Cool or Cruel?

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We had a great holiday season but boy was it busy. We have definetly had our fill of fun parties with friends, lights, cookies, shopping and decorating.

I wanted to show everybody one of the gifts I received. It's a book about herb gardening that my mother picked out for me. I had a feeling it was a book and I was hoping it would be a gardening book! Ma really couldn't have picked out a better one. I have one garden bed where I plan to interplant ornamental plants with edible plants (mostly herbs) so this was perfect. Isn't it pretty? If you think so then you should see the pictures on the inside of the book. The book details 25 different kinds of herbs and how to plant them indoors or out. It also includes recipes. But the pictures are really the best. One picture in particular is my inspiration for how I want my flower and herb bed to look.

So this is a really cool present, right? Or is it cruel? It really is a little bit like torture when you give a gardener a gardening gift for Christmas! I mean, I won't be able to start planting these herbs until at least late march. Even then I have to be prepared to protect them if necessary. So I ask again, is it cool or is it cruel to give a gardener something like this to drool over right at the beginning of winter?

I myself am going to cast my vote for cool! Because book or not, I'd still be itching to get outside and play in the dirt. Now that the holidays are over I plan to start work outside as soon as everything from Christmas is put away. There is compost to put down, beds to dig out, and winter sowing to be done. I just can't help it! I have had a couple months of rest and now I am ready to go back outside.

Thank goodness I live in Texas where the growing season is long and the ground doesn't freeze.

Fall is here!

Fall is upon us! We are still having nice enough weather to put plants in the ground. Not for long though so I better hurry up and put the last of my plants in. Yes, I still have planting to do! I had gone to a plant swap in Fort Worth two weekends ago and came home with quite the haul. Thirty Three different types of plants in all. Some houseplants, some roses, some flowers, some shrubs and trees. You get the point. A little of everything! I ended up getting more than I really had space, or time, to plant all in one go. So the order of the past two weeks has been working around three children and recruiting my husband to help me slowly get everything set up the way I want it. At least until spring. I'm almost done. The last stage of planting happens today, I hope:-)

When the last plants are in the ground and the mulch is on the beds then that will be the official end of my gardening outside for the year. It is time to start getting the inside of the house all pretty for the holidays. I will make sure to post pictures when the garden is a go. I also still have some blooms happening in the garden right now and I want to get them up for winter viewing. But today you will not be seeing pictures from my garden.

Instead I have to post pictures of the plant swap before it slips my mind. The plant swap was held in Fort Worth at the Trinity River Park and was organized by Sylvia from Garden Web. The garden web Texas Forum has been a wonderful resource for me, the amount of gardening knowledge these folks possess is amazing.
This lovely couple were the ones in charge of filling up all our bellies. They hooked us up for sure!

A lovely set up, eh?
This is Debbie and moi. The cute cute cute little boy is her grandson. Debbie was also the resident photographer for the day so I have to say thank you for the pictures.
Julie! And her dad, aka "The Muscle Man"!
This is Sylvia. The wicked awesome bueno cool gal that organized the event.
Kay and her cute little tots:-) Kay brought a ton of really cool pond plants.

Mr Weldon the rose man! I can't remember everyones name, I may have to recruit help.
Another general shot of the plant swap.
Oh, there are those cute grandkids of Debbie's again. My kids stayed home so I could have some Mommy time.
More kids. Hmmmm, maybe next year I can take the kids, if I have room in the car!
This was my table. And all those wonderful green lush things are all mine. It was like falling in love!

It was wonderful to trade for so many new plants but it was even better to talk to people about gardening without their eyes glazing over after five minutes! The plants were really just a bonus. The real prize was hanging out with other obsessed gardeners! I'll be doing this again in spring of next year, for sure.

Also, if you are still hanging on to this awfully long post...I have an announcement. I have had several people interested in a plant swap a little closer to my neck of the woods. I would like to put together something in the spring for the Denton area. So give me your contact information if you are interested in coming and I will let you know what I can pull together.

But all you Fort Worthers need have NO fear. I will be back.

Fairy Garden!

Just this past weekend I took my Mother and my daughters to the Garden Infofest in Lewisville. It was sponsored by the Denton County Master Gardeners.

Now they had a lot of great things there. I did a great job of restraining myself and not going crazy buying tons of plants that I don't yet have room for. I managed to leave the event having only acquired five new plants! Amazing. A part of the reason I was able to exercise such unheard of restraint is that I have a plant swap coming up soon. I have to pace myself, this I know! Instead of acquiring lots of new plants, I came home with a new obsession, um, I mean project. A fairy garden. They had a container fairy garden up for auction that my girls and I just fell in love with.

I had heard of fairy gardens a long time ago. And honestly, I thought of the idea as a little goofy. But then when I saw one...Well, they are just downright charming. So we just had to stop off at Hobby Lobby on our way home to pick up a couple things.



It's a simple enough start for a fairy garden. Rock paths leading to a bench, a wishing well and a swan container. We were able to find tiny little pumpkins and brooms to help celebrate the month of October. My oldest wanted to buy Christmas decorations for the fairy garden, I was not surprised.



Little frogs are keeping the bench warm for the fairies. The girls love picking blooms and "planting" them near the bench. Even my little boy has a great time hopping the frogs up and down the paths.

Birdhouses decorate the grounds:-) The plant you see reaching out for the birdhouse is called a Persian Chocolate plant. The one that you can't really see in the upper left corner is a nigella. That's what the tag said. I looked it up and I think it is a love in a mist. I bought it for the ferny delicate leaves. There are two irises on either side which I think will be nice in spring.

The little miniature garden is at the edge of a bed. That way it is convenient for the kids to reach in and change things and play till their hearts are content. I can imagine we will get carried away and snake that path right along the length this bed and find lots of cute little charming fairy plants to add along the way.

I can't wait until the next Master Gardener sponsored event. There were so many things that I didn't get a chance to soak up. I had the kids, ya know? But we did take away a fun idea for our garden, some new babies and just a little bit more knowledge than we had before we went.

Just somebody do me a favor. Keep me away from the artsy craftsy stuff next time around!

More Weston Gardens

I thought I would post another handful of pictures from Weston Gardens in Forth Worth.

Enjoy!

What in the world?

Are these little bugs?!?

They haven't appeared to do any damage to these flowers I have grown from seed but I sure am curious.

***Little Yellow Aphids! Thanks to Tucker at Gardenweb and an anoynomous commenter the mystery is solved. They are only on this one plant, all the other plants in my garden seem unaffected.***

Weston Gardens

Yesterday was the much anticipated trip to Weston Gardens in Fort Worth. It was incredible. I could go on and on about how groovy this Garden center and demonstration garden is. Let me just say that this place was very "secret garden" and, dare I say, sacred. Trees, shrubs, flowers, stones and sculptures were in abundance here. The picture above does a pretty good job of portraying the "secret garden" feel I was talking about. I'm not sure if it gets any better than the water lillies below.

I took a ton of pictures and I still missed so much. I certainly don't think it would be wise of me to post over 60 pictures so I will just focus on a couple more. After all, I do have three children and they all need clean clothes.

Many of the picture I took were of individual flowers and the tags that identified them. I'll post some in the future perhaps, I won't show those at this time. I'll finish up with two more photos. One of a statue that I just fell in love with and a picture of my Mom.

I included a link to the right that will take you to Weston Gardens website if you are interested in more information. Please feel free to leave comments and happy gardening to all.

Rebecca

Dizzy Days Ahead

I suppose it's about time that I ignore the kids, stop cleaning house and and take a break from piddling around outside to say a few words about my "Holding Pit".

It has been a busy and exiciting summer. Thank goodness it's almost over. School has been back in session for my kiddos for three weeks now and the weather is starting to show signs of "milding" up! It has not been a harsh hot summer as far as Texas goes, but definetly hot enough to prevent any major projects outdoors. Instead of digging in dirt we spent a lot of our time down at the pool and just hanging out in the ac.

Now that doesn't mean I have been totally lazy! I did get a little bit of work done outside, just nothing major! I have one bed almost finished. I just need to move one plant, go pick out a couple more plants, then mulch and edge with stones and I'm done. In January I'll be getting a Celeste Fig Tree to go in the bed so it will look a little blank in one spot for a while. I also need to get some screening material for the ac unit (yes I made a garden bed around the ac unit) and rig something up. Looks like hubby will be busy one of these weekends helping me build something. Maybe between the two of us we will have enough carpentry skills to get the job done.

Being that it is the middle of September, we are heading into prime planting season here in North Texas. I want to finish that bed I was talking about above, start work on a second bed and also get a nice shade tree in the ground near the kids play area. All the box store nurseries might be shutting down right about now but the real nurseries know what time it is! Alan Vargo at D and L nursery in Aubrey is going to help me pick out a good shade tree. I'm looking forward to going to a nursery in Fort Worth with 5 acres of demonstration gardens and free seminars. On October 6 there is an Info fest being sponsored by Denton County Master Gardeners and a plant swap happening soon. I am excited about everything going on up here in my neck of the woods but also a little dizzy just thinking about it all. I'll definetly be getting plenty of exercise this fall. So will the checkbook!

I have it all planned out, kinda sorta, and am looking forward to getting it all done. I think I FINALLY have gotten a shaky grasp of garden design. I am learning to think a little bigger. Instead of a strip at the back of the house I pulled it out a lot further. A lot. And I made it curvy. The whole "bones" thing is starting to take root in my mind. Now that I am planning BIG garden beds I can see where I have room for things like, imagine this, trees and shrubs! It's only natural to want to plant flowers first but I have promised myself for each bed I make I will do a tree, a shrub, a grass and THEN flowers. I also have come to realize that nothing is permanent and if I plant something in the wrong spot it can always come out later. This whole gardening thing is new to me and I don't always know what a real life mature plant looks like! Of course, thats what garden tours are for, right? My whole point is, I don't entirely know what I am doing, but I am learning. I think at this point I am doing pretty good! I know at some undetermined point in the future I'll be doing damn good. It just takes time.

I will have to make sure to carve out enough time to write and post some pictures here throughout the fall planting frenzy. Just be patient with me folks, I'll have something to show off soon enough!

Happy digging

Rebecca

Spider

Just because spiders are so cool, and because I want to share more than just one post about my garden, I thought would share these pictures.

My husband took these pictures last night. I think he did a damn fine job of capturing this gal considering it was pitch black with the only light being from the bathroom and the nagging wife holding a flashlight yelling "Try a different angle, Bob!".

We watched this spider wrap three bugs and it didn't take long at all for her to prep her dinner. Maybe she'll come help me prep my holiday dinners this year.

Cool things happen in gardens. Just ask my kids.

Rebecca

The name of my Blog.

You may be thinking to yourself "Rebecca, what possessed you to name your garden The Holding Pit?". After all, it's not a nice sounding name. Would it had been better named Rebecca's little haven of heaven or perhaps Rebecca's piece of paradise? Perhaps, if you like idyllic sounding names for a place that truly doesn't deserve the honor yet. Although "The Holding Pit" may sound a bit purgatorious, I think it accurately reflects the state of my garden. As a matter of fact, I think the term "purgatorious" really cinches the deal. Indulge me for a moment as I go off into a religious vein.

Purgatory, as related in The Cathecism of the Catholic Church, means that "all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven." Okay. That works for me. So maybe I should loosely translate that into the Cathecism of Rebecca's garden. Let's see "all plants that enter into Rebecca's Garden in her grace and friendship, whether they be perfectly planted or not, are indeed assured that they will be cared for, tended and relocated until they achieve the holiness necessary to to actually thrive and define what is the joy of a garden". How exciting, I just wrote my first doctrine!

It's time to put aside the religious vibe and focus on the facts. The facts about my garden, fondly christened The Holding Pit, are as follows. It is simply a plot of land that I have decided to dig in. The few plants I have planted in the ground and growing in pots are waiting patiently until I can figure out where they really need to go. I have grand plans that everything I plant and grow will survive until I figure out what I am doing. I also have grand hopes that maybe it will look good. Last but not least is the fact that it is not perfect, yet I am enjoying every minute I spend in it and so are my children.

I would love to give you a witty ending today but I'm all tapped out. Instead I will just leave you with just one wish. I wish that you will enjoy watching my garden grow as much as I do.

Rebecca