Posted: 19 Sep 2009 09:29 PM PDT

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In Focus

Ruth Rosenberry's garden will be open 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday at 3005 Ritner Highway, Carlisle.

By Andrea Ciccocioppo, Sentinel Reporter, September 20, 2009

Last updated: Saturday, September 19, 2009 11:39 PM EDT

You can tell Ruth Rosenberry has a green thumb just by stepping onto her front porch where baskets and pots of plants welcome visitors.

Each container is planted and tended by Rosenberry — and a few feathered friends.

"I had a Jenny wren build a nest in that basket," Rosenberry said, pointing to a basket of flowers hanging on her front door. "And a robin was living in the ficus tree."

Rosenberry shouldn't be surprised feathered friends have taken up residence at her place. She collects birdhouses and has them staked throughout her West Pennsboro Township garden. The garden has been awarded Garden of the Month by the Carlisle Garden Club.

"I selected her garden on the recommendation of her friend, Johnnie Stitzel," explained Carol Henry of the club. "Ruth has a variety of perennials and annuals and her husband has a vegetable garden. There is color everywhere in Ruth's garden."

36 years in the making

Rosenberry has lived in the home for 36 years.

"I had flowers, but not like I have now," she said.

For the first decade or two, Rosenberry was busy working and tending to her family. But after retirement, she got busy outdoors.

"I just started putting things in," she recalled. "My dad was a big flower man — he loved flowers. I guess I inherited it."

Her gardens, which run along the foundation of the home, in addition to a large plot in the back yard, include a mix of annuals and perennials.

"I have more perennials because they give color all season long," Rosenberry explained.

Her gardens include a variety of whites, purples, pinks and reds.

The varieties most prevalent throughout the plots are cleome, purple aster, black-eyed Susan, mums, hydrangea, climatis, hosta, feverfew and fountain grasses.

Rosenberry's favorite is delicate and hearty.

"I like the Sweet Alyssum," she said.

The big plot

Rosenberry's home sits on about two acres. The rear garden is about 30 by 20 feet tucked behind a garage and potting shed.

The garden is accessible through a trellis and winding stone path and includes daylillies, fern, forsythia and colorful perennials, accented with bird houses and Rosenberry's collection of sprinkling cans.

The anchor of the garden is a wild honeysuckle bush.

"I have to keep it under control or it will get out of hand," Rosenberry said. But the bush serves a purpose.

"The birds like the berries," she said with a grin.

There's no rhyme or reason to the layout of the garden.

"If I see something I like, I try to find a place for it," Rosenberry explained. "It something doesn't work in one place, I put it somewhere else until it does work."

Work and play

Rosenberry said she puts a lot of work into her garden by mulching and weeding, while her husband toils in the large vegetable garden adjoining the flower bed.

"He does the garden, I do the flower beds," she said. "I'm out here almost every day."

But for Rosenberry, the work has its merits.

"I love it," she said. "It's my relaxing time. I can hardly wait until spring comes."

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City garden is private wonderland - South Coast Today

Posted: 19 Sep 2009 08:54 PM PDT

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Gardens have the ability to stimulate our senses. Even better if they fire the imagination.

You might not set out deliberately with such a lofty objective when you're creating a garden. Most of us just want a plot that will look pleasing, maybe a place that will welcome birds and butterflies, too. The average home gardener probably isn't aware he's created a mini-adventure park, a sanctuary or a place to simply twirl and roll, until he discovers a child at play in a garden.

But then again, some, like Debra and William White of New Bedford, have made a conscious effort to create a garden that is both. It's interactive for children and nature, while also serving the purpose of enhancing their home. It has the added bonus of being a great place for a "staycation," a place to escape to right in your own yard.

Theirs is a "working neighborhood," where the main streets feature the occasional shade tree and gardens are sparse. Although most of their plot is hidden, it's obvious that the Whites have left a green imprint on Cedar Street. In the making for 20 years, it's an urban oasis, abundant with plant life, a main attraction not only for wildlife, but people.

My visit last month coincided with a light rain, giving a softening effect to the scenery (as well as blurring my notes). The immediate impression from the front entrance, where colorful nasturtiums spill out of a railing window box, is one that conveys pride of ownership as well as an affinity for plants. Interest is heightened by the weaving of carefully pruned shrubs with profusions of foliage spilling out from paths that surround the two-family home. To walk through is to blend into the greenery, colliding with tropicals and natives alike.

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We began in the back, where an above-ground swimming pool is situated, totally enclosed by greenery. Vines that include an amazing climbing hydrangea and trumpet vine flank the back and side fences, and a large flowering pear tree overhangs the outer reaches of the lot, something that Debbie says stands out visibly in the neighborhood in spring. The water theme runs through the garden because of their love of the seashore, where they make frequent trips for relaxation and foraging. Embellishments pay tribute to that theme — from seashell pavers to a lobster trap and buoys placed within the context of the garden as well as a shell-shaped fountain.

William, an avid gardener, holds a degree in arbor culture park management from the UMass Amherst's prestigious Stockbridge School. Developing this garden and keeping it perfect gives him the simple satisfaction that true gardeners understand. In addition to an eclectic assortment of flowers, both annual and perennial, the garden boasts several extraordinary trees and shrubs, including a purple smoke tree, flowering pear, weeping white pine, mimosa, Hinoki cypress and Kerria and Japanese maple. All of these are woven into the unique tapestry.

The Whites are recyclers, with a corner compost pile hidden by a beautiful squash-covered arbor, as well as a barrel to catch and reuse rainwater. Plants come from a variety of sources including swaps and salvaging, many resuscitated under William's capable green thumb. From lowly beginnings, a towering Japanese maple and dahlias are the results of scavenging.

"Most people toss it away, but we will try to bring it back to life," says William, who isn't without his pruners. "If you do a little at a time, it doesn't become an overwhelming chore."

His wife has an eye for beautiful plants, which she will purchase and bring home for William to plant.

"He's the one with the knowledge. I'm the one with the vision," Debbie says. The outcome speaks for itself.

Their garden celebrates the cycle of the seasons with hellebores blooming in winter and assorted bulbs in spring, although summer is the most prodigious time. The Whites also nurture nature, be it squirrels, birds or other small animals. Sunflowers are planted with squirrels in mind, and there is a feeder expressly for them, decreasing competition at the bird feeder. Birds that frequent the feeders and trees include cardinals, bluebirds, sparrows, chickadees, doves and hummingbirds.

"I have a pair of cardinals nesting in my smoke tree this year," Debbie wrote me in early August. "It is so sweet to listen to them talk to each other before they settle down for the night. She is on her nest almost all day, while he talks to her from the other tree in my yard. I can't wait for the eggs to hatch!"

While we walked through the garden with the Whites' 3-year-old granddaughter, Arianna Vaughan, skipping along, it became obvious this sanctuary offered something for everyone. It celebrates the seasons, nature, the sea and the bonds of family. William adjusted planted areas to accommodate a play area for grandchildren, something that Arianna clearly enjoys.

Within the confines of their city plot, there is a romantic undertone, as well, played up by lovely blooms. In particular, during my visit, were the dinner-plate-sized red blooms of hibiscus. Debbie remarked smiling, "I fall in love all over again with my husband out here."

Whatever or whoever you are — this garden has the makings of a mighty wonderland.

Quote of the day

"One who plants a garden, plants happiness."

— Anonymous

For more of Laura McLean's gardening stories and advice see www.southcoastgardens.com. E-mail her at lmclean@s-t.com or write c/o Home Editor, 25 Elm St., New Bedford, MA 02740.

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Planting a jaw-dropping home garden - HamptonRoads.com

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 09:31 PM PDT

Devoted gardeners dig and plant and prune and weed season after season, eking out their own little Eden.

But few are as successful in conjuring a paradise as jaw-dropping as the one Paul English has created.

In a modest neighborhood in Chesapeake's Western Branch area, English has created a spectacular Japanese-style garden around a house he bought more than 30 years ago on a street aptly named Mimosa Court.

His garden theme begins at the curb with a low bamboo fence, leads to a tree-shaded waterfall and pond beside the front door and wraps around the house, deep into the back and side yards with curving beds 50 feet long. His garden features a fire pit, greenhouse and a trickling waterfall wall on the garage's exterior.

The elaborate landscape started simply enough.

A couple of years after he moved in - he thinks it was 1979 - the then-novice gardener bought 30 pots of pink coral bell azaleas and put them in the ground behind the house.

They thrived, and English felt more than satisfaction.

"I thought I was big time," he said.

Something within him stirred, planting a passion to grow more.

Then more, and more.

English, who teaches economics and geography at Chesapeake's campus of Tidewater Community College, spent several years living and working in Asia, bringing back home a love of Japanese maples, bamboo, fish ponds and boulders. He calls his gardening style a twist on the real thing, or "Japanese eclectic."

"I have too much color for the style to be truly Oriental," he said. "I like to play with shape and form and color and texture and size."

From the beginning, one of English's biggest challenges was the flatness of his terrain. Water pools and drains poorly after a big rain. So, with an artist's eye, he piled soil in long, undulating berms and bought trees and shrubs and perennials that allowed him to "paint" as well as plant.

A dwarf elm that he keeps pruned to enjoy its structure gives him what he likes even when it's bare.

"I like seeing trunk and branches, " he said.

English also enjoys the movement and texture of mondo grass, the snakelike vine of a wisteria.

He loves the color red, using it again and again in things like a Yaupon holly (ilex vomitoria), that develops electric red berries. Crimson Queen, a lace-leaf Japanese maple (Acer palmatum dissectum), is another favorite because of its hue.

And he cherishes black bamboo, even though, he admits, its aggressive habits are a pain. He contains his in an aluminum-lined concrete trough 25 inches deep and 6 inches wide.

For seating, he sprinkled around organic Indonesian root chairs, tables and benches. Some are grouped around a recent addition, a three-boulder bubbling fountain installed near the house.

Boulders and stones are important elements in English's garden. He takes great pains to decide where and how to place them in and around plant beds.

"I read a book, and it said you want to bury your rocks to give them vigor," he said, grinning and tapping one enormous boulder with a foot. "But this one is like an iceberg."

He miscalculated as he dug the basin for the massive rock to rest in and ended up with more of it below ground than he had planned.

English's gardening methods are never simple.

To promote drainage in the raised beds he continues to establish on his flat land, he uses his own planting mix: two yards of pea gravel, two yards of soil, two yards of shredded hardwood mulch and two yards of compost.

As both the garden and English have matured - he is 62 - he has finally begun taking shortcuts here and there.

"I used to mix all that manually, he said. "But now I have it all put in a dump truck, and when it's delivered and it's dumped, it tends to mix it."

The design decisions create tension and harmony in a panorama he and wife, Linda, enjoy regardless of the weather, temperature or season from the large windows of an expansive sun room on the back of their home.

In winter, evergreens and structural plants entertain the eye. In spring, the garden explodes in a confection of bloom. In summer, texture takes over as deciduous and evergreen plants, shiny-leafed and dull, large-leafed and small work in concert to create interest. Fall means another interplay of seasonal color. Rivers of lawn provide a sense of movement and relieve the eye.

"We like the inside/outside feel and the way the garden comes right up to the window," he said.

As English has had more ideas and craved more space, his handiwork oozed into neighboring properties so his garden can grow unimpeded, eating up square footage like rambling kudzu vine.

Now he owns five properties and three houses, one that he and his wife live in and two that he rents out. The entire estate takes in 3 acres.

And he's not done.

"I come out here and drink and think," he joked.

Close study doesn't guarantee instant success: "I always overdo it. I'll make the same mistake a hundred times. Open space is just as important as planted space in Japanese gardening, and I always forget that.

"I read a ton of books. I go to a lot of botanical gardens. I plant stuff - and kill a lot of stuff. The hardest thing is knowing what a plant looks like during each part of the year."

He says that every time he begins designing another bed, it takes two or three years for things to fill in and "look right."

Pacing off the flat lowlands that make up his garden, he called out the names of established beds as he passed them: Mr. Dodd's bed, Herb's bed, Linda Pinkham's bed. Betty Jo's bed was named after a friend who requested a spot.

"Everybody here's a tough cookie," English said, indicating the non-irrigated plants in Betty Jo and revealing a charming habit in which he often refers to a plant as "this guy," as if it were human.

"I wanted to see if people could live out here," he said, throwing an arm toward a particular flat area of his yard that still collects water in heavy rain.

"People" can. Everyone in that raised bed is thriving.

However, another bed at the very back of his acreage full of burgundy-leafed loropetalum, dogwood saplings, verbena and camellias is not a favorite. It is called J.J.'s bed or, on bad days, "the bed from Hell."

"This is a bed I get depressed about when I come over here because it's so weedy," he said, noticing with displeasure that poison ivy had recently taken root. "I never make it over here. I run out of time and energy, and I procrastinate."

He paused for a moment near the resting place of Moon Dancer, a beloved cat, listening to the wind hiss through the loblollies overhead.

"The pine forest is not mine," he said ruefully, looking toward a neighboring house in a clearing beyond the trees. "I covet it, and they know it."

English and his wife always traveled quite a bit. But they've cut down on far-flung vacations, he said, because they like being home the best.

Staying home lets English garden constantly, in sun or rain. Since he works at home, he is inside and out all day. English's renters are beyond delighted that he plants and mulches and weeds their yards, and he entertains neighbors by always changing their views. Friends come over frequently to enjoy the ambience.

English is happy that his wife seems to enjoy helping with the weeding. Even so, maintaining what he has created takes time. Wet weather brings on weeds with a vengeance, despite pine straw laid so thick that walking on it feels like treading on a mattress. This past spring he spread 500 bales. Last year it was 350.

He also manages six sets of compost piles.

"I think composting is close to godliness," he said, leaving some doubt about whether he was joking.

This summer English won the Chesapeake Environmental Improvement Council's Notable Yards Contest, and his garden has been open during the state's Historic Garden Week.

The couple welcomes many casual visitors. Some call. Some spy the view from the street, pop in and ask for a look.

On their strolls they might see the empty space at the back of the garden or an unplanted area to the side.

English just smiles.

"Well, I have plans."

Krys Stefansky, (757) 446-2732, krys.stefansky@pilotonline.com

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Garden Calendar - The Miami Herald

Posted: 19 Sep 2009 09:58 PM PDT

EVENTS

Back to Nature Farmers' Market & Pines Garden Show: Vegetables and fruits, native plants, trees, flowers and orchids. Garden professionals demonstrate how to attract birds, butterflies, native ferns and frogs plus tell how to care for trees, lawns and landscaping, grow vegetables and flowers and properly trim trees and use water in a sustaining way. Also includes children's art activities; 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday; Pembroke Pines City Hall, 10100 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines; free. 954-435-6525 or www.ppines.com.

Bird Walks by Tropical Audubon Society: 305-667-7337 or www.tropicalaudubon.org.

• Matheson Hammock Park: John Boyd, a volunteer leader of Tropical Audubon Society, leads birders through the park; 7:30 a.m. Sunday; 9610 Old Cutler Rd., Coral Gables.

• Greynolds Park: Jim King, chief naturalist for Miami-Dade Parks, leads birders through the park; 7:30 a.m. Saturday; 17530 W. Dixie Hwy., North Miami Beach.

Bromeliad Society Auction: Annual event with rare and unusual bromeliads and bromeliad-related items; 6:30 p.m. Monday; Jim Ward Community Center, 301 NW 46th Ave., Plantation; free admission. 954-927-0015.

Flamingo Gardens Appraisal Event: Get your antiques, art, clocks and watches appraised for $3 per item plus half-price admission to the gardens; 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. Expert appraisers also explain the history and value of each piece. Bring photos of large or fragile items. No jewelry, rugs, textiles, books or ephemera are appraised; 3750 S. Flamingo Rd., Davie. Half-price admission is $8.50 for ages 12 and up, $4.25 kids 4-11, free for kids 3 and under and members. 954-473-2955 or www.flamingogardens.org.

Historic Garden Tour: Tour various private farms and estates with Chris Rollins, park manager at Redland Fruit and Spice Park, and learn about tropical farming community of the Redland; 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday; Redland Fruit and Spice Park, 24801 SW 187th Ave., Redland; $25. www.fruitandspicepark.org.

International Aroid Society Plant Show & Sale: Last day to attend event; 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Sunday; Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, 10901 Old Cutler Rd., Coral Gables; $20, $15 for seniors 65 and up, $10 kids 6-17 and free for kids 5 and under; discount coupons at www.fairchildgarden.org.

Mounts Botanical Garden Evening Walk: Narrated tour led by Allen Sistrunk, garden director, and includes the history and future vision of the garden, stories of folklore and ethnobotanical uses of South Florida plants; 6 p.m. Wednesday; 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach; $5, free for members. www.mounts.org.

MEETINGS & CLASSES

Designing, Creating and Maintaining Your Home Landscape: Four-session workshop covers all necessary steps to improve the home landscape; Mounts Botanical Garden, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach; $60 each class, $50 members, register by the close of business hours on Sept. 30. www.mounts.org:

• Session One: Includes an evaluation of site conditions, tips to avoid common landscape mistakes and a review of good design principles; 6-9 p.m. Oct. 7.

• Session Two: Tour of Mounts Botanical Garden to see and discuss a large number of plants suitable for South Florida. Participants learn about purchasing, planting and establishing the plants; 6-9 p.m. Oct. 14.

• Session Three: Features experienced gardeners who address landscape problem areas, evaluate ideas and discuss options; 6-9 p.m. Oct. 21.

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Home and Garden Tips

Saturday, September 19, 2009

“Birds factor heavily in September’s garden of the month - Cumberland County Sentinel” plus 3 more

“Birds factor heavily in September’s garden of the month - Cumberland County Sentinel” plus 3 more

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