(Imagine “Mission Impossible” music playing as you read this…)

I have a challenge for the gardener’s out there:

Gardener's Challenge

Send me one of your greatest garden stories ever!

Like, the story you tell your family over and over because it’s so ridiculous. The story you think back to and wonder… why the hell do I garden in the first place?! For example:

“One of the first times I was hired to create a garden for a client I was 18 and thrilled with the thought of building a fabulous flower garden (which was really just weeding a 100 sq. foot area and tossing in a couple plants… to me – a huge job!) . Candace was my client’s name and she said she wanted tons of flowers! “Tons!!“, she reiterated. So, knowing that flowers needed lots of nutrients to bloom – I bought two yards of chicken manure and spread it throughout, roughly, 100 square feet. I realized it smelled funny but just thought more was better and I should apply it in ample amounts anyway. Then I planted an array of roses and salvias – one of the salvias (and when I say one I mean I planted ten!) was salvia uglinosa.

Once I was finished spreading the manure, planting and watering, I stepped back and took in the newly planted masterpiece I created. My client was very pleased and I went on my way. Then next day (literally) I got a call saying everything was dead. I was sure Candace was over reacting and drove there as fast as I could. But, as she said – everything was dead. The roses were burned beyond repair and the salvias looked as if someone took a torch to them in the middle of the night… oh, and I stained her driveway with the chicken manure delivery.

I had to pay to buy new plants, different compost, and do all the work for free to take away the old manure and replant everything again. After all that was done, a month later I drove buy to see everything happy again… including the salvia uglinosa! That stupid salvia was coming up everywhere like a weed! (Salvia uglinosa is on many states invasive plant list.. beware!)

Candace is still my client (ten years later) and we laugh about it to this day… she still has salvia growing in her front yard and I have never used chicken manure since. ”

The winner of this challenge gets their choice of a one gallon succulent or strawberry (already setting fruit!) AND one rose scented sugar scrub!

The winner’s story will be posted the week the contest is over, with link to their blog. Prizes will be send right away, with official certificate that your story rocked!

Contest to start: NOW

Contest to end: March 5th

Send stories to: gardenerj@gmail.com

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I’m not a huge dianthus fan… but this one is really adorable, with tiny magenta flowers. It’s been in a fabulous little terra cotta pot on my deck… until the dogs burst out the door (which they do every time it’s time for “Let’s go potty!”) and bashed it over like a couple of filthy heathens. I have a slight suspicion that the little one, Patootie, purposefully did it out of some sort of sick revenge since I lost her favorite toy the other week. In any event, the pots broken and I finally got around to repotting it. In doing so I found that I should have repotted it… Ummm, like, months ago!

Here’s the raw footage!

Check out those crazy roots… it was spongy and completely porous.

Ohwwwweee! Sorry dianthus, now your in a five gallon, happy as a clam!

My pencil was extra sharp (Shout out to Matt Leddy! my old landscape architect professor that would always say No Fuzzy Lines!!!!)) today while I was finalizing the latest drawing I’ve been working on for a new client. This design has gone remarkably smooth, most likely a combination of an open and easy to work with client, and myself being totally engrossed in yet another podcast. I find if I design without any background noise inspiring ambiance, I rarely get shit done over analyse and over complicate things. So today I had on a Radio Lab podcast about Time… I was half listening, half drawing when I heard the name Carl Linnaeus. And since I love all things Linnean, I stopped to listen more closely. They were talking about how Linnaeus spent time observing flowers, and how those flowers opened and closed at certain times of the day. This is for a few obvious reasons – the sun, duh, the bugs, pollination blablabla – but what Linnaeus did, was make a clock with the names and images of certain flowers that predictably opened at different times.

Hence, one could figure out what time of the day it was by simply looking at which type of flower was open.

“How handy is this!?”, I thought. Who needs those pesky iPhones or that cheesy Rolex when you can simply walk around some highly wooded and naturalized area looking for open flowers! Genius, I say.

Although more modern plants may have to substituted depending on where you live, this would make for an excellent garden. (hint, hint future clients!)

Comes in the form of the wind last night, pushing my rectangle terra cotta pot full of agave, off the railing to plummet to it’s death.

Here is where they were.

Here is where they landed.