Friday, September 23, 2011

Hartwood Roses


There was a time I paid attention to cliche's about roses.  Needy, needy, needy.
Wrong, the best roses are tough, tough, tough.
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Choose a rose KNOWN to be good in your area for at least 2 decades.  Buying from the supercenter or asking someone who mows grass for a living isn't an option.  Would you ask your dermatologist about heart palpitations?
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I went to my local Rose Society to discover the BEST roses.   Climbing 'Dortmund', above, was one of the choices.  It's never watered, fertilized, or sprayed with chemicals yet it blooms early summer till frost in my garden with pretty hips throughout fall.
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Hartwood Roses is a delightful nursery.  They WANT you to have the BEST roses for your zone/garden.
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Connie, of Hartwood Roses, sent this note yesterday:
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This is a quick message to remind you that this Saturday, September 24, 2011, is the final scheduled open nursery day of the 2011 season.  Even though the summer heat and dryness was hard on the garden (and the gardener) there are quite a few roses in bloom to see if you are planning to visit to choose your roses in person.

Here is an offer for those of you who do not live nearby that may help you to decide to buy the roses you have been waiting order.  All rose orders placed from now until October 7 will get half-price shipping!   Orders will be calculated manually and invoiced to reflect the reduced shipping cost.

Please remember that I have decided to take a year off from mass propagation of next year’s crop to concentrate on other aspects of the Hartwood Roses mission that I have not had the time to develop.  Stay tuned for details of planned workshops and hands-on demonstrations to help you learn to grow better roses.  There will be a few new rose varieties available next spring, along with the roses that carry over from this year, but not in the quantities that are usually available. 

The realities of the current economy have been hard on the nursery business.  Hartwood Roses will continue to exist, but it must evolve to reflect the new reality of reduced time and interest in rose gardening, especially heirloom varieties of roses, and tighter household budgets.  I have worked too hard to build this business and its reputation to throw in the towel because times are hard. 

On a more positive note, if you are in the area and want to see the debut of my new program, “How To Grow Beautiful Climbing Roses”, plan to visit the Richmond Rose Society meeting this Sunday, September 25, at 2pm, in the auditorium of Children’s Hospital.  (Click HERE for address and directions).

In closing, I would like to thank you for your support of Hartwood Roses, as it grows and changes to meet today’s challenges. 

Sincerely,
Connie

P.S.  Keep up with the happenings in the nursery, garden, and in our family in a more personal way by reading my blog.  www.hartwoodroses.blogspot.com
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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Keep It Close & Line It Up


Early 19th century North American home & garden.
Vegetables, herbs, fruits, water, livestock, above, all close.
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Sustainable meant a lot more in this era.  Lose your crops/livestock & your family could die.
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Keeping things close is easier maintenance & to protect.  Obvious but overlooked.
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Often I'm asked to site a playset or child's vegetable garden.  The requests arrive with a wave of the hand pointing to the back, somewhere.  Somewhere.
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Patio/deck areas are often a sunny spot.  Perfect for a vegetable garden in large pots, 24" diameter, with several things stuffed into each.  Ha, yes, I site the pots too.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Notice the Landscape Design tool in the pic?  All the lines: fence, trees, vegetables, herbs, paths, dependencies are lined exactly parallel or perpendicular with the home.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Peony Mrs. Roosevelt

Few peonies do well in the South.  Martha Tate's, Mrs. Roosevelt, below.
Martha Tate has, Garden Photo Of The Day.  It's new & fabulous.
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Martha is a real gardener.  I trust her instincts.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Martha & I have the good fortune to share a friendship with an E.M. Forster type character, Mrs. Moore, from Passage To India fame.  In her 90's Margaret Moseley mentors us both.
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Pic by Martha Tate.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Boxes Of Flowers

 One duty, during my nursery career, was ordering gloxinia, cineraria, freesia, Christmas cactus & etc. throughout the year.
 Cases of each, arriving on 18-wheeler trucks.
Dozens of cardboard boxes holding 6-8 potted plants, in full perfection of bloom.
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It was my good fortune to strip the tape off all the boxes & be the 1st to look inside.  Of course it was my job to get them off the 18-wheeler truck, by myself, and into the shop too.
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Cellophane sleeves were removed & I set the plants on various display shelves according to the lite they needed.  As the week passed I removed spent blossoms, watered and pulled off yellowing leaves.  And poof, all the plants were sold.
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This wasn't a sissy job, I also handled trees, shrubs, groundcovers, annuals, perennials, statuary, potting up 3 gallon roses, hand-watering, sales, accounts payable/receivable, deposits, & etc.  
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I wish you could experience those boxes of gloxinia, cineraria, freesia, & etc.  Pure abundance of beauty.
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This story is over 25 years old, and I've never seen such decadence in abundance of those flowers again.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics via It's About Time.  

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Regretting The Organ Pipe

Grandma donated a new pipe organ to her church.
 From the old organ she saved 2 of the largest pipes.  For me & my sister.
 A freshman in college, I skipped my senior year of high school, I asked Grandma why she saved the pipes.
She said, "For your garden."
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Ha, smart enough to get into college early I saw zero use for an old organ pipe in any garden of mine.
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Regret is carried in the form of fantasizing where I would put an organ pipe focal point in my garden.  Better, having conversations with Grandma about where to 'site' the organ pipe.  Of course it's very Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses, Grandma's  been dead almost 3 decades.
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The Wall Street Journal had an article recently about old pipe organs being discarded.  No good, I want the EXACT pipe Grandma saved for me
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We all get back to our own Rosebud.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics from Wall Street Journal

Friday, September 16, 2011

Garden & Gun: Eudora Welty


Garden & Gun magazine
 has an article about the garden
 of Eudora Welty.
 A friend sent the link this morning.
Already ordered and I'm laying on the daybed in my Conservatory reading it.  In my imagination !
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Garden & Be Well,              XO Tara
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pics from Eudora Welty LLC. 

Thursday, September 15, 2011

P. Allen Smith & Helen Yoest

Have you discovered P. Allen Smith?  Gardener, decorator, author, cook, tv personality.

 Have seen several of his books at client's homes.  Great pics & ideas.
 Helen Yoest, garden designer, was in Smith's garden recently.  And had an epiphany, here.
Helen writes about gardening,  Gardening With Confidence.
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Enjoy.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics by Helen Yoest

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Copy Precedent

Researching a sleeping porch I went straight to, An Affair With A House, by Bunny Williams.

 Simplicity, roof line, methods, lattice, doors, heights, colors, interior, exterior & etc.
Initial thoughts were Chinoiserie lattice.  Studying Bunny's book, and others, chose rectangular lattice.
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'Our' porch won't have solid panels at the bottom of the walls, they will be rectangular lattice.
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COPY, it's the most important rule of Landscape Design.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Both pics from An Affair With A House, by Bunny Williams.  REPETITION, close-close-close to being the most important rule of Landscape Design.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The National Heirloom Exposition

The Heirloom Expo, Sept. 13-15, 2011, Santa Rosa, CA.

"...Dr. Shiva founded the Navdanya, a movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seeds.  Dr. Shiva's attention is now focused on preventing imperialism over life itself.  "I don't want to live in a world where five giant companies control our food and our health"
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From the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center comes 'regenerative' a new & better choice than 'sustainable'.
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Interesting.  The winds are changing.  Refining.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic taken last week, future site of Ancient Orchard.  Alice Waters is at the Expo & many others.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Designing For Magic


Russell Page, "You design a garden within all the limitations of a site, of a client's requirement, the climate and the nature of the soil, of the local culture and of your own capacities as artist and technician.  All of this is, with practice, relatively straightforward, but if your garden is to have 'magic' you have to take your work further and give it an extra dimension." from The Education of a Gardener.
Beyond this lawn, above, I was asked to put in an ancient orchard.
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Getting it right didn't mean making my client happy, getting the new 'ancient orchard' in a magazine or book, or on TV.
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Getting it right, for me, meant creating MAGIC.
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"....but if your garden is to have 'magic' you have to take your work further and give it an extra dimension.  I think that awareness of the interplay between objects, whether organic or inorganic is of major importance if your garden is to be also a work of art."  Russell Page.
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Garden & Be Well,               XO Tara
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Pic taken last week.  Hope, fervently, more than a few of you know what it is to create magic.  Have never done coke, lsd, heroine blah-blah.  How they must pale compared to the muse dropping you a bit of magic.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Are You A Confident Stylist/Decorator?

The meadow growing in the cracks of my stone terrace fills my soul with JOY.
A dear friend, last week, said my meadow needed pruning, "There isn't even a path."
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Path?
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I'm taking the JOY.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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I travel farthest in my garden.  Pic of my mudroom which could use much help.  With me the garden comes first!!!

Friday, September 2, 2011

Penelope Bianchi: Favorite Things


Wish I hadn't seen this chicken coop, below.  Was already planning a spot for 4 heirloom chickens this fall.  
 How did I miss this garden?  Honoring animals, below, in stone.
 The floating duck house, below.  Keeps babies safer from shoreline predators.
 The best relationship in my life was with my Grandma.  BEST.
A lucky little girl, loving her Grandma.  Penelope's granddaughter, above.    
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Penelope Bianchi, known for interior design, is the full package.  She designs gardens too.  Magic is in the loving life she creates for all entering.
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This is what I adore about a gardening lifestyle.  It meanders thru the layers of life.  Nature, travel, loved ones, antiques, pets, a new project, being with old friends, meeting new friends, cooking, solitude, & etc.
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I adore the sublime inspiration from Penelope's blog.  She reminds me of E.M.Forster when he writes of 'resources'.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Pics from Penelope's blog.  I'm dangerous now, have a picture of an idea for the chicken coop.  Of course the bid will come back, budget will say 'no', then I'll connive something fabulous & affordable.