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Help Me With This Poor Apostle Plant

Knowing that I absolutely love iris, my dear friend Luis gave me this Apostle plant several months ago.

As much as I love to garden outside and grow things in pots I have this weird difficulty with houseplants. The light in my house is completely filtered almost everywhere and we keep the house on the cool side. I think it’s too cold (60 to 65 degrees) for most tropical plants that do well in filtered sun and there’s not enough sun for plants that would do well in cooler temps as long as they have lots of light.

So, getting back to the apostle plant. It’s also known as a walking iris and it can be grown as a perennial in warmer zones, up to zone 8, we are zone 5/6. The flat leaves are actually flower stems. I haven’t seen that yet but I hope to soon. As I read about them it sounds like it may become dormant in winter then bloom seasonally. I’m really hoping that happens! I’m wondering if I’m watering it properly. It’s in filtered light. Of course it is, it’s in my house.

This is it’s little sister, who I’m afraid isn’t doing well. When she arrived there were lots of leaf/stems. I’ve moved this plant around quite a bit trying to find a spot where it will be happy.

So what do you think? Has anyone grown apostle plant successfully? Do I just need to wait a little while?

Here’s what it will look like someday:

Neomarica flower (walking iris, apostle plant) (Photo credit: Joel Abroad)

Of course what you really want to know is, did I finish the financial aid forms from the other day? The answer is no, not yet, but I have made tremendous progress. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel so I treated myself to a quick blog post.

I’ll also treat myself to reading your comments and suggestions about what’s up with my plants 😉

Help me out!

Love, Michele

Who’s found Houzz?

I have and I think we’re in trouble here!

Houzz.com is kind of a gathering place for anyone and anything related to design, decorating and gardening. It probably extends beyond that but I’m completely overwhelmed and I’m too lost to explain further.

You can browse rooms; both indoor and outdoor in any style or decorating interest area that you can think of. You can also create your own idea board and look at thousands of others ideas, including designers everywhere. It looks like you can post photos of your project and ask for input from others. You can collect ideas and post them to your idea book, or to pinterest or to facebook or to your blog/website.

It’s madness!

I can easily share things that I find there, here.

Check out these photos of winter arrangements:

See more other designs

and fun garden markers

Basil Mint Rosemary Thyme Silverware Garden Marker Set By Beach House Living eclectic-gardening-accessories

Photo by Etsy. See more eclectic gardening accessories designs

and beautiful rooms

Cat Mountain Residence transitional-living-room

Photo by User. See more transitional living room designs

You can then click on the photo and you’ll land right at the houzz page that I found it on.

Then you can create your own profile and idea board

and we can share, and discuss our projects and ideas

and I may never get another room vacuumed again.

Help!!!

This is so. much. fun!!!

Check it out and follow me and I’ll follow you!

and we’ll all eat take out tonight.

Here’s a great post about garden-based learning from a blog in Texas that I started to follow recently. Here’s to many more garden experiences for children in 2013!

DALLAS GARDEN BUZZ

Happy New Year from

The Earth-Kind® WaterWise Demonstration Garden

on Joe Field Road.

We hope you will take steps in 2013 to cure Nature Deficit Order.

Book a trip our garden!

Excerpts from the Great American Campout website and American Academy of Pediatrics:

An “indoor childhood” hurts bodies & spirits.
Today’s kids are more likely to “tag” a friend on Facebook than outdoors in a game of “freeze tag.”
Kids today run from school to activities to sports w/ barely a minute to catch their breath. Loss of free time can contribute to stress, anxiety, & depression in children. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
Studies show being outdoors is the perfect anecdote. Time in green spaces reduces children’s tension levels & enhances their social interactions, helping them to feel more connected to self and others.

Learning in the Garden

Sources cited:

Growing Food LiFE Curriculum Series
Botany on Your Plate (Univ…

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Winter Morning In the Salem Garden

Michael took these shots while I was still sleeping. I love the early morning but he’s much better at getting out there than I am…

Waiting for spring…

The asparagus bed…

A cold little girl…

She’s not too happy…

The rest of the ladies preferred to stay in the warm coop (kind of like their mama) 😉

Compost bin, still cooking (I hope)..

The birds need some food. Michael sat down to eat breakfast and glanced out at the feeder. As soon as he was reminded of it he ran outside to give them some seed before he ate. He really takes care of things, unlike me… I would have finished my french toast.

The boys wasted no time… I’m not sure about why their using a wagon. We do have sleds??

I just looked out and the yard is full of kids and sleds. I love these days!

Enjoy Everything~

Michele

Is It Just Me?

I know, I know, this is silly, but, when I take apart the planters it’s hard for me to throw the old plants into the compost. I’ll miss them. They were beautiful and I feel a sense of loss. I can throw anything away in the house with no problem, but plants are different. I tend to hang on for a long, long time. So the other day I took everything out of the big front porch planter and went down to the compost bin. In went the spike plant, the verbena and the stock…. then I got to the geraniums. I threw one in and took it out. Then I looked at the four plants in my hand and I knew what I had to do. So, up they went to the kitchen counter. Michael came home and they were still there. Of course he said something like “oh, please, no, not again… you know that these are going to hang out all winter and your never going to do anything with them. In the spring you’ll be buying more”… Well, he’s probably right. I do that. I have great thoughts about wintering things over and re-using them. But maybe this is the one time it will work. Maybe these geraniums will come back as beautiful as ever. So for now I’ve tucked them away in a dark, cool corner of the basement. Just hanging out, waiting for spring.

Maybe they’ll be back, we’ll see!

My 100th Post!

It’s very hard to believe that I’ve reached my 100th post… who’d have ever thought it…certainly not me. I remember my first post well. I was so nervous. I’d never done this or anything quite like it before, other than joining Facebook, and other yahoo groups and web sites a long time ago. This was completely different… my little kingdom where I could post anything I wanted, wide open and completely unchartered territory! So I started posting photos and captions, and writing about them. Lots of my posts were about the garden and my family, which is where my heart is. Sometimes I think I’d like to write a very polished and professional gardening blog, then I find myself writing and sounding just like myself. I’m not generally polished and professional. I can be if needed but I don’t think I’ll ever have that well-spoken, intellectual tone that gets freshly pressed and recognized widely. That’s okay, I’m going to enjoy this and be comfortable in my own skin. I’d like to use The Salem Garden to help people. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Maybe I should laser focus in on basic gardening concepts, or start another blog dedicated to helping people who are in very difficult circumstances? Those who are close know that I’ve had kind of a Forest Gump type of experience, especially in the past seven years. I may write about all of that someday, we’ll see.

In the meantime here’s a re-cap of some of my favorite moments from the past six months or so…

The garden at the beginning of the season, all planted in and ready to go..

This was my third post, the one about turkeys in the yard…Then I wanted to give you an idea about what Salem is really like…And of course, I posted about weeds. I never, ever profess to be a perfect gardener in any way. I make lots and lots of mistakes and I have no professional experience. I just love it and that’s what I share.Then there are these moments, when we can just enjoy the view. The little kids and I planted potatoes!and there were always chickens..And the Common..And kids helping. I love this photo, I used it on our family Christmas Card this year..People loved the green monster post. I should decorate more, and blog about decorating more. There is a really big audience for that!I should post more recipes too, this chocolate chip cookies recipe post is a big favorite…and there’s always more chickens… In the spring I might do some nitty gritty chicken maintenance posts with Michael, especially if we have baby chicks again. Chickens are fun!The bee balm grew.And I posted about my dream house… this was widely read too. I may do a series of dream houses… We played on the beach at Winter Island a lot..And enjoyed one of my favorite gardens anywhere! There have been waterfalls…

And very special visitors..

I visited lots of gardens and I have a very long list that I missed!

We even painted chairs one dayThe garden kept growing and growing…We had the experience of Hurricane Sandy, although we were spared the worst of it.. There was also the near miss of the tornado. Who would have ever thought this would happen?You all seemed to enjoy this guy last weekend! So did I!

and now we’re looking at the winter garden…

It’s time to settle in for the long New England winter, plan for the spring and enjoy a some quiet, cold days. I have lots of thoughts for the winter edition of The Salem Garden… It will be fun!!

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for reading, commenting, correcting, and cheering me on!

I love it here.

Michele

A Few Thoughts About Garden-Based Learning

This morning over coffee I read this link to a story about garden-based learning on Jamie Oliver’s website. It describes a school program in Morgantown, West Virginia and the work that’s being done to teach children experientially, using the garden. It sounds quite similar to the garden that I talked about here when I blogged about the Nathaniel Bowditch School in Salem last summer. Gardens are popping up in schools all over the country as we come to realize that our children need to learn, in a very hands on way, about where their food comes from, or perhaps I should say “where it should come from”. Many American children are growing up with the idea that food comes from a box at the grocery store. I recently sent some zucchini home with one of my kid’s friends and heard later that they had no idea what it was. It really made me think about what I could do to share home grown food with people. I’ve always liked to give vegetables and eggs away. Now I’m trying to give them to those who might not experience them often rather than to those whom I know will appreciate them. Even if someone looks at the zucchini on the counter for a few days wondering about how to cook it, then tosses it, at least there’s some thought about where it grew. Sorry, I’m digressing a bit, the point is, kids (and adults) really benefit from the hands on experience of planting, growing, harvesting and eating. Most kids don’t experience this at home for so many reasons so it needs to happen in school. Their health and the health of our planet depends on it. Check out the link if you have a few minutes, think about giving some veggies away freely, and consider supporting your local school’s garden.

Thank you for indulging me for a few minutes while I stood on my soapbox! Sometimes I just can’t help it 😉

Enjoy Everything!

Michele

Innovative Student Gardeners (cshmsfaculty.wordpress.com)
Gardens Add Life to a Growing Number of School Curriculums (theepochtimes.com)

Pumpkins Pumpkins Everywhere!

It started with these two pumpkins that we grew…

then a few more were added to the landscape in the front yard…and onto the front porch…

Some of those came from our Columbus Day trip to Russell Orchards..

All of our kids were with us that day, nothing else makes me happier!

This sign ended up in the front porch planter this year..So, we now have this…Then the older girls went to youth group and came home with these amazing creations!And my oldest daughter baked a cake with fondant pumpkins…

That looked like this 🙂 It was four layers, with chocolate mousse filling…seriously…

We really have a lot of pumpkins.

Do your pumpkins multiply like ours do?

Just wondering…

What’s Happening in the Garden–October 10

It really feels like fall out in the garden. I can’t say that I love it, I’m a summer person, but it is beautiful here and the Holidays are right around the corner, then the snow, and then spring will be here.. sorry.. I’m getting off track :).

Okay, out to the garden! Here’s our white pine tree undergoing it’s annual fall browning. It may look a bit sad but this is just part of it’s fall process. You can read more about the conifer life cycle here in this article by Margaret at A Way to Garden, one of my very favorite gardening blogs. The conifers will be just fine, they really will!

We still have a few hints of summer, like mesclun.

and some sage. I need to dry some for the winter.

The tomatoes are hanging on. This tomato plant volunteered from last year and grew all over the asparagus bed.

The peppers like this cool weather.

There’s lots of green tomatoes. My neighbor and I were talking about what to do with them last night.

This morning on the phone my mom said that they can be wrapped in newspaper to slowly ripen. I may try that… will keep you posted!

The cabbage are just about ready.

There’s still some basil hanging on

and zinnias and gladiolas.

I’m wondering if the gladiolas can winter over in the ground, or should I pull them and put them away for the winter?

(I should probably pull them out)

Our trees are still quite green. we should be seeing some good fall color soon, I hope!

There’s so much clean up to do. We’ll get there, one bed at a time.

Happy fall! Enjoy everything!

Michele

Will This Be an Office?

When we’ve not been out in the garden, or at soccer games or dance rehearsals, we’ve been working a little bit on this project. I’m using the word “we” rather loosely here since Michael does the work and I pretty much run interference with everyone else so he can work. But I do hand him things, hold things, consult about decisions and cheer him on. He doesn’t love this project but I think as it comes together he’s starting to enjoy it more. We’d both rather be outside in the garden.

We’ve always called it the “sunroom”… We used it as a three season playroom, which was wonderful when my kids were very small. The exterior wall leaked quite badly a few (actually maybe four) years ago. Since then it’s been kind of a no man’s land. Michael tore out the middle section of the interior wall because it was very damaged. Then he spent lots of time replacing the trim and some of the siding on the exterior. Last summer we added new windows on the sides and replaced the door.

He recently added insulation and new paneling, and the heater and outlets went in. My hope is that we’ll now be able to finish the trim and the floor and paint it. Our goal is to use it as an office. I have visions of counter space, storage space and work space. That’s a pretty big challenge given that it’s a walk through to the deck and it’s quite compact.

As you can see we have some crazy windows and peaks and angles.

panning to the left

It’s a decorator’s nightmare but I am determined to make this into a beautiful, usable space.

Here’s the view

That’s the garden just to the right of the dogwood tree. I have to admit that I’ve flirted with the idea of taking down the tree so that we have a better view of the garden.

Since I’ve had time to think about it, I have ideas about what to do here… maybe some type of shades or window treatments that are all hung from the same height would bring the windows together? Maybe we’ll paint it all one color to decrease the chaos? What color will that be? Blaire found a nice raised desk at Ikea for me awhile ago. I think I’d like to sit up high so I can look out easily. It’s on my list for a little further down the road.

What do you think? Thoughts, ideas? Share them please!

and we were all wondering what I was going to blog about once garden season was over, lol!

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