Growing up in *the* Garden

In my grand mental list of possible Blog topics, I have "write about the Missouri Botanic Garden", and "tell people about the great plant database MOBOT provides". However, as I looked through pictures last evening, I realized that I had a photo essay of my son growing up within The Garden.

The Garden, with emphasis upon "the", is how I always thought of the botanic garden. I was a member, frequently took classes, and made a point of trying to visit in all seasons each year for inspiration. A gem in the city center of St Louis, MO. The Missouri Botanic Garden or MOBOT, along with the zoo, Forest Park/The Muny, the City Museum and a few garden centers/nurseries are the things I miss about living in greater St. Louis. While I frequently say it is not a place I want to live again, these are places I will go back to visit again and again over the years.

However, the real beauty and value of MOBOT is the draw for the both the gardener and non-gardener alike, young or old. Visit any June weekend, and you will see bridal party after bridal party doing photo shoots around the grounds; families walking the grounds, photographers looking for the perfect shot, couples strolling arm in arm oblivious to their surroundings. A hodge podge of people there for a hodge podge of reasons.

We first visited when my son was not quite two, and moved to Milwaukee when he was 8. Over our many visits, he developed some favorite areas of the garden. The Kemper Center was a first favorite. This area with it's test garden, urban gardens, expanse of perennials is the spot within The Garden to bring the grandeur and splendor of the whole botanic garden down to the scale of the typical home landscape. It provides a help desk for both the homeowner frustrated with lawn care or the avid gardener with tomato blight. But for a child it also provides some great interactive fountains to captivate the young ones and draw them into the garden.


The grouping of stone sheep became a favorite photo stop on our visits. Funny how in the first visit, he is on the small sheep, but on the New Years Day visit with his big sis, had progressed to the full size version.



As he grew, other areas of the garden began to draw my son. The Victorian maze was a must visit spot.

The koi in the Japanese garden with their giant mouths brought smiles to both of us. And a requirement that I came prepared with quarters for the fish food machine!

The advantage to me was I never had to beg him to visit the garden. If I needed a bit of inspiration, a dose of beauty, or just a calming walk through this familiar place, at any age, my son jumped at the chance to accompany me. And this was before they built the actual "children's garden". A little bit of icing on the cake.


Finding this photo journey of my son's growth while we lived in St Louis has been great. Even better this reminder of him with his beloved "Papa", my Dad, who died from prostate cancer in December 2006, 5 months to the day after this photo was taken. One of the last days together before we knew how sick he was. How appropriate the day was spent in one of our favorite places!

Mommy and me: A garden play date

Sorry if you were hoping to read about children in the garden. Ok, yeah, that is one mis-leading title. Saturday was a planned garden date with my Mom and I...but not exactly a play date. Instead a day spent on the "Secret Garden Tour" hosted by Four Seasons Garden Club of Kenosha, WI. A tour of 6 private gardens most in the Pleasant Prairie/Carol Beach area. The day was perfect, rain had been threatened, but by 11 when I met Mom, the sun was out, low humidity, upper 70's...a beautiful Wisconsin day. All the gardens were enjoyable, some more than others. The plant snob in me didn't have much to see, but each garden sparked ideas in me. Overall I found several themes between the gardens...the importance of sitting areas within a garden space, the added interest containers can bring throughout a yard / garden, the importance of whimsy, and how the use of water features takes a garden to another level.

The light was not ideal to take a picture of this grouping of three wooden barrel planters each with a trellis to give height. the perfect solution to hiding a work area behind a garage.


Several gardens used non-traditional planting "containers"




Others used excellent plant combinations or groupings of containers



All six gardens had great sitting areas...a couple of my favorites:




This very impressive, very large water feature included one of the best looking bio-filter, natural rock filtering areas I've seen.



I found this use of a garden ornament to highlight and echo the colors of the plants to be very compelling.



It was a very enjoyable way to spend the day, just Mom and I. Made even better by a lunch al fresco at the Kenosha Yacht Club watching the boats go by. And of course, a bit of dreaming about a house on this empty lot with this view...where you could be anywhere.



Thanks Mom for the invite, great day. Love you.

Secrets to my success.....

A question I often received from my neighbors was how did my hanging baskets, container plantings, pots, etc. always look so good. While I'm sure the use of good potting soil, supplemented with additional organic material such as fine compost, along with ample doses of a semi-organic fertilizer like Epsoma's Flower-Tone helped, the real secret was water....and plenty of it. I learned quickly that in the heat of summer, particularly as the pots filled out and the plants became lush that the pots needed water at least once a day. Maybe twice.

And in our two-career busy family that presented a problem.....which was easily resolved by the use of a battery operated watering timer and plenty of drip irrigation and tubing. In fact if you look at my last post, that Louisville deck was during the time my son was an infant...to two careers plus an infant = must have automatic watering system. Some of the supplies I'd find locally, but a great on-line source is DripWorks. I was even able to find some white supply tubing to use around the inside of the front porch. Here's early spring with the lines still mostly in their winter rolled up spot, and then snaked down with the chains to the hanging baskets..


I used the 1/2 supply lines in most places with the lines to the pots using 1/4 tubes and emitters. I also discovered 1/4 soaker hose that worked very well...almost better (and cheaper) than the emitters. When we put in the patio, I ran a supply line with the 1/2 tubing along the edge, just under the mulch. New sidewalks always had a 3" or so piece of PVC pipe laid under to allow supply line/hoses under the sidewalk. In this set of photos you can see first an early spring shot of an empty pot with a 1/4" soaker hose circle, then a late summer shot where it is hard to even notice the supply line.


I even ran supply lines out to some of the garden beds for containers placed within beds. Each of the posts in the photo below had a 1/4" supply line with a drip emitter in each pot.


At the last house, I had two systems set up, one on each side of the house, each with a two outlet timer - this allowed four unique plant groupings (some with 15-20 pots) each on their own schedule. My only real worry was that the battery would go dead, or an emitter would clog or blow off. However, I took enough walks through to enjoy the garden that problems were easily nipped in the bud so to speak.

Don't need no stinking land.......

Look closely at the picture to the left. Looks like a nice shot of a border bed, doesn't it. Wrong! It's actually on my deck. You can see the wood slats, and if you look real carefully at about the middle along the left edge, there's the hint of a clay pot. One of the lessons I learned from that first fire escape "garden" was the value of masses of pots to create gardens. Wish I had pictures of that fire escape. From memory the flowers were fairly pedestrian, petunias, violas, my beloved moss roses, whatever I could get at the convenience store in our neighborhood which sold plants each spring. I hadn't learned to mix plants in a pot, that i could grow herbs, veggies, the tropicals/tender perennials, and even actual perennials in these container gardens.

More shots from the same deck. This was my Louisville home, the transition garden between life on the farm and my new life. A home with a nice deck, but little yard. While I wasn't yet digging in the dirt to start a new garden, I couldn't resist the masses of plants.....some I'd moved with me when I left my former life....others purchased anew. A mix of annuals, tropicals - the dramatic cannas to the gawky but yummy smelling night blooming jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum). Coleus played a large role, as did herbs, esp lavender, rosemary, grown more for their scent than any other use.




When we did move on, and build our house outside St Louis, I continued this practice of massing pots. On the driveway to hide the air conditioning unit...



One each corner of the patio...........



At this new Milwaukee house, I'm just starting to feel my way around the garden. Unsure where to take this one. Did plant the couple of wooden barrels the old owners had left behind. One to herbs, the other to a more decorative mix. The first thing I've noticed from my earlier gardens is how the cooler temps, esp. nights, have slowed the plant growth. The plants are settling in, but not growing to the abundance I expected. I know, with time it will come...really hoping posting these pics below the ones above, will shame these plants to grow...esp. you 'Black Magic' Colocasia...you are supposed to be the tall focal point here..please take note of the one above by the air conditioner. I've got my eye on you, and that is more what I am expecting!