Sow There!

Mom's Day is Sunday.

If you're out and about this weekend, a good thing to do with Mom is check out Carolyn Melf's iris garden in Paradise.

Carolyn recently sent me the above photo of her garden, which is incredibly beautiful but, according to Melf, is even more fantabulous than the photo depicts.

While her garden is in her prime, she'll be open to visitors daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Sundays.

To offset some of the cost of her iris passion she offers the plants for sale for $3-$5. People pick them out now, and she divides them in July or August.

Many visitors have made a visit to her garden a family Mother's Day tradition.

She lives at 122 Valley View Drive. Take Skyway past the park and take a left on Oliver.
The “first serious left” will be Valley View Drive.
She’ll have signs up, but in case you lose your way, her phone number is 872-7771.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was feeling fairly smug the past couple of weeks about my gardening prowess.
The newly-planted section of the lawn is looking luscious. Tommy was proud when he mowed it for the first time right before our first barbecue of the season.
While some of the early-blooming plants are waning, such as the lavender and, sage and snapdragon, other plants are taking their place as the show-stoppers.

The blue lobelia bought in a six-pack at the store are so gorgeous during that hour before sunset it wakes up the eyes. For that reason, I planted about a dozen more that had been planted by seed and were waiting in the windowsill.
Not that I’m the type of gardener who needs to have everything in its place. However, my random method of sticking things into exposed soil has paid off and it looks like somebody actually had a plan.
My little garden is stunning right now, and it’s all because of me, me, me. Oh, yeah, and Tommy helps a lot too.

But just as I was feeling immodest about my plant proficiency, I started noticing that all of the other yards in my daily encounters look amazing.
Even the roses in those cruddy strips between parking spaces at the big-box stores look like they are competing for best-of-show.

And why shouldn’t they? Who wouldn’t smile every day when the high temperature is predicted at 78?
I was moving the garden hose recently when my best friend next door came to say hello.
“You’re going to be a slave to this garden this summer,” she commented, sipping a cup of coffee.
“What do you mean,” I said with my back turned toward her as I shifted the garden hose to water a newly-planted ageratum.

OK, so the garden won’t always look this lovely. There will be days soon when dragging the hose to nearly-dead plants will sound about as appealing as taking a bike ride in Death Valley.
That’s all the more reason for gardeners to savor all of the eye-candy we have created in the garden.
And while we’re at it, we can walk around our neighborhoods and give atta-boys to others who are outside admiring their efforts.

Strawberry fields, whatever
I’ve been digging mountains of strawberries and giving them to friends. I planted about six strawberry plants in a small, shady corner of the yard about a decade ago.
That first year I read the Sunset’s Western Garden Book and learned that if I wanted big, juicy strawberries, the runners from the mother plant should be picked off to allow the mama plant to put energy into her berry output.

That first year I attempted to protected each fruit by laying a paper plate under it as it ripened.
This ended up looking like I had a party and the guests just left their paper plates laying around in the yard.
I could fight off the nibbling scrub jays if I was home. However, invariably I would wait for the fruit to ripen to the perfect color red, only to discover a nasty slug had beaten me to the race.
After a while I realized this was setting myself up for disappointment.

Instead we gobble up the strawberries at the farmers markets. You can literally smell them in the air and they are the size of a hackey sac.
With the easily-accessible, bug-free strawberries nearby, why would I continue to fight to have a few measly strawberries in my yard?
Apparently Tommy did not hear me when I said he should not get too excited about the upcoming strawberry harvest. As predicted, by the time he picked a juicy-looking fruit he would find it already partially devoured.

But I keep the strawberries around because they are green, fuss-free and cover up that spot near the brick wall where other plants do not appear to favor.
Strawberries have very shallow roots and in the heat need to be at least spritzed once a day. When left on their own, as they have been for 10 years, they’re also perfect for digging up to make other people happy.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My shameless self-promotion of my birthday paid off.
As written (below) I sent out an e-mail announcing my impending birthday and asking my friends to give me a call while I was at work and leave a message on my home machine wishing me a happy birthday.
I must admit, I smiled several times during the day knowing that when I returned I would relish pushing play on my answering machine.
In fact, I kept them on there for a couple of days so I could enjoy them again.
My friends managed to collectively wow me.
A couple of people misread or disregarded my e-mail and phoned me at work, which was great as well.
Note to self: a good excuse for taking your birthday off of work is that you won’t get any work done anyway when everyone calls you.
All told, there were 13 answering machine messages at home and two phone calls at work.
Two people decided to personally call, leave an e-mail. A couple phoned or e-mailed and sent e-cards and several sent just e-cards.
And then, there were the folks who sent birthday cards via snail mail (some with checks).
I was also delighted to hear from a couple of friends who have moved far, far away and who I usually only correspond with during the holidays.
The temptation is to abuse this ritual and send out an e-mail asking for positive affirmation of my existence every time I’m in a blue mood, but that would be annoying and likely would not elicit continuing positive results.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

People like to know it’s your birthday.
Even though I didn’t feel like throwing a medium-sized party this year, it’s important that the “special day” feels like a special day.

Right?

The point of being ridiculous about advertising your birthday is to validate that you’re loved, and not just by neighbor dogs who can smell doggie treats in your pocket.
Because Wednesday was my birthday, I sent out an e-mail on Tuesday night shamelessly asking my friends to call my answering machine while I was at work and leave a “happy birthday” message.
Even when it is solicited, having an answering machine filled with well-wishes is about the best present a person could shamelessly ask for.

I could have lived a long time without hearing some of those people attempt to sing happy birthday, but that’s all part of the fun.
As shameless as this all sounds, it could have been worse.

Several years ago I sent out this e-mail:
“As you know, my birthday is coming up soon. I’ve already started booking my calendar for the week before and the week after with birthday lunch dates.
If you want to reserve a date, let me know soon.”
That year, indeed, I had birthday lunch dates booked for the week before and the week after my birthday.

I personally also love e-cards. In Tommy’s family they all send Hallmark cards.
As a writer, I’m not that interested in spending $4 for a generic sentiment written to fit the general population.
Plus, you have to figure out how to time sending the card so it will arrive on or about the actual birthday. With an e-card, you can guarantee that the card will arrive on the correct date.

“But they’ll think I forgot about their birthday until the last minute,” Tommy said.
I understand Hallmark has advertised long and hard for the customer loyalty of Tommy’s extended family. However, an e-card means that you could actually be thinking about the birthday person on their actual birthday, and through the magic of e-mail send that sentiment on the exact day.

Purple hat society
Even though my age this year does not end with a zero, for some reason I’ve done a lot of “age-ism” contemplation.
I think I’ve finally gotten to that age where I feel comfortable. I’m not quite ready to join the Red Hat Society (give it a few years), but there is a lot of comfort in feeling good about where I have landed.
Dad is a high school teacher in the Bay Area. He and his wife recently were asked the chaperone the senior prom.
Dad said he restrained himself and did not do a lot of the “Hacking wiggle” on the dance floor, but he and his wife made a twirl or two.
He mentioned that his wife Lynda had fun seeing how beautiful all of the young women looked.
That’s one of the differences between being younger and being comfortably old. When we were younger, we would have looked around the room and only seen that some of the women were more beautiful (in our minds). When you’re older, you can look around and appreciate how nice everyone looks when they’re all gussied up.

Rhizome and shine
Paradise iris aficionado Carolyn Melf sent a note this week, unrelated to my birthday, to share that her vast iris garden is open for visitors.
The days near Mother’s Day will be peak bloom in her yard, she said, and make for a special mother/child outing.
She said her yard will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Sundays.
Carolyn began her admitted obsession with irises when she discovered they were one of the few plants that would not be devoured by the 30 or so deer that used to use her yard as a smorgasbord.
Over the past 20 years she has collected upwards of 650 varieties on her one acre. She digs the different color combinations and fragrances.
With blooms at their peak, now is the time she invites the public to enjoy them. People who want to do more than gawk can pick out their favorites, and come and pick them up when they are divided in July or August. She sells them for $3-$5 to help fund her future acquisitions.
Carolyn said the iris viewing has become a tradition for many moms and their families.
The “iris evangelist” said she has more plant interests than just irises, and grows roses in a deer-proof “gulag,” as well as peonies, forsythia and daffodils.
If you want to combine more than one pleasure, May 8 is the Paradise Chocolate Fest (www.chocolatefest.us), so doting children can delight Mom with a chocolate overload and Carolyn’s irises all in one day.
She lives at 122 Valley View Drive. Take Skyway past the park and take a left on Oliver.
The “first serious left” will be Valley View Drive.
She’ll have signs up, but in case you lose your way, her phone number is 872-7771.
Carolyn said she doesn’t do much fancy for her irises. At bloom time she’ll give them some tomato fertilizer. Irises have very few predators and are drought-resistant.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A garden is a place for many things.
For some, it is an extension of their home — a place to serve food, take a nap or talk over the fence to a neighbor.
Other times the garden is a hobby, where it’s just plain fun to experiment with how efficient one can be at killing snails or growing the biggest cucumbers.
Often, for me, the garden is a place for contemplation. Usually it is in the morning and after work that I take the little garden stroll, letting my mind be distracted by whether the peat pots need watering. My garden is quiet and for a few minutes I am distant from the rest of life’s goings-on.
Often it is here that some of life’s big decisions are made or epiphanies received.

The 14, or more, seasons
Maybe I’ve been thinking too much about this lately, but there are many subseasons throughout the year for a gardener.
Of course there is winter, which is filled with waiting, and is pretty dull except for the holiday get-togethers.
Then comes winter preparations, which involve leafing through catalogs and buying seeds on the clearance rack in the gardening section.
Mid-winter, at least for me, involves tentative preparation. I’ll plant the earliest of seeds in the windowsill, carefully watching over them each day to make sure I’m not somehow jeopardizing their life-cycle.
Then comes February and March, which is late winter.
Late winter involves anticipation. I’ll visit those early daffodils and tulips as if my daily visitation is the only thing giving the plants the will to bloom.
By the official start of spring in March, it’s about patience — wanting to get out there and get my hands dirty, but knowing there are still several weeks to wait until there’s no chance of frost.
I was chatting with my friend Chanin recently. She has a new baby so now she is home and has time to get her hands dirty.
She lives in Forest Ranch, so the climate is slightly cooler than the temperature in the valley.
When we had those nice, teasing days of 70-degree weather, she was excited and planted a mom-mobile worth of plants in her garden.
The date of last frost in this area is technically near the end of April. But it always seems like that LAST frost never comes.
Chanin, like many of us, had taken for granted that the fact that she was wearing a sundress meant it was safe to get started on the gardening season.
Those cold nights caught many off guard. I had already packed up my electric blanket on my bed and put it in storage.
This brings us back to mid-spring, a time for yet more patience.
Needless to say, Chanin lost most of her plants and feels that she should have known better and waited.
I’m fortunate not to have made that same mistake, but only because I was too lazy to put my young plants in the ground.
Thanks to Laurie at work, I have resisted the unbearable urge to plant zinnia seeds outdoors. Laurie said she always waits to plant zinnias until May 1, which is right about the official date of last frost.
Soon, most gardeners will shift into mid-spring mania, where the flood gates are opened and most gardening books will give the go-ahead to unleash all those clearance-rack seed packets.
This is followed by early summer, when it is fun to go out every morning to see that there are two zucchini to harvest.
By mid-summer, it’s fun to see how many zucchini can be picked to share with friends.
By late summer, it is too hot and pitiful outside to care whether the zucchini plants need watering. And who would care anyway because there are 28 zucchini the size of motor homes ready to harvest. By then you will have already brought zucchini to everyone you know who doesn’t have zucchini plants at home and who isn’t allergic to them.
By late-late summer, your zucchini are so large they could be carved out and used as canoes.
By early fall, there is a frenzy of pent-up gardening as garden tragedies and triumphs are tallied and plans begin to unravel for next spring.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m planting a boat-load of zinnias this year and I’m not going to apologize for it.
One thing about gardening is that there are a bazillion different approaches.
Some gardeners get bored with the more pedestrian plants and scour obscure gardening catalogs for the newest or strangest or most odiferous plants.
I applaud them.
In fact, I have one plant in my yard, an orange fizz geranium, that I bought purely for the novelty. When friends visit my garden I take them over to the plant and have them tickle the leaves, which emit a fragrance much like a $10 umbrella drink in an outdoor Hawaiian bar.

There is a time and place for all of that. However, I’m tired of having plants die when I go away for a three-day weekend, keel over with the slightest dip or rise of temperature or only bloom for two weeks.
I’m going for more bang for the buck, which zinnias provide.
Originally from Mexico, zinnias bloom in the colors we would imagine from a hot climate — bronzed yellow, burnt orange and blazing red.
Some writings about the plant state that the flowers were once called “poorhouse flowers” because they were so easy to grow.
Another example of this type of snobbishness is the term “freeway daisies,” which refers to daisies that perform so well with so little fuss that Caltrans opts to plant them on the side of the road.
Just because a plant is easy doesn’t mean it should be shunned.
They plant agapanthas, coreopsis and periwinkle in shopping mall parking lots because they do well despite being deprived of most nutrients and drizzled with warm Gatorade people dump out the windows of their cars.
Maybe I have a chip on my shoulder because I was named Heather — a plant, sometimes considered a weed, that grows in acid soil and in bogs.
Zinnias aren’t the most dainty. The flowers don’t wow you with delicate petals or gentle hues. They’re much more brazen.
Plus, butterflies flock to them.
My current love affair with this plant came last year. My gardening partner cleared a big new swath of soil in a back portion of the yard that was previously occupied by some gangly shrubs.
In one of those “I don’t give a hoot” moments, I took a really ancient packet of seeds I had received from a friend who was cleaning out her seed closet.
Thinking the seeds likely wouldn’t grow, I dumped the entire packet into a one-foot area.
What grew was a four-foot-tall mess of zinnias that out-bloomed everything else in the yard.
If trimmed right above the next set of leaves on the stalk, zinnias will rebloom after cutting.
I’ll also keep you posted as to whether the dried seed heads will produce flowers when planted this year.
We also came across a bonanza of seeds in the hidden clearance rack of a grocery story last winter and bought about 10 packets of zinnias (as well as other things) for 25 cents a pop. I’ll follow last year’s program and stuff them under some soil and allow nature to do its thing.

Teacher’s pet
Several months ago I received a mass e-mail from a company in Beverly Hills that sells the Pooch IQ Kit.
The kit, www.poochiq.com, has a variety of tests for the pet owner to determine if their dog is above average in intelligence, or just the lovable mound of fur the owner already adored.
The kit, now on sale for $50, plus shipping and handling, offers 15 tests that measure your dog’s abilities in short-term memory, persistence, problem solving, etc. The order includes a bundle of doggie toys.
When I got this e-mail, I cracked up and loudly voiced my opinion. A couple of my co-workers perked up and said they’d be interested in quantifying their pet’s superior mental abilities.
The Web site for the canine assessment also has a companion site, brightpup.com, where you can post photos and brag about your dog.
Problem is, what if you fork over the money for the test and then find out that your dog is, as your neighbors have long suspected, dumb as a dog biscuit?
If my best friend’s dog is any indication, I think I can already judge its intelligence by the fact that it has been known to eat nylons and plastic bags. Once he ate a cassette tape and ran around the yard with the magnetic tape unspooling behind him like kite string.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Very few things happen instantaneously. At any moment in time, what we see is the result of different choices, circumstances, mistakes, serendipity, dumb luck or force of will.
In the case of my garden right now, what I see is the result of prolonged and systematic favoritism to purple.
The other day I was looking around my small patch of earth and smiling smugly at the performance of the spring garden.
It won’t always look like this — young and fresh. By the time summer comes along, I’ll be cranky and dragging the hose like a mercenary aid worker, trying to keep as many plants from withering as possible.
But right now, the plants are giving more reward than the nurturing I have given them.
Recently I was out in the yard in my bathrobe and Tommy commented, “Do you think we could plant something other than purple?”
I had to laugh, because of course he was right.
We could.
But why?
My yard is very small, so it didn’t take long for the purple plants to bully their way into the color scheme.
Plus, part of it is Tommy’s fault because he bought me purple plants for Valentine’s Day.
Nemesia is one of my favorite plants right now. We bought a one-gallon plant last year and it has spread to about a four-foot-wide clump. (Note: This power-plant also comes in other colors).
If it was some other plant, I might think it was greedy and needed to be hacked back just to keep it in place.
Perhaps I simply picked the perfect location for it, but I can’t remember the plant not blooming since I put it in the ground.
A little research on nemesia: It turns out it is treated as an annual, except in our climate.
Bonus.

(Nemesia. This is exactly what it looks like in my yard).

Other purple performers include the newly-planted Bacopa, which also comes in white.
About 60 purple bearded irises decided to bloom at the same time this year. Other plants in the plethora of purple include lavender, sage, lilac, rosemary and alyssum. A few of the purple tulips are still hanging in there.
I named my purple rose bush “Hollywood,” because we planted it on top of where I buried my beloved cat. That rose is just now in bud stage.
However, it’s not as silly as it sounds. There are other colors in my yard that have not been completely bullied out, but you wouldn’t realize that right now.
Monochromatic gardens aren’t anything new. Many frou-frou garden design books will have a chapter dedicated to gardens where one color dominates. Usually these feature white flowers, such as the one at Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent, England.
However, gardens like this usually come about more intentionally.
Other writers also praise the idea of having one section of a patio with potted plants of the same or similar colors.
Some people will choose plants in all pastel shades, so one corner of their yard looks like rainbow sherbet.
According to various Web sites I needed to research for this important topic, purple is the favorite color of about 75 percent of adolescent girls.
Who knew?

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While looking on www.photobucket.com for a lovely picture of the escargot in the blog posting below, I came across these delightful photos.

You can also see some giant snails squirming on someone's arm via this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtM0Y3YihAU.

If you're really intrigued, you can find some yummy snail recipes here: http://members.tripod.com/snailsonline/recipies.htm.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you’re like most people who garden, an occasional garden snail or an army of munching mollusks are a menace to your plants.
I have no compunction about killing garden snails.
First off, they’re not native.
That’s wonderful that snails are an excellent source of protein and taste yummy when smothered with butter and garlic.
However, I don’t think that justifies importing snails from Europe for food without thinking of the countless future generations of gardeners.
I can think of a handful of other things that are even more delicious when smothered with garlic and butter, and those things don’t nibble on my plants.

If you’re interested in learning more about the art of escargot, you can order a booklet on home snail preparation from the Embarcadero Home Cannery: www.ehcan.com/snailsasfood.html.
But if you’re like me, you’re interested in ridding your garden of those wet-day garden gobblers.

Miracle in the rain
Last week there was a light rain, and Tommy and I went for a walk in the evening. I had just plunked down my entire tax return on car repairs and was about to embark upon a semi-sensitive discussion about money.
In a deft act of deflection, Tommy spied a parade of snails on the moist, gray expanse of the sidewalk on Seventh Avenue and Laburnum and completely distracted me from my topic.
Soon, Tommy began rummaging through the landscaping finding me more snails to crunch.
The planting beds in front of the medical office provide a rich breeding ground. Snails especially like ivy, which I call the “love shack” for snails.
The thing about snails, is they are hermaphrodites and are perfectly capable of procreating even if they are the last survivor on an island.
The snails that day were pretty easy picking, although after about 15 minutes we had to be more crafty to dislodge the snails that were clinging resolutely to the strappy leaves of the agapantha plants.
We must have looked a little strange that day, with Tommy bent down and tossing me mollusk after mollusk.
Perhaps like a lot of things — such as germs, gray hairs, loose change in your purse and Salem witches — you don’t always see snails unless you’re looking for them.
After a couple dozen crunches, I decided to start counting.
I started thinking about the snails who survived our onslaught and how in a year or so the surviving few would sit around the equivalent of a snail campfire and reminisce about the Heather/Tommy snail massacre of 2008.
When we were done, we had tallied 204.
I was excited to get home and visit my own garden within the last 10 minutes of daylight.
I was surprised, but not displeased, when we returned home and I could only find one snail in my yard.
The lack of snails inhabitants can be directly linked the power outage in June 2006.
That day we were joined by the then 8-year-old next door who made a rare appearance in our yard due to the lack of electricity flowing to his Xbox. After a bit of reluctance, the kid joined Tommy and I in making snails pretty much an endangered species in my yard.

Poison takes the fun out of it
The combination of these two snail events really made me think about “organic control.”
When I first started gardening I would read the garden books that recommended hand-picking of snails. I thought this was a bunch of bahooey and somehow uncivilized to hunt at night with a flashlight.
But now I realize that poison snail bait (even earth-friendly iron phosphate), copper barriers, tuna cans filled with beer, lines of salt, keeping ducks or chickens, applying nematode powder, are all a waste of time and money.
These snail fighting tactics deprive people like me the joy of hunting and splattering, as well as a good way for Tommy to avoid uncomfortable conversations.

Maybe we can turn this past-time into a lucrative side job ... “snail hunters for hire.”

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tommy has a little bit of a bratty kid inside him, which I admire.
Fortunately, we have a 10-year-old living next door.
We’ve pulled many pranks on him, including having my dad phone and impersonate a police officer when the kid stole our pumpkin off our front porch.
Things used to get a little hectic as Halloween neared. Being right next door, we could pop out, scratch on the window, and be back indoors by the time the kid called us to ask if we heard anything strange outside.
It was a lot easier when he was younger.
We got my best friend pretty good the other day. We knew she was looking forward to sleeping in the next morning, because she rarely has a day where she can just lounge in bed.
That night I called her about 9 p.m.
Heather: "Hey, I know it's late but I have to ask you a HUGE favor."
Best friend: (groan) "What?"
Heather: I totally forgot that I have an 8 a.m. appointment tomorrow in Orland and my car is in the shop.”
Best friend: "Oh, come on. I know you're messing with me."
Heather: "I wish I was,” I said as Tommy sat on the couch snickering. I'll owe you big-time.”
It took a several more feigned sincere statements before she sighed again and reluctantly agreed.
She was a good sport and laughed when I told her I was fibbing.
Another time I got my niece pretty good when I told her my mother had broken all my niece’s dishes in the garage when she invited some Russian dancers to her house for a barbecue.
The best prank so far was after the Jan. 4 storm that knocked out our electricity for several days.
Like everyone in our neighborhood, we made the best of it, lit candles and dusted off some board games.
The day the power came on there was rejoicing and the 10-year-old immediately investigated that indeed his Xbox worked again.
We did not hear a peep from his house for several hours.
Then Tommy had a brilliant idea that if he snuck into their back yard he could flip their circuit breaker and we could pretend that the power had gone out again.
There were howls and screams of agony from his house, and we did a good job of keeping our snickers to a dull roar.
(I wrote about this on my blog Jan. 17).
My best friend and her son still do not know that it was us who temporarily darkened their house that day.
Tommy suggested flipping the switch several more times, but I have restrained him by saying we will wait until April 1.
We’re currently mulling over devious plans, but I would love to hear suggestions from readers.

The mole problem has returned. So far only one tulip has become a casualty and Tommy managed to swiftly rescue two foxglove plants that were in the path of the burrowing fiends.
We did our best to harass the subterranean critters last year with garden hoses and vehicle exhaust fumes.
The neighbors have problems as well, but our yard has had the most pampering lately, and has really good soil teaming with earthworms. That likely is due, in part, to the compost pile.
The latest idea is something I found on an Internet search.
Moles scarf on grubs under the soil, as well as earthworms.
One recipe called for mixing 1/4 cup castor oil, two tablespoons dish liquid and one gallon of water. The recommendation is to use the blender and then spray on the yard.
The castor oil cuts down on the grubs and earthworms, which causes the moles to search for other food.
I’m reluctant, however, to make the earthworms a casualty of this war.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)