November 11, 2012 by Born To Organize

Garden Planting Pots Get a New Lease on Life

If you’re a gardener, you tend to amass garden pots. They’re a bit like coat hangers or stray socks: they have a way of multiplying when your not looking. Occasionally I’ve had luck returning the thin plastic cell packs to local nurseries, but lately, not so much. The good news is that more and more pots are recyclable.

If I can’t return or recycle, than I try to re-purpose.

Here are a few ideas.

When planting shallow-rooted annuals in a large planter, use a small, inverted pot in the center to reduce the amount of needed soil. If the roots aren’t deep, no need to waste your potting mix. Additionally, the inverted pot reduces water and soil runoff while lightening the weight of the pot (see below).

Ready to pot Cyclamen

Inverted Pot

Potted Cyclamen

Sometimes the spare pot is pretty, deserving a new lease on life. I received this shiny gem with a bulb one Christmas. After transplanting the bulb outside, I re-used the pot near our garden fountain. I keep a small scrub brush in the pot for a quick fountain clean-up. In the summer months I add a pair of shears so they are always on hand.

Shiny pot with brush

When I cover our patio set for the winter, I use a large, sturdy plastic pot to elevate the cover’s center. It keeps the rain from pooling and aids with run off.

Patio furniture cover

I grow cat grass for my sister’s kitty in a couple of small plastic pots. As soon as I give her a pot of grass, I start a new one. When her batch of grass dies off, she returns the pot and we start again. We’ve been passing the same few pots back and forth for months.

KT Eating Kitty Greens

Other Practical Uses

Small pots are great for starting plant cuttings or seedlings indoors. Larger pots are great for sharing divided plants. If you have broken clay or ceramic pots, break them carefully into small pieces and use them to cover the hole in a large pot.

Let your imagination be your guide.

What creative ways have you reused a garden pot?

November 10, 2012 by Born To Organize

Garden Calendars: Pretty and Practical

We have a calendar-giving tradition in our immediate family. Each Christmas I choose a wall calendar for the boys, based on current interests and trends. I usually buy my husband a sailing-themed calendar or to mix things up a bit, lighthouses. It will come as no shock to you that yours truly likes gardening calendars. Since the men in the house aren’t big shoppers, I’m free to choose my own.

I suppose in some ways, wall calendars are quaint. I’m a big technology fan, and rely on Outlook and an iPhone to keep track of personal, professional and family appointments. There is something reassuring, however, about a calendar hanging on the wall. I like to glance over at the date, or flip through the months looking for a holiday or the next full moon. The photographs or illustrations are always beautiful, a miniature piece of art that changes monthly.

Calender to Envelope

In the past few years, I’ve re-purposed the prior years calendar. I like making envelopes, stickers and bookmarks, as well as gift tags to drop over a bottle of wine. It’s fun coming up with different ways to use the art.

Here are a few of my favorites for 2013:

The Secret Garden Wall Calendar

“Hidden away from well-traveled paths, the secret garden possesses magical powers of restoration and rejuvenation. With a year of lush and luxurious retreats, The Secret Garden Calendar offers serenity with every glance.”

Who can resist a secret garden? Not me! What a great place to rest my eyes when I’m taking a break from the computer. These calendar pages will make great envelopes too when the year is over. It’s good to plan ahead.

Old Farmer’s Almanac Calendar

“For everyone who is going or growing “green”! Original full-color illustrations dominate each monthly spread and are complemented by useful and entertaining gardening lore, timely advice, and fun facts. Plus, a region-specific chart identifies the best days and Moon phases for planting vegetables.”

I’ve purchased this calendar in the past and love it. It’s filled with useful tips and wonderful illustrations. For me, it harkens back to a seemingly simple time. Love it!

A Cat in the Garden

“Gardens and felines have a natural rapport. The cat’s stature brings it face-to-face with long-stemmed blooms, within easy pouncing distance of breeze-blown ornamental grasses, and a short hop from sun-warmed deck chairs. Weaving delicately through the potted plants or waiting in ambush for an unsuspecting bug, the household cat lives in regal symbiosis with backyard flora. Photographer Del Greger presents twelve new portraits of cats and flora in this calendar, each one paired with a cat-centric quotation.

All of Pomegranate’s calendars are printed using soy-based inks on FSC® Forest Stewardship Council™certified paper.”

Never mind that the cover reminds me of my darling Lindy, this calendar is gorgeous throughout.

Do you still use a wall calendar? What’s your favorite?

October 11, 2012 by Born To Organize

Blooming Thursday: Global Gardeners

Pansies

As many of my readers put their gardens to bed for the winter, I stopped by a local garden center for some annuals. It’s easy taking our moderate California weather for granted having lived here so long. I do remember the frigid winter days in Ontario, Canada, but as a child, not an adult.

I enjoy reading gardening adventures from around the globe. It’s enriching. My friends in the Southern Hemisphere are busy planning spring gardens. To the far north, snow is already falling, and seasonal clean-up is under way. In the warmer climates, things are fuzzier around the edges, but the four seasons prevail.

In gardens everywhere, nature and nurture duke it out. Tiny little seeds arrive with imbedded DNA. Tuck one under some healthy soil, add water and sun and the seed will take it from there.

Sometimes, it is that simple. Often, it’s not. Birds vie for those seeds while small critters eat the seedlings. Insects take a bite out of leaves or host on tender stems. This can kill a young plant before it gets a foothold on life. Mold, fungus or unwanted pesticides from a neighbor’s yard can wreak havoc on a garden life.

Yet year after year, we gardeners garden. Like the tiny seed, we too have our own gardening DNA. I know gardening is in my genes. How about you?

Chrysanthemums

Halloween Countdown

Today’s pumpkin is brought to you by the letter “B”

August 30, 2012 by Born To Organize

Blooming Thursday: Gardens Throughout My Day

It’s so easy to get caught up in our day, isn’t it? Everyone’s busy. We rush from here to there, and back again if you have kids. Who has time to slow down?

In truth, we all do. Everyone gets 24 hours in a day. It’s up to us to spend them wisely. When my mom was in hospice at the end of her life, I read some interesting comments from a hospice nurse. Most of her end-of-life patients regretted the things they didn’t do. I try to remember that.

Yesterday, though I had plenty to do, I consciously slowed down. I attend a fitness camp three morning a week at a local middle school. We complete our drills in the interior quad, working hard for 50 minutes. Then we all race to our cars and continue on with our hectic days. I took a moment to return back to the quad, to admire and photograph this beautiful rose.

Blushing Rose at Fitness Camp

After driving my older son to school, I lurked in the parking lot till the coast was clear, then walked around to the front of the school and snapped a few shots. They have a lovely garden just outside the office, with bright red geraniums, bushy ferns and a stand of magnificent trees. I never noticed the trees before yesterday. One of the small benefits of slowing down.

Branham Geranium

Branham Office Garden

On my drive home, I pulled over to admire the sunflowers growing a few blocks over. Kelly at Boomdeeada suggested I scout the neighborhood for similar flowers, since I seem to be growing a variety I didn’t plant. She might be on to something! It was a good excuse to finally get out of the car and see them up close.

Neighboring Yellow Sunflowers with Palm Tree

Down the block, our neighbor Robert plants a colorful selection of annuals along the border of his white picket fence. He suffered a stroke a few years ago, and had a long trip back to wellness. I enjoy driving by his house and seeing his flowers in bloom. If he’s sunning himself in the driveway, I’ll wave. I realize as I write this that he has no idea how much I enjoy those flowers. I plan to share that with him today.

Robert’s Summer Display

My own welcoming committee is a pleasure to behold: a wall of sunflowers just outside the kitchen window, and my recently planted fairy garden. The purples and yellows are vibrant and fresh, as if to say “summer will never end.” Sure, I know better, but I still enjoy the charade.

Sunflowers: The Sunny Dozen
Photographed in order on deck

Wednesday is early out day in our school district so the boys return home in the early afternoon. My last stop was Office Max, for yet another round of school supplies. They have enormous clay pots planted in front of the store, brimming with colorful flowers. It’s challenging taking photographs under the mid day sun, but I still enjoyed the view. I appreciate strip malls that make the effort to bring beautiful gardens to an otherwise drab exterior.

Office Max Flowering Pots

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~Claude Monet

Cascading Geraniums

Guess what? I still accomplished what I planned for the day, climbed out from under a writers slump, made phone calls, booked a client and nurtured my husband, two boys and four cats.

I encourage you to take five minutes for yourself today. Look at something familiar with beginners eyes. Taste. Smell. Marvel. Rather than imagining you are the center of the universe, try to be centered in the universe. You’ll be a happier person for it.

August 3, 2012 by Born To Organize

Birdhouse Gourd: Found a Peanut?

I’ve encountered more surprises from our Birdhouse Gourd vine. The early fruit looks just like a peanut! Aren’t they cute?

Bird House Gourd Emerging Fruit

The first budding fruit was round, but the newer ones are all shaped like a miniature version of things to come.

Also surprising are the leaves. I’ve been carefully avoiding them, assuming they were rough like the pumpkins but learned as I brushed against one they are as soft as peach fuzz. What a fun plant!

Peach Fuzz Texture on the Gourd’s Leaves

Budding Flower

Birdhouse Gourd in Full Bloom

Curling Tendril

Do you have any new discoveries in your garden this season? Please share in the comments, below.

July 27, 2012 by Born To Organize

A Walk Through the (Ransacked) Garden

We discovered the clues one by one.

We uncovered them in perfect order.

On the same day we toured the Winchester Mystery House, my friend Laura and I had an impromptu mystery party in my back yard.

We were in the garden to check out the pumpkins and I noticed our flattened beach ball. We’d tossed the ball around the yard for weeks, so I was puzzled to see it completely deflated. On further inspection, it was full of small puncture holes.

I’ve read that rats will chew on anything to get water, even beams in an attic. Apparently they decided to have a drink at the expense of the beach ball. Darn rats!

Laura then looked over my shoulder and exclaimed, “What happened!?”

Across from the vegetable garden, half of the baby tears had been folded back on themselves, along the rock wall. Neighborhood squirrels must have been looking for buried nuts. We flipped back the layers, watered and tamped the plants into place. Darn squirrels!

“Oh no!” Laura yelled, sounding even more concerned. Our next clue! A corner of our new lawn was now a muddy mess. Layers of sod also folded back on itself. Laura mentioned that crows will dig up grass to unearth the worms and grubs below. It made perfect sense. I see a pair of crows each morning outside my kitchen window, eating worms they’ve pulled up out of the grass. Apparently they moved on to a new patch of grass. Darn crows!

Together we patted down the sod as best we could, then headed inside to wash our hands when I saw one last clue: perfect little raccoon prints leading from the grass to the fountain. The marauder probably stopped at the fountain to wash his muddy hands. Darn raccoon!

It’s a good thing this wasn’t a court of law, as I had mentally tried and convicted rats, squirrels and crows, before discovering the unmistakable hand-like prints of the raccoon.

Can’t you just picture the little line up at the county jail?

July 25, 2012 by Born To Organize

Winchester Mystery House

Winchester Mystery House is one of the most unusual landmarks in my city. The sprawling mansion covers four acres and stands three stories tall. Sarah Winchester, mired in grief, was convinced that the spirits of innocent people, killed by the Winchester rifles were responsible for the death of her husband and infant daughter. Under the advice of a physic, she continuously built on to her home to confuse and appease the spirits. We took a tour there today with friends and had an interesting time.

I arrived early to take photos of the gardens on the spacious estate, before embarking on the house tour. Sarah Winchester, born in 1884, was ahead of her time. She built an amazing room for watering her house plants, while at the same time conserving water. The second story room has a non-oxidizing metal floor covered with removal wood planks. The floor has a gentle slope, a faucet and a working sink. After removing the planks, plants are set out on the floor and watered in place. The excess water followed the slope of the floor and then drained outdoors to water the garden.

Here is a bit about the house from the official website:

Winchester Mystery House™ is an extravagant maze of Victorian craftsmanship – marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least.

Some of the architectural oddities may have practical explanations. For example, the Switchback Staircase, which has seven flights with forty-four steps, rises only about nine feet, since each step is just two inches high. Mrs. Winchester arthritis was quite severe in her later years, and the stairway may have been designed to accommodate her disability.

The miles of twisting hallways are made even more intriguing by secret passageways in the walls. Mrs. Winchester traveled through her house in a roundabout fashion, supposedly to confuse any mischievous ghosts that might be following her.

This wild and fanciful description of Mrs. Winchester’s nightly prowl to the Séance Room appeared in The American Weekly in 1928, six years after her death:

“When Mrs. Winchester set out for her Séance Room, it might well have discouraged the ghost of the Indian or even of a bloodhound, to follow her. After traversing an interminable labyrinth of rooms and hallways, suddenly she would push a button, a panel would fly back and she would step quickly from one apartment into another, and unless the pursuing ghost was watchful and quick, he would lose her. Then she opened a window in that apartment and climbed out, not into the open air, but on to the top of a flight of steps that took her down one story only to meet another flight that brought her right back up to the same level again, all inside the house. This was supposed to be very discomforting to evil spirits who are said to be naturally suspicious of traps.” – Read more on the Winchester Mystery House® website

Winchester Mystery House Spider Web windows

Spider webs figured prominently in many of the homes architectural features. An actual spider made a home in the garden just below these windows. I think Sarah would be proud.

June 29, 2012 by Born To Organize

Fruit for the Picking

You may remember that while attempting to cover the four-in-one fruit cocktail tree with bird netting earlier this year, I fell. Yep, just call me Grace. One leg of the ladder sank into the dirt and down I went. I wasn’t seriously hurt, but bruised and scratched enough to abandon the job at hand. Did I mention that I broke the ladder, too?

The tree was partially covered before the fall. I left the excess netting in a pile at the base of the tree. From time to time I tucked in bits of netting around the expanding branches, hoping to confuse the foragers. Would the coverage be enough to save some fruit for my family? Last year the birds and squirrels picked the tree clean. If I hadn’t taken a photo of two beautiful plums the day before, I would have assumed I imagined the whole thing.

It worked! I’ve seen a few nibbles, but most of the fruit is still on the tree, soon to be ripe for the picking.

Netted Fruit Cocktail Tree

Plums and Nectarines

I haven’t baked in pie in a zillion years, but I think it’s time to brush up on my baking skills. The next fruit to set: peaches. Oh my, oh my, oh my!

Please let me know if you have a favorite pie recipe to share.

June 19, 2012 by Born To Organize

LEGOLAND: Green Amid the Bricks

We’re here in sunny Carlsbad for a few days visiting LEGOLAND California. My youngest son is 12, so this may be our last visit. He commented early in the day that he thought there would be more “mature people” in the park. Like me, he remembers the good times we had when he was younger. He’s been cutting his teeth on daredevil roller coaster rides back home, so finds the rides here rather tame by comparison. That said, it’s a wonderful place to bring children. Several rides are interactive, allowing the rider to participate. LEGOLAND is airy and uncrowded with several outlets for spontaneous creativity. Water figures prominently throughout the park. They’ve added a separate water park since we were last here, which we plan to explore tomorrow.

We’re traveling with friends who are easy-going and fun so we’re enjoying each other’s company. It drives the boys nuts when the moms stop to take photos. If you’ve spent time in the company of a 12 year-old you know that annoying them is easy. It’s an adolescent right of passage.

We took pictures anyway! Here are a few highlights of the day:

Miniland: Las Vegas, Lego Style

Tall grasses line the edges of the lagoon

Rock Concert: Singing Rocks
We will, we will, rock you!

Tasmanian Tree Fern ‘Dicksonia Antarctica’

Trivia for the day: 53 million LEGOs used to build models throughout LEGOLAND California.

March 31, 2012 by Born To Organize

Brontosauraus Topiary for the Young at Heart

Brontosaurus Topiary

When my boys were small and interested in things like trains and dinosaurs, I spotted a Brontosaurus topiary frame in a garden catalog. I’d never created a topiary before, but I thought it would be fun to try. Having children gives you permission to play with Lego’s and to connect train tracks across the living room floor. It’s also great justification for buying a pricey topiary frame “for the kids.” I could hardly wait for it to arrive!

I bought and assembled the frame, centering it in the corner garden and bought four small-leafed ivy plants to place in each of the feet. Somehow I missed a step and all the ivy died. The small plants simply dried out too quickly. I bought more ivy, and this time planted straight into the ground. I stuffed the frame with Sphagnum moss and waited for the plants to fill in. After a month or so, I had enough ivy to start threading it through the frame. Eventually it was thick enough to prune. It took longer than I thought, but the frame filled out and we had an adorable green Brontosaurus in our yard.

The boys are more interested in Minecraft than dinosaurs these days, but the charming little fellow lives on. I trim it once or twice a year but for the most part it requires very little attention. After a good prune, I find a small flower for the dinosaur’s eye. It reminds me of my carefree summer days in our London yard and for just a moment I’m five years old again.