Is Gardening Coming Back to TV?

Last night I watched a documentary about gardening on CBC TV called Gardening Confidential. It was a whole one hour long! It was full of neat little snippets about all kinds of gardens, tips, tools etc. If you didn’t watch it, check out the web site http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/confidential/garden.html to see what you missed.

I miss the good old gardening shows. Remember when HGTV was the channel to tune in to for ‘Gardener’s Journal’ with Kathy Renwald, ‘Mark Cullen Gardening’ (is that what it was called?), ‘Gardening by the Yard’ with Paul James, and the british show ‘Ground Force’ and many more? Then something happened and fewer and fewer aired and they were replaced by home decorating, renovating and real estate shows. Oh yeah, and the get organized shows. Sure there was the odd garden design or makeover show but they were not the same. I remember reading in a forum a gardeners take on this - she said something about losing the G in HGTV!” I agree.

Another favourite, ‘Recreating Eden’ apparently airs on Vision TV but when I have remembered to tune into watch it’s not on when the schedule says it should be. It continues to be produced and if they were available on DVD, I would buy the seasons I haven’t seen yet.

So I was pretty excited to see this new show and am thankful for all of the excellent gardening web sites and blogs – without them a gardener could get a little stir crazy!

Do you know of any good gardening shows currently on TV?

Regards,
Shirley

For the Record

I am finally putting the finishing touches on my plant inventory. Of course it will need updating on a regular basis if I continue adding plants to my gardens (which is inevitable). And I am still tweaking it (will I ever not be?) Here is a page from it - not the best picture but hopefully you get the idea.

I have to say that this exercise has been educational. I added more detail about each plant using the internet as a reference (so I could copy and paste). Suddenly I became aware that the original list which I had started several years ago, included misspelled plant names and very little detail. It was more like a partial record of plants and where each had been planted. Well, I move plants around so often I decided to scratch that information and add real plant info instead. I found the following 2 sites helpful because they had information about so many of the plants that I have and were more or less easy to copy and paste into my list.

http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantinfo.shtml

This service contains information on the over 3500 herbaceous perennials, shrubs, vines and trees which are currently growing or have been grown in the 23 demonstration gardens at the Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center for Home Gardening.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/

Welcome to PlantFiles, the largest plant database in the world with 161,860 entries, 176,719 images and 86,284 comments. Currently entries are from 388 families, 4,649 genera, 38,628 species, and 100,564 cultivars.

This site also includes the pronunciation for the botanical names so I have decided to further update my list to include the pronunciations for the 178 plants I have listed so far. Yes, I have a giant task ahead of me.

For the plants that couldn't be found on either of these sites I searched (and searched, and searched) other sites. Most of the pictures used are mine but I did copy a few from the sites I visited. These will be replaced once I have taken the pictures needed this summer. Perhaps all of this searching, typing and pasting caused the injury to my left bilateral tendon which put me in such pain I had to see my doctor. Couldn't lift my arm to type for a couple of days but am on the mend now with the help of an anti-inflammatory and physio-therapy. Gotta get back in shape for the gardening season to come!

While I was searching for plant info I came across this most amazing site on clematis and other climbing vines and have added it to my favourite links.

http://www.clematis.com.pl/wms/wmsg.php/15.html

There is so much information and well designed - I won't try to describe it - check it out for yourself.

So you see, between updating my plant inventory list and posting to this blog, I have been forced to learn new things and re-learn all the things I had forgotten. I feel a little like I am back at school. And that kind of makes me feel younger.

Regards,

Shirley

White's Okay But I Long For Colour

I want the snow to go away now.

I want to see the colours in the garden again.

Good Weather - Will Travel

I went to see my daughter on the weekend. I miss her and have been trying to plan a trip (she's a couple of hours away) but there always seems to be a winter storm on it's way to ruin my plans. While I was there I tagged along with her and her boyfriend to view 5 houses - they have been house hunting for their first home.

Okay, so also while I was there, list of materials, Canadian Gardening magazine in hand and daughter beside me, I set off to purchase the supplies needed to do the garden shed reno. I haven't been to an Ikea store for so long it's shameful. They serve breakfast for a buck so we added that to our adventure. My daughter loves Ikea and is familiar with the "process" of shopping there. Everytime we found an item that would have to be picked up in the self serve warehouse, she would write down the info. I couldn't have done it without her. Well maybe I could have but wouldn't have had as much fun and definitely wouldn't have made it back to the pre-arranged house viewing at 12:30 (which we did with 5 minutes to spare - impressive).

I am happy to say that they really liked the house so while I was driving home, they were putting an offer together and later that evening I got the call that their offer had been accepted. It has a beautiful back yard with 2 mature blue spruce and a few deciduous trees (which we haven't idenified yet) - good bones. Ample space for gardens. My daughter has been gardening in containters on the balcony of their condo so now she can really down and dirty diggin in the dirt.

Now when I am dividing or buying plants, I will be thinking of my daughter. Will this be a good starter, low maintenance plant? Will she like it? Don't want to overwhelm her with a lot of fussy plants that won't last and turn her off gardening. Besides, with work and possibly babies to come, she won't have the time. Did I say babies? Oh oh, I am in trouble now.

My son also bought a house and will be taking possession in a few weeks. He is going to be here in Kincardine, but says I am not touching his yard. It also has mature trees and a tall cedar hedge surrounding the property. A gardeners paradise. He has (jokingly I'm sure) said he will put up an iron gate to keep his garden obsessed mother out. I know he'll mellow out some day and let me in. In the meantime, I will keep a spare set of gardening tools in the truck for when I drop by.

Until then, I will wait for the snow to melt so I can start the garden shed reno and clean up the gardens. I think it's going to be a good year.

Bits and pieces added to the garden

While browsing my pictures I came across these - objects that make the garden interesting.

Craig's old work boots filled with hens & chicks have been hanging
around for years.

Craig put turtle and froggy (not shown) spinklers on a piece of flagstone on top of posts. They sit more or less above the plants in the vegetable garden and provide a fine mist to young seedlings.

Bunny on guard. The person who sold me this thought it was a kangaroo - we call it rabbiroo.

This bird bath sits near the patio so we can watch the birds use it.

Robin's eggs

Stone path is pretty and practical.

One of many feeders.

Face carved in wood to watch over the garden.

Magazine Stand

It feels like I have been waiting for ever for new issues of my favourite gardening magazines to arrive on the stands. Finally they appeared – all at once! Within the last week I purchased two Canadian Gardening and one Gardening Life magazines plus a few others (6 in total – I went a little crazy!). I know I should subscribe, at least to my two favorites, and I will, someday. This time of year I really start thinking and planning for the season to come and it never fails that I find inspiring ideas in magazines.
I have stacks and stacks of them – they are an essential learning tool. I keep them and look at them over and over; although I clipped pictures and articles out of some of the older ones to put in my “binder of gardening ideas” and used some for mod podging – then recycled the chopped up magazines. These days I am more particular about which ones I buy (and I should be as I am running out of space to store them all!)

My “binder of gardening ideas” is filled with magazine clippings of gardens and ideas, and with information on pests, pest control, growing, “how to make” articles, and most important, plant tags. The cover is mod podged with clippings from magazines and graphics that I printed.

While perusing the newly purchased magazines, I discovered another way to spend some time and money. Why not overhaul my garden shed? Actually, it makes perfect sense to me. As soon as the snow melts I plan to organize my little (I mean little, at only 6' x 3') garden shed. With the right materials and design, I'm sure I can maximize storage and create a more efficient space.

I probably wouldn’t have added this project to my already long list of things to do if I hadn’t recently seen two magazine articles displaying beautifully organized sheds. I thought, I want one of those!

Both Canadian Gardening’s Special Annual Issue – “fantastic garden projects” and Martha Stewart Living Garden Issue March 2008 have articles on organizing the garden shed.

I like the metal reinforcement grid attached to the wall – I will start with this and add shelves, bins, wire baskets, a paper towel holder to hold spools of string and wire and a garbage can with a swing lid or a step on style. I also want to incorporate the corner bin (crafted from a piece of wood cut to fit at an angle) to hold stakes, rolls of burlap etc. with bungee cords attached to the wall with screw eyes to rein it all in. I like the corner shelves too. All of these ideas are great but like I said, I am dealing with a very small shed I may not be able to incorporate all of these items. I better get planning!

Mice have been living in my shed the last couple of years. I hate mice and part of my overhaul will include installing a deterrent such as moth balls, cloves, garlic, mint baking soda, vinegar or peppermint oil (or all of the above!) in the shed to keep the mice away.

Stay tuned, I’ll let you know how it goes.