Are You An Extreme Gardener?

My eyes are riveted to the television as a snowboarder speeds through a half pipe or launches from a ramp to perform gnarly, gravity-defying tricks. Or a person hurls himself off a cliff and soars into the beyond with arms and legs spread inside a wingsuit, personifying Batman. How in the world do you learn to do such extreme sports without killing yourself first?

Extreme gardening is much safer. In fact, one can argue that extreme gardening has many physical and emotional benefits. Nevertheless, some people may shake their heads and think that an extreme gardener is a bit strange, if not outright nuts. The jasmine arch by the patio is blooming.

How do you know you are an extreme gardener? I have compiled a list of ten traits that, while completely unverified and unscientific, may indicate you are an extreme gardener:

1.You garden, no matter what your environmental conditions or living arrangements. You find a way to garden, year round, in one form or another.My arbor garden swing is a good place to relax and enjoy the garden.

2. When people visit, they ask to see your garden. If they don't ask, you show them anyway.Here is a view inside my perennial/pollinator garden, planted since last August.

3. People you don't know have come up to you and asked for gardening advice.

4. You own at least 50 gardening books, not counting garden magazines. No way you can count all those.

5. You have gardened at night under the floodlights around your house. 

6. You arrange vacation time around gardening activities. 

7. You know the botanical names for most of your plants. Amaryllis 'Apple Blossom' (Hippeastrum) has 16 blooms on it this year!

Planted earlier this year, Acanthus 'Whitewater' has its first bloom.

Fatsia japonica 'Spiderweb' is a shade-lover with beautiful leaves.

8. You have attended a demonstration or lecture about hydroponics.

9. You publish a garden blog.Views of my little blue bridge in the woodland garden have appeared many times on my blog. I recently moved a blue bottle tree to its side.

This large urn was one of the first features I put in the arbor garden when I began developing the space a decade ago. 

This green rabbit is one of a collection of rabbits that appear throughout my garden, in addition to the real ones!

10. Gardening is your favorite form of physical therapy for such things as hip replacement, torn meniscus, and recovery from debilitating infection.

If you are positive for any of the above, chances are you are a real gardener. The more traits you have, the more serious you are about gardening. If you own up to six or more, you may indeed be an extreme gardener. I confess I am guilty of all ten. But at least I am not putting on a wingsuit and jumping off cliffs.

So, how extreme are you?

Wishing all you gardeners the very best!  Deb

New in Deb's Garden: Acanthus 'Whitewater'

"Oh!" 

I prefer to buy my plants from local nurseries. I have had the experience of paying too much on line for a plant that arrived on death's door or else pitifully small for the price. But once again I had fallen victim to a glossy catalogue photo of a plant I had never seen before. So as I opened the box containing my newly arrived Acanthus 'Whitewater', I was anxious that my worse fears would be confirmed.

I had only partially opened the container when a large leaf unfurled out of its wrappings, like a young animal's enthusiastic attempt to escape its cage. I exclaimed at the plant's beauty as I released it from a covering of styrofoam packing.Here is what my new Acanthus 'Whitewater' looked like immediately after arrival.

Acanthus 'Whitewater' is a perennial with striking deep green leaves with creamy variegation. That is enough to make me love it, but it also will produce spikes of pink and cream flowers in early to midsummer. This plant needs some space, growing 3 feet tall and wide.A closer look at Acanthus 'Whitewater'

An easy care, vigorous plant, it will grow in USDA hardiness zones 7 - 10. It likes shade to part shade and prefers moist but well-drained loamy soil. However, it will grow in poorer soil and is also tolerant of heat and humidity. I just planted mine in a shadier part of my new pollinator garden, and I am eager to see how it does. 3' x 3' sounds big to me, but I know happy plants in my climate often exceed expectations. So I placed it in a corner where it can get much larger without bothering other plants or looking out of place. 

Time will tell, but after a week in the ground, Acanthus 'Whitewater' looks very happy.