I’m still on seedheads. Yesterday afternoon Gail and I attended a workshop on propagating Rhody Natives (in caps because it’s an initiative spearheaded by the RI Natural History Survey and the New England Wildflower Society to get commercial nurseries involved in propagating Rhode Island’s own native plants both for conservation projects and to sell in garden centers. Really exciting stuff.) We learned a few tricks from Kate Pawling, plant propagator at Nasami Farm Nursery, Harry Chase a wholesale grower in Portsmouth, RI, and Dr. Bryan Maynard, professor of horticulture at URI.

So much about propagation involves a kind of science that makes my artist’s right-brain spin but when it comes right down to it, the most important thing is to simply pay attention to the way the plant works. For instance, plants native to New England that set seed in the spring need a warm stratification period before a cold one to germinate. Interestingly, a lot of spring seeds cannot be stored dry. Some plants, like native ginger (Asarum canadense) coat their seeds in a fatty substance ants love to eat and when they’re finished they discard the cleaned seed in their rubbish pile, which happens to be a perfectly situated nutrient rich place for a new plant to grow. For best results, spring seeds should be sown as soon as possible after collection. Makes perfect sense.

The opposite may be true of fall-set seeds. They often have a tough seed coat that needs to go through winter’s freeze and thaw cycle to crack and germinate. Try to sow them without stratification and they probably won’t come to anything. By leaving seedheads up in the garden to ripen we’re giving Nature the chance to do it her way and we love seeing where they’ll sow themselves next. Whenever we want to take the reins, we just need to mimic nature’s processes as much as possible.

At Nasami farm, Kate sows seeds in December, covers the trays in quartz filter sand to suppress moss growth (it still lets light in for the seeds that need it), puts the flats in a cold greenhouse, and makes sure the soil temperature in the trays hovers just below freezing. The only tricky thing she does is pay close attention to soil and water pH. When Harry sowed his Rhody Native seeds last year, he treated them with the same TLC he gives his commercial crops of annuals and perennials, kept them from freezing and nearly killed them with kindness.

Have you tried sowing wild seeds? Did you give them the tough love they require? Would you buy more locally grown native plants if they were available?

When you travel for work or with family, do you try to squeeze garden pilgrimages into your itinerary? This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending my cousin’s wedding in California and although the events surrounding The Event and the happy time spent with far-flung family took up most of the hours of the weekend, I still managed to get in two Blithewold inspired visits. (Many thanks to my easy-going travel companions who graciously handed me the car keys and said, “Let’s go!”)

The last time I visited Muir Woods I was a car-sick and surly teenager stuck on someone else’s tour. This time I went with an eagerness of being reacquainted with the family of a favorite friend: Coast Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), which occupy a narrow corridor of temperate and foggy Pacific coast, and may live for thousands of years, are cousin to our Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) – a youngster by comparison. This time I was properly awestruck and as reverent as a pilgrim (even though I didn’t have to walk there on my knees) in the presence of Nature at its most venerable. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Van Wickle/McKee’s visited these trees too… If you go, go early to find a parking spot and a little silence before the polyglot crowds arrive.

My travel companions were also kind enough – and interested enough – to allow me to drive them deep into the Richmond outskirts to wander Annie’s Annuals. I just noticed this quote on their homepage – ha!

I’m not sure Annie’s would have been on my must-see list if it weren’t for Blithewold but I have been eager to visit ever since I first perused their catalog and found plants we couldn’t garden without. The nursery is huge – must be acres, and as funky as the catalog; every plant is labeled*, grouped by like-types, tantalizingly described and very reasonably priced. If I lived nearby, I’d need a car with a lot more cargo space.

*I didn’t look hard enough for a label on the plant in the bottom right photo – anyone know its name?

While I was away, the gardens here grew! even more beautiful. I’ve talked to visitors in the last couple of days who added a trip to Blithewold to their travel agenda – and their companions seemed as pleased as mine for the detour.

Where would you go – or where have you gone lately – on pilgrimage? (This very minute Gail is visiting gardens near Philadelphia!)

It’s not EVERYDAY that one gets invited to sit in Martha Stewart’s studio audience, but last week a bunch of tickets to the Gardening Show were offered to Blithewold staff. And, honestly now, who wouldn’t want to get out of bed at 2:30 AM in the middle of a vacation to trundle off to NYC with a gaggle of coworkers and compatriots to see Martha her very self in action? Not me, that’s who. (I mean to say that I DID want to go. Mostly. Pretty much. Hey, I went – and went smiling: see for yourself at the 7 minute mark of the final q&a segment of the show – clips are here and Blithewold staff make up most of the second to last row, starting with Gail on the end up to me, wearing signature green.)

I’ve had a lot of time in the last few days to think about the trip (and recover from something kind of like jet lag) and I can tell you that what was most amazing (aside from the bucket of swag we all took home) was the spectacle of Martha’s army in action. There were a dozen or so assistants whose job it was to herd the audience from our line down the block, to the coatroom/waiting room to the studio and then to make sure we were color coordinated in some mysterious way (everyone in the audience was encouraged to wear gardening clothes and there were some wonderful hats and boots!) and bouncers to make sure we didn’t leave our seats. There were dozens more milling around the set moving props, watering plants (the fake greenhouse is full to the gills with live plants), sweeping invisible dust, cooking food, operating scads of cameras, shuffling cues, and giving orders. There was even a court jester whose job it was to make the audience laugh, smile more and clap louder, – LOUDER – then faaaade oouuttt…

I was feeling a little envious – after all, Blithewold doesn’t employ anywhere near the number of staff that Martha Stewart does. But now that I’ve thought about it, our behind the scenes staff, although fewer in number, is just as amazing for being able to put on a live show that never goes off the air or takes station breaks (well, maybe we get a bit of a break starting in January. But we’ll be back soon! Stay tuned. — APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE!… and fade out…)

Do you have an army working behind the scenes on your show?

It may be impolitic to admit this but I haven’t been the biggest fan of spring flower shows in a long time. Back when my garden existed only as an unrequited dream in my head, I would go to the show every year as a special treat. I’d soak up the smells, the colors and endless inspiration from gardeners able to follow their passion. It didn’t even occur to me to be bothered by the oddness of plants forced out of all reasonable sequence. The shows’ magic just worked on me.

Now that my garden(s) are for real, I have to make an effort to even attend the shows. When I’m there I find myself overwhelmed imagining the amount of effort it takes the designers to set up their displays; I cringe at delphinium and foxglove blooming with the tulips and azaleas; and sadly, I lose the magic.

This year I really tried to walk into the RI Flower and Garden show with a better attitude. – And am happy to report that it worked. I thoroughly enjoyed the creativity and loveliness of the garden club competitions and horticultural entries, and rather than cringing at the forced plants in the display gardens, I enjoyed them for their odd timing. Amelachiers and fringe trees in bloom now! – Heaven. I’ve never seen nicotiana forced before. Brilliant. My favorite garden displays are always the ones that seem the most naturalistic and this time there were several winners for me in that category, which gave me renewed hope for the current trends towards native plants and gardening for the wildlife. Hope is a wonderful thing.

And then there were the lectures. When I was first going to shows I never attended the lectures and now I wonder why not? They’re the best part! Yesterday we heard Scott LaFleur from Garden in the Woods speak on native plants for pollinators. Even though that’s right up our alley these days, I took pages of notes. And I’m desperate now for a sassafras in my yard – certainly not because compounds from its roots were used to make Ecstasy (interesting fact.) but because it’s a host for butterflies I’ve never seen before. And then we heard Steve Aiken from Fine Gardening speak on low-care plants – or as he put it, plants he hasn’t killed yet. Gail and I found ourselves nodding in agreement and laughing along with every selection.

All in all it was a worthwhile adventure – although the marketplace was disappointing. We had expected to fill in some blanks in our seed orders but, alas, the seed booths were were hoping for were not there this year.

Do you usually go to spring flower shows? Why or why not?

Usually when people enter the Rose Garden they take a deep breath in through the nose and heave a big blissed-out sigh of appreciation …

Not today. The roses are still blooming; they are still sweetly fragrant, but the smell of the compost we started to spread yesterday is a little overwhelming. We decided to use Bristol’s own compost made from yard waste and … biosolids. If you’re not already familiar with the term, biosolids are the byproduct of sewage treatment. It’s nutrient rich and once it’s been thoroughly composted, pathogen-free. And pretty stinky.

Earlier this week, Gail and I visited the Bristol compost facility – which helped to facilitate deciding between spending the moon on our favorite organic compost that has to be trucked from all the way across the state, and getting Blithewold’s truck filled with the free compost made less than 2 miles away from here. We have both used the rich, dark biosolids compost in our own gardens (because it’s free!) but had never gotten the full scoop, so to speak.

It’s Class A, top grade compost made in a 20 year old facility (soon to be solar powered!) and is free to home gardeners who are able to pick it up themselves and sold to landscapers and garden centers all over the state. Sludge is trucked in from the sewage treatment plant, mixed with finely chopped yard waste, cooked for a minimum of 28 days and aerated by the most enormous rototiller on the planet (says me.) It’s tested for pathogens (fecal coliform) periodically throughout the cycle and the content is fully analyzed for heavy metal levels. Each batch must be within allowable limits – and 100% pathogen-free – before being released from the process. The people who make it are very proud of their product and seem to have good reason to be – plants love it.

We have been talking about amending the soil in the Rose Garden for years now. The soil is probably better than average, evident by the size and health of some of the plants in the garden, but has become more and more compacted and cement-like as we’ve all trampled it over the years. Some roses have struggled to thrive and it’s getting harder and harder, especially in a dry season, to water the garden well. I love thinking that this fall’s rain will really soak in right now rather than run off. And the unpleasant odor, which should dissipate within a few days, to me is a harbinger of next season’s sublime fragrance of a garden full of healthy plants. (Healthy soil = healthy plants.) We’ve taken so much – pleasure, plants and soil – from that garden over the years, it feels really good to finally give something back.

Have you given anything back to your garden yet? (Fall is the perfect time…) Have you ever tried compost made with biosolids? What do you think of it?