The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Ant Mafia

A couple of years ago I learned about ants, aphids and honeydew. Although this whole relationship can become the bane of my existence, I find it quite fascinating.

While the aphids destroy our plants by sucking the life out of them, they produce sugary secretions called honeydew that ants just can’t get enough of.

I don’t mind ants in my garden and I really don’t worry that much about aphids but together they can be formidable. You see it’s sort of a symbiotic relationship. The aphids eat the plants and produce honeydew. The ants eat the honeydew and in return offer the aphids protection. The ants consider this tasty sticky sweet stuff a very precious commodity and in return fight off the aphids’ natural predators such as ladybugs. It sounds sort of Mafia-like.

Ants have been known to bite the wings off aphids to keep them from getting away and taking their sugary food source with them. There are chemicals that are produced in the glands of ants that obstruct the growth of aphid wings. Some scientists believe that the ants actually produce a tranquilizing chemical that keeps the aphids subdued, making them easier to control.

I said it was sort of a symbiotic relationship because the aphids definitely get the short end of the stick sometimes they even get eaten by their “protectors.” But that’s O.K. because aphids reproduce asexually. They become fully mature in 7-8 days and give birth to about 12 live offspring at a time. Each adult aphid can have about eighty babies in about a week.

Greenthumb Sunday

I know I should trim the wisteria out of my plum tree but it's so pretty.
Maybe next year

Four Goats in a Lexus

My son with Billy

I was recovering from yet another illness.
I had not had a single workout for two weeks. I finally bribed my eleven-year-old into walking up my hill with me—with the promise of a movie later in the evening. He agreed reluctantly, and we set off.
My son really didn’t want to go with me, so after the first 100 yards it started. “How much further are we going to walk?” “Let’s just walk to the first hairpin.” “My legs are tired.” “I have a cramp.” “I think there’s a thorn in my shoe.” “I don’t know if I can make it to the first hairpin.”
Thank goodness for the appearance—deus ex machina—in the form of my neighbors in their very cool Lexus SUV hybrid. The SUV pulled up to us. My neighbors were all smiles. They told us to peek in the back of their truck and see what they had. There, in two large cardboard boxes, were four goats—two adults and two babies.


Rocky

They were heading home to put the goats in their brand new Tuff Shed barn.
There it was, the impetus my son needed to walk another mile and a half up to our neighbor’s new baby goats.


My son with Billy, Rocky and Jasmine

Divinity and Bucky

The First Columbine of the Season.

Oh wait here’s another one, O.K., the first two columbines of the season.

This season, I plan to very carefully record the different color columbines that [grow during the year]. I want to do a garden layout and map the columbine colors in certain areas and then cross-reference them with the colors from last year.

I hope this will allow me to plot colors, leaf designs, and sizes for next year so I can create a blueprint that will be both harmonious and balanced.

I would like to create a landscape that is worthy of a garden design magazine. I’d like to be on the cover of said magazine, so people “in the know” will understand my garden savvy, and my vast horticultural layout and design expertise.

NAAAAH.

Whatever. I’m just going to enjoy the flowers, pick off the seed heads when they die back, and scatter the seeds so they spread somewhere else next year.

April 2008 Gardener Blogger's Bloom Day

Oh Geez.

My life is like pushing oatmeal uphill.
I completely forgot about Gardener Blogger’s Bloom Day.
Sorry Carol.
Carol of May Dreams Gardens is the gardening guru behind GBBD.
I was supposed to post this on the 15th and it’s late at night on the 16th and I’m going to have to use the pictures I took earlier this week. The pictures I have represent about a third of what’s in bloom.
Next month I’ll try to be better.

salvia "hot lips"

something from the hibisus family

azalea

Siberian Iris

narcissus

brugmansia

The 14th Annual Spring Garden Market

This weekend, the weather took a turn for the better. It jumped into the low nineties in my neck of the woods. It was the perfect weather to do some morning garden shopping at the annual Spring Garden Market presented by the Master Gardeners of Santa Clara.

The Garden Market is the Master Gardeners’ biggest fundraiser of the year. It’s a day when those wacky purveyors of greenery wear funny Carmen Miranda hats and sell organic plants, including a huge selection of heirloom tomatoes, and 90 varieties of peppers and chilies from around the world.

There were vendors of plants and gopher traps; there were beekeepers and irrigation suppliers. There were camellia experts and iris experts and succulent experts and orchid experts and rose experts.
Unfortunately, I brought my youngest son. I was not 20 feet into the garden market when he asked me: “It’s hot, can we go home now?” My husband had already disappeared into the crowd and there I was with a little fifty-pound complainer pulling on my left arm while I was trying to take pictures with my right.
My only grievance with the Spring Garden Market this year is that in the past they have had kid activities to keep my wonderful little offspring busy. What now? The only saving grace was the fact that this event was held in History Park at Kelley Park. History Park is a 14-acre park consisting of 27 original and reproduction buildings. One of these buildings, the Pacific Hotel, had an ice cream parlor in the lobby. Yeah!

That kept him busy for about 15 minutes. So I ran from booth to booth. That’s kind of the way I shop anyway.

Greenthumb Sunday

I love these two gorgeous azalea colors, but, what I love more is the fact that both these beautiful blooms come from one plant.

Being no botanist, I’m not exactly sure why this happens, I just know I like it.

It is yet another wondrous find here in my garden.

Three Chicks Hang Out and Dig Some Dirt

I have written about my friend Paree before. She is the one who wants a maintenance-free garden. I have tried to explain to her that every garden needs some sort of maintenance, but she insists that there’s a garden out there somewhere that doesn’t need maintaining.

So Paree decided to sell her house with a small, easy-to-maintain garden, and buy a house with a half-acre garden and a pool. Huh?

Lucky for her she’s got me.

Now Paree’s no dummy. She’s got a couple of degrees from a couple of fancy colleges, including a law degree. She has three kids, so she’s a stay-at-home mom, but like I said, she’s no dummy.

She knows how to tempt me into garden slavery.

She knows what I like.

She invites me over and plies me with coffee and gossip.

She leaves her old rusty pruning shears on the outdoor table where we sit—just a couple of feet from my coffee cup.

She distracts me with interesting tidbits as I absentmindedly pick up the shears and start to trim the hydrangea near her back door. She offhandedly asks me something like “What do you think I should plant in those containers by the pool?” and I reply immediately because the containers have been bugging me since she moved in and she knows it. She is not really listening to my answer; she is just smiling and thinking of her next move.

Greenthumb Sunday

Azaleas last week

Azaleas this week

Breaking the Myth of the Marble Fountain

Hey, guess what? Remember that fabulous marble fountain?

Remember how I wanted my darling husband to make me one just like it? Well after looking several places for the perfect pot and the right ceramic bowl and the best place to find mables, I found the very same pot.

The exact same pot at, none other than—Target (pronounced tar-CHAY).

The whole set up was there. The pot, the bowl that the pot sits in to hold the recirculating water, everything you need to do a marble fountain except the marbles. The price was a very reasonable. The entire set-up was $199.00. The only thing you need to add is the marbles.

When I find a good inexpensive way to get marbles I’ll let you know.