Posted on 06/17/2023 5:43:37 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.
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I’ve been picking tomatoes for a couple of weeks.
Famous Women Gardeners Throughout History
When you think about some of history’s greatest gardeners, you might first think of Robert Mendel, whose work with pea plants help define laws of heredity, or Frederick Law Olmstead, the famous landscape designer who brought us Elm and Central Parks. However, men are not the only ones creating beauty and inspiring change in the garden.
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
“The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.”
Born around 1098 in what is now Germany, Hildegard of Bingen began to experience visions at a very young age. She grew up to take vows in the Benedictine Order, and her life as a nun is filled with stories of her brilliance in writing, language, philosophy, and composing.
In addition to her many skills, Hildegard was known for her prowess in healing. She approached medicine as a type of gardening, viewing the herbs she cultivated in her monastery’s gardens as directly in correlation with the functions and humors of the human body. Her work in the garden inspired much of her scientific writing, and she is still today associated with veriditas, the idea that the health of humans is directly correlated to that of the earth.
Marie Antoinette (1755-1793)
“When the Queen took possession of her private domain, her interest was focused first and foremost on the garden…Marie-Antoinette set a new style, eager to create a setting for country walks and activities, reflecting her own personality: charming, modern and original.”
Former queen of France Marie Antoinette has a rather complicated legacy. While incredibly unpopular in her time, she is sometimes viewed as a victim of her circumstances under a modern lens. Whatever you may think of her personally, one thing is pretty uncontested: the woman knew her way around a garden.
Marie Antoinette had a private garden at Versailles known as The Queen’s Grove. She worked with landscape architect Michel-Barthélemy Hazon to create a place where she could wander freely, one that was focused less on the linear aesthetic as other parts of the grounds and more on the plants themselves. She imported shrubs, trees and flowers from North America, her favorite being the Virginia tulip tree.
The Queen’s Grove has been lost to time, but for those who wish to experience, there is hope: Versailles announced in 2020 that they are working on a $2 million initiative to restore Marie Antoinette’s gardens to their former glory, using the same plants and trees she so loved more than two centuries ago.
Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932)
“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.”
British-born Gertrude Jekyll is one of the most famous garden designers in modern history. Over her lifetime, she designed or planned over 400 gardens, and she was known for her use of flowering edges, vibrant varietals, and almost painterly swaths of color. She took inspiration from the Impressionist art period through which she lived, visible in the strokes of bright flowers set against verdant greenery in her garden designs.
Though very little of her work can be seen in its original glory, Gertrude Jekyll is still today considered a “premier influence in garden design” by both British and American gardening enthusiasts.
Edith Wharton
“Decidedly, I’m a better landscape gardener than novelist, and this place, every line of which is my own work, far surpasses The House of Mirth.”
Though better known for her timeless classics such as The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, writer Edith Wharton was a keen and skilled gardener. Growing up in Europe, she toured some of France and Italy’s most splendid gardens, even experiencing some designed by the great Gertrude Jekyll. She often wrote about gardens, both in her works of fiction as well as in one of her non-fiction pursuits, Italian Villas and Their Gardens.
She cultivated her own garden at her house, known as The Mount, where she lived with her husband, Edward “Teddy” Robbins Wharton. Her garden designs tended to break the popular mold: biographer Louis Auchincloss wrote, “In gardens and houses where it was fashionable to be haphazard and cluttered, she was chaste, classical and historically sound.”
Audrey Hepburn
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
Audrey Hepburn may best be known as a star of the silver screen, but she shined in many other places. Hepburn was an avid gardener, and she made sure to plant one in each of the places that she lived. She once said that “Gardening is the greatest tonic and therapy a human being can have. Even if you have only a tiny piece of earth, you can create something beautiful, which we all have a great need for. If we begin by respecting plants, it’s inevitable we’ll respect people.”
Hepburn’s last on-screen appearance was as host of “Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn,” a documentary series that looked at some of the world’s most noteworthy gardens, infusing each with works of literature, art and history. The series earned an Emmy Award, which was granted to Hepburn posthumously.
Lady Bird Johnson
“Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”
Growing up in East Texas, Lady Bird Johnson loved watching the wildflowers bloom each spring. During her tenure as First Lady, she dedicated her time to beautifying the less-than beautiful areas of the country, namely along major highways.
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is now part of the University of Texas, and its gardens contain more than 900 native species of Texas.
https://blog.gardenuity.com/famous-women-gardeners-history/
Upstate NY. Cool rainy weather last week after very dry warm conditions the previous week. Radishes are coming up. I’m letting my asparagus fern out now after a month and a half worth’s picking.
On my 4th picking of strawberries.
Lucky you! My ‘bumper crop’ won’t be ready until late July, early August.
SO worth the wait, though! :)
Where are you located? There is no state flag on your homepage.
Three of my rose bushes has growth the grew way way way to tall seems like over night. Now those single limbs are full of blooms and drooping severely. Should I trim or let them be for a while? Never had this happen where a single branch on multiple plants takes off like a shot.
I raised my tomatoes from seed (around March I think). Planted in the ground May 6. The tomatoes have grown to a handful size but have sorta stopped growing bigger. I’ve been using light fertilizer every two weeks. I’d hate to kill them now but may go to a higher dose in a few days. I expect to pick by July 15. I’d like them sooner but . .
Something people can do for fun while keeping their normal high-quality garden and planting routine is play with a couple of Early girl seeds and the early planting tricks to see how quickly they can get their first tomato.
There are far better tomatoes than Early Girl but playing the first-of-season game can be fun and tasty while waiting for the rest of the better tomatoes to catch up.
Yummy...Umm...toasted tomato sandwiches,...salt pepper and mayo.
My best Caspian Pink tomato plant is 6 feet tall so far, fairly bushy and has lots of tomatoes, although they are still small and green, maybe I’ll see the first ripe one in about 2 weeks with the real production starting in about a month.
Growing Caspian Pink Tomatoes: What Is A Caspian Pink Tomato
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/tomato/growing-caspian-pink-tomatoes.htm
My garlic scapes are making their appearance.
EVERYTHING is doing fantastic. We’ve finally gotten rain and cooler temperatures and every day I go out in the garden, I can see stuff has grown.
Some of my beans are finally up. I started some zucchini too and that’s finally making it’s appearance. I have a second planting of Brussel sprouts and snow peas in for a later summer/fall harvest.
Course, I noticed when I was picking some lettuce the other day, the slugs are making their appearance. Little baby ones but there. So I spread slug bait around for them to snack on instead.
I also think I’ve won the war with the asparagus beetles. I’d go out every day with a jar of soapy water and knock the little buggers in. Like Japanese beetles, they have the courtesy of dropping off the plant when disturbed to it’s easy to catch them.
Good Morning! :-)
I just had all my trees cut back this past week, hopefully, my roses will get more light and start blooming again.
This one, called "Parade Day" is in a sunny location and continues to pump out flowers:
My back wall, always a work in progress - husband did most of this (before he passed):
Taking a break after digging a large hole:
Getting ready for 4th of July celebration!
It’s been a cool and dry week here in Central Missouri. The inch of rain we got last weekend didn’t go very far. It was enough to keep me off the water wagon for a few days at least.
Spent a couple hours pulling weeds after work yesterday, and I expect to do the same again today. The weed cloth makes a world of difference in the time it takes to keep up, but there’s always some close work to be done so the rows stay clean.
I caught another muskrat making merry in my pond this morning. My friend Mr. Ruger sent the varmint 40 grains of high-speed lead poison. That’s the 2nd one I’ve dispatched over the past couple weeks. I’m sure it won’t be long before another one shows up.
Kitchen garden is doing well other than the looper plague that’s fallen on my cabbages. I should have skipped the DE and gone straight to the Sevin dust there. And speaking of DE... we’ve been seeing a few japanese beetles on the milkweed plants here and there around the place. We tried some DE on a few plants earlier in the week and it did the trick - the bugs were gone by the next day and haven’t come back. Now Mrs. Augie has a shaker bottle of it in her golf cart so she can sprinkle whenever she notices them.
Tomato plants are loaded with little green tomatoes, eggplants are blooming, gourds are going nuts, pole beans and cukes are working their way up the arbor fence. Squash and melons are just starting to vine. Carrots are lush. Spud vines are heavy and blooming. Dill has finally started to show up. Sweet bell peppers are blooming.
I need to make a run to the feed store this morning then it will be chore time.
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"There are two equally credible theories about who build the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, they are assumed to be the work either of semilegendary Queen Sammu-ramat (Greek Semiramis), the Assyrian queen who reigned from 810 to 783 BC, or of King Nebuchadrezzar II, the king of the Babylonian Empire, who reigned c. 605 BC – 562 BC. Though there are no compelling arguments about the credibility of any of the assumptions, the hanging Gardens of Babylon are often called the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis."
Imaginary view of the gardens!
Historical And Mythical Monuments Would Look Like In Present Day If They Survived
(The modern Iraqi city in the back ground seems more imaginary to me!)
Question: we put rabbit manure on the veggie garden this spring. SIL farms rabbits and always has some to share. Do you think we will need to fertilize again this growing season?
High noon & in for a ‘cool off’ break. I picked up a yard of topsoil this morning (one of the major benefits of having the cap off the pickup bed!!!) & I have about half of the load shoveled off. The bed is in full sun, it’s 80 degrees & hot.
Looked around at the garden center before ordering the topsoil & spotted lavender plants that were not there last time I looked, a week or so ago. They had a Super Blue, which is what we wanted for the side if the house & could not find. I bought one, so now I have 2 lavenders for the new bed. I was told they had just come in from the farm, so they will go like hotcakes.
Another flower that deer do not eat is foxglove. I want one. No kids or pets to get into the plant. They self seed & are beautiful ... will go in near the hollyhocks (a few hollyhocks did come up from seed).
Laptop is being a stinker so on my phone & cannot post pics - will try to post some of the new raised bed later.
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