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Garden Tip of the day

Garden Tip of the Day

Yesterday I put together a list of garden tips for a program I did at Temple Beth-El in Huntington NY

Here's tip # 1

Amend your soil!
Would you feed your children or pets only bread and water? Your plants want extra nutrients too. Help them by amending your soil with composted manure and fertilizers.

Get rid of that tired old potting soil in those containers before potting them up this year. You don't have to throw that soil away, I just add it to my compost heap.

Instead of buying one of the pre-mixed potting soils I like to make my own. So many of the soils on the market are extremely light and once they dry out they are like clay. If there's a great price on potting soil I will buy it but it's really simple to make your own.

I buy compost or top soil, mix in peat moss, vermiculite and a slow release fertilizer. Then again, I use hundreds of pounds of potting soil so this works for me. If you are using smaller quantities, I'd still advise mixing some compost in with your pre-mixed potting soil just to add some "oomph" to the mix and some weight to the pot.

Time to split!

Hooray! Yesterday I finally got to dig in the dirt!!!

I've been growing Bleeding hearts (Dicentra spectabilis) in my garden for many years.
After moving here 11 years ago, I bought a few in boxes from local garden centers in the early spring, planted them in the ground and didn't give them much thought after that. For some reason, I was under the impression that they were finicky to move, I guess I didn't think that out too carefully. If they were finicky, they sure wouldn't have survived being packaged in those little cardboard boxes and loaded on the shelves at the stores.

One bleeding heart had been planted in my driveway, lots of sun, lots of water and lots of composted horse manure. That plant grew to epic proportions! It was just amazing in the spring, more than 6 feet across (2 meters) during peak bloom. The one problem with a bleeding heart of that size is that by mid summer the foliage disappears leaving you with a big hole in that same spot.

Last year I decided to bite the bullet and divide this monster. I dug it up, didn't know what to do with all those carrot-like roots so I snapped them off. I chopped up the pieces with my garden knife until I had pieces that fit into pots and potted them up. Finally, the pots were put in the shade so the plants wouldn't go into total shock. A few weeks later every single pot was full of lush blooming bleeding hearts. I was thrilled!

In the past I had only dug young bleeding heart seedlings. Yes, bleeding hearts will self sow if you leave the seed pods alone. Nobody had told me this and I was so happy the first time I found those distinctive little seedlings.



Both red and white varieties of Dicentra grow here. The red seems to seed more easily but maybe that's because it was the clump in the most sun. I've only found 3 seedlings so far near the white bleeding heart. They've been moved around the garden over the past few years so hopefully more will volunteer to grow here.

Every spring I hold a one day plant sale and invariably people ask if I have any of the white Dicentra for sale. This year I decided to divide up that big clump so I could share it with a few folks.

The first photo shows a close up of the root system on the Dicentra. The second photo shows the emerging foliage on a red Dicentra that seeded next to a clump of daylilies. The third photo shows the foliage of the white Dicentra (the two small pieces I left after removing the large clump). As you can see, it's easy to tell what color the plants are going to be.

Since I still had a wheel barrow half filled with potting soil, I decided to bite the bullet and also try my hand at dividing up the Euphorbia polychroma (Cushion spurge). If you look through my post titles, you'll see that I did a feature on this fantastic perennial.



The photo here is not too exciting, as you can see, I tried to get this divided up before it puts on any growth. That seemed to be successful with the bleeding hearts so I wanted to use the same method.

This last photo shows the clump of Euphorbia on the edge of my work table. The roots were even easier to work with than the Dicentra. So far the plants all look fine in their pots, one reason to be thankful for our cold rainy day.

Hopefully tomorrow I can attempt another perennial and share that here too.

Gotta love that mud!

Stay Tuned!

The past two weeks has been spent traveling. First was four lovely days in Niagara Falls, Canada and then a wonderful week in Delray Beach, Florida.

The above photo of a desert rose (Adenium multiflorum) was taken at the National display gardens for the Orchid Society in Delray Beach.

Stay tuned for lots of garden posts coming up, unfortunately I hurt my back on Monday afternoon and sitting in the computer chair is quite painful so I have to limit my time here.

Yesterday I took photos while dividing Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra spectabilis) and will share those later today or tomorrow.

Bargain Days

What's there to do when you can't work in the garden? Let's go shopping!


Seriously, some of my best bargains came about when I least expected them. This past week I was lucky to come across a whole slew of bargains.

While wandering through the Broadway Mall in Hicksville (home of Billy Joel), I passed a store named 'Tuesday Morning'. I had never heard of this store and was quickly stopped in my tracks when I saw the amount of gardening related items they carried.

Tuesday Morning is not a gardening store, it seems to be an odd-lot type of place with a little of this and a little of that. Obviously their buyer found a lot of gardening containers. Above you can see two iron containers I brought home with me. I can't wait to pack them with some moss, potting soil and then some luscious sempervivum (hens & chicks).


Another great bargain came my way when my package of garden clogs came from www.valleyvet.com

I highly recommend this company, their price for these adorable ladybug clogs was by far the cheapest to be found. With the handling charge, I was able to purchase two pairs of clogs for only $2 more than one single pair costs at the local nursery. Hooray for valley vet!

Potted People

I'm not sure when I saw my first potted person, it was probably at a flower show. One thing I knew right away though, I had to have one of them in my own garden.

Although I had seen a few smaller potted people, the first one I saw in a private garden was a majestic seated one. There I was, in a lovely garden with 100 people snapping away photos of the daylilies and all I could do was stare in wonder at this potted person.


Of course ideas come and go, so my mind quickly forgot all about having one of these people in my garden. Then I went on another garden tour, this one on Eastern Long Island where I saw this incredible standing creature. I was sold, I just had to have one of these for myself.


In the summer of 2005 I took my daughters along on the National tour of the American Hemerocallis Society which was in Cincinnati OH that year. Emily and I just loved all the potted people and even dogs that we saw.


In the spring of 2006 I designed a children's garden at the Hofstra flower show entitled "Grandma's Garden". Of course the garden needed a Grandma and my chance finally came. I could make a potted grandma!

Well, few things from the flower show usually come home with me but this time I brought home that bunch of pots. We're still working out the right combination of plant material for "hair" but since she is a grandma, we thought we'd try something blue.

The Lobelia was perfect until mid summer, this year I'll have to find something even better. Of course in our garden she's no longer Grandma, she's Omi.

Hicks Show Idea

In the last posting I wrote that I saw one good idea at the Hicks Flower show. So here it is...



One thing I keep dreaming about is a lovely pond for my garden. But, there are a few problems with ponds. Number one is the price, those spectacular, natural looking ponds just cost big bucks to install and maintain. Second is that maintenance itself, I just don't need another thing that requires daily attention and multiple trips to the store (except to buy plants of course).

Every year I find myself looking at those simple pond forms they sell at the home improvement chain. The only thing with them is that it would be hard to get them to look natural.

Well look at the pond in this photo. Rather than go for a natural look, they chose a square pond and went for formal. The wrought iron gazebo over it is a lovely touch although that again pushes the price sky high.


Finally, the skirt of moss rock all around the base does a nice job of hiding the mechanics of the pond and gives you lots of fun pockets to put new plants.

In my opinion it's a great idea!


Euphorbia amygdaloides 'Efanthia' tucked into the moss rock wall.

Hicks Flower show

March is here and of course that means it's time for the Hicks flower show.


For those of you who don't live on Long Island, Hicks nursery is well over 100 years old. It's just outside the perimeter of Old Westbury Gardens. At one time I think they supplied the bulk of plants to Old Westbury.

Years ago their display's always blew me away. There were different themes, amazing shrubs I'd never heard of and perennials that turned me into a drooling idiot.


When one of the mom's up at school introduced me to another mom, I found out this second woman was the designer, the heart and soul of all the flower show exhibits at Hicks. Her name is Gianna and I've mentioned her here before and will certainly mention her here again since she is an amazing friend.

This year there were the usual tons of forced bulbs, the pink ones above were some kind of tulip. They were so beautiful but I wonder how long they would last on a windy day?



As nice as it was to peek at their sales area, they seemed much smaller and less well stocked than in the past. Well, maybe there were as many plants but it was hard to find something different or unusual.


The one plant that really blew my mind was this chartreuse Hellebore foetidous. I wanted one so badly and hunted all around the sales areas trying to find one. Finally, there they were, maybe 20 of them all bunched together and not a single space showing that any had been purchased. Well DUH, I took one look at the price tag showing $49.99 and I knew why there were still on the table. They sure were stunning but that's a lot of money for a single stemmed plant. I guess I'll have to wait a few years until the price comes down a bit.

I only found one idea worth photographing at the show. I'll save it for my next message.

Think green!

Honeysuckle Dreams

Lonicera is the botanical name for Honeysuckle and that's about all that I know on this climbing vine. Some gardeners have written of fond childhood memories of this plants and others have written about trying to eradicate this vine from their garden.


As for me though, my first encounter with this plant was when I bought one for my own garden. Being afraid of it taking over like Kudzo, I planted it in a large whiskey barrel that was next to my garden swing. In a few years it's grown nicely to cover 2/3's of the roof of that swing.


It wasn't until recently that I realized honeysuckles have different bloom seasons. Unfortunately, I didn't save the name of this variety but I do know it blooms in late May, right around prom season. Now I'd like to buy a different colored one that blooms later in the season and plant it on the other side.

Anybody have any suggestions?

Also, I'd like to know if there would be any problems if I planted some of these in the ground along that plain stockade fence.

Rockin Robin

Rockin Robin

Nothing stirs the heart like the sound of spring bird songs in the garden. This week I saw my first flock of robins checking out the trees and shrubs for some yummy tidbits. They were a bit early, there was still ice over most of the ground but I was so happy to see them here!

The photo above is of a baby robin that we found in the garden two springs ago. His nest had fallen out of a tall Cedar and the other babies did not survive the fall. This little fellow though looked just fine and what a set of pipes he had. He'd call for his mother ever chance he had!

Emily named him Einstein, she said that his hair-do reminded her of Einsteins hair. For days we'd go out and watch him, taking photos when we could.


A few weeks went by when we noticed this huge baby robin following it's mother around, still squawking like crazy. We were sure it was Einstein! Maybe he's one of the big male robins that are out there right now.

Tweet Tweet!

Green Thumb Sunday

Happy Sunday!

Today's topic is texture in the garden.

I just love to have plants that I can touch, I guess that makes me a touchy-feely kind of gardener.

One of my favorite textures is the cone on a purple cone flower (Echinacea purpurea). Don't they look wonderful combined with the spiky blooms of Liatris.

Maybe it's the love of texture that keeps me out in the garden on July evenings. I get so much enjoyment live-heading my daylily blooms. With over 400 varieties of daylilies here, it can easily take over an hour but there's such satisfaction in the SNAP of those blooms coming cleanly off the plant and the knowledge that tomorrow morning the garden will be wearing a whole new glamorous look.

(The daylily pictured here is 'Island Love Affair')





The sticky bands around the stems of Silene armeria (catch-fly) call me as I walk by and I rarely can resist touching them.

The catch-fly was another plant gifted to me by a woman that I worked with many years ago. She brought me a single little seedling that over 20 years and a move, has managed to seed itself with abandon all over my garden.

The pale yellow spikes are a truly perennial Digitalis that I've been encouraging to seed around the garden. Yes, they too were a gift, these came from my good gardening friend Chris.

Of course, nothing beats the touchability of Lambs ears (Stachys byzantina) which is why they will always have a home in my garden. (fuzzy gray plant in the bottom right of this photo)

Being such a computer moron, I'm still trying to figure out how to attach the Green Thumb Sunday information here. Hopefully you can find the links here somewhere on this blog.

The Gift that keeps on giving

There's nothing like the gift of a plant from one gardener to another. I've had my own garden for 21 years now but can clearly remember those plants that were first given to me.


There was definitely a lesson to be learned. Some gardeners shared plants that were terribly invasive. Other gardeners gave the tiniest slips of plants that grew to be bed hogs. But for the most part, I found that gardeners are incredibly generous with the bounty of their garden and were glad to share not just plants but their knowledge too.

Although my parents enjoyed being outdoors and took us on many "nature" trips, they were not avid gardeners. As immigrants to this country they were quite busy working long hours trying to live the American dream. The first photo above shows one of the few plants I have from my Mom. She had a small town house garden just a few miles from me and gave me a piece of this yellow coreopsis 'Zagreb'.

Of course I left that piece in a plastic bag from the supermarket for a whole winter, along the shady side of my garage. Come spring I noticed growth coming out of that plastic bag and quickly (guiltily?) popped it into the garden. That might have been 7 or 8 years ago but since then I have potted up close to 100 pots of this wonderful perennial plus I have at least 5 or 6 mass plantings of it here. It truly was the gift that kept on giving.

As the years go by, and life grants us changes, our gardening friends change too. One friend of mine, Mary Kay, has a garden that's just chock-a-block full of delicious, hard to find plants. A few years ago Mary Kay invited me and my friend Kim to come get some Camassias. We didn't know what a camassia was and to be honest we eyed those scraggly leaves with some distaste. Still, I've rarely known Mary Kay to recommend something that didn't turn out to be fantastic so we took our baggies home and planted them in the garden.

The next May when our Camassias bloomed, Kim and I were in heaven. Our Camassias turned out to be these heavenly blue flowers that just knocked our socks off. This year will be the first that I have enough to take my gift and keep on giving.


Some plants come in a strange way. This sweet hardy Geranium was a tiny slip growing out of the crack of ground cloth at Fox Hollow Farm. One of the owners was walking by and I pointed out this teeny baby and recommended that it be dug up and potted. Guido told me that anything that was growing out of a crack was a weed and if I wanted it, I could dig it up myself.

You should see that massive weed when it's in bloom at the front of my driveway. It's awesome!


When I first joined the Long Island Daylily Society I made a whole bunch of new gardening friends. Most gifted me with lovely daylilies right from the start, but one woman, Judy Rocco, gifted me with many other plants. Judy also belonged to the Hosta Society and she made sure I had some Hosta to put in my new garden.

I had never seen Corydalis before my visit to Judy's and shamelessly asked for a piece. Judy was reluctant to give me one. Oh, she had plenty to share, she was just afraid that I'd end up with so much Corydalis all over that I'd be mad at her. Well, there's lots of Corydalis here but every extra piece I'm willing to part with sells out almost instantly at my spring plant sale.


Judy also gave me a piece of this yellow Sedum aizoon 'Lemon Snowflakes'. I wish I could let her know how well the plants she shared with me have done. Judy died of breast cancer just a few years after gifting these plants (and many others) to me.


In the front here you can see the pink evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa). A friend from many years ago, Mary, gifted me with this wonderful beauty. I have to admit I'm glad I was wary about the fact that she brought me several trays loaded with this plant. Only a few pieces were actually planted and at first I was quite annoyed that they wouldn't stay put. But they traveled south as far as they could go until they hit the block border along my driveway. There they stay and raise their darling faces to the sun and I just adore them.


I'm not one to grow something that only looks good for a short time period but these double bloodroot (sanguinaria canadensis) are so awesome that I don't care if I only get to see them for a few days. They were a gift from George Rasmussen, the famous daylily and hosta hybridizer.

Lately there's been a new kind of sharing going on here. My good friends Gianna and Richard are both plants-people extraordinare! Richard is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to trees and shrubs and he's been bringing me some amazing things to grow in my garden.

This stunning moon maple was a gift after my father passed away. My dad and I spent many hours wandering around the garden and talking about plants so I know he'd be pleased by this beauty.


This theme could go on and on, that's how many wonderful gardeners have shared plants with me. I thought I'd wrap it up with a close-up of the bloom on this breath taking Kousa 'Gold Star'. Being that it's a tree, it too was a gift from Richard.

In a few weeks I should be able to take a photo of the witch hazel bloom on my latest gift so stay tuned and stay green.

Green Thumb Sunday

Calie the wonder dog

Woof! This is Calie the wonderdog. She's 3/4's standard poodle and 1/4 yellow lab which makes her a 100% lovable Labradoodle.

As you can see, she really enjoys the snow. We always though she was part polar bear too and now we can see the truth.

We got Calie one year ago, February 2006. Our intention was to get a Wheaton terrier but when the breeder brought out this fluff ball, our hearts melted.

Don has allergies so we needed a non-allergenic type dog. Labradoodles aren't always non-allergenic but Calie has been no problem.

We don't know what it was about her that sold us but the minute they carried her in the room we just knew she was meant to be ours.

Emily is the one in the pink shirt, Lauren is in the red and white striped shirt, Calie has the brown nose :-)

Unfortunately, we hadn't had a dog before and should have started training her from the moment we brought her home.

Little dogs do things that are cute, big dogs do things that hurt. We had no idea and neither did Calie. Letting her jump on people seemed cute at first but a 70 lb dog jumping in your lap is not cute!

So join me in a photo adventure of Calie the wonder dog and I'll try to pass on some of the do's and don'ts of dog-ship.

Warning, don't click on these photos, they will be gigundo. Firefox is giving me a problem with downloading photos to this site so I'll need some help before I can get small photos here again.

Don't: Aw, how cute. Calie is trying to get her liver treats off the table, let's take a picture!


Do: Teach your dog that silence is golden and no nipping allowed.

Don't encourage your dog to hang out over the baby fence. Calie still respects the fence but knocks it down when she tries this.

Do ask for help and bring a professional in to work with your dog. Thanks Mare!


Don't let them sleep on the couch or they will ruin it.


Don't let their hair get this long or it will get knotted (matted). Even if they look cute.


If you do let their hair get matted (I was brushing her almost an hour a day at that point) DON'T let the groomer get carried away! Poor Calie needed therapy after this hair cut.

Do take your dog for lots of walks. It's not only good for the dog but good for you too! Calie and I love to hike the Walt Whitman trails in West Hills (South Huntington) New York.


Don't expect your dog to consider any available trash can as anything but a candy shop.

But most of all, Do love your dog with all your heart that's how they love you.

P.S. Note, new couch but who's still on it?