Winterberryfarm Primitives

The Joy of Autumn!

2011-10-11T12:06:00.007-04:00

Hi everyone! I feel so lucky to live here on the east coast of the US for several reasons, but my number one reason is the changing of the seasons that we enjoy here in Delaware. The burst of colors and growth in the spring, the bright, vibrant colors of the summer, and yes, even the snowy days of winter make living here so wonderful, but my favorite season of the year must be autumn when the landscape around us is getting ready for a long winter sleep so we can have that gorgeous green of spring each year. Why is autumn my favorite season, you ask? First and foremost is the knowledge that this is the time that plants begin to shut down and ready themselves for the long winter ahead. Perennial plants die back to their roots, annuals spread their seeds in anticipation of a new generation before dying, and trees and shrubs show off their wonderful colors that lurk under all that green produced by their chloroplasts. Yes, I know, this is a magical time of year but what is even more magical is what really happens when the reds, yellow, oranges and browns of autumn make our forests and fields so beautiful that people will actually take vacations to go 'leaf peeping'.
But what 'makes' the trees turn color? What happens to the leaves to make them 'turn colors'? How does this happen? All good questions and I hope I can answer a few of them today!
Why do trees and shrubs turn colors? Have you ever noticed that no matter what weather does in the fall, the leaves of trees and shrubs start to turn colors and fall off always around the same time each year? September and October temperatures can be in the 80s but the leaves always begin to change color or fall off the trees. Is it so the 'leaf peepers' can book their vacations for the same week year after year? Does the amount of rain in the spring and summer affect the timing of this change? Well, the actual ways and means of color change in trees and shrubs, and some perennial plants, are complicated and include many chemical and biological processes inside the plant. The actual processes and cycles are not important to those of us who love to watch the leave turn colors and simply put, most deciduous plants follow a biological timeline that is based on day length. Long days and short nights help plants to grow while short days and long nights cause plants to begin to shut down growth and ready themselves for a long winter sleep. The green that you see in plant leaves is a result of the huge amounts of chlorophyll being produced during the spring and summer by the chloroplasts that are present in all growing plant cells. There is so much chlorophyll being produced that it masks the other colors that are always present in all plant cells.
Carotenoids are present in the chloroplasts along with chlorophyll and produce the yellow, orange, brown colors in fruits and flowers like bananas, daffodils, corn, and carrots. These colors can be readily seen in fruits and flowers because they are part of the reproductive system and not the vegetative system, and don't produce chlorophyll in their cells.
Anthocyanins, flavonoids that give red apples, cranberries, blueberries and plums their blue/red colors are found in all plant cells but increase dramatically in leaves during the fall months in response to large amounts of stored sugar in the leaves and the bright light of fall.
So, as the days get shorter and the nights get longer, chlorophyll production is reduced and the sugar that accumulates in the leaves begin their trip down to the roots for winter storage. Leaf veins begin to close up and the overload of sugar eventually becomes 'stuck' in the leaves as the veins shut down. This over-abundance of sugars in the dying leaves causes the anthocyanins to go into overtime production and suddenly leaves begin to turn red, crimson, and purplish/red. As chlorophyll production decreases, the colors of carotenoids become apparent and suddenly trees and shrubs are covered in bright reds, yellows, oranges and every color in-between.
Other conditions must be present for good fall color, including good rainfall in the summer and early fall. This allows for excellent sugar production and increases the red and purple colors of fall foliage. Good sunlight and cool nights can help the increase of yellows and oranges, but daylight length is number one in the production of this wonderful show that Mother Nature puts on every fall.
So...the next time you look at those wonderful fall leaves or pick up a bright red maple leaf or wonder at the beauty of a yellow hickory leaf - remember how those wonderful colors were produced - and realize how magical a plant really is to the planet. Not because of the colors of the leaves or how it looks in our landscape, but how it keeps us alive by producing all of that sugar and oxygen that keeps us eating and breathing every day.
Magic is magic even when you know how it happens!
Until next time - get out there and enjoy the world around you!

Friends and Family

2011-09-29T11:05:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone,
I am glad to be posting again after a long and sometimes scary summer, but first I must talk about a friend I just lost last night. I have been affiliated with the University of Delaware for many years, at first as an employee and then as a student in the College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences. A few years ago a fellow came to work in the botanic gardens that surrounds the College of Ag. He was a retired landscaper and was one of the funniest and kindest people I have ever met. He loved being outside working in the gardens and always made you laugh, even when you didn't feel like laughing. He passed away last night while being treated for an illness and has left those of us who knew him in shock. I will miss you, Howard, with your funny jokes and happy smile. I was not as close to him as others at the greenhouse and I know they are mourning the loss of this kind and gentle man today. I truly feel he is in a better place, free from sickness. Howard, I wish you weed-free and beautiful gardens, my friend. God speed..

Whew! It has been a long year!

2011-09-25T11:47:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone! Just a note to let you know that I AM BACK! I will be posting again in the next few days. It has been a long, stressful year but things are looking up again! I will post a longer blog tomorrow but I am back and will br posting again about native plants, antiques and talking about my updated website, so be sure to come on back on Monday, September 26th for all of the info on what has been going on around here!
Thanks for sticking with me!!
Susan

March! March! March! OR This Is What The Flower Show Does To You!

2011-01-26T16:23:00.010-05:00

Hi everyone! Well, I haven't been hibernating or snuggling in bed! Oh No! I have been working on our Philadelphia Flower Show display! We are counting down the weeks until the Philadelphia Flower Show and there are only 5 weeks left before judging! Even though our display will be concentrating on the outside of our house, I have to make sure that there is furniture and interesting things inside the little house because you will be able to see inside the windows of the first floor. We will have a huge library room and a big kitchen with a walk-in fireplace that all need to be designed and then put together. For the last three days (OK-probably more than three days!), I have been working on the library wall, including the books for the library shelves, the fireplace surround and the pictures to go over the mantel. The kit that we bought as our starting point for the display included some of the interior details; one of which was the paneled library wall. I assembled the pieces and then started to re-work the design to fit our historic home. After assembling the wall and adding my own touches, the entire wall had to be stained - that was a BIG job! No really, it was! I had to pick a stain color that would not overpower the tiny wall but still be the correct color for an old wooden surround that had mellowed over the years.Then I had to 'build' the firewall for the fireplace and as you can see in the picture - I did! The wall was built with individual tiny bricks in a herringbone pattern and when completely finished, will have a dark black 'smokey' stain that goes up the back of the fireplace in a pattern that shows that this fireplace has been used for the past 200 years. You can also see the black andirons in the fireplace and I am working on the stack of logs that will go in the fireplace. They will go in at the last minute when we get everything up to Philly on March 6th. There will be some trinkets on the fireplace mantel, along with a clock and maybe some candlesticks. Still haven't picked them out but there is time for that decision.I also added two pictures to the area over the mantel and they are of real early American portraits from the 1800's. The library also has to have books! Lots of leather bound books of all description! Don't they look great? I will let you in on a little secret! They are pictures of books that I printed off and then put on wood backings!
I love doing this kind of stuff! And last but not least! I am adding a picture to show you the actual size of this 'library wall'! It really only stands 9" tall and 13" wide which would be 9 feet tall and 13 feet wide in a real house - remember - this is a 1'/1" ratio so we have to be careful of our sizes. Now it's back to the workbench and the next project - the kitchen!

The March Towards The Flower Show Continues!

2011-01-16T17:37:00.004-05:00

So, our march towards the Flower Show continues! In this first picture, the siding is on and the 'first' front door is on. The next step is to paint the siding and the first of several coats is put on the house.As we continue to work on the house, a roof will be added and shingles will be individually placed on the roof. The shingles will then be stained and then made to look old with the addition of some small areas of mossy stains and some shingles that are darker than the others. Tomorrow, I will start on the shingles and then work on the interior of the house!
Stay tuned!

January Update at Winterberry Farm Primitives!

2011-01-10T17:48:00.001-05:00

Our January Update is posted and we have found some great things this month! Boxes in grain paint and red wash and some Canterbury Community Shaker items too! Some 'new' Pennsylvania putz items too!
http://www.winterberryfarmprimitives.com/

It's Almost Here! The 2011 Philadelphia Flower Show!

2011-01-09T13:15:00.005-05:00

Yes, it's true! The 2011 Philadelphia Flower Show is just around the corner and we are making our annual trek for the gold in March! Follow our progress as we march towards the March 6th opening of the Flower Show! More info to be posted today on our progress so far and what we hope to achieve! The theme of this year's flower show is 'Springtime in Paris' and the theme of the division that we are competing in is 'Joie de vivre' - the Joy of Living. So, our 'marching orders' for this competition was to concentrate on the joy of living when deciding on our story that we will tell in our display. I don't want to give too much away, just suffice to say that our 'joy of living' will be living in our retirement home, selling antiques, gardening and enjoying life. We started out with an idea of an historic two story colonial in the rolling hills of New Hampshire as our place and an early spring morning as our time of day. We used a spring morning to connect our display to the overall theme of 'Springtime in Paris'. We started out with this dollhouse kit from a miniatures company and decided early on that we didn't want the house to overpower the display SO...we ended up cutting the dollhouse down to a one story house that we will now make into an historic one story cape based on one that actually exists in Connecticut. It is the Elias Sprague House, built in 1821 and located in Coventry, Connecticut. We just moved our 'house' to New Hampshire! Here is the actual historic home and below is the beginning of our 'renovation' of our house. We have cut down the house kit and below you can see pictures of our progress so far. In these last two pictures you can see that I am starting to add the windows and the siding on the little cape. This coming week....finish the siding and windows, then paint, paint, paint!
Oh, and the last picture shows the fireplace in the kitchen, complete with its black cauldron and stack of firewood.
That's all for now! More on our progress later this coming week!

Musings on the Much Maligned Poinsettia

2011-01-09T12:02:00.011-05:00

Hi everyone! As I am continuing to remove and pack up all of our Christmas decorations on this cold and windy January day, I have to set the record straight! You can see the poinsettias that we had in our home this Christmas and how beautiful they looked sitting in an old dough box in the livingroom. There are many myths and misconceptions out there about these New World natives that I would like to dispel today. Euphorbia pulcherrima, better known as the poinsettia, is a native of Mexico and Central America. In 1825, the pointsettia was introduced, and named after, Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first US Minister to Mexico. Mr. Poinsett was not only a physician and politician, but an amateur botanist. He found Euphorbia pulcherrima growing in Taxco de Alarcón,a small town in southern Mexico and began to send samples of what the Aztecs used to call 'the most beautiful Euphorbia' back to America in 1825; and by 1836 the plant was known in the United States as the 'poinsettia'. The plant's association with Christmas began in 16th century Mexico, where legend tells of a young girl who was too poor to provide a gift for the celebration of Jesus' birthday. The tale goes that the child was inspired by an angel to gather weeds from the roadside and place them in front of the church altar. Crimson "blossoms" sprouted from the weeds and became beautiful poinsettias. From the 17th century, Franciscan friars in Mexico included the plants in their Christmas celebrations. The star-shaped leaf pattern is said to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem, and the red color represents the blood sacrifice through the crucifixion of Jesus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_pulcherrima).
Euphorbia pulcherrima, in its native habitat, is a small shrub that can reach a height of 16 feet! It has a height range of 2-16 feet depending on location. In the deciduous tropical forest of the Pacific coastline of Mexico it can grow as tall as 16 feet, while in the hot, seasonally dry forests of the Mexican interior, it will have a much smaller stature. The leaves can range in size from 3 to 6 inches and the colorful bracts have colors that span the red/pink spectrum. I hope you noticed that I used the word 'bract' to describe the colorful red 'petals' that we are all used to seeing on our Christmas poinsettias. Bracts are actually modified leaves that are associated with the reproductive structures of a plant. These bracts can be used by the plant to attract pollinators or as a dispersal agent for seeds. Bracts also grow around and protect the flower as in the picture seen here. The actual flowers of the poinsettia are the tiny little 'knobs' at the center of the bracts and are basically unnecessary for the modern poinsettia plant as all poinsettias in the market are produced through stem cuttings, a form of vegetative reproduction.The bracts of the poinsettia plant are one of the most beautiful and showy in the plant kingdom and here in the United States we have brought this showy leaf, used by the plant to attract pollinators, to a whole new level!
The Ecke family of California held a monopoly on the growth and hybridization of the poinsettia until 1990 because of a secret that led to the compact growth of their poinsettias versus the natural open growth pattern of this Central American shrub. They would graft two poinsettia plants together to make the tighter, more compact plant that we are familiar with today. In the 1990's a university researcher produced the same results using the same technique and then published his findings, thus the secret was out and competition flourished.
Now to the main point of this blog! The poinsettia plant has long been called dangerous, deadly, and poisonous. UNTRUE! That is nothing but a myth and has caused some people to miss the glory of these plants because they are worried about their children or pets eating the plant and dying. It will NOT happen! An article in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine calls the plant 'mildly' irritating to the skin or the stomach and may cause vomiting in severe cases, BUT it also says that a 50 lb child would have to eat 500 BRACTS for a toxic reaction! That would be several plants-worth of bracts! This myth started back in the early 1900s when an urban legend was circulated that a small child died from eating the leaves - UNTRUE! While many of the plants in the Euphorbia genus are toxic, the poinsettia IS NOT TOXIC! So next Christmas - do not fear the cultivated poinsettia but buy as many as you want to have in your home to help celebrate the holidays and remember - please don't malign the sensitive and beautiful poinsettia!

The National Christmas Center in Paradise, PA

2010-12-16T10:50:00.013-05:00

Hi everyone! As it gets closer and closer to Christmas Day, we decided to take a break from the craziness of shopping, baking and decorating the house. Within an hour from my house is the one and only National Christmas Center in Paradise. PA. I just love the name 'Paradise'! In many ways, Lancaster County, PA is a little bit of paradise with its large expanses of the farmland and its wonderful dark, black earth. Drive through this area in the early spring when the Amish farmers are turning the soil for planting and you will see a wondrous sight! But I digress! The National Christmas Center is housed in an old restaurant and banquet hall along Rt. 30 in Paradise and is the creation of Jim Morrison, a wonderful man who is looks like the 'Man' himself! I sometimes wonder if Mr. Morrison is around Christmas Eve or does he have another job to go to.....I can remember the old banqueting hall from many years ago and was pleasantly surprised to see the Christmas Center take over this old building that looks like an old Swiss chalet. As you probably know, I am always on the lookout for putz animals, especially sheep, for my Winterberry Farm Primitives customers and decided we had to go to the National Christmas Center because I was told that they have fantastic putz displays. So, off we went and all I can say is Wow! Wonderful, gorgeous, fantastic displays and a live Santa (besides Mr. Morrison) too! They have a recreation of a Woolworth's store and Santa's workshop.
They also have Tudor Towne for all of you who have ever been to the Christiana Mall in Newark, DE. A great place to take the kids if you live close enough and a great place to put on your wish list. The Center is open year round and is just as wonderful in July as it is in December. Now, to the putz displays; Lancaster and Montgomery Counties are two counties in Pennsylvania that were settled, in part, by the Moravians form Germany and Bohemia(Czech Republic)and they brought with them the tradition of putz displays. The word “putz” is from the German word “putzen” which means “to decorate, to adorn a church.” Originally, the putz consisted of wooden, clay, or tin figures arranged to depict the Nativity, the Holy Family, the shepherds, and the three kings. Lititz in Lancaster County and Bethlehem in Montgomery County are two towns where the tradition of the 'putz' continues today. If you go to my shop, http://www.winterberryfarmprimitives.com, this month you will see a complete 19th century putz display set that would have been sold in stores in these two towns for use in either in large public putz displays or in smaller putz displays in private homes. It is a complete set and was probably never or rarely used as it is in remarkable condition.
I had many sleepless nights trying to decide how to sell it - break it up - as many dealers may - or try and keep it together to sell to a single collector? I finally decided, with the help from a friend, to keep it together and see what happened. I was lucky enough to sell it to a collector who promises to keep it together. She collects putz animals and was thrilled to find a set in great condition with its original box! So, I went to the National Christmas Center with great expectations of what I would find and I wasn't disappointed! Below you will see some pictures of a large public display that would have been seen in a church or other public venue. This display is huge and takes up an area that is at least 40-45 feet long by 15-20 feet wide! The 'mountains' in the back of the display are made of gessoed and painted fabric draped to look like mountains and the foreground - where the houses are located are also made from the same type of draped fabric. These displays would take days or weeks to build and would be magnificent in situ! The last picture is of a personal putz display in the front parlor of a home in Pennsylvania. I took these pictures myself, so I apologize in advance but it was a HUGE putz display! Until next time - enjoy and I hope you can make it to the National Christmas Center one day!!

Christmas Decorating AND Putting Your Garden To Bed!

2010-12-15T15:38:00.010-05:00

Hi everyone!
Well, we have been extremely busy here at "The Farm" and I am just now getting around to concentrating on decorating the house for Christmas! The gardens have all been put 'to bed' and the activity around the online shop has slowed down a bit, so I am able to start getting everything decorated; all ready for when the grandchildren come over Christmas morning. We usually have a big Christmas party every year but this year with all of the stress and uncertainty, we have decided to have a quiet Christmas season. I don't know about around the country, but here in Delaware, we are experiencing some very cold weather very early in the season. I am very glad that I have already put the gardens to bed for the winter as we have been below freezing for the last couple of weeks and although the ground is not completely frozen yet, it is cold enough that the plants are ready for hibernation until spring. To put my gardens to bed, I do two things: 1). cut down all green herbaceous material from my perennials and 2). make sure the beds are covered with either leaf mulch or bark mulch. Leaf mulch is much better for your gardens as it provides not only warmth and stability to the winter soil but also is full of carbon and microorganisms that are good for your plants. Bark mulch will do if you don't have enough leaf mulch but don't make it a habit to just add bark mulch each year. It is expensive and not as good for your soil as leaf mulch. How to get leaf mulch, you ask? Your own trees will provide a lot of the leaves necessary for mulch and if your trees are not big enough then do what I do! Provide an environmentally-savy pick-up of bagged leaves from your friends, family and neighbors! When you see those people out in their yards each fall, raking up their wonderful leaves and putting them in big green bags for the trash truck - offer to take the leaves instead! Use them as free mulch on your gardens and you will not only add nutrients to your soil but you will be keeping those big green bags out of the landfill! I know it sounds crazy but I have great soil and most of it is thanks to the help of friends, and yes, sometimes strangers who give me their raked up leaves when I stop by their front yards as they are raking and offer the 'take those nasty leaves off their hands'! Fallen leaves will not bring seedlings or any kind of new plants to your yard as they are lifeless and ready to be composted. You can either just dump and spread your 'acquired' leaves fresh from the bag or compost them for a year if it is feasible - either way they will provide your soil with much-needed nutrients and water-retention capabilities. I am a member of our local 'freecycle' group which is an online group that offers free items to members that might end up in the landfill unless picked up by a fellow 'freecycler'. Many areas around the country have freecycle groups and it is easy to google them to see if their is one in your area. Several times each fall there are people who will post the need to have their leaves picked up or they will go into the landfill and I am usually number one the list to pick up! The only thing you pay for is the cost of gas to go pick up the leaves. Try it out, it will help your gardens and also help the environment. Speaking of leaves, what a wonderful segue to Christmas decorating with greens! Every year I usually go down to the local craft store and look to see what will be my 'theme' for the Christmas season, but this year I decided to try and find a new theme using decorations from past years. When decorating around antiques, I never use real greens, berries or fruit; there is too much of a chance of the antiques reacting or being discolored by the oils from 'live' decorations. I find that inexpensive silk greens and fake fruits and berries, used in an understated way, can be just as beautiful as real decorations but not as dangerous for your antiques.
Now on to the Christmas Decorating! Several years ago, I bought a lot of these berry strands with small glass beads that were designed to look like holly berries. I got them for about $1.00 a strand, so I bought a lot of them knowing I would use them one day. This year, I am not bringing out all of the vintage decorations or even all of the greens that I usually use, but I am going for the understated look that will still look and feel warm but will not overwhelm the house. I pulled apart several of the strands of berries and then intertwined them with bits and pieces of silk greens to make 'holly sprigs'.The strands of glass berries are twined around the greens and then the resulting holly sprigs can be maneuvered and twisted until they fit quite well within the confines of my cupboards and shelves. Small early miniature treen salts are filled with little holly sprigs and placed in a cupboard to give a little touch of Christmas without overpowering the antiques. Bits of green and red look at home when nestled in with antique redware and painted boxes. An old-looking Santa or two and a tree that uses the remaining strands as garland complete the look for an old-fashioned Christmas on a budget that looks like you spent a mint! As I continue to decorate and get the tree finished, I will post more tips and ideas that I use to make the house joyous at this time of year! Also, some of the items in the pictures are available for sale on my website: http://www.winterberryfarmprimitives.com. I will leave you with some more pics of my decorating thus far and will be back tomorrow - I promise - with a post on the National Christmas Museum in Paradise, PA!

What a Crazy Couple of Months!!!!

2010-11-28T19:22:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone!
Yes, I am still here but it has been a CRAZEE couple of months!
I am so sorry that I have not posted in the last couple of months but crazee things have been happening around here!
Let me start at the beginning!
On November 19, 2009, I was backing out of my driveway on my way to the university when my husband comes stumbling - yes stumbling - out of our front door carrying our phone. I immediately pulled back into the driveway and ran to him. He had problems with his blood pressure a few years ago and I at first thought that we were headed back to the ER! Thank goodness - he was physically OK! BUT - he had just received a call from his union hall telling him that his job of over 30 years was over. The current owners of the Delaware City refinery had decided to close the plant immediately! I spent the next few hours reassuring my wonderful hubby that we would get through this and there was a future out there, but of course this was an unbelievable blow to him.
My father had been the head of training for the Getty Corporation when they owned the refinery and I called him with some of my thoughts. He confirmed my belief that this refinery would not stay idle for long as it is the only refinery on the east coast that can process what is called 'sour crude'. This is the crude oil from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. It is a cheaper oil but when consumption went down last year instead of working to repair and clean up a refinery that they had allowed hit rock bottom due to nominal or no repair and maintenance - they decided to just close it.
Thank goodness for our wonderful governor, Jack Markell, who was determined to find a new owner for the refinery. In conjunction with DNREC (our dept of natural resources), the governor worked tirelessly to keep the refinery open. DNREC demanded that the owner keep the refinery open while they checked on the environmental impact of dismantling such a large and old refinery. From day one, the governor, the union and others made sure that the refinery continued to run by recirculating material through the tanks and pipelines so it would not have to be restarted from a cold shutdown.
In April of this year, a new owner signed the initial papers to buy the refinery. This owner has been in the business for several years and actually owned the company that had sold this refinery to the current owners! The new owner had left his old company and started a new one and one of his first acts was to acquire this refinery that he now calls his 'flagship' of a newly formed U.S.-owned oil company.
My husband, as a utilities operator, stayed at his job keeping things going until May of this year. Then, everyone was removed from the refinery and the new owners took over on June 1, 2010. They immediately brought back many of the workers that had been on unemployment since January, 2010 to start the clean-up. Due to the severance pay (part of their union contract) we have survived the last 6 months. In August, my husband - along with the majority of the workers from the refinery, received intent to hire letters and two weeks ago he finally received his hire letter with his start date of January 4, 2011!!!! We are so excited!
We have spent the last 6 months working hard to get our online webshop up and running (http://www.winterberryfarmprimitives.com) and getting our 'house' in order. One thing that you learn when bad things happen is how to make sure you protect yourself as much as you can, so we have paid off all credit cards, changed our lifestyle, learned to enjoy the 'little' things and how to have fun without spending lots of money. We have continued to increase our personal antique collections, buying things that will increase in value, instead of 'modern' things. We have worked hard to get our house in order by updating important systems in our home and worked to reduce our carbon footprint.
We are now poised to save even more and increase our retirement funds when hubby goes back to work and when I get a job after FINALLY finishing my degree.
I will be back soon with a new post on how to put your garden to bed for the winter, but for now I just wanted to say Thank you! to all of you who have stuck with me and waited patiently for the next post!
Fingers crossed that things will now get 'back to normal'.
Just one last thing.....every year my extended family has a 'Pollyanna' where the adults pick a name from a hat to decide which member of the family will be the recipient of the gift we buy for them. This year, one of my nephews has my name and I am asking him to donate $50.00 to our local food bank in my name. We have our Christmas present - the letter sending my hubby back to work - now it is time for me to start giving back. Might be a great way to start a new Christmas tradition...
Anyone else out there ready for a change?

No Stink Bugs Around Here!!

2010-09-28T16:29:00.011-04:00

Hi everyone! If you are like me, you are ready for fall and some cool, crisp weather! BUT, if you live in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. you are now experiencing "The Invasion of the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (Halyomorpha halys) and are not too happy about it! This little critter is inundating homes and businesses in the area and causing all kinds of problems. They apparently look for warm spots, as the weather gets cooler, to spend the winter and are so numerous that there are several websites and blogs that have sprung up dedicated to helping people get rid of this pest! There is a small problem, though! There is a 'good bug' out there that can be confused with the stink bug. This 'good bug' is the Spined Soldier Bug (Podisus maculiventris) and is a predator of other insects that eat our plants! The differences between the two are explained in the picture of the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (Halyomorpha halys). Take a look and compare the two before squashing them! The most distinctive difference (besides the nasty smell) is that the stink bug has rounded 'shoulders' and the soldier bug has pointed 'shoulders'. This is a very distinctive difference and easy to see. OK - some of us might need a magnifying glass!
The differences between the Spined Soldier Bug and the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug.

The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug was not known in the U.S. until 2001 and was first found in shipping containers from Asia. They were first identified in Allentown, PA but it is possible that they have been in the country since the late '90s. They are now found as far south as Virginia and will, I am sure, continue their spread throughout the country. Stink bugs are native to Asia and are considered invasive in the United States. They are predators on other insects in their own environment and are controlled by native Asian predators, but there are no known biological predators native to the United States. They usually attack fruit trees, vegetables, and ornamental trees and shrubs. These bugs don't actually hurt humans or animals but they can be very annoying! They have a nasty habit of exuding a disgusting 'stink' whenever they are crushed or defending themselves. In extreme cases, stink bugs can invade your home or business and there are several websites out there that tell you how to protect your home from these pests by closing up your home with tape and caulk! Our native birds, and even the exotic birds like starlings, won't eat them because they taste nasty! Pesticides are one way that websites and pesticide companies are telling you to control stink bugs and they recommend certain pyrethroids, including deltamethrin, lambda-cyhalothrin, and cyfluthrin. Yes, these are "organic" pesticides because they are from the chrysanthemum plant BUT DO NOT BE FOOLED by the word "organic"! These are deadly neurotoxins and should be sprayed by professionals! Yes, an "organic" pesticide that is lethal! Just because it is "organic" - from a plant - does not mean it is safe! On the contrary, some of the most lethal pesticides are from plants and why not - this is how a plant protects itself from insects and other chewing animals! The important word here is ANIMAL - just like humans - insects are animals and we all, as animals, share some of the most basic DNA, so if it can hurt an insect - it is possible that it can hurt you!
Did you also notice that at the beginning of this post I said that they 'apparently' look for warm spots and that can be in your home? That they are 'apparently' inundating homes? Why 'apparently? Because I have not had the same problem as most other people with this little bug! Here on the "Farm" we have found one or two in the house and none have attacked the plants in my yard! Why? Well, of course these little bugs will attack some natives, like hollies, tomato fruits, and redbuds but the majority of the things they attack are from Asia! Soybeans, apple trees, pear trees, butterfly bushes, lilacs and other exotic ornamentals. Just another reason to go native!

One last thing, if you don't live in the Mid-Atlantic area of the United States but you see stink bugs - contact your local extension agent!
So until next time - try to keep the stink bugs out of your house!

Got Your Punkins Yet?

2010-09-15T18:01:00.005-04:00

Hi everyone! Well, fall is unofficially here and it is a wonderful change from this year's very hot summer. I don't remember it being this hot since the late '70's when we ran from the air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car and back again. With the official start of fall just around the corner, it's time to go out and find your punkins for the front porch! My Hydrangea quercifolia (oak-leaf hydrangea) is beginning to change color and it is time to find the punkins!
The guys are doing their perennial Halloween Haunted Woods again this year and they are headed up to Ulster, New York to the Headless Horseman Hayrides and Haunted Houses attraction (http://www.headlesshorseman.com/)to prepare. It is rated #1 in the United States and they are making the first of their yearly 'pilgrimages' to haunted attractions around the country to get them ready for their 'Haunted Woods' here at home! My son, two grandsons, and my nephew are making the trip and staying up their for the weekend to see what else is in the area. They are preparing for a bigger and better attraction themselves here at our house on Halloween night. Here is a picture from last year when they were starting on the garage. Oh boy! This is my favorite time of year (next to early spring when my ephemerals are in flower!) and living here in Delaware, we are close to a lot of historical sites that have evening tours and bonfires in the fall. It's a lot of fun to troop around on tours with lanterns in the brisk, cold evening air - we are even planning to go to Fort Delaware this year for the nighttime ghost tours with the family.
Sorry I haven't posted in a while but I am still hard at work on the research and am crunching numbers to be able to complete my results and conclusions for each experiment.
Tomorrow we are off to Ohio for the Springfield Antique Show and Flea Market this weekend. Can't wait to get there and see what we can find! I will be posting our adventures this weekend with pics of the show - so stay tuned!

Is Fall Around the Corner?

2010-09-04T09:03:00.011-04:00

Hi everyone!
I don't know about you, but I am ready for some cool fall days and the crisp, crackling sound of fallen leaves under your feet - Oh wait! The leaves are already falling off the trees! Ever wonder why trees will lose their leaves during a hot, dry summer? Or why your herbaceous perennials will just wilt down and disappear? For a lot of plants, this is a way to preserve themselves for the next season. Trees will drop their leaves early and 'go to sleep', while herbaceous perennials will shut off leaf and flower production to save the underground portions of the plant. If you are like me, you will let your plants 'go to sleep' and will only water when conditions are to deep drought status - and then only water the shrubs. Even with this drought that most of the country seems to be experiencing this summer, I have yet to water any of my plants! How can this be, you ask? With 90% of my gardens filled with native plants, the fact that I don't have any grass, and that I have several years of accumulated leaf litter in my gardens - my plants are surviving and are still green. One or two of the shrubs under the bigger trees are beginning to wilt down and I will keep my eye on them, but most are handling this drought quite well. If necessary, I will water the ones that are looking bad but only if they are in danger of total death. So, the next question is, how to water your plants!
All of you who are reading this post, raise your hand if you have been out there watering your plants with a hose. Raise your hand again if you have an attachment on the end of your hose that sprays the water like a sprinkler.... Now, for a few facts on watering your plants. When you water with a hose and you put your thumb or finger on the end of the hose to create a 'spray', you have now reduced the amount of water getting to the soil by about half. If you are using a sprinkler head on your hose, only about 25% of the water is actually making it to the ground! If you water during the heat of the day (when most think that the plants need the water), even less water is making it to the ground. Why? Because the majority of the water droplets that hit the air evaporate as soon as they are released from the hose. If you use a sprinkler head, the droplets are smaller and evaporation rises to a higher rate. Water in the heat of the day when the sun is at its hottest (noon-2pm) and even more water will evaporate before hitting the plants. How is this possible, you ask??? You can see the water as it hits the leaves and the leaves are very wet! Why worry about water hitting the ground when the leaves are all wet? Because almost 100% of the water that the plant uses comes from the roots, not the leaves! The leaves are not there for water intake. They are there to make the food that allows the plant to grow.
How does this work? There are holes called stomates on the leaves. They are microscopic pores in the leaves that allow them to bring in CO2 and other molecules necessary for the plant to live. CO2 is one of the essential building blocks for carbohydrate production that produces the sugar (carbohydrates) that all animals on the earth need for food. I sometimes play a game with my grandchildren in which I ask them to tell me if they can think of any food that they eat that does not start with plant consumption. Try the game yourself, you will find that there is always a plant at the beginning of any food chain, but I digress!
SO, to continue, when you water your plants using a hose, you are reducing the amount of water that the plant receives by at least 50% AND you are also increasing the chance of disease! When the water droplets puddle on a leaf surface, lots of little microscopic bacteria, fungi and other things love to swim in this water and when the water is absorbed into the leaf through these holes, so are the diseases! But don't worry! There are ways to water your plants that will get the most amount of water to the roots!
First and foremost, you must water slowly and completely. For optimum growth, plants need at least an inch a week. By this I mean that at least an inch of water must reach the roots each week. One way to accomplish this is to use a soaker hose. This is a special hose that has tiny holes along its length that allow water to seep out when the hose is connected to your spigot. Here is the kicker - the soaker hose must be wound throughout your gardens so the entire area will be covered and it must be left running until you can scrap away the topsoil and find that the water has penetrated at least one inch into the soil.
You CAN make your own soaker hose, just poke tiny holes along the length of the hose (all around the hose). You can buy a new hose and do this or just use your old hose. You can put several hoses together and wind them throughout your garden or just do different portions of your gardens at a time. Whichever way you decide to use your soaker hose, it will have the best chance of saving your plants during this drought.
A second way to save your plants during a drought is to use mulch and I am speaking of leaf litter or even wisely spread grass clippings. Regular bark mulch is OK for a new garden but it is made of bark - the outer surface of a tree. It will not absorb and hold water like leaves or grass clipping. Wow! Another way to save money in these hard times and protect your plants! A third way to preserve your plants during a drought is to plant natives (!) and let them do their thing! If your native perennials die back this summer and don't give you that wonderful display of flowers - don't despair! In most cases, they are just protecting themselves and will come back next year to try again! In any garden, plants native to your area will usually perform the best and survive the longest if planted in the right areas for them.
I hope this post has helped you through these tough days and remember me as I continue to calculate leaf area of over 500 leaves and work on the statistical data important to finishing this degree!!!

Putz Displays

2010-08-20T09:40:00.006-04:00

Hi everyone!
I am home for the next few hours and then we are off again on a buying trip to Virginia for my online store. We just got back from a long trip to Pennsylvania and found some great old putz items. A Putz is the Moravian custom of building miniature landscapes in and around the Christmas tree. This custom, along with the Christmas tree, began in Germany and migrated to America with the influx of German immigrants in the 19th century. In the Moravian communities of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Lititz, and other Pennsylvania towns, the early weeks of December were times of great fun as the children of these communities would search the nearby woods for moss, twigs, rocks and small plants to be used in the Christmas Putz. Churches would have their big putz displays while families would build their putz to put under their own Christmas trees. These displays would include whole miniature towns and woodlands with the addition of carefully stored animals, buildings and accessories like bridges, campfires, farmyards and other things important to the 19th century home. Putz items from the 19th and early 20th century will usually be marked "Germany" somewhere on the bottom or side and one good example is this putz bridge that I recently found on a buying trip. A sheep or other putz animal would have been displayed on the bridge and a rocky stream would be under the bridge made up of rocks and sand found in the nearby woods. Other putz items that I found are a campfire and a composition horse. One of the most popular putz animal today is the putz sheep that can be found on antique websites, on ebay and in antique stores. These animals were an integral part of the putz display as they are in all nativity scenes.
Well, that's all for now as we are heading out the door on our way to Virginia!

Work! Work! Work!

2010-08-16T13:24:00.005-04:00

Whew! What a L-O-N-G couple of weeks! Harvesting plants, weighing them, measuring them, getting the fresh and dry weights of the roots and rhizomes and then copying and measuring each individual leaf from 100 sample plants! The work is still going on but I am taking a break to talk about my favorite subject (besides plants!). A few weeks ago I told you about the 'new' little crock bench that we found in Virginia. Well, I have been working hard to fill it up (Ha! Ha!). At first I thought that I would want old canning crocks in it but then I got an email from Susie at Country Presence to announce one of her updates and I bought a little giraffe that looks very old. What a great idea! I decided to fill the crock bench with old and not-so-old toys! The little giraffe looks so much better than I thought it would and it sits proudly on top of the crock bench that will hold my newest collection. I have added some bobble toys, a few putz animals (which at one time were sometimes used as quiet, or Sunday, toys for children), a 19th century German pip-squeak rooster in the hen house and a 19th century German horse pull toy. I plan to continue to add German antique toys to my collection and place them in the crock bench along with some 'new' toys that I may find. Since I live close to Pennsylvania, a great source for old German toys, I will concentrate on this type of antique toy. My hubby collects Chein toys from the early part of the 20th century and has started a great collection, buying most of his toys from ebay.
Wherever you live, you can start your own collections and put your antique and vintage cupboards and benches to use. If you have started your own collection after buying that strange little (or big) thing that you just had to have but didn't know why - send me a picture and I can put your story in my blog. What a great way to give others wonderful ideas about decorating in a country primitive style! Just email me at winterberryfarmprimitives@live.com with your story and I will use it in an upcoming post!
Until next time - try to stay cool and remember - Fall is on its way!

Actaea racemosa - A Native Medicinal Plant!

2010-08-04T12:31:00.007-04:00

Hi everyone! It's been a good week for research! My advisor and I went over the BIG hydroponics experiment on Tuesday and have decided that it has been a success and my hypothesis has been proven! The native wildflower, Black Cohosh (Actaea racemosa) does grow faster and better in a hydroponic system; but, this is just the beginning. It's funny how experiments seems to multiply during an ongoing research project! I am setting up a new set of experiments - not yet in the dissertation - on Tuesday, where I will be seeing how quickly we can get rhizomes that are the size and weight of 10 year old plants. Even though I am not finished analyzing the present data, it looks like I have been able to develop 4-5 year old rhizomes (in size and weight) in just 2 months! Wow! It is amazing and very satisfying to possibly be on the edge of a break-through in the cultivation of this important native medicinal plant. With this information in hand, commercial growers should be able to grow these important plants in a greenhouse setting without decimating wild populations. They should also be able to grow them year-round, not just in the spring and summer. As the research continues, I will be doing generational studies to confirm the ability of commercial growers to grow these plants continually in hydroponics without the need to harvest from wild populations.
Actaea racemosa is a wonderful native medicinal that has long been thought to reduce the symptoms of menopause by reducing the severity and number of hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings. Several studies in the past few years have tended to refute this attribute of black cohosh when using just the ground up rhizome, usually in pill form. Recently, however, new studies are showing that an extractable compound referred to as BNO 1055 actually does reduce the symptoms of menopause because of molecules in the compound that act like human estrogen without the bad effects of human hormone replacement therapy. BNO 1055 is also being studied as a cure for breast and prostate cancer due to initial studies that have shown good results in killing cancer cells in the laboratory. If you google: BNO 1055, you will find several good articles on this subject.
Black cohosh is not only an important medicinal plant, it is also a great addition to your native garden. It is definitely a back of the border plant and does best in a partial shade environment. Other names for this great plant are Fairy Candles, Bugbane and Black Snakeroot. Black cohosh is native to the United States east of the Mississippi with a few exceptions (MN, VT, NH, LA, FL and ME), and to the eastern portion of Canada. It is now endangered in Massachusetts and Illinois due to loss of habitat and harvesting of the plant for its rhizome. Black cohosh can reach up to 5 foot tall when in flower and has wonderful long racemes of white, 'fuzzy' flowers. It does best in a shady woodland setting and likes a moist, well-drained environment. It can grow under your backyard trees or in a shady flower border. It is an outstanding plant and is very stately in its appearance. It has been called a large 'astilbe-like' plant, but I think that takes away from its beauty and charm by comparing it to the common astilbe (an exotic plant from China and Japan). As for culture, again, if planted in the correct area of your garden, you can forget the use of fertilizers and pesticides as this plant is pest-free and should not need any additional watering or fertilizer once established. Grow this beauty among your native lilies, Jacob's Ladder and other native shade-loving plants.There are no true cultivars or varieties of this native beauty but the species is easily found in the trade. This is a must-have for anyone who wants a spectacular tall, graceful plant for your native garden!

Boastful Baptisia australis!

2010-07-29T14:30:00.010-04:00

Hi everyone! We are having some great rainstorms in Delaware today! Yeah! It only rains for about 15-20 minutes at a time but it is definitely soaking the ground and the plants are very happy! I had a great comment on the blog the other day about False Blue Indigo, Baptisia australis, whose native range is from New Hampshire in the North, across Canada to Nebraska in the west and down to Texas and east to Georgia. This wonderful plant from the pea family is a great middle or back of the border plant for a full sun area. I call this plant boastful because of the way it holds it bright blue flowers over its clear green foliage. It seems to be saying - Hey! look at me! - and no wonder! Baptisia australis starts out as a small herbaceous plant when it is first added to your garden but within a few short years, it becomes a stupendous bright green 'shrub' in the border. It flowers in June to early July and then sets seed in big racemes of seed pods that sound like baby rattles when the wind blows. After flowering, you are left with a wonderful big round bright green bush that compliments the late summer flowering plants in the border. Baptisia will seed into your gardens with apparent ease and if you collect the seeds once the pods turn brown/black then you can grow your own baptisia plants. Sow them in a Redi-Earth mix or other seed mix, pop on a humidity dome to keep your humidity as close to 100% as possible, place them in a shaded area of the porch or side of your house and in about 2-3 weeks you will have some little baptisia plants to share with friends or use in your own gardens. Like other native plants, baptisia does not need any additives mixed in with the soil or fertilizer added to the planting hole. Just dig your hole, plop it in, firm up the soil around the plant and water well. Continue to water your plants with about 1" of water a week for the first year and then leave them alone. They will have had an entire year, including winter, to establish themselves and they should be OK on their own in the garden. This is one place where the use of leaf mold or chipped up leaves would make a great mulch. It will hold water, provide great carbon as they break down and will also hold down fungal growth. Baptisia australis grows to form a 3-4 foot high by 3-4 foot wide bush and is pest-free. In wet summers, you may see some mildew on the very bottom leaves but it is minimal and is usually not a problem. Baptisia also does not like to be transplanted or divided, so if your plant begins to get too large just cut it back to the ground in the fall and use a sharp spade to reduce the size of the plant by removing some of the outside growth. After removing the outside stems, remember to cover the hole with soil and water the remaining plant with 1" per week for the rest of the season. The plant should come back next year. I have found that if I give my baptisias enough room in the beginning, I don't have any problem with them outgrowing their space. They do not roam or spread too quickly and can handle a hard cut-back in the fall. There are several species of baptisia and several varieties and hybrids of those species. Some of the best varieties and hybrids of Baptisia australis are:
B.x'Purple Smoke' - a cross between australis and alba
B.x'Screaming Yellow' - a variety of sphaerocarpa
B.x'Solar Flare' - the flowers start out yellow and turn to orange!
B.x'Starlight Prairieblues' - light blue with a white base - just wonderful!
B.x'Twilite Prairieblues': A hybrid of B. australis and B. sphaerocarpa
B.x'Carolina' - a wonderful light yellow flower color

From this list of varieties and hybrids, you can see that there are several other great species of baptisia out there in the trade. These include:
B. alba - a wonderful white flowered species
B. leucantha - a great white flowered, black stemmed species
B. sphaerocarpa - a yellow baptisia native to AR, LA, MO, MS, OK, TX
Any baptisia species or variety that you find to bring home to your garden will make a fantastic show in your yard or even in your home, as baptisias are great cut flowers! A couple of great mail order nurseries are http://www.soonerplantfarm.com and http://www.northcreeknurseries.com) North Creek Nurseries is located in PA just about 15 minutes from my home and it is a great nursery - they are wholesale and sell by the flat - but it may still be worth your while to take a look at their online catalog and email them!
Until next time! Happy gardening and decorating!

Finding Treasures!

2010-07-28T08:43:00.006-04:00

Hi everyone! I got a wonderful email yesterday from Sue in North Carolina. Hi, Sue! She moved to North Carolina from New England two years ago and has found that there is not a lot of colonial or primitive style stores around her new home. I have heard the same thing from other new cyber-friends and I just have to say Wow! - living here in Delaware and surrounded by so much colonial history (Philadelphia is only 30 minutes away) - I guess I just never realized that decorating in the colonial or country style was something that would be difficult to do! She uses Country Sampler as her inspiration and when she saw my house in the August/September 2010 issue, she sent me a picture of her newest find - a set of wonderful chairs in a pattern similar to my chairs in my greatroom. She found these wonderful chairs at the Raleigh Flea Market for $200.00!! I have got to go there! Wow! Sue is a woman with a great eye for bargains! Here is an excerpt from her email: "I was having a hard time decorating my colored walls and white woodwork home. I had painted each room a different color and was so "afraid" to paint my woodwork and doors a country color...which I had done in New England...was afraid I wouldn't be able to sell the house if I decided not to stay here.
But last Fall, I read an article in CS of a woman who built a new home to look old and she said she believed in painting the entire home one color and all the doors and woodwork one color. SO....I took her advice...and now I love love love my country home. Instead of painting a dark country color on the woodwork, I painted them the same color "parched grass"...kind of an 'antiquey' looking color. I used the flat on the walls and the semi-gloss on the woodwork..again, afraid of going too Colonial in case I wanted to sell. I did end up painting all the doors in the house Barn Red. I'm so thankful to CS's featured home owners for all the inspiration I get from them."
You go girl! I agree with Sue and have painted my entire downstairs and upper hallway one color on the walls and one color on the mouldings. The color I used on the walls was Colonial Cream from Lowes (it's an older color and no longer available) with an historic Williamsburg color for the mouldings - Nicholson Store Red. The dark red-brown color of the mouldings, brings out the 'buttery' color of the walls and the entire house looks 'old' when we turn off the electric lights and just use candlelight. We tend to do this in the late fall and winter - it makes the house feel so warm and inviting. In another excerpt from her email, Sue talks about her chairs and their possible fate until she picked her her August/September issue of CS! "I do see my chairs are slightly different than yours...but almost the same. I was going to sell them until I saw yours...but not anymore!" Thank goodness you are not selling them, Sue! The one chair that I can see in the picture looks fantastic in your home. I also notice that you have a lot of red in the room - I love the look you have created! Another thing that people email about is the high cost of antiques and that a lot of times they can't afford them. I agree! Twenty-five years ago when we were buying our antique furniture, it was much easier to find good deals and even though we were all making less money back then - there were a lot more out there. One solution might be to buy antique 'smalls'; a lot of these items are still reasonable. One good way to buy your antiques is the internet and online shops! You now have a much larger selection out there and can find more things to add to your collections without having to travel. Let me give you an idea of what I mean.... Here is a wonderful one drawer apothecary that we have for sale on the website. I don't just put things away that are for sale - I use them (and sometimes keep them!). The apothecary is affordable and has great color - I love red paint- so it can help to make your home look 'old' by just adding it to your room. I have it in the kitchen holding my kitchen junk including everything from take-out menus to my safety glasses for work! You don't have to have an entire home filled with antiques to get the look you want - you just need to add a few things here and there to add to the warmth that is already there. Caring about your home and family is the first step towards making your home warm and inviting. Although...there is something about the color of a 19th century piece in original paint that can just make you smile, BUT it doesn't have to be a big piece of furniture or a house-full of antiques! Start small - check out internet stores - wander around your hometown flea markets (Sue did!) and you might be surprised at what you find!
Until next time - Stay cool and come on back tomorrow for a posting on Baptisia australis - a wonderful indigo blue flowered native for your garden!

Our 'new' little addition!

2010-07-27T12:03:00.008-04:00

Hi everyone!
Here is our newest little addition to our collection! I must admit, I am an internet junkie! I love to look at Ebay and other selling sites to see what I can find. I was looking through some of my favorite sites a few weeks ago and saw this little guy just sitting there. It was listed as an antique bookcase and it just had that look that made me say Hmmm.... I bookmarked the page and thought about it for a while - all the time thinking that this little piece of furniture did not look like a bookcase at all. So, of course, I spent a few days researching it and looking at other sites until I realized that I should probably buy it AND I did! We had to go out of state to pick it up and thought that this would be a good little vacation/buying trip for the shop, and off we went. When we got to the antique shop where the little guy was waiting for us, I took one look and told my hubby to pack it up. The owner said that we didn't have to take it if we didn't want it but I said no - it was perfect for our 'books'. We packed it up and headed off to the hotel where we were spending the night. I couldn't wait to get it out of the car, so at the hotel we took it out of the car and gave it a good look. Wow! All original (even with the stain on one of the shelves) with bootjack feet, original red paint and square nails! Even what looks like a couple of rosehead nails! I can't tell you how much I paid but when we went to a friend's antique shop to visit - he wanted to buy it and said he could put up to 4 times the price on it that we paid for it.
What is it really? I would say (and so did my friend) that it is a canning crock bench - too narrow for buckets but just the right size for stoneware canning crocks! I have been told that you don't see very many of these because they are usually found in root cellars or basements where canned goods were stored. They usually fall apart due to age or rotting or other problems associated with standing in a basement or root cellar. So, here it is in our home, not in the basement or root cellar but in our foyer with the first of many old canning crocks sitting on it! I love it! Remember, you don't always have to pay a lot for your antiques, you just need to keep looking to find those hidden treasures!

Primitive Country Decorating.

2010-07-26T09:07:00.012-04:00

Hi everyone!
I have had so many wonderful emails and texts and phone calls about the Country Sampler article that I wanted to say Thank you so much! for all of the wonderful comments about my home! A couple of questions that kept popping up were 'How do you know what to put together?" and "Why don't you open your own decorating business?"
With everything else that I am involved in right now, I think that trying to start a new venture right now would definitely make me crazy! Instead, I think I will, for now, just blog about it! SO...I will be intermingling my postings on native gardening with some of my ideas on primitive country decorating! Here is my newest piece that we bought from a friend at a recent show! I hadn't planned on buying an open cupboard in salmon paint but it just 'hit' me!
First, I would like to say that a lot of what I do is directed by what I want to buy instead of what I should buy to go into a particular area or room of the house. To me, it's just like landscaping your yard. Did you know that most landscapers are taught to place plants in a landscape dependent on what shape and size needs to go in a particular place? So, they will plant what is needed to make an area of your yard look 'right', not what will do well in that area or light exposure. I think the same thing goes for decorating your home. When I go antiquing or to a show, I am looking for something that just 'hits' me - it says something to me - it is that special something that I know I just have to bring home with me. I have been looking for a farm table for a long time now and that is always at the top of my list when we are out and about, but I have yet to find one that 'hits' me. I can remember a few years back when we went to the Renningers Mid-Winter Classic Antique Show in King of Prussia, PA. We were looking for smalls and a farm table. Well, this is what I came home with instead!A wonderful all original corner cupboard that just knocked my socks off! I saw it and knew I had to have it, but I wouldn't commit immediately. I was looking for a table not a corner cupboard! I did go up to the dealer and ask to have it measured because I was sure it would be too tall for our ceilings, so we wouldn't be able to buy it and I could concentrate on my table. We measured it and left! Yes, I left the booth and continued to walk around the show. I called my son, who was at home, and asked him to measure the ceiling in the livingroom. Of course, he thought I was crazy, but he called back with the measurements and I still didn't go back! We continued to walk around as I figured out how to pay for it (that is a lot of cash to come up with!) and then, after walking the entire show - we went back to the booth and bought it! We then had to figure out how to get it home as we had not brought our truck since I wasn't intending to buy an 8 foot tall corner cabinet. In the end, we put half down and arranged to pick it up from the dealer's son within a couple of weeks. We got it home and it fits as if it was built just for that corner! So, no table but a fantastic corner cupboard. It's so funny! We had never been to the Mid-Winter Classic before and as we were waiting in line to pay to get in, a very nice stranger - still don't know who he was - came over and offered us two passes! He had paid for his friends who, at the last moment, couldn't come and he offered them to us. I think it was fate! Of course, the reproduction that was residing in that corner needed a new home and I had a friend who had always admired it - I called her and the rest, as they say, is history!
Another thing that I do is to rearrange as I bring in 'new' things. These two pictures are of the same corner in my greatroom. The first picture is of the room the way is was when Country Sampler was here. The second picture, from a slightly different angle, is the same room just with 'new' furniture! I have sold some of what was there before or have moved some things to different parts of the house. The chest over drawers is now in the livingroom!
I always try to buy furniture first. What I mean by that is that if I have the money, I will buy one piece of furniture instead of several small pieces. I have found over the years that the value of good furniture, like the corner cupboard, will never go down. I try to buy good pieces from people that I know and trust. I buy pieces that have the least amount of additions or changes to them. I read and ask questions all the time and I continue to learn about what I am buying. So, hopefully, I can continue to blog about native plants AND about primitive decorating where your treasures, the things that 'hit' you, help you decide on how to design and decorate your home!
Next time, our newest little addition - a 19th century canning bench!

Those Pesky Little Japanese Beetles!

2010-07-22T17:10:00.005-04:00

Hi everyone!
In my last post I talked about the fact that I don't have a lot - or actually any (!) - Japanese Beetles in my gardens. No need to put up those silly yellow traps with stinky dead bodies in them, no white grubs (baby Japanese Beetles) eating my non-existent lawn, no need to put white powder insecticides all over my plants, no need for any pesticides at all.... Do I need to go on??? Does this picture look familiar????
Why no Japanese Beetles in my gardens?
There are a few reasons why, but the first and foremost is the fact that I don't grow exotics in my gardens!
Second, I don't and wouldn't use those silly yellow traps (that is not me in the photo!), and third, no lawn - no grubs!
Japanese Beetles (henceforth, known as JB) are native to, surprise! surprise! Japan. In their native environment, JB are controlled by their natural predators and are not a serious or problematic plant pest. They exist in their native food web and do not devastate entire communities or agricultural fields like they do here in the U.S. Why are they here and how did they get here? JB were first found in a nursery in New Jersey around 1916, probably on a shipment of ROSES from Japan! Since that time they have spread to almost every state east of the Mississippi, and Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma and Arkansas. I am sure they are found in many more states west of the Mississippi but the highest concentrations are still in the eastern states. Did you know that the JB is the number one turf pest in the U.S.? Over $460 million a year is spent trying to control this awful pest, just in grass! Over $234 million is attributed to control of the grub and replacement of ruined turf grass! The amount and types of pesticides used to control this pest are wide-ranging and downright scary! Pesticides like Imidacloprid, Trichlorfon, and Bendiocarb for the grubs, and Cythion® 57% EC (a.i. malathion), Sevin 5® (a.i. 5% carbaryl), and Ortho Isotox® (a.i. 8% acephate) for the adult beetles are used both by the homeowner and professionals. Look some of these names up with Google! It is scary!
A recent publication from the University of Arkansas Extension Service (http://www.uaex.edu/Other_Areas/publications/pdf/FSA-7062.pdf) lists preferred hosts versus non-preferred hosts. Here is just a small sampling of that list. Pay particular attention to the non-preferred host list.

Preferred Hosts:
Flowering Crabapple
Hollyhock
Japanese Maple
Norway Maple
Rose of Sharon
Roses
Crape Myrtle

Non-Preferred Hosts:
White Ash
Green Ash
Holly
Red Maple
Silver Maple
American Sweetgum
Magnolia

All plants listed under 'non-preferred' are NATIVE to the U.S.! Yes, there are some preferred hosts that are native like the Black Walnut and the American Linden trees, but the great majority of preferred hosts are exotics.
So, plant natives whenever possible to reduce the food supply to the JB.
A good way to reduce JB in your yard and on your plants is to NOT use those silly little traps! Have your neighbors use them. Even buy some traps for them! If you have a nosy neighbor or one who is the neighbor everyone else on the block can't stand (we all have one of those!), buy them lots of silly little traps and make them think you are helping to rid them of their pesky JB problem! Why do this? Why spend good money to 'help' a pesky neighbor, you ask??? Because these little traps contain JB pheromones and a floral attractant to bring the insects into your yard to the trap. Why is that a bad thing, you ask? Because you are BRINGING them into your yard! If there are too many stinky bodies or the insects get distracted heading to the trap, they will stop off for a yummy treat. These little traps can actually increase your JB population. Wow!
Also, I don't have any lawn for the baby JB to feed on! If you reduce your grub population, they will not be able to mature and become those pesky little JBs that eat your flowers and stick in your hair and drive you crazy! Reducing the amount of grassy lawn that you have will not only reduce your carbon footprint, it will reduce the amount of JBs that will attack your exotic plants. If you want to keep those huge stretches of green, green, too green lawns and still reduce the amount of JBs in your hair, plant native plants in your gardens. They will soon leave your gardens, while still using your lawn as incubators, to find better food elsewhere! It will save you from using all kinds of pesticides, like those listed above.
Another thing that you will begin to notice, once you put away the pesticides and reduce your lawn, is that you will begin to notice the birds in your yards picking JBs off your plants! I don't feed 'my' birds with birdseed or suet, they have been given a pesticide-free, insect and berry-rich environment in my yard and they reward me by doing my IPM (integrated pest management) work for me! I don't have to manually pick JBs from my plants (Yick!), the birds do! It's amazing how birds and small animals, including snakes, will come to a pesticide-free, minimal exotic plant yard and do their thing!
Try it - you really might like it!!!
Until next time - try to stay cool!!!!

It's Here! The September issue of Country Sampler!

2010-07-20T18:24:00.012-04:00

Well, it's here! The August/September issue of Country Sampler with our home in it! It's interesting what pictures they use and don't use! I think they were very intrigued with our fireplace. I can remember Franklin asking me to 'light the fire' so he could get a picture of when it first starts to flame up and I tried to explain to him that it will go up the back of the chimney when it first lights due to the draw of the double flue and that it would be better to wait and get a picture after it calms down a bit. Well...we had to wait for it to calm down as it was so overpowering that all you could see was the flame! It was so funny! We had such a good time with Franklin and Esther that seeing the article brought back some really good memories. I can't wait for fall this year when the weather breaks out of the 90 degree slump and we can light the fire again!
I don't know if you have walked around your yard or gardens this summer, but everything seems to be suffering in this heat; my neighbors' yards are all brown and crunchy even though we have gotten over 2.5 inches of rain in the last 10 days. Usually, with the heat and drought of summer, most of the grass in your yard will go dormant and wait for the cool days of fall to turn green again. So, you are left with a brown and crunchy yard to mow! Not too much fun! It is also bad for your inside environment, too. With brown, crunchy grass and no cooling green leaves or nice, spongy leaf mold under the trees, your air conditioner will have to work harder to cool down your home. On the other hand, we here at the 'Farm' have our AC set on 78 and it is always cool and comfy inside. With our trees and shrubs giving good shade to the exterior of the house and great, spongy leaf mold underfoot, the house stays cool and the ground retains much more moisture than the soil under grass. Another good reason to go native! I don't run around and water the plants, there is no grass to water, no need for sprinkler systems, no Japanese beetle infestations! Native plants have 'grown up' in this environment, they have been here for thousands of years and are able to deal with what Mother Nature throws at them. If there is a drought, they will sometimes just stop growing or shed some old leaves or, if they are herbaceous plants, sometimes they will just die back and conserve their energy for a better time. It's funny that summers like this tend to lead to a springtime next year with lots and lots of little seedlings that poke their heads up through the leaf mold. This can, in turn, increase your garden beds without any help from you! So! Reduce, reuse, recycle can also mean: no water, dropping leaves, leaf mulch. It's just a thought....

But enough of that, here it is!!!! What you have all been waiting for!!!! Tah! Dah! The Fantastic Amsonia tabernaemontana - try saying that 5 times fast!
Amsonia tabernaemontana is also known as the Eastern Bluestar and is actually two plants in one. When it flowers in the spring, it looks like the picture above with tall, spiky stalks topped by bright blue flowers. As the flowers fade and the foliage begins to make an appearance, the plant changes to a bright green shrub that looks good as a middle of the border plant or, if massed, as a small shrub border. In the fall, amsonia has a second season, not with flowers, but with unbelievable fall color! The leaves of Amsonia tabernaemontana, and its cousins A. hubrechtii, A. peeblesii, A. jonesii, and A. ciliata all turn a fantastic yellow color that just might leave you breathless. This is a picture of Amsonia hubrechtii in the fall. Need I say more???

Amsonia tabernaemontana, A. hubrechtii, and A. ciliata are all native to the US and all have the amsonia bright blue flowers, BUT A. hubrechtii and A. ciliata have very thin leaves with A. ciliata leaves being almost needle-like in appearance. Two of the species talked about above have good cultivars including A. tabernaemontana 'Short Stack' and 'Blue Ice'; and A. ciliata 'Spring Sky'.
All of the different species are resistant to disease and are pest-free. Plant them in full sun in an area where you can see the bright blue flowers in the spring and the gorgeous yellow foliage color in the fall. They do not need any soil amendments or special conditions; just plop, water for the first year, and forget it!
A. montana is native to the east coast of the US, with A. hubrechtii native to the Ouachita mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma and A. ciliata native to Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. This time we have a genus that spans the entire US with A. peeblesii native to Arizona and A. jonesii native to Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The western species are definitely drought-resistant and should be available in specialty nurseries in the west - species only, no cultivars.
So, what's stopping you? Oh yeah, it's darn hot out there! Start making your list now for this fall's planting time and don't forget to add a little Bluestar to your garden!

Hello! I am still here!!!!

2010-07-13T15:48:00.004-04:00

Hello everyone!!!
We went antiquing the other day - to find things for the shop (and us, of course) and found this great apothecary originally from New England! It is wonderful and definitely mid-19th century!
As always, you can find updates about our home at http://www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm - so come on over and say Hi!
I bet y'all thought I had gone and gotten myself lost somewhere! Well, I did! I was lost in .com land!! I have been working for the last couple of weeks to set up my new website at: http://www.winterberryfarmprimitives.com and it has been a long and tiring job to get everything set up, but I think it was worth it! I have put a link on the right side of the blog so you can just click on it to get to the new site! I have also been VERY busy with my research AND my advisor has added another year of research and writing to my work so I will not graduate until December 2011!!!!!! Just in time to retire! LOL!
While all this has been going on, my hubby was laid off starting June 1st! The refinery where he worked was slated to be shut down but it has been bought by a new company that has already started to refurbish and get it ready to reopen some time early next spring. Hubby is supposed to start back by October or November (it may be even sooner) so in the meantime, we are getting things done around the house and taking a few short trips. The refinery where he works is the only one on the east coast of the US that can process sour crude (crude oil from the Middle East) and I was sure it would never actually be shut down, but it was scary until it was announced in April that it had been sold! Yeah!! A lot of thanks goes to our great governor here in Delaware and his staff who worked tirelessly to get the deal done. They also were able to get a deal with Fisker Automotive to start producing electric cars in the old GM plant here in Delaware. All in all over 3000 people will be brought back to work thanks to their quick thinking and determination to get the state 'back to work'. Thank you, Governor Markell!!!!
So, it has been very busy here at the "Farm" and as things settle down, I will be back to blog more often. Still have to talk about the great native plant: Amsonia tabernaemontana and other great natives!

Dicentra eximia, The Little Darling of the Spring Garden

2010-06-18T07:58:00.006-04:00

Hi everyone!
I am sure at least some of you remember, or have in your garden right now, the bleeding heart in this picture. It is a native of Asia and was once known as Dicentra spectabilis. It is now known as Lamprocapnos spectabilis and is not a direct relation of our wonderful native Dicentra eximia (Fringed Bleeding Heart). Taxonomists just love to drive us all crazy and change the names of plants! I can't tell you how many times plant names have been changed only to be changed back to the original genus names based on DNA evidence. Anyway! I have always loved the look of the old fashioned bleeding heart that was probably in your grandmother's flower garden; but, in my opinion, that plant is 'ordinary' once you have grown our native bleeding heart. This little gem has wonderful gray-green leaves and beautiful little pink flowers that are so dainty that they belie the resolve of this little plant. Native bleeding hearts are edge of the woods plants and as such can grow in partial sun to almost full shade. They are drought resistant and will grow without the need for pesticides and fertilizer. All they ask from you is to plant them in soil with good humus (like under trees or in areas where you used to grow grass) and water them in well for the first year. If you noticed in the last sentence, I was hinting at the idea of removing more of your grass that may be in a shady area as your trees mature and making more flower beds that will not need to be mowed and will be MUCH prettier than grass! Reducing the amount of grass in your yard not only reduces the need to mow but also reduces your carbon footprint by reducing the emissions from your mower and reducing the amount of runoff from the pesticides and fertilizers used to keep that grass growing. You will also save a lot of money - something we all need to do these days!
Dicentra eximia is hardy from zones 3a to 9b and will flower throughout the spring, summer and fall. It loves acidic soil and is native to most states east of the Mississippi except New England. Sadly, it is endangered in PA and NJ, and threatened in MD, due to loss of habitat so those of us in suburbia need to grow this little beauty so the birds and bees that love it can find food to eat. It is deer resistant and can be used in mass plantings like a groundcover. It grows well along the edges of streams and ponds but does not like to have wet 'feet' in the winter. This is one reason that the fringed bleeding heart may not come back after the first year and I am sure many people have had this problem. When they read, or are told when they buy this plant, that the plant does well by streams or ponds - like in my last sentence - what that really means is that they like the humidity and open environment around bodies of water. If you walk along the edge of a pond or stream, it is not wet and spongy - it is moist and has an environment with higher humidity than other areas in a woodland. So, plant this little guy in areas of your yard that have moist, rich soil and have a northern exposure or are protected from the direct sun; but no areas that do not drain well or have standing water, please!
The flowers of the fringed bleeding heart are much smaller and longer than the old fashioned bleeding heart but the inflorescence that they grow on are longer so the flowers look bigger. There are at least two cultivars of the native fringed bleeding heart; Dicentra eximia 'Alba' and Dicentra eximia 'Snowdrift'. They are both white-flowered cultivars, with the flowers of 'Snowdrift' being larger than 'Alba'. This is one great little plant for your spring, summer, and fall garden - so, go out a buy a few for your garden!
Next time: Amsonia tabernaemontana, Eastern Bluestar!

Busy, Busy, Busy and Some Great News!

2010-06-17T08:10:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone!
Well, it's been a long and busy couple of weeks in the greenhouse! The rhizomes are in position and adjustments to the troughs are almost finished. With this being a new form of growth media for the black cohosh, I have been tweeking the set up for the last couple of weeks to minimize the possibility of too much or too little water flow in the individual troughs. Anything I learn in this process will add to the knowledge of how to develop this experiment into a workable commercial venture. We have also been in the midst of replacing our heating/heat pump system at home and finally have a new, efficient heat pump and heater! Our last system lasted 23 years without repair! Our HVAC guy thinks that part of the reason that it lasted so long was that with our 'forest-like' gardens around the house, instead of the 'normal' BIG swaths of grass, we are better protected from the effects of the sun during the summer. We also are better protected when it rains as the trees and other plants around the house utilize the runoff and we don't have water in our basement like our neighbors! I love it when I walk into the house after a long hot day in the greenhouse and it is cool and comfortable without the use of air conditioning!
OK! Enough 'preaching'! Another bit of good news! Our home will be in the September issue of Country Sampler and you will be able to see how I look at the end of a long day! LOL! Franklin and Esther (the photographers) wanted to put all of our grandchildren in the picture - they were in and out of the house all day! - but the only one still around at the end of the shoot was our oldest grandchild, Deshaun. He will be a sophomore in high school this September and goes to a math and business charter school here in Delaware. He is a math whiz and, since going to this school, loves economics and civics! He is taking Chinese as his language and enjoys the class. He goes to an excellent school and we are so proud of him. Also, I have spoken with Judy Condon and we are trying to work out a time for her to come up and take pictures of our home! There are lots of changes since Country Sampler was here so we are looking forward to seeing Judy in the near future. She is also starting a series of books on country gardens and my gardens will be in her premier issue! Stay tuned for a publish date!
Later today - Dicentra eximia, the little darling of the spring garden!

Great native flowers for your garden!

2010-06-01T08:25:00.008-04:00

Hi everyone!
Still involved with the BIG experiment but with all of the rhizomes in position now, I can begin to concentrate on other things! We will be heading to Virginia and then on to New England to do some antiquing for ourselves and also for my online shop, Winterberry Farm Primitives. I am in the process of moving from my picturetrail account to a .com for Winterberry Farm Primitives and will be announcing a great contest for the opening of the 'new' shop! I will be posting the announcement here on my blog and also at my current shop address, http://www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm, by June 15th! I will carry the same great antiques that I have always offered but will have a larger inventory that will stay current and even though I will continue to have my monthly updates, I will also be posting items for sale throughout the month.
In other news, the cedar waxwings are back to feast on my Amelanchier berries but are a bit outnumbered this year by the HUGE population of robins that have set up their homes in my backyard. I have counted no less than 12 nests in the trees and shrubs surrounding my yard and watching them teach their babies how to balance on the branches as they eat is fun and also very restful. They have managed to scare off the mockingbirds, catbirds and blue jays who now come after the robins have eaten their fill but they do not seem to bother the cedar waxwings who still come in the early morning and late evening to feed.
We have had a lot of rain here this spring and the plants are growing exponentially this year! One thing that people have begun to ask about are what native herbaceous perennials can they grow in their gardens and today I would like to talk about two of them that are most spectacular in the early spring months of March and April. There are two plants that I love to plant together as they compliment each other so well. They are Polemonium reptans (Jacobs Ladder) ABOVE and Stylophorum diphylum (Celandine Poppy) BELOW.

Celandine Poppy is the only species in the Stylophorum genus that is native to the United States and is found in most states east of the Mississippi except for the New England states. It needs a rich, moist soil and grows best in partial shade. This wonderful plant will multiply naturally through your garden if you allow the seed heads to ripen and throw their seeds around your flower beds. You can see the contrast in the bright yellow flower and the dark green cut leaves in this great plant in the picture above taken in my garden this spring. The bright clear yellow of this great plant is an unbelievable compliment to Polemonium reptans (Jacobs Ladder), a plant that has one of the best clear bright blue flowers that I have ever seen. Combined with clear green leaves that stay in good shape after the flowers are long gone, this is a perfect plant for those shady areas that are often difficult to landscape. As with the Celandine Poppy, these plants will seed themselves in if allowed to set seed so you don't want to deadhead these two wonderful natives. There is an Asian Jacobs Ladder in the trade (Polemonium caeruleum) that you do not want in your native garden! It is very prolific and will seed in everywhere! So, be sure of what you are buying for your garden! Ask questions and if the nursery can't answer you as to which species you are buying - run! They should know what they are selling and be knowledgeable enough to tell what species they have in their nursery! You can buy these two great plants online or from a local nursery that carries native plants. They can also both be grown from seed, but I would only recommend this if you are already good at germinating seeds. There are a couple of online nurseries I would recommend for native herbaceous plants: Easyliving Wildflowers (http://www.easywildflowers.com) and Gardens of the Blue Ridge (http://www.gardensoftheblueridge.com/). I often buy from Gardens of the Blue Ridge and have never had a problem with any of the plants that they send to me. I would recommend them for even the difficult plants like Erythronium americanum (Yellow Trout Lily). So, plant these two great native wildflowers in your garden at home and watch them grow and multiply!
Next blog: Dicentra eximia - our native bleeding heart!

The Experiment Moves Forward!!!!!

2010-05-20T08:32:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone!
Well, the last of the 1280 rhizomes necessary for my last big experiment to continue arrived yesterday and I am in the process of getting them ready to go into the troughs! The first set of 640 is already in place and already they are performing above expectations! This should mean a great result that will again blow away my initial hypothesis of the ability of this wonderful medicinal plant to survive and thrive in a hydroponic system! The last batch rhizomes should be in position by Monday and I can get 'back to normal' and start blogging again on a regular basis!
All of my rhizomes came from a wonderful person in West Virginia and were dug from his private land. He has collected over 90% of the rhizomes from an area on his property where a new logging road is being dug so he has rescued the rhizomes from destruction. The picture at the top of this post is of one set of 100 rhizomes as they came 'packaged' to me. He did a fantastic job finding the size and age of rhizomes that I needed for this experiment. Thank you, Russ!
As I get this experiment to the point where I am only collecting data, I can continue to blog about the wonderful native plants that we have growing around us here in the United States that not only look and smell good but also provide food and shelter to our native fauna. For the next set of blogs, I want to leave the woody 'domain' and concentrate on the herbaceous plants that are native to the US and are also beautiful and easy to grow!
Starting next week: Polemonium reptans (Jacob's Ladder) and Stylophorum diphyllum (Celandine Poppy)!

Trilliums!

2010-05-11T08:33:00.009-04:00

Work! Work! Work! That's all I am doing these days! I am posting some more pictures of my trillium has they looked last week. They are now starting to go to seed and there should be more little seedlings for next year! The big trillium above is Trillium erectum and it is a beauty! It is in a bed that is moist throughout the year and gets partial sun for most of the morning. The other pictures show one of my Trillium grandiflorum plants with their white flowers and some Trillium sessile babies that are not yet old enough to flower (they must be at least 7-8 years old to flower). The yellow flowered trillium are Trillium luteum.

I am also posting a few pictures of the work I have been doing getting my last BIG experiment started! What I am posting today are some pictures of the rhizomes that I will be using in this experiment. I have 1280 rhizomes that are ready, willing and able to go into the hydroponic troughs to prove my hypothesis that Actaea racemosa rhizomes, whether they are cut up or whole, can survive and grow in a commercial hydroponics system. I am using rhizomes between the ages of 3-7 years old and will hopefully at the end of this 2-3 month experiment have rhizomes that are the size and maturity of 12-18 year old rhizomes! Unfortunately, I cannot post pictures of the actual experiment until I am ready to publish my results but I will keep you posted on what is happening! As I get the rhizomes into the experiment and get things started, I will be back to posting more regularly and will continue the postings on native plants for your garden! Thanks to all of you loyal readers out there for sticking with me through this busy time and wish me luck as I continue this important work with this amazing native medicinal plant!

The great old jug!

2010-05-03T12:31:00.004-04:00

Here is the great old A.P. Donaghho jug that I picked up yesterday! I was born in Parkersburg, WV and have been collecting A.P. Donaghho jugs for a while but this is the first one of this size and color that I have seen. I have some of the several A.P. Donaghho crocks and jugs that were found in my maternal grandfather's dairy barn (in Cairo, WV) after his death in the early 1970's; but none like this great old jug.
On another note, my native fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) is beginning to flower today and I will be posting pictures of it by late this afternoon. I will also be posting pictures of my spring/summer garden on my webpage at: http://www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm

Research, Research, Research and a great old jug!

2010-05-02T07:46:00.004-04:00

Time flies when you are buried under with research! Half of my research rhizomes came in and I am working to get them tagged, weighed and placed in the hydroponic troughs as quickly as possible!
Hi everyone!
I can't believe it has been 10 days since my last post! It has been crazy here in 'research world' and it is just beginning! I have half of my research plants and I am waiting for the second half to come in so the entire experiment can begin. I have 1280 rhizomes that must go into their troughs and pots within the next 2 weeks and it is crazy time! The rhizomes must be cut, weighed, tagged and placed in their respective positions as quickly as possible to reduce the possibility of any dessication or loss of fresh weight. After a week in a 5C refrigerator, where their metabolic processes are slowed down, they are put into their tagged spots for the experiment and then I can relax a bit and begin collecting data while waiting to see the results. The ultimate goal is to be able to produce rhizomes that would be considered 3-5 years old in about 2-3 months using vegetatively propagated 'rhizome pieces'. This is accomplished by cutting the rhizomes into sections with only one bud and ending up with rhizomes containing 6-9 buds in that 2-3 month period. The first small experiment blew away my initial hypothesis and I had rhizomes in the 2-3 month period of the experiment that, if grown in the wild, would be considered 8-9 year old plants. This then becomes a viable commercial plan to grow these plants quickly and under controlled conditions so 1.wild populations are preserved and 2.the important compounds in the rhizomes can be optimized. The rhizomes of Actaea racemosa (black cohosh) are now being studied as compounds that can combat and kill prostate and breast cancer cells in humans. This finding is beginning to endanger the wild populations of this wonderful native medicinal plant and anything that can save the wild populations while growing rhizomes for this important cancer work is something I want to be involved in and work on. The use of hydroponics in this work is something I came up with when I was the head scientist in charge of growing plants in hydroponics for a biotech company. I was responsible for not only growing all of the plants but for deciding what to grow and when. I was able to grow over 350 different species of plants, 98% of which had never been grown successfully in hydroponics. Unfortunately, the company began to implode with internal strife and eventually had to close, but my experiences there led me to this degree and the experiments I am working on now. Doing something that has never been done before is crazy and time consuming and a gamble but it is also fun and exciting. (The pic at the top of this post is of an Actaea racemosa plant in my backyard.)
As for the 'great old jug' in the title of this blog, I am taking the day off today to pick up an A.P. Donaghho jug that I put on layaway last month. I will post pics of this great old jug as soon as we get back!
More later today!!!!

Spring in the garden.

2010-04-20T16:08:00.005-04:00

Spring is definitely here even though it has been cool for the last week. We had a frost advisory last night but today it is beautiful and sunny! I ran around this afternoon after I got back from the university and snapped some pictures of my front and back gardens. There are pictures of yellow trillium, shooting stars (Dodecatheon meadia), my redbud, hepaticas and on and on.... Crazy Maya is out and about getting into all of the pictures! LOL! She is so crazy! One of our next door neighbors was having some work done in their back yard the other day and as I was leaving the house; he stopped me and asked if there was any way that Maya could get out of the fence and attack him. I assured him that she was not able to jump over the 6 foot fence or tunnel under it and he was quick to let me know that he figured that if there was ever a burglar in the neighborhood that they would skip our house!
Anyway! Here are the gardens!
The Back Gardens:

My Franklinia Tree!

The Front Garden

Whew! It's been a busy April!

2010-04-19T16:42:00.002-04:00

Wow! I have been crazy busy with my Winterberry Farm Primitives business, my gardens and now my research! I have over 700 rhizomes coming in this week to get the last big experiment started in my research on the medicinal plant, Actaea racemosa! I am putting the final touches on the hydroponics system that is the main focus of the research and will be adding the rhizomes to the troughs in the next 10 days! Crazy! I must cut, weigh, soak in an anti-fungal solution, and then put the rhizomes in the troughs to start this last experiment! I have been lax in my postings for the last couple of weeks but as the plants begin to flower and things begin to pop - I will be posting more pics of the natives in my gardens!

Here come the Spring Ephemerals!

2010-04-01T11:16:00.028-04:00

Hi everyone!
I have been working hard on setting up my research and studying so I took the day 'off' today to work in the garden and to take a few pictures of what is 'popping up'! Most of this post will be pictures of some of the early spring ephemerals coming up in the gardens around my home.
This first set of pictures show the early red sessile trillium coming up. The larger yellow trillium (Trillium luteum) and the grand white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) will be up later this spring. These next two pictures show some seedlings of the red sessile trillium that are coming up this year. Trillium must be at least 6-7 years old (and usually older) before they will set seed. They also have to REALLY like where they are and have the correct pollinators to set good seeds. Most trillium seed is sterile but every once in a while....
This set of pictures show a population of Erythronium americanum (Yellow Trout Lily) in my back yard. This is the same population that was shown in a previous blog when just a few leaves were peeking through the leaf litter. They started out ONLY under the ladder and are beginning to head up the little slope and further up into the trees! They will flower again this year and have been in the ground for over 9 years!

The Spring Beauty are also up out of the ground and flowering! They are Claytonia virginica and are wonderful little plants. They will also spread but are very delicate and need some good rotting humus or an old rotting stump nearby. I have actually planted these next to an old stump that we acquired from a neighbor when they were cutting down some trees years ago. I 'planted' the stumps in various locations around the gardens and they are slowly rotting away. In the meantime they are great places to plant natives that do well in woodlands - just make sure your stumps are from native trees! Near the Spring Beauties are the Jeffersonia diphyllum, also known as Twinleaf. These are VERY hard to find little natives and are named after our third president. They are gorgeous little plants but also need that special touch of rich humus and good drainage.

Next are some pictures from my swale area in the back yard which stays very wet through most of the spring and summer. On the small slope that I made next to the house is a Leucothoe fontanesiana or Drooping Leucothoe, a great native shrub for a moist, wet area. It will grow in dryer soil but does best in a moist environment. It is getting so big that it is beginning to overshadow the trillium that are planted there, so once the soil firms up a bit, I will be moving the trillium to a new location! Next to the house is a huge bed of Wild Ginger, Asarum canadensis. This wonderful little native is a great groundcover. This clump started as a small 1 gallon container full of asarum and in a few years has grown to the large clump you see here.

The Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium reptans) is getting ready to flower and so is the Celandine Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum).Matter of fact, here is one of the first Celandine poppy flowers for this year!

A few more pictures of some other plants, including a Black Cohosh (Actaea racemosa) just popping out of the ground.

A Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) that flew in from another part of the garden growing below a birdbath!

Some of my Shooting Stars (Dodecatheon meadia), both the species and the cultivar 'Alba'.

For this next set of pictures, it will look like the first one is just a shot of some leaf litter but it is actually a population of Erythronium americanum (Yellow Trout Lily) in my front garden. This population is going wild throughout the beds and should be full of flowering plants this year. The second picture is of one of the 'mature' plants (two leaves) that should flower this spring!If you click on the picture of the 'leaf litter' you can see the little trout lily leaves poking through the leaves. Click on the little 'magnifying glass' that shows up when you move your cursor over the picture for a better look at the little trout lily leaves. Do you see them? The population continues past the tree to the left and about ten feet beyond.

The last set of pictures is of Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris). One thing about Marsh Marigold that is listed in most of the nursery catalogs is that this plant needs a 'running stream' to do well. Not really! I put one plant in the ground several years ago in the swale on my side yard that I had turned into a wet garden (they are now known as 'rain gardens') to soak up the runoff from the rain and take a look! It only gets water when it rains and I don't remove the leaf litter from around the plants; they just have to make it on their own and I think they are doing OK!
That's all for now, but stay tuned! As the trillium begin to flower and the Jacob's Ladder and Celandine Poppies begin to 'show their stuff', I will be back with more pictures of these wonderful Spring Ephemerals!

Tent Sale at a Friend's Shop

2010-03-29T10:34:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone!
It's been crazy again here at Winterberry Farm! First of all, I want to thank all of the wonderful people who made the March Update sale at Winterberry Farm Primitives such a success! I love finding things for my loyal customers and I also find a few things for myself at the same time!
Second, I would like to announce the April Tent Sale at Pheasant Run Antiques in Parkesburg, PA on April 9 and 10! Holly always has great antiques for sale in her shop but her Tent Sale is full of wonderful dealers and wonderful buys! Maybe next year we will expand out beyond the internet and have a booth there ourselves! Pheasant Run Antiques (http://www.pheasantrun-antiques.com) is a great place to visit and find some treasures! So, if you live in the area - I hope to see you there!
Third! I have been a bit lax in my postings lately but I am coming up on the largest and last major experiment for my degree! My orals will be some time in early July and I am starting to go crazy with the research left to do, the studying that is necessary for facing my committee and the 4-5 hours of questions on what I know about my subject! So, if I don't post as regularly as before, please accept my apologies and keep coming back to stay updated on my news - some big news should be coming by the end of April! - and more postings on great natives for your garden!
Thanks!
Susan

Crazy Calycanthus!

2010-03-21T09:34:00.008-04:00

When was the last time you put your nose right down into a fresh cut strawberry or grapefruit? Remember that wonderful smell? How fresh and clean the scent? How about the wonderful smell of cloves at Christmastime? What would you think if I told you that you could have that wonderful fragrance wafting through your windows on a bright summer morning without having to go out and buy strawberries or grapefruit, or waiting for the Christmas holidays? Then plant a Calycanthus floridus, Calycanthus floridus 'Athens', or Calycanthus floridus 'Michael Lindsey' in your garden east of the Mississippi or Calycanthus occidentalis in your garden on the west coast and this wonderful shrub will fill your home and garden with these great smells from May through July. Calycanthus forms a mound that can reach 8 feet high and 8 feet wide if you allow it to sucker. The flowers of the species are a deep maroon color and have numerous petals and sepals that are beautiful against the bright green color of the leaves. I have several Calycanthus floridus plants in my gardens and they do best in full sun in a well-drained moist slightly acidic soil. This is the native environment of the sweetshrub and it will do well for you as long as you do not amend your soil or try to feed it with fertilizers. It's funny about the flowers, not all of the plants will have flowers with a strong scent so I recommend buying this shrub when it is in flower so you can do a 'smell test' to determine which one has the best scent; but remember - shrubs at your local nursery will be either in pots or balled and burlaped (B&B) and will probably smell better once you get them home and in the ground. The scent of the flowers will depend on several things including genetics, sunlight and soil makeup, so if you want a Calycanthus with the best scent it pays to do some detecting with your nose when purchasing this shrub and use some restraint when planting. Please don't add anything to the soil or use any of those fertilizer stakes or feed it with a liquid fertilizer! These plants are native to the United States and just want to grow for you without any 'help' from us humans. One funny (or not so funny) fact is that Calycanthus floridus is endangered in Florida! The state that it is named for - 'floridus'! Amazing!
The straight species has the flowers that smell like strawberries while Calycanthus floridus 'Athens' flowers smell like grapefruit and Calycanthus floridus 'Michael Lindsey' flowers smell like cloves. The 'Michael Lindsey' cultivar is new to the trade and might be difficult to find so some more detective work may be necessary to find this shrub. The 'Athens' cultivar has wonderful green/ yellow flowers and really does smell like fresh cut grapefruit, while the 'Michael Lindsey' cultivar has very dark maroon flowers that sit on very dark green leaves. Unfortunately, there are no cultivars of Calycanthus occidentalis available in the trade at this date, but the species is wonderful and has the same great scent and shape as Calycanthus floridus. Calycanthus leaves are also highly scented and have been used as an insect repellent; crush some leaves and you will smell a slight camphor odor. The bark on the other hand, smells like cinnamon when scraped. All in all, this is a wonderful plant for your native garden whether you live on the east or west coast.
Calycanthus is pollinated by insects and does not need another plant in order to set seed. In fact, if you leave the seed pods on the plant, you will find small seedlings at the base of the plant that you can dig up and move to a new location. If you want to grow your own plants from seed, they are easy to germinate in cold frames. Unfortunately, just because the parent has highly scented flowers, that does not mean that the offspring will have the same great scent. Calycanthus is a crazy shrub because it can't seem to decide what it wants to be - a strawberry plant, grapefruit tree or a clove tree! So,this spring go out and find a crazy calycanthus for your native garden and see what all the craziness is about!

Spring is springing!

2010-03-19T09:10:00.009-04:00

Hi everyone!
We were out in the gardens yesterday getting the ground ready for the first of the spring planting and found some wonderful spring ephemerals that were already popping up through the leaf litter! The picture at the left shows some of my Trillium ludoviciana popping through the leaf litter. You can even see the flower bud on one of the plants. It will be a beautiful sessile (no flower stalk)flower in a deep maroon color. I have included a picture of the trillium in the first picture from last year so you can see what they will look like this year.
The water from the last snow fall and the 4 days of rain that we had last week is beginning to seep into the soil and we can walk through the gardens without causing any compaction to the soil, so we are out raking off the deep piles of leaf litter and allowing the soil to warm up in preparation for one of my favorite times of the year. My gardens emphasize the beauty of spring ephemerals and I love to watch the trillium, spring beauty (Claytonia virginica), and trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) poke through the ground in anticipation of the wonderful show they will put on once they begin to flower. You can see the furled leaves of the trout lily poking through the leaf litter in this picture. For those of you who do not know how difficult it is to get trout lilies to grow, let alone flower, let me show you a picture of last year's flowers. I have been living in my home for over 24 years and started most of my gardens within the first two years that we were here. I planted my first patch of trout lily over 9 years ago and the first plants just started flowering 2 years ago! Spring ephemerals are some of the most difficult plants to grow and I would recommend not trying them until you have a well-established garden with your trees and shrubs already growing with good canopies.
I will continue to post more pictures and information on spring ephemerals and if anyone is interested, I can dedicate some posts to spring ephemerals and early flowering native perennials. I have also been growing some native perennials from seed and have just put them outside to harden them off in preparation for planting this spring. Here are some pictures of Heuchera americana and Heuchera villosa 'Autumn Bride' that I grew from seed. Not all of them will go into my gardens, some will go to friends and family so they can also have some native groundcover for their gardens. They are in 3 1/2" pots and there are 24 to a flat and this is just a small portion of the plants, so you have some idea of how many I have to plant and distribute! Here are some more plants ready to go out, including Baptisia australis and Rudbeckia occidentalis 'Green Wizard'. This rudbeckia is a west coast native and will do well in most zones of the U.S. and the Green Wizard cultivar is a great looking plant with flowers that don't have any petals just sepals. It looks cool!
Out of time for more this morning but I will be back this afternoon with a blog on the Calycanthus floridus!

Country Sampler Magazine!

2010-03-17T09:20:00.002-04:00

Getting ready for my phone interview with a Country Sampler writer this morning! More later.....
Well, I had a great conversation with Nancy from Country Sampler! Our home will be in their September issue and should be on newsstands by mid August! She was very nice and it looks like it will be a good article. I then went down to the University of Delaware to discuss the date for my oral exams this summer and it looks like I will be answering oral and written questions posed by my committee on or around July 5th! Not much time for the intense study that is necessary when answering questions on one's expertise in your chosen subject. I will also be heading down to West Virginia in April to pick up the last of the plants necessary for my research. All in all, a very busy spring and early summer! After passing my oral exams, I will be considered a doctoral candidate and will be close to the final writing of my dissertation. This has been a long 4 1/2 years working on this dissertation and I will be glad when it is over and I can start looking for a job!
As I sit here writing this post, I can see and hear the birds checking under the leaf litter to find some fat and juicy insects to eat. We have had two very large flocks of robins who have been here since late February and they are getting their nesting areas ready for the first set of their offspring. I also saw a Pileated Woodpecker for the first time in our backyard today. What a thrill! Tomorrow we will be heading out to the gardens to begin to get them ready for the first of the wonderful spring ephemerals, like trillium and trout lilies, that will start springing up from the ground this month. More tomorrow, with pictures, on what's happening in the garden and some information on Calycanthus floridus (common name: Virginia Sweetshrub or Carolina Allspice)!

What a crazy week!

2010-03-11T09:24:00.009-05:00

It has been a crazy week here at Winterberry Farm! The Flower Show is over and we are heading out this weekend to do some shopping for my online store, http://www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm. My March Update will be Sunday night (March 14th) at 5pm and I have already found some great things for this update! One of the items that I found is this wonderful huge cheese box! Original red paint and you can still see the stenciled information about the cheese and the company on the top! The cheese box once held 'Hearts Delight' round cheese made and distributed by the Scoville-Brown Company of Wellsville, NY. In 1907, the company was bought by Mr. George C. Rosa and the company changed it's name to include the word, Inc, so this box dates from circa 1896-1907. It is a great looking box with a 16" diameter and a height of 8 inches. The box is held together with small tacks or nails not staples. The information on the origin of the box will be included with the box so the lucky buyer can read up on the history of this great old cheese box. Pictures of the items for sale will go on the website by Saturday night or Sunday morning; by 5pm all prices will be added and I will be online to answer questions and take orders.
The Flower Show was great, actually the best I have seen in the last few years. We tried to get more pics of the 'tear down' portion of the show but got there late due to traffic problems and most of the other Miniature Settings folks were already gone! If any of our Flower Show friends have pics of their displays that they would like me to post, please send them to me and I will get them posted as soon as possible! Tear down night is crazy! The exhibitors were given one week to set up AND one night to tear down! Everything had to be out by the next morning so the next event could be set up. To say that you take your life in your hands that night is not an exaggeration! As soon as we all got our boxes out of the Miniature Settings area, they were already tearing down the wall and the area behind it. One thing that I didn't get to post was the display that my husband and dad put together for the Windowbox and Lamppost category. They won second place and I was very proud of them! What do you think? The display was to be filled with plants from the "New World" and they did plants from Brazil. It was wonderful! The plants are all back down at the greenhouse now and Joyce (the great plant deva) is tearing the box and hanging basket apart to pot up the individual plants and to take cutting so we have more for next year. For anyone who thinks that I spelled 'deva' wrong, there are definitely plant 'devas' out there! A plant deva is a faerie who cares for and protects plants. Joyce and I consider ourselves devas and strive to live up to the name. If you are ever in a forest or woods, or even in your own backyard, and you see something out of the corner of your eye but can't quite figure out what it is - you have just seen a plant deva! Consider yourself lucky as they don't let just anyone see them! To possibly see a plant deva, try this method:

Sit in the spot where the cat likes to sit

cross your fingers and toes.

Close your eyes and imagine…

That you're smelling a beautiful rose.

Say under your breath…

“I believe in faeries

I believe in faeries

I believe in faeries”

and see where your vision goes……..

Another reason that I haven't been posting is that I had several doctors' appointments this week! I banged my foot very hard when something fell on it out in our garage (you know, the man area of the house) and a very large goose egg appeared on top of my foot. Hubby made me go to the doc and I had to get x-rays to make sure it wasn't broken. It wasn't broken but I did find out what working in a greenhouse for over 10 years can do to you! Apparently, I have bruised heel syndrome, or fat pad syndrome where the fatty tissue that protects your heel from constant pounding on a hard surface (like on a concrete greenhouse floor). In bruised heel syndrome, that tissue gets squeezed out and up the sides of the heel so you no longer have that protection when you walk. Yuck!! I have had pain off and on for several years in my right heel but it always went away in just a day or two. This time, with the bruise on the top of my foot, I couldn't wear my thick soled sneakers so that heel got very banged up at the Flower Show! Anyway, I have been on bedrest and now that the swelling has gone down on the top of my foot - I can finally wear my sneakers again but this time with a special insert to reduce the possibility of damaging my heel even more! Wow! It has been a difficult week! I have learned my lesson and will make sure that my heel is protected. That's all for now! Next time - the lovely and fragrant Calycanthus floridus and its west coast counterpart, Calycanthus occidentalis.

Think Spring!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-03-01T11:30:00.020-05:00

Well, we did it!!!! We won the blue ribbon in our category in Miniature Settings! Queue the song: "Happy Days Are Here Again...... Can you hear the song? If you can't, just hum louder as you continue to read....

A close up of the judges' comments! Just lovely!

We have won the red and sometimes the yellow ribbon in this category but never the blue until now! We have won blue ribbons in other categories but this one, which is definitely out of my comfort zone, is one of the best! I am not a miniaturist by any means nor do I grow houseplants, so this is definitely an honor! Congrats to the other competitors (pics of those displays in the next posting!), you all did a wonderful job this year - it was such a thrill to be in competition with so many great people! We always enjoy seeing you each year!
Even a sponsoring bank (PNC) gets into the zaniness and has their own display! Everybody loves the show and we always have fun participating in this great event! We are all proud to be part of a tradition going back over 100 years and most of us are already planning our displays for next year! I was speaking with some other exhibitors (Hi guys! - you know who you are!) and we were discussing (actually Ron brought it up!) how many people volunteer to work this show. There are hundreds of people involved who give their time and money to be a part of the show so thousands from around the world can come and enjoy the beauty each year!
If you have never been to the show and you live in the tri-state area, come on over! If you live further away - what a great vacation at this time of year! If you just love flowers or spring OR are tired of the snow - come on over this week to see something that will blow your socks off! Enough writing! The rest of the post are pictures of the 2010 Philadelphia Flower Show's 'Passport to the World'!
Enjoy (remember you can click on the pictures to maximize your viewing pleasure!):

More of the competitive classes!

In this set of pics you will see an 'orchid tree' and a close up of the tree. The orchids were individually placed in a dormant tree to look like a tree in full flower!

This set of pics is what you see when you enter the show!

This set of pics was of a display completely set up in a bunch of huge marine shipping containers! Amazing!

Pics of entries picturing South Africa, Singapore, Europe and the United States!

A fantastic display! They definitely thought 'outside the box' and it is spectacular! Everything in white and lots of water and 'ice'! The draping material over the large backdrop is a parachute! FANTASTIC!

Every day the cut flower displays in the competitive classes need to be switched out or at least watered!

All of the flowers in this pic are cut flowers in HANGING glass vases that have colored water in the vase to match the flower color!

Flower Show Week!!

2010-02-27T09:08:00.006-05:00

This week is set up week at the Philly Flower Show and it has been just bit more crazy than other years! The 'normal' craziness has been more intense this year because of the snow and ice but once you get into the Pennsylvania Convention Center, it feels like spring! The Bobcats are running around and hoses are spread all over the place. Mulch and sod are flying and thousands of forced plants are waiting patiently to be put in place. This year the theme is 'Passport to the World' and the interpretations of this theme are as diverse as the groups who are displaying in the different categories. To the left is our plaque that hangs beside our display. Our names are covered so the judges don't know who they are judging, but all will be revealed to the public once the judging is over!
Our Miniature Setting display is in the category 'My Corner of the World - Outside' and here is a picture of the front of the display area. Our section is off to the right and you can see some of the exhibitors working on their displays on the left. We set up yesterday and had our plant list 'passed' by volunteers who are experts in plant identification. Once that is done, you are free to walk around, continue to work on your display, or go home. We chose to do a little more work and then go across the street to the Reading Terminal Market which was a location for part of a chase scene through the streets of Philadelphia in the first National Treasure movie! Delilah's Deli (where the female lead in the movie hid behind the counter) is there and serves great southern food! I was back up at the show this morning for a final check on our display before judging and I must say, there are some great displays this year! We have some stiff competition! Just kidding about the competition! We do it for the fun and the chance to see people we only see once a year!
Here are some pics of 'behind the scenes' at the Flower Show starting with a couple of pics of our display! Don't worry! There will be more pics tomorrow once the show is open!

My blotanical buddies!

2010-02-23T08:55:00.002-05:00

Hi to all my Blotanical buddies out there! I just wanted to let you know that I haven't been at my 'plot' for the last week because I was unable to access the site! I tried yesterday and was able to get in so I will be answering the great messages that I have gotten and checking out some more of your great 'plots' and blogs!
For those of you 'not in the loop', check out Blotanical.com - it is a great place to meet other gardeners and check out some great blogs!

Vivacious Vaccinium!

2010-02-22T10:50:00.009-05:00

Four more days until Flower Show install day! Arrghh.... I can't wait for Saturday afternoon! The Miniature Setting display will be installed, passed and judged by then and I can relax until Wednesday when my husband and father's display goes in! They are displaying in the Window box and Lamppost Division where the theme is South America and they are doing plants from Brazil. I will have some pictures in the next post!
I know it has been a while since my last post but this Flower Show tends to take more time as the install date gets closer! I will also have some more pictures of the Miniature Setting in the next post because we have had to change some things around due to some problems with a couple of the plants in the display. This is why I always put the plants in about 2 weeks before we take the box up to Philly just to see if the plants will be compatible with a couple of weeks in a box!
But today, I will be posting about some wonderful plants and I will be doing it a bit differently this time. I am posting on an entire genus of plants that include two very familiar plants that can look good in your garden, feed the native wildlife AND are full of antioxidants, so you can eat them too! I will also be talking about species in this genus that can be grown, and are native to, all areas of the United States, and some parts of Canada!
The Vivacious Vacciniums are great little plants that include several species and a variety of shapes and sizes. What are Vacciniums you ask? Why they are our native cranberries and blueberries! Yes, these two great berries, that are also good for you, are native to the United States.
Cranberries, Vaccinium oxycoccos (Oxycoccos palustris) and Vaccinium macrocarpon, are considered to be part of a subgenus of the genus Vaccinium called Oxycoccos. They are still referred to as Vaccinium oxycoccos and Vaccinium macrocarpon in nurseries and online stores, so I will be using these names throughout this blog.
Vaccinium oxycoccos, or the Small Cranberry has a native range that includes all of Canada, Washington State and Oregon on the west coast, and Minnesota across to Maine and down to Virginia on the east coast. Unfortunately, it is threatened in Ohio, Indiana, and Maryland and endangered in Illinois, with most of its habitat destroyed due to construction and the reduction in wetlands and bogs in these states. The small cranberry is not the one that we eat at Thanksgiving but is a small trailing plant that loves boggy and wet areas so it will be found (if you are lucky) in wetlands and other boggy areas within its native range. The flower, like the rest of the plant, is small but beautiful and is held above the trailing stems. The leaves are much smaller than the leaves of the common Northern Cranberry and their leaves curl under at the edges. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find this wonderful little plant in the trade but if you do and if you have a boggy little place to grow it, I would give it a try! It looks vaguely similar to Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), another wonderful trailing native plant (yes, it was once used for 'wintergreen' gum!) and is a wonderful little plant. It's 'big brother'. known as the American Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon), is the cranberry that you see at Thanksgiving and is the main ingredient in most cranberry juices; you notice I say 'most' cranberry juices. If you want to taste what cranberries really taste like, buy some 100% Cranberry Juice (Ocean Spray has one that tastes great!) and try it. There is no sugar or high fructose corn syrup (a bad, bad thing!) added so you are getting real juice.
Vaccinium macrocarpon can be found in most provinces of Canada, Washington State to California on the west coast and Minnesota to Maine, down to North Carolina and across to Tennessee (with the exception of Kentucky). The American Cranberry is threatened in Tennessee and endangered in Illinois. Just like its 'little sister', the American Cranberry loves boggy and wet areas, but does not need this type of soil to grow. Full sun is preferred to partial shade and the plants will produce more berries in the sunniest locations. This plant, along with the small cranberry, is evergreen and prefers an acidic soil. It flowers all summer and begins to develop those great berries in late summer. One word of caution - cover your developing fruit if you want to eat it, as the birds and animals will feast on the berries until they are gone. These berries will not make it past the first week or so once they become ripe and if you want to collect them - keep track of when they begin to turn bright red! Cranberries are usually grown in man-made bogs for production but do not need to be flooded in order to give up their berries. Just a little fun fact: all of the cranberries grown for commercial use and derived from Vaccinium macrocarpon are found only in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and on Cape Cod. Isn't that amazing! To grow this wonderful little plant in your garden, you just need a good sandy loam or loamy soil and bright sun. They are very low maintenance and will give you years of pleasure. They can be bought as seeds and are carried by several online nurseries and seed companies. Here is a description of the American Cranberry from Whatcom Seed Company (http://seedrack.com/):

"The American Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) offers tremendous potential for the home gardener. Contrary to popular belief, cranberries do not require a bog or wetland for successful culture. The plant is a low, spreading evergreen with a fine texture. Pinkish flowers appear in spring and are followed by the red fruit in the fall. The small leaves can become purple or bronze in the winter. Plant 2 feet apart for a solid ground cover or use in hanging baskets and planters for a delicate cascading effect. Plant in full sun or partial shade in acidic soil. Protect from spring frosts for most consistent yields. About 9" in height."

Another great member of the Vaccinium genus is the blueberry! There are several species of blueberries in different parts of the United States and Canada. They include:
Vaccinium angustifolium (Lowbush Blueberry) whose native range is from Manitoba to Labrador and south to Nova Scotia in Canada. In the United States it can be found from Maine and Minnesota to Iowa and Virginia.
Vaccinium boreale (Northern Blueberry) whose native range in Canada is Quebec and Labrador and in the United States from New York north to Maine.
Vaccinium caesariense (New Jersey Blueberry)found in the United States along the east coast from Maine to Florida (except in CT, DE, VT, WV)
Vaccinium corymbosum (Northern Highbush Blueberry) native to AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV.
Vaccinium darrowii (Southern Highbush Blueberry) native to AL, FL, GA, LA, MS.
Vaccinium elliottii (Elliott Blueberry) native to AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA
Vaccinium formosum (southern blueberry) native to AL, FL, GA, MD, NC, NJ, SC, VA

Whew! I hope this list gives you an idea of how easy it is to grow our native blueberry! As with the cranberry, blueberries need sun and plenty of water for the best berry harvest, but they do differ from the cranberry in that they don't need as much water and can be grown almost anywhere in your garden where they will get a lot of sun. Both the northern highbush and lowbush blueberries are found growing wild in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey woods and are easy to spot in the spring and summer with their wonderful white flowers. Beginning in mid July and continuing to mid September, the fruits will begin to ripen and its time to pick the berries!
Blueberries are not as popular in the home garden as they should be due to what some people call their 'acidic soil requirements'. One way to reduce this problem is to grow blueberries that are native to your state or region! Not everyone can grow the Northern Blueberry! Check out the blueberry that is native to your area and plan to buy and grow some soon! Remember - not only do these great plants feed the native wildlife - they feed you too! Start checking out those blueberry pie recipes!!
Until next time - keep dreaming and planning your native garden!

Flower Show Display Update!

2010-02-12T17:17:00.006-05:00

Hello everyone!
Today the roads are much better here in Delaware and I was able to get down to the University of Delaware where I have been growing my plants for our Miniature Setting display. The picture to the left shows some of the plants, including some American elm seedlings. These elms do not have the gene for resistance and I will not be putting them out in the garden but they are great for the display!
I am putting in most of the plants today to give them a couple of weeks to get used to the lower light of the display box and to grow a bit in place. They will also orient themselves so their leaves are going in the correct directions. There is enough fertilizer in the soilless mix I am using to get them through the show without outside fertilizer. After the plants are in the box for a while, I will continue to move the vine on the barn up and over the top of the roof, but I do not want to force it up until it acclimates itself a bit and its roots start to grip and spread out. As the vine settles in, I will be moving it further over the front of the barn so most of the right window is obscured. The leaves on the trees will continue to emerge but they will not get so big that they look out of place or too big for the rest of the display.
The next step will be to add peat moss to the top of the soilless mix and then some crushed up leaves on top of the peat moss. The last step in the planting of the box will be to add some more grass seed so there is more grass coming up through the peat moss and the crushed leaves at the time of the show. The very, very last step is to add the little accessories and animals to the display to make the visitors (and the judges) take a second and third look to see everything hidden in the little cracks and crevices!
Wish us luck - there are only two more weeks (14 days!) until install day!!!!

Crazy dog in the snow!

2010-02-11T11:30:00.005-05:00

So, crazy Maya was out yesterday playing in the snow with my grandsons! They would throw snowballs for her and she would jump into snow drifts as high as 48" to get the 'ball'. She could smell their scent on the snow and would bring back the 'ball' if it was still in one piece! She had the best time out there and didn't want to come in, but when she did, she spent the rest of the afternoon in front of the fire!
Maya was just picked up a couple of minutes ago (along with our snow shovel!) by my daughter so Maya could go and play at her house for the afternoon! Crazy Dog!

Another Whopper!

2010-02-10T13:03:00.006-05:00

Here we go again! It is still snowing but this time it seems to be mixed with rain so it is icing up the branches of the trees! That picture of my winterberry from the last post - look at it now! There is so much ice and snow on the branches that you can barely see the berries! I planned to blog about another great tree for your native yard but this is just too amazing to ignore! Delaware is under another state of emergency, I think it's to keep everyone off the roads and safe inside until this storm passes through! Crazy Maya is out there again and this time I was able to catch her as she rounds the corner - again- in her crazy run around the backyard! Mama mockingbird is out grabbing winterberries off the shrub and some of the little juncos are trying to stay warm under my table out back. You probably can't see them but they are under there! It's getting a little windy now and the weather forcasters say we are under blizzard conditions! Hubby is again stuck at work - where I know he is safe and not driving around - and won't be back until at least tomorrow or maybe even Friday! We are staying nice and warm here with the fire going and me in my favorite place - in my big wing chair reading a book! Take a peek at my 'Winter Wonderland" and I'll be back blogging again soon!

It's Monday morning and we are preparing for more snow!!!!

2010-02-08T10:32:00.005-05:00

Hi everyone!
Well, Maya and the rest of the family have been spending a lot of time in our favorite place - in front of the fire! With our great fireback, the heat just radiates out into the room! Hubby had just gotten home and was relaxing with Maya (you can see his gloves to the right and his leg in the pic). I have to sneak the camera out to take a picture of Maya - she knows what the camera looks like and will run out of the picture if she sees it!
Thanks to everyone who left comments about our BIG snow! Yes, hubby did get home on Sunday and is now back at work on his normal shift! The sun is out today and it makes the snow even more beautiful! We are now preparing for the next BIG snow - due here on Wednesday - and will be going out today to buy some more munchies and kitty litter (I use that instead of the rock salt). The last time we had this much snow was in 2002-2003 when we had about 30" and I had to go out to make a path for our dear old dog Tequila (the kids named her!) a great Doberman, German Shepherd, Pitbull mix, who was the best dog we ever had. She was old and couldn't jump through the snow drifts and wouldn't even consider using papers inside the house; so there I was, with hubby at work and son in the Air Force, digging her a path so she could go out and 'do her business'! She passed away at the great old age of 15 about 5 years ago and had a wonderful life, so we were sad but also happy that she was with us for so long. The kids are all out of school and I am sure will be heading out to go sledding today. I can see the birds checking out the berries on my winterberry bushes and then taking turns eating their fill. The viburnums have great berries too and they are also covered with hungry birds. Maya is out there now checking out the snow and getting ready to start jumping around! Actually, she is running right now as I type!
Thank goodness we live in a development where we get our streets plowed! We went out last night for a Super Bowl party at my sister's house (CONGRATS TO THE SAINTS!) and found out that the streets in our development are better than some of the roads on the 'outside'! I am definitely an Eagles (E-A-G-L-E-S!) fan, but I love New Orleans and hope this win brings them some good luck and brings that wonderful city together! We plan to go back to New Orleans some time in the next couple of years and look forward to seeing that great city once again!
Wednesday's snowstorm is supposed to dump another 12-18" on us so off to the library I will go tomorrow to get some more great books to read and maybe a movie or two! Stay tuned for more pics of our next BIG storm!

Continuing the work for the Flower Show!

2010-02-06T16:25:00.003-05:00

I have been spending most of the day working on the 'old barn' for the Philly Flower Show. This is the same barn kit that was in a previous post before I had 'aged' it to the way it looks now. As a reminder, here is the title and intent of our display:

My Grandparents’ West Virginia Farm.

Catching crawdads in the creek, planting seeds in the garden with Bobo, and collecting eggs for my Mamaw. This old barn is the only thing left of a place that was my little piece of heaven as a child.

As I continue to prepare the display, plants and vines and lots of distressed things will be added to the box. The old barn will have vines crawling up the exterior and trees peeping through the inside and out the roof. Vines and 'weeds' growing through the windows. I have planted grass seed in the soilless mix at the base of the display and the entire ground will be covered in crushed leaves, moss and plants - just what you would find around an old abandoned barn!

It's snowing!!!!

2010-02-06T13:12:00.005-05:00

Here are some pics of our ongoing snowstorm! I am also adding a pic of where I am staying during this crazy weather! Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey have declared states of emergency and no one is supposed to be on the roads. Hubby is stuck at work (he works at an oil refinery) and is having fun adding up those overtime hours! He has plenty of food, took extra clothes and doesn't have to shovel snow! My grandson and his friend are out shoveling snow for me and plan to make some money this weekend shoveling sidewalks and driveways for people. Fortunately, our development collects snow dues so our streets are plowed but we are up to over 30" of snow here!!! I tried to catch our Maya in a couple of the pics but she was moving too fast!!! She has been in and out all day, jumping and running through the snow drifts having a great time! I am painting the barn for the Flower Show while sitting in front of the fire! I love snow days!!!!

Update on preparations for the Philly Flower Show!

2010-02-03T14:21:00.003-05:00

We are working hard preparing for the Flower Show and set up for our Miniature Settings display is on February 26th! Here are the most recent pictures showing our background, continued painting on the barn (few more layers left to do) and I am growing grass in the mix at the base of the display - hence the light!

Outrageous Oxydendrum arboreum (Sourwood)!

2010-01-31T08:55:00.006-05:00

The Outrageous Oxydendrum arboreum, otherwise known as Sourwood, is a little-known native tree that produces wonderful, fragrant Lily-of-the-Valley-like flowers all summer long from late June to August. The name 'Sourwood' comes from the taste of the leaves that have a sour taste when chewed. Sourwood is found in abundance in the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee and throughout the Piedmont uplands. It can also be found near streams in the Piedmont area that are not in floodplains. This is one tree that will do well in either direct sun or as an understory tree. In the sun, Sourwood is a multistem tree with several twisted and gnarled trunks. As an understory tree, Sourwood forms a single trunk and a columnar habit.
Its native range runs from southern Pennsylvania down to northern Florida and across to Ohio and Alabama. Sourwood is a member of the Ericaceae family that includes rhododendrons and azaleas, so it likes the acidic soil found along the east coast and will not do well in soils with high limestone content. One of the wonderful things about this tree, besides the great flowers and bright red fall color, is the color and shape of its bark, Sourwood bark is gray with deep fissures that adds great texture and design to your winter garden. Of course, it will take several years for the bark to mature but it is definitely worth the wait! The maximum size for Sourwood is 8o feet tall but in most circumstances it will reach a mature height of 20-50 feet. It does have some insect pests but none of any consequence and it has no known major disease pests. So no need for insecticidal or fungal sprays with this great tree. It will flower best in full sun and makes a great specimen plant for your garden. So, why grow Sourwood instead of other beautiful native trees? Well, besides its fantastic fragrant flowers, its wonderful bright green leaves, its unbelievable fall color in reds, maroon and purple, and its outrageous bark, Sourwood produces fantastic HONEY! Yes, Sourwood honey is sold by several companies in the south! MtnHoney in Georgia (http://www.mtnhoney.com/types_honey.htm) sells Sourwood honey and this is their comment on the honey: "Sourwood honey is extra-light to light amber color and extremely aromatic, with a distinctive rich honey flavor. In local markets it commands a premium price. When it comes to quality and taste, no other honey can match Sourwood Honey." Go to their website and read the information on their honey and then google sourwood honey to see what pops up! This tree is a source of food for our native honeybees that are rapidly declining in their native ranges due to exotic bees that are able to feed on plants that the native bees cannot process well because the plants are exotic. Sourwood is also considered a medicinal plant and even though I DO NOT recommend you try to self medicate with plants, Sourwood leaves have been used to treat symptoms of several illnesses. The leaves are also consedered edible and can be used to allay thirst. They are said to have a pleasant acidic taste. One thing about Sourwood, once planted it does not like to be disturbed nor does it like dense, hardpacked soil. The best place for your Sourwood is a bright sunny location with good drainage and a soil rich in acidic organic matter. Do not add acid to the planting hole or try to 'feed' the tree an acid-rich fertilizer, do your homework and get a soil test. If your soil is rich in acid and organic matter, well-drained and light in texture, make sure to consider this wonderful tree! It takes a little more work with the Sourwood than most of the other trees that I have already discussed BUT the work is worth it the first time you smell the fragrance and see the wonderful fall color of this little known beauty.

Treasures from our last antiquing trip!

2010-01-30T08:23:00.010-05:00

Hello everyone!
We were out and about on another trip this last week and found some wonderful things!!! I always love to find something for a great price and boy did I find a good one! The dough box in the picture was such a good price that I had to check with the shop owner before I could believe it. The color is an old pumpkin/red color and the dovetails are fantastic. It has to be from an old bakery or some other commercial or large farm (?) because it is so big. It is missing its top but I love it! It has taken over the 'ionic' spot that is part of my logo but it looks wonderful! I also found a few other things to add to the January Update if I can bear to part with them! I have pictured the items below and will be adding them (or some of them!) to the January Update tomorrow! (http://www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm) More blogging this afternoon but now I am off to the university!

Charming Chionanthus!

2010-01-25T15:56:00.013-05:00

Oh boy, is my face red!!! Lots of crazy things going on here at Winterberry Farms and I just got lost in the craziness! BUT! I'm back and will be trying to post more often! One of the crazy things that is happening is the Philadelphia Flower Show and our preparations for it! We are down to about 4 weeks until set up and (as always at this point) I am worried that we won't be finished in time to take up the display on February 26th!

Craziness aside, I came upon an interesting article this morning and can't wait for the actual paper to come out so I can download it. This is from http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience and here it is:

Lush green lawns may not be as good for the environment as you might think.
A new study suggests that, in certain parts of the country, total emissions would actually be lower if there weren't any lawns.
Previous studies have demonstrated that lawns comprised of turfgrass can potentially function as carbon sinks since they help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But the maintenance of lawns - fertilizer production, mowing, leaf blowing and other lawn management practices - may generate greenhouse gas emissions that ultimately exceed four times the carbon they end up storing, according to the study.
"Lawns look great - they're nice and green and healthy, and they're photosynthesizing a lot of organic carbon," said researcher Amy Townsend-Small,who co-authored the study. "But the carbon-storing benefits of lawns are counteracted by fuel consumption."
To reach their conclusion, the researchers sampled grass from four parks around Irvine, Calif. that contained either ornamental lawn turf or athletic field turf, which tended to be more trampled and required replanting and frequent aeration. Samples were taken from the soil and air above the turf, and analyzed to measure carbon sequestration and nitrous oxide emissions. The investigators then compared that data to the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that resulted from maintaining the turf, which included fuel consumption, irrigation and fertilizer production.
The results, detailed in the forthcoming issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, showed that nitrous oxide emissions from lawns were comparable to those found in agricultural farms, which are considered among the largest emitters of nitrous oxide globally. In ornamental lawns, nitrous oxide emissions from fertilization offset just 10 percent to 30 percent of the carbon that was sequestered. But day-to-day management required fossil fuel consumption that released about four times more carbon dioxide than the plots could take up.
Athletic fields fared even worse. They didn't trap nearly as much carbon as ornamental grass but required just as much emission-generating care.
"It's impossible for these lawns to be net greenhouse gas sinks because too much fuel is used to maintain them," Townsend-Small said.

I cannot stress enough the problems of the suburban lawn and what it does to our environment. Everyone is talking about 'going green' yet a lot of us still mow our lawns at least once a week and fertilize and spray pesticides..... I am not advocating getting rid of all of your lawn - the kids still need a place to play and roll around....like I used to do on my grandfather's farm 'back in the day'... Running through the woods, finding insects and other 'scary things' under rocks... watching the birds and bunnies and.... wait a minute! We did that in the woods at my grandfather's farm! So, what is wrong with 'woods' in your yard and garden? The picture to the left is of my front yard in early summer and there is no grass to be seen! It is a great place for the kids to play in and last fall, a neighbor's child had to do a science project where they had to collect leaves from at least 10 different trees and shrubs. Guess what! They knocked on my front door and asked permission for their little one to gather leaves from my trees and of course I said YES! They had great fun helping him collect leaves and I helped by giving them the names of the trees. He got an A on the project and was then able to watch these trees change through the seasons just by gong outside. What a wonderful thing nature is and how much have we missed with our green, green lawns and not much else? What a way to help the planet and yourself at the same time?? Here is a picture of the path to my back yard, no grass here!

Also, Trillium recurvatum nodding in the spring sun last year in my back yard. How glorious!

I love it!!!! Another reason to get rid of all that lawn and plant some natives!!! Now for some 'sound effects': TAH DAH!!!

The Charming Chionanthus!

Chionanthus virginicus (kye-oh-NANTH-us ver-JIN-ih-kuss), also known as the white fringe tree, is one of the most beautiful small flowering trees that you will find anywhere.
It is a member of the Oleaceae family - the same family as Oleander and is glorious when in flower. It loves a partial shade area under other trees where it will spread its branches and flower for you each spring. I have one in my front yard and she flowers each spring just as the dogwood flowers begin to fall. I did say 'she' as the white fringe tree is dioecious in that there are male and female plants just like the holly tree. She will at times produce fruit, a gorgeous blue berry, but it is sterile because I don't have a male tree. It is not easy to determine the sex of the tree as you must look to the flowers and determine if there are pistils or stamens in the center of the flowers; so I wouldn't even try to check the 'gender' yourself. If you are lucky, your nurseryman may know, so just ask when you purchase one.
Chionanthus virginicus is hardy from zones 3 to 9 in the United States and can either be a small tree or (as I prefer) a multi-stem tree that will develop twisted trucks in a great gray color. The leaves are a wonderful light waxen green and very shiny; but she, or he, will be in their greatest glory when they flower. I wait each spring for these beautiful flowers to appear and when they do, the fragrance is amazing! I wish I could add smell to these posts because if you could smell the wonderful scent of a Chionanthus virginicus in flower - you would rush out and buy as many as your garden can hold! It prefers a moist soil but can handle most garden soils and again, please do not place any additives in the hole when you plant this beautiful tree. It is native to the east coast of the US and does not need any additional help to get it started. Just water well for the first few years and then leave it alone! I can't say enough about this GORGEOUS tree except make room in your garden for one. You will not regret it! If I had to pick just one tree for you to buy and add to your garden, it would have to be the White Fringe Tree. It is spectacular in spring with the wonderful flowers, summer with its glossy green leaves and in the fall with its wonderful bright yellow color; even in winter the tangled trunks make a great statement.
So, make an effort this year to really 'go green' and cut back some of that lawn!
Until next time and the Outrageous Oxydendrum arboreum (Sourwood)!

The 2010 Philadelphia Flower Show!

2010-01-13T16:50:00.021-05:00

Well, today I am finally home from the University of Delaware where I have been working to set up the largest experiment yet in my goal of graduating this December. It's slow going sometimes but I am focused on finishing this year! Everything is slowly progressing and I am only a bit behind on my timeline! A friend who is probably reading this blog this evening (yes - Joyce - I mean you!) is laughing because she works in the university greenhouse complex and knows of all of the setbacks and craziness that has gone on with this degree! I am coming up on the 5th year of this craziness and I am ready for it to be over! BUT, tonight I start my postings on the countdown to the Philadelphia Flower Show 2010!

Anyone who lives in this area knows about the Flower Show whether you are a gardener or not. The Philly Flower Show is the largest and oldest continuous indoor flower show in the world. The Philadelphia Horticultural Society (PHS), founded in 1827, is the organization that puts on this wonderful show and they do a great job. Jane Pepper (University of Delaware graduate!) has been the President of PHS for almost thirty years and is retiring this spring after the Flower Show. So, this year the theme of the show is 'Passport to the World'; which allows the exhibitors to decide their own vision of the show and how to interpret this vision in flowers. I have been exhibiting at the Flower Show for over 10 years and, while missing a year here and there, have loved every minute of the crazy time that is the Philadelphia Flower Show! My great friend and companion in crime, Joyce, entered last year FOR THE FIRST TIME and received a second place ribbon for her display in the Miniature Settings Division -Inside. Here is a picture of her display! You go, girl!! To receive a second place ribbon in your FIRST attempt is almost unheard of and I am so proud of her!
SO - tonight I am starting my first ever online diary of show preparation right up to the installation of our displays. The Flower Show is a family affair with my husband, daughter and father getting involved and chairing their own displays. My husband and father have entered the Windowbox and Lamp Post Division and I will blog about their exploits at a later date! This year my daughter and I have entered the Miniature Settings Division where a lifelike exhibit of a garden or interior is portrayed in a box whose maximum dimensions are 36" long x 22" wide x 48" tall. In this 'box' are true size miniature worlds where 1" = 1 foot. Last year we displayed in this division and won second place. As you can see in the picture at the top of the post, we did an outside garden complete with gazebo and potted plants. The theme of the show was Italy and the theme of our division was: My Italian Inspiration - Outside. Below is the title and intent of our display last year.

BELLA MEMORIES!
Looking out of my window into my backyard, I can see, and hear, what I remember of the glorious gardens of Italy. It reminds me of the wonderful time that I spent in Tuscany. My own little piece of Italian heaven here at home. What beautiful memories!

This year the theme of our division is My little Corner of The World - Outside (notice how I like to do outside?) and I have decided to do a miniature scene of one of my favorite places in the entire world when I was a child. Below is my title and intent for 'My Little Corner of The World':

My Grandparents’ West Virginia Farm.

Catching crawdads in the creek, planting seeds in the garden with Bobo, and collecting eggs for my Mamaw. This old barn is the only thing left of a place that was my little piece of heaven as a child.

So, with that in mind, here is the first of the photos documenting our long trek to the Philly Flower Show 2010!

First things first, we had to buy a miniature barn kit and begin to put it together. Since we are doing a vignette, we will not be using the entire barn! These pictures show my husband's work in putting the barn together.

The second thing we must do is to now cut the barn in half so it will fit in the display. The wood base in this next set of pictures is the exact size of the box that is allowed in the Miniature Settings Division. That is all the space we have to work with - this is why we have to cut down the barn. He has assembled the barn, cut it in half, and is now adding the wood 'siding' (the weights are holding down the 'siding' until the glue dries) that I will then age with gray and red paint to make the barn look old and neglected. As a final touch to the barn - I will add a Mail Pouch advertisement on the side. Next, I will be adding the shingles to the roof of the barn and painting that to make it look old. Eventually we will have vines growing up the front of the barn and trees growing up through the roof and out a window or two. We also have an old tractor that we bought last weekend that will have most of its paint sanded off and it will be allowed to rust (water usually helps with that!) so it fits in with the neglected look.
I will continue to post as we continue to build our display, but the next post will be of the Charming Chionanthus, another great native tree for your garden!

Class time!

2010-01-12T18:42:00.001-05:00

So, I am sitting here in my Delaware Higher Education Teaching Certification class and I feel inundated with information on what to do when I finish this degree! I hope to finish by December 2010 and this is just one more step in the process of teaching at the college level. More later!

Mystical Magnolias!

2010-01-07T14:03:00.006-05:00

What does the word 'mystical' conjure up when you hear it? Do you see wizards or fairies or other 'mystical' creatures? When I think of mystical beings, I think of plants (of course!) and what they contribute to this earth. Without plants there would be no animals. no oxygen for us to breathe, no carbohydrates for us to eat, no way to keep us 'grounded' - literally! Think of mornings in the mountains with the mist over the trees, or the crunch of leaves under your feet in the fall. These mystical beings are integral to our 'being'; they give us hope each spring when they burst out of their dormancy letting us know that the world and life will continue. The vitality of growth in the summer, the wonderful colors and scents of fall and the quiet dignity of winter - all of these things remind us of the continuance of life and the great design behind it all.
Magnolias are one of life's great pleasures in that they give us beauty, texture, color and scent. Did you know that magnolia flowers are associated with beauty, perseverence, dignity and nobility? Flowers, when found on heraldry (coats of arms) mean hope and joy. Magnolia flowers are found on the state crest of Mississippi and are also on the crest of the Magnolia Lodge, a Masonic Lodge in Washington, D.C. (as seen in the picture at the left).
Why magnolias, you may say; because believe it or not, our native song birds love the bright red covering, called the aril (the seed's edible flesh), of the magnolia's seeds. The high fat content of seed aril allows migrating song birds to build up the energy they will need to continue their trip to the southern regions of the world; while our song birds who do not migrate will use this high fat food to keep them warm in winter. To watch a bright red cardinal, a gray-coated mockingbird, and the big bluejays fight over feeding spots on my magnolias is something that I look forward to every fall. They are not afraid to push each other off the most heavily laden branches and will fight over the best positions until they have eaten their fill. There are two major magnolia species that are native to the east coast of the United States. They are Magnolia grandiflora (Southern Magnolia) and Magnolia virginiana (Sweetbay Magnolia).
Magnolia grandiflora, or the Southern Magnolia, is native to the southeastern United States. The native range of Magnolia grandiflora is considered to be from central Virginia south to Florida and west to Texas. In actuality, the southern magnolia can be found as far north as southern Pennsylvania and east to coastal southern New Jersey. This is not an increase in the northern portion of the southern magnolia's native range but is just the furthest north that this beautiful tree can be found. From its brilliant waxy evergreen leaves with their fuzzy undersides to the fragrant perfume of the flowers on a warm spring day, this is one mystical, magical tree that will give you years of pleasure and contentment. When you buy your first southern magnolia, remember to give it plenty of room to grow into the wonderful specimen tree that it can become. It does well in full sun and can tolerate partial shade, but remember, with full sun you will have more flowers. Place it in moist, well-drained humus rich soil and it will do quite well. Do not, though, add peat moss or other additives to the hole but plant it in areas that are naturally well-drained and rich in organic matter. It will survive in drier, less rich soils but never place it in an area that is wet or can become wet with standing water. It can also do quite well in high salt areas, thus its ability to live in coastal areas. One drawback is the southern magnolia's shallow root system which will not survive in heavy compact soils. If you decide to grow this tree, it can take up to 7 years for it to start flowering, so ask the age of the tree when you purchase it.
Magnolia virginiana, or the Sweetbay Magnolia, is my favorite magnolia to grow. It is found in magnolia swamps along the east coast of the United States and there are actually magnolia swamps in both Delaware and New Jersey. This is a wonderful tree that can also be grown as a large multi-stem shrub. In the southern parts of its native range it is evergreen, but as you reach the northern tips of its range, it will drop its leaves in the winter. I love this tree as it is one of the easiest and least troublesome of the magnolias to grow. In late May to early June, the most wonderful bright white flowers begin to open on the branches and the scent of these beautiful flowers will knock you off your feet the first time you smell them! In the early morning, on a late spring day, open your windows near your sweetbay magnolia and you will think that someone has sprayed a fragrant perfume through your windows! The scent is sweet and light and mystical and indescribable until you experience it yourself. The flowers will continue to open over a 2-3 week period and will keep their scent even if you cut the flowers to bring in the house or to take with you in the car as you travel throughout the day. Just like the southern magnolia, the flowers are a bright white with a yellow center; with the bright green of the leaves and the wonderful bright white waxy flowers, you can't go wrong with this beauty in your garden.
As the summer progresses, the flowers are pollinated by beetles, not bees, and the seed pods begin to form. They look like cones but as fall approaches, the seed arils will begin to turn red and eventually, when the seeds are gone, you will have great pods left to bring in and dry for Christmas decorations. I dry them and hang them like ornaments on the tree!
Both of these magnolias are definitely magical and mystical and a definite necessity in your garden.
Two more trees to add to your list of MUST HAVES for your native garden!

Next: Chionanthus virginicus - The White Fringe Tree!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

2010-01-07T13:58:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!
I am a bit behind on blogging these past few days but I am taking the first of seven classes in teacher certification for higher education and there is a lot of homework!! It is a winter session class and is very intense!
I just got home from the continuing work on my research for my degree and as soon as I get my coat off, have a cup of coffee, and take a breath - I will be back with the Mystical Magnolias!!!

The Awesome Amelanchier!

2009-12-29T10:12:00.007-05:00

The awesome amelanchier (am-meh-LANG-kee-er)
is one plant that will knock your socks off when you see it in flower, with berries and with its great fall color. There are over 20 species native to the United States, but I will be concentrating on 4 species that are readily available in your local nursery. Amelanchier has several common names, including Shadblow, Serviceberry, Juneberry, Allegheny Serviceberry, Downy Serviceberry, and Running Serviceberry, among others! The number of common names for this genus is one reason for carrying a list of the botanic names with you when you are shopping for plants! Most amelanchiers are small understory trees that can also be grown as large rounded shrubs. One reason to develop the tree form of these wonderful plants is the beautiful gnarled and lichen covered trunks of the older trees. All amelanchiers have large edible fruit that were used by the Native Americans as a natural sweetener and dessert. Below is a recipe for Serviceberry jelly from the Wallace W Hansen Native Plant Nursery in Salem, Oregon (http://www.nwplants.com/plants/shrubs/ame_alm_index.htm). They have several other recipes listed in which the berries of the Amelanchier alnifolia or A. canadensis berries are the main ingredient.

Serviceberry Jelly

9 cups ripe serviceberries
3/4 cup of sugar per cup of juice
1/2 cup water
3 oz liquid pectin

Stem and wash berries. Place into saucepan and crush a few. Add water. Simmer fruit over low heat for about 10 to 15 minutes. Strain the cooked berries through a jelly bag and recover the juice. Measure juice and place in saucepan with sugar. Mix well and place over a high heat. Bring to a boil and add pectin. Return to boil and hold it for 1 full minute. Skim foam and pour into hot, sterile jelly jars and seal.

As I said earlier, there are several wonderful attributes of the amelanchier that makes it imperative to add these wonderful plants to your native garden. Not only are they great landscape trees but their ability to attract hordes (yes, hordes) of cedar waxwings in their search for juicy berries makes for a wonderful display when the berries are ripe. I have a large Amelanchier canadensis in my backyard that is 'attacked' for about a week every summer by a cloud of cedar waxwings. When they are here, even the raucous blue jays stay away until these wonderful and unusual birds have gorged themselves and flown away. They come in the early morning and will eat for over an hour, fly away and come back for more in the late afternoon. They are often pictured or painted eating amelanchier berries and the bright red-purple berries and bright green leaves of the amelanchier are great background for these colorful birds. One problematic situation involving the cedar waxwing has recently been discussed by scientists and birders alike; the adult cedar waxwing has a yellow bar across the bottom of its tail called the terminal tail bar. The yellow of the bar comes from the carotene produced by the plants the birds eat and is taken in by the birds when they eat the berries. In some populations, this yellow terminal tail bar is turning orange due to the consumption of EXOTIC honeysuckle fruits instead of the native berries important to its diet. No one yet knows of the consequences of this alternate diet, except for the change in tail feather color, but if the tail feather color is changing so are other things within the physiology of the bird. You can see the different colors of the tail bar in these two pictures of cedar waxwings. The change in the tail bar color of the mature cedar waxwing should, I hope, give you pause as you read this blog. What is the significance? Who knows? Why are polar bears dying? Who knows? We can't do much about the polar bears here in suburbia, but we can do something about the changing morphology of the cedar waxwing!
OK, OK - give me a minute to get down off my soapbox again!
I hope by adding information on how exotic plants have changed our environment, you can see why the addition of native plants in your garden will help our wildlife survive the onslaught of exotic species in our environment. Maybe we can't 'change the world' but how satisfying is it to know that you can help save native song birds in your own neighborhood? Or save some native butterflies, moths, even toads and frogs with your actions in your own backyard? Something to ponder!
ANYWAY, back to the awesome amelanchier!
Four great amelanchier species for your garden:
Amelanchier canadensis - known in the eastern United States as the Shadblow Serviceberry - is considered a small tree with a mature height of 25 feet. It has numerous trunks and can be left as a large shrub but looks best when its mature bark is exposed. You can see the twisting, entwined bark with lichen growing on it in this picture of a mature trunk of the Amelanchier canadensis. This wonderful small tree is native from Maine down to the Carolinas (Amelanchier alnifolia is its cousin on the west coast of the US) and usually grows in wet, boggy areas. It is perfect in low, wet areas of your yard but will do just as well in a dryer spot. It is an understory tree but will also love the full sunshine in your backyard. The sunnier the location, the more berries you will see each summer. Prime conditions for this tree is a wet, sunny spot near a window where you can watch for those berries! It can grow as tall as 20 feet and has a great golden color in the fall. The flowers are scented and the scent will waft through your open windows in the spring, 'forcing' you to spend some time in its presence watching the bees pollinate those flowers and setting the scene for your mad dash to the tree to collect ripe berries before the birds descend! All in all, one awesome tree for your garden!
Amelanchier alnifolia is the west coast cousin of Amelanchier canadensis. This tree has berries that look like blueberries and is fantastic as a jelly! It is called the Saskatoon Serviceberry or Western Serviceberry and is found in all of Canada, California north to Washington State, over to Iowa and Minnesota and down to Colorado. It is considered a shrub instead of an understory tree and only reaches a height of 10 feet. This is a great little shrub for those of you on the west coast and will feed your native birds, insects and animals just like Amelanchier canadensis here in the east.
Another great amelanchier is Amelanchier laevis, or Allegany Serviceberry. This 15-25 foot tree is very similar to Amelanchier canadensis, but has bright red berries instead of the red-purple berries of canadensis. . Look at the wonderful bright, bright red of these berries and the lichen encrusted trunks of the mature tree.

Add to that the wonderful yellow-orange to red fall color and you have a specimen tree that will give you four seasons of great texture and color. There are several cultivars of Amelanchier laevis, just as there are great cultivars of the other species mentioned here, and I usually recommend the species over the cultivars of amelanchier, BUT A. laevis 'Snowcloud' is outstanding with its tall narrow shape, blue-green foliage and orange fall color. If you can find A. laevis 'Snowcloud', buy it! It will make a wonderful 'splash' in your garden and will still feed the animals!
Last but by no means least is Amelanchier arborea, the Downy Serviceberry, so named because of the downy feel to the emerging leaves. Downy Serviceberry is not easily found in the trade, but I mention it here because it is one of the parents of Amelanchier x grandiflora, a natural hybrid of Amelanchier arborea and Amelanchier laevis. Amelanchier x grandiflora 'Autumn Brilliance' is a 'Plant of Merit', named by the MBG Kemper Center of the Missouri Botanic Gardens at the University of Missouri. It has sweetly fragrant spectacular flowers that are larger than the species, brilliant blue-green leaves that turn to orange-red in the fall and is more tolerant of drought than its two parents. It was bred for suburban and urban areas and will not take up as much space as the species. All in all, a great hybrid. The name 'Autumn Brilliance' is well-suited to this great cultivar of a natural hybrid. It should be available in most specialty nurseries in the spring but I would call around to find this wonderful tree.

Well, there they are - The Awesome Amelanchiers!

NEXT: The Mystical Magnolias!

The Vivacious Viburnum!

2009-12-28T13:38:00.008-05:00

Hi everyone!
Sorry that I am just now writing about the wonderful and vivacious viburnums, but everyone here at Winterberry Farm has been under the weather! All of a sudden, everyone was sniffling and sneezing all over the place! Things have calmed down and I am back to writing about some of my favorite plants!
The Vivacious Viburnums!
These wonderful plants should be in everyone's yard! There are several native viburnums and some exotic viburnums that can be found in nurseries all over the country. Most of the Asian viburnums are known for their spicy scents and over the top large snowball-like flowers, while our native viburnums are drought tolerant, survive well in hostile urban environments, have wonderful fall color and huge amounts of colorful berries to feed our birds and other wildlife during the winter months. Do you think I may be partial to the native viburnums? These vivacious beauties come in many leaf shapes, overall sizes and berry color! Yes - berry color! Berries of the native viburnums range in color from a pink-red all the way to almost a black color with some of the shrubs bearing an intense blue berry! All native viburnums can take wet areas in your yard and most of them prefer wet areas as opposed to dry spots. From what I have observed in my gardens - wet and sunny are the two preferences for most of our native viburnums.
My favorite native viburnum is a tree-form viburnum called the Black-haw or cherry leaf viburnum (Viburnum prunifolium - zones 3-9). Black-haw viburnums are true to one of their common names and have leaves shaped like cherry leaves. This shrub can naturalize in wet or dry conditions, in the sun or shade and will grow to over 12' tall with an even wider stance depending on location. This is a great shrub for an area where you can give it plenty of room to spread out and will develop into a great screening plant for three seasons of the year. Birds will nest in its numerous branches and other wildlife will find shelter under its wide canopy. One thing it doesn't like is a high salt condition so don't plant these babies at the beach! The leaf stems are a bright red color and its dark blue fruits can be made into jelly! That is, if you can get to them before the birds or other animals denude the stems! In the late fall, the red coloration of the leaves and the blue berries make a wonderful statement in your garden. Make sure that you plant this shrub close enough to the house so you can run out and get some of the berries for yourself before they are gone!
Another great native viburnum is Viburnum trilobum (zones 3-9)or the American Cranberry Bush. As the common name states, this viburnum has bright red cranberry-like berries in the fall. The berries of the American Cranberry Bush are also edible and will make a good jelly. But be careful! This shrub is a favorite of our American song birds and they will be watching and waiting for the berries to ripen! I don't know about you but I don't want to get in the way of a hungry song bird! These shrubs make a good screen for your backyard and their fall color is a beautiful deep rich burgundy color. Viburnum trilobum is named after the shape of its leaves which have three (tri) lobes at the end of each leaf. This shrub can also grow to 15' but low growing cultivars have been developed that will make good low hedges. One very nice low growing (or dwarf) cultivar is 'Compactum Alfredo' and V. trilobum 'Phillips' is a dwarf cultivar that was developed for its flavorful berries. The American Cranberry Bush is supposed to be native to zones 8 and 9 but does not do as well in these warmer climates as it does in the northern sections of its natural habitat. If you live in these zones, make sure to grow these shrubs in a shady area with lots of natural water in the areas that you plant it.
Viburnum acerifolium, the maple-leaf viburnum is the third of the tree-form native viburnums. Viburnum acerifolium grows only 3-4' in height and approximately 4' wide. This viburnum would be great as part of a shrub border and much easier to control than its larger cousins. It has a wonderful open canopy and gives dappled shade to plants planted beneath it in the border. It can tolerate dry shade and turns a 'pink' color in the fall. This viburnum is the larval food for the spring azure butterfly and skippers drink its nectar. The gorgeous black fruits are a delicacy to native song birds and the branches will be full of birds gobbling up as many of the delicious berries as they can until the branches are stripped bare! All viburnums can be grown as shrubs but these three are the easiest to grow in tree form. To do this, as the shrub begins to grow, cut off the bottom branches of the multiple stems to develop a tree shape. The bark of these particular viburnums have great character and will make a great statement as they mature.
The next native viburnum on our list is Viburnum dentatum or Arrowwood viburnum. The arrowwood viburnum is very adaptable and can be seen growing in woodlands and along stream beds up and down the east coast of the United States. It will do well in sun or partial shade, wet or dry, but does best in a wet area and just loves stream beds or swale areas. I love this shrub for its great dentated leaves and striking deep blue fruits.
It is a 'wild thing' and will sucker freely if it likes where you put it. I have one in my backyard that has taken over a corner by one of my sheds. It gives wonderful shade to the plants in this area and has become a nesting area for several bird species including cardinals, blue jays and robins. The size of this shrub allows all of these species to live together without fighting. I have a mother rabbit who raises her young among the suckers at the base of this shrub and it drives our Maya crazy as she cannot get far enough into the base of the shrub to catch some bunnies! Thank goodness! It is native to the east coast of the United States from zones 3-8 and basically grows 10' high and 10' wide. Its light green, coarsely toothed leaves are larval food for several moths and the spring azure butterfly. There are several cultivars including V. dentatum 'Morton' which has a rounded upright form and deep burgundy foliage in the fall. V. dentatum 'Blue Muffin' is named for its deep blue fruits that hang in great clusters on the shrub. This species is another great song bird grocery store and will give you hours of delight as you watch the birds gorge themselves in winter. As you can see in this before and after picture, the window of opportunity to see these wonderful berries is short as the birds will know when the berries are ripe and ready to eat!
There are several more native viburnums that I will just list but the last, but not least, viburnum that I wish to talk about is Viburnum nudum or the Swamp-haw viburnum. Swamp-haw viburnum is a great addition to the shrub border in zones 5-9, with its 12' tall by 6' wide shape. It grows wild from Long Island, NY to Florida and is the only viburnum that will have berries in several different colors on the shrub at one time. This viburnum's berries go from white to pink to finally a dark, dark blue. The different shades of berries on the shrub at one time is glorious and will add a touch of sparkle to your shrub border. The foliage turns a reddish-purple in the fall and with the addition of the changing colors of the berries, this will probably be one of your favorite viburnums. There is a cultivar called 'Winterthur' (pronounced Win-ter-ter) that was developed at Winterthur in Delaware but this cultivar is sterile and will need a species plant around it to pollinate the flowers in spring. I must say that it is worth the effort to grow this spectacular cultivar as the berries are bigger and brighter than the species. A few of the other viburnum species that are great in your garden are: Viburnum lantanoides, (once known as Viburnum alnifolium),known as Hobblebush and Viburnum lentago), known as Nannyberry.
Until now, the Asian viburnums have always out shined the native species because of their spicy scents and big outrageous flowers! Now, with everyone going 'green', native viburnums have started to make waves in suburban gardens and can be found in most local nurseries. When shopping for these great shrubs,using the common names is easier than the botanic names, but take the botanic names with you to be sure of buying the correct plant! So here is the second type of native shrub for your garden - the Wonderful Vivacious Viburnum! - NEXT - the Amelanchier! Wonderful to eat! Wonderful to watch! AND a great shrub for your border!

Our native Winterberry.

2009-12-23T08:26:00.005-05:00

Hi everyone,
I hope y'all are ready for Christmas and have all your cookies made and your presents wrapped! With all of that done, you can sit down and start working on your garden for next year. No, I'm not crazy! This is the perfect time of year to start thinking of next spring and the improvements that you want to make in your gardens. One way to improve your gardens and what you have in them is to include some native shrubs and trees that the native insects, birds and animals can use as their grocery store now in this cold weather and in the spring and summer when creatures like the Monarch butterfly will be in your area. Most of my information on native plants will include those on the east coast of the United States, from zones 1-8, with an emphasis on plants in zones 5, 6 and 7. If anyone is interested, I can also discuss other areas of the country and the native plants in those areas. I hope to make this the first of many articles on native plants - so let me start out with a basic overview. Just give me one minute as I get up on my soapbox!
O.K! Why native plants?
As I have written in other blogs, native fauna can only survive and thrive on the plants that were here when they began to develop thousands of years ago. Some may ask, why can't the native fauna eat or find shelter in plants that have been here for a few hundred years? Unfortunately, plants and animals don't have the ability to change their biology that quickly and need the plants that they 'grew up with'. Plants and animals have adapted to each other, sometimes in very specific ways. Take the koala bear in Australia, its main diet is eucalyptus leaves from which it receives over 90% of its water intake. With the decline of habitat and the clearing of eucalyptus groves, the koala is now in danger of extinction in many parts of Australia.
The stress on remaining populations has allowed what was once relatively harmless bacterial infections to become deadly in koala populations where their habitat is threatened or in decline. Why is this important to us here in the United States? Do you remember years ago when the Monarch butterflies would make their way south and stop off in your neighborhood to rest and feed? Do you wonder where they have gone? With the increase in human development and the destruction of woodlands and grasslands throughout the United States, the food source for these wonderful butterflies has rapidly declined to a point where the Monarch butterfly is in trouble. Monarch larvae (caterpillars) eat only the nectar of the milkweed plant and with the decline of this important native plant, we are losing our Monarchs! There is a website dedicated to the preservation of the Monarch butterfly and it gives homeowners information on how to set up your own Monarch Waystation in your yard (http://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/). It is a very interesting website and has lots of information on what we can do to save the Monarch butterfly. This is just one animal in trouble - there are many others. We in suburbia are the last bastion of hope for our native plants and animals. So, as I get down off my soapbox, let's talk about one very important native shrub that will feed the birds and look beautiful all seasons of the year!
The native winterberry - did you know that this shrub is a holly? It is the only deciduous (loses its leaves in the winter) holly in the United States. It doesn't have the glossy green leaves of the holly that you are used to seeing in yards and used as greens during Christmas but it gives one of the most beautiful displays of bright red in your winter garden that you will ever see! Like other hollies, the winterberry (Ilex verticillata) needs both a male and female plant to make the berries you see every winter. One male winterberry in your yard in enough to pollinate all of your female shrubs. Both the male and female winterberries have beautiful white flowers in the spring and green leaves in the spring, summer and fall but the male shrubs lose their leaves every winter and then fade into the background of your winter garden. Winterberries are native to the United States and Canada east of the Mississippi and believe it or not, they are also native to Texas.
The winterberry is the larval host of the Henrys Elfin butterfly in Texas and the berries on your female shrubs will feed mockingbirds, bluejays, robins (in the late summer), cedar waxwings, and other native birds. I have seen starlings sitting in the shrubs in the late summer, trying to eat the berries but after one or two, they will leave the berries to the native birds that gobble them up as fast as they can swallow them. There are several cultivars of the winterberry available today, including Ilex verticillata 'Nana' Red Sprite (female) and Ilex verticillata 'Jim Dandy' (male). Most of the cultivars are selected for their bright red berries and growth habit. Depending on your area - research which cultivar may be best for you. All winterberries love low, wet areas and grow best in your soggiest areas of your garden. For the best berry production, give your shrubs full sun and enough open area to allow the berry laden branches to weep - sometimes almost hitting the ground when the berry production is at its best. You can also bring in branches of wonderful bright red berries for your Christmas decorating but instead plant them next to windows or doors where you can see the fabulous red color all winter - or at least until the birds strip the branches of the berries! What a great way to have great winter interest in the garden while, at the same time, feeding your native birds a high quality, sugar filled scrumptious meal!
Next time - viburnums!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

2009-12-20T11:46:00.005-05:00

Well, the snow has finished falling and we have about 18" on the ground! The snowplow has already been here and we are starting to shovel out the driveway. The schools are already closed for tomorrow and I am making Christmas cookies today. Yesterday, I made chocolate fudge and peanut butter fudge. My whole extended family loves peanut butter and we never think there is enough peanut butter in any peanut butter fudge recipe. So, I have developed my own peanut butter fudge recipe - I must attach a warning label to this recipe - once tasted - you will become a peanut butter nut! This recipe makes a full 13 x 9" pan of fudge - to make a smaller amount just cut the recipe in half!

Winterberry Farm Fudge:

3 cups sugar
1 12 fl oz can evaporated milk
4 tbsp butter (not margarine)

Put these ingredients into a heavy Dutch oven and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. After the mixture begins to boil, allow it to boil for 5 minutes, again stirring constantly. Remove from heat and immediately add:

3 cups of creamy peanut butter (I know - that's a lot of peanut butter)
3 cups of tiny marshmallows
1 tsp. vanilla

Stir the peanut butter, marshmallows and vanilla into the sugar mixture with a wooden spoon. Mix in the peanut butter and marshmallows until they have melted into the sugar mixture. Continue to mix together until the mixture has a 'shiny' appearance and is completely smooth. Pour into a 13 x 9" aluminum throw-away pan (or a cake pan coated with aluminum foil), allow to cool to room temperature and then place in the refrigerator for at least two hours.

Then stand back and let your peanut butter crazy people at it! My husband (who is not a big peanut butter fan) is usually my taster because if he likes it then peanut butter freaks will love it. I made a batch yesterday and had him taste it this morning. He thought it was 'good' but he is taking it into the guys at work - so that means it is a big hit!

Maya, the crazy dog, has been out in the snow since early this morning and thinks she is a husky or something! She races around and around the backyard jumping and biting at the snow. Here she is digging into the snow on the back steps! Our grandson is out front making a snow fort and my son is out back throwing snow balls at Maya. She thinks they are real balls and after catching them in her mouth - runs around looking for the 'ball' to bring back to my son! I have the trees lit and will wait for Christmas Eve to decorate the big one in the family room - where all of the gifts will magically appear Christmas morning. Time to start the fire in the fireplace and snuggle down with my book before starting on more cookies this afternoon! Tomorrow, a blog on the native winterberry!

Christmas Snow!

2009-12-19T07:54:00.017-05:00

Well, it's here! Our first Christmas snow in several years! Our Maya just woke up and came bouncing down the stairs to go outside. She is now running around the backyard like a crazy thing playing in the snow. I tried to take a picture but all I got was a blur! She loves this cold weather and is having a great time in this snow storm. When it snows like this - and we are up to 5 inches now - we bring in as much wood as possible and settle in for a nice quiet day. Hubby has just gone out for more wood and Maya is back from her third time out in the snow. She doesn't stay out for long but will be making several more trips out today. Here is her favorite pose - ALL DAY LONG - if she is not outside! She is rather upset with me because of the Christmas tree in her way - I am taking up part of her favorite window! She is a crazy girl!
As I sit here writing, I think of all of the birds and animals who have to survive in this weather and I am glad that my gardens are like a grocery store to the creatures who live here. When I opened the front door to take pictures of the snow - I disturbed quite a few mourning doves, cardinals (mom and dad cardinal) and juncos who were resting beneath the porch roof trying to stay warm. Daddy cardinal took off and ended up in an evergreen viburnum watching me to see when I went back inside so he could come back to the porch. I usually try to have some straw or something on the porch in the corners for them to snuggle down into when it is this cold. This is not the best picture of daddy cardinal but you can click on the picture to see him. I am also glad that my gardens are full of food for the birds without my having to go out and put down seed or corn. The native winterberries (Ilex verticillata), American hollies (Ilex opaca), chokecherries (Prunus virginiana), chokeberries (Aronia melanocarpa), viburnums and other native shrubs in my gardens will keep the birds very happy all winter long. This picture shows one of the native winterberries in my back yard which will be covered with birds (if my mama mockingbird lets them) eating berries full of good sugar to help keep their body fat up so they can stay warm this winter. I used to cut branches and bring them in for the great red color this time of year but now I leave the bird grocery store alone so they can eat. I can see the berries from the windows and enjoy their wonderful red color without depriving the birds of their food.
I have gotten most of the decorating finished and I am not doing as much this year. I am beginning to like the subdued look and I am putting out more of our vintage Christmas items instead of more 'modern' things. My trees are all in barrels or boxes and we are using only white lights this year. I also didn't get a live tree this year - first time! - but since we didn't have our Christmas party (too many things going on - including my research which is now at a critical point), I decided just to pull out the fake trees and set them up. Yes, I did say them - we usually have three large fake trees, a live tree in the greatroom and several small fake trees around the house this time of year. I love the look and smell of a real tree and I support the local tree farmers - but this year - it was just too much. I am also not decorating the trees as much and I am leaving all but one tree with just lights. I like the look of the trees without ornaments! I have tried to stay very 'primitive' this year and I think I like the look! We have collected some very interesting vintage Christmas items over the years and I am using more of them this year. Trees in buckets and vintage Christmas things in cupboards! I like this Christmas! My hubby asked me the other day - what I want for Christmas and as I thought about it and looked around at everything we have - I said that maybe this year we could volunteer at a food bank or a soup kitchen as our Christmas presents to each other. I think it may be time to get back to the 'old days' when it comes to gifts and the 'gimme' attitude. This year - the grandson who lives with us - will be getting classes at the local 'Little Chefs Academy' for Christmas. He wants to be a chef when he grows up and this is something that he will have after the Christmas season is over and he can begin to pursue his dream. Our local community college (Delaware Technical College) has one of the best culinary arts programs in the country and this is a good way to get him headed in the right direction!
My online shop (www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm) is doing quite well! Thanks to all of you out there! and I am getting ready to open a selling blog called Holidays at Winterberry Farm where I will be concentrating on vintage holiday items. I am waiting for my new banner to be finished and then I can get this new blog up and running! So, things for us are good here at the 'Farm' and I want to wish everyone out there a great big MERRY CHRISTMAS! I will be back tomorrow and the next few days (now that my new laptop is pretty much set up) with some recipes that I love and some more info on native plants that will feed your birds during the winter!

New items on my website!

2009-12-14T16:25:00.002-05:00

Progress! I have gotten a lot of my files downloaded onto the new computer and I have been able to update my December Update album with great 'new' stuff! Come on over and take a look! We are located at: http://www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm . I am still working on a new selling blog where I will be concentrating on vintage holiday items and it will be called: Holidays at Winterberry Farm. Bear with me as I continue to get back up to speed and back on the right track!

My time in the wilderness!

2009-12-14T07:42:00.002-05:00

Wow!! It has been a scary few days here at Winterberry Farm! Last week my grandson - who lives with us - accidentally fried my laptop! Thank goodness for back up discs! I have finally found a temporary - or replacement - laptop at the local BestBuy and I am loading it up with all of my files as I type! I will be back blogging as soon as possible, but for right now I am hoping that all of my experimental data is still on the discs and that everything uploads properly! Keep your fingers crossed! What's even scarier is that I felt that half of my life was gone without this rectangular black box in front of me!!

December Update at Winterberry Farm Primitives tonight at 5pm!

2009-12-08T10:40:00.005-05:00

The December Update at Winterberry Farm Primitives (http://www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm) starts tonight as 5pm! The picture on the left shows one of four great old putz fences I found in my travels - all of the fence sets have their own gate that still swings freely on its 'hinges'! It's rare to find a putz fence set with its original gate AND for the set to be in such good shape AND I have four of them in the update! Everything inside the fence, except for the wonderful old boy with sled ornament, is also for sale this evening! I hope all of you got a chance to take a sneak peek last night at what will be in the December Update when it 'officially' opens this evening. I am working hard to get all of the information written on the items for sale so everything will be ready for tonight!
To wind down and relax for a minute, I was going to take a look at the blogs I am following, but it looks like Blogger is having another problem because now it looks like I am not following any blogs at all! Oh well! I will just have to finish this posting and snuggle up in front of the fire instead! Hope y'all get a chance to view the update tonight! I'll be blogging again soon!
Susan at Winterberry Farm

Welcoming the Christmas Season!

2009-12-05T14:47:00.010-05:00

Hi everyone! The Christmas season is well underway and we are having our first snowfall of the winter! The weather people are saying that we could get either a dusting or up to 4 inches! I have started a fire in the fireplace and will be snuggling down with a good book as soon as I finish this posting. The great smell of burning wood and the warmth of a big fire always attracts our Maya and she will soon be settling down in front of the fire. My grandson is trying to figure out how to roast marshmallows and has found an old toasting fork that he is holding over the flame to burn off any dust or dirt so he can stick marshmallows on the end of the fork. It's funny to watch him walk in and out of the fireplace and piling on the logs to keep the fire high and hot.
We went to the Rockwood Mansion here in Delaware last night for their Christmas Open House and even though we were not able to take pictures inside the house, I WAS able to get pictures of the lights outside the house. They are a little fuzzy because it was a very dark and cold night. We have a lot of museums here in Delaware and a lot of them are from the Dupont family including Hagley
Museum and Library and Longwood Gardens, just over the PA border in Kennett Square. We had a great time last night and will be hitting some of the other great Christmas sights as the month progresses.
I went hunting for treasures for my December 10th update the other day and found some great vintage Christmas items and some really great primitive antiques! I won't be doing a door prize this time but I will be putting the items on the website by Sunday night as a little sneak peek! I will add the prices on Tuesday morning and will then open the update that evening. I had a hard time not keeping everything this time and I am adding a few pictures here to show you some of the things I found! All of those wonderful things on the table - including the great Amish lap board (!) will be in the update - there are a couple of putz turkeys - yes, turkeys! - very rare - in the update! This is just a sampling of what I have found in my travels - there is at least one old bucket/measure in great attic surface and another old much repaired rectangular bowl that has a lot of wonderful character. The old red color on the big box is amazing and so is its original handle. Most everything I found this time is from the Amish country in Pennsylvania and would look great in your primitive home! Check out my website tomorrow as I set up the sneak peek!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-01T10:43:00.010-05:00

The Christmas season is here and I am hard at work getting everything set up for our first holiday party! My grandson's birthday is December 2nd and we are having his party at our house this weekend. I am going crazy setting up all of the Christmas decorations - old and new - in our home! Our first firewood delivery of the winter is coming this Saturday so I will have the fireplace working overtime this year as we have been told that we are in for a lot of snow! We are the only house on the block (and maybe in the neighborhood) that can basically heat most of our home with just our fireplace! So if the electric goes out during a storm - we are ready for it. Several years ago - during the last BIG snow fall - the electric went out all over our area and I had neighbors yelling across the street - as we were out there shoveling snow - asking if we had a huge generator in our backyard that was supplying electric to light our house! When I turned around and looked back in the windows - I realized that all of our candlelit chandeliers in the house made it look like we had electric power! I just had to laugh! It was great fun walking back into our warm and candlelit house that afternoon - with a pot of stew on the hearth - knowing that we could make it through the day or so of cold weather using just our ingenuity and old time 'electric' lights. The power came back on some time during the night and by the next morning we were able to crank up the heat - but decided - at least until the sun went down again - to turn down that heater and snuggle before the fire. As we piled on more logs and listened to the crackling fire, we watched the birds feeding on the berries on our trees and felt warm and comfy. Here in Delaware, we don't get a lot of years with huge snowfalls, but when we do get the snow - it is a doozy and it looks like we are in for a big snowfall this year.
As I get out all of the Christmas things I am astounded at how much we have collected over the years! I plan to put some of our things on ebay and my website this year and start consolidating our collections! Times they are a changin and it's time to start living with less. It used to take me a day or two to get everything placed and ready for our annual Christmas party but this year, I am on Day Three and I don't even have the trees up and decorated! I usually get everything out and then decide on what will go on the mantel and different areas around the house. This year, in our travels, my hubby - the Christmas collecting person in our house - found this old vignette that someone had made - it reminded us of the Philly Flower Show and our entries in the Miniature Settings category - so he had to buy it! This little vignette has changed how I plan to decorate this year - older and fewer things placed around the house. I have several 'older' Santas that I used to collect in the '80s and '90s that will be going to new homes and some of the plastic light-up Santas will be leaving, too. Some of the hard plastic Christmas decorations will be up for sale and I will be putting some of those items here on a new blog! As soon as we can decide which ones will be leaving home - I will get a seasonal selling blog up and running - look for it by the beginning of next week! If this works, then I plan to continue a seasonal selling blog that will sell vintage things and new - made in the USA - things! Not quite sure of the name yet but I am leaning towards Holidays at Winterberry Farm - what do you think?
I like the idea of a site dedicated to the holidays! They are so much fun and vintage collectibles seem look better in your home whether you have a primitive home or a modern one. I also think that vintage collectibles are something that you can pass down through the family - I have already given my daughter and her family some of my vintage decorations and I hope she continues the tradition. Well - it's back to decorating! I'll be blogging again soon - and I will have more pictures to post of - hopefully - my decorated house complete with trees!

The winner of the November Update revealed!

2009-11-25T15:16:00.005-05:00

Hi everyone!
Things were so crazy yesterday that I forgot to announce the winner of the November Update Door Prize! Linda Tuttle is the winner of the door prize this time - Congrats to Linda! The sitting pinecone Santa will be on his way to Linda on Friday and I hope she loves him as much as I do! I have also had several questions on whether or not I will have a December Update and the answer is a rousing YES! I wasn't sure if I would have another update before Christmas but I now plan to have one on December 10th - that is a Thursday - and I would like to make it a Christmas update with an emphasis on vintage Christmas items. I will also scour the Delaware area for more old boxes, buckets and sieves! I think I like the 'scouring the Delaware area" the best!
I would also like to wish everyone a great big HAPPY THANKSGIVING and a great holiday weekend! To that end, I would like to share a pumpkin cake recipe that I recently found on mixingbowl.com

It was originally called: Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Icing, BUT I changed it around a bit and I call it:

Scrumptious Punkin Cake

Preheat oven to 350F

Ingredients:

4 eggs
1 2/3 cups sugar
1 cup cooking oil
1 (16 oz) can of pumpkin (pure pumpkin)
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spices (my addition)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Mix everything together and pour into UNGREASED 13 x 9" pan. Bake 55 minutes and remove from oven and THEN (my addition) instead of the cream cheese icing - mix together 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and 1/4 cup milk to a drizzle consistency. Pour this mixture over the still VERY hot cake, allow to cool a bit and dig in!
Serve this as dessert along with the punkin pies and you will get rave reviews!

Have a great Thanksgiving and don't get too crazy on Black Friday!!!!!

Wow!

2009-11-24T16:13:00.004-05:00

A great response so far from my email list and I am opening up the November Update to everyone in the next few minutes! Come on over to my picturetrail site and take a look!
http://www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm. I will be blogging tomorrow but today I am tuckered out (as my Mamaw would say) from sending out invoices and packing up all kinds of great stuff to send out to some wonderful people!

The clock is ticking down the minutes 'til the update!!

2009-11-22T12:13:00.010-05:00

Hi everyone!
I have been spending the last couple of days getting ready for the update! Cataloging items, taking pictures and getting everything put on my picturetrail site ! I am so excited about how things are coming together that I just had to give you a couple more sneak peeks! Here is an old red canister that I am selling this time - you have seen it in the pictures of my greatroom. I love the things that I find in my travels but sometimes it is time to send somebody on their way to a new home! I have used this canister (or whatever it is - LOL!) to hold flowers of all kinds and every Christmas I fill is with fresh holly or winterberry branches to brighten a dark corner! I also have a picture of one of the sifters that I found (oops! gave you another hint!) and filled it with some holly and a great old celluloid ram. Both of these items will be in the update along with a lot of other cool stuff! Remember to send your email address to me before Monday afternoon so I can add it to the email list and you can get a chance to see the items for sale before 5pm on the 24th! You will also be in the drawing for our November Door Prize; the winner will be announced during the update on the 24th! I am heading back to the camera and more pictures - have a great rest of your weekend. I will be posting again tomorrow - so come back for a visit! My picturetrail site address is: http://www.picturetrail.com/winterberryfarm and my email address is: winterberryfarmprimitives@live.com

The November Update is just around the corner!

2009-11-16T18:06:00.003-05:00

Another little look at what I am collecting for the update! I am stacking stuff and stacking stuff and running out of space! I am getting so excited! I love what I have found and have had to slap my hands to stop me from keeping everything!

Fall at Winterberry Farm

2009-11-15T14:54:00.010-05:00

Hi everyone,
I have been running around for the last couple of weeks taking pictures of my gardens this fall. Both front and back yards are basically 'grassless' with only a few strips of grass for our Maya so she doesn't get too wacky! Walking through the leaves and scuffling my feet brings back good memories of huge piles of leaves that we would play in as children before my dad raked the leaves up and put them in the compost. Trips to both sets of grandparents homes meant going home to the farm. Being born and raised in West Virginia, I can remember the wonderful crisp weather in the fall and the fun we had running amok on the farm! What happened to those days? Was it the need for everyone to have the 'perfect' lawn? Maybe we are all a bit too anxious and busy these days - oh well - please enjoy my version of 'leaf peeping'. If you are interested in having great fall color in your gardens and yards - let me know and I will post info on the best trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants for fall color in your neck of the woods!