In order to prove my point in today’s entry, I had to first hook myself up to a nice little contraption that measures your “excitement” levels when viewing a particular photo:

Now that I have that in place, we can start the test. Here is the first photo I will now view:

Now that is a nice flower, a Hemerocallis ‘Joan Elliot’ daylily if I had to guess. Wait just one second … OK … done. I am now confirming the actual excitement score. Looks like an 88 on a scale of 100. Not too bad. We move on to the next photo:   

Whoa!! Is it hot in here or is it just me? Can I get a cigarette? Here’s the score … looks like a 98 out of 100. Hot damn.  

Let’s try this one more time. First photo:

Well hello there little lady … come here often? The excitement score is … 93 out of 100. Not too shabby.   

And photo number two:

Um … excuse me while I stumble over my words … now that is a beauty inside and out. Score is 101 out of 100. Deep breaths … deep breaths.

I knew it.

I love flower “buds” more than I love the actual flowers. I had a feeling all along that this was true but I am thrilled to now have confirmed it through a true scientific test. Now the question I ask myself, is why? My thoughts:

• It’s the anticipation that is more exciting than the actual event. As soon a peony blooms, and maybe this is just my somewhat negative view on life in general, I feel like it is on it’s way out. 
• A bud signals the fact that the plant has made it through another year successfully and that is an exciting time in the garden for me.
• Bud’s are just as attractive as flowers. This may be a stretch, but so many of them are pretty sweet looking in contrast to the plant’s foliage.
• The buds’ that appear in the spring coincide with our best weather here in zone 6, so the foliage looks so healthy at the same time the buds are appearing.
• The buds are typically safe from the deer but once they bloom, GONE (especially true with the daylilly blooms).
• Maybe I just want to be different so back off already!

As I scanned through my photos from last year, I realize now, how obsessed I’d become in taking close up shots of emerging buds. I have so many of these photos and I am just as excited looking at them now.

For your viewing pleasure, I now give you some of my many macro shots:                 

Lobelia Siphilitica

Chelone glabra (Turtle head)

Clethra ‘Hummingbird’ (Summersweet)

Echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower)

Echinacea purpurea alba ‘Fragrant Angel’

Hemerocallis ‘Little Grapette’ (Daylily)

Achillea ageratum ‘Moonwalker’ (Yarrow)

Astilbe ‘Deutschland’ (False Spirea)

Knockout rose

Who’s with me on the bud love?
ONG

You know that age old question, “If you could invite three people to dinner, who would it be?” Well, my table only has room for me and one other today and here is my guest of honor:     

Confused? Well he is none other than Piet Oudolf, my current gardening BFF  and author of choice the past year or so. The Dutch born designer (side note – I am about 73.8% Dutch myself, born into the legendary Van Veen family of Northern NJ) has written numerous books on garden design, but my three favorites, to date are : Designing with Plants, Gardening with Grasses and Planting Design: Gardens in Time and Space. I have taken each out of my local library at least three times in the last year and I have never felt more inspired then after reading each of these masterpieces.

Oudolf is also a pioneer of the “New Perennials” landscape movement which favors the form and structure of a plant over other features like flower color. He has a love for “wild nature” which he demonstrates in his designs by favoring mass plantings that resemble what would you would typically see in a meadow. The photos in his books are “fantastic” (another side note, no more using the word “awesome”). Here are a few to whet your whistle:

Oudolf was never formally trained and has always preferred to garden through “instinct”. What a coincidence, I have never been formally trained and I garden through instinct too! Couple that with our shared Dutch lineage, and we’re practically brothers from a different mother.    
But what has inspired me most of late, is this quote from Oudolf:

“I like to connect people with the processes of their own lives. What it takes humans a lifetime to experience, a plant will experience in its own yearly life cycle. In that sense, gardening is a microcosm of life.”

Now that is some deep stuff my friends. Enjoying watching your perennials and shrubs die is not as wacky as it sounds. I now want to smack myself around a bit for all my complaining about the winter weather. It’s a perspective I really want to take to heart as we progress through each of the seasons. 

Well, as I wandered around the yard recently with an improved perspective that I can hopefully sustain, I managed to snap off the following photos, with a miniature Oudolf on my shoulder guiding me (am I getting creepy now?). Enjoy:           

Foliage of a Siberian Iris

Changing foliage color on a Yucca ‘Golden Sword’

Eupatorium ‘Gateway’

Boxwood ‘Green Velvet’

Hypericum ‘Albury Purple’

Physocarpus ‘Diablo’

Panicum ‘Rotstrahlbusch’

Itea ‘Henry’s Garnet’

Arborvitae ‘Rheingold’

Sedum ‘Matrona’

Caryopteris ‘Sunshine Blue’

So listen, Piet, if you’re reading this, call me and we’ll do lunch, my treat.

ONG

Happy New Year y’all!

Like most of my fellow plant lover’s, I have made my gardening New Year’s resolutions for 2011:

There was to be an additional resolution, but after I typed it out, and after some reflection, I realized I felt exactly the opposite way about it:   
I will do my best to only buy a plant after it’s requirements have been fully researched and if  I actually have space for it.

C’mon now, who am I kidding? Sounds great and all but that ain’t happening, EVER. And I honestly believe there are a number of reasons why it makes sense to be completely spontaneous and reckless:

1. When I bring home a plant and have nowhere to plant it, it forces me to get creative and come up with a unique solution. Combinations I never dreamed of are born and more often than not, I am thrilled with the results.
2. I can remember purchasing a Carex and after getting her home, learning that she wasn’t reliably hardy to zone 6. It forced me to find an appropriate micro-climate out in the yard and she has thrived to this day. I like to think of it as forced innovation.
3. More forced innovation – if I can’t find room in the ground, I often resort to adding the perennial or shrub to a container as a temporary home. This gets the creative juices flowing and more often than not, I’ll add more plants to that container and a new combo has been created. 

Maybe it’s the fact that I have this blog and it’s fun as hell to share my stories here, but I cannot wait to take more chances and get more creative this upcoming year regardless of the consequences. I am going to treat my yard and gardens like one big laboratory.

Dr. ONG 

Oh the joy of the Christmas season. All of the build up to that one morning when the kids descend down the stairs to see what Santa has left for them. It brings back my own memories of staying up all night, listening for the sounds of the reindeer or some sign that St Nick had arrived.      

But before we get to those niceties, a quick little side story for you.

I missed Christmas day in both 2006 and 2007 due to sickness. In 2006, I was yakking all morning and never made it out of bed. In 2007, I came down with some violent fever and was shaking so much in bed that my wife actually asked if the house was shaking. As a result, my entire extended family has become paranoid each subsequent Christmas Eve wondering what would happen next to moi.

Well, there were no issues in 2008 or 2009 so the bad memories were a distant memory … until 2010.

It’s 11:45 PM on Christmas Eve and my wife and I have taken care of almost everything that needs to get accomplished. Just one more “task” remained and then it would be time to retire to the boudoir. I can best  describe what happened next as a simple math equation:

Yes, yours truly managed to shove the dullest butter knife into my hand and puncture the skin. I have done some dumb things in my life, but this ranks near the top. Maybe subconsciously, I did this as fodder for the blog or I wanted to display my enormous strength? I’m leaning “dumb decision”.  

After the crime scene was assessed, I quickly determined that the wound required stitches and that I would need to drive myself to the emergency room. We couldn’t wake the kids up and risk a nasty confrontation with Santa. Off I went into the night, dish towel wrapped around my wounded hand.

My stay in the hospital was only two hours so it could have been much worse, plus, I managed to catch the Pope presenting midnight mass while in the waiting room.I still don’t know if it was an amazing spectacle or a strangely terrifying event; either way, those surreal moments alone in the waiting room will never be forgotten .

I was wrapped up and medicated come Christmas morning and it was all good. The kids opened their gifts and were oblivious to what happened to their dopey Dad. 

My daughter has been singing Taylor Swift songs on her new karaoke machine non stop. Watch out world, girlfriend has some serious moxie.           

She introduced creepy Ken to Barbie and I’ll never understand what she sees in him. And if I had the time I could do a whole dissertation on Barbie, but I’ll spare you the pain.      

And she has lost herself in the wonderful world of Disney which is pretty damn cute to watch. 

My son, on the other hand, was all about sports this Christmas

And of course, I have been quietly doing the happy dance watching the sports love pass on from me to my offspring. By the way, the video games today are loaded with incredible music and to hear both kids sing “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne (“I, I, I”) and Rapper’s Delight is phenomenal (“Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn”).   

Even Casey enjoyed the carnage after the gifts were opened.

On Sunday night, we “only” had about 4-5 inches of snow dumped on us but it was enough to justify a whole lot of ensuing laziness.  

My wife and I are fully embracing the drinks of the season since there is nowhere we need to go.

My absolute favorite new beer is Dale’s Pale Ale, known as America’s best beer in a can.

And can’t forget the Hot mulled cider (spiked at your own discretion).

This old man, while beverage filled, has also taken to sequestering himself while attempting to complete a monster jigsaw puzzle.  

I’ve also educated myself on all things pest and disease; I’ve even gone so far as to looking into purchasing beneficial parasitic wasps.

And finally, we have all enjoyed the breakfast of champions each morning.

How we will all survive going back to work and to school on January 3rd is beyond me. We won’t even discuss it until the day comes.

ONG

 

ONG

Admittedly, this is a self indulgent post.

I went through each of the photos I’ve taken in the past year for this blog, and pulled out my favorites. The photos I’ve chosen are not necessarily the best looking photos, but the ones that stir a strong emotion and/or remind me of a specific moment in time. I have A LOT more to learn when it comes to garden photography and I cannot wait to further educate myself in the upcoming months. 

I have included my comments under each photo. Enjoy.

For me, there is no better time to take photos then after a rain when it is still overcast. Love the droplets of water on the fruit of this crabapple tree.  

I think I spent almost twenty minutes trying to get the perfect shot of a bee on one of the clethra blooms. I remember laying down on the ground at angles I didn’t think I was capable of pulling off but it was fun and worth it.  

Another example of waiting and waiting for the perfect shot and I couldn’t quite get it but damn if it wasn’t fun trying!

I honestly believe this butterfly knew it was being photographed so she stood still for me to make sure I got her best side. 

This is the one and only time I’ve seen a deer actually sleep in my yard. I was so pumped to see it I and can remember frantically running around the house telling the kids to shut their mouths so I could get the perfect shot.

If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that it is worth the time to take photos of anything and everything because you never know what the results will be. I just thought this one was really cool with the way the late day sun was shining on the blooms of the Karl Foerster feather reed grass.   

There were literally a hundred butterflies on the joe pye weed blooms and I may have taken 50 photos with none really capturing it perfectly. I felt like I was on crystal meth as I tried to take these and my excitement got the best of me.  

I managed to catch this guy just as he was emerging from the chrysalis and felt like a proud papa.  
  

I didn’t expect this to come out looking like this when I took it, but I dig how it sort of looks like a painting.

I worked on this back bed all summer and seeing the results after digging out the lawn in 100 degree weather feels very rewarding. 

This horribly shot photo still resonates with me for two reasons: 1)How did I ever think this looked OK? I’ve come a long way since then. 2)I divided this grass on a whim and it was great fodder for a blog entry – educational yet a chance to poke fun at myself.  

 

This was taken in Dallas at the Garden Writer’s conference. It is where I stepped out of my comfort zone, introduced myself to two photographers and had a conversation I will never forget. It was inspirational and a reminder to pursue what you love and the rest will take care of itself.

ONG      

I am a simple man. I don’t need much and already have everything I could have ever dreamed of. Kind of sounds like a Lynyrd Skynyrd song, huh?

When it comes to gardening, I keep it real basic; give me my shovel, a pruner, a rake and a wheelbarrow and I can do some serious damage. I mean, c’mon, will you look at this goofy, simple tool (pun intended):
  

Every once and a while though, I’ll dream bigger and what better time to share my “wish list” with you than during this holiday season. Some of these items may be completely unattainable, but what the hell, Oprah once told me I should always physically write down my dreams and that will help them come true through some sort of cosmic force. Well Mrs. Stedman, I’m putting it to the test right now.

1)A few years ago, I read a story in Better Homes and Gardens about a man who had an amazing greenhouse built on his property in Connecticut. The family would trek through the snow and eat dinner there each winter evening and it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I dream about doing the same or even just a chance to play around in the dirt while it is snowing outside. The ultimate winter escape. I’ll take this one from BetterGreenhouses:
               

2)All gardeners cherish their pruners and I am no different. Admittedly, I cheaped out in the past; pruners are pruners, right? Um, that would be “no”. A few years ago, my wife bought me a one handed pruner from Felco and I’ve never looked back. Super light, comfortable grip and cuts like a champ. Well, I’m now ready to add to my Felco collection. I would love to get a new pair of loppers or two-handed shears, like this:

         
3)I have been reading a lot about gardening styles in Germany, specifically, the extensive use of ecologically smart, native perennials. The design is to combine them in a wild, prairie like manner and I would kill to check them out up close and personal. Well, I found this and dared to dream. Could I ever take off two weeks to do this? Nope. But it is fun as hell to dream about it. Check out the Karl Foerster garden in Potsdam:        

4)I order the majority of my perennials and shrubs from Bluestone Perennials and have NEVER been disappointed. So, again, I’m dreaming big and would love an unlimited lifetime supply of all I can find in their online catalog. Here are a few I’ve already been eying up:

Ligularia Britt-Marie Crawford

Hakonechloa Aureola

5)Last, but not least, I want a gigantic vacuum that will suck up all the standing water that engulfs my yard each winter/spring:

And while I’m thinking big and bold, I want it to be a giant Roomba that I can control from inside of my house with a remote. 

Well that’s not asking for too much is it? One can only dream.
ONG