All the Dirt on Gardening

In the interest of continuing to learn about plants and gardening, I subscribe to a few plant discussions online. At least half of the conversation is beyond my ability to understand but the other half is beginning to sink in. A topic of interest across several discussions is the difficulty of sending seeds from one country to another when members want to share an abundance from their gardens. In BBC News this week, there is a report of a California man who had a wooden leg outfitted to allow him to smuggle iguanas into the US from a nature preserve in Fiji. While I would not suggest getting a wooden leg just to trade flower seeds, there is a seed of an idea there ....... Photo: Cleome Two more inches of rain and the wind that brought it in, beat up some of the fall garden, broke off the woody stems of the basil plants and generally made every bed muddy. Gardening in Oklahoma is for eternal optimists! No one else could hang in there. Ah, sweet memories of gardening in northern Califo...

We went to Wichita to see the Butterfly House at Botanica . The first photo is of a plant kaleidoscope in the sensory garden. The bowl of plants rotates while you look through the kaleidoscope viewer and it is spectacular. Notice that everything in the Sally Stone Sensory Garden, including the beds behind the kaleidoscope, is at the height a child or an adult in a wheelchair would need. These are two shots from the Jayne Milburn Aquatic Collection. Muskogee Parks and Recreation is beginning to plan a butterfly house for Honor Heights Park and our trip was to gather information since Botanica's butterfly house has been in existence for almost 10-years and they know what they are doing.

The Monarch Butterflies are still very busy making babies on the Asclepias. Sadly, the large caterpillar on the patch of Asclepias in the front was destroyed by spiders feeding themselves dinner. Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas has an online resource for all things Monarch. These are in a backyard planting. In the top photo, there are two sizes of caterpillar and lots of yellow aphids on the top of the photo. Aphids and Asclepias go together but you can't spray the aphids without harming the tiny Monarch eggs and hatchings. The bottom photo is another fairly large caterpillar. We have yet to find a chrysalis so we don't know if all the caterpillars are being eaten by birds and spiders or if they are just more shy than the Fritillary Butterflies who have their chrysalis on everything from the brick walls of the house to the lightening rod ground wires. Monarch caterpillars eat only the leaves of plants that are members of the Milkweed plant family. Since Asclepias i...

Pansies, tulips, iris, daffodils and other features of the spring floral display are all over the stores, catalogs and Internet sources. It is definitely time to buy and plant! Photo: Iris and coral honeysuckle blooming in our yard last spring. There are two schools of thought about this time of year: One type of person buys two or three times as many plants and bulbs as they think they need and they other type orders half of what they want. Some of us order as soon as the catalogs arrive so we don't miss out on anything. Others wait in hope of a last minute sale. Photo: One of the most popular pansy colors. Which ever type you are, clean out the old planters, start amending the soil in the beds, and rest assured that if you want a pretty spring, you can accomplish it by buying your bulbs, corms, rhizomes and pansies this week.

September's earlier sundown signals plants that it is time to make seed for next year. And, it reminds gardeners that it is time to harvest, take cuttings and collect seed from plants they want to grow indoors or preserve for winter use. Harvesting herbs and preserving them is a specialty of Sharon Owens at Moonshadow Herb Farm. Sharon spoke at Muskogee Garden Club this week and shared some of her recipes for herbal vinegar and herbal combinations for cooking. If you would like to be added to the email distribution for Moonshadow's quarterly newsletter contact Sharon at moonshads@aol.com - HOW TO MAKE HERBAL VINEGARS Use clean and completely dry herbs and glass containers. Put herbs in the bottle and pour vinegar to the top. HERBS AND SPICES - Fresh herbs should be gently washed and patted dry with a paper towel. Treat any fruits (blueberries, raspberries, etc.) the same. One teaspoon of dried herbs can be substituted for one-tablespoon of fresh herbs for flavor, use some ...

Fall is definitely the busiest season of the year for gardeners. In some ways, it is more pleasurable than spring because the summer flowers are still in bloom at the same time the fall garden is being planted. In the past few days several dozen new daffodils have been planted. I bought from Daffodil Hunter this year again because everything I bought from her last year came up and wowed me. The Peruvian daffodils from Touch of Nature gave a great show for two years and grew many new bulbs - the 6 bulbs from my original purchase became 20. Photo: Seedlings of Mustard Red Giant from Botanical Interests These are volunteers from a plant that went to seed early in the summer. Red mustard is good picked small for salads and also cooked as a green veggie when the leaves grow bigger. Photo: This daylily is re-blooming in September! Photo: The bird bath is the scene of caterpillars becoming butterflies. The Gulf Fritillary butterfly eggs were laid and hatched on plants and the caterpil...

Two sales were held at Tulsa Garden Center today. This is such a pleasing way to shop, I am surprised that the halls did not resemble a Filene's Basement sale. Quite the opposite: It was easy to walk around and select purchases. Photo: Thousands of iris, day lilies and shade perennials were available for purchase at the Tulsa Area Iris Society fall sale. Prices ranged from $2 to $20. Entire planters full of Louisiana Iris and Landscape Iris were $10. Great bargains and great looking plant stock. Bags of day lilies and iris were being sold by the bundle. Some of the containers were marked "landscape" because the donor couldn't recall exactly what they were. Tulsa Area Daylily Society members were on hand to answer questions at their sale. Photo: Sharon Gilchrist of Tulsa Photo: Tables were lined with day lily varieties. Members grouped their plants by color, bi-color, etc. Two to 4 plants were banded together with identifying tags. Both sales offered grea...