After a week at the beach with the family, Garden Variety is back blogging!

As you can probably guess, I returned to gardens that were in serious distress from the heat. Only the weeds -- and the tomatoes -- seemed not to have minded the weather.

The hose was on for about 24 hours straight as I moved it from bed to bed, trying to revive the little darlings. A modest little irrigation system with a timer that I ordered from Gardener's Supply arrived, and I installed it -- but it would have been better for it to arrived two weeks ago.

I spent Sunday in the garden trying to clean up a bit, dead-head and weed. But I only lasted about two hours before my face was red and I was feeling weak in the knees.

Frankly, there isn't too much about July and August in the garden to recommend itself. Everything seems chewed up, or dried up.

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Categories: My Garden
        

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer

After leaving Nancy and Pierre Moitrier and their crew to work their magic on my garden, I returned a scant three hours later to find this: a wonderful mix of perennials, shrubs, roses, conifers and a few annuals...and three Happy Birthday balloons!

My new garden will have the hint of formality that I think you need in front of the house, but it will also have the colorful, unstructured look that perennials give.

Nancy will return this week to give me a rain gauge -- to help me keep up with the inch-a-week watering the garden will require --  and to introduce me to my new garden "friends."

Though I helped select the plants and know the habits of most of them, I do not know them all and I will be grateful for her advice.

Continue reading "My new garden: a fresh start" »

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My new garden: Out with the old

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer

It was my birthday Friday. The big 6-0. And the happiest part of that day was the installation of my new garden.

Faithful readers will remember that early this spring I decided to get "professional help," with the area underneath the windows in the front of my house.

After a half-dozen failed attempts on my part to create the eclectic mix of formal and informal that I thought that spot deserved, I asked Nancy and Pierre Moitrier of Designs for Greener Gardens in Annapolis to stage an intervention.

(Full disclosure: I have worked with Nancy and Pierre on a couple of gardening news stories for The Baltimore Sun, but I did not ask for and, I am hoping, did not receive any price breaks.)

The key to my choice was that I had met this lovely couple before, toured their own garden and had the kinds of conversations with them that let me know they take time to understand what their clients want, even if their clients can't quite explain themselves.

That's me all over.

In addition, Nancy offers garden coaching services and I had worked with her before with a new garden design that I installed myself.

Continue reading "My new garden: the happiest part of my birthday" »

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Continue reading "Wordless Wednesday: My peonies" »

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In landscape design, that is.

Choosing a landscape designer might be like choosing a hairdresser. This could be a long-term relationships so it should be someone you can communicate with, someone who "gets" you and, most important, someone who cuts your hair the way you like it.

I asked Nancy and Pierre Moitrier, of Designs for Greener Gardens of Annapolis, to help me.

I have worked with Nancy and Pierre on gardening articles for The Sun before. And, more important, I have visited their garden and it looks like a garden I would like: not at all formal, something fun to see everywhere you look but with an overall design that is very pleasing, very welcoming.

Nancy took my measure during a tour of my gardens, and her plans for my front bed relect her understanding of who I am -- as a gardener, anyway.

Continue reading "Garden Facelift: a plan" »

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Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer

I need a facelift. And at the end of the day I decided to go with a pro instead of doing it myself.

A garden facelift, I mean.

The area underneath the front windows of my house have been a garden dead zone for me.

Rhodedendroms have died there. Azaleas, too. Fothergilla. Mountain laurel overgrew and looked out of place. Miscanthus indeed behaved like an invasive.

Clearly, more than 20 years of failures make me the wrong person to redesign this bed.

So I went with a pro.

I have written about Nancy and Pierre Moitrier of Designs for Greener Gardens in Annapolis before. And Nancy sketched out a sun garden along the fence that I went on to install myself.

"I want peonies," was all the direction I gave her on that project.

But this is the front of the house. The first thing visible from the street. The first impression for visitors. Clearly, I need help.

"I just don't want three yews," was all the direction I gave her.

Continue reading "Garden facelift: Going with the pros. " »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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I have enrolled in the University of Maryland's Master Gardener program (my version of closing the barn door after the horses are out), and I am finding it, um, challenging.

The class is three hours, twice a week for about six weeks. It comes with a 600-page book and, I am guessing, another 100 pages in notes and handouts.

In my column today in The Baltimore Sun, I write about how slow my brain seems to be working.

I mean, really slow.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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And I was NOT comforted.

I was worried about my little rain garden, and whether it could handle the downpour.

I was out at first light to inspect the damage and found that the rain was rushing into the street and taking soil with it.

The "outspout," for want of a better word, had been blasted away and the water was trying to escape the garden any way it could. Much of the soil had been washed away from the roots of the plants in its path.

Continue reading "Too much rain for my rain garden!" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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 Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer

For those of you who might be curious about what the garden blogger's garden looks like about now, here is a modest tour.

My garden never looks better than it does in late spring. I suppose that it true for many gardeners.

I might not be so proud in August! (And my photography won't be any better, either!)

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Faithful readers of my gardening column in The Baltimore Sun will remember that my daughter's "birth tree," an October glory maple, died mysteriously after 22 years.

Because Jessie panicked and decided her own mortality was linked to the tree, I replaced it forthwith, with another maple.

I received a stern warning from Mike Dudderar, of Homestead Gardens, who removed the dead tree and planted the new, baby tree, that watering would be my most significant concern. Inadequate watering is the leading cause of death among new trees.

The tree would have to wear a "treegartor" for at least year,  and I would have to fill the green, cone-shaped bag every week.

Now I am reading that there is more to this than just a hose. I need to be watching for disease and insects underneath the bag and between the bag and the tree. In addition, I need to make sure the bag is draining properly.

I discovered this while reading a new blog called Garden Professors, brought to my attention by the fun bunch at Garden Rant.

It is written by horticulture professors from the University of Minnesota, Michigan State, Virginia Tech and Washington State, so there is quite a climate zone range of expertise.

This, I think, is the perfect addition to garden blogdom. Certainly there are gardeners writing blogs who are knowledgeable and experienced. But these bloggers are, like, professional professors!

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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 Photo credit: Susan Reimer

It was like dancing between raindrops.

I took advantage of the 10 minutes of sunshine we have had this month and took some pictures of my garden.

There has been explosive growth and blooming. I almost didn't recognize it.

The flowers are very happy!

So are the slugs, I think. And the weeds.

But so much of my garden just drank up the rain and lifted its face to the sky.

Continue reading "Whose garden is this, anyway?" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: My Garden