The Iris By The Back Door

I'm sure that for each of us there are a host of characters who played important roles in our lives, especially when we were children.  My cast of characters happens to be a rather long list and oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, almost all of them had something to do with shaping me as a gardener.

I've told this story before, but in order to set up what I'm about to tell, I think it bears repeating that I began gardening when I was three.  Yes, three--when I planted the "helicopters" from a silver maple in the babysitter's flower bed and had so much success that two of those offspring still stand in my parents' yard today.  In fact, I could still give you a virtual walking tour of the babysitter's "garden", as it were, but that's a story for another time.  Maybe next week.

Today's entry moves us forward a few years when I was around the age of six or seven and introduces you to three more characters in my story--Annie Hurlburt, the country vet, and Pearl and Letha Condray, the mother and daughter who lived two doors down and across the street.  Annie and her husband Jack and their family lived on the other side of town (understand that in the town I grew up in, that might have been a mile--maybe a mile-and-a-half) and just down a little country road.  We always took the dogs and cats out for their shots, etc. and because I was squeamish--especially when they were vaccinating squealing little puppies--I usually stayed outside and looked at the garden.  There were irises everywhere, and it was especially fun for me to go in the spring when they were in bloom.

If my memory serves me correctly, I believe the story goes that one year Annie and her kids collected seed from some of the iris in the garden, sowed them, and planted the resulting seedlings near the back door of the house.  The sole survivor was a beautiful bicolor, with standards of golden yellow and falls of ruby red and from then on the iris was referred to as the "back door" iris.

There were also irises two doors down at Pearl and Letha Condray's house--hundreds of them--in every color of the rainbow!  Pearl, who lived to be nearly 100 years old, had to have been well into her 80's and probably approaching 90 even when I was a little boy and there were many times in many springs when I would walk down the street and Pearl and I would stroll through bed after bed of iris with her recalling completely from memory the name of every iris in the garden.  She could also tell you who she bought it from and what year!  Pearl's daughter, Letha, was just as sharp and there were just as many walks around the garden with her as there were with Pearl.  In fact, my mother still has two large clumps of spuria iris in the garden that have been there at least 30 years that came as divisions from Pearl and Letha--and there are divisions of those iris now residing in my garden in Tennessee.

The "back door" iris from Annie, the vet, also resided at Pearl and Letha's--by the back door, of course.  It was the only iris in a small bed made just for it and when it was in bloom, it's bold coloration shown across the garden.  A division of that plant eventually made it to my garden, too, but unfortunately, after many years, it finally disappeared.  I was reminiscing about some of the people who had influenced me a couple of years ago when Pearl and Letha and Annie all came to mind.  Letha had finally passed away--Pearl and Annie had long since been gone--and Letha's house was left to one of the local churches and the garden, for the most part, was dismantled.  This prompted me to pick up the phone and call mom to see if she knew of anyone around town who might still have some of the "back door" iris growing in their garden.  Letha and Pearl gave away hundreds of iris every summer--anything that needed dividing--so I thought there was a chance that someone might still have it.

Lo and behold, a few weeks later mom called to say that she had run into someone who thought they still had a clump in their garden--at least that's what it was labeled--but it hadn't bloomed in several years, so she couldn't be sure.  She brought mom a fat, healthy rhizome which then made its way to Tennessee and the photo you see above is the very same iris.  It found its way home to me after more than 30 years and this photo was taken last week in my garden.  I didn't know if it was the right one either until that beautiful, boldly colored, golden-yellow and ruby red flower unfurled its first blossom.  And in a few years, when the clump is large and healthy, I'm going to pass the "back door" iris on to some of my gardening friends the same way it was given to me.  After all, friends and memories are really what gardening is all about.  Happy Gardening!

Bailing Out

Hello from a rain soaked, waterlogged and devastated, but optimistic Nashville, Tennessee.  For those of you who haven't heard, west and middle Tennessee and several other parts of the southeast were soaked by torrential rains this past Saturday and Sunday with some areas receiving upwards of 20 inches of rain in 36 hours.  Nashville proper "officially" received 13 1/2 inches of rain according to the National Weather Service, but many areas of town would argue that they received more--and they'd probably be right.  At my house in Primm Springs, Tennessee, which is about 30 miles west of Nashville, I dumped 15 1/2 inches of rain out of my rain gauge.  However, there were several times over the course of two days when the wind was blowing so hard that it was raining sideways and the rain was probably being blown right across the opening of the rain gauge without going in.  My guess is that I actually had in the neighborhood of 18 inches of total rainfall.  Thankfully, I live on top of a hill.  Our damage was mostly cosmetic and while it's inconvenient, it certainly isn't life altering.

Tens of thousands of people in the city of Nashville and several surrounding communities have lost everything they've ever owned.  Many will have a hard time recovering.  Lives have been lost across the state.  In addition to the many homes and lives affected, many of Nashville's most famous attractions are devastated or destroyed.  The Opryland Hotel had 15 feet or more of water throughout the hotel and the Opry House had water above the level of the stage.  Next door, the Opry Mills Mall has at least 6-8 feet of water inside and a friend who works at one of the stores there says they will not even be allowed in to assess damage until Friday, at the earliest.  Musicians were also hit hard by this event, as one of the primary warehouses where many musicians store their instruments when they are not on the road was completely devastated by the flood waters.

Our stunning Schermerhorn Symphony Center--built just within the past 5 years and arguably one of the finest modern symphony halls in the world--had 25 feet of water in the lower level.  The damage there has yet to be assessed.  The same goes for the Country Music Hall of Fame, which had five to six feet of water in its theater and whose vaults, which hold the entire history of country music, were in the lower levels.  I haven't heard any official word on losses there.  Businesses throughout the downtown district were flooded and our LP Field, the home of the Tennessee Titans football team, looked like a giant swimming pool from the air, with water filling the field up to the first level of stadium seating.

Gratefully, there has been very little (almost none) looting or other types of theft, etc.  People are, for the most part, calm, cool, collected, respectful and marching forward--cleaning up and figuring out what to do next.  Neighbors helping neighbors, friends helping friends and strangers pitching in to help people they've never met.  Keep the citizens of Nashville and it surrounding communities, as well as those in west and southwest Tennessee and northern and eastern Mississippi in your thoughts as we begin to recover from this record-setting flood that experts are now calling a "once in a thousand year" event.   Next week we'll be back to gardening.

If you'd like to see some stunning images of what we've been through in the past few days, click here http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/flooding_in_tennessee.html

See you soon!

Greetings, Gardeners!

Happy Spring, everybody!  I've been away from the blog for quite a while now and I've received several very kind emails wondering if I was okay and if indeed I was going to get the blog up and running again.  I'm fine, I promise, and I WILL be back to blogging all the time now, so stay tuned!  We've been working on re-designing the website, changing servers and various other things and were hoping to be able to re-launch the new website and pick up blogging again all at the same time--back in March.  The website re-vamp has taken much longer than I had hoped and the new site may not launch until early summer now, so I didn't want to stay away from the blog any longer!

I hope that spring is in full swing for you or if not, at least on its way!  For those of you who live in the southern hemisphere, I guess you're on your way into autumn!  No matter where you're gardening, I hope that your gardens have been beautiful and successful and I hope that you'll continue to follow along as we get into the full swing of gardening season here in the states.

A lot has been happening and I have been working away on many design projects and several fun publishing things, so will try to keep you posted.  For you Tennessee folks, I've had several articles in Tennessee Gardener magazine lately and occasionally those articles go regional in all of the State-by-State gardening magazines (I think there about 16 or 17 states, mostly in the south), so you may see me there.  We've also started filming for our new season of Volunteer Gardener, so again, if you're in Tennessee, we air statewide so check your local listings for airtime on your local PBS station.

I'm also supposed to have an article in Landscape Solutions magazine, which is one of the Better Homes & Gardens special interest publications, though I have to admit that I have not seen it yet.

I've been taking lots of spring photos, so be prepared for all kinds of fun new blog posts in the weeks to come.  Thanks so much for following along and happy gardening to everyone!

P.S.  I'm working on itineraries right now for our first garden tours, which I will organize and lead.  I'll keep you posted as those take shape!  Talk to you soon!

Music, Movies, Awards and Her Grace

It has been a banner week at the Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville.  As I reported a few days ago, we began early last Sunday morning setting up and preparing for this year's show.  The installation of this year's garden went along quite smoothly and I think we all felt we were pretty well ahead of the game most of the time.  The final piece of the puzzle happened on Wednesday morning, with the installation of our "color" (tulips, hydrangeas, witchhazels and exquisitely fragrant hyacinths), and the creation of an enormous floral arrangement for the center of the garden.

I started with 1 urn, 36 blocks of oasis (floral foam for those of you who don't speak "flowers") and 9 five-gallon buckets full of fresh cut flowers, including 300 roses.  Three hours later the garden's centerpiece came to life in a rainbow-colored centerpiece that stood over 9 feet tall (including pedestal and urn) and more than 6 feet across!

While I was working on the floral display, a couple of notable Nashvillians strolled through during the show's "early shopping" event--an informal opening of the show to a few key benefactors and special guests--and two even stopped to comment on the flowers and say hello.  After living in Nashville for 17 years, I don't get terribly starstruck anymore, but when Faith Hill and Gwyneth Paltrow pass through, even I take notice.  I've met Faith on several occasions and she's always as sweet as she can be--and Ms. Paltrow was stunning!

Later Wednesday evening we arrived for the official opening of the show, the annual Antiques & Garden Show Preview Party, to find that we had taken home the award for "Best Use of Color" in this year's garden displays.  Last year we won for "Best Interpretation of the Theme."  I have to say, I like winning, and I like the fact that we're winning in different categories.  I hate to be stuck in a rut!

I got an even greater surprise today when, after her lecture (the opening lecture of three in this year's series) Her Grace, The Duchess of Northumberland, Jane Percy strolled through the garden and was kind enough to stop and chat for a moment.  She is absolutely charming and has turned the British gardening world on its ear by creating a divine spectacle of a modern garden--The Alnwick Garden.  Please visit their website at http://www.alnwickgarden.com/  and revel in the garden that she, along with a number of very hardworking people, have created for the world to enjoy!  While I have rarely used the blog as a forum for solicitations, if you were going to support a garden outside of our own country, I would suggest that this would be a great one to support.  What the duchess has done is truly astounding, and the number of people's lives she has touched by doing it is what makes me particularly proud to have shared even a few moments with her.  She and her team are truly remarkable.

Thanks again to everyone for reading along and I'll try to post some more Antiques & Garden Show photos in a few days!  As always, Happy Gardening!

Back To Blogging

Hello, everyone!  And happy 2010!

A few of you have noticed that I took a brief hiatus from blogging and I appreciate the emails and messages from people wondering if I was okay or if something had happened.  The only things that "happened" were the crazy holidays and a somewhat protracted bout with a rather nasty upper respiratory infection that hung on longer than I cared to deal with it.  All gone now, though, and back to good health!

I've also been very busy with some work deadlines that had to be met, as well as redesigning my website.  The new pages are not up and running yet, but I'm hoping by early to mid-March the website will have an entirely new look and be more functional and full of new information, photos, etc.  I've also purchased another domain name and will be working this year on launching a new gardening website.  For now, it's a secret, so that's all I'm going to say--just that I'm doing it.  I haven't set any specific deadlines for it at this point until I know exactly what all of the details and parameters are going to be and exactly what the new site is going to encompass, but it's going to be good!

At 6 a.m. tomorrow morning we begin setup and preparation for this year's Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville.  This is my 17th year of involvement with the show and it continues to be one of the most fun, but exhausting, weeks of the year.  This year, we'll be installing a 1600 square foot garden based on a "spiral" theme.  I'll try to post a few pics if I have a chance.

We've had a very long and unusually cold winter here in the Nashville area.  The first big cold snap in January plunged us as low as 5.8 degrees Fahrenheit with considerably colder windchills and we stayed below freezing, even during the day, for over a week.  I know that doesn't sound that odd to many of you from colder climates, but for here, that's a fairly serious cold snap.  Especially true for those of us who like to push the gardening zones just a little.  It will be a good test of hardiness for some of those more borderline things and in my garden, though I hate to see a plant die, I always consider an empty spot a "gardening opportunity"!

Oh no!  Now I'm going to have to buy more plants!

Well, the foliage that didn't get freeze-dried on the hellebores (and a few other plants) during the first cold snap certainly did on the second one, although we were fortunate enough to get several inches of snow to insulate the garden against the worst of the cold in the second go-round.  Many people from here would not use the words "fortunate" and "snow" in the same sentence, but I'm talking about the garden here and we were lucky to have it.  If you are seeing burned foliage on some of your evergreen shrubs and perennials, just keep in mind that a new flush of growth in spring will push most of that old foliage off, anyway, so it's no big deal.  You can carefully clean up plants such as hellebores, just to make them look neat and tidy, but be careful.  Buds are alread showing and you don't want to mistakenly whack the buds when you're trying to clean up leaves!

As a brief digression, if you live in the South and you are not a transplant from the North or the Midwest (i.e. you were born and raised in the south and have never driven in wintry conditions), when it snows you should stay home.  You are dangerous.  They forecast even the possibility of snow several days in advance here so that you can get to the grocery store and buy up all of the milk, bread and toilet paper before it actually snows (I noticed on one local station that the weather report was being brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Kroger--go figure!) and you needn't endanger the lives of the rest of us who actually can drive in it.  I'm just sayin'!

As I pulled in the driveway a few minutes ago from a morning garden design appointment, I noticed that the clump of old field "jonquils" on the corner of the driveway are about 4 inches tall and in full bud.  They are loaded this year and if it warms up just enough, I might have blooms before the end of February!  The buds on the 'Arnold Promise' witchhazel are just beginning to show a little color, though it will still be a few more weeks before "Arnold" decides to show off ('Arnold Promise' is one of the later varieties) and the earliest hellebores are really starting to push up now ('Ivory Prince', 'Winter Moonbeam', etc.).  I'll trim the old, winter-burned foliage off of them next week, once I've recovered from the Antiques & Garden Show, and they'll be ready to lead the way for spring to make its grand entrance.

I'll be back on a regular basis from now on and I hope everyone has had a good start to the new year!  See you in the garden!

Chocolate Chip Pie

No, this is not the name of a new plant!  Sorry.  I have avoided posting about food up to this point because this is, after all, a garden blog.  But... many of us who garden are also "foodies" to one degree or another.  The other night, I posted on my Facebook account that I had just made an old family favorite, Chocolate Chip Pie, and I was immediately flooded with requests for the recipe.  Since the space on Facebook is somewhat limited, I thought I'd post it here instead and make it easier for everyone to have.

Chocolate Chip Pie is one of those things that sounds a lot more decadent than it really is.  It's actually a very light and fluffy dessert all thanks to the World War II-era invention of one Mr. Robert Rich, who, because of a shortage of dairy products during the war, used what at the time was state-of-the-art technology to create the very first non-dairy whipped topping.  Today, we most often refer to this product as "Cool Whip", just like we refer to tissues as "Kleenex"--a brand name instead of the actual product name--but it was Rich's Whip Topping that debuted in 1945 and changed the way we think about whipped topping, non-dairy creamers and a host of other "non-dairy" products.

We all think we're leading the way today with our commitment to soy milk and other "soy" products, but did you know that the first soy ice cream was actually on the market in 1951!?!  It's true.

So because of the invention of whipped topping, Chocolate Chip Pie has been a part of our family for more than 50 years.  When my mother was a little girl, a close family friend, Leona Benninga, would make it for special occasions.  It was mom's favorite dessert back then and I think it's safe to say that that still holds true today.  I still have my copy of the recipe in Leona's handwriting that she passed on to me many years ago.  I'm not sure where the original recipe came from, but my best guess would be that it either came off of the whipped topping label or out of a lady's magazine, such as Woman's Day.  Maybe mom knows.  I'll have to ask her.

So that's the abbreviated version of the story of Chocolate Chip Pie, and here's the quick and easy recipe!

Chocolate Chip Pie

1 graham cracker piecrust (8" or 10" will work, but in a 10" shell the filling won't be as deep)

1/2 cup milk
30 large marshmallows (there are about 35 in a bag and I just use them all)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups of non-dairy whipped topping (Cool Whip, etc.) completely thawed so it's light and fluffy
3 ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate, grated

In a heavy, 3-quart sauce pan place 1/2 cup of milk and add the 30 marshmallows.  Place over medium heat and warm it until the milk starts bubbling up between the marshmallows, being careful that the marshmallows don't start to scorch.  When the marshmallows begin to melt, remove pan from heat and stir slowly until the marshmallows have melted completely (the retained heat in the pan should be enough to do this and the mixture should be smooth and somewhat foamy).

At this point, I transfer the warm marshmallow mixture to a room temperature glass mixing bowl to help bring the temperature down more quickly.  Once the mixture is completely cooled, add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and stir in.  Next, add the three cups of whipped topping and gently fold the marshmallow mixture and the whipped topping together until it is completely blended. (The marshmallow mixture must be completely cool when you add the whipped topping or the whipped topping will melt!)  Finally, add the finely grated unsweetened baker's chocolate to the bowl and fold in until completely combined.  The mixture should resemble very light and fluffy chocolate chip ice cream.

Carefully add the filling to the piecrust and distribute evenly.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.  The longer it chills, the better it cuts and serves.  You might also choose to reserve a tablespoon or so of grated chocolate to sprinkle over the top when complete.

That's it!  Like I said, it's nothing fancy or terribly decadent--just an old family favorite that we all still love.  Hope you enjoy it, too!

*Notes:  I have made this with both sugar free and fat free whipped topping and it's just as good either way.  The marshmallows contribute plenty of sweetness.  If you want it even more chocolatey, it's also good in a chocolate graham cracker crust.  It makes it taste like an Oreo cookie!

Also, I changed the original recipe from 2 cups of whipped topping and 2 ounces of baker's chocolate to 3 cups and 3 ounces, respectively, because I like the filling to "stack up" a little deeper in the shell, so if you find yourself with an overabundance of filling, just lick the bowl really well and you can cut it back a little the next time.

Autumn Reprise

I sat down at the computer today prepared to blog about Hedychium, or ginger lily, but as I was scrolling through my photos this iris (cultivar 'Total Recall') caught my eye. It reminded me that I had just been in a garden earlier this week where the remontant (re-blooming) iris were in their full fall glory and so I changed my mind. I'll do the ginger lily post next week because right now, I have iris on my mind. This is partially due to the fact that just a few weeks ago I planted a box full of rhizomes that my good friend and partner in horticultural crime, Kelly Norris, sent me from his nursery, Rainbow Iris Farm (http://www.rainbowfarms.net/) in Iowa. (You also should check out Kelly's blog at http://www.kellydnorris.com/, but not until after you finish reading mine, please and thank you.)

Anyway... this photograph jogged my memory of several gardens that I have been in recently where the re-blooming iris, because of our long and unusually warm autumn, were absolutely stunning. I used to have a "thing" about plants that were typically spring-flowering reblooming in the autumn (I still don't like fall-flowering azaleas), but I have to admit that these remontant iris have become some of my favorites. 'Total Recall' was flowering at the Daniel Stowe Botanic Garden in Charlotte, NC when the Tennessee gang and I were there on our way to Raleigh for the Garden Writers conference back in late September. Others will bloom throughout the month of October and into November where the growing season is long enough and they don't get cut down by a hard frost.

Most of these re-bloomers, at least the ones that are readily available, are the typical tall bearded types. Being sort of a bearded iris virgin, I'm sure that there are others, too, but the tall beardeds are the ones I'm most familiar with so I'm sticking with those for now. Probably the most famous of all of the re-bloomers is the stunning white 'Immortality'. Now, you know I can barely stand white flowers, so for me to use the terms "white" and "stunning" in the same sentence, let alone side by side in a description, means that this plant must be truly special, and it is if for no other reason that it is one of the most consistent repeaters of any bearded iris, usually offering a show that is almost as impressive in the autumn as it is in the spring.

Other beautiful rebloomers include: 'St. Petersburg', 'Earl of Essex', 'Eleanor Roosevelt', 'Autumn Tryst', 'Summer Olympics', 'September Replay' and of course the ones I've already mentioned, 'Immortality' and 'Total Recall'.

These beautiful iris are just as easy to grow as the typical spring bloomers, but you get twice as much beauty from them! As for all bearded iris, excellent drainage is very important and full sun is preferred, though they will tolerate a little bit of shade (this may affect reblooming). Nearly all of them are extremely cold hardy and will grow all the way up into Zone 3, though fall bloom can sometimes be cut short in colder climates. In our southern gardens, though, where autumn often hangs on well into November as it has done this year, re-blooming iris are a great way to end the season!