Weeded, Mulched and Waiting for Blooms in the Cottage Garden

The cottage garden, bare compared to previous springs,
 is ready and waiting for blooms. April 27, 2013.

Any complaints about the weather where you garden?

The cool temperatures, while delaying the blooms, provided the perfect weather for preparing the garden. I don't feel as rushed this year and gardening has been more enjoyable. It isn't ninety degrees already. Sixty and seventy degree weather could be worse as other parts of the country have been flooded and experienced late snows.

Looking at photos from 2006-2012, peak spring bloom in the cottage garden happened in the first week of April.  Still waiting for blooms, but the plant foliage looks healthier and happier than ever.

The centaura varieties (in the photo below) were tiny new plants in 2012, and now, they're starting out huge! In a future post, I'll tell you more about centaurea gymnocarpa "Velvet Centaurea" as it blooms. It's one of my new favorites and hope it meets my expectations.

Silver lace foliage of centaurea gymnocarpa in back.
Green foliage of centaurea montana 'Amethyst in Snow' in front.

The rose bed along the fence received a make-over.

In February, the Knock-Out® Roses (dark foliage above) were cut back by two-thirds. I edited this rose bed, adding divisions of other perennials and tucking in a few annuals around the greyhound statue. I'm most excited about this area in the cottage garden to see the results of my rearrangement, having incorporated more white blooms (phlox, liatris, cosmos) for late evening enjoyment. Another future topic.

Few Dutch Iris remain after vole damage from previous winters.

The voles took a bite out of the cottage garden in the winter of 2011-2012. We added metal edging and used more gravel in areas surrounding the cottage garden. Doing so thwarted the varmints this winter, so I'm encouraged. I've made my wish list of bulbs and seeds to plant this fall for spring 2014.

While the blooms are sparse right now and we have another week of cool temperatures in the forecast, I'm envisioning a peak bloom like I've never seen before—when spring blooms merge with early summer blooms.

Perennial blue flax is being encroached upon by pink phlox subulata.

Encore® Azaleas typically bloom around April 5, but waited until April 27.

P.S. There's a new dog in the garden. Meet Brie, our six-month old miniature poodle puppy. She's a sweetheart.

Puppy look one day.

After her first professional spa day.
No longer a little ragamuffin.

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. Deer and rabbit resistance varies based upon the animal population and availability of food. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks, copyrights, or patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

Love the Lemurs (Where We Volunteer)

Please take a look at the blog story, Programming for Prosimians, that I wrote for the Duke Lemur Center. My husband and I volunteer our computer programming skills at the DLC.  We volunteered after my first visit to the center in the summer of 2011. On that day, I shot this video of a Coquerel's Sifaka in the free-range habitat as his handler enticed him into a feeding station. I fell in love with lemurs and hope you will, too! Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks, copyrights, or patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

A Funny Thing Happened in the Gravel Garden

Newly completed gravel garden.
Only the row of small rosemary plants
(left side opposite the bench) were added.
Photo: April 28, 2011

What do I know about gravel gardens? Not mulch!

I don't live in desert areas where gravel gardens are used due to low rainfall. Desert areas in the United States grow the grasses and succulents—cacti, yucca and agave— that come to mind when I think of plants surrounded by gravel.

I don't live in the northern latitudes where gravel keeps plants from rotting in rain while warming up the area from the winter sun. Gardens in Europe use gravel around trees and shrubs and that was primarily where I drew my design inspiration, realizing that it is hot here in the summer with little rain.

My garden is in North Carolina, zone 7b and the idea of a gravel garden was a gamble that I was ready to take in April 2011. The project started as a problem solver as shown in the Before and After: From Driveway to Gravel Garden story. We were really looking more for a beautification solution to reduce maintenance, but have been surprised by the other advantages.

Here is a list of the plants that were left in place BEFORE we switched to gravel, removing all of the organic hardwood mulch:

Burford Nana (dwarf) Holly
Oakleaf Holly
Yucca
Buddleia (multiple varieties)
Crepe myrtle 'Tuscarora'
Osmanthus 'Goshiki'
Iris ensata (multiple varieties)
Monarda 'Blue Stocking'
Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Cream Ball'
Perennial heliotrope

We added a row of new rosemary and decided to take a "wait and see" attitude toward the existing plants. I watered the rosemary a few times to establish a root system.

The crepe myrtles bloomed and bloomed.
The container plantings of lavender,
juniper and succulents are thriving.
Photo: July 12, 2011.

So far, we've experienced a June and July of triple digit heat with very little rainfall. The gravel garden is on the southwest side of the house. The crepe myrtle trees provide a bit of shade until 11:00 am, then it is baking heat.  I have not given the plants in the gravel garden ANY supplemental watering. Seriously.

Meanwhile, in the cottage garden and the rest of the outer, deer resistant gardens, I've been dragging water hoses and watering cans in an attempt to keep—even my drought-tolerant plants such as agastache, salvia and coneflowers—alive.

Back in the gravel garden, the foliage of the Japanese iris looks splendid and green. The monarda 'Blue Stocking' bloomed gorgeously. Those moisture-lovers didn't get any supplemental water from me. Tucked against buddleia, neither did those plants receive the full onslaught of the sun, but enough sun that made those same plants wither and wilt in the hardwood mulched areas of my garden.

Interesting. I was curious. No watering and virtually no weeds in the gravel garden for three months. No adding of more hardwood mulch to keep the soil moist.

Perennial heliotrope was literally covered
in the gravel and emerged to make a happy
ground cover around the Oak Leaf Holly.
Photo: July 29, 2011.

The rosemary has grown a foot higher. The Burford hollies have increased in size. The buddleia are in bloom and the crepe myrtles put on a splendid show of blooms.The chamaecyparis has never looked so good. The yucca is happy. The osmanthus 'Goshiki' has a bit of scorch on the top leaves (not unusual), but is growing just fine. The perennial heliotrope emerged from BENEATH the gravel to make a soft skirt around the oak leaf holly.

After a recent rainfall of one inch of rain, I dug a hole in the gravel garden; a hole in the deer resistant garden; and, a hole in the cottage garden.

Eleven inches down, the gravel garden soil was moist all the way—even though I had never watered it!

The other gardens had barely an inch of moist soil and ten inches of bone dry powder and I had been struggling to keep those areas watered. If anything, the cottage garden and other outer gardens have better soil than that beneath the gravel plantings.

Can it be that gravel, a permeable surface that allows rain to penetrate also prevents evaporation of moisture, even in day-after-day of 100°F temperatures?

My test is not scientific, but it is definitely making me think carefully about other areas that can handle gravel. Many of my drought-tolerant plants will be happy surrounded by gravel.

Gravel is not temporary! Once in place, especially two inches deep, it is difficult to remove. Therefore, I shall proceed with caution as I convert more areas to gravel to reduce the need for supplemental watering.

It's far too hot to take on a project like this during the summer. I want to also see the performance of the gravel garden plants over the winter as well as whether the weeds will pop up in the gravel. More waiting, but in the meantime, I can honestly say that the gravel garden is making us very happy.

The rosemary is flourishing.
The foliage of the Japanese iris is green (without watering)
and the butterfly bushes are happy and healthy.
Photo: early morning, July 29, 2011.

Guests do park here and the weeds
have been so few.
Photo: early morning, July 29, 2011.

Merge of driveway with garden.
Perennial heliotrope skirts the large holly.
Photo: early morning, July 29, 2011.

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. Deer and rabbit resistance varies based upon the animal population and availability of food. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks, copyrights, or patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

Green Solutions for Home and Garden

Earth Day is April 22, 2010. Jan at Thanks For Today has done an outstanding job of raising awareness through the Garden Bloggers Sustainable Living campaign.

Even small steps help in protecting Mother Earth. Here are a few of the things that we're doing at our house and in our garden:

Passive solar house design
When we built our house in a sunny meadow, we had the opportunity to create a passive solar design. The front porch is directly south-facing. The north is blocked by the house. The west is blocked by the L-shape formed by the garage with the front porch. This positioning allows us to take advantage of the seasons to save energy and reduce our heating and cooling costs.

Make our own sodas and sparking water
With another small step toward going green, we started making our own soft drinks and sparkling water. I had read enough information to make me feel guilty about buying bottled water in plastic bottles. Stop! Okay! Filter water. Reuse bottles. Save money.

Monarch Waystation and Wildlife Habitat
The spring migration of the Monarch butterflies starts around the second week of March. The Monarchs will leave their winter habitat in Mexico and begin their journey to our gardens in search of nectar and host plants. The Monarchs will travel through several sections of the United States during the spring migration. I grow milkweed for the Monarchs and my garden is a Certified Monarch Waystation through Monarch Watch as well as a Certified Wildlife Habitat.

A Bee Friendly Garden without Chemicals
The bees are welcome in my garden and we are fortunate to have three feral (wild) bee hives located within three miles of our home. I don't use chemicals in the garden.

Remove Invasive Plants
Invasive plants escape into the wild and choke out our native species. Please check the invasive plant lists in your state before adding a new plant to your garden. Here in North Carolina, I refer to the Invasive Exotic Species list that is published by the North Carolina Native Plant Society.

Utilize Water Runoff with a Rain Garden
Rain management can be used to enhance your garden, protect your property and turn eyesores into pretty areas. The right plants produce rewarding results. It's easier to garden WITH nature -- zone, rain, drought, deer, rabbits—instead of against nature.

Use Drought Tolerant or Xeric Plants for Hot, Dry Garden Areas
The narrow bank of my sunny stream is a difficult space, so I am converting to xeric plants to save water and save time. I also use drought tolerant plants on the sunny slopes of my deer resistant garden.

Please visit Garden Bloggers Sustainable Living site to check out the stories from other bloggers for many more green solutions for home and garden.

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks/copyrights/patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

Phlox on the Rocks

For a blanket of dainty spring blooms grow moss pinks! As a bonus, the evergreen foliage of the moss pinks (phlox subulata) keeps a little color on the ground year round. And, this phlox is low-maintenance and requires little water (xeric), making it a great plant for hot, sunny locations such as a rock garden.

I grow a deep pink, but there are also other shades of pink—as well as white, blue and lavender phlox subulata. A creative gardener could mix several colors to grow a stunning patchwork quilt of blooms.

Suitable for sandy, average and clay soils, phlox subulata grows well in zones 3-8b. It grows only 4-5 inches high, but spreads to around 20 inches wide. Shear the plant back by one third after the blooms finish.

While I am using a sun-loving phlox, select a woodland phlox (P. divaricata) or creeping phlox (P. stolonifera) for shaded gardens.

Save Water and Time with Xeric Garden Plants

The narrow bank of my sunny stream is a difficult space, so I am converting to xeric plants to save water and save time.

When rearranging the garden in fall 2009, I moved a few clumps of the phlox from my outer gardens to the streamside rocks in my cottage garden. No shade. No irrigation. Sunshine all day long on every sunny day of the year.

The phlox is happier, loaded with buds and beginning to bloom with great exuberance!

Phlox subulata buds will soon be in bloom

Good companions include plants with the same growing conditions as the phlox subulata. I am using agastache, allium, armeria, cheddar pinks (dianthus), lavender, grape gaillardia, rosemary, salvia, sedum, stachys and thyme. These plants provide a mix of textures, plus a variety of foliage and bloom shapes that can take the heat with little water in the summer. Additionally, most of these plants have evergreen foliage so that my cottage garden doesn't look totally bare in winter.

The color scheme is based on blue, purple and pink blooms from spring through fall—a cottage garden look with xeric plants!

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel.

Rain Gardening in the South

book review by Freda Cameron

Where was this wonderful book when I built my rain garden two years ago? I had to scour the Web and bookstores looking for information on how to build a rain garden. There would be no crispy plants in my rain garden right now if I could have read this book first!

Rain Gardening in the South: Ecologically Designed Gardens for Drought, Deluge, and Everything in Between was written by Helen Kraus and Anne Spafford.

As I read this book, I kept having those "ah-ha" moments as the authors helped me understand what I did wrong, and right, in building my rain garden.

Kraus and Spafford explain everything from the importance of rain gardens to the fun of designing the garden and plant selections. The authors walk you through the process of understanding how water runoff flows across your property to digging out the site for your rain garden.

The book is filled with great illustrations and an abundance of photos that make it so easy to understand the concepts. There are many color design plans, such as this one by Anne Spafford, to provide inspiration for creating a beautiful rain garden. Advice is given on basic design principles that can be used for other gardens as well.



Pages and pages of ground covers, perennials, vines and shrubs are listed by sun or shade categories. These tables also provide the important details about each plant - such as size, habit, foliage and useful notes.

Finally, there was a chapter written just for me. Troubleshooting! The problem? Drainage too fast; established plants dying. Kraus and Spafford walk through the possible problems and offer solutions. And, I know they are right!

No matter where you live, Rain Gardening in the South is a great resource. Rain gardens are not only good for the environment, but solve runoff and erosion problems while being beautiful displays of flowers and foliage.

♦♦♦
About the book authors:

Helen Kraus holds BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Horticultural Science from North Carolina State University, where she currently teaches.

Anne Spafford holds a BS degree in Ornamental Horticulture and an MLA in Landscape Architecture from the University of Illinois. She teaches in the Department of Horticultural Sciences at North Carolina State University.

Published by: www.enopublishers.org

♦♦♦

Spaced Out. Me, or the Plants?

There are times when I group plants too close together on purpose. I've learned this through the experience of what can happen to new plants within the realms of a very large garden. There are also factors like deer, rabbits, hot sun, humidity, drought and overwintering to consider. Although it takes a little longer to figure out the best, and prettiest, plants for my garden, I think I will save money and disappointment in the long run.

Will Bambi Like the New Plant?

I like to place new "deer resistant" plants at the edge of the outer gardens where the deer can't help but stumble over the newcomers. If the deer are going to eat a plant, I want to know as soon as possible so that I can get over it and get on with my life.

Pass me a tissue because I'm crying and trying to get over a recent loss. The deer munched a gorgeous rose of sharon down to a skeleton. I enjoyed the flowers and rich foliage for a month. The fantastic blooms were huge and I suppose the deer thought that the blooms were blue plate specials delivered by a local diner! This dashed my dreams, but I'm glad that I purchased only one to test with my deer herd.

Is it the Right Plant for My Garden?

I grow plants in a small space to test for the growing conditions as well as the beauty and care of the plant. This way, I can make up mind on whether or not I like a plant before I redesign a section of the garden around it.

If the newcomers are grouped together in one small section, then I don't have to run all over the garden to check on them. This is a time saver and great for lazy and forgetful gardeners like me.

Agastache is among my favorite, reliably deer resistant perennials. I'm trying out several new varieties this year, so I grouped them together in a small section at the top edge of my outer gardens. I want to see how long each variety blooms, which require deadheading or if the bloom color fades quickly.

This is also a great way to try out companion plantings. While my test area is for determining which agastache will be planted in big drifts in the garden next year, I am actually pretty pleased by grouping several agastache varieties together to make a mixed drift.


Lost in Place or Not Made in the Shade?

Perennials in my garden seem to exceed the advertised size and mature quickly in my gardens with the good soil and long days of light.

If planted a little two-inch pot perennial with the older residents, the poor thing would not only be shaded out, but lost in place. I sometimes squeeze a new plant along a sunny edge of the garden where I won't have to crawl through the garden on my knees with a magnifying glass to check on the progress of the new addition. I can transplant it later to a more permanent location.

I recently stumbled over a poor little coreopsis that I thought had not survived. Turns out, I just forgot where it was located for the last two years! I may have to retract some unkind remarks about that coreopsis, but I can't even remember the name of the particular variety.

I may start my seeds along the edges next year as I cannot find several hundred cleome! Perhaps they couldn't germinate in the shade among the hoards of tall perennials? The seeds may just be on vacation and wait until I've sown another hundred seeds next spring and then the cleome will launch a massive takeover of my garden.

Measure Twice to Plant Once?

As for correct spacing, I thought I had spaced my plants with plenty of room to grow when I created a new area in the cottage garden in September 2008. Well, I don't know exactly why everything is now super sized and therefore, too crowded! The perennials look like mature plants that have overgrown their space. All of the annual seeds germinated. The plants either exceeded their advertised space requirements or I was having too much fun and not paying attention to details while digging the holes.

It's not a terrible problem, but it means that I'm going to have to do the plant shuffle again soon... this time, the plants will be spaced out, but not me.



Photos and words by Freda Cameron

Return of the Roses

So where were the roses? The roses didn't go anywhere, but they suffered the yearly attack of the Japanese Beetles. This year, I tried a different approach in caring for the roses during the invasion.

These are Knock Out™ Roses, which means they are pretty tough and bloom for a long time. As soon as I saw the first beetle, I cut off all of the blooms and a foot of foliage on all seven of the rose bushes. It wasn't pretty! Without the blooms, new buds and new growth to attract the beetles, there were fewer of the pests.

When the beetle population dwindled to just a few, I started up the drip irrigation for an hour a day (we're on a well) until we had a good rainfall. Just prior to the heavy rainfall, I fertilized the roses. Within two weeks of this boost, the roses are now producing new foliage and plenty of buds.

In past years, I've tried picking and dunking the beetles into a bucket of soapy water every morning. It's unpleasant work, tedious and is rather disgusting to do before breakfast!

I've tried organic sprays, too. That required mixing and spraying in the evening when the temperatures were cool. I had to reapply the spray every few days, especially after a rainfall. It worked fairly well, but since the mixture couldn't be sprayed on the blooms, I had to cut those off anyway.

This year's method was the easiest. While the roses looked bad for a month, they have completely recovered and will bloom until Thanksgiving.

This method of beetle protection was without stress, at no cost and definitely organic. I'll always be looking for better solutions. The only other thing that I could think of was to cover the roses with a fine mesh netting. Maybe next year?

Photo and words by Freda Cameron; Location: home garden; July 2009

Staying Alive: Agastache During A Drought

Where's the rain now? After too much rain early in the season, we've now gone weeks without any significant rainfall. Digging in the soil, it is totally dry. Water doesn't soak into the ground in such baking heat in the full sun gardens.

This dry weather is another reminder that planting drought-tolerant plants is the wisest. Agastache is my favorite perennial for these tough, summer conditions. Another bonus is the fact that it is deer and rabbit resistant.

I've added several new varieties this year. My favorite for color is the new 'Summer Sky' PPAF that has blue-purple spikes on dark foliage. The blue comes through better in person than in a photo where it is surrounded by raspberry pink flowers.

The form of 'Summer Sky' is a beautiful, low grower of 20 inches that looks great in a companion planting with agastache of different heights and flower shapes. I like it with the additional companions of echinops 'Ritro' and the annual cleome 'Spirit Violetta'.

I have found only two of these plants at local nurseries. Both are at the top of the deer resistant garden in full sun for ten hours a day. This agastache is rated for the warmer zones of 8-10, but if 'Summer Sky' overwinters well here in zone 7, I'll do my best to add more of this agastache to the top border.



Photos and words by Freda Cameron; Location: home garden; July 2009

No More Invasive Shrubs

It happened so easily. Perhaps you can relate to how invasive shrubs end up in your gardens. Here in my area, the landscapers use variegated privet a lot. When we built our house in 2005, I was so overwhelmed with the building process that I didn't select the shrubs and trees.

For another year, I didn't pay attention to what had been planted. One day, I found out that we had the variegated privet that is on the invasive list - meaning that if it gets loose in the wild (which it will do), it can crowd out native species. We decided to keep the shrubs trimmed so that they wouldn't flower and set seeds.

Recently, Grumpy Gardener wrote about Five Awful Plants for the Front of Your House. There was the reminder again about invasive variegated privet. I showed the story to my husband. We knew that we really needed to go ahead and pull all of the privet from our gardens. My husband set about doing that immediately. The task was easier than he thought.


By pulling the invasive shrubs along the east foundation of our house, we had room for a garden bench by the waterfall. We widened the stepping stone pathway between the waterfall patio and the lower dining patio in the fragrance garden. I planted two urns and put on each end of the bench. We now have another nice place to sit by the waterfall.

In the garden bed along the east side of the house, we added a variety of salvia greggii, agastache, lavender and gaillardia. Since the fragrance garden already has an abundance of fragrant blooms, I focused on adding fragrant, touchable foliage plants and used the gaillardia for the shape of the blooms and long bloom time. The butterfly ginger remains in the original location.

I never realized how much sun this space received during the day until I focused on what to plant there. I took a few days to make sure of the conditions. In the summer, it has sunshine from sunrise until 2:00 pm in the afternoon. Right now, the planting is sparse as I bought small pots to save on cost. In another year, the perennials will fill in the space and it we'll have fragrant foliage along with the fragrant flowering shrubs and trees in our fragrance garden. We've had a lot of rain this week and the plants have already started growing!


After pulling the rest of the privet out of the garden beds in front, we planted more sun-loving perennials like salvia and sowed annual seeds to keep the cost down.

The project wasn't as expensive as we had thought if we don't think about the original cost of the fifteen privet located all around our property. We probably spent around $150 (we got a metal bench on sale locally for $50) to clear our conscious and create nice new garden areas.

It feels good to do the right thing.



Story and photos by Freda Cameron; Location: home garden; May 2009

Native Azaleas

Rhododendron canescens (Mountain Azalea, Piedmont Azalea) is a pink-flowering native. Some are white with a pink blush while others have dark pink blooms. USDA zones 6-10; part shade, full shade to full sun with moist soil.

Rhododendron austrinum (Flame Azalea) is a flashy orange-flowering native. USDA zones 6-10; part sun to shade in moist soil.






All azaleas were photographed on April 26, 2009 by Freda Cameron at Sarah P. Duke Gardens on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. There is no admission fee to visit these 55-acre public gardens in the Triangle area of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

Bee Friendly and Save the Hives

The bees are welcome in my garden and we are fortunate to have three feral (wild) bee hives located within three miles of our home. How do we know?

A friend of ours, Ronnie Bouchon, is a beekeeper of managed hives. He created and supports a website called Save the Hives in an effort to help protect feral bee hives. The site includes a map of hive locations. Our neighbors registered their hives for the Feral Bee Project and that's how we discovered the homes of our visiting bees. You can check the map to see if there are hives located in your area. The Save the Hives site includes information about how to "beeline" to find the location of hives. If you have located a feral hive, you can also register it on the site.

A guest column, Let's Hear It for the Bees, in the New York Times provides a fascinating story about how the bees know when flowers produce nectar:

Flowers of a given species all produce nectar at about the same time each day, as this increases the chances of cross-pollination. The trick works because pollinators, which in most cases means the honeybee, concentrate foraging on a particular species into a narrow time-window. In effect the honeybee has a daily diary that can include as many as nine appointments — say, 10:00 a.m., lilac; 11:30 a.m., peonies; and so on. The bees’ time-keeping is accurate to about 20 minutes.

Here are a few of the plants in my garden that are loved by bees (and butterflies):

achillea
agastache
azalea
buddleia
echinacea
echinops
fennel
lantana
lavender
nepeta
oakleaf holly
petunia
magnolia
monarda
roses
rosemary
salvia
sedum
verbena
vitex

Of course, there are many more nectar plants than what I am growing. Gardeners who grow vegetables and fruit are providing nectar for the bees. There are also food sources among the wild flowering native plants, weeds and clover, too.

Gardeners love to have colorful blooms in spring, summer and fall. We have a great reason to go buy more nectar plants - we need to provide bees, both managed and feral, with blooms during these seasons, too!

Photo and story by Freda Cameron

Making Our Own Sparkling Water and Sodas

With another small step toward going green, we started making our own soft drinks and sparkling water this week. I had read enough information to make me feel guilty about buying bottled water in plastic bottles. Stop! Okay! Filter water. Reuse bottles. Save money.

However, I like sparkling water. For some unknown reason, flat water doesn't sit too well with my stomach. We have been buying sparkling water by the case for several years.

A few days ago, my husband announced that he had found an item that we must purchase. He had already run the numbers to compare what we spend on bottled sparkling water with the high price of this device. He showed me the video. I read the rave reviews. We were both convinced. We headed out to Williams-Sonoma to buy a Penguin.

The Penguin uses refillable CO₂ cartridges to turn flat water into sparkling water. Each cartridge makes 60 carafes (620ml/20 ounces) of sparkling water. The machine includes two cartridges and two carafes, so the price includes enough CO₂ to make 120 carafes of sparkling water.

The carafes are glass and they are dishwasher safe. The carafes come with airtight caps, so you can easily store these in the refrigerator. We will return the empty CO₂ cartridges to Williams-Sonoma when we need to buy more cartridges. The Penguin does not use batteries or electricity! Another way to go green!

We use our filtered well water to make the sparkling water with the Penguin. The taste is wonderful! Since I am a fan of San Pellegrino®, I am so pleased that our homemade fizz tastes great to me.

Today, we learned that we can make our own soft drinks, too! Diet soft drinks or sweetened. More savings. No plastic bottles or aluminum cans.

We bought Torani® Italian flavored syrups (sweetened with Splenda®) for $6.99 for 24 ounces. I used one ounce of flavor in a glass, then poured in the sparkling water and stirred. Perfect! You can make the sodas with more flavoring if you like. I made diet black cherry, diet cream soda and diet black cherry cream soda by mixing the two flavors. I love the taste of all three.

The machine will pay for itself in twenty weeks. The price of the supplies will be much less than what we have been paying for bottled water. We won't be buying soft drinks either... and we'll use the glass carafes over and over again. Better for our budget. Better for the environment.

Photo and story by Freda Cameron

The Rain Garden in Action

Robin at Robin's Nesting Place has written about rain gardens this week. Her town in Indiana received a grant for constructing rain gardens.

We built a rain garden at our home in fall 2006 and I'm happy to report that it works well for managing heavy rains, preventing erosion, while helping the environment.

Before the slope was planted as a flower garden, we had difficulty getting grass to grow and keeping the seed or mulch in place. We also had a big problem with erosion on the slope.

Worse than that, during the first few heavy rains after our house was built, sections of our gravel driveway almost washed away.

The front section of the outer garden is bordered by a sloping meadow at the top and includes a stepping stone path at the bottom. After a heavy rain, the stepping stones and the plants at the bottom help slow down the runoff, allowing the rain to slowly seep into the soil.

At the bottom of the slope and in the dry stream, I have planted perennials, grasses and shrubs in the rain garden. These plants don't mind the occasionally wet feet and can handle the occasional drought. The plants didn't die out during the drought of 2007 while receiving minimal drip irrigation with our well water. All returned to bloom beautifully in 2008.

Japanese iris	Siberian iris	Iris pseudocorus
Amsonia hubrichtii	Ascelpias incarnata	Canna
Carex	Echinacea	Eupatorium coelestinum Wayside
Itea virginica	Illicium	Lysimachia nummularia aurea
Miscanthus sinensis	Monarda	Nepeta subsessillis
Salvia uliginosa

The next photos show where the water that flows over the stepping stone path and rain garden dumps into the dry stream. There is also an underground pipe that dumps rain water from our downspouts and water feature overflow into the "pond" section of the dry stream.


A view from above the intersection of the stone path and the pond of the dry stream shows the route of the rain runoff.


The dry stream continues along the meadow slope to route water away from the walkway, the gravel guest parking and the driveway.

At the intersection with the driveway, an underground pipe routes the water underneath the drive. On the other side, the water first flows slowly through meadow grass, then woodlands and it eventually flows downhill into a natural creek on our property.

The stones slow down the water flow to help it seep into the garden, filter the water and prevent erosion. Since the runoff drains into our natural creek, we use safe, organic products in our garden.

Rain management can be used to enhance your garden, protect your property and turn eyesores into pretty areas. The right plants produce rewarding results. It's easier to garden WITH nature -- zone, rain, drought, deer, rabbits -- instead of against nature.

Photos and story by Freda Cameron. Click photos to view larger.

The Love-Hate Relationship with Aggressive Perennials

To one gardener, an aggressive perennial can be a thug and it becomes a plant that you love to hate.

To another gardener, the same aggressive perennial can be the perfect plant for the garden and you hate to love it.

Salvia uliginosa (bog sage) is suitable for a rain garden. I bought just one plant in 2007 and plopped it front and center. In spring 2008, there were runners going in every direction for about three to four feet from the mother plant.

If this had been an Olympic garden event, these runners would have won gold medals for their speed.

At the same time that I planted the one bog sage, I also planted six tiny seedlings of eupatorium coelestinum Wayside (hardy perennial ageratum) in the rain garden.

By spring 2008, there had been a major population explosion too high for an accurate census count.

I'm sure some gardeners would be cursing and pulling these plants out of the garden. I was happily dancing a jig as I distributed the offspring of these full-sun, moisture-loving, drought-surviving, deer-resistant, rabbit-resistant, BLUE perennials throughout my rain garden.

In defense of the aggressors, there are other good attributes, too.

Bog Sage reaches four feet in height with swaying wands of azure blue flowers that are magnets for bees and butterflies. It is suitable for zones 6-9. It can grow in moist or dry soil. Mine bloomed non-stop from early June and into fall. Right now, in winter, the base foliage is still green.

There's something amazing about the bog sage. Every evening (under the influence of wine) as I took my garden walk, I would tell myself to deadhead the bog sage the next morning.

Every morning (under the influence of coffee), I was amazed that the azure blooms had re-emerged without deadheading. I need to put a slow-motion video on these plants to determine whether they are closing up in the evening, or actually growing new flowers overnight!

Hardy Ageratum is short at around 15" so it works well for the front of the border and is loved by bees and butterflies. It is suitable for zones 5-8.

During the summer, the foliage is very pretty. By mid to late summer through early fall, it blooms profusely, much like the annual variety of ageratum.

The blue color works well with many other colors such as yellow, orange, red, pink or magenta. It's suitable for clay soils, but mine is growing in rich, garden soil.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have a lot of space that needs fillers and it will take a few years for me to reach my limit on the sage and ageratum.

These two aggressive perennials were very easy to pull (so far). The runners of the bog salvia were so shallow that I just snipped and pulled them off the soil to move to other locations. I moved the ageratum throughout the summer by easily scooping underneath the little seedlings.

If you want to add these two accused thugs into your garden, you'll just have to decide whether to keep them confined within walls of a container or let them wear ankle bracelets and roam your garden.

Photos and story by Freda Cameron

Foliage Combinations in the Perennial Garden

When the flowers aren't in bloom, there are several foliage plants that I use to help carry color and texture in the perennial garden. I use a combination of perennials, shrubs and ornamental grasses to divide the dry stream garden from the front garden. Since this area is right beside our front path, I selected plants that would provide nice foliage from spring through fall and included a few for winter interest.

Amsonia hubrichtii is a southern native perennial that produces tiny blue flowers in the spring. While the flowers are nice, the threadlike, lacy foliage provides a nice texture when mixed with other foliage shapes. This perennial also provides a pretty background for flowering perennials since it quickly reaches a nice 3 x 3 foot size in the garden. The foliage turns a brilliant gold in the fall and is rated for zones 5-9, planted in full sun.

Miscanthus sinensis 'Little Zebra' PP 13,008 is a dwarf ornamental grass that fits in well with a perennial border. The fountain-shaped blades have horizontal gold bands. In the fall, the plumes shoot up straight in my full sun garden, making this grass easy to use when it is planted closely with perennials and shrubs. This grass is also rated for full sun in zones 5-9, making it a nice texture combination with the amsonia.


Illicium is an evergreen shrub that is also a southern native. I can't tell you exactly which one I have as this was originally planted next to our foundation by our landscaper. I moved it to this area because it enjoys moist soil in full sun and provides foliage year round. That is, until the deer are hungry enough to strip the leaves off of this shrub. The shrub does recover fully by summer and is left alone. For this reason, I put a little 32" high wire edging fence around this shrub in the winter months to prevent deer damage. This shrub can grow quite tall and wide and does have fragrant blooms, but mine has been pruned back a few times by the deer. If I were to substitute another shrub for this one, it would be osmanthus fragrans.

Itea virginica 'Little Henry' is a deciduous shrub that likes full sun to shade and moist soil. This shrub is an adaptation of the native itea virginica. This little fellow has blooms of white spirals in the early summer. The fall foliage is a brilliant red, a great contrasting companion, with the amsonia foliage in the fall. The small scale of 'Little Henry' makes it easy to tuck this 3 x 3 foot plant into the perennial border in zones 5-9.

Each of these four plants adds a different leaf shape and texture to use in a grouping as companion plants. Since they like the same growing conditions, there's no stress on any of these plants in the same setting. Only the illicium grows large, so the smaller companions are easy to fit into a mixed border.

While all are planted in my rain garden, these plants can be grown in less wet conditions. The rain garden is the lowest point along the path in my front garden.

With the exception of winter browsing of the illicium, all of these plants are deer resistant and rabbit resistant.

Photo and story by Freda Cameron

Community Supported Agriculture, Farmers' Markets and Market Days

The image of a table laden with a bountiful harvest isn't just for Thanksgiving. Local farmers' markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs are available throughout the United States providing fresh, locally grown produce during the growing seasons. In other countries, markets are a part of daily life.

Even during the cold months of winter, some market farmers continue to sell products such as honey, eggs, cheese, nuts and meats. At the North Carolina Farmers' Market there are peanuts, pecans, cabbage, sweet potatoes and apples available for purchase in December. Additionally, there are jars of jams, jellies and other home canned goods.

Now is a good time to find farms in your area that participate in the CSA programs. With a CSA program, you subscribe in advance to receive shares of the locally grown, fresh produce from area farmers. By buying these shares, you help ensure that the farmer will be able to cover their expenses and salaries to grow and deliver the produce. By subscribing in the winter months, the farmer can plan how much to plant and order seeds for the next growing season.

Through a subscription with a CSA farm, boxes of fresh produce are sized according to the number of people to feed in your family. Many of the CSA farms will deliver the boxes to your home each week during the growing season, or provide a pick-up point in a nearby location. The CSA program is so popular in the Triangle Area of North Carolina that there are even waiting lists to subscribe with some of the local farms.

Whether you live, or travel, in another country, you're probably not very far from a market. For example, there are lists of market days for villages in France. Other countries publish similar lists. If you are traveling, you can also ask at the tourist information office. When my son lived in London, he shopped daily to purchase fresh produce from his neighborhood market.

Buying from a local market is not only a great experience, but a wonderful way to get to know the farmers who grow the produce. If you're a traveler, you may be introduced to fresh foods that you would not find elsewhere.

Story and photos by Freda Cameron

Dividing Time: Japanese Iris

Autumn is the time to divide clumps of iris ensata (Japanese iris) that have become too large. The best way to know if your irises need dividing is by the bare spot in the middle with blades splaying outward in a circle. This usually needs to be done every 3-5 years. My irises were planted in fall 2006, but they were crowded in gallon pots. My iris are planted in the rain garden where the soil stays moist. I've not had to use supplemental irrigation this summer due to frequent rains. During the drought last year, I sparingly used the drip irrigation (we are on a well).

I will dig out the clumps and separate into individuals. Before dividing, I will have the planting spot ready to keep the roots from drying out. Japanese iris like moist, acid soil, full sun. It is best to plant at least 24" apart to plan ahead for rapid expansion. Plant with the junction of the fans and roots about 1-2" below soil level. I will probably separate the individuals into about 3 fans each.

In my research, I've read that you shouldn't replant Japanese iris in the same spot. I did further research and found suggestions of digging out the soil, using new soil and/or flushing the soil to wash away the root secretions from the previous plants. Given the layout of my garden, I will have to replant some of the individuals in the same place.

When the foliage dies back (yellow) in the fall, I cut it and clear it away to keep thrip eggs from overwintering. Other problems are deer nipping blooms when the irises bloom in late May through mid-June. The damage hasn't been severe enough for me to stop growing Japanese iris.

A Sunflower for a Rain or Bog Garden

If you travel the country roads in many eastern states right now, you'll see the native version of helianthus angustifolius, also known as swamp sunflower. The native version can grow quite tall, sometimes reaching about eight feet.

In my perennial gardens, I grow helianthus angustifolius 'First Light' PP#13150 which is a more compact 4'x4' size. Swamp sunflower grows in zones 5-9. If you plant this favorite, you'll be rewarded with generous blooms in September until frost in zone 7. You can leave the seed heads for the birds in winter or cut back if you want a neater garden. Divide with a shovel to create more plants.

This swamp sunflower was one of the first perennials that I planted when we built our home in 2005. It is planted on the east side of the house beside an outdoor water faucet. White butterfly ginger is the companion for this sunflower and both are in bloom right now. The sunflower is literally a mass of yellow daisy-shaped flowers. I divided it for the first time last spring and added a clump to my rain garden where salvia uliginosa (bog sage) keeps it company. I purchased another pot and planted that one in a hotter location that has rich, moist soil.

Helianthus angustifolius is supposed to be deer resistant. The most exposed clump has been nicely pruned and shaped to just under 3 feet in height by the local deer herd. They did such a nice job pinching back the blooms and shaping the plant, that this clump looks better than the lanky clumps that were untouched. It has more blooms, too. Next year, I think I'll follow their example and pinch back the stems on the other clumps of swamp sunflower!

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The Rain Garden

Tropical Storm Hanna came through North Carolina today. By 9:00am, we had 5" of rain here in Chapel Hill. We were fortunate that the winds didn't do any damage here at our home. There are a few plants and shrubs in the garden that need a litte assistance from being blown over a bit. One of the advantages of growing perennials is that if they have to be cut back from storm damage, they should still come back next year.

Our rain garden handled the rains that washed down from the road and front meadow. The rain garden dumps into our dry streambed that channels and filters the water underneath our driveway and down to our lower meadow where it eventually reaches a natural creek in our woods.

The outer garden (that's our deer resistant garden) is planted on a slope. We also took measures to help prevent soil erosion on the slope. The perennials and shrubs help hold the soil. At the top meadow edge of the garden there is also a French drain that helps prevent the garden from washing away. The French drain is basically a ditch filled with gravel. It routes the water all the way around the meadow edge of the garden where it dumps into the dry streambed. When we receive a lot of rainfall at once, then there will be some overflow into the garden.