strawberry love

My strawberries reddened in May and are now flowering so I might have two waves! This is my first go with the fruit. The University of Illinois has a wonderful site dedicated to Strawberries where I learned:

• The strawberry was a symbol for Venus, the Goddess of Love, because of its heart shapes and red color.
• On average, there are 200 seeds in a strawberry.
• Native forms of strawberries adapt to various climates and are indigenous to every major continent except Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Honestly, the strawberries in my garden take up a lot of room & most of the time aren't doing much. But since they are one of my favorite fruits they are a worth it in pain in the ass.

Sorry Slugs, I HATE you

Unlike us, birds and insects are not bound by fences or yards.

I've found snails to be prevalent in my garden and while I know any attempt to control them is ultimately futile I can discourage them from our garden through persistent deterrents.

• Know you have snails.
• Locate exactly where they hang out when they aren't eating your pretty plants.
• React in whatever way makes the most sense.

Know

Here's how I know I have snails: dried up trails of mucas like this. Ew.

Locate

• You know where they've been, now where did those slugs go? Follow those long skinny slimy paths to the nearby rocks, planters, and any other cool wet place.
• If you'd rather catch them in the act and you've got night lighting in your garden, you can collect them on plants and the soils surface
• I haven't yet figured out what their babies look like, nor have I dug slugs up, but I imagine this is what I'll be learning as I read more.

React

This is where trial and error and personal preference comes into play. Here are my notes:

Eggshells - slugs find the sharp edges uncool so I'm surrounding my precious rose plant with them (fingers crossed).
SlugSlaughter - I killed a few snails through smushing...oddly they eat their dead so this succeeded in attracting slugs to a carcass buffet (gross)
Eat em!- No joke there are sites with instructions on how you can prepare & eat slugs. How French.
Poison - Haven't tried this yet, but I'm intrigued!
Beer - legend has it that if you put bowls of beer, slugs will drown themselves. I didn't have this kind of luck but maybe they don't like Sam Adams.

Oranges

Another great fruit tree I've fallen in love with is the citrus family. Their sturdy leaves and jackpot yeilds never cease to amaze me.

Creature Feature

On our way to a friends house in San Francisco we saw a cutie-patootie moth hanging out on the door frame.

We also saw this beautiful yard...well, spied on it is more like it. The lamp post, fountain, and furniture make it seem so cozy!

Amazing Gardens

Step Garden, Fukuoka, Japan.

Check out Popular Mechanics roundup of unique gardens all over the world.

The stump project

All other websites in the world will want you to remove a stump using one of the easy ways:

• drilling holes and adding salt (this will soften the stump over a period of several months)
• hire someone to use a stump grinder (this will leave you with a nice pile of mulch).

Removing a redwood stump with an axe and a saw is not recommended on any website anywhere.

Except on mine. I like challenges. I suggest getting an axe, sturdy gloves, putting on some great music and going to work. If you are already in decent shape, it will take you about 80 hours.

Why on earth did I do this? Because I don't get a lot of opportunies to delve into physical labor. I very much enjoyed the blood & sweat I spent getting this out.

Before the stump & it's roots was something I had to work around and by the end I had a huge hole & lots of potential.

Opa!

I love the look of bricks and terra cotta but when they get too old they don't seem to clean well so what do you do?

Break them up & expose their rich color!

Here I used bricks to make a little semicircle to contain ice grass. Cute.

Oakland Garden Tour Highlight reel part 2

I enjoy looking at people's garden "work stations"

In the first station below there's no shortage of pots, labels and dirt.

In the second, I love the elbow room and it looks ready for you to cut flowers, water, paint on some root starter, and pot a plant all with a very pretty backdrop color.

Portland flowers

Don't know what these are called (yet) but they're lovely!

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Cutting edge science of flowers

I always find it delightful to check out the wall art in the school in which I volunteer. The other day I saw this. Kinda-super-cute, huh? You have to love the little bug.

Oakland Garden Tour Highlight reel part 1

Every year in Oakland, there's a wonderful event called the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour (here's another bloggers highlights) whereupon folks grab their hats, lather up on sunscreen (if they're me) and go in the the backyards of complete strangers to admire their gardens. Over 40 gardens open up & owners are on hand kindly offering lemonade, seeds, clippings, and most importantly, garden conversation. There were too many amazing sights to cram them all into one post so the gardens I saw are going to be broken up into multiples.

In this post, I'm going to talk about the whimsical designs I admired at our first stop. The two connected backyards reminded me of the Jade Seahorse in Utila, Honduras, designed by a former Los Angeles Teacher, Neil & his wife Julia. The Seahorse is covered from top to bottom with bold colors and irreverent designs. Sigh.

Back to beautiful Oakland . . . Look at the use of colorful rocks!

The red glass rocks above look buckshot. Nice.

I drooled when I saw this beautiful blue spiral. More to come on this amazing tour later.

Columbines: too pretty to eat?

I recently learned from my friend Serena that Columbines, a pretty perennial which attract hummingbirds, are also edible! I have no idea why someone would eat these beauties. Hopefully they are delicious.

I'm relatively new to gardening & this plant was one that I was sure I'd killed since all of it's leaves withered, but they reappeared a few months ago and just a few weeks ago blooms have appeared.

Horray! I probably won't be eating my columbines..their too pretty!

Does your city have a tool lending library?

And if not why not?

For many of us there's a time in our lives when we didn't give a fig about a rototiller or a chainsaw. Before I had access to my own garden, my brain only processed my local tool lending library peripherally.

But when you want a $30-$300 piece of equipment for a day or three and don't want to pay $30-$300, the local tool lending library is just what you need. Some of these locations have more useful equipment than others. In Orem, Utah, for example, they lend out earplugs. Gross! But the great thing about libraries is they often respond to community needs so maybe with some pestering, Orem can get a chainsaw or something else a little more useful than orange vests.

States with tool lending libraries (See more details):

California
Georgia
Iowa
Kansas
Louisiana
Maryland
Michigan
Missouri
Montana
New York
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont
Washington

Axe pictured below courtesy of Oakland Public Library

What to do with all that Mint

Spearmint has been a delightful surprise because of its heartiness.

Native to Europe and Asia, they grow white or reddish runners which seem to just sprint across your garden and I've dealt with this by taking them out of my veggie garden and putting them in containers with enough to spare that I split pieces off, put them in plastic tubs & gifted them to friends and neighbors. They can deal with wide a range of sun exposure--full sun to mostly shaded(!)

Because these are in such a mad dash to propagate, and are so easy to care for, your only trouble is how to keep pace eating spearmint.

I have two favorite uses:

1. Muddle, chop, or mush any way you can and add it to your coffee or coco.

2. Mix with sparkling or still water, lemon juice and some sugar for a great summer lemonade.

Pampas Grass: for huge lawns only

Today I dug out Pampass grass and I had no idea how sharp it is. My arms have 1,000 cuts, feel tender and look very red. Ouch.

By getting personal with Cortaderia Selloana and reading more on wikipedia, here's what I learned:

• Plant this grass in a huge yard, at least 1/3 acre, and you'll have a fetching, unique, accent.
• The grass blades are sharp so use this plant somewhere walking is heavily discouraged.
• Plant it in a condo or a normal sized yard and it will take over.
• Pampas grass is a native to South America but is often considered a weed elsewhere.
• When removing, be prepared. Wear long sleeves and gloves and before you start digging, cut all of the grass off first so you don't end up with arms on fire like me today.

Arranging the natural: Beyond Flowers

I picked up a book called beyond flowers which has opened my eyes to how beautifully arranged leaves, sticks and other natural byproducts can be. Worth a look see.