Lazy Gardening Leads to Success

Sometimes. With Papyrus. I keep my Papyrus in a plastic pot that I can bring indoors and snug into a copper cachepot to carry it over the winter (see http://loisdevries.blogspot.com/2007/12/papyrus-prolonged.html and http://loisdevries.blogspot.com/2008/07/papyrus-daydream.html). By the end of last year's unusually rainy summer, the roots extended six inches beyond the rim of the pot, so I had to cut them back a second time, in order to be able to bring the plant back into the house. Papyrus was not a happy camper and sulked all winter. The one remaining stalk died off in early January.

New growth usually starts in February, when the sun shines hot and fierce through the long narrow window where the Papyrus stands. This year, nothing. March. Nothing. April. Nothing. I knew my dead plant needed to go out on the compost heap, but fortunately for us both, the spring rush had overtaken me (http://loisdevries.blogspot.com/2010/04/spring-gardening-rush.html) and I just didn't get around to it.

One morning in early May, I was astonished to see a new, two-foot tall sprout. Since then, two more have appeared. With nighttime temperatures predicted to remain above 50ºF, I finally put it outdoors. It's not a horticultural practice I normally recommend, but sometimes neglect can be a good thing.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. To discover how to express more of your personality and creativity through your garden, or how body/mind/spirit can play itself out in your gardening activities, visit: http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com or contact me at loisj7@gmail.com.

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Gardeners Are Returning to Local Nurseries

A significant number of gardeners are returning to their local garden centers to purchase their plants after having deserted them in favor of the mass merchandise home stores, according to the Garden Writers of America early spring survey completed in March. Apparently the honeymoon is over. Garden centers’ and local retail stores’ market share rebounded from a low of 39% in 2006 to a predicted 54% in 2010. The statistics for home stores are a mirror image, dropping to 37% in 2010 from a high of 52% in 2006.

Unfortunately the temporary desertion, coupled with the national economic meltdown, was just too much for some of the best growers and retailers with the most intriguing selection of plants. To add insult to injury, last year many consumer gardens were infected by late blight, spread far and wide by a wholesaler who knowingly shipped affected tomato plants to the big box stores.

There is enough material here for decades of discussion on economic and market theories, survival of the fittest, etc., but it is we the gardeners who are the losers in the battle. When specialty growers bite the dust, the single remaining source of a particular plant can disappear overnight. I enjoy the new introductions as much as anyone and I appreciate the efforts that commercial growers make to increase color selection, disease resistance, etc. But I also enjoy being able to find the old-fashioned favorites from my childhood, as well as native plants.

Our local garden center is in a state of transition and, in the interim, I ran over to one of the home stores to try to find some white pansies. While I loitered in the garden area waiting for Dan to emerge from the hardware section, I did a little experiment. I stood around among the plants, not doing anything in particular. I soon had shoppers asking me for gardening advice, hardiness information, and the location of various plants.

Answers to your gardening questions are what you get at a local garden center that you don’t get in the big box store. Frankly, I think that’s worth a few pennies more.
 

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. To discover how to express more of your personality and creativity through your garden, or how body/mind/spirit can play itself out in your gardening activities, visit: http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com or contact me at loisj7@gmail.com.

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Garden Views: Gardening as Therapy

Restorative gardens, such as the one at NYU Medical Center may be soothing or stimulating, energizing, engaging, and produce a sense of peace, tranquility, or solace, all qualities that can help heal the spirit, as well as the bodies of hospital patients.

In the 1980s, Dr. Roger Ulrich a Professor of Architecture at Texas A&M University and a faculty fellow of the Center for Health Systems & Design published his findings on the effects of hospital window views on recovery from surgery. Among other achievements, his research was the first to scientifically document the stress reducing and health–related benefits for hospital patients of viewing nature.

According to the American Horticultural Therapy Association, a restorative garden “employs the restorative value of nature to provide an environment conducive to mental repose, stress-reduction, emotional recovery, and the enhancement of mental and physical energy. The design of a restorative garden focuses on the psychological, physical, and social needs of the users.”

Isn’t that what we want for our own garden spaces? As you move outdoors to work in the garden this spring, start thinking beyond the typical design issues and begin to focus on how you can integrate some horticultural therapy techniques to create your own restorative garden. Is it the use of fragrant herbs such as lavender, mint, or lemon verbena to change your mood? Or do you prefer building wildlife habitat in order to reconnect with the natural environment? Do you crave a visually calm enclosed space to meditate and practice yoga? Or would you rather experience the visual stimulation of colorful flowers and garden art?

To read the AHTA’s Position Paper, which describes the various types of therapeutic gardens, the history of horticultural therapy, physical, psychological, and social benefits, and an extensive reference list, click this link: http://www.ahta.org/documents/Final_HT_Position_Paper_updated_409.pdf 

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. To discover how to express more of your personality and creativity through your garden, or how body/mind/spirit can play itself out in your gardening activities, visit: http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com or contact me at loisj7@gmail.com. Read more!

Garden Views: Free Newsletter - Join Thoughtful Gardeners in Reading Cultivating the Inner Gardener

The gardening season unofficially launched in the Northeast this week, with temps predicted to swell to near 70º on Saturday. The (really hot) sunshine has brought out the best of my very early bloomers: Snowdrops, purple hybrid and yellow species crocus, Winter Aconite, Christmas Rose, and Lenten Rose. I was surprised to also see some of the Hydrangea leaf buds bursting out of their brown, scaly shells, as well as early growth from Wood Hyacinth. Before we know it, our spring gardens will be three steps ahead of us as usual.

With cabin fever behind us and spring fever before us, you may want to take a few moments to think about what internal fulfillment your garden can give back to you this growing season, beyond the mere enjoyment of the garden’s physical beauty.

I’ve written about how to approach this before at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Transformational%20Power%20of%20Gardening and http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com .

At the end of this month, I’ll be instituting a monthly newsletter, Cultivating the Inner Gardener, for gardening enthusiasts who want to learn how to garden from the inside out and experience the transformational power of gardening. I’d love for you to subscribe and join me in turning this new adventure into a global movement to reconnect people to the Earth through gardening.

To sign up, just look for the “Join Yahoo Groups” icon in the sidebar of http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com ,
fill in your e-mail address, and click “Join Now.” This is a double opt-in subscription that ensures that only those people who want the newsletter will get it.


Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. To discover how to express more of your personality and creativity through your garden, or how body/mind/spirit can play itself out in your gardening activities, visit: http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com or contact me at loisj7@gmail.com.

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Garden Views: Cultivating the Inner Gardener at Springfest

Save the date. I’m scheduled to present an overview of Cultivating the Inner Gardener: Gardening for Personal Growth (http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com )on March 12, 2010 at 3:30pm, at this year’s Springfest Flower and Garden Show in Augusta, NJ at the Sussex County Fairgrounds (http://bit.ly/a6W29O ). Come by and say “hello” if you’re in the area.

Springfest started out as a small local show and has grown to host more than 8,000 visitors annually. This year, there will be a special dedication and grand opening of the new 5,000 sq. ft. conservatory, the generous gift of Bev and Bruce Gordon. Topiaries from Duke Gardens, donated by the Doris Duke Foundation, will decorate the conservatory. Shops, a café, kid’s activities a full lecture schedule, and a dozen gardens make for a great break from cabin fever.

See you there.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. To discover how to express more of your personality and creativity through your garden, or how body/mind/spirit can play itself out in your gardening activities, visit: http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com or contact me at loisj7@gmail.com.  Read more!

Garden Views: The Genius of Place

Eighteenth-century gardener, poet, and acerbic critic Alexander Pope’s phrase “the genius of the place” is often quoted by garden writers, landscape architects, and environmental advocates to urge us to respect what Nature herself provides.

But, it’s important to understand Pope’s phrase in context: The context of the times, the context of Pope’s rebellion against the excesses of the wealthy, and even within the context of the larger poem. Those who’d like to read the whole, Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle IV To Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington, can find an annotated version at Representative Poetry Online, http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1632.html .

I’ve reproduced the 18 relevant lines here:

            To build, to plant, whatever you intend,
            To rear the column, or the arch to bend,
            To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot;
            In all, let Nature never be forgot.
            But treat the goddess like a modest fair,
            Nor overdress, nor leave her wholly bare;
            Let not each beauty ev'rywhere be spied,
            Where half the skill is decently to hide.
            He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds,
            Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.

            Consult the genius of the place in all;
            That tells the waters or to rise, or fall;
            Or helps th' ambitious hill the heav'ns to scale,
            Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;
            Calls in the country, catches opening glades,
            Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades,
            Now breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines;
            Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.

Pope's own summary of the Epistle makes clear his intention:

"The chief proof of it is to follow Nature, even in works of mere luxury and elegance. Instanced in architecture and gardening, where all must be adapted to the genius and use of the place, and the beauties not forced into it, but resulting from it.” 

He also said: "All the rules of gardening are reducible to three heads:-- the contrasts, the management of surprises, and the concealment of bounds ... I have expressed them all in two verses;..."

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. To discover how to express more of your personality and creativity through your garden, or how body/mind/spirit can play itself out in your gardening activities, visit: http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com or contact me at loisj7@gmail.com. 

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Garden Views: Foreground and Background

How do you know when it’s time to move on, to give up on a creative project? Is it ever time to give up? Maybe that’s not the right question.

While my garden writing isn’t seasonal, my garden scouting is. I’m used to switching gears at the beginning of May, starting to call for appointments and tour information, and dusting off the camera equipment --- moving the writing to the background and the scouting to the foreground.

In photography, the camera produces a very different picture depending upon whether the photographer emphasizes the scene in the foreground or the scene in the background. How would our projects look to us if we were able to move them in and out of our consciousness at will, without a sense of loss?

Graphics programs allow us to “move to back” or “move to front” at the click of a mouse. If we train ourselves to do this with our creative projects, perhaps we really never need to abandon those pieces that mean the most to us. We can move them to our mental foreground during pockets of time that crop up, and into the background when something more fruitful comes along.

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Garden Views: Your Public Image

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
……Robert Burns

There’s nothing like reading a story about yourself in the newspaper (see http://www.strausnews.com/articles/2009/02/12/township_journal/news/2.txt) to give you a jolt. There are the little errors that made me cringe, as well as the flattering presentation that made me blush and wonder whether the reporter had interviewed a completely different person.

Well, maybe she did. There’s no way for her to know that the thread that connects my gardening work to my environmental advocacy only became clear to me two weeks before the interview, after a lifetime of thinking that they were separate-but-parallel interests. How fortunate for us both that I could speak with clarity, now that I know they lie along the same continuum.

Nor did she see me poking through the closet, searching out something to wear that would make me look authoritative, but friendly and approachable.

Makeup. Enough so that I didn’t look washed-out, but not so much as to look like the dragon-lady. Hair, there’s always the matter of the hair. Well, at least I have some. Too late anyway, the picture already appeared in print.

No one sees the self-doubt and insecurities that we struggle with on a daily basis; they only see the resolution.

The reporter left her own mark, in what she chose to put into my story and what to leave out. That’s an important clue regarding what others find interesting about our lives and our work. When you have the opportunity for this kind of feedback, use it to evaluate whether your public image is congruent with what you want it to be. If not, assess what you need to change.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com.

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Garden Views: Editing

Over time, we change, our taste changes, the publishing world changes, the amount of time we want to spend writing changes and our capabilities to manage our writing and ourselves changes. What this means to garden writers is that their careers should be periodically edited.
When? When that career no longer functions as intended, when gardens don’t provide a source of mental or emotional stimulation, when the writing has grown too dull, when the two magazines that were the primary income source have folded and sadly, when garden writing no longer provides the pleasure it once did.

As with everything in life, career happiness is directly proportional to the difference between our expectations and our ability to achieve them. If you can only earn $2,000 per year writing gardening articles, it’s unrealistic to hope that you’ll have earned $100,000 at the end of your five- year plan. You must either change your expectations, or your ability to sell your writing ($100,000 is not a realistic income expectation for a garden writer).

Editing usually means taking something out, but it can also mean moving things around, so that the writing, or your career, flows more smoothly. This can apply to the list of publishers you approach, your work environment, your schedule, your work mix, etc. Apply the 80/20 rule: 80% of your income will come from 20% of your clients. Concentrate 80% of your efforts on those publishers!

Think about the best use of your garden writing time and talent right now. Then start editing to bring that vision closer to reality.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com.

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Garden Views: Rekindling an Old Flame

I’ve been writing a series of posts for novice gardeners about the process of creating, or revitalizing, a garden (see http://loisdevries.blogspot.com/2008/12/gardening-as-process-dreaming-it-into.html). In doing so, I’ve fallen in love all over again with working on my own garden.

Having to think through the steps in order to explain them to would-be gardeners has forced me to consciously attend to them, rather than whizzing through what now comes automatically to me.

I felt all warm and fuzzy as I described the ideal conditions for dreaming a garden into existence. But I also realized how much of that esoteric experience I had missed lately. I’m looking forward to a cup of cider to warm my hands, a fire in the fireplace, a fuzzy throw to snuggle under, a pile of books and magazines to stimulate ideas, and notebooks or sketchbooks to capture my thoughts.

I had to pull my own bubble diagrams out of the drawer in order to explain how to draw one and what it should contain. They reminded me how much I had already accomplished, but that there was still much to do. It was satisfying to realize that the space was actually working as it had been intended --- dogs here, dining there, seeds and water for birds, and flowers pretty much anywhere something else isn’t happening.

I started itching to stretch the garden out past the fence and get out my landscape template to sketch in plants and colors.

Drawing is not my strong suit, but I’ve always loved the varied textures of art papers, colored pencils, and tubes of paint. Bubble diagrams and landscape designs are not high art, but they provide the opportunity for me to dabble and play with these media without any pressure to produce something beautiful, or saleable. After all, these are only maps to show me the way to my own idea of buried treasure --- painting with plants.

We all need to slow down a little and sink into some of the sensory, mental, and emotional pleasures that we associate with our art. Those are the built-in rewards of our work.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com. Read more!

Garden Views: Things Are Not Always What They Seem

This week on my personal blog, http://loisdevries.blogspot.com/2008/11/propane-tank-in-garden-revisited.html, I talk about our experience in moving our propane tank. I have lived on this property for most of my adult life, as well as for a large part of my childhood. I thought I understood it. I thought I knew where everything was. But when I wanted to move the propane tank, I discovered that what I had thought was a solid rock ledge (after all there is rock ledge on either side of it) turned out to be a respectable layer of topsoil. So too, with writing. Breathes there a writer anywhere who hasn’t attempted to read the editorial tea leaves? The meaning behind, “You have a lovely book, but ……?” I was sure that an editor who seemed enthusiastic about an article on native plants had changed his mind, only to have him assign it to me 14 months later. He had not responded to any of my follow-up e-mails, but things were not as they seemed.

I was certain my book would sell when the proposal made it all the way into the weekly editorial meeting of a huge publishing house. It didn’t. Two years later, I’ve recast it in a different format, based on the comments of editors who turned it down. One who declined it two years ago now “can’t wait to read it.” She revealed that she is an avid gardener. Another responded immediately with a request to see the proposal. Things are not always as they seem.

What does it all mean? It means I’ve made some progress. Because, in those intervening two years, I poked around. Just like I had my husband poke around the rock ledge with a crowbar to help us decide whether moving the propane tank was even a possibility. I poked around on gardening blogs, academic web sites, illustrator’s blogs, Publishers Weekly, Media Bistro, Publisher’s Lunch, and various gardening trade sites. I wasted a lot of time, but I also learned some things that are important to both writing and marketing my book (and myself). It looked as if I wasn’t doing anything, but things are not always as they seem.

Sometimes, things DO turn out to be the way they seem, and just in case THIS is that time, we’ve broken out champagne twice in the past week. Cheap champagne. We’re saving the Dom Perignon for the contract.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com.
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Garden Views: Manure as Art

Because no one else has our life experience (real, dreamed, or imagined), knowledge base, and interests, we are our own endless source of material. We have only to look inside ourselves to find it. Take, for example, manure. Garden writers write all sorts of things about manure and compost: How to make it; how to use it; how to store it. But when I found out about seedling pots made of cow manure, it struck an inner cord. It called out to all my interests --- gardening in general, growing plants from seeds, sustainable systems, reducing the use of fossil fuels, the survival of small-scale farming, and the concept of how we can make waste material of any kind into something useful.

I could write from childhood experience about my love of cows, the thrill of talking with the inventor of CowPots,™ the green aspects of the farm’s self-contained system, the gardening benefits of using the pots, and, because I wrote this as a blog post, I could inject a note of my own peculiar sense of humor. To see the story, click http://loisdevries.blogspot.com/2008/11/cowpots-molded-manure.html.

650 fellow garden writers were exposed to this same product at the Garden Writers Symposium, so I’m sure that some of them will write about it. But not in the same way I did.

Next time you’re having a conversation about something that really resonates with you, think about why. What parts of it connected to something else inside of you? Figure out how you can put those parts together to make something new. Voilà! A unique piece of art.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com Read more!

Garden Views: Writing with Pictures

Four decades ago, it was possible to write garden books and magazine articles that contained few, if any, photos. But not today. In today’s garden writing world, the pictures ARE the story. Some publications start with the photographs and the writer is asked to write the story specifically to the pictures. Others may use photos to illustrate a story. In some cases, such as a book about a specific garden, or specific objects within gardens (such as sheds), it would be impossible to write the piece without the pictures.

Literary writers might lament the passing of an era when detailed, evocative descriptions could “paint a picture” of a garden in words, but those of us in the trenches know that the right picture IS “worth a thousand words.”

Necessity has caused us to stretch beyond our natural writing gift into an arena that uses the right side of the brain, which deals with patterns and spatial relationships. I started out taking “inventory” photos that simply document what is there, leaving the art to the “real” photographer, who would come later.

But I always had a good sense of composition and color, as well as friends who paint landscapes and garden vignettes. I admired garden photographers who could create works of art from the most mundane scenes. I wanted to make something that reflected the enjoyment I got from their work. Soon I was trying my own hand at taking artsy garden photos and pictures of flowers a la Georgia O’Keefe.

I still have a long way to go. But I now feel more confident about the quality of my photos, I enjoy this necessary part of my job much more than I used to, and I am looking forward to taking an internet-based class during the off season.

Look around at the necessary evils of your own art. Perhaps there is something you can explore, something that will stretch you, something that might even turn into fun.
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Garden Views: Writers’ Conferences

Writers need different sorts of stimulation at various points in their careers, but one conference that never tires is the Garden Writers of America, which just celebrated its 60^th anniversary. While there’s always some griping to be heard, those of us who have been involved in putting together any big event really appreciate the efforts of the volunteer committees who manage to pull together a four day whirlwind of seminars and garden tours, complete with meals and side trips, that have us up by 6:00am but not even close to a bed before 10:00pm.

There’s always an after-tour on the fifth day. By that time, one needs a vacation from the vacation. Which is what we’ve learned to do. The conference moves around the country so that folks in all eight regions have the opportunity to attend one in their neck of the woods. Dan and I tack on a few days vacation, veg out, play tourist, then go home and dig some holes.

Vendors at the trade exhibit don’t just give away refrigerator magnets and keyrings; these folks know a captive, plant-hungry audience when they see one and give away hundreds of seed packets, seedlings, plugs, full-sized plants, books, and tools. We shipped it all, including 30 pounds of literature, via UPS. There are opportunities to sign up for field trials too, the main reason my rose garden has grown beyond its original two plants.

With more than 600 attendees, all competing for a microscopic writing market, you might think there would be lots of sniping and competition. Thankfully, that small number of immature (or insecure) writers is easily avoided in the crowd. Garden writers are, for the most part, also gardeners, a group renowned for their willingness to share – plants, knowledge, ideas, and technology.

I’ve made life-long friends of people across the country. Even though I only see them at this conference and correspond occasionally via e-mail, it’s great fun to hear what they’ve been up to in the intervening year and to share hopes and dreams for the future. These writers are some of the most inventive, imaginative, and creative people I’ve ever met and I come home invigorated by having spent time in their company.

While few conferences offer this level of satisfaction, those that renew us and re-boot our creative juices are a gift that all writers deserve to give themselves.
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Garden Views: Garden Writing – 2

Another type of garden writing is rather like a memoir and recounts the evolution of a particular garden, or gardens if the author is a landscape designer, from start to finish. Martha Stewart’s garden books, for example, have literally invited us into her various back yards. Less common is a kind of archeological dig that provides an overview of the restoration of an historic garden.

Writing about period gardens (Colonial, Medieval) or gardens of a particular style (bungalow, courtyard) can require a lot of research, but be very rewarding in terms of adding to the writer’s knowledge base.

Various religious sects have gone through periods in which elaborate gardens were built as demonstrations of the church’s or an individual’s power (the Roman Cardinals’ 15th and 16th Century pleasure gardens) or as spiritual or meditative aids (cloister or temple gardens). For those who like to travel, writing a book on such a topic combines the best of work and play.

My kind of creative garden writing is on a more esoteric level, stories about the transforming power of the symbiotic garden/gardener relationship. While there is some existing literature on therapeutic gardening, and how gardening might become an expression of a person’s religious, spiritual, or humanistic nature, The Transformational Power of Gardening is more about the conscious, and often subconscious, meanings that gardening has for some.

In these gardens, one feels a certain type of energy or “atmosphere” that just isn’t there in the majority of gardens. As the story of these gardens unfolds in private conversation, it becomes apparent that these living works of art are shaping their creators every bit as much as the creators are molding their gardens.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com.
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Garden Views: Garden Writing - 1

The Garden Writers of America conference is coming up soon and it got me to thinking about all of the different kinds of garden writing that there are. Of course, there are garden journals, records of the successes and failures in an individual’s garden. They help jog the memory of what to do when, why certain plants are chosen over others, and the thinking process behind a garden’s design. These rarely see the light of public scrutiny, unless the garden or the gardener becomes prominent in that field.

Garden writers may focus on books, blogs, magazine, web, and newspaper articles, radio and television scripts, catalog and seed packet copy, research papers, newsletters, educational materials, plant culture, photography, or a myriad of other special niches.

One of the most common types of garden writing is what I refer to as documentary. It documents what the writer saw in a garden setting. It describes the colors, shapes, types of plants, etc., the size of the garden, whether it is sunny or shady, and some details about why the homeowner gardens in this particular way.

Another conventional way of writing about gardens is a how-to approach that tells readers what the gardener did and explains how they can reproduce that look in their own gardens.
Some blog and newspaper columnists present a chronicle of what is developing in their own space during the growing season, offering readers inspiration, or a vicarious experience.

There are also biographies of famous plant collectors, breeders, landscape architects, artists who specialized in plants or gardens, founders of arboreta and public gardens, etc.

At first glance, it might seem as if these types of writing offer little in the way of creative expression, but creativity is where you find it. There are few synonyms for the words “garden,” and “plant” for example, so it’s always a challenge to craft an article or book that offers sufficient variety of language. For those who enjoy research, learning about unfamiliar plants in order to write about them can be a pleasure in itself. And for those who enjoy a sense of adventure, garden writing offers the perk that you actually have to go to a garden to write about it. Exploring OPG (Other People’s Gardens) is the most fun I’ve had in decades.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com.

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Creating a Garden That Makes You Happy

I spend each summer running around and looking at 30 – 50 gardens in hopes of finding the one, two, or three that might be suitable for publication. Of the remaining 47, perhaps five to ten are for show --- to impress the neighbors. The majority simply make their gardeners happy. In today’s world, that’s no small accomplishment!

My garden is not likely to ever appear in a magazine. While I am working on a long-term plan to stretch the succession of bloom, the big, splashy blossoms (rhodies, bleeding heart, iris, and roses) have finished exploding by early summer. I’m hoping for some flowers on those field-trial hydrangeas that are one and two years old. And then there are the native plants I bought last fall. But they all have a long way to go before they can present the masses of color produced by the 15-year old rhodie wall. Living in the middle of the woods means that the garden’s primary summer color is green. It’s very soothing and the varied textures keep it interesting. But this kind of garden just does not photograph well.

My friend Diane said the other day, “I’m not into all that blue garden, white garden, and lavender garden stuff like what you do,” she said. She and Fred are enthusiastic nature lovers and spend a great deal of time working in their garden. They have an abundance of frogs, birds and, sometimes, bears. It isn’t easy for Diane, who is highly allergic to bee stings and poison ivy, but I’m pretty sure gardening is her favorite thing. I’m not into all that pruning, manicuring, and pond maintenance that she and Fred do to keep their place ship-shape. Our two gardens couldn’t be more different, but they do make their respective owners very happy.

Gardening is one of the few things in life we can do where our “mistakes” don’t matter. If we realize we’ve put a plant in the wrong place, we can move it. If our soil isn’t all that great, we can amend it. If we want more sun, we can limb up the trees; if we want more shade, we can plant more trees. We can emphasize color, collect particular kinds of plants, or create a fantasy land where we can escape from the world for a few hours.

So, as you flip through those glossy garden magazines, or gorgeous garden books, don’t get intimidated. Instead, zero in on those photos that excite you and figure out what it is about the colors, shapes, design, or atmospherics in it that is speaking to your soul. That’s the beginning of creating a garden that makes you happy.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com. Read more!

Garden Views: Our Gardens, Ourselves

Recently, I was talking to a friend about cleaning up in the garden and the conversation meandered to the subject of aging; namely that we just didn’t seem to be able to work continuously from 7:00am to 7:00pm anymore, or to lift bags of soil or tubs of stones with ease, as we once could. Our gardens, and our gardening styles, must change to accommodate our abilities as well as our tastes.

She and her husband have been gardening their plot for more than 30 years. Most of our garden was destroyed when we added onto the house about six years ago, so it is relatively new. We have about the same size lots, but each of us has a very different gardening style and philosophy. What we do share in common, however, is that we want to do all of the gardening ourselves.

Not everyone does.
I recall a cardiologist I visited who was already a grandma several times over. She wanted a mature garden before she was too old to enjoy it. So she hired a local landscape architect, a petite, middle-aged, wiry woman who looked as if she ran marathons three or four times a week. Their collaboration produced an exquisite garden that seemed as if it had always been there. Small trees and mature shrubs were moved from the front yard to the back; an old, awkwardly-placed garage morphed into a three-season garden house with a working fireplace; and a side porch became a secret garden of Victorian antique wicker furniture and flowering plants, where one could observe the entire garden without being observed. Now the landscaper is still called in to do the heavy work, but the doctor putters on weekends and days off, planting her own annuals and perennials.
Other gardeners I’ve met have hired a landscape architect to design the garden and produce the plans and plant list, but then did all of the planting themselves in phases, over a period of years.
This year, I’ve gone back to my roots, so to speak, and planted seeds --- for the first time in about 35 years --- a sport of wild columbine that blooms purple, in full sun, and grew three feet wide; a few morning glories for the new rose arbor; lettuce and cherry tomatoes; etc. I’m also planning to get seeds of some heirloom tomatoes that I discovered at a tomato tasting last year. And I want to air-layer some un-labeled rhodies we bought on sale 15 years ago, and to try my hand at rooting a delphinium and a few other perennials that have gone out of style.
Whether you are staring at blank front and back yards of topsoil in a new development, or just feel the need for a change in a mature garden, make sure to put yourself into the picture, even if you hire professionals to do most of the work. Fashions in gardening come and go, but our gardens are one of the most intimate expressions of ourselves that we will ever have the opportunity to create.

Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com.

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GARDEN VIEWS

Lois J. de Vries

Garden Time

Gardeners can lose themselves in preparing a planting hole, imagining what a particular blue flower will look like in a certain location, or making their “rounds,” of the gardens, in the same way that fine artists lose themselves in their paintings, or novelists enter their stories. A while back, I asked Eric, what gardeners can do to string together more of these “being-in-the-flow” events.

Eric's Answer: "The main thing is to re-imagine time. We often get it into our heads that five minutes or fifteen minutes or half-an-hour isn’t “enough time” to get anything done. This is a big mistake. If we are holding a certain kind of experience, like writing our novel or making our garden rounds, as meaningful, then it is abundantly meaningful to turn to it for short periods of time during the day rather than holding that ,unless you have a huge expanse of time, there is no reason to bother. If you have fifteen free minutes, you could certainly glance at the newspaper and take in some news you don’t need—or you could do the thing your heart actually wants to do, which is visit your garden. The trick is to consider those fifteen minutes as vast and not negligible."

This echoes the sentiments expressed by garden writer Marianne Binetti who believes that gardening is a legitimate task to be incorporated into every garden writer’s workday and that time should be set aside for it like other assignments or appointments. Marianne suggests the carrot-and-stick approach, in which the gardening interval is a reward for completing our less palatable duties.

It seems much easier to get into the garden, than to get out of it, however. All serious gardeners are familiar with the elasticity of time, something we are told is a fixed unit. We’re taught that every second is the same length, determined by atomic clocks based on the hyperfine (microwave) transitions in hydrogen-1, cesium-133, and rubidium-7. Each minute equals 60 seconds, etc.

Nevertheless, in the garden we seem to enter Einstein’s realm of relativity. Well, maybe not exactly. Einstein’s theory says that time expands or contracts depending on how fast the observer is moving. My theory of gardening relativity is that garden time expands or contracts depending upon how much fun the gardener is having. Not much fun = expanding time. Lots of fun = contracting time.

Last year, I inserted some gardening work between the time I first start writing and the time I shower (seemed like a practical decision). I take the cell phone with me for two reasons: For 911 calls in case I accidentally slice off one of my own limbs, and to know when garden time is up. Usually, I was having way too much fun and garden time ended too soon. On auspicious days, I’d find any excuse to justify staying in the garden. Looking back now, each of these were times that I, as Eric advises, allowed myself to “do the thing your heart actually wants to do.”

I thought I needed at least 30 – 60 minutes, but I look forward to experimenting with the idea of considering fifteen, or even five, minutes in the garden as vast.

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Lois de Vries' thoughts on gardening and environmental issues run the gamut from gardening in her own back yard to promoting land management practices that reconnect people to the Earth. Lois is seeking a publisher for her book, The Transformational Power of Gardening. Visit her blog at http://loisdevries.blogspot.com . To contact Lois, drop her an e-mail at loisj7@gmail.com .





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