeing my sister & her family, but my Mom was along too.
Family & gardens what a combo. We had a blast!
Holland is a kind of the holy place for gardeners as it's where so much plant breeding is done today. It's also the birthplace of plant geeks. Tulipmania happened in 1637. Tulips were the newest flower in Holland brought there from Turkey. The wealthy class had to have the beautiful new flower bulbs & there was a spending spree. Where else in the world would tulips sell for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman of the time.
The bottom of the market eventually fell out. Another flower probably turned their heads.
Unfortunately, it is not tulip flower time in August but bulbs were for sale everywhere.
Someday, I hope to visit Keukenhof Gardens in April & see the 5 Million, yes 5 Million blooming tulips.
Holland is a wonderful country to visit in the summer.
It reminds me of Oregon with it's very green landscape & varied crops growing across the countryside.
On farms, canals are used for irrigation water. The beautiful windmills of The Netherlands were used to pump this water, mill grain & keep the sea at bay. There are few original windmills left in rural areas. We visited an historic village called Zaanse Schans that had several working windmills.
Amsterdam reminds me of Venice, Italy as there are canals everywhere.
The canals were the roadways of earlier days. Now they are for tourist boats
and resident's houseboats. How cool but to live on a canal in the heart of Amsterdam on a boat.
These houseboats are as varied as houses on a regular street.
There are brown & green, new & old houseboats and even floating wooden shoes.

My favorite houseboats were the ones that had gardeners aboard.
The craving to garden even hits these water dwellers.
Most house boats had a container of geraniums or potted palm. Many houseboats had whole flower beds.

There were even the busy gardener's bed of weeds. I felt at home!
My family was very patient with me & let me visit gardens and garden centers. I will have a few more blogs and photos in the next few weeks.
Take care,
Judy

Small Space Veggie Recap

Way back in May, I planted a mini-veggie garden in a hanging basket and herbs in containers. I was into small space gardening at the time and those containers were the space I had.
I have vegetable garden envy with William's beautiful garden. I know he blogged how disappointed he was with the production but it was still a work of art in my mind. (He's a perfectionist!)
I planted a Cherry tomato, leaf lettuce and onions in the hanging basket. The lettuce turned out great as it was cool and kind of shady where my garden hung. I used the leaves for sandwiches & a few salads. I just stepped out my patio door & clipped the leaves. The lettuce grew back a few times until the heat of June became too much for it. It was very easy & convenient.
The tomatoes & onions were more challenging. In June, the temperatures were up & down. That is hard on heat loving vegetables like onions & tomatoes. That patio did not get a sun until about 2PM but it was intense afternoon sun. I thought the PM sun, reflective heat off the cement & small container would equal out the shorter duration of sun. My experiment had not panned out as I had hoped. The tomato plant was just not very fruitful. I fertilized, watered & also trimmed off extra foliage to help produce more fruit. I got few tomatoes but they were very tasty. I was glad of that. The onions were OK as green onions. I had not expected them to grow too large as there was not much space.
The herbs fared much better. I planted Rosemary, Italian Parsley, Basil and Chives. Even though these are herbs that do well in the sun, they grew well on the patio. I think foliage plants do not need as much sun as fruit producing plants need. Well, Duh?
I think it was a good experiment. I was entertained most of the summer and enjoyed the
Cherry Tomatoes as they ripened. I went to the local farmer's market to feed my tomato addiction.
That was always a fun excursion. There is nothing like vine ripened tomatoes and Summer is not the same without them.
I agree with William about the trials & tribulations of vegetable gardening. We gardeners have good years & not so good years. We work with whatever space we have available.
Whatever your success or failure was, try again next year.
That's the fun of it!

Take care,
Judy

PS The photo is from Mid-July

Senior Gardening Day

Many of you may know that I am the store director of Portland Nursery on Division St.
Every year we have a Senior Gardening Day. Hundreds of senior citizens from all over are bused in and many that do not live in assisted living homes come in as well. It is a day filled with laughter, music, food and fun. For many, it is the only time a year that they get out. Seniors tend to get a bad wrap in our society. Many think that all of them are crotchety and mean. If that is true…there is no sign of it on this day at our store. Smiles are as ubiquitous as sand at the beach. There is dancing and conversation and remembering more youthful times in their gardens. It is very heart warming to be a part of as it both honors me and humbles me at the same time.
As everything in my life makes me reflect on nature, I couldn’t help thinking this year during the festivities how very connected to nature each one of us are, whether we realize it or not. For the people that live a long time life must be much like an oak tree. It starts out so small but as time passes, such strength and stamina abound and before you know it there is a behemoth tree in front of you that certainly will eventually pass on but for this moment in time, withstands everything that life can throw at it.
It is always with excitement that I listen to someone’s tale of their youth, what vegetables they used to plant or ‘wicked’ little tales of fruits stolen from some neighbor’s yard, only to become sick on the bounty from eating too many or ones that were not ripe enough.
Yes, we humans and our gardens are inexorably tied together, for better or worse.
If you have parents or grandparents still around you, ask them about some tales from their youth. Plant those seeds so that you can, in turn tell your tales eventually. Or perhaps donate a bit of your time to work in an assisted living home. They will appreciate it completely and what you grow will be as beautiful as anything nature has to offer.
Whatever you do, do it with the vigor of nature, because even a lifetime can go by too quickly…
Happy Gardening,
William

Veggie-blues

I was very disappointed with my vegetable garden this year. After a harrowing winter...spring and summer were not all that much kinder. As I walked thought my veggie garden today I was so frustrated. Powdery mildew, poor quality tomatoes, cucumbers and squash, peppers? I shouldn't even planted them this year!
As I was whining in my own mind about the dismal display in front of me, I was ok, as I knew that none of this was my fault. I can not control nature and nature was the major component of my less than admirable veggie garden.
And all of a sudden I thought, "I have done this for decades...I know it's nothing to do with my abilities" However, this year saw so many new gardeners trying their hand at home veggie gardens. And I have heard so many complaints about the lack of success with people's veggie garden this year. So I thought, I should blog about this and encourage people to not give up!
There are simply going to be years when veggie and other gardening attempts will not do well. It's just life. But when everything comes together...on those years...watch out. Because the success will go directly to your head. But then we have a year like this and everything comes into balance again. Nothing brings balance to us humans like Mother nature.
So if your gardens have been less than you expected...do not lose hope. It happens to the best of us!
Happy Gardening,
William

Big changes

Many of you are wondering about the recent announcement that Garden Time TV is moving to KOIN Local 6, in fact some of you may have noticed that you can watch the show on both channel 6 and channel 12. I can fill you in on some of the reasons for the move to KOIN. Gustin Creative Group, the producers of Garden Time, also puts together the Fusion TV show. Fusion is a home improvement, home design and cooking show that recently had a 13 week run on KOIN Local 6 during the spring. KOIN approached GCG about having Fusion return for the fall. We were very interested in having the show back on the air and we also wanted to have both Garden Time and Fusion together. Both KPTV and KOIN wanted the shows, and after negotiations we decided that KOIN was a better fit for us. KPTV has been a GREAT partner for us during the past 3+ years, in fact, producer/owner Jeff worked there for over 18 years and so it was a hard decision to make.
The key thing to remember is that the shows are products of my company and the decision to move them around is not the stations, but mine (i.e. if you have complaints, send them to me). Starting on the 12th of September you will be able to watch Fusion and Garden Time back to back from 8-9 am every Saturday morning. It will be a one-stop place for all your home and garden questions. We hope you understand and continue to support Garden Time, Fusion and the clients who make both shows possible. We look forward to being your local choice for home and garden information for years to come.

Jeff
Garden Time and Fusion
Producer/Owner

Bring out your dead…

Although it has been a long time coming, I finally have the time to write about plants that died this winter…just in time to write about the ones that are now struggling with summer heat.
Which brings up an interesting question I had someone ask me the other day…”Are the zones that you see on plants as important when the go higher as when the are lower?” And the answer is…Yes. But more on that later.
This last winter was difficult at best. For gardeners in the northwest that are accustomed to a temperate year round climate, the horrific cold we had this winter really tested the limits of plants and gardeners alike.
My original thought was to give a list of plants that had died, tell you which ones I replaced and why and which I gave up on. But quite frankly the list was far too long. So I decided to write about a few that either really saddened me by their demise or ones that truly surprised me as to why they did not make it.
The first and most surprising to me was my Ceanothus. This lovely evergreen shrub had actually become a small tree. Having been in for several years I did not think twice about it not surviving…however, it did not. Other smaller and more newly planted species did but not my Ray Hartman. I did do a hard prune on it last year but it had already begun a healthy amount of re-growth. So my analysis is that because I had pruned it so hard it had less protection from the winter’s harsh weather and thus the added stress caused it to expire…much to my chagrin. I replaced it with a beautiful variety of Eucalyptus.
Another plant that caused me great consternation was a South African shrub that for the life of me can’t remember, nor find, the name! It was planted four years ago and was not suppose to be hardy here. The evergreen leaves were delightfully fragrant. As it had survived for so long I was confident it would make it. And it did…until a month ago. New growth had sprung abundantly from it and I thought,’ wow…this puppies gonna make it”. It didn’t. I noticed three weeks ago the new leaves were wilting. With in a few more days they were completely flat against the stems. The only explanation for this I can come up with is that the plant had stressed too much, lost the majority of its root system and even though it started to grow, it did not have the roots to accommodate and sustain new growth. I dug it up and shed a silent tear…I replaced it with nothing as it was a very full bed anyway. I would try it again if I can ever find its name in my plant name cookie jar. Yep, I keep all my tags in a cookie jar.
I was very saddened by the loss of my Chamaecyperis ‘blue surprise’. Fortunately I have two and only one expired. I for the life of me can’t figure out why. You may have heard that these plants were not terrible hardy in the sense of their root systems but the growers did come up with a new grafted one that does seem to hold up better. Both of these were that newer kind. And as only one died and one survived just fine…I got nothing on what happened.
Coleonema pulchrum is a tropical feathery small shrub with wonderful fragrance. The blooms, which are nice too, do not have so much fragrance but brush by the foliage and…wow. My entire hedge of these beautiful plants died. They had been in for about 4 years, I put in wax leafed begonias for this year because I really want to replace Coleonema but have not decided if it is worth the risk yet.
So as not to end on a sad not I wanted to tell you of a few fantastic surprises. My Buddleia ‘Kews Red’ which I thought was dead for sure came back from the roots. I am especially thrilled about this because all Buddleias are quickly becoming illegal to sell in Oregon as some people believe it is extremely invasive as it can reseed prodigiously in the right environment.
Also, Colquhonia coccinea, leafed out very late spring. I was almost certain this woody member of the salvia family would not make it, but much to my pleasant surprise it did. It has such soft grey green leaves that are eclipsed in beauty only buy the salvia shaped, large orange-red blooms in summer.
So there you have it. More importantly than anything else to me is that new gardeners realize that ALL of us have success and failures every year. Even though I have been in this game many, many seasons, each season is fraught with new experiences. Some make me sad as I see plants I adore vanish silently into oblivion. Other experiences bring me ecstatic pleasure as I realize…’you made it, Yeah!’ And it is always eventually big fun to find and try new plants, testing the water with some and having a certainty with others, for success.
Whatever your proclivity for gardening, keep trying. It will always reward you with some experience that will, as you help your garden grow, help you grow as well.
Happy Gardening,
William

Happy 4th of July

For some, summer began on Memorial Day, others when school finished! But for a small group the 4th of July is the true beginning of summer. Why? Because it only starts getting hot in July. And boy has it gotten hot! The heat has chased everyone out of the kitchen. So to the grill we go! We have finished about half our shows for this 4th season and we often mark the half way point with a stop at Gartner’s Meats.

Short ribs, chicken and kabobs are in the freezer and ready for a quick dinner. Don't forget the twice baked potatoes! We have spent most of the spring working in the garden (or shooting stories for the TV show). Time to relax, before we start working on the next series of shows. I’ll be planning the next show after I finish eating…

We also would like to remember Jack Gartner who passed away just a few weeks ago. What a great businessman and a nice gentleman.

Jeff
Garden Time Producer