The Seeds of Summer

I am being buried in seed catalogs. I love it. Last year, I dabbled in the Dried Flower Bed at Rutgers Gardens. It was assigned to me at the last minute, so I had to settle for planting leftovers from the greenhouse. Needless to say, it was not a success. This year, I will be able to grow flowers ahead of time in the greenhouse specifically for the Dried Flower Bed. I’ve found a lot of interesting flowers but need to narrow down my list. It’s a small bed. There’s just not enough room for everything that I want to grow.

The bed is surrounded on two sides by a fence. I plan on growing small decorative gourds on the fence. Yes, I know that they aren’t flowers but neither are the decorative grasses that are already in the bed. I’m such a rebel!

Being a long time volunteer (6 years!) has its privileges. I’ve decided to branch out and try growing veggies. There is a waiting list for veggie beds, but the Volunteer Coordinator allowed me to jump to the head of the list and grab a bed that was being relinquished by another gardener. I will be growing stuff that I cook with such as parsley, carrots, onions, garlic and herbs. I have to have a few flowers so I will be growing edible flowers such as nasturtiums, marigolds and calendulas.

I think I will declare this the Year of the Zinnia. I saw lots of interesting varieties of zinnias in the catalogs that would be perfect for my gardens at home.

This is my favorite time of year when I can dream about my gardens. In my dreams, they always look lovely and never have weeds.

Oh no, not again!

New Jersey seems to be blessed with weekly snowfalls. First there was the Christmas Blizzard, then a couple more inches last week. It was so little that I didn’t bother shoveling it. Last night we were graced with another foot of snow. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. There was only 6” to 8” in my yard, although some areas did get up to a foot.

Most people were probably glad that the storm happened over night. They were able to get home from work before it started and when they got up this morning, the plows had cleared the snow away.

It was another story for those of us who work non-traditional hours. There was already 4” on the ground when I left at midnight. After cleaning snow off of my car, I crawled home at 25 mph over snow covered roads in the darkness. The concept of “lanes” no longer existed. Traffic lights became the enemy. Red lights had to be carefully timed so that I could either roll to a stop or glide slowly through them praying that the drivers coming the other way would allow me time to clear the intersection. Even green lights were a problem. Once I was stopped, starting up again was a problem as my tires fought for traction in the snow.

My normal 20 minute commute turned into a 45 minute white knuckled odyssey as I negotiated inclines and curves in a vehicle over which I had little control. Even my driveway has a slight incline so rather than being relieved at arriving home, I was unsure if my car would make it up the driveway.

Today I made the happy discovery that it is a lot easier to shovel snow when I have had more than a couple of hours of sleep and there is less than a foot of powder rather than the 2’ to 3’ of snow that I had to deal with two weeks ago. I was all shoveled out in less than 30 minutes.

Which made the birds happy. They were fed early today. I always spread seed on the snow for ground feeders like the mourning doves and juncos.

The New Years Cactus

I opened the curtains in my kitchen today and found this:

My Christmas cactus is blooming. Again. In January. Again. Six years after the first time it bloomed.

I haven’t done anything differently this year. But it has.

There is a bud in addition to the flower. Two flowers this year!

Does that mean that it will have three flowers the next time it blooms six years from now?

New Years in the Gardens

I love this picture. The trees look so ghostly.

I spent New Years Day in my favorite place: Rutgers Gardens. I was surprised at the amount of snow left over from last week’s blizzard despite the warm temperatures we have experienced since then.

The snow has been melting in interesting shapes.

Evidence of the high winds was scattered all over the floor of Helyar Woods.

Photo of the Day

I love the colors in this shot.

You can see more photos of my New Years Walk in the Gardens on Flickr.

Christmas Blizzard 2010

It’s amazing how quickly a weather forecast can change. On Christmas Eve, the friendly TV weather person was assuring us that the monster storm that was forming in the south would miss us and head out to sea. Instead of being snowed in, I would be able to get to the gym on Sunday to work off all of those Christmas cookies that I’ve been baking.

When I turned the television on Christmas evening, that same weather person was just as confidently predicting that the monster had changed course. A two day blizzard that would bury us in two to three feet of snow was due in town late morning/early afternoon on Sunday. Guess I should get to the gym early.

It was snowing lightly when I entered the gym. An hour and a half later, I could barely make out the parking lot as I walked out the door. My normal short, leisurely drive home became a white knuckle odyssey in near whiteout conditions.

Blogging about my job results in stern emails from HR so we will skip over the reasons why I spent the night in front of my computer remotely tending to (name redacted) network and listening to the wind howl.

It was the wind blowing the snow into giant drifts that made this storm so bad as you can see below.

I had to use my front door since the kitchen door was impassable. There was the predicted two to three feet of snow in my driveway. Two feet on one side and three feet on the other where it had drifted. Worst of all was my poor car which has been hit twice in one week.

You will have to take my word for it that there is a Camry under all of that snow. I think it’s hiding. With good reason. It was after I dug it out and forced it to travel over treacherous roads to (name redacted) so that I could (reason redacted) that it was hit a second time and now has only three working doors in addition to a bent strut from the first accident.

And now for the garden portion of this entry.

Photo of the Day

Those are the tops of the Grosso and Provence lavenders growing in front of my house. They are about two feet tall when not buried in snow. I like this photo so much that I’m using it as the wallpaper on my PC.

You can see more photos of my yard buried in snow on Flickr

You Be The Judge

It appears that the same people who judged the NJ flower show, moved on to judge the Philly show. Let’s see if you can guess which of the following was awarded the coveted blue ribbon:

Entry #1

Entry #2

Entry #3

Entry #4

If you thought that Entry #2 was the first place winner, then you should consider a career in flower show judging.

Are you up for another round? Try these arrangements:

Entry #1

  

Entry #2

Entry #3

Entry #4

Number 4, of course. That was too easy.

But, seriously. A single spray of orchids? Heck, even I could do that. Just buy an orchid plant at Home Depot, spray paint some sticks from my yard and wow the judges at the flower show.

Easy peasy.

BTE

I worked in the financial industry for 25 years before switching to IT. Some of the lingo still sticks. For instance, when a company posts exceptionally good earnings or earnings that aren’t as bad as anticipated they are said to be BTE or Better Than Expected. That’s a great description of how my photos did at the flower show this year.

I entered four photos instead of my usual two. The woman who was running the competition urged me to enter to the Computer Enhanced division. After playing around with my antique version of PhotoShop, I registered for both digital and computer enhanced.

I was the last to sign in my photos yesterday so I had a chance to see everyone else’s work. I almost turned around and went home. The competition was just incredible. So professional. In comparison, my photos looked like they were taken by a child. Ditto my computer enhanced entries. They looked primitive compared to the dramatic effects of the other entries.

The woman running the competition and another photographer urged me to enter my photos. Figuring that the worst that could happen was “Honorable Mention”, the equivalent of “thanks for participating, better luck next time”, I signed in my entries and headed home to watch the Olympics.

This afternoon, before heading over to the Rutgers Gardens booth for my afternoon shift, I stopped by the photo exhibit. Here’s what I found:

Honorable Mention - Digital Color

Honorable Mention - Digital B&W

Third Place - Computer Enhanced Color

First Place - Computer Enhanced B&W

BTE. Waaaaay BTE. I did a little happy dance.

All of these photos have been Photo of the Day on this blog. The original of the Third Place winner can be seen here. I liked the original of the First Place winner so much, I almost entered it in the Color Digital category but I wasn’t sure how the judges would react to seeing the same photo twice, so I went with the tithonia photo instead. You can see the original version of the sundial here.

Snowmageddon 2.0

This time the forecast was right. Snowstorm overnight, followed by a blizzard in the late afternoon. Up to 20" of precipitation expected. Blowing and drifting snow. White-out conditions. No one should be driving unless it’s an emergency. But you know there are always a few idiots who ignore the warnings and are out driving around.

Yesterday, I was one of those idiots.

I didn’t mean to be one of those idiots. When I got up that morning, the overnight storm was mostly over leaving 4" to 5" of snow. It was snowing lightly when I went out about 12:30 PM, shoveled my driveway and cleaned off my car, finishing a little after 1 PM. Then I went back inside, did some emails, printed a couple of recipes for the annual Wooden Spoon Valentine’s Day dinner (this year’s theme is “harmonious pairings”) and took a shower before heading off to work. When I looked out the window 45 minutes later, it was snowing so hard my driveway didn’t look as if I had done any shoveling and my car had disappeared.

My common sense also disappeared. The plow had been through my neighborhood several times during the morning. Reasoning that the highways are always in better condition than the residential streets, I thought all I had to do was make my way a few blocks to Rt 28, the main drag through my town, and I would be fine.

Rt 28 was in worse shape than my street. There was no traffic, just wall-to-wall plows falling hopelessly behind the predicted blowing and drifting snow. Again, I (falsely) reasoned that there would be more traffic on Rt. 22, the heavily traveled highway I take to work, so it would be in better condition.

It was, but just barely. And deteriorating fast. By the time I reached my exit 40 minutes later (twice the normal 20 minutes), it was snowing at a rate of 2 inches per hour and visibility was down to about two car lengths. I didn’t exit the highway, I slid off of it, white-knuckling my way to Springfield Avenue. Two traffic lights later, I discovered that Cardinal Drive hadn’t been plowed. I couldn’t even see it. I made my best guess where it was based on the position of the traffic light, turned left and started ramming my car through a foot of snow.

Thank goodness for front-wheel drive. And for all of you sissies out there who are weeping and wailing on the evening news: I am the proud owner of a 2007 Toyota Camry. I have never had any problems with mats or accelerator pedals. Mr. Secretary, you will have to pry my Camry from my cold, dead hands.

I reached the end of the street to find that the parking lot had been plowed. They were just finishing up as I drove in. I’m sure the crew thought I was out of my mind, trotting into a building that everyone else had exited hours ago. I paged management to let them know that I was in, then called the nightshift guy and told him to forget coming in. If road conditions were this bad now, and the storm was predicted to last until midnight, there was no way that he was going to make it in at 10 PM nor did I want to be trying to drive home at my usual midnight. I fired up my PC and settled in for the night.

At this point, I’m sure you’re wondering why I was so hellbent on going to work. Very simply, we just moved into this building. We haven’t had a chance to test the generator so we have no idea if it will failover or not. Management needed a body in the building overnight in case of a power failure during the storm. If we lost power and the generator failed, then I would have to make the call to the GM that no data center employee ever wants to make: there has been a power outage, the genny has failed and we are on UPS.

For those of you who are not fluent in "GeekSpeak", that means that the data center would be running on a backup battery which lasts only 20 minutes, a terribly small window of opportunity to perform an orderly shutdown of the network. There’s no way that we would be able to shut down more than a hundred servers within 20 minutes, so we would try to shut down and "save" the important ones, and hope that the others wouldn’t be damaged or lose data when the battery was drained and the power suddenly went out.

It was at this point that the realization was made that we have no flashlights. A flashlight is crucial because the best way to know if the generator is running would be for me to make my way in total darkness (because the generator is only for the data center) to the stairwell on the far side of the building from my desk, climb up one flight of stairs, again in total darkness, and listen for the generator which is located on the roof. Very high tech, I know.

Fortunately, I work with a really great guy. He is so well-liked by everyone in the company that our programmers, who are mainly Indian, have made him an honorary Punjabi and bestowed the name "Geet Singh" on him. Geet is one those people who has everything you could possibly need squirreled away in his cubicle. We have known each other so long and so well (we went to computer school together) that I knew he wouldn’t mind if I borrowed the small flashlight he uses when working in tight spaces or poorly lit areas.

The other essential tool I needed, a snow shovel, I had tossed into my trunk before leaving home. Having worked the nightshift for the past six years, I am accustomed to digging my car out after the parking lot is plowed in the morning. We are in a new building with a new plowing company so at 5 AM when I heard the plow arrive, I dashed downstairs to ask if they could try not to plow me in too badly.

It was the same crew that had seen me arrive 13 hours before. One of them was already cleaning the snow off of my car. They jokingly asked if I had slept at the office overnight. When I responded that I was working a double shift because no one else could come in, all three grabbed snow shovels and dug out my car.

I was amazed and grateful. Time is money for these guys. They have other parking lots to plow and then day jobs to go to. Thanks to them, when I left work a few hours later, all I had to do was scrape the ice off of my windows.

It reminded me of all the stories I have heard about how neighborly people are in New Jersey. I always try to be a good neighbor, helping out when asked or offering to lend a hand unasked. Wish I could say it’s reciprocated. Sadly, I wasn’t at all surprised when I got home to see that every driveway in my neighborhood had been cleared except mine. I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 15 years. Everyone knows me. Everyone knows that I am single and live alone. Everyone knows that I work nights. And they know that I don’t own a snowblower. They never hesitate to ask me for favors but no one even had the humanity to clear out the huge pile that the plow left at the end of my driveway.

My trusty snow shovel was in my trunk but I had been awake for more than 24 hours. I was too exhausted to shovel my driveway. I left my car parked in the street, climbed the glacier left by the plow, then wearily trudged up my driveway to the house. The Fur Patrol was glad to see me. They were hungry for their breakfast. I fed them and then collapsed into bed.

Would you be surprised to learn that I am not upset with my selfish neighbors? I’m a firm believer in karma. What goes around, comes around. This will come back to them and bite them in the ass. As for me, I will continue to do favors for my neighbors and anyone else that needs my help. I know that it will come back to me. It did this morning when three good Samaritans took time out from their workday to shovel out my car so that I would be able to go home and sleep.

Snowmageddon

After all of the dire warnings, the hysterical mobs in the grocery stores, the mad rush to get home before the storm, "snowmageddon" turned out to be a non-event in my area. Two or three inches that wasn't hardly worth shovelling.

I took a few obligatory pictures and then headed off to do my normal Saturday errands.

Allure of Chocolate

Last month, my fellow strawhatter, “A”, asked if I would be interested in attending a talk on chocolate. I have a confession to make:

My name is OldRoses and I am a chocoholic.

Is there such a thing as “Chocoholics Anonymous?” If there is, I don’t want to know. I love my chocolate too much. It’s genetic, you know. My mother always said that she could eat an old boot if it was covered with chocolate.

“Allure of Chocolate” was held at the NJ Museum of Agriculture and included a presentation on the history of chocolate and its processing by Birnn Chocolates, a local chocolatier followed by a demonstration of chocolate recipes and creations. Afterwards was promised a chocolate “Shoppe” with Birnn chocolate products for sale and refreshments which turned out to be samples of the recipes demonstrated during the talk.

I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed. The part of the program covering the history of chocolate and how it is processed was fascinating. But too short. Also a little hard to follow. There was a video with subtitles telling what was going on and a lecturer who added his two cents as the video played. I’m too old to multitask like that. I either want to watch the video, read the subtitles or listen to the lecture. But not all three at once.

This was followed by a nice lady who went to great lengths to demonstrate her chocolate ideas and recipes. I think I would have enjoyed more lecture and less cooking. I was looking for information on the different types of chocolate, the ideal temperatures and methods to melt them, how they are used in various baked goods and confections and where to buy specialty chocolates.

I also would have loved more information on the history of chocolate, its discovery, its uses and the differences between the modern chocolatiers. My only real criticism of the lecturer was that when he was asked about the health benefits of chocolates, he laughed and said there were none. I beg to differ. I just received The Healing Powers of Chocolate from the Early Reviewers Group on LibraryThing purporting to discuss precisely that.

A and I skipped the “chocolate shoppe” after the lecture. We are contemplating a little field trip to the Birnn Chocolates factory in Highland Park. They offer tours of their facilities. Yum!! The refreshments were very disappointing. Too many “shortcuts”, i.e. use of mixes, readymade foods and cheap chocolate.

The Museum of Agriculture was fascinating. Lots of old tractors, wagons, carriages and farm implements. Labels were lacking on quite a few items. A and I puzzled over one structure, either a henhouse or a rabbit hutch, we couldn’t decide. In the lobby was an old organ and a tilapia swimming in a fish tank. All in all, a fun place to visit.

Back in the Greenhouse

There is no better way to spend a cold winter afternoon than working in a greenhouse. The warmth is welcome as are the growing plants. The greenhouse at Rutgers Gardens has been busy since last fall. The tropicals were all brought before the first frost. Plants have been divided and bulbs have been cleaned and stored. Then cuttings were begun.

If you have ever been to the Spring Flower Fair, you might be surprised to learn that some of the thousands of plants offered for sale started out as cuttings in the greenhouse. In past years, I’ve helped with the coleus cuttings. Today, I was working on scented geranium cuttings. I loved the scent of the rose geraniums so instead of discarding the leaves that I cut off, I brought them home to scent my living room. Kind of casual potpourri.

When I finished, I gave the cuttings a big drink of water. The misting table didn’t seem to be working.  Coleus cuttings were dry and shriveling up. I watered them also then notified the horticulturist via email of the problem with the misting table when I got home.

I remembered to slip a few treats for Rutger into my pocket on my way out of the house. He kept me company while I worked.

The Oak Tree Was Right

There's a Camry under there somewhere

The oak tree was right. It’s still two more days until winter officially begins and a record-breaking Nor’Easter blanketed the mid-Atlantic area with up to two feet of snow. “Only” eight inches fell in my yard. A significant accumulation, though, for New Jersey where we rarely see snow until January.

Spring Surprise

I started out my wintersowing with a lot of containers, a lot of seeds and a lot of good intentions. But life has a way of happening and I always seemed to be too busy to plant containers. I finally threw in the towel during the last week in February. I had planted a grand total of “only” 56 containers.

March came in like a lion and we had snow last week. This week has been much warmer but still too early for anything to have sprouted. Or so I thought. Just for fun, I peeked into the containers. And saw green! I got out my spreadsheet (no one is surprised that I have a spreadsheet, right?) to see what was coming up:

Tall Fernleaf Fiddleneck

Heirloom Poppy

Valerian

German Chamomile

Verbena bonariensis

Wallflower

Stock

Cabin Fever

The unseasonably warm weather is causing intense cabin fever. I can’t stand being cooped up in the house. I must be outside. It’s too early to do any gardening so I took my camera on a walk around Rutgers Gardens. It was a great day for photography. I came away with a record three Photos of the Day.

All of the ponds were still covered with ice. This, the largest, had a few areas of open water.

I didn’t realize that bamboo is evergreen. I love the contrast of the browns and grays with the green of the bamboo. It gives the appearance of a hidden garden.

The pond in the display gardens was full of acorn-like nuts, leaves and if you look carefully, you can see fish just below the ice.

The drabness of the winter landscape made details that I might ordinarily overlook really stand out. Like this bright orange fungus.

I’ve photographed this tree many, many times in the spring, summer and fall but it wasn’t until it was stripped bare that I saw how intertwined the branches were.

I ended my walk at what has become my favorite place in the gardens, the old greenhouse.

It’s boarded up now and the broken panes of glass have been removed but it still draws me back every time that I visit.

My Garden in Winter

The frigid weather ended with a light snowfall. I hurried outside to take some pictures knowing that snow does not last long in New Jersey. All of what you are about to see was gone before the sun went down.

The sun became the Photo of the Day:


The sky was much brighter than it appears here but I like the gray moodiness of this shot.

I started out with the obligatory photos of snow-capped echinacea.





This is what drew me out of the house initially.


These hydrangeas are right outside my bedroom window.


This leaf was in the running for Photo of the Day. I find it strangely attractive.

Very soon, I moved on to foliage. Common Sage, my favorite of the foliage photos:


I love the colors in this shot:


Moody lavender to go with the moody sun:


Can you guess what this is?


Click here to see what it looked like in June.

This post was inspired by the Green Thumb Sunday Day post at A Journey of Grace & Whimsy. Thanks, Brenda!

Endurance

When I interview applicants for the nightshift, I tell them that it takes a very tough person to do the job. Anyone who dislikes being alone, is afraid of the dark and/or can’t withstand extremes in temperature is not a viable candidate. Nightshift is one person. Most of the lights in the building are off. The few that are still on are dimmed. The climate control is also off at night meaning that there is no air conditioning in the summer and no heat in the winter. The only exception is the room where the servers reside which is kept at a constant 68°F (20°C) for the well-being of sensitive equipment.

There is a joke in our office that the nightshift goes into the Data Center to cool off in the summer and to warm up in the winter. I tell interviewees that it is no joke. It is very true. One of the good things about the job is that there is no dress code for the nightshift, so we can dress appropriately. One man claims to strip down to his underwear on hot summer nights. I’ve worked chilly weekends in fleece pajamas.

The current cold snap is testing the endurance of the nightshift. I’m glad that I work second shift now and can leave at midnight, before the building has significantly cooled off. It’s not too awful during the week when there is some residual heat from the day. The real torture will come this weekend, especially Sunday night after two full days of no heat.

I remember those nights. Huddled in my parka at my desk. Typing with gloves on. Trying to answer the phone while wearing ear muffs. And when I couldn’t take it any longer, going into the Data Center to warm up. 68° felt balmy.

This is our last heatless winter. My employer has bought a building and plans to move in the spring. We will no longer be at the mercy of a landlord. The nightshift has been promised heat and air conditioning.

And lights. I guess I’ll have to come up with a new motto. We’ll no longer be able to claim:

"ACL NIGHTSHIFT – WE DO IT IN THE DARK"

You Might Be a Gardening Geek If . . .

As evidenced by the above photo, I have two more items to add to Carol’s excellent meme, You might be a gardening geek if….

…you have turned one of the crisper drawers in your refrigerator into a seed storage bin.

…the seed storage bin in your refrigerator is nearly full and you haven’t even begun to order your seeds for next year.

It’s only October and my seed drawer already looks full. There are packets that never got planted last year, partially used packets and seed that I have harvested and dried from my garden, Rutgers Gardens and a few other places that I won’t admit to.

The Winter Solstice, when I can begin wintersowing, can’t arrive soon enough. I need to make room in my drawer for the seeds that I will order once the catalogs arrive in the mail as well as seeds that I will be trading for on my favorite seed trading site, the Garden Bloggers Seed Exchange.

Winter Reading

Pinetree Garden Seeds, the seed catalog where I buy my favorite red zinnias, also offers bargain books. I have gotten some great buys on books that would otherwise be out of my reach. They are having a clearance sale, reducing prices to as low as $1. For a grand total of $26, I bought the following:

The French Country Garden - By Louisa Jones
France is often called "the country of four hundred cheeses" to portray its diversity. That same diversity is found in its gardens. Louisa Jones took a tour of gardens around the country and shares her impressions and conversations with the gardeners here. Sumptuous photographs illustrate them for us. The gardens are divided into six themes. “Intimate Country Gardens” features a grandmother’s, a painter’s, and a fashion designer’s garden, each reflecting their own personal interest. “A Passion for Plants” visits collectors of select species and their spectacular collections. The “Celebration of the Senses” gardens emphasize aromatic plants, foliage tones and textures, medicinal plants, edible plants and striking visual effects. In “Formal Play”, formal gardens exhibit whimsy in their playful planting patterns, topiary or sculpture. France is also seeing a rebirth of natural gardening that is explored in “Nature’s Ways”. A final chapter, “Planetary Perspectives” visits French gardens where global issues such as diversity and ecology play a major role.

Hardcover 176 pp pub. at $37.50
Clearance price $5.00

The Looking Glass Garden - By Peter Thompson
Take a trip to the Southern Hemisphere with Peter Thompson and see a whole new world of plants and gardens. Thompson wants us to extend our range of garden plants and touches on 1500 Southern Hemisphere plants and the role they could play in our gardens. He dispels the myth that these plants are too difficult to grow here, showing how these incredible trees, shrubs, flowers, vines, grasses and foliage plants can be used in sun or shade and hot or cool gardens. These plants have a forceful impact with their wild, exotic shapes, sizes and colors. Thompson demonstrates innovative ways to assimilate them into gardens using case studies of gardens where they are used. Hundreds of exquisite color plates illustrate these plants in their native habitats and in gardens. Thompson’s book is also a fascinating personal account of places, people, plants and gardens encountered.

Hardcover 451 pp pub. at $39.95
Clearance price $3.00

A Year in the Garden - by Theodore James, Jr.
Acclaimed garden author James and garden photographer Harry Haralambou take us on a very enjoyable and enlightening tour of their gardens as they evolve month-by-month through the seasons. They also share the story of the evolutionary background of these gardens from the time James purchased the one acre Long Island, NY property in 1974. On this property they have put an Alpine, water, shade, perennial, Japanese, shrub, woodland and secret garden. All come together beautifully to fulfill James' guiding concept that "a garden should be a series of events, spectacles, and occurrences that continue throughout the four seasons." Over 200 color photographs help readers experience all the pleasures of events and seasons in their garden. Hardcover 130pp. Pub at $29.95
Clearance price $5.00

Venzano: A Scented Garden in Tuscany – by Stephanie Donaldson
It was a misty November day, in 1988, when Don Leevers and Lindsay Megaritty first came upon the ancient Tuscan estate that was later to become their home. Nestled among the trees on the brow of a hill, it overlooked a landscape where agriculture still prevailed. Though in a state of neglect and disrepair, Venzano had abundant land and a reliable source of water issuing from a Roman spring. Today, their nursery garden is one of the jewels of the region, with an aromatic plant catalog listing nearly 10,000 varieties of lavender, rosemary, thyme, patchouli, lilies, honeysuckle, damask roses. Marrying exquisitely beautiful photographs to a narrative that is both personal and enlightening, we are given a taste of the daily life of a Tuscan gardener, as well a glimpse of the glorious hills and olive groves that lie just past Venzano's borders. For gardeners, armchair and otherwise, and for lovers of all things Italian.
Hardcover 144pp. Pub at $29.95
Clearance price $5.00

The Plantfinder’s Guide to Garden Ferns - By Martin Rickard
Ferns can add a naturalistic woodsy feel to a planting, or a lush jungly atmosphere. They come in an amazing array of leaf sizes and forms, and shades of green to gold to silver. You may think you’re familiar with ferns, but the variety in this book will astonish you. Rickard, the owner of a British fern nursery, guides readers on choosing and siting ferns, planting and caring for them, propagating them and using them in the landscape. He provides a large A-Z guide to large, small, desert and tree ferns. The color photographs in the book are exquisite. Many capture their beauty in the landscape, while others display individual fronds against a white backdrop. An exciting find for fern lovers.
Softcover 192pp pub. $24.95
Clearance price $5.00

The Random House Book of Old Roses – by Roger Phillips & Martyn Rix
Over 200 varieties of old roses with color photographs.

Softcover 95 pp pub. at $10.00
Clearance price $2.00

Feng Shui - Text: Belinda Henwood, Consultant: Howard Choy
Feng Shui is the Chinese art of harmonious placement meant to create balance between people and their environment. By following the principles of Feng Shui, people can bring this balance to their homes and gardens. Feng Shui can be complicated, but this book simplifies the concepts and touches on the basic remedies. In laying out a home or garden, one should look for a positive energy flow or “qi”. The book describes good home layout and placement of rooms, doors, and furniture. If you can’t change your basic layout, then it discusses simple remedies such as moving furniture, changing colors, adding movable partitions or plants to change the qi flow, and hanging wind chimes or mirrors. Outside, an appealing, simple and natural garden attracts nourishing qi to the home. Feng Shui is good design and makes good sense.

Hardcover 79 pp pub. at $12.95
Clearance price $1.00