My Podcast and Other Unforeseen Benefits of Garden Blogging

If you have ever wondered what I look like, that's me on the right, with Dave Ledoux. A while back he interviewed me for his Back to My Garden show, and my podcast came out this week! This was an honor, and I had a lot of fun talking about my experiences in gardening. Now, if you want to hear my Southern accent just click here. It takes about thirty minutes, but I promise, the time goes by quickly!

This podcast was just one of many benefits that have come to me through my blog. No, I haven't earned a penny from it, and that was never my intention. I started blogging about five and a half years ago, and at the time I had not the foggiest idea what I was doing. I had zero concept of the amount of work and time involved. I was barely computer literate.

What was my intention? I wanted to write about gardening and to share my garden with others, and I wanted to improve my photography skills. One of my sons encouraged me to begin a blog, and with a little help on his part, I began.

So what has come of it?

I have made so many new friends from around the world! True, I have never seen many of them, but we share a common love of gardening. Others I have met in person, and I have visited their gardens and/or they have visited mine. Eddie Aldridge, who founded the beautiful Aldridge Gardens in Hoover, Alabama, not far from where I live, discovered my blog one day and called me up. (Actually it was his wife Kay who came across my blog and encouraged him to read it.) We visited and got to know each other, and then Eddie nominated me to be on the Board of Directors at Aldridge Gardens.A few sites to see as one walks around the lake at Aldridge GardensThat has been a great experience, and again my world widened as I got to know all the great people there. It has been an privilege to participate in making this young public garden, hidden away but only moments from busy shopping areas, one of the best garden retreats in Alabama.

I have been asked to speak about various gardening topics in the community and to help educate the public about good gardening practices. Individuals and garden groups sometimes come to tour my garden, and I have been able to share my garden stories with them. Poor souls! I like to tell my yarns; almost everything in my garden has a story!

Truly, one of the best benefits of blogging is that my garden has become a better garden. I have learned so much from the community of gardeners. I have become an organic gardener because of what I learned from other garden bloggers. I have become much more knowledgeable about the interconnections of wildlife, plants and soil.Tiger swallowtail butterfly

The British architect Russell Page once said, "Green fingers are the extension of a verdant heart." I have come to realize that gardeners are some of the best people in the world. The world needs more gardeners! Most of them are nurturing, giving, creative types. They tend to be enthusiastic and ever optimistic. However, I am not sure if they garden because they are that way, or if they become that way because they garden.

Dogwood trees, Cornus florida, are beginning to open their blooms!If you have a blog, I encourage you to consistently put out the best content you can. It may take a few years, but I promise something good will come of it! As my particular part of the world is enveloped in spring, I listen to the birds and keep on gardening. Happy blogging!

Early Spring, 2015

It happens every year, but I greet the arrival of spring with the delight of an infant who has never seen a blossom before. The garden is awakening. I wander along damp mossy paths, smiling at each swelling flower bud and each lime-green leaf that unfurls. The light is gentle, the breeze is energizing, and the air is filled with chirps and chatters and trills and calls. There is a mockingbird in a tree, and his incessant happy song declares the wonders of season. 

Many limbs and branches are still bare, and on a rainy day the land looks as cheerless as any winter day; but not for long, as every morning adds new color to the landscape. Forsythia was late blooming this year, put off by freezes, but at last it opened its cheery yellow bells:

Chaenomeles, or flowering quince, bloomed through the hard freezes and continues to be beautiful:

Corylopsis spicata, called winterhazel, is a plant in the witch hazel family, or Hamamelidaceae. Its clusters of yellow flowers hang on bare branches and glow like little lanterns:Fothergilla is one of my favorite native shrubs. I recently planted several new ones near the base of some river birch trees. This variety is called 'Redneck Nation,' after Fred Nation, the botanist who found it growing in south Alabama. My new shrubs look sparse now, but they will soon grow and be filled with foliage. The fragrant, white bottlebrush blooms are just beginning to open:

My daffodils were a bit disappointing this year. They bloomed just in time to be hit by severe frost, then weeks of rain. They lay low to the ground during most of this time, but bravely stood tall when the sun was shining:

These trilliums grow wild in my woodland garden. The deep maroon petals in the center have not yet opened:

Hepatica nobilis, also called liverwort, is a beautiful woodland wildflower. I planted these next to a path, so I can appreciate its small, delicate blooms:

Another spring wildflower in my woodland garden is Sanguinaria, also called bloodroot. It has taken a long time to become established; the first couple of years I thought it had died! I am glad to see several blooms this year. It is shown on the upper right in this collage of spring bloomers:Clockwise from upper left: Sanguinaria, also called bloodroot; Grape Hyacinths; Pieris japonica, also called andromeda; Camellia 'Taylor's Perfection'; Leucojum aestivum, also called summer snowflake, although it blooms in spring; Magnolia 'Jane.'I am just as pleased with beautiful foliage as I am with flowers. Strawberry begonia and Heucerella 'Alabama Sunrise' are two new additions to my woodland garden: Strawberry begonia is a vigorous ground cover.

Heucerella 'Alabama Sunrise' is a cross between Heuchera and Tierella. Throughout the year, life continues in the decaying crevices of Stump World:

On a fallen log I find a surprisingly beautiful arrangement of lichens, which have flourished in abundant rain:

As day's end approaches, I find these blooms silhouetted against the sky:

The woods still look bare in evening's glow, but tomorrow more buds will open and more color will show. Spring is here!