Book Review: The Garden Club of America

With gift-giving season upon us, I thought it would be a good time to review some of the gardening books I've received or read in the last year.

Actually, "review" might not be the best description, as I'm not yet sure how extensive my comments will be -- I'll at least give you my thoughts and feelings about each. Does that pass as a review these days? I'm planning on doing at least four of these posts, but let's see how it goes.

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Cold, but pretty

It's been a cold start to winter for us in the Midwest this year, as temperatures are about 10ºF (-12ºC) below normal and have been for the most part of a few weeks.

That means that I'm seeing the winter garden a bit earlier than normal, but that's not always a bad thing -- the winter garden is quite attractive in its own ways.

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lobelia stems, noticed

Looking out my home office window I see my walkway garden, complete with bird feeder and the I'm-not-letting-it-freeze water barrel. The combination of these two means that quite often there's something to see when I glance out there -- the birds are always fun to watch.

The other day I noticed something different though: my lobelia (Lobelia cardinalis), stems dead and dried at this time of year, looked strange.

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The overwintering table, part 1

You already know that I bring lots of plants into the garage to overwinter in a semi-dormant state. Although those take up the most room, they're simple -- just let them sit for five months, maybe watering once in a while.

There are other plants that I grow inside under lights, either because they don't do well in the garage, I want to propagate them, or because they're too important to trust to the sometimes unpredictable garage. Although I haven't finished bringing everything inside yet, here's a look at what's in here already.

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Helping horrible houseplants

Although I'm quite proud of my garden and have a good amount of success with most plants I try, the indoor greenery is another story. Too little light and a maddening design that puts all of the heater vents right in front of the windows means that houseplants face a challenge in my home.

Take for instance this Dracaena (which I believe is Dracaena deremensis but I'm no expert). When it was new it was short and bushy, and looked so healthy.

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Protecting my winter crops

We've had one really cold night in St. Louis so far, when it dipped down to 16ºF (-9ºC) ten days ago. It didn't stay that cold of course, and we even had a record high temperature of 80ºF since that cold night, but cold is coming again.

(I'm struggling on what tense to use here, as the photos were taken yesterday before the cold arrived, but I'm writing it in the morning when it's 13ºF/-10ºC). It was forecast to get down to 10ºF (-12ºC) so I'm not too upset about 13ºF. Back on point: I had to spend some time yesterday getting my cold-loving winter vegetables covered.

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Beacon, soon lost

The Iris pseudacorus in the walkway garden is certainly impressive in the summer, with its strappy, upright foliage adding a structural element here.

Right now though, it is a beacon. Seemingly putting the last of its energy into color, it glows yellow and orange while its charm-school posture relaxes into a slouch.

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Prairie Dogs

Although you'd think that my dozens of posts on our August roadtrip would have been comprehensive, leaving nothing out, that's not the case.

One of the things that I didn't show you earlier was the prairie dog colony at Devils Tower National Monument. I didn't post about it at the time because I thought that video would be a better way to show this off.

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Deer signs, part 2

As I was raking the leaves from under and around the maple in the front yard the other day, I took a look at the cactus bed, wondering how I was going to get most of those leaves out.

Then I noticed something: The Opuntia cacanapa 'Ellisiana' that was the anchor to this end of the bed didn't look right. It didn't have the presence that it usually did.

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