Owner: Ilona's Garden Journal URL:http://ilonagarden.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 23:23:26 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Recording events of my garden season and its inspirations, while jotting down information on plants and gardentips. A garden journal that connects with other gardeners and shares the joy of the art and craft of creating a personal landscape. Site statistics:Click here
Winter- I am so over it 2007-12-17 16:01:00 Yes, I know what I was saying earlier in the week, but that was before the snow turned to rain and sleet, and before I had to run around doing errands in it. It reminded me all too sharply of what winter usually consists of here in Central Ohio.But the snow is really pretty when it is fresh and white. It just doesn't stay that way. Even the birds hid away when the winds were gusting and the rain was freezing on the eves. We tried to keep the walks cleared, but were only halfway successful. We are busy with Christmas around here, and have wrapping and baking to do this week. Company coming tomorrow and more expected after Christmas. I am looking forward to after the holidays and some time spent with plant catalogs, so it is probably time to send away for some, or go to their websites and request them. I also need to transplant some of my indoor plants... it is just hard to find time for everything right now!I wanted the geraniums I brought inside to be in one large container. The cont
Fresh Coat of Snow and New Aspects and Prospects 2007-12-15 13:06:00 We are getting a Currier and Ives landscape again - bane to Ohio drivers, but boon to those (like me) who get to look through their windows at a winter wonderland. I am so glad I got to heel in those plants last week! Now I can fully enjoy the pleasanter aspects of winter.In the garden winter pares down the visuals, especially minimal when fully coated or should I say buried in snowfall. For me that is the garden at its most peaceful, since it hides the many chores that are there for me to attend to in the coming growing season. The bones of the garden stand forth as the greenery is stripped off. I made some design mistakes in my garden, and I need to think of what I want to change next year. I do believe I will put gardening on the top of my resolutions again this year. I did increase the renovating efforts, but I want more gardening, with its healthful benefits, and less of the hamster roundabout of life without such priorities. Having made resolutions and updating the progress on my
Ohio Weather! 2007-12-12 11:27:00 Weather everywhere seems freakish, but I think I say that every year. After our picture perfect snowfall, we had the defrost turned on and yesterday I worked in the garden finishing last minute procrastinations. It was a grace period of record breaking temperature for just one lovely day. 66 degrees. Almost summer.Today is cold again and we might get some snow from the weather system that iced up parts of the Midwest. Crazy weather.I laid some brick edging yesterday, and my bones told me about it last night! I should do some mulching yet (I know, I know... why do I wait so long!? Just too much other stuff has been going on). I keep killing my indoor plants for the same procrastinating reasons, but I bought a Christmas cactus the other day, anyway. Hope springs eternal. I also dug out a couple tiny tubers of the purple leaf Ipomoea batatas 'Blackie'. They are rooting in clear glass vases, now. And am getting around to transplanting the geraniums I saved into the pot that I want them t Read more:Ohio
Christmas Eve 2007-12-24 11:46:00 We've run through the gamut of weather conditions and seasonal change! You name it, we've had it in the past couple weeks. As I always say, "That's Ohio!"Today I start the cooking/baking binge aka Christmas
... :) That is my part of it today and tomorrow... for everyone else it is opening presents and eating. The garden has no more snow cover, and after Christmas is tucked away safely for another year and celebration I will likely try to go out and mulch. The window between Christmas and New Year's Day is when I usually do that.I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday and family. I'll be blogging more as the long winter takes over... it is almost as much fun as looking over the plant catalogs! See you... and until then:Technorati Tags: , Blogroll Me! Read more:Christmas Eve
Revisiting Two Garden Catalogs 2008-03-08 03:46:00 For years I had enjoyed and sometimes ordered from two garden companies that produced outstanding catalogs. If a garden catalog is carefully put together it can double as a compendium of useful gardening information. They are usually condensed versions of what amounts to garden dictionary definitions of plant requirements and descriptions. I received two of the catalog stalwarts this winter and the one lived up to expectations and exceeded, while the other has sadly gone the way of the carnival hawking aka most garden catalog's hype. That is my opinion,anyway.White Flower Farm continues to offer informative, while enticing, garden catalogs that not only present fine plant material, but help you garden better. This year they had page after page of imaginative container plantings, with the p Read more:Garden
, Catalogs
March Gives A Lion's Roar 2008-03-07 15:50:00 The short respite of warm weather gave a glimpse of the emerging daffodil's speared leaves piercing through the bare ground, but winter's icy hands are loathe to let us go and has employed the March
Lion to fiercely roar with gusts of a blizzard storm. Winter dies hard this year, but I am hopeful that the old adage of "March that comes in like a lion will go out like a lamb" will hold true. I hope it blows all its force of cold and freezing weather out and exhausts itself ... and then leave us and our gardens in peace.At least there might be some snow cover for the tender tips of the sprouts that bravely saw their way to the light! I'd say some, if there is the full 12 or 15 inches they predict we may see. I haven't seen so much snow in years. My husband heard some one share an old weather
Spring is in the air! 2008-03-02 15:50:00 After a blustery week of freezing weather and snow, it is now a warm and melting weekend that makes me feel spring is just around the corner. I think I will plant some seeds mid-month of March... this year I would like to try some heirloom tomatoes and maybe daisies for the perennial gardens. I need to get my light setup connected together- a timer and multiple outlet connection is about all I need to be ready to go on the seed flats. I hope my lavender plants have done well- they had to survive the deep freeze without snow cover earlier in the winter. I am planning on devoting more time to the garden posts this week.. it has just been a hectic time lately with my energies distributed elsewhere, but I have so many thoughts on gardening that I really have to write them down! I have plans fo Read more:Spring
Central Ohio Home & Garden Show 2008-02-19 10:32:00 Got cabin fever? Can hardly wait until warm weather and the spring season usher in the pleasure of growing a garden? Well, the time is just right for the Home and Garden
show here in CentralOhio
. The outside may be bleak , but once you walk through the doors of the Expo Center you are greeted with the blooms and fragrance of springtime. All sorts of exhibits are eye candy for D-I-Yourself homeowners and gardeners alike.The dates are Saturday, Feb. 24 through Sunday March 4, 2008 The place is Ohio Expo Center on the North side (17th Avenue) of the Ohio State Fairgrounds area. Tickets are $8/adults; $2/children. Advance tickets available @ National City Bank branches. Special days are Senior Day, Wednesday, February 27, with discount admission, special events and programs. Kids Day, Saturda Read more:Central Ohio
The Frugal Gardener 2008-02-05 21:52:00 Stuart asked "What was your best plant bargain?" and as a frugal gardener I have had a few. It is hard to just pick one, things being relative :) Last year I picked up some lovely hydrangeas I'd been wanting... for about five dollars each, in large containers. I'm always looking over the specials and end of season offerings. I think the best had to be the year I snagged two Harry Lauder filberts and two hinoki cypress (which are actually false cypress or 'Chamaecyparis'). Those were after the season was over in the fall- often a very good time to get trees and shrubs on sale. Midsummer is also a time for garden bargains, but it can be more difficult to keep the new plants alive in summer's heat and dryness.I've alway had more than my share of "false bargains", where my optimism in buying t Read more:Frugal
In the Deep Freeze 2008-01-20 19:02:00 While we are in the deep freezer here in Ohio, I have been setting up (ever so slowly) my new computer. I find myself planning my garden season in the year to come, and am hopeful that my husbands newly mentioned interest comes to fruition. He seems most interested in the vegetable garden, which is the part that has languished most in my gardens. We will have to try and till up the old one that has grassed over the past couple years, buy more soaker hose to lay in, and start somewhat smaller (my previous vegetable garden was the size of a small yard). Just tomatoes and peppers, with a beginning of lettuce and chard, mostly, is what I think is manageable until my husband gets his gardening legs... ;) I finally took the step of ordering some garden catalogues. Should have done that in Decem Read more:Freeze
Building Love For Gardening 2008-01-13 16:59:00 I read Kathy Purdy's post on How New Media is Impacting the Future of Gardening, and found it interesting how she looked at Scott's co. efforts to grow gardening interest in the younger generation. They have their work cut out for them considering that homeownership is taking such a hit, and the fact that electronic media entertainment and real time gardening are mutually exclusive. I can garden or be on the computer- I can't do both at the same time.The true love of gardening comes from intimacy with the outdoors in some way, while sometimes limited to indoor gardening, the gardener developed their love of growing things from the way plantlife captured their heart. I know that exposure to gardens and the experience of gardening can elicit that love, but I don't know quite what it is tha Read more:Building
Gardening in January 2008-01-13 02:17:00 We've had some beautiful weather here, although it is now turning cold. I enjoyed the sunshine while it lasted! Normally January
is full steam blogging, but I will be setting up a new computer system and that means blogging will be slow until that is over.Reminders for this month:Late January is a good time to get out there and prune, if the weather permits. Check out my article on pruning.Get ready for seed starting, but don't jump the gun.Technorati Tags: ,
The Gardener's Starting Block 2008-01-08 11:23:00 That is how I look at the month of January. Some things have a new year's start in September, such as the school year, some in October, such as the holiday season, but January is the starting block for a gardener; this gardener, anyway.November and December have been ending points for us in the Northern gardens, and while we are in the depth of winter the first stirrings of our gardening desire and instincts begin. We are done with the wreaths and berries, the flower bed cleanup is an old memory, and we begin the dreaming that results in our plans and new seedlings of late winter/early spring flats. This is a time of research in our gardening books, lustful perusings of the garden catalogs, with their seductive, if slightly deceitful, pictures of perfect blooms on the healthiest of plants
Go Gardening 2007-12-29 07:14:00 Gardeners are "rose colored glasses" people - they like to see the world as a kinder, gentler place than it actually is. At least that is the way I explain the consternated surprise when someone filches a plant from the garden, a post from the blog, a neighbor plays McCoy to our Hatfield, or to any number of people or natural disaster disappointments.But gardeners are realistic and pragmatic people, too. They have their visions of paradise, but don't sit back in pipedreams. They pull on their wellies or garden clogs and go about getting their hands dirty making their part of the world a better place. At least more of the type of place they would like the world to be. And I think that is mostly "better". It certainly is prettier and more interesting.Gardeners are people engaged with the wor
Good Neighbor Gardening 2007-12-28 08:25:00 Reading Stuart's Gardening FOR the neighbours post of this past month started me reminiscing about different neighbors and a few of my front yard garden opinions. First the opinions: I think the front yard space ought to take the public into account. "What will the neighbors think?" doesn't usually matter much to me, except in the case of considering their viewing pleasure of my front yard. Not that I garden for others, but I try to "blend" with the landscape and give a pleasing public smile to passersby.I put matching hanging baskets on the front porch in the summer. The driveway borders stay demure and trimmed, but after that it is any body's guess what either the state of the garden might be, or the color combinations for that year. I think a persons garden is their private affair. It o Read more:Neighbor
Do You Dig Your Soil? 2008-03-15 08:22:00 That is "sixties-speak" for whether or not you like the soil handed to you in your garden... do you bloom where you are planted? Here in Central Ohio I have gardened on clay types of soils. Presently my garden soil is composed of a dark clay loam called Kokomo. With the way the weather has been here lately, though, there is not much gardening goin' on.The reason is that with blizzards and snow melt, along with the rains, we have very wet conditions. Clay soil is awful to work in wet conditions. In fact, you shouldn't try it just because you will ruin the tilth of the soil for the season. Wet clay clumps together and dries into hard clods. Very ugly, believe me.So even if your fingers are itching to garden, and the weather gives you some warm, sunny days, don't dig into your clay soil. If a
Delicacies of Spring 2008-04-07 21:47:00 I have returned from the balmy trade winds and eternal summer of Maui to a delicate spring in Ohio. Not that it will last, but the beauties of soft watercolor clouds and newly awakened buzzing bees in the warmth of beginning spring season are delightful. There is a special freshness to the air at this time of year, here; after all the cold and washing rains. It was the best welcome my home could give me.I've been inspecting the yard to see what is blooming and how everything fared through the winter. I really do need to begin my weeding if the dreams of renovation are to become reality. I never did get to that front garden. It is a frightful task that awaits me there! But other parts of the garden are less daunting and I am planning what I most want to focus on this season.Unfortunately th Read more:Spring
Garden Fairies 2008-04-12 12:43:00 As a child I was enamored of the idea of fairies and spent long hours making fairy houses with intricately woven stories from my imagination to go along with them. Carol of May Dreams Garden
s awakened me with her flight of fancy into "fairy names" from a fairy name generator. I already have a fairy name, "Ilona"! that's right. Discovered that trivia tidbit when I went on an exploration into the meaning of the name, Ilona. Tündér Ilona was the queen of the fairies in Hungarian mythology. I prefer the lighter, brighter view of fairies and fairyland...it can get rather dark, you know.I found the cutest book on making "fairy houses":Technorati Tags: garden fairies, Read more:Fairies
Garden Update 4-08 2008-04-12 11:52:00 This past Thursday was beautiful and I took advantage of the gentle weather to begin my garden activities for the year. Before the weekend rains was a good time to move some starts of lamium maculatum to an area that has dry shade, along the hot tub walkway. I organized my kids to help me pick up the many tree branches felled by the windy storms we've had in the late winter, and we scraped the leaves off the veggie garden. I will need to step up my garden work this week to get the spring vegetables in... time for broccoli plants and lettuce seedings. The ground has been too wet to till and now we have rain falling again, so I will follow my plan of planting where the wet leaves kept the weeds down, instead of trying to till wet ground. We generally cleaned up the yard, and Handyman put th Read more:Garden
, Update
Conservatory Day Trip 2008-04-21 14:09:00 We visited the Franklin Park Conservatory this past Sunday, Sundays now being my field trip/family outing day of choice; we are already halfway to Columbus when we attend Church, so it works well for us. Every year the Conservatory has a portion of their glass houses filled with exotic butterflies and some informative discovery areas where you view the process of chrysalis to butterflies ready to fly.I don't think anyone is ever too old to gaze in awe and wonder at swirly groups of flitting butterflies- they truly are like flying flowers. I can't remember where I heard that- but the observation is apt. This time the large blue ones decided they liked my blue jeans and landed there repeatedly for me to examine. A boy found one with green markings that loved the shoulder of his sweater. Tha
The Good Earth 2008-04-21 10:51:00 Whenever I start the garden season I remember how the earth yields a goodness not only in it's fruits, but in its ability to reconnect us with what is important and thereby assist to cure the maladies of modern life, especially mending some of the broken places of heart and mind. Like weathered stone field walls, displaced by times and extremities, the heart and mind become disjointed and need the ordered tasks of seasons and good earth beneath our hands to feel the spring of hope. We rebuild our understanding of the sequence of life when we garden, and can endure the winter of harsh circumstance and words when the sprouts and fine smell of the soil remind us of recovery and rebirth.The very compost speaks to us. Not all that is waste is loss, it has a different purpose for us, perhaps, bu Read more:Earth
A Beautiful Spring 2008-04-23 10:45:00 This is turning out to be one of the most beautiful springs, with blooming times that seem to rush in upon each other. The weather has given us the full effect of trees and plants that often get ruined in Ohio's fickle fluctuations. The only worry I might have is that things are a bit dry for this time of year. We had so much rain , with saturated ground and inundations that flooded the steams earlier in the season, but now all is quite dry.I noticed the hyacinths had sappy growth that flopped in the warm and clear conditions. I pulled my hose out to water some of the new divisions, should the clouds not materialize with their promise of rain. We have intermittent heavy gray clouds, but little precipitation here. Not that I am complaining, because the feeling that all this sunshine, warmt Read more:Beautiful
, Spring
Jessica's Pictures Tell All 2008-04-22 09:18:00 In a good way. I wrote my little blurb on the visit we took to Franklin Park Conservatory and reeled in a comment that is worth gold. Gold, I tell you! It seems that Jessica
of Sunshine, Freedom, and a Little Flower took a trip in recent weeks and has gorgeous pictures that no one should miss. An example illustrates this post... I admire the artistic choice, steady hand, and just the plain old awesome beauty of the subjects: butterflies and blooms. This is one reason I love having comments- we gain so much when we share each others experiences.Where are my pics, you ask? Photographically challenged, I - of course- managed to forget my camera, but I still doubt if I would have captured things the way Jessica has- just top notch, girl! But if you only viewed that post you would miss half the Read more:Pictures
Wisdom In the Garden Online 2008-04-22 09:01:00 In the Garden
Online: "I've learned an important lesson about being open-minded: a healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing, but missing out on a good thing because of your own stubbornness is a big mistake. Lesson learned."I appreciated this lesson from the garden ... and Colleen's gardening tips on improving the soil- you can do it the hard way or you can do it the easy way.In the Garden Online is home to the Mouse and Trowel Awards. Voting is going on now.Technorati Tags: garden lessons, Read more:Wisdom
Spring Blooming 2008-04-25 22:08:00 So much is blooming it is hard to keep up making notes on it all. The cherry trees, pear, and peach are all in bloom-probably the apples, too, but I didn't walk out that far to check. The crabapples are breaking into bud, the 'Snowdrift' variety has been blooming for most of this week already. Lilacs are coming into bloom, and Amelanchier canadensis is exhibiting some of the best bloom since I planted them... the larger one, A. laevis, is developing fruit - I missed seeing the flowers ( I only have one of those trees). Redbuds are in full bloom, now, too. Viburnum burkwoodi is blooming and adding its scent to the air. Everywhere the show of the ornamental trees is just spectacular. It is going past a little too quickly in the warmth and dryness, though, so I hope we get decent rainfall soo Read more:Spring
, Blooming
Do Ye Mock Me? 2008-04-27 12:59:00 Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king;Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!- Spring by Thomas Nashe from Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600That poem reminded me of the mockingbird that resides in my garden each year. This morning I listened to him run through his repertoire. I tried to imagine where the various songs came from, the forests of the South? a barnyard? I thought I heard the peeps of baby chicks mixed in with the songs of warblers. But truthfully, I have no idea where each sound impression came from. Today I was entertained, but on some summer nights the constant serenade is annoying. I first noticed the mourning doves in early March- their coos are always a part
Ideas for Your Garden Journal 2008-04-28 15:34:00 Karen of www.Garden
Chick.com offers these ideas for filling your a garden journal: * Pictures of gardens you like * Results of soil tests * Seed starting dates, planting times, and harvesting time for your plants * Date of first and last frost for your area * Lunar phases for “planting by the moon" * A calendar for planning your plantings * Catalogs * Plants you want in your garden and their soil, sun, and water requirements * A diagram of your garden with each row labeled as to what you planted. This will help with crop rotation, and companion planting * Diagram of individual beds with plantings labeled. (Many plants die back, and you can't remember what that is coming up next spring!) * Pictures of garden art, sheds, garden décor that you like and wh Read more:Journal
Lovely Thoughts for People Who Grow 2008-04-28 13:11:00 "There are many tired gardeners but I've seldom met old gardeners. I know many elderly gardeners but the majority are young at heart. Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. The one absolute of gardeners is faith. Regardless of how bad past gardens have been, every gardener believes that next year's will be better. It is easy to age when there is nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for; gardeners, however, simply refuse to grow up. Thomas Jefferson said once, "Though an old man, I am but a young gardener"." - Allan Armitage I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden.-Frances Hodgson Burnett A garden is evidence o Read more:Lovely
New Things 2008-04-29 17:45:00 I noticed that Kate Smudges has moved to a new blog home on typepad.Some ideas on garden journaling from A Small South Florida Garden:If I am out of graph paper, I print my own by using a Microsoft Word document with a 1/4" graph in light teal printed on the front and back of a blank sheet of paper.I also noticed that when I just kept a garden journal, my thoughts on what to do next time sometimes got lost. You may want to keep a general journal that would hold the story of your garden and artwork and quotes and thoughts, and put things like what to do next year or next season in your garden planner so they are not forgotten. Is this pic cool or what? via GardenHistoryGirlTechnorati Tags: ,
Just Conversation 2008-04-30 15:03:00 It got a little frosty hereabouts. The newsman last night warned of possible damage to the fruit crops again this year, but I went out to the hot tub about 5AM and it wasn't too bad. Didn't check around outside to see the blooms though. Too lazy today- I stayed inside and sendentarily worked away on the computer and stuff like that.I don't know if I could keep gardening if it wasn't for the hot tub. No, really. I know that sounds crazy to some of you, but arthritic pain can really put the clamps on your gardening activity. As it is, I sometimes walk around like the old lady I am becoming- it is hard to straighten up after crouching tiger to weed and seed. The hot water has been the difference between mobility and crunchy joints! And it does wonders for achy muscles, too.We moved all the pl Read more:Conversation
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