Xeriscape your garden before vacation

Posted on May 12, 2009 by | 1 comment

Ozarks Travel Examiner: Xeriscape your garden before vacation

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Prepare your gardens and select plants
that can survive while you are away on vacation.

When you plan a trip to the Ozarks this spring or summer, stop by the Xeriscape Demonstration Garden to get ideas for your home landscape or garden. The xeriscape garden is designed with hardy water-saving plants, many are Missouri natives. See how to prepare your gardens and select plants that can survive while you are away on vacation.

A stroll through the gardens will help you prepare your garden for vacation, save water and reduce watering chores all season. Landscaped to be attractive year round, something is blooming in the demonstration garden every day three seasons of the year.

On our way to Branson, we stopped for a stretch break in Springfield and checked out the garden. The Xeriscape Demonstration Garden, is on the corner of South National and Linwood.

Established in 1992, the garden is a volunteer project of Springfield master gardeners. Their goal is to demonstrate efficient use of water in landscaping in an urban setting.

The Xeriscape is divided into three zones:

  • high water use zone which depends on frequent irrigation
  • moderate water zone which utilizes less irrigation
  • low water use zone which receives no supplemental irrigation

Xeriscaping will lower water bills, require little or no lawn mowing and plants tend to survive when water restrictions are implemented.

See what trees, turf, perennials and ground covers can best survive our hot, humid Missouri summers. Most gardeners love to see other gardens, bringing home new ideas and landscape solutions with every trip.

This summer I’ll visit several gardens in Missouri and surrounding states. Two other outstanding demonstration sites are Missouri Botanical Garden in St Louis and Kansas City’s botanical garden, Powell Gardens. Both of these gardens are a full day trip and are worth a visit in every season.

In Springfield, a botanical garden is in the works at Nathanael Greene-Close Memorial Park, 2400 S. Scenic.

The two not-to-be-missed gardens in Springfield are the Mizumoto Stroll Garden, 2400 S. Scenic Ave., and the Xeriscape Demonstration Garden, South National and Linwood streets.

Visit Springfield, Missouri, Convention & Visitors Bureau for a free Visitors Guide, accommodations or area maps.

For more info: Send your travel ideas and suggestions to the Senior Travel Examiner Patsy Bell Hobson at patsy64068@yahoo.com . To get notice of new Senior Travel Examiner columns please subscribe via email. Patsy also blogs about Southeast Missouri and Senior travel She also has a gardening blog: Oh, Grow Up!

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Don’t Forget The Sun Screen

Posted on April 20, 2009 by | 4 comments

First Spring Workout Since the weather is still cool, I was proud that I remembered to apply sun screen on my face and don a garden hat before heading out to weed and clean the strawberry bed this morning. I enjoy spring chores like cleaning out the gardens and tidying the strawberry bed. It is good exercise to get down on my hands and knees to weed and trim. With the protection of a garden hat and sun screen, it is easy to putter in the garden all morning.

Finally, the strawberry bed is groomed and weeded. All is right with the world! How does the poem go? “God’s in His Heaven, All’s Right with the World,” wrote Robert Browning. That man knew spring!

Time to get up and move onto the next chore. I try to stand up, but my bones start popping like a string of Black Cat firecrackers. Dizzy, I lean on the hoe, standing there for a wobbly minute until my blood remembers the circulation routine.

I am so stiff, I think about laying down in this gorgeous strawberry bed. Maybe I’ll just take a little nap right here in the sun-warmed garden soil. If I never get up, I will simply compost and improve the quality of the season’s harvest. What a way to go. What better final resting place than a garden? Gnats crawling up my nose change my mind.

Suddenly, my sweetheart bursts out of the house looking alarmed. He’s had a call from our widowed neighbor who wonders if she should call 911, or the funeral home. I get up and wave to the neighbor as I shout an explanation, “Just doing my yoga stretches outside today. I’m fine. Really.”

This is when I make every effort to step lively, as the neighbor has had her eye on my husband ever since she became a widow. Healthy men with good lawn mowers are hard to find. Not until the warm water of the evening shower hits my neck do I realize my mistake. I’ve been on my hands and knees all day. Head down, hat on, not really exposing my face to the sun at all. The back of my neck is on fire. It looks like a scalded chicken neck. My winter white skin has been exposed to the fires of hell. The sun has turned me into a one-sided redneck.


If it weren’t for the fragrance of lilacs wafting through the window, I’d be a mighty cranky, creaky gardener right now. I’m pretty sure heaven smells like lilacs in the spring. It has to, there are just too many grandmothers and gardeners there that have preceded us.

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Bachelor Buttons

Posted on April 18, 2009 by | Comments Off on Bachelor Buttons

Blue Boy Bachelor Button
I plant Bachelor Buttons every year. Bachelor Buttons (Centaurea cyanus) are a member of the aster family. The flower is the ideal boutonniere because it fits perfectly in a lapel button hole and can last out of water.

Easily grown from seed, butterflies and bees are attracted to these hardy sun loving flowers. To keep the blooms going all summer, deadhead as the blooms fade. Centaurea is also known as cornflower because the plant grows wild in the grain fields of southern Europe.

When Napoleon forced Queen Louise of Prussia from Berlin, she hid her children in a cornfield and kept them entertained and quiet by weaving wreaths of cornflowers. One of her children, Wilheim, later became the emperor of Germany. Remembering his mother’s bravery, he made the cornflower a national emblem of unity.


It’s is an edible bloom with a mild sweet spicy taste, and can be used to garnish salads and desserts. It also makes a lovely everlasting, or dried flower. Though most often found in shades of blue, you will also find pinks, purples, whites and even an occasional black bachelor button.

Bachelor Buttons seed is easy to find in most garden center flower seed displays. Renee’s Garden Seeds, has a brilliant blue cornflower named ‘Blue Boy’ that is a cottage garden standout. I had great success with ‘Blue Boy’ in my container gardens last year. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, has the rare heirloom ‘Black Boy’ bachelor button with lovely, nearly black flowers.

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Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – April 2009

Posted on April 15, 2009 by | 4 comments

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – April 2009

April is also poetry month so here is a poem that you probably have memorized.
The Daffodils
by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

I found a group of garden enthusiasts who were kind enough to include in Bloom Day. As grandpa would say, “These are my kind of people.”

In the front yard this pink dogwood steals the show for weeks.
As it first begins to bloom, the flowers are almost red. When fully open. they will be a very bright pink.

Pink Dogwood Tree in my front yard was well established when I moved here two years ago.

Most of these tulip and daffodils, I think about 800 bulbs, were planted last fall and are from Colorblends. Mostly a blend of yellow, orange-apricot and red Darwin Hybrids. Like a sunset, the color aspect changes over time: from bright to pastel. The combination is called Celebration. The daffodils are mostly Daffodil Flight Time.


The dafs will be back next year and some of the tulips, provided the gluttonous grey squirrel does minimal munching.

Also, There are some heirloom bulbs. One of the prettiest and smallest is Tulip Bakeri Lilac


Wonder. Showy lilac-pink flowers with deep yellow centers bob in the slightest breeze. They came up later than the other tulips, which, I am sure, is an attention getting device for these little bloomers. I love this little flower that looks like a lavender tulip until you get up close enough to discover the brilliant yellow inside. About 8 inches tall and a native of Crete. Suitable for zones 3-7. (My garden is in zone 6.)

AND THIS, which I forgot it’s name and I hope you will help me remember. They will be a great addition to your CollinsBrooke Landscape. They are about 3 inches tall and planted in the bed where I planted litttle early bloomers, like snow drops, crocus, grape hyacinth. In their second year, they are beginning to naturalize.

What gardener would honestly say they did not have a few brilliant yellow dandelions. Here we are demonstrating Grandpas Weeder to extract a volunteer in the lawn. The link will get you to more info about this sturdy, useful tool.

A few azalea blooms survived two hard freezes. But mostly this is the second year in a row that these spring spectacles have been frozen out.

These Alpine strawberries that have been blooming since March. Cool weather doesn’t deter
them. If the blooms freeze, there will be plenty more to f0llow. I tell all about the itty bitty berries in an earlier blog post.

There are a few more, a lone purple iris, white dogwood, and the beautiful little purple globes of the chives. But I am not at home and can not run out a snap photos.

A few poetic last words:

I will be the gladdest thing
 Under the sun!
 I will touch a hundred flowers
 And not pick one.
 ~Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Afternoon on a Hill”

So, let me say, thank you. It’s fun to be a part of this Bloom Day.

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other. ~Chinese Proverb

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Red and sweet tiny Alpine Strawberries

Posted on April 11, 2009 by | 1 comment
Wild Strawberries or Alpine Strawberries are hardy, disease resistant and perfect for a low birder or edging plant.

Loads of Sweet Little Fruits

I discovered some wild strawberries once and brought a few plants home. They loved living at my house and multiplied into a beautiful ground cover in a small flower bed. My sweet husband thoughtfully cleaned up that flower bed one spring, ripping out all the weeds, which were my prized wild strawberries.


Since then, I’ve tried a couple of times to start wild strawberries from seed and failed. When I had the opportunity to start new gardens in a new home, I went a little overboard with these tiny berries.

I ordered “Mignonette” French strawberry seed from Renee’s Garden Seed and had great success using the AeroGarden. The plants, once started, are easy to grow. They are compact perennial Alpine strawberry plants producing sweet, pointed fruits from early spring to the last frost. I notice that Renee’s has an article about these itty bitty berries on her web page. This is where I got the idea to use these strawberries as an edging plant. Renee’s is one on the most reliable and prompt places to order seed.

That same year, I bought a Fragaria vesca “Ruege” plug pack of 12 plants from Richter’s. These little sweet and tangy berries are about the size of the wild ones on compact, runnerless plants but they do multiply and should be thinned every few years.Bears fruit from June til frost. Richter’s has the best selection of culinary and medicinal herb plants that I have found.

Both plants have multiplied rapidly. Since I planted them, they have mixed and I have no idea which is which. This spring, they started blooming in March. A freeze only slows them down but they soon begin setting bloom again. So, I am not worried about them surviving these late hard freezes in April.

I think that those monster sized rugged and tasteless berries at the grocery store turned me away from normal strawberries. The tiny wild or Alpine berry taste like strawberry candy in comparison.

The first year, it was a contest to see who would eat these mini delicacies, me or the birds. There are so many of them and the season is so long, that now the birds and I have agreed to share the abundant harvest. A third variety of strawberry grows in my gardens.

French‘Mara des Bois’ from White Flower Farm.

‘Mara des Bois’ lives in hanging baskets on the patio and are just starting to green up this year. Last summer I had one or two berries and a winged predator or possibly my beloved husband ate the rest. There were not a lot of berries because the plants were busy trying to escape their confinement by sending runners over the edges of the baskets. The berries are twice the size of the Alpine berries, but that still means a very small berry compared to what we find at the grocery.These hardy little plants over wintered in hanging basket sitting on the patio all winter.I’m always pleased with whatever I buy from White Flower Farm.

Fraises des bois is a French word for strawberries of the woods. The strawberries are also known by other names including: Fragaria vesca, Alpine Strawberry, Wild Strawberry, Woodland Strawberry, American Strawberry, European Strawberry, fraises des bois, and fraisier des bois. Call them what you will, these itty bitty berries a too fragile for transport. The little ones fetch premium prices at the market.

I’m sure the frost will take these little blooms. But the small and mighty plants aren’t about to give up. I thinned them by fifty percent this spring, tossing literally hundreds of plants. I should have been merciless and ripped out more and may yet.

The tiny berries are beautiful decoration on a desert plate. It is said that tea made from the leaves will stimulate the appetite. They grow as an evergreen edging along the sidewalk near the garden, making for easy picking as I walk by.

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Grandpa’s Weeder

Posted on April 6, 2009 by | Comments Off on Grandpa’s Weeder

Effortless Weed Remover

For almost one hundred years gardeners have used this simple, sturdy tool to extract weeds. Grandpa’s Weeder is the best weed puller ever. It is well made and, I imagine, it will out last me.

Weeding is not the tedious job it once was. There is no pulling, no kneeling and no chemicals, no sweat. Weeding does not get any easier than this.

This simple tool pulls roots without bending, pulling or kneeling. Great for people of all ages. Invented in 1913, with a cast iron head for durability, and a sturdy 40 inch ash handle for easy leverage. Lifetime guarantee. Made in China.
Buy at Ace Hardware, Seeds of Change,
A.M. Leonard, Amazon.com, Spray N Grow. I even found a good price on eBay.

Weed Slayer, Neighbor Bill demonstrates Grandpa’s Weeder.

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Hard times reap profits for seed catalogs

Posted on March 16, 2009 by | 1 comment


One business that is thriving in these uncertain economic times are the seed sellers. People’s anxiety has fertilized the garden industry which has seen a huge increase in sales this season.

“I wouldn’t say people are panicking. It’s more like they are anxious,” said Bill Timmsen, Human Resources Director at Baker Creek. Vegetable seed sales have more than doubled this year. Baker Creek had been experiencing a slight growth every year, but this spring, seed orders started pouring in early and haven’t stopped.

“It’s more like folks just don’t know. We can’t see tomorrow. We don’t know how bad things are going to get. Growing our own food is one way we can have some control.”

Washington is using the term “shovel- ready” to designate projects that are ready to start creating jobs the minute funding arrives. That shovel-ready work has already started in America’s back yards.

Amid the Washington talk of “shovel-ready” recession projects, few projects are more shovel-ready than a backyard garden. Vegetable seed sales are up by double-digits at all of the nation’s biggest seed sellers.

“ After years of declining veggie seed sales the whole cycle has completely reversed and we are experiencing tremendous interest from a new generation of gardeners who want to, for the first time, start a garden to grow food, said Renee Shepherd, owner of Renee’s Garden.

During a recession, it is a predictable cycle. People tend to want to get back to the basics. But most seed growers have never experienced a jump in sales this large.

“All our seed sales have increased,” said Timmsen and particularly our vegetables seeds.

tomato seedlings

Baker Creek

Renee’s Garden

Nichols Garden

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Tomatoes by the Bale

Posted on March 13, 2009 by | 2 comments

Straw Bale Gardening

I order seed and herb plants most every year from Nichols Garden Nursery in Albany,OR. I didn’t know much about herbs when I started my first herb garden. But, armed with a copy of Herb Companion and a seed catalog from Nichols, I plunged into culinary herbs.

I can’t say I have the same herbs I planted 20 years ago because I’ve moved. But I am starting a new garden with the same tools for success: herb plants or seed from Nichols Herbs and Rare Seeds Catalog and the most current news about herbs in Herb Companion Magazine.

This year my little garden will be expanded by adding straw bales for gardening. I learned about that from Rose Marie Nichols McGee. She tells all on her website.

Gardening friends and neighbors have always visited over the garden fence. This year Rose Marie and I are going to compare notes about our straw bale gardens by way of our blogs.

Heirloom Tomatoes are ordered and will be delivered from Abundant Acres by planting time. I’ll be planting some tomatoes by the traditional method and others in bales.

The straw bale gardening method is a new territory for me. I’ll keep you posted every step of the way, tracking what works and what doesn’t.

The exciting news is that you’ll also get to learn from the master, as Rose Marie shares here adventures in straw bale gardening.

One thing I know for sure because I’ve already ordered the seed, my bale will gave a little added color with Whirlybird Nasturtiums poked in some of the bales.

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America is Going To Seed

Posted on February 27, 2009 by | 2 comments
Plum Tomato “Italian Pompeii” seed source:Renee’s Garden.
My container garden success story last summer. Started from seed. Grew in a five gallon bucket with parsley and basil. Because it was near by on the deck, this pot had plenty of water. The tomatoes were supposed to be for sauce, but they were so good fresh, there were none left for preserving.

Seed catalogs are more popular than ever. I read and reread them, dog ear pages, circle favorites and make notes on the page. One of my favorite seed sources is no longer a print catalog, I browse through Renee’s Seed online catalog as much as I did their beautiful paper catalogs in years past. The photos and the drawings tempt me to buy even more. I’m getting more questions about gardening from my friends and neighbors, so I asked Renee Shepherd what was going on.

“seed sales, particularly of vegetables and herbs, are up sharply this season. After years of declining veggie seed sales the whole cycle has completely reversed and we are experiencing tremendous interest from a new generation of gardeners who want to, for the first time, start a garden to grow food,” Renee said.

Many of her customers are growing food to help with the rising prices at the grocery store. People feel like this is a way to help support themselves in uncertain economic times.

The closer food grows to your table, the more control you have. Yes, it is tastier and Rodale Institute has proven it’s healthier. The simple act of growing food and buying locally produced food helps reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Trucking your fruits and vegetables from California or Florida means you are buying aging produce with diminishing flavor at the grocery. It takes a lot of fuel to drive a tomato from Homestead Florida to your front door.

Food scares worry everyone. Buying from the local farmer or growing your own produce means you do not have to worry about recent food safety threats. You can enjoy home grown salad greens and spinach while rest of the country is suffering from the mass market food scares and shortages of safe food.

I admit to feeling a bit smug last year when spinach was being pulled from restaurants and grocery stores while I enjoyed bountiful spinach salads grown by a local organic farmer. Growing safe food in our own backyard gardens reduces the risk of national disasters such as Salmonella-tainted tomatoes and E. coli-contaminated spinach and lettuce.

I’m ordering most of my seed from two sources that I know I can trust.

Oriental Giant Spinach from Renee’s Garden
Renee Shepherd offers the finest seeds of heirloom and cottage garden flowers,aromatic herbs, and gourmet vegetables from around the world.


Flame or Hillbilly tomato from Baker Creek.

We only offer open-pollinated seeds: pure, natural and non-GMO! We offer heirloom seeds from 70 countries, including many that we collected ourselves.

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The Juicy Traveler

Posted on February 20, 2009 by | Comments Off on The Juicy Traveler


Tomatoes are not a travel story you say? Well in Southeast Missouri, this old gardener plans her travels around the gardening season.

Yes, that was me getting out of the car and taking pictures of acres of tomatoes in Homestead,FL. I have been known to stop just to smell the orange blossoms near Merritt Island. Plant City Florida’s strawberry festival, is a vacation stop for me. But now I’m back to good old MO.

February is when I read seed catalogs and plan for spring in Missouri. I’m ordering heirloom tomato plants from Abundant Acres. If you like the idea of buying locally grown plants from a Missouri business, shop online at Abundant Acres. Meet the owners and growers Randel and Pam Argella when you stop by Bakersville during the April and May festivals at Baker Creek Seed Company in Mansfield Missouri. More about the 9th Annual Spring Planting Festival, later.

Randel and Pam Agrella only sell plants online. They grow hardy healthy heirlooms that are well packaged and ready to plant as soon as they harden off and acclimate to your garden.

Randel recommended I grow indeterminate Delicious tomatoes, if I wanted to win the neighborhood biggest tomato contest. Delicious is a good all purpose red tomato and it holds the world record for the largest tomato. Much to my dismay the secret to growing the biggest tomato is clearly written right there in the description of Delicious tomatoes for any body and everybody to read.

When gardening season gets here, my travels are limited to how far I can go and get back before the plants need watering. Day trips, long weekends, fairs and festivals are this gardeners version of summer vacation. Oh, and visiting local farmers markets, orchards and garden centers.

My next trip will be a beauty. I’m going to the Missouri Botanical Garden Orchid Show. The orchid show closes March 15, 2009.

Other early spring trips include:
9th Annual Spring Planting Festival Sunday and Monday, May 3 & 4, 2009 10am – 7pm (both days)

Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival April 3,4, and 5.

My best cabin fever cure in Southeast Missouri is going some place warm, like Orlando. Winter 2009 has been so cold in Southeast Missouri that I fled to Orlando for nearly three weeks. Even in these frightening economic times there are still travel bargains. I’ll share frugal ways for the budget conscious to take a vacation, including one of the best bets for accommodations. It’s not your typical hotel stay.

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