Presentation: the good, the bad, and the ugly

As I shoveled mulch today, and spread it too, I went over and over in my mind all the things that needed doing before we opened our garden for the 8th Annual Open Garden at Molehill Gardens. You know, those things that make people say "wow, I wish my garden looked like that..." or "that's is so pretty..." I kind of chuckled somewhat at the mental list due to the absurdity of some of those things. For instance, I need to go around and trim off all the dried and yellowed foliage from the daylilies. The weather has been really hard on them with heavy rain in the early Spring and the intense heat of late Spring.

So there's all that foliage looking all poor and yellow that needs to be removed because after all, if you are inviting someone to your garden, shouldn't it be something special? Shouldn't it make them say "WOW?" I love having that kind of garden,, but the truth is, I rarely do. We are very family centered. Family things take the front seat and everything else goes to the back seat. My garden doesn't look like I have a staff of gardeners that tidy up the brick path, pull the tiniest of weeds, rake the paths smooth, and make sure all the dead foliage disappears. No, it looks like a house that has that "lived in" appearance. You know, where the walls have some chair bumps, a door doesn't close without sticking, and a couple of soft spots in the floor? That kind of house; my kind, maybe your kind? On Open Garden Day it will have many beautiful blooms, some good color combinations, and some unusual plants (both obvious and tucked away into interesting places). That's the GOOD. It will also have some bricks out of place along the path, some unfinished projects, and maybe a couple of poorly placed plants that just don't go well together (experiments that went woefully wrong). That's the BAD. Oh, yes, and it will have the UGLY too. Weeds here and there despite our best efforts, some dead and missing plants, and some stuff we just should have removed last year, or even last week, but just haven't had time to remove or thought we might give one more try.


In the end, it is the cause that counts. Its for missions work. After thirty something years on this planet, I realized that God gave me, and especially my wife, the gift... the talent of a green thumb. And after forty-two years, I discovered a passion for foreign missions. I know that God delights in the combination of the two.

Do something

Bloggers note: This isn't a garden blog. Just getting some stuff off my chest after my recent mission trip to Haiti. Many will find it self righteous or toe stepping. Maybe it is. But it is honest and it is the way I feel. Maybe it will make you think.

Watched a good video recently in Sunday School about "Caring for the sick." It was narrated by Kay Warren (Rick "The Purpose Driven Life" Warren's wife) and concerned mostly the world AIDS epidemic and how people just seem to turn a blind eye to the suffering and plight of those areas where AIDS (and for that matter overall health and malnutrition) is the worst. It was very moving and came at a time when I was emotionally raw from exposure to the plight of Haiti. The opening scene included a bunch of kids from Africa, and they held up one finger saying "You have one life, do something."

Kay Warren mentioned in that video that she wasn't any fun at parties anymore. She used to be, though. She used to be the kind who could cut up and converse about just about anything. She held her own in polite, trivial gibber-jabber about the weather, the game, the show the night before. Recently though, no one wants to talk to her much. Recently she is seeing through all of that. Seeing how idle chit-chat keeps us a safe distance from subjects that bother us, subjects that require something of us. I can identify with that. I see myself that way somewhat. I have come to believe recently that once we become aware of a need... a true need, we are accountable to that need.

A few weeks ago at this time I was flying to Haiti to begin what would become the most rewarding mission trip I have ever taken. Haiti was devastated by an earthquake on January 12th, 2010 and was the poorest country in the western hemisphere before the quake. To say that things were bad there wouldn't even begin to describe the scene. Having made three trips to the nation of Sierra Leone, one of the world's poorest two or three countries, I knew what to expect. Being there nine months after the quake tempered the effect of hundreds of thousands of lives lost in a matter of a few days. It staggers the mind if you stop to think about it. That is, if you stop to think about it. Who does? If you aren't thinking about "it," then what are you thinking about?

Now, "it" can be a lot of things. "It" can be world hunger or malnutrition, the AIDS epidemic in the third world, the suffering of war refugees, battered spouses, or children, victims of a tsunami or an earthquake. Whatever the "it," there is a human life suffering there. Suffering while another human life decides whether to buy a new overpriced Hollister shirt or Vera Bradley handbag; suffering while we decide which restaurant we'd like to go to eat overly large portions of food that just isn't that good for us anyway, and then eat it all. Suffering while we squander natural resources on cars that are too big and waste too much gas because we like NEW. Suffering. Have you ever really suffered? I haven't. I mean, I had a pretty meager upbringing; my budget was super tight in college, but I never suffered.

These days it seems that people confuse wants with needs and I am just as guilty as the next person. We trade in a perfectly good car for a new one because we need it, it fits our personality, we'll look good in it. We go places, do things, say things, and try things, all in an effort to live life to the fullest, make the most of our time, and leave it all here since we can't take it with us. But what are we doing for real human need. Jesus said "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul?" What good is it for us to pursue our worldly wants as needs and have our neighbor suffering? I contend that no one can be truly fulfilled, truly content until they have made themselves aware of the needs and suffering of another and done something about it. All of our selfish pursuits are for nothing if we do not leave this world a better place than we entered it by being a servant to someone in need.

You have one life. When you get to the end of it, whenever that may be, do you want to have it said that you lived it all for you? You made the most of your time here on earth all for you? Like I said before, once you become aware of a need, you are accountable for it. You have one life. Make a difference. Do something.

Make room for a new hobby

Dang, what am I going to do? Years ago we started collecting daylilies and it became an obsession. Now, just when we were content in the middle-age of being daylily collectors, along comes the japanes iris, and a new obsession may be beginning. In fact it is so likely that we walked through the garden this morning (mind you, this is an approximate 6,000 sq ft display garden) deciding which daylilies lacked the "where-with-all" to stay in the garden in order to make room for some new acquistions of japanese irises.

The newest one to knock out socks off was 'Jocasta' Pictured below you can see why we chose it in the first place. Japanese iris flowers are huge and flat compared to the traditional bearded irises but just have a look and luster all their own. Japanese irises are happy in very moist to slightly dry soil but best with even moisture. We have yet to see how they will perform in the driest part of our garden, but we'll yank them at first sign of poor performance since they are sometimes a bit pricey. They do not have the large rhizomes that bearded's do, but tend to grow with a little more depth and tightness. Their slender, very upright foliage is attractive too.

Classic Charm also "charmed" us with its elegance and sheer size. The bud just hung on and hung on before finally popping open in what seemed like just minutes. It is easily six inches across and the pure white of the "falls" underneath the medium purple and white standards is striking! The picture just doesn't do it justice.

Folks, if you consider yourself a fan of irises and don't have even one of the japanese variety, you are missing out. Expand your horizons and you might find, as I have, that you can never reach the horizon, cause it's always out there calling you forward! Go, Go, Go!!

Long time gone

Yep, its been months and months since I blogged last, not that anyone really noticed... probably. Its not that I haven't had a few musings rolling around in my head; deep contemplations and such. The trouble is coming to a conclusion on any of them. Having not acheived that I decided to just blog about what's going on in the garden. It is, afterall, one of the finest (perhaps THE finest) spring that we had here at Molehill Gardens.

May is the month of Irises. Several years ago we began collecting Irises and are close to matching our number of varieties daylilies. Most of them are bearded irises with which most people are familiar. In fact it is the state flower of Tennessee. Well, the beardeds are almost finished blooming, but the show goes on thanks to the host of other types of irises that are not nearly as well know, but which, nonetheless, deserve a prominent place in the garden. The flower pictured right is a Louisiana iris called 'Voodoo Music' and the picture doesn't do it justice. It is much darker than the blue that is represented. A vigorous grower, it has come back very well after we divided the heck out of it to give a bunch away to the Master Gardeners class last fall. Louisiana irises can tolerate a wide range of soil conditions including completely saturated (even in standing water) and we grow them in everything from a potted pond setting to a sandy sloping part of our display garden.

Also perfoming well right now it the Louisiana iris called Feliciana Hills, a new acquisition for us this spring. It is a big, big bloom and a nice new shade for our other-than-bearded iris selection. We haven't even found a place for it in the garden yet!! I hope that it proves to be as vigorous as our other Louisianas!


I guess the "kodak moments" are too many to just keep going on and on about; best to keep them for another blog perhaps. But I have to include this little gem as we are always excited to see it come into bloom every year. It is a calla lilly called 'White Giant' and it is a real shiner! It can grow to a height of nearly four feet, but hasn't in our garden yet. Still, at nearly three feet and a huge bloom it is a show stopper to those who visit and see it in bloom. It is on its second bloom now, pictured left. Very few callas are hardy where we garden and we always cringe when we hear forecasts for single digits or lower. This year was a good test for them as we had eleven straight days with temps below freezing and a couple of single digtits. I did have a nice mound of hay over the growing area but it was not placed until the temps were a couple of days into that cold run. Seems to have worked!

Well, maybe since this is such a great year (and we have decided not to have an Open Garden... more on that later) I can get more posts up about the goings-on at Molehill... or maybe you'll just have to come and see!

Hidden Treasures

Maybe its just a mushroom. Maybe not. One man's trash is another mans treasure. Some see a fungus, I see a living pearl in its botanical oyster. This giant mushroom sprang up underneath the slender weeping foliage of the nearby ornamental grass. Mushrooms are often considered a nuisance, or unsightly, but I love little things like this in the garden for several reasons.

For one thing, its just so darn big you can't help but admire it. Come on, how often do you see a big honkin fungus... uh, livng pearl like that, huh? It was easily eight inches across. For another thing, if only for an instant, when you do see these little gems, it allows your mind wander into the "gnomes and faries might really exist" realm. Who hasn't stopped and wondered if there wasn't really something out there that would make the fantastic real. And finally... and this is the one that makes me swell with pride... its a sign that your soil is actually very healthy! You see, mushrooms are the fruiting body of the fungus that grows beneath the soil surface. Most soil fungi grow in long root like strands called "mycelium" and it is a parasitic organism. It lives on complex organic matter that soil bacteria (who also like organic matter) find a little tough to chew. It is kind of like "everything has a purpose, and there's a purpose for everything." The presence of fungi means the presence of organic matter. Organic matter means healthy soil. I, of course, swell with pride at that since I am a soil scientist.

Little gems (and big ones) are everywhere. You just have to know either WHERE to look or HOW to look. I think it is more of a matter of HOW.

OPEN GARDEN TIME!!!

Yeah baby, its that time again. Time for the 7th Annul Daylily Open Garden! It is our delight to open our garden to visitor from where ever they come. We started it years ago to show folks that modern daylilies are more than just the little yellow "stella d'oro" that you see in commercial landscaping just about everywhere or the orange "ditch lily" you see growing on the roadsides. Yes, the modern daylliy has come a long way; they have so much to offer a garden. They are called America's favorite perennial for a reason.

For the past three years, we have been selling our "surplus" and donating the proceeds to the Volunteers in Mission "Taiama" farm project that I have been so blessed to be a part of. Just a week ago, more than 200 trees and 140 pineapple plants were delivered and planted at the farm. It is our hope that the trees will make a significant impact on the nutrition and economy of this little village in one of the worlds poorest countries.


So, if you want to make a difference; if you want to make an impact, or if you want to just stroll the paths of our garden and gawk at the colors, sizes, and shapes of hundreds of daylilies and perennials, come on out. Email me for directions.

Bloggers note: all of the grass you see in picture above is now taken up by MORE GARDEN SPACE!!!

Treasures

Treasures are anywhere and everywhere; you just have to know how to look for them. A couple of years ago we opened up the seedling field from our daylily hybridizing to friends who, by making a donation to our Farm Mission in Sierra Leone, West Africa, could chose a daylily seedling and give it a name. We would take care of the official registration through the American Hemerocallis Society, they just had to come up with the name. One of those seedlings is shown on the blogpage here. H. 'Taiama' is named after the village where we go to do Medical, nutritional, agricultural, and other types of mission work. Many people chose to honor or memorialize loved ones. My best friend Rob, a long time supporter of the mission, asked me to chose one for his wife, and our friend, and name it after her, Ashlee Nicole, as a birthday present. Now, I must say it isn't easy to make that kind of choice... you never know what colors someone likes or whether a flower will appeal to them or not. But one day, Alison and I were looking at our seedling bed and this one spoke up and said "I'm Ashlee Nicole, happy to meet you." We think it is a real treasure, just like Ashlee.