Write me a poem.

I don’t care if it’s a limerick – a haiku – a four-versed saga in iambic pentameter – or even doggerel. Just write me a poem.

The only rule is that it has to contain the word MUD.

I have several pairs – so I’ll wait a week and then pick some random entries of the best of garden mud poetry for winners.

Enter your poems in the comments section below. Enter as often as you like. Just use the word MUD in each poem.

I note these gloves look fine – seem to act fine lying on my desk but they are all ladies sizes so guys need not apply unless you have a significant other to hand them off to.

Go to it yee poets of reknown.

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I’ve just finished reading and absorbing one of the most fascinating research reports in recent memory. It has to do with biodiversity – how different species all manage (or not) to live together in an environment.

Traditionally, we’ve thought that an environment has a certain carrying capacity (the ability to support life) and all species within that environment competed for resources. We thought this because we tried to simplify the huge complexity in a living system to averages. The average number of plants, the average number of insects, average amount of rainfall etc etc. By focusing on averages, we wound up with incomplete information. But trying to figure out all the niches, all the relationships was so overwhelming this was the way our science attacked it (reduce it to easily understood bits of information)

Dr. Jim Clarke – a biologist with Duke has just finished a research report detailing an 18-year study detailing 22,000 individual forest area environments spreading across 11 forests in 3 regions (that’s a lot of trees). In short, he found that individual species share the resources but that the resources vary in complexity. A tree in one area may get slightly more moisture, have a slightly different soil than another tree a short distance away. One may get slightly more sunlight along with the previous two variables.

Bottom line – the individual characteristics in a plant/environment relationship is incredibly complex and the amount of variability is equally complex. And species don’t compete – they work within this incredible complexity. So one species of plant may be found only in a slightly more moist environment in a forest while another thrives a few feet away in ever-so slightly drier soil. There’s an overlap but each is taking advantage of a micro-niche. No average exists but merely complexity and taking advantage of smaller niches. A distinct environment might only contain a single tree according to Clarke.

So what’s this got to do with your garden?

How many times have I been asked why a clematis will grow on one side of a doorway but not thrive on another? How many times have I been told the neighbor can grow this plant but I can’t? How many times have I been asked about the conditions that exist for insect populations? Why do they thrive in this area but not that? It very well may be that one side of the door has a pH that encourages clematis but not the other. And a slight variation in soil might account for the vigor in one plant and the lack of same in another only a few short yards away.

In short. The advice here is to explore and help create biodiversity in your garden. By doing so, you’re going to enrich the environment and create more spaces for your plants to thrive. You’re going to do this by eliminating as many artificial inputs as possible. Every time you spray to control weeds – you wipe out diversity in a wider range than if you simply dug them out. Every time you spray you do the same to non-target insects. Grow more than just one kind of plant to support different insects, insect predators, disease suppressing natural controls etc etc. The more of an environmentally sound and rich environment you create, the better your garden will be.

You’re going to have to experiment more with plants. You may find (as I do) that a plant will thrive in one section of a garden but not in another (I have a hardy orchid that’s being moved this spring) Do not hesitate to move plants around to take advantage of tiny microclimates in your garden – this may be the key to success with some plants that are “marginal” in cold tolerance or heat tolerance.

Having said all that – it strikes me the first step is to embrace organic and environmentally sound gardening practices. To try to eliminate as much as possible any non-natural inputs. And yes, that includes organic controls as much as possible as well. And when you do use a control – target it specifically to that problem.

Try to enrich your garden by adding inputs for good growth of all plants. Things such as organic matter and compost naturally occur in all natural soils and common garden plants (that are not Southern) depend on this kind of material. By enriching the soil, you’re going to make your plants healthier and able to support broader ranges of other creatures. For example a good lawn will easily tolerate a population of white grubs/beetles with absolutely no visible damage. Healthy ornamental plants don’t shrivel up when eaten by a few pests (their gardeners looking for a perfect plant might have trouble but the plants thrive)

The more biodiversity the better.

I note I originally published this note at my advanced gardening information website area.

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For the past two years, I’ve watched developments at Second Life, the Open Sim project and Wonderland as they developed interest, the interest waned (typical adoption curve) and now is picking back up again as individuals, companies and dare I say it, the USDA are looking at an rfp on developing this technology. Apple also filed a patent last week for virtual world shopping systems.

All of these programs are a server-based system which means it runs at the base level of servers and not website hosting servers. It’s graphically intensive, sucks up memory and is “interesting” to deal with because of it’s complexity. In other words, this ain’t something you’re going to run on a web-hosting wordpress-building type of enterprise. Before I can run the simple version on a virtual server on my laptop, I have to shut down everything else on my system. And then it still runs hot – the fans start and keep on burning while this baby does its thing.

For the last month, I’ve had a world running online so I can access it as you would any other website. It’s been one of the developmental projects I’ve been working on because I still believe this is one possible future of the interactive web. We’re at baby step one right now on the way to the movie Avatar which is somewhere out there around giant-step 1000. In fact, the version I have on the server is now out of date and has to be upgraded so I can access some other programming possibilities.

I can see the potential of this kind of communication system – you can talk (voice) as you would face to face, you can upload and share documents, whiteboard and almost any other kind of human interaction. The weakness in the system is our computing power and the width of our delivery “pipes”. When we can stream fully interactive television because your Net speeds are large enough, we’ll be able to fully use this kind of software adding “game” effects such as full realism graphics, kinesthetics etc.

But at the moment, I’m almost terminally excited about the ability to interact live with people over the Net. To show and tell in real time.

I’m a few weeks away from starting to introduce other folks to “my world” but I’m hoping it will be a rewarding experience for us all. I did post a tongue-in-cheek video a few weeks ago and that was the interior of my world as I actually “walked” through it. That was a shot of what I would see as I “walked” through two different worlds that live online as does your website. If you were “on that website” you could walk through it as well – chatting as we walked together.

This is gonna change a bunch of stuff.

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Nope.

The difference is much more profound than that.

The U.S. has enshrined the rights of individuals into its fabric – with those rights above the rights of any other group or organization.

Canada has built the rights of the “common good” into our system and this trumps the rights of the individual.

Our entire political structures (both countries) are based on this simple, yet profound difference.

We believe the common good demands health care access for all. You believe that individuals should have the right to decide.

We believe the common good demands control of handguns and military style weapons in private hands. You have organizations whose very existence depends on promoting this right for individuals.

We believe that the common good demands we set eduction standards that are enforced and met across each province so all children have equal access to equal education and we fund each student equally no matter where they live. You believe in leaving education and funding of that system to the individuals in their communities.

It is this difference in our view of the world – a view of common good versus individual rights that makes the subtle but profound differences in our institutions and way of life.

The Most Misunderstood Issue

Health care has been on the top of the US agenda for some time now and we Canadians simply shake our heads at the amount of misinterpretation that’s being spewed in the U.S.

Here’s how the system works. The Federal Canadian government sets standards of health care that are to be uniform across the country. All citizens have access because that’s the common good. The funding for this is transferred to the provincial governments who have the responsibility to deliver those standards in regional appropriate ways and the provinces add funding to meet individual provincial programs.

In Ontario (my home province and reasonably representative of the rest of the country) the system is one most US citizens would recognize. We have an insurance company that funds everything and we have private contractors who deliver services. In our case, that insurance company is our provincial government and the private contractors are the medical staff (doctors etc), labs etc who provide the services. The actual fees for services are set in contracts with the groups by negotiation for a set period of time. So a physician is an independent contractor who gets paid for the work he/she does by the insurance company (the government). (and yes, we can pick our own doctors) Hospitals are funded under a slightly different system but the same access is guaranteed to all.

Who decides the treatment? The doctor does. The insurance company/government has absolutely no say in who/what gets treated. All they do is process the payments. Contrast that to the US system where the insurance company gets to make decisions about health care based on profit levels. In one case, it’s the common good that is served, in the other it is the individual corporation that is served.

Bottom Line

You can take any issue – at any level of our two respective countries and apply this simple “common good” versus “individual rights” analysis to arrive at an understanding of our systems work. In some cases, the US seems to have a better system. In others, the advantage would appear to be with Canada. But all this of course depends on your point of view.

But now you know.

And yeah, we do love our hockey.

Image credit

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I’ve been asked for several years to do this kind of thing but I’ve always resisted because I’ve had other projects and this was going to take up some time to do it properly. But my newsletter readers kept asking – several years in a row now – and I’m finally launching an advanced gardening – research newsletter.

As interesting articles cross my desk, I’ll summarize them and post them on a website for subscribers to read. Once a month, I’ll send out a newsletter with the contents. Every so often, I’ll summarize them into an ebook or mp3 and move onto the next few months of information.

If you’re interested in this kind of thing – do check it out.

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Thank you for all you do. Doug says he got an incredible outpouring of thanks on this survey and this made me feel pretty good. It wasn’t what I asked for but still felt good nevertheless. So – thank you to all who took the time to say, “thanks” and thank you to all who took the time to give me constructive feedback. I’ve listened and you’ll see changes this week in the newsletter and in the coming weeks as I unroll some more of the things you’ve asked for.

Make search engine easier to find: Doug says Hmm, it’s on the bottom of every page on every site.

I’d like a seed and plant exchange. Doug says it’s in the gardening club

I’d like a forum. Doug says it’s in the gardening club.

More pictures. Doug says there is an insatiable picture-monster loose in the gardening world. I get this every year and I recognize this creature and am now providing three pictures a week in the newsletter (you have to stay within tech-limits with these things) and uploading revised web pages with pics as well.

Here’s a question I need answered – (reader inserts gardening question into survey). Doug = ignore.

I would like to see more on indoor gardening. Doug says – yeah, I get this all the time but I don’t do much if any indoor gardening and I never really have. So other than the basics that I’ve already posted, it just isn’t in the cards for me to BS about those plants.

I Live in Central Florida (Argentina, Australia, South Africa etc) - Doug says again, I have very little experience growing in the heat of the tropics/sub-tropics. There’s no way short of me getting a garden down there that I’m ever going to be a good resource for this material. I can’t even pretend.

Occasionally “too wordy” Doug says….

I know it’s there in your site – but how to find. Doug says try using the search box.

I don’t e-mail questions because I figure you probably will say you have already answered it. Maybe a section for beginners would be good. Doug says his entire newsletter and websites are pretty much set up for beginners. If I have answered it, a search box will pull it up. If I haven’t, then using the ask-me forms on the websites will work.

I think you should begin to enjoy more time off. Cut back on your newsletter, etc. and “smell the roses” Doug says – OK.

Doug. You have fantastic web sites with a lot of information. My problem is that I am in an area where we only have dial up Internet access so I am not able to participate in all of your functionality. (My problem not yours.) What do others do that are in the same boat as me? Doug says they pretty much feel the same way – some complain and ask me not to make video, not to upload so many pictures. Some get satellite-internet. All are frustrated. Nothing I can do – less than 2% of readers/site visitors use dialup now.

I think you do an excellent job in explaining, but I hesitate to ask questions because I am sure it has been talked about in the past, if you could have links to past information also that would be great. Doug says the website and search box is full of these kind of links. Given there’s somewhere between 5000-6000 pages on the site, it is impossible to maintain a single linking page. That’s why the search box exists.

I would like a site where I could go to ask questions from an expert and get a reply almost immediately and not have to wade through forums trying to find an answer. Doug says me too. Economically speaking, this just isn’t going to happen. Even when I had a paid-answer with a guaranteed-happy answer link, it was seldom used (about once a year) and anybody I referred there was never heard from again. Experts have to earn a living as well (in all subject areas).

I absolutely LOVE the online gardening club, thank you so much for launching that and opening it up to more. It has become my “go to place” for gardening info along with your website. Doug says that yes, that seems to be working well for the members. And yes, I do post the entry url every now and then but we’re trying to grow slowly so newcomers can be helped and adjust to the stuff that’s in there without swamping the existing group.

Active garden seminars, are more informative when you can ask questions and get an answer in real time. Other then that Doug, you are doing a great job and service to the gardening community. Doug says stay tuned – they’re in the works.

Your help has assisted not only me with my flowers but my husband the amateur farmer. I applaud you. Doug says glad to be of help – and good luck with that husband.

I would like to see more video’s. Doug says that yes, he has a shooting schedule planned for this year. The problem of course is that a video takes 5 times longer than an article so the time is an issue. But yes, it’s on the schedule for shooting.

I would like to learn more about XXX Doug says there were a lot of those notes – and all I can say is to hit the website – do a search or click on the bottom of the nav bar to go to your subject area. There’s a ton of stuff up there. If you don’t find what you want, ask a question. (Just not tropicals or houseplants) There’s also the online seminar group and some advanced gardening material being developed.

I guess what I am saying is I need to know how to apply your stuff to my garden/landscape, for the climate and area that I live in. Doug says that yes, this is an issue for a large newsletter or magazine or anything that’s distributed to the general public. It is hard to find regional resources and it is a learning curve to become a better gardener/landscaper etc. I’m going to have to get back to you about this – all efforts I’ve made in the past to forge regional efforts haven’t worked out, largely because it’s a complex issue both in content and delivery.

News letter way too long…Short and sweet is nice. Doug says see below
We need more Q&A and I’d like you to put your article back in – make the newsletter longer. Doug says see above.

I would just like to be able to find something pertaining to whatever it is I am searching for without guessing that this is what you mean. More thorough categorizing. Doug says that yes indeed, there are issues with finding things – please talk to Google on this because the search box is driven by Google technology. Every page is keyworded to help them but still – don’t know how to help you with this.

In the past I didn’t see why you were telling us about the “business” side of what you do, especially in the area of making money on the web and advertising and the choices that you make. Now that I’m considering creating a food blog, though, it is suddenly all very interesting to me. Just an observation for you to deal with as you please. Doug says that yes indeed there have been changes made here but yes there are varied interests and changing interests as people change around the newsletter. This is to be expected I guess. It’s an interesting problem – somebody starts reading as a raw beginner and with a few years experience the newsletter loses some relevance – providing info to all levels has been a challenge. But I’m working on separating some of these areas now.

As an advanced gardener, I would like more in-depth/research type articles. Doug says coming, they’re coming.

I’d like to see a more inviting home page. Perhaps something with a selection down the left side so I could hit on subjects that interest me. Doug says that yes, he’s working on redesigning the home pages but the last time I checked, those nav bars to connect to all sites and interest areas were on every page of the website(s)

You make me feel smarter! Doug says OK – it’s because you’re reading my stuff and learning/getting smarter or because you’re reading my stuff and feel smarter than me….

My only preference would be for you to move house & join us here on the east coast of V.I. or even better right here in my micro habitat. Doug says he has similar invitations/requests from at least 12 other gardening zones. He’s now open to serious bidders in warm climates.

Doug, I have been way too passive … your stuff goes into a folder I rarely look at. I should not have responded to this survey, I don’t visit or pay enough attention for my feedback to be meaningful. Doug says it’s always nice to know that some readers are honest.

There are several “issues” that come up over and over again that might require a bit of a response from me.

Regional Gardening

Yes, this can be confusing, particularly for beginners. Here’s the deal – a tomato is a tomato no matter where you grow it. It has specific growing needs (soil organic matter, temperature requirements, watering and feeding) that do not drastically change no matter where you grow it – in whatever climate. The major changes on a regional basis are the timing of planting/harvesting and the varieties you use for best crops and suitability for your specific climate. In other words, the basic needs of the plant don’t change – the climate demands you modify gardening practices somewhat and pick varieties best suited for those climate modifications. For the most part, I’m giving you the basic needs of the plants I write about.

Producing this regional information and variety selection is a challenge given the variations in both regions and gardening preferences, i.e. which varieties taste better to you. I’ve looked at doing it several times but as I indicated above, it’s a complex issue doing so. I see the Gardening Club folks are sharing a lot of information about varieties inside the club and this is likely where we’ll see specific recommendations emerge. These are not organized for easy searching or access.

Let me simply say that this is a problem and I understand the limitations of this – I am developing some new delivery systems that might make it a bit easier over the next while to deliver some of this kind of information.

On the other hand, given the raw newness of the Net as a publishing platform, I find it absolutely incredible how far we’ve come in just a few short years.

Questions and Answers

This is a tough one and I may come to regret my honesty here. There were many, many respondents who were clear that this was the most important part of the newsletter and network. That’s the main message i want you to understand in this section – I enjoy Q&A immensely and I understand how useful many readers find it.

There were a huge number of folks who wished me well in my semi-retirement and cutting back to have a life with Mayo saying cut back the number of Q&A to have a life. This made me feel pretty good as well.

Q & A provides me with some of the best moments in garden writing and some of the worst.

I do understand the frustration of not being able to find the specific info you’re looking for. I live and work on the Net, consider myself a decent searcher but still, there are days when the engines and I can’t seem to find the right words to agree on what I want to know.

I deal with some rather irate people here. People who write and say something like, “I don’t have the time to do a search, please answer this question as I need the answer”. I get these regularly with the expectation that I will drop what I’m doing to answer their question. The assumption being their time is more valuable than mine and I somehow owe them this service bugs me. People who yell at me in email complaining they never get questions answered or complaining I took too long (along with the first group) have resulted in me cutting back the number of questions I answer and realigning the question and answers forms to one spot per website rather than the 20-30 that existed before on most topic areas. And making it one-two clicks to get to a question-form has reduced the number of questions considerably to the point of being manageable. I was being swamped and not overly appreciated as less than 1% of people who did get a question answered would thank me. It was far easier to post a question than do a search – and then expect an instant answer.

Given it became a pain in the anatomy and was influencing the way I was approaching garden-writing (I was getting far too grumpy), I cut back on the number of questions I answer. I automatically delete questions when it is apparent the person has not read the basics as well as repeated questions if I’ve obviously answered them before and I no longer feel guilty doing so. Combine that with my slowing-down and semi-retirement and you can see I won’t get to all questions but will have to pick. I pick and choose interesting questions that I think might interest my readers because they might share these problems. This is like any magazine editor who picks the questions/answers/letters to the editor to be published.

As I said, I welcome beginner questions of all kinds but I look for interesting questions that haven’t been asked before and I delight in answering them. I encourage readers to do a search and then ask their question – I do my best to answer as many as possible.

More importantly, I’m moving into other areas of gardening interest for me and will work with folks who value what I’m doing.

Bottom Line

My readers are some of the finest folks around and I’m grateful for them reading my words. I do want to work with folks who value what I do and while I’m always open to suggestions about how to make things better, I will no longer tolerate negative or demanding emails.

I will continue to develop the best gardening resource I can as that seems to be appreciated. I will continue to enjoy my own garden and sharing that with interested readers.

I will continue to find ways to communicate good gardening information to readers – employing technology to bridge our distances and to provide enjoyable environments for learning and sharing.

I will emphasize the things that my readers value and you’ll see these new things rolled out over the next little while. From more advanced gardening information right through to interactive seminars and personal contact with experts, it’s all been identified for this coming year.

And that my friends is the honest response – humbled, awed at the overwhelming response rate, directed for this coming year, and much clearer about my own role in this.

Engage!

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One of the most amazing developments over the past few years has been the slow-food movement. The notion that the slowing down, eating real food, in relaxed, convivial environments is important in our lives. I love it.

Mayo and I have talked at length about this slowing down, this relaxing-into lifestyle and that’s an ongoing discussion between us as partners as we craft out our new lifestyle.

And I’m now exploring slow-gardening and slow-publishing. LOL! And I’m not kidding.

Most of my working life has been around the growing and selling of plants. The more plants I could grow, the more money I could make. The bigger the trial gardens, the more plants to trial and eventually sell. The more varieties I could grow, the more I could sell. Don’t misunderstand, I enjoyed that life and running a nursery. It came at a time in my life when that all made sense and those were the opportunities I embraced. Four kids – need I say more?

But now there are other options and I have to learn to adjust and embrace slow gardening. Gardening as if it mattered on a small planet for me. The planned trial gardens just shrunk in the overall planning while the main beds of my favourite plants just expanded. The number of daylilies just increased and the number of weird plants increased exponentially. The hardscapes also got bigger and I’m designing a really big outdoor wood-fired bbq area. (hey, guys have dreams too) The gardens become less of a show-garden and more of a very personal statement in my mind. They become less of a competition with Ms. Notbaf and designed to show off my abilities to my readers and more of a personal refuge, a personal statement that I treat as a private space.

Similarly, in the past I’d write about anything an editor would pay for. Now, I’m examining the possibilities and what it is I want to communicate and how I want to communicate that. What’s important to my important readers? Where are the intersections between what I want to write and what they want to read? I can tell you I want to push the boundaries of what’s out there – to provide really, really interesting (and useful) information directly to the folks who will appreciate it the most using the most appropriate technology to do each job. And I want to do this in a way that helps both of us.

Yeah, I know. Too many questions and not enough answers. I think the answer to my gardening comes this spring when the ground thaws, my tractor and I get into gear and garden construction gets underway. The gardens and the plants that go in them will begin to set my tone for gardening.

As for garden publishing – stay tuned. The results of my latest reader poll are in and I’m tossing caution to the winds. I’m going to be unrolling new ways of putting out gardening information and new ways of reader-writer interaction over the next few months. And as I “expand” these areas, I’ll shrink the other parts of my business. Readers already know I’m cutting back on the number of free-questions I answer every week and the time that takes away from the Princess, my garden, and the other parts of my garden publishing world.

But slow gardening and slow publishing are uppermost in my working mind as I fit them into our “someday is now” lifestyle

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Somebody had better tell those crocus on my front yard that they’re early. Way too early for those flower buds to survive. The last few days really has them thinking its spring out there. If I get some flowers, I’ll post them on my website for you all to drool over but then you can weep along with me when the next freeze takes them right out. Oh well, they’ll go out in glory at any rate. And somebody had better tell that forsythia bush that it isn’t spring. I see the buds are looking a little bigger than last week. I think I’ll take a few cuttings off it this week and force them in the house; that’s the only way I’m going to see flowers on this shrub this spring once frost gets to those swollen buds.

This is all by way of saying that warm weather is playing havoc with the early bushes and bulbs. The thawing ground and warm rains are sending the message that it is spring and when winter inevitably rolls back in, those plants are in for a rude awakening. Is there anything you can do? If your soil is frozen, you can mulch heavily right now to try to hold the cold into the soil. Holding the cold will delay the plant from springing into life and will stop flower formation for sure. If the ground is thawed, like mine is next to the house foundation, there’s not much you can do. If you mulch now, you’ll keep the soil warm and the bulbs and plants will keep growing. And they’ll be met next week with minus zero temperatures as they clear the mulch on their way to plant heaven. Plants in thawed soil are pretty much at the mercy of the weather. I’m hoping for a January-February-March and April thaw.

Those forsythia branches are going to be cut to around 18-inches long, I’ll peel the bark from the end of the branch and hit that end a few times with a hammer to loosen up the bark. The cuttings will be put into a vase of water on a sunny windowsill and the vase-water changed every two days. If I had some cut-flower food around, I’d put that into the water as well.

In a few days or a week depending on how far along the shrub is, you’ll see the buds swell and then followed shortly by big, fat yellow blossoms.

After the blossoms are done, keep changing the water and allow the green leaves to develop. Watch the vase as these sticks may very well begin to grow roots. If this happens, congratulations you have a new shrub. You can easily force branches of any spring blooming shrub such as forsythia, pussy willow, lilac or even crab apple tree (although the lilac and trees likely won’t root).

I started filling the seedling flats this past weekend and getting ready to seed. Man, that peat mix made a mess. It is so dry and it won’t wet very well. I’m using Pro-Mix and I thought it had a wetting agent in it to assist the wetting process, but apparently not. The flats have been sitting in water for 18 hours now and they’re not absorbing it at all. As you might imagine, I’m not impressed. Never stand between a gardener and his seed starting ventures. I did try wetting the mix inside the bag itself but the darn water runs out the bottom of the bag. I think I’ve got it fixed though. The bag is currently sitting in an old aquarium and about to be soaked. I’ll flood the darn thing! I pass this along so you’ll be aware of a similar situation if you’re using a soilless mix. Do wet it well before you want to use it.

The deer continue to visit in spite of me chasing them away every time I see them, so the garden designs are shrinking closer and closer to the relative protection of the house. The further away from the house, the easier it will be for those garden predators to munch on my veggies. It is looking like the vegetable garden is now going to be raised beds very close to the back door. This gives me the advantage of being able to defend it easier with an electronic water-scarecrow as well as not having to walk very far to work and harvest the beds. I also designed a deer repellent garden trial for this summer to test all the currently available sprays. I’ll let you know next fall how that works out.

With the warmest winter on modern record leading the way, garden planning happily follows. Now if I can only get that soil mix to wet, I’ll be a happy gardener by this time next week.

Image courtesy International Flower Bulb Center
Originally written Feb 2006 for newspaper column

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Hippeastrum ‘Double Record’ is one of those wonderful amaryllis bulbs we all love to see and grow. This particular plant was the 2006 French Potted Plant of the Year.

You can see how to get them to rebloom right here.

I just thought you might like a hit of color this morning (and no, it’s not in my windowsill unfortunately)

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Perennial Plant of the YearT: Baptisia australis has always been one of my favorite perennials. One of the taller violet-blue flowers you can have for your early summer garden. This means of course you can put it to the middle-back of the border where little else is flowering (except iris) at this time of year.

Quick Facts

Height: 36 inches (taller in warmer gardens)
Distance Apart: 36 inches
Hardiness: USDA 3- 9 – performs well in a wide range
Blooom Time: May or early summer
Sun: full sun to light shade
Important note: This plant is very slow to grow and will take upwards of three years to hit maturity.
Planting: Put it where you want it and try not to move it. It has a deep taproot and doesn’t like to be moved. Left in one place it will survive for many years without dividing.
Propagating: Mostly by seed

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Here are a few random thoughts from my week.

I’ve been reading Anderson’s “Free” yesterday and today and am intrigued with the question of what a writer/creative offers to people when the cost of finding content is pretty close to zero. I’m working on that issue now (it’s probably in the experiential part of the equation).

My two latest projects are moving along. The virtual garden is up and running on the server and I’m delighted with having a backup after I mess it all up. I expect to start bringing a few friends into play with it towards the end of this coming week and give me some feedback. The second project about pushing the limits on information sharing is an interesting experience where the size of the project dwarfs my experience. Good thing I’ve got some good folks doing some thinking on this as well.

I’ve decided to go into semi-retirement with free garden question-answering. I need to claw back some time so I’ve redirected all the Q&A forms on each site to only one. That way, they’re all centralized and I can pick and choose from the questions to answer. Given that less than 1% of folks actually thanked me, I don’t get paid for that service, and that I spent up to a day a week during the gardening season doing this, it only makes sense to drop the majority of those. So I’ll do a few interesting ones every week but if I’ve answered it elsewhere on the site you can find with the search box on every page, it’s going to remain unanswered You can only give-back so much and I’ve reached the limit of my capacity.

I’m going to Holland for the major bulb display this spring. What fun! I’m looking at hauling both cameras with me but trying to figure out how to store all the images and raw video. I can lug the laptop or just pick up some new memory cards. But given the rate of shooting with digital, and the need to edit later, I could wind up needing a few of those tiny wafers. But I’m excited to be going and I’ll likely fill my sites with tons of bulb images when I get back. If the silly ipad were out before I leave, I might pick up one of those to shove in my camera-backpack but I’m not holding my breath for the 3G model out by then. And I’m loathe to get a windows netbook given my switch to the apple system a few years ago- seems kind of silly to have to invest in new tech to take a single trip when my current systems work well for my N.A. based lifestyle.

If you’re running Google Adsense on your sites, you really want to tie your Analytics stats package to your Adsense account. After a month of watching the numbers, it’s fascinating data about what actually makes money and what doesn’t. So far, I’ve removed ads on over half of the pages of the network (they weren’t making money anyway) to improve the reader experience. It’s a user-based strategy that seems counter-intuitive but a happier reader is going to be a bigger reader. And I’m not finished removing ads yet, there are several more sites to be evaluated and whacked.

I’m having my entire image/sites redesigned/rebranded by a pro-level design team. You can expect to see some changes roll out across the board here as I rebuild and bring the sites out of the “oh so 2000″ look as it was described by the designer. Hey, what’s wrong with 2000? Turns out plenty. Stay tuned. I needed it for the iphone app I was looking at so in for a penny, in for a pound. One redesign coming up.

Weight reduction plan on track. I’m feeling pretty pleased with it actually. The Princess is running a tight ship (with my permission and, I confess, sometimes grudging acceptance.) Hit a new low for the last 7-8 years this week. If the video camera makes you look 10 pounds heavier, I’m going to be downright svelte by the time next video-shooting season comes around. Take that jealous reader!

NASCAR started yesterday. My secret addiction to fast stock-cars continues. I like the reduction in rules and the racing it creates. Like real racing instead of the line-em-up and coast stuff. One race does not a season make so we’ll see.

Blog subscribers are a funny bunch. A bunch of you will unsubscribe after this post and a bunch more will subscribe this coming week. The message here to writers is to only write stuff that people like to read or to write stuff that’s good for you to write and damn the reader-subscriber numbers. You can’t do that with a commercial magazine but you surely can with a blog. On the other hand, I’ve never figured out what to write that everybody wants to read (unless it’s how to make easy money or have guaranteed amazing sex every time) so I just write stuff I want to write and if somebody wants to read it- great. But if you unsubscribe – that’s good too. You control the click (a fact that is lost on many traditional publishers and companies).

A bunch of Scottish Rock Garden Seeds rolled in. Oh yeah. Time to think gardening.

And that my friends pretty much sums up the publishable parts of my week. I did almost no writing this past week but did a heck of a lot of work to make reading what I have written a more enjoyable experience. And this coming week is not going to be much different from the look of it.

Stay tuned.

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You there – in the back row – ahh, you’ve only been on the Net for a week now….

For the rest of us – here’s how I now guard against the loss of data. And yeah, I’ve lost more than I want to consider in a recent switch to the Apple system – and various hard drive failures or backup hard drive failures. (The last one was when I took my backup dual hard drive server in for repairs and they wiped the wrong damn disk but told me it was my fault because I was supposed to back up the hard drive before I gave it to them) Huh?

In any case. Here’s my current state of the union.

1) Macs have a wonderful little utility called “Time Machine”. It runs in the background and gives me regular backups automatically to a 1 Terrabyte hard drive that’s permanently connected and travels with me. I’m sure Win users have a similar system somewhere they can install. I note when traveling for more than a few days, this drive goes with me but before I leave home I always take a backup and leave it at home in a separate drive (yes, I have two separate drives for Time Machine. One does the regular job and the second gets used only when I leave home and it’s the emergency-emergency backup if all is lost/stolen on the road.

2) All images are stored on a dual drive RAID server (RAID essentially means that there are two drives and what I put on one is instantly copied to the other) This system ensures that if one drive goes down, the other drive contains all the information. (I just have to get that information to another drive before I take it in for service I now know but I won’t lose the data)

3) I have an Amazon AWS account where I’m storing my images and video clips. This is simple storage costing a few pennies a month and I’m slowly transferring all major files I no longer use (and master files) to this storage.

4) I’m increasingly using Evernote as an ongoing cloud storage system (cloud simply means up on the Net somewhere) that allows me to keep my daily notes, images, videos, pdfs etc on my laptop, my pda and accessible Net website. Password protected, it only costs me 45/year to store 500 mgs a month upload. I’m currently taking a course and the download videos are all now stored up there so I can access them with no issues.

While all this protection may sound like overkill to the average user (the Princess only uses Time Machine) for somebody who depends on their computer for anything more than chatting with family really wants to investigate good backups.

Once tricked – shame on the computer. Twice tricked – shame on me.

photo credit: geerlingguy

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Yeah, right. So…

In a study published in Published in HortScience 45: 78-82 (2010) © 2010 American Society for Horticultural Science
by Chengyan Yue and Bridget K. Behe

You can see this summary here.

Men and women prefer different flower colors. Yeah, anybody in the nursery industry can tell you that but here are a few lines from the summary info.

Multinomial logit analysis of single-stem cut flower purchases showed that men and women differed in their cut flower color preferences but that flower color preference also varied with demographic characteristics and by occasion.

The highest percentage of flowers purchased were RedBronze (34%), whereas the lowest percentage of flowers were Yellow (10.01%)

Although women used a more diverse color palette, both men and women were more likely to buy RedBronze flowers for an anniversary and buy PeachPink flowers for Mother’s Day.

Between 1992 and 2005, women were less likely to purchase PeachPink flowers and men were less likely to purchase RedBronze over time.

I just thought you might want to know.

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You asked me how my experiment with avoiding Twitter was going and I thought I’d take a few minutes to whip off a well-considered reply (yeah, that’s sarcasm)

Long and short of it all – I’ve discovered the next thing in communication – comes with both hardware and software and I predict it will revolutionize communication as we know it. It’s called a voice – and interestingly enough, when you use it properly, people tend to stop and actually pay attention to what you’re saying. Friggin fantastic.

But no, I haven’t missed Twitter much. I’m sure I’m not missed either – it’s one of those chuck a tiny pebble into a pond thing – you’ll say to the person, we’ll miss you but after a few days, the pond closes back in and things go rolling along as normal.

What about all the garden writers there? They’re on Facebook as well so I don’t think I’ve missed anything. Yeah, might have missed the odd tantalizing conversation or passing around of something funky but it’s a small price to pay for clawing back time in the day.

What about all the people who were following you – your twitter audience? Fred, Fred – those people may have been “following” me but they weren’t really doing anything about “following” me. Of the 1000 or so who were there, I’d get maybe 1-2% response rate to any kind of link or note. And they weren’t my readers, they’re cohorts in the media. So I could get a 2% response rate from fellow garden writers. I know Fred, it’s not about the response, it’s about the relationship.

Let me tell you something straight up. I want a relationship with my readers. That’s my primary objective here. If I have a relationship with fellow garden writers, that’s all and good (and some are great friends) but my primary working time has to be spent with my readers and as far as I can tell, they’re not on Twitter. As for business relationships with fellow writers, I’ve tossed out the odd project I was interested in to places such as GWL and got an almost zero response rate on interest or potential partners. And as you know, I’m now chatting with some non-gardening types to explore other projects that do interest me. And yeah, I know I’m a bit of an oddity here given that all my income now comes from the Net – so I’m not looking to impress editors, publishers or anybody other than my readers. I’m at a different stage of my career than others for sure.

End of story – bottom line – say goodnight Twitter.

Will I ever go back. Oh sure, I’m reading the stream once a day – and if I find something I haven’t seen or looks like I need to see, I’ll click through and comment back. But I’m narrowing in on what I need to know and most of it isn’t on Twitter. (a very few exceptions) And those exceptions aren’t worth the time it takes to get them.

So – I am using Facebook and I do think that’s interesting and useful. You can have conversations there in some length and the back-channel email is useful as well. So count me in for FB.

And Fred – really – this voice thing is a great invention – let me suggest you try it one of these days. Give me a call buddy.

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i-Tree is a state-of-the-art, peer-reviewed software suite from the USDA Forest Service that provides urban forestry analysis and benefits assessment tools. The i-Tree Tools help communities of all sizes to strengthen their urban forest management and advocacy efforts by quantifying the structure of community trees and the environmental services that trees provide.

This would be a very useful software set for individuals or community tree folks – note the download button is on the top of the page not on the bottom where you normally would expect it.

I haven’t downloaded it or used it (If you do let me know) and I can’t find data about what computer system it runs on (I’d suspect windows which lets this mac user off the hook)

And oh yeah, it’s free courtesy having been developed with public money. Click here to see the site

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There are several kinds of writing.

Listen up – there are several kinds of writing and they don’t have the same intent.

The kind of writing my writerly friends think of when they think “writing” is timeless material that will both entertain and inform. Articles that are well-written with a great choice of thoughtful words, sources and plant info.

That kind of writing was stock in trade for newspapers, magazines and the long-ago-web.

It still exists now – but only in the context of creating an audience. If you want to create a brand, create an audience, create a tribe (or any other buzz-word) then you write great stuff.

But the other kind of writing isn’t intended to create audiences, promote a brand or anything else. It’s intended to bring searchers to a site. If they don’t find what they want in the words, they have two choices – the backclick or the ad-click.

The value of the written word has always depended on the advertising value it brings to the publication. Publications with good content could charge good advertising rates. Publications with less good content charged less or went out of business. It was ever thus…

The value of the written word on the Net still depends on the value of advertising it supports. It can either be so good it gets further clicks on the site or it can be so bad it gets ad-clicks or so patently wrong that it generates back-clicks. But the click is what the written word supports and the income it generates is the measure of its worth.

In the case of writing for somebody else online, the cost of your words is likely born by the marketing budget. Let’s do some rudimentary math on this – assume the marketing budget is set at 5% of gross sales (average in an established business is 3-7%). Assume you get paid $100/month for 4 blog postings or $1200/year. This means the gross sales for the company have to be $24,000 to support your blog. You have to bring in $24k for the company to break even with your writing. Are you doing that?

So my writer friends, when you see low word rates for online material, it isn’t because that’s what they want to pay, it’s because that’s what the words will generate in income (and what they can afford to pay with their publishing model).

I challenge you to calculate what your blogs and websites make per page per year and that’s what your writing is worth onlne. There’s no magic here, it’s a simple formula. Gross income derived from or associated with online writing – divided by total number of pages on your own sites/blogs.

You can argue about the publishing model all you like – rail against the fates that dropped you – a writer – into this age of Philistines. But that’s the hand you got dealt.

And now you understand.

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The Green Education Foundation is launching a nationwide program challenging at least 10,000 schools and youth groups to plant indoor or out- door gardens, making it “the biggest youth gardening initiative in history,” running from February to August 2010.

The GEF web site includes instructions and advice for students and teachers, including links between gardening activities and sci- ence, math, and other school subject and you really want to make sure your school, teacher, principal etc know about these resources.

Here’s the resource – what’s stopping you?

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As you can see from the video, I’m building an entirely new kind of garden, one that will allow my friends to visit and hang out – share some information and work on joint projects. I’m at the beginning stages of this right now but the video will show you all that.

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One of the handicaps I’m facing in listing these companies is that I have my own company in the basement and I call her the Princess. As the founder of Underwood Gardens, my Princess is a dynamo at saving seed and making sure that heirloom varieties hit our gardens. We have to get more of our neighbors starting seed because we simply have too many to store for too long and this year we’re going to have to grow out quite a few to collect and resave so the seed remains viable.

But that’s a project for another day.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, 2278 Baker Creek Rd., Mansfield, MO 65704, http://www.rareseeds.com, phone 417-924-8917 (catalog free)

Bountiful Gardens, 18001 Shafer Ranch Rd., Willits, CA 95490, http://www.bountifulgardens.org, phone 707-459-1925 (catalog free to U.S. addresses, $2 elsewhere)

The Cook’s Garden, P.O. Box C5030, Warminster, PA 18974, http://www.cooksgarden.com phone 800-457-9703 (catalog free)

Fedco Seeds, P.O. Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903-0520 http://www.fedcoseeds.com, phone 207-873-7333 (catalog $3)

Gurney’s Seed and Nursery Co., P.O. Box 4178, Greendale, IN 47025, http://gurneys.com, phone 513-354-1491 (catalog free)

Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 955 Benton Ave., Winslow, ME 04901-2601, http://Johnnyseeds.com, phone 877-564- 6697 (catalog free)

D. Landreth Seed Company, 60 E. High St., #4, New Free- dom, PA 17349, http://www.landrethseeds.com, phone 800- 654-2407 (catalog $5.00)

Nichols Garden Nursery, 1190 Old Salem Rd., N.E., Albany, OR 97321-4580, http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com, phone 800-422-3985 (catalog free)

George W. Park Seed Co., Inc., 1 Parkton Ave., Greenwood, SC 29647, http://parkseed.com, phone 800-845-3369 (catalog free)

Pinetree Garden Seeds, P.O. Box 300, New Gloucester, ME 04260, http://www.superseeds.com, phone 207-926-3400 (catalog free)

Seed Savers Exchange, 3094 N. Winn Rd., Decorah, IA 52101, http://www.seedsavers.org, phone 563-382-5990

Seeds of Change, P.O. Box 152, Spicer, MN 56288, http://www.seedsofchange.com, phone 888-762-7333 (catalog free)

Stokes Seeds Inc., P.O. Box 548, Buffalo, NY 14240, http://www.stokeseeds.com, phone 800-396-9238 (catalog free)

Terroir Seeds LLC (They purchased Underwood Gardens), P.O. Box 4995, Chino Valley, AZ 86323, http://www.underwoodgardens.com phone 888-878-5247 (catalog free)

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, P.O. Box 460, Mineral, VA 23117, http://www.southernexposure.com, phone 540-849- 9480 (catalog free)

Vermont Bean Seed Company, 334 W. Stroud St., Randolph, WI 53956, http://www.vermontbean.com, phone 800-349- 1071 (catalog free)

Thompson & Morgan Seedsmen Inc., 220 Faraday Ave., Jack- son, NJ 08527-5073, http://www.tmseeds.com, phone 800- 274-7333 (catalog free)

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First of all, this is a vegetable gardening app intended to make the life of an iNet generation gardener easy. No problem, I get that. Easy to download, easy to install and relatively easy to figure out. Your basic iPhone app.

Entering my zip code, I wandered into the wonderful world of pocket gardening where the app was about enlighten me on how to run and manage my vegetable crop.

Hmmm.

In messing about with the buttons, I found a very good little section (tap the ladybug at the top of each vegetable info) which listed the common pests of that crop and the remedies. My concern was immediate when it became evident the developers weren’t organic gardeners and had simply copied some chemical companies data on how to nuke insects. Yes, there were some organic remedies there but only in the context of those sold in bottles by big-chem. If we’re trying to educate the iNet generation on environmentally sound gardening (you mean you’re not? ! ) then this has to be fixed in the next generation.

It took me awhile to figure out that I could add individual vegetables to my “own garden plan” (hey, I’m not 13 remember) but once I started doing that, it was pretty interesting to list all the vegetables the Princess was going to have me grow. I can even add my own vegetables to the existing database. This is decidedly a good thing because the info about vegetables in the database doesn’t appear to be either 1) complete or 2) totally accurate or 3) editable.

And this is where any experienced gardener is going to figure out the weaknesses of this software – you can’t treat asparagus (365 days to harvest??) the same as you can tomatoes as you can lettuce. Days to harvest is a problem across the board (asparagus takes two to three years from seed) Tomatoes can be harvested in 85 days but you aren’t getting many if you sow seed in the garden compared to giving them a 48 day headstart in the greenhouse, (yes, you’ll get some but only from that first fruit truss). And lettuce – well, that’s fine because it’s short and sweet seed to harvest. The database running the system can’t handle this kind of complexity in it’s first generation iteration.

Planting dates were generally good although I thought a little enthusiastic for the tender plants (a little early for my garden but hey- it’s all by the book)

The “My Garden” section encourages me to add vegetables on the day I plant them – then it starts counting down to harvest date. It’s a fun guideline but again, a bit of experience quickly tells you that a month of dull, rainy, cold weather (can you say June 2009) is going to beat the heck out of this date. Again, this is where experience comes in but as I said, it’s an interesting countdown.

There’s a section for “Notes” where I assumed I’m going to keep track of what happened and what didn’t happen in my garden. Yeah, right. The survival time for electronics or fancy gadgets in my pockets when I’m working is measured in minutes. So while I appreciate the opportunity to make notes, I’m not likely going to get that far.

Call me old-fahioned. Call me a curmudgeony old gardener but I just don’t get why somebody would take the time/trouble/hassle to make this work.

I do use apps on my Touch (so I’m not totally out of date here) but I just don’t get the real usefulness of this one. And I’m sure they’re going to improve it in next generations.

Bottom line: Fun to play with – only a few bucks to try out – but not going to be part of my daily routine.

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