Secrets, tricks and best bets for your successful garden this spring

For most of the country, this is the time to start tilling the soil, adding organic amendments, buying the seeds, starts and accoutrements to begin the planting season.  (Those of us in South Florida are winding down our main fall to winter vegetable planting season.)  This is a new article I wrote for Examiner.com giving you top tips for your new spring planting.  Click on the purple sentence below to read article.

Best goals for your garden this spring

Fresh lettuce greens are quick and easy to grow.

I am excited to share this wonderful method of organizing  seed packets.  I have tried many methods over the years.  I have kept them in boxes, bags and recipe card holders.  On one of the social networks there was a post on utilizing small photo albums to hold seed packets.  I love it!  Here is a quick video to show you how.

It is also fun to try new varieties  it keeps gardening interesting.  Remember to rotate crops, they produce bigger yields and it helps the soil as well.  I never spray any insecticides and always have plenty to eat, even in my small urban garden.  I am going to try some yard long beans and maybe some tropical root crops this summer.  New to me also is a tropical green called callalo, which is utilized like spinach.  You may know it as amaranth.

Creative salads from garden produce is always a healthy easy to digest meal during hot summer months.

Cherry tomatoes ripen quickly and can be diced and added to salads, omelettes   sandwiches and burgers.

The mango tree is putting out a second set of blooms this year for two crops of fruit, very unusual.

I hope you find these tips useful and have a happy, productive, fun, healthy growing season.


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Boston bombings, Stress and therapeutic landscapes

 What a week it has been, so stressful.  One night I had the news on late, and then was unable to get to sleep.  I even woke up early, without the alarm.  I need my garden more than ever to heal, calm down and try to relax.  As the Grateful Dead song goes, What a long strange trip it’s been.

Tips to heal:

Take a walk in a park, nature preserve or garden.  Mother Nature has a way of calming you down.  The fresh air, beauty, and order are very calming.  It is also beneficial to get out of the house, away from the routine, and especially away from the TV for a while. 

 Visit a florist shop.  The beauty of flowers arranged just so, brings joy and lift your spirit.  You can buy one or make your own.  Making your own arrangement is very creative and will make you feel good.  Enjoy the aroma of flowers.  Aromatherapy is great for soothing the soul.

 Go to a garden center.  The beauty of orderly landscape plants and flowers contrasts the chaos and sadness of recent events of Boston and Texas.  The soothing sounds of water cascading from fountains will help you feel better.

Time will heal most of our wounds.  In the meantime, just take it one day at a time.

Try not to self medicate with pills, wine or sweets.  Let Mother Nature heal you. 

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Best shoes to wear in the garden

There are a wide range of shoes to wear in the garden.  Everyone has their preference.  I know one woman who liked to garden with her bare feet, until she picked up worms. Bare feet, sandals, flip flops, rubber shoes with large holes and so forth, I do not recommend.  You want to keep the soil away from your feet.

Cloth shoes get wet and dirty.  The mud seeps through the cloth, so you might as well be bare footed.  Cloth shoes are fine if you are just taking a stroll through the garden and are not going to work in it.  Lets say you are having a garden tour or want to read a book in the garden, then cloth is better than sandals.

Work boots are great when you are digging large holes with a shovel for installing a landscape.   I damaged a pair of rubber soled athletic shoes once while digging with a shovel.  Avoid working with waffled, large grooved sneakers, since they can get caught in the metal shovel.

I am trying out a pair of Xtratuf garden shoes from Garden Shoes Online and they are holding up well.  They keep my feet clean and dry.  The soles are not slippery.  I stamp my feet a couple of times before I enter the house and do not bring in a trail of dirt.  I remember days of my youth, hiking through the woods and the footprint dirt trail from the front door to my bedroom.  Did my mother scream at me!  From then on I would sit on the front door steps and scrape out the dirt from my shoes with a stick before entering the house.  

FYI, the FCT requires that I let you know that Garden Shoes Online provided these shoes for me to try.


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Happy Easter and Passover in the garden

Spring time is here and that means so are Passover and Easter.  The two holidays are intertwined and have much to do with food and gardening.  In spring, the popular bulb to grow in the landscape are the amaryllis.  They are carefree and multiply readily.  Below is a nice article and slide show featuring these lovely flowers.
Amaryllis announces spring in South Florida

During the Passover Seder  we eat charoses, which is made out of chopped walnuts, apples and wine, which represents mortar Jewish slaves used to build the pyramids.  The bitter herbs (horseradish) represented the hard times of enslavement.  If you ever saw Charelton Heston in the Ten Commandments  that is the story of Passover that we tell the first and second nights of the Seder meal.  When the Jewish people were finally freed, they had to leave early morning, before their bread had risen, rushing off into the desert for forty years.  Hence we do without leavened bread and eat Matzah for the week of Passover.

During Easter, lilies, tulips, hyacinths are utilized to show a new beginning.  Palms are used to make crosses.  As the people of the Jewish faith do without bread for Passover, the Catholics due without something of their choice for lent.  The communion cracker is similar to Matzah. Every Friday from Ash Wednesday until Easter, during lent, no meat is eaten on Fridays.

I wish you a wonderful spring and holiday season.  Thank you for stopping by my blog and see you again soon!

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Healing Power of Roses on #rosechat radio

On Saturday morning, March 23, tune in to #rosechat radio and learn about the healing power of roses.  As a horticulture therapist, roses play an important role in my healing engaging activities.

Currently I work with seniors and roses play an important role in their memories.  What did the flower girl drop on the floor on their wedding day?  Rose petals.  What flowers did they get from their husbands for special occasions? Roses.  What parade did they watch every New Years Day?  The rose parade.  What was one of their favorite flowers to grow in their gardens?  Roses.

My residents love to hold a rose and the first thing they do is hold the flower to their nose.  I only grow the most fragrant roses.  As we age our senses diminish. Some seniors I work with have lost their sense of smell totally.

Over the years I have installed several rose gardens at nursing homes, independent senior living facilities and assisted living apartments, senior activity centers, day programs, and Alzheimer units.

The thorns can become a health hazard to those on blood thinners, diabetics, and the frail elderly.  Be careful where you plant them.  I like them to be close enough to have access but not in the way so they get scratched as they walk or wheel themselves by the bushes.

All the above roses are photos from my backyard garden.  I love growing roses and always have bud vases in the kitchen and bathrooms with roses in them.  The link below is for the rose radio broadcast.  You can catch it live or listen at your leisure at any time after the broadcast.  Click on the link below to listen.

Rose chat radio guest Robert Bornstein explains the healing powers of the rose.

Thank you for stopping by my blog and see you again soon.


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Early spring blooms in the garden

One of my favorite aspects of gardening is observing blooms opening day by day.  I like to take a few minutes before work to tour the garden.   This week the ginger is starting to bloom.

It is beautiful to see sunlight shining through the tropical foliage and highlighting the bloom as it begins to open.

As the sheath separates, the smooth white flowers with pink tips reveal themselves like pearls.

As the cluster matures, each flower opens up and within the heart of the white flower, revealing a yellow/orange center.  It is reminiscent of  a snap dragon.  Each day more yellow flowers emerge from the top of the cluster downward.  The joys of gardening are plentiful.

Thank you for following my blog and see you again soon!


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Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition Show

Every year the Florida Nursery, Landscape and Growers Association has a gigantic plant show, the Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition show at the Broward County Convention Center.  Since I started writing for Examiner.com I cover the event for them.  However, I have been attending the event for many years.

I know many of the nurserymen from when I was a state of Florida state agriculture inspector for the Division of Plant Industry.  It was my first job out of college.  I had to inspect nurseries who wanted to become certified to ship plants out of state to California, Texas and Arizona.  Those states had strict laws restricting plants grown in soil from Florida due to our destructive nematode problems in our soils.

Back to the plant show.  There are so many vendors the show takes up the entire hall.  It is fun seeing the latest plant introductions.  It is nice to see the growers I used to visit.  I like to learn about the new products all the other vendors offer. Growers from Canada, China, and Europe are also there.  There is so much to see I often go back more than once to see everything.

Here is a link to the Examiner article and slide show I wrote.  Enjoy and thank you for stopping by my blog.  Click on the link below.

TPIE show and Slide show

Thank you for stopping by and please enjoy these other educational and informative links.


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Majestic Oaks, Seniors, Fathers and sons

A tree grows more stately and elegant as the years go by.  The tree canopy reaches up to the heavens   Their trunks show strength and stability.  Here are the best places to view majestic oaks in South Florida. How well are we aging?
Where to view majestic oaks in South Florida

I work with seniors as their candles are burning out.  A slight faint glimmer of a flame remains.  Sometimes as I glide the wheelchairs back to their rooms after class and see ancient photos of their past vibrant selves, it really makes me sad.  I try not to think about it too much.  As I pass by a mirror and view myself in the reflection, I am cognizant of the reality.  It is happening to me as well.

Father and son back in the day.

What I see in the mirror is an image of my father.  Do not get me wrong, I am happy to look like my father.  Here we are together.

Now my father works with me at the nursing homes.  We both enjoy each other's company while at work, but sometimes he gets melancholy and asks me forlornly, is this my fate?  I smile and tell him I will take care of him and my mother, they can move into my house.  But what will happen when they need much more care?  We both know the answer.

Robert and my father at work

This takes us back to the beauty of the majestic oaks, who get stronger and more powerful with age.  My father is a like an oak, his wisdom makes him stronger with age.  With wisdom comes a sense of inner peace, of knowing more and worrying less about the small stuff.  Of having the self confidence of being comfortable in your shoes, with who you are.  I see this with my seniors, they have a sense of dignity.

Maturity has its advantages.  My garden gets more beautiful with age.

Thank you for stopping by my garden blog, hope to see you again soon!  For more inspiration, links are provided below.  See you in the social net universe.


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