December 9, 2013 by Born To Organize

Lawn Tree Traditions: Greening up the Neighborhood

Mother and son

If you drop by this week, you’ll see Christmas trees up and down the block. Our neighborhood has an extensive and coordinated effort to display cut Christmas trees on our lawn each year. The trees go up the first week of December and come down New Year’s day. I’m the block captain for our street.

We try to make it a family affair, but now that our boys are teens, their interest wanes. This year my older son did the heavy lifting along with his dad, dropping trees at each house while I drove the truck. My youngest son asked if he could stay in bed! So it goes.

The Muscle

Our neighbor, Greg lends us his truck for deliveries. I get to dust off my manual transmission driving skills once a year. It keeps me in the game.

Ready for delivery

The Bay Area is diverse. Not all neighbors celebrate this tradition. When I was a young, I wondered why one or two people wouldn’t want a tree in their yard. Then I grew up and understood that the world is full of different religions and cultures and it all made sense. We see Menorah in neighboring windows and understand others simply don’t embrace the ritual. It’s a great time of year to pause and reflect on the richness of diversity.

We have an artificial tree indoors, and a cut tree on the lawn. I wrote about the pros and cons of real vs fake last year. You can read more about that here.

Do you celebrate Christmas? Do you display a tree? Real or fake…or both? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, below.

Organized at Heart

I’m posting a series of articles featuring organizing around the holidays this month on my blog Organized at Heart. If the subject interests you, please go take a peak. Today’s blog: Holiday Storage: The Case of the Shrinking House.

Of note: Wikipedia has a wonderful and detailed article on the origins of the decorated Christmas tree. I’m always learning something new on that site and must remember to make my annual donation accordingly.

August 26, 2013 by Born To Organize

Curb Garden

Much is made of ‘curb appeal’ when you sell a house. I often notice that a pretty garden appears, followed shortly by a realtor’s sign. It seems a shame that the homeowners wont’ be staying long enough to appreciate it. Personally, I like the idea of a beautiful curb *all* the time, hence my new and improved curb garden.

The curb garden (take two) is almost ‘done’ or as done as a garden can be. (You can read about my first attempt here). Jazzy’s day care kids are planting carrot ‘starts’ on Wednesday. A few of the sweat peas are direct sow, but I’m planting some back-ups in my kitchen window ‘just in case.’ You can’t trust those birds and squirrels. If I have enough extras, I’ll plant them in the raised beds where the pumpkins are dying back.

The snapdragons were bowing their heads on Sunday, but after a long drink they’ve returned to their perky selves.

Snapdragons

I replanted a few of the original herbs including mint and lemon thyme. They’re looking as tired as I feel, but hopefully they’ll perk up now that they have nice soil wrapped around their roots and room to grow.

The Curb Garden includes:

1 Achillea millefolium aka yarrow ‘Pink Island‘

3 Scabiosa ‘Vivid Violet‘

3 Eriogonum Grande Rubescens ‘Red Buckwheat‘

3 Penstemon ‘Midnight‘

4 Lysimachia ‘Goldii‘ trailing golden plant

4 Cilantro

18 Snapdragons in assorted colors

I bought all of these plants at our local Almaden Valley Nursery. My friend Doug recommended the yarrow for repelling some insect pests while attracting beneficial ones. Yarrow attracts predatory wasps, which drink the nectar and then use insect pests as food for their larvae. It also attracts ladybugs and hoverflies.

The Mighty Yarrow

I learned further that yarrow:

is also planted for improving soil quality. Its leaves are thought to be good fertilizer, and a beneficial additive for compost.

It is also considered directly beneficial to other plants, improving the health of sick plants when grown near them. Source, Wikipedia.

What an amazing plant.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the novelty of several new varieties. The snapdragons are the only ‘garden tried-and-true.’

Further good news: so far no one has asked if we’re moving.

Carrot Starts

Lysimachia ‘Goldii’

Scabiosa ‘Vivid Violet’

July 19, 2013 by Born To Organize

Talavera Dove: Brimming with Goodness

My son gave me this beautiful Talavera Dove flower-pot for Christmas last year. I kept it indoors during the winter months, but once the weather improved I placed it on the deck. After a couple of heatwaves, the lemony-yellow coleus doubled, than tripled in size. This week it flowered. Now the pot feels more like a peacock then a dove, with its fanning plumage.

Talavera Dove with Coleus

According to Wikipedia:

Talavera is a type of majolica earthenware, distinguished by its white base glaze.^[1] Authentic Talavera pottery only comes from the city of Puebla and the communities of Atlixco, Cholula and Tecali, as the clays needed and the history of this craft are both centered there. All pieces are hand-thrown on a potter’s wheel and the glazes contain tin and lead, as they have since colonial times. This glaze must craze, be slightly porous and milky-white, but not pure white. There are only six permitted colors: blue, yellow, black, green, orange and mauve, and these colors must be made from natural pigments. The painted designs have a blurred appearance as they fuse slightly into the glaze. The base, the part that touches the table, is not glazed but exposes the terra cotta underneath. An inscription is required on the bottom that contains the following information: the logo of the manufacturer, the initials of the artist and the location of the manufacturer in Puebla.

In our age of mass production, it’s fun having a garden pot with a bit of old-world tradition. It’s nice having the long, warm summer days to enjoy it, too.

Have a great weekend!

What’s on Deck

July 16, 2013 by Born To Organize

Yellow But Never Mellow

While snapping pictures of my yellow blooms, I found the song Mellow Yellow rattling around in my head. The Donovan tune is mellow, but the references uncovered on Wikipedia take it out of the realm of a G-rated post. You can read more about his inspiration on Wiki. I smiled!

I’m just mad about sunflowers…

Helianthus in profile

Helianthus closeup

Lilly

4 O’Clock Flower ready to bloom

Lemon yellow coleus

Dedicated to Mrs. Marion Bloom

November 13, 2012 by Born To Organize

Fairy Garden Yurt: Blue Fescue to the Rescue

As the temperatures drop, my thoughts turned to winterizing the fairy garden. Garden fairies need shelter from the biting wind and cold. Enter Blue Fescue to the rescue in the form of a living yurt.

Winter Fairy Garden Materials

Blue Fescue Yurt

According to Wikipedia, “a yurt is a portable, bent wood-framed dwelling structure traditionally used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia.” This adaption of the thirteenth century dwelling continues to live in the earth

I planted five small ‘plugs’ of Blue Fescue tufted ornamental grass, then gathered the tops of them together in one bunch. I wrapped and knotted the Fescue with a long strand of tall grass. A welcoming bunch of clover hangs just above the entrance.

A welcoming bunch of clover

The yurt stays cozy with a downy-soft and fragrant lavender carpet, well suited to a fairy’s needs. Just outside the yurt are a pair of chairs and a lantern to light the way.

Birthday chairs and a lantern to light the way

A tall, orange umbrella offers shelter on rainy days. A petal-soft “lamb’s ear” is the perfect place for a pair of cats to curl up for a nap just below.

Orange Shelter
It looks *and* smells good

Come and sit a spell and enjoy the subtle fragrance of Allium, lavender and orange

Please be sure to spread the word. Garden fairies welcome!

Resources:

Blue Fescue, available at most garden centers
Wood Mini Spools by Maya Road
Mini Lantern by Tim Holtz idea-ology
From the garden: baby tears, lavender, clover, lamb’s ear, orange (hollowed out by a rat) and Allium

July 2, 2012 by Born To Organize

Having Fun with the Magnoliaceae

Taking a Page From Queen Elizabeth II’s Book

I like to get silly from time to time, and what better place to do that than my garden. A couple of years ago, I put a Magnolia ‘tepal’ on my noise and had my son snap a couple of pictures. When I started Gardening Nirvana I picked that photo for my Gravatar. The photo embodied my love of gardening, the beauty of the fuchsias behind me and the silliness of wearing a flowering appendage on my nose. These were qualities I also wanted to embody in my blog. Unfortunately, that photo also travels with my organizing blog. I was recently referred by a client whose friend saw the photo and voiced alarm that something was seriously wrong with my nose. I got quite the chuckle out of that, but have since replaced it with a more professional photo.

Today I learned a few things about Magnolias from a Wikipedia entry, excerpted below. My English teachers would be proud to see me correctly using my new terminology in a sentence. If you need me, I’ll be dancing on the lawn, casting tepals to the wind.

Magnolia Branch

Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae of the family Magnoliaceae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol.

Magnolia is an ancient genus. Having evolved before bees appeared, the flowers developed to encourage pollination by beetles. To avoid damage from pollinating beetles, the carpels of Magnolia flowers are extremely tough. Fossilized specimens of Magnolia acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae dating to 95 million years ago. Another primitive aspect of Magnolias is their lack of distinct sepals or petals: Magnolias possess undifferentiated flower parts for which the term “tepals” was coined. – Wikipedia