FINALLY!

Candyinpok, I'm only 20 min. north of Poughkeepsie, barring rush hour. I'd love to get together for some garden geeking. I'm also "realatively new to serious gardening".
I know, the transition from outdoors to indoors takes me about three weeks of being pretty useless! I'm about done now, and have attacked my house with a vengeance. There's still the tedious task of protecting shrubs from winter hazards. Just unloaded the straw bales for mulching the tubers.

In winter I enjoy the planning and studying, using all the pictures and information collected from the season. When I'm "in it" it's so consuming, the plans only remain as a sediment, with the occasional "really good idea" flagged in my notes. But I wouldn't want to miss the spur of the moment idea energy.
I've often gone out to nurseries with a plant list, come home with a dozen plants intended for different areas and thought, as the hatch opens, Wow! these look like they all belong together in a new area!
Also, my business "gets me back" for the winter. My daughter and I collaborate, so it's fun too.
I've decided to skip the late December winter sowing and just do the Feb.-March one, some direct sowing and peat pellets in May. My house is really dry, not a good place for propagation.

I only use terminology when needing to explain to others how I garden. I think "Mixed Garden" mostly covers it. The place itself has its own ideas, so it's counterproductive for me to "marry" any one concept.
I really wrestle with the big projects, so feed-back is really vital. And it would be a nice break to look at someone else's place for a change!

noknok - "termites passing gas" - that's a howl!

No light - just the sunlight and it's a never used "stereo" I bought for my granddaughter but then found she had a better one!

Candy - we do indoor seeds, downstairs, under lights and the best one piece of advice is not to over water or fertilize too much. Maybe that's two pieces but both valuable. If your garden is already eclectic and/or haphazard then you've succeeded with Cottage Gardening. Did you want an actual definition of it? It doesn't have a specific or mandatory look to it - more like a casual feel but on the crowded side. I do have one book left on the subject so I could see if they have a precise definition if that's what you really want.

Just read Dave's post and he's got it down perfectly. Throw in some pretty vegetables, like Swiss chard 'Bright Lights' to make it more authentic and an arbor with a climber like Clematis or climbing roses.

Looking at other people's gardens is great for ideas even if it's to remind yourself never to do what they've done.

noknok,
Thanks for the recommendations. If I didn't have an extensive project I'd order a few now but it will have to wait. I printed out the titles for the future. I haven't been to Madoo yet but it's on my list. I'm jealous when I think of everyone in their easy chairs reading when I have to work.
Dave,
I'm so happy to find another Henry Mitchell lover. I've used The Well Tended Perennial Garden but I find her a little neat for my tastes, good reference source though. I do like the look of the stepped cut of some plants like platycodon grandiflorus, balloon flowers. What about "Creative Vegetable Gardening Accenting Your Vegetables with Flowers" by Joy Larkcom, actually in our case it would be accenting our flowers with vegetables, or Native Alternates to Invasive Plants newly published by the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, if you don't like design books.
jjpm,
I'm a little afraid of Jerry Baker, first because he's made himself a one man industry and secondly because there seems to be so much random information I can't find the truth in it. I'm open to any information you have found useful and would like to share though.

Um, I guess I'm kind of butting in here. I hope it's okay. Lot's of people here seem to know each other well and I don't like to intrude, but I'm interested especially in people with experience in my neck of the woods.

Well, my garden is kind of random, but it's not crowded yet. I now want to multiply the plants that I have so there are more of each. I succeeded with the Phlox and have a new set planted out for next spring and then I collected seeds from what ever I could this fall. I've been looking at other gardens and actually have a folder full of pictures called planning and ideas. Getting the bloom times down and height and color combinations has been hard and I'm still working on that. It's interesting to think that I've approached an actual "style" of gardening. So far I've only called myself 'wild-life' friendly in my plant choices. It's definitely a work in progress.

I've read a number of Jerry Baker's books myself and find him pretty interesting. Recently I bought a book entitled "The Truth About Garden Remedies, What Works What Doesn't & Why" by Jeff Gillman. So when I read about a recipe I check out what the research has been on it. There are some things that really do work and I'd rather use watered down milk than a chemical fungicide any say.

So, about books, The one I just mentioned is good. Also good for me has been "Native Plants of the Northeast" by Donald Leopold, "Weeds of the Northeast" by Uva, Neal and DiTomaso and I recently acquired "Abundant Garden" by Denk and Prinzing. I think someone mentioned it before. Actually I have acquired a bunch of books but haven't thoroughly investigated them all yet. Some of them I bought because of reviews in the Bookworm area here.

Do any of you listen to Larry Sombke? I found his books to be somewhat limited in scope, but his radio show is interesting and pertains to our area.

I'm also wondering if you photograph your plantings a lot, and if so, how do you keep track of them? On my last computer I had picasa, but I haven't down-loaded it on this computer because I'm not sure it's what I want to use. At this point, I have pictures I would have posted, but they are too hard to find. Seems like winter is a good time to deal with these little details.

On the subject of cottage gardens, there are threads everywhere with this subject apparently. I found an interesting link in another thread [HYPERLINK@butterflywebsite.com] which talks about just the spirit with which I've created my gardens. The one in the side yard I even call a butterfly garden. And filling up every empty space is what I'm on the way to doing. Interesting subject.

noknok - Yup - read Gaia's garden. Been through most of the beginning permaculture books. Under the pile on my coffee table is Volume Two of Edible Forest Gardens - it is a textbook and isn't a fun read. Noah's Garden is a book I enjoyed and I absolutely love The Earth Knows My Name. It's focus is food gardens - but the writing is wonderfully well done and it can be picked up and put down and picked up again without losing continuity. Both books are by Connecticut authors, I believe. Mycelium running (which I have skimmed) is really fascinating. Think about how little resources mushroom use to produce high quality food - that's a very good thing. One of the experiments in the book used Oyster Mushrooms to clean up oil contaminated soil. Not only did it clean the soil - it produced lots of oyster mushrooms to eat. Now that is a win-win situation in my book.

The rug is suede scraps from one of those bedding box stores. I use it in the winter - it is about the only rug my evil cat will not try to claim as "his". The best part is that it doesn't show dirt, crumbs or cat hair. I good shaking outside sets it right again.

"The termite population alone is said to outweigh the world's human population by a ratio of ten to one". That's a lot of gas.
I've read somewhere that a climate as even as ours is about as likely as riding down Fifth Avenue at rush hour on a bicycle, blindfolded, without incurring bodily harm. (I had to go to the city today, driving with eyes open off-rush hour, really makes that vivid)
Something is regulating it, they maintain.
I find the Gaia concept, Earth as a living organism, a comforting thought for those of us who would make bad activists.
I think my own best impact on the environment is as a sort of "beauty virus", which is also how I've made a living the past thirty-odd years.
And, as they say, optimists are wrong just as often as pessimists, but they have more fun.
So, Pirl, I actually meant that; -I'm a goof ball as well as a geek.
I don't know how i missed your whole post with Jack turning the compost and the Aster recipe. Making poor soil is tough;o)
So how often does he turn it in winter, since that's on the agenda?

YankeeCat, I don't know that I'll ever get past the beginning permaculture books, but i do enjoy those.
I grew up in Sweden where we ate a lot of mushrooms, I could identify two dozen edible ones by age seven. Now I miss them, the ones that grow here are mostly unfamiliar. We do get Morels, puff balls and Oyster mushrooms and a few others, but no Boletus, Chanterelles or any of the others I know (though not the English names). And with mushrooms you'd better know!
I do know the common field mushroom, for example, absorbs Cadmium where it's present in the environment, making an otherwise great mushroom toxic. So I'm not sure eating mushrooms from contaminated soil is a good idea. Do they supposedly neutralize toxins?
I've also heard that commercially grown root vegetables are frequently used to absorb "excess toxins" in the soil. Scary!
I'll have to check out Noah's Garden and The earth knows my name!

Anyone else here eat stinging Nettles? They're my absolut favorite vegetable April into June. It's my spring tonic. I cultivate them in mowed areas. I have seed if anyone's interested.

Sempervirens, I read when i eat, and evenings, thus the lamp. But you can always kvetch if it feels better, nothing like a good kvetch.
Please let us know if you get to Madoo, I'd love to hear your review.

Candyinpok, I consider my digital camera my most important gardening tool. I have the memory of a fruit fly. Without pictures of the same beds in different seasons I'd be utterly lost.
I had a friend tutor me in Photoshop (which I also need for my work). I make a disc or two for each month, and have thumbnails printed out and laminated (they're out there with me) of every plant that ever went into this bed or that one. All the beds have names.
Filing stuff so I can find it was a whole tutoring session.

Semper,
Thanks for the recommendations. I guess Rodale's Organic Gardening would also be up there on my favorite's list. When I started out I relied heavily on Crocket's Flower Garden.
Would someone tell me who or what Madoo is?
My favorite gardening magazine is Fine Gardening. I think I get 4 at this point. Must cut back!

noknok, that's an interesting idea carrying the thumbnails with you. I'll have to investigate. I have an older version of Photoshop and a daughter who's supposed to teach me how to use it. Maybe I'll press her. Can't remember what's where either. Have started a journal here at Dave's and have almost completed one garden. I'm moving to the next, listing each plant, when it was planted, and tips and chores for it. It's time consuming, but I need a garden journal with jobs for each season and I hope this will end up generating one.

Dave, Madoo is a 2 acre garden made by artist Robert Dash in Sagaponack L.I. NY over several decades. It's open to the public. Here's a link
http://www.madoo.org/madoofrme.htm

Candy, for me, the thumbnails work. Sometimes I write height and bloom time under them (especially bulbs),before laminating. (The names are the file name)
I also mark the bulbs with red golf T-s (ebay, cheap) and take a picture of the area.
I'm one of these people who can't read a menu when I'm starving (these are just WORDS, I need food!). This way the color and shape is right there, inspiring me.

When someone is tutoring you, YOU hold the mouse, they walk you around. Otherwise you probably won't remember it. Stop and take notes for each operation. When they get impatient, just remind them they'll have to show you again if you don't do this.

Here's a bed in my garden June 1.

Oops, hit the wrong button.

Same bed (different angle, I'm working on that), in late september.

noknok - I love the way the bed looks, from both angles, but the edging is so wonderful! Did you do that and if so how?

Jack turns the compost more often when it's warm out and the compost is "cooking" - not in the dead of winter. Then he's warm and toasty in front of the fireplace.

Dave - have you ever tried the Rodale method of 5" of mulch? I'm curious about that one.

Noknok, Nice! What's the shrub with the purple flowers in the first one? And yes, I hold the mouse. DH and I have battles over that one and he has had to show me things over and over for that reason. DD could be better, we'll see.

candy - I'm just guessing that they're lilacs with peonies in front: very nice color combinations!

Good call Pirl, 'Minuet' lilacs, the last of my lilacs to bloom. Except the "French".
The bed is called the "Magenta Ghetto". Every time I order a "tomato red" peony, it opens screaming magenta. I moved them over here, new area this year, and of course got hooked on the possibilities.
Anyone know of a tomato red peony?

Ok, I'll let the compost sleep for the winter, thanks!
The edging is a dry mix method I came up with, to use up yards of sand, river gravel and the stone that's in every hole I dig. I laid over 300 feet of it this season. Here's a link that describes the technique http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/hypertufa/msg0715464132283.html
The picture shows pretty much the whole thing, including a flexible pipe containing water hose, down in the right corner. One strip has power in it. It's very strong, no winter cracking.

I'm more impressed than you can imagine! Great job.

Did you ever read the piece by Cassandra Diaz on magenta plants? It's screamingly funny (to me). I love magenta so please don't think I'm being negative about it.

I have a white peony with a dash of red in it - Festiva Maxima. If you ever want any just Dmail me.

noknok, thanks for the link to Madoo. I was totally confused. Nice path work too. And I really like those lilacs! Do the blooms last long?
Dave

noknok, I just finally made the connection with you and the website, etc. Those mowing strips look good. I can really relate to the debris although on our lot what we dig up us larger than gravel. We have stones, presently holding up a part of our hill out back that came from the various digging on our property, and another pile at the property line in the back, where we just deposit the stuff that comes out of a planting hole. Our hill out back is basically shale covered with a thin layer of dirt (can't call it soil).

Madoo is an interesting place. I hadn't heard of it before. Have you ever been to Innisfree?

Pirl, you're good at your id's. Now that I look, I can see the leaf shape. There sure are a lot of flowers on one of those bushes.

candy - my mom used to send me to school with bouquets of lilacs for the nuns so I know them and love them.

Pirl, thanks for the offer, Festiva Maxima is a gorgeous peony, though I've no place in mind for any just yet.
What I really need is poppies for the right red at that time, but any poppy I've planted just melts into the ground and is never seen again. What am I doing wrong??
I used to hate magenta. But massed with the lilacs and weigelas, then bringing dappled orange dahlias and canadian columbines into it, it became my most exciting area this year, I had a blast!

Candy I managed to miss Innisfree again this year. I did get to Stonecrop last year and want to go again. NEXT spring, d****t!.
The river stone was left over from another job, what comes out of the holes is mostly fist to breadbox size. I have a 6 yard pile. The really big ones went to the pond.

Annual poppies are best sown directly even as the ground is frozen.

They also wintersow very nicely

Oh, I really want a pond. Not enough space though. If we get things moving, a falling water feature coming down the hill could work.

Just read a horrendous article about the planned development down the road. Perhaps I want to move instead.

Candy, I really love my water garden, but I recently posted on another thread about having to fix my pump last Saturday. No fun if you have to stick your hands in the pond fron Nov. to March! Amazing how quick my hands got numb and it was only the beginning of Nov.!
Its worth it though. They really are very little maintenance once you have your little ecosystem established.
Dave

I've enjoyed this thread. I have different garden books for different purposes. I will be donating several of my garden picture books to our public library soon. I have the Western Garden Book for one of my big references. I love it because it has heard of nearly everything and they cover most zones in California so zillions of plants are covered by it. I have lots of books on houseplants, cacti and succulents, trees, palms ferns, etc, since as Junior Horticulture Chairperson, I have to do a lot of plant ID for the spring flower show. I don't even have the giant bibles of plant ID either, since they don't have pictures. My group of helpers goes by the pictures. I take on the ID of the weird and unusual that come in to the show from the kids. I like old and vintage garden books. I have a great one on pelargoniums, the American garden club of Havana {of all places from the 1930's} and books on terrariums {from the '70s when it was cool, man, cool} which I will be using in two weeks when our garden club hosts a terrarium workshop.
I like to read garden essays or gardening books on unusual subjects. One of my favorites is "The Field Guide to the Slug".
Yes you will get tomatos and what not in your compost unless you get it to heat up really hot, which will kill the seeds. There is somewhere among gardening gadgets, a compost thermometer for taking readings of your pile. I have had a 30 gallon trash can near the kitchen door for my kitchen scraps. I mix these with oak leaves and grass clippings and it makes a great compost. My son and i sift it out in the spring and start it over once a year. The barrel has holes drilled in the bottom and up the sides and it is an old style rubbermaid one with a flat lid that has a brick on it since racoons would frequent it before I figured out the brick part. They could get the lid off, clever little devils that they are. I have two round black plastic bins for shredded leaves and grass, since I have great amounts of both over the spring and fall. they are large black cylinders made of recycled plastic and can be adjusted for circumference and were sold by the town very cheeply long ago. I like them. I had to replace some of the plastic hooks that hold them together in a couple of places with bolts and nuts, but they have held up very well for years. I have never put any leaves out on the curbside to be picked up. I compost nearly all of them.
Organic gardening's Rodale Press has a great book on composting techniques. Answers a lot of questions.
I use my old bread for stuffing. I take the crusts or leftover pieces and cut them up or break them up, if they are already stale, and let them dry completely on a cookie sheet overnight. then, into a zip lock bag {most valuable invention since hot running water} and into the freezer until I need them. They keep really well in there. I have a big freezer in the basement where they go if I have too much stuff for the one over the fridge.
I would suggest with a pile as large as you have made. noknok, that you make yourself a sifting screen to fit over your wheelbarrow or whatever you use to load compost into when it is finished. Mine is made of scrap wood and hardware cloth and I have two of them, one larger and one smaller sized. I got them both at yard sales, because I was probably the only shopper who knew what they were for at the time. but they are not hard to make. I compost oak leaves, which, even shredded, are one of the hardest substances to break down known to gardener-kind. the screens sift out the uncomposted bigger bits of leaves so they can go back into the pile to finish off as well as get the sticks and whatnot that may have made it into the pile. Oh my, I am going on here. I will sign off for tonight.
Martha

Compost gets turned when the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees on a compost thermometer. Science has proven tomato seeds are unaffected by the temperature and will grow. We made the fatal mistake, the very first year, and picking out thousands and thousands of seedlings was no fun.

Since you said you enjoy the older books on gardening, I think it's "Gardens of Bressingham" or "Blooms of Bressingham", by Adrian and Alan Bloom, is filled with black and white photos and the story of how the gardens were established. It probably dates from the '50's. It's a great read.

This is a fun thread! NokNok, I love your style -- I want to come over with a bottle of vino and relax in your garden.

4paws, Broome/Tioga, you say? Me, too!

noknok - Pinoche is the coolest! And I love your couch as well. I've had a lot of fun reading this thread. Pinoche the Cat!! LOL

Candy - there is no such thing as "butting in" on the NE forum! This is the most "inclusive"- as opposed to "exclusive" - gang of thugs on DG!!! We've never met an outsider here, so come back often and join the fun!

I like this thread also. I'd like to thank wrightie for resurrecting it. I wasn't hanging in the NE in 06. Lots of reading ideas for the upcoming winter months.

Great thread. Thanks for the bump. I have a question. There's a patch of bare soil between where the patio ends and the grass begins. Nothing will grow there because we use it as a pathway, and it doesn't get enough sunlight. Just spoke to the DH about putting some sort of path material there, cause it gets muddy. Would your technique work for an area like this, and do I have to dig anything to put it down? Please reply ASAP, if possible.

Also, DH wants to put something down that will match the concrete pavers on the patio. What are my options for finding matching stones? Thanks.

Linda

Anybody got pics of a pathway they did using this technique, PLEASE POST THEM!