Gardening--All You Need is ONLINE!

Gardening Online: A Bounty of Connections for You!

Posted on March 20, 2020 | Leave a comment

Contributor: Peg Riccio
Pegplant.com
Cherie Lejeune, President NCA

Although we may be home during the day, the absence of a commute, errands, and basically a social life, grants us more time than before. Plant lovers and gardeners can take advantage of this to learn about gardening online in the Washington DC metro area.  Below is a sample of resources for webinars, videos, and online courses. No doubt, there are more; e-mail me if you know of virtual methods for learning about gardening at pegplant at gmail dot com. I may even post an addendum if we find ourselves social distancing for an extended period. This list is in no order; some are free videos while others require registration and payment. 

National Capital Area Garden Clubs, Inc now has a Youtube Channel and President Cherie says more content will be added from the many archived videos she and others have compiled,  over the last few years.
Upcoming will be live-streamed presentations. For example, The STATE meeting that was to be held at Glenstone on April 7th will be Live-Streamed with Paul Tukey, their Sustainability Director, directly on the Glenstone Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/glenstonemuseum/
The details will become available through the club Presidents.
NCAGC's Youtube channel (thank you in advance for subscribing):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCenSGW5BqMhwms9RCzR8P4w?
(this URL will get shorter once there are 100 views!)  ,
Also National Garden Clubs Facebook page will host live-stream material too: https://www.facebook.com/NCAGC/   And yes, please like this page too!

So PegPlant recommendations:

YouTube, Good Gardening Videos has more than 1,000 gardening videos curated for accuracy and quality. This is a non-profit, ad-free educational campaign to find and promote evidence-based gardening videos and to help more accurate ones be made.

Laura LeBoutillier is the Youtube and Facebook:  “Garden Answer.”
Laura has produced many videos on gardening as well as do-it-yourself projects, which are free to watch. She and her husband started filming gardening videos as a hobby and have become so successful they manage Garden Answer as a full time business. She has partnered with companies such as Proven Winners, Espoma, Gardener’s Supply Company, and Bonide so you will often see her promote products on her shows.  Although she lives to the west in zone 5 most of her videos are applicable to this area.

Another familiar face on Facebook is Philadelphian Doug Oster who has created the Everybody Gardens website and has produced the “In the Garden” video series on YouTube. He is a prolific writer, filmmaker, and author and he also has a radio show. Doug frequently appears on Pittsburgh Today Live Television show as their local garden expert.

For those who know P. Allen Smith  ,  has produced so many videos that if you enter his name on YouTube you will see short vlogs, longer videos, and even full-length television shows. Plus, he produces a digital magazine called Naturally Magazine (I view mine on Issuu). When this is over I would love to visit Moss Mountain Farm.

Kerry Ann Mendez of Perennially Yours in Maine is a well-known garden speaker, author, and garden designer. She has a beautiful website, listing many webinars. On YouTube there is a video of her giving a presentation to an audience called “Growing Honkin’ Hydrangeas in the Northeast.”

Lisa Mason Ziegler, owner of the The Gardener’s Workshop in Newport News, VA, manages a very successful cut flower farm. She has written several books, gives presentations (including in the Northern Virginia area), and has produced online courses for seed starting, cut flowers, cool flowers, and flower farming. She is queen of cool flowers and for her books she has produced videos where she discusses each chapter and answers questions. You will often see her on Facebook Live.

Charlie Nardozzi is a well-known garden expert, he has published books, gives presentations, provides garden tours, and produces a library of on demand webinars at his website Gardening with Charlie Nardozzi. Topics include small space edible gardening, cottage gardening, native and invasive plants, organic pest control, and pollinator gardening. Charlie also publishes a free, informative newsletter. He lives in Vermont and I would love to hear him speak if he ever travels to this area.

The Ecological Landscape Alliance is a New Hampshire membership-based organization with a mission of promoting sustainable approaches to landscape design, construction, and management. They host events, some of which are near this area, and distribute a newsletter. Many of their webinars are suitable for home gardeners. For example, there will be a one-hour webinar on protecting pollinators for $10 for non-members or free for members, but some webinars are free.

Bluprint which used to be Craftsy, has popular garden figures such as Ellen Ecker Ogden, Karen Chapman, David Culp, Debra Lee Baldwin, and Jodi Torpey. They provide online courses for which you  must register and pay for on the Bluprint website but if you like their topic or their style you should check out their own websites.

Pith and Vigor Rochelle Greayer is a designer in Boston who has an online course called Garden Design Bootcamp and one called Planting Design Bootcamp. From her website, it looks like she may be producing additional ones. She has published a book and publishes a digital newspaper type of publication.

Karen Chapman is a garden speaker, author, and designer in the State of Washington. I have heard her speak in this area and she is an excellent speaker. She is a container guru with many online courses on creating beautiful containers. Karen has just published a book on deer resistant designs and has a webinar on this topic on her website Le Jardinet.

This list and connections should keep you engaged even if homebound for several months...and, we know that doesn't even account for tending to our own gardens no matter how large or small. The good news those hours deliver fresh air and (mostly) sunshine.

You are in our thoughts..stay well. 

Gassing the Woodchucks - The musings of Jenny Sullivan

Do I have your attention? Not to worry: I am not gassing woodchucks, shooting rabbits, or doing whatever one does to deer who destroy a garden, but I am frustrated this summer. For some unknown reason, I have never had critter problems before on this property that I have occupied for over thirty years. I take that back, the squirrels and chipmunks steal and eat my flower bulbs. But I made my peace with that years ago. I submitted to the reality that what I call “my yard” is not my yard only. Dig a little deeper, try the folkways of putting some cayenne in the soil, and you can have enough bulbs to emerge to enjoy lovely flowers while supplying the more ambitious rodents with food to feed their families.

However, this year I have had deer come up to the patio in the afternoon, look me in the eye through my French doors,  then bite the tops of my tomato plants and defy me to do anything about it. Little fat rabbits scurry when they see me coming, but they don’t fool me. I know what they are doing. And as of today, I am sad to report that I have no Asiatic lilies left, no hostas left, and half my black eyed Susans are gone. My tomato plants (the only vegetable I am attempting this summer) are housed in a maximum security prison rivalling Attica.

Finally I can identify with the speaker in a poem by Maxine Kumin called “Woodchucks.” I used to teach it to my college freshman on the first day of Introduction to Literature because it is a great poem, amazingly written, and because it would engage students, especially some of the young men, in a subject—poetry—that they were not readily disposed to. It begins

Gassing the woodchucks didn’t turn out right.
The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange
was featured as merciful, quick at the bone
and the case we had against them was airtight,
both exits shoehorned shut with puddingstone.
                but they had a sub-sub-basement out of range.

On the next day, the woodchucks are back. The speaker tells us that the cyanide overnight had done no more harm to the woodchucks that the “cigarettes and state-store scotch” the householders had partaken of during that same period. People and critters survived their toxins.  In the poem, the chucks plow through the supposedly protective marigolds and begin “beheading the carrots” and “nipping” the broccoli. The speaker goes on to say something that I quoted to that deer munching on my tomatoes at my patio. Shaking my fist at him, I declaimed, “The food from our very mouths.”

The gardener in the poem then does what I don’t plan on doing. She gets her .22 rifle and stalks the family of chucks with clearly mixed feelings.  On the one hand, “The hawk-eye killer came on stage forthwith." She is “righteously thrilling” to the hunt. But on the other hand, the “Murderer inside me rose up hard” as she shoots “the mother” and “another baby next.”  By the end of the poem we see her wishing they had all “died unseen” underground from the knockout bomb.  Nevertheless, she is still pursuing the remaining animal, the dad. In one of the best mono-syllabic sentences you will ever read, the speaker declares “There’s one chuck left.” She is obsessed with him, “Old wily fellow.” She hunts him all day and dreams about hunting him all night. He keeps her “cocked and ready.”

I love that poem. You can go online and read the whole thing Here. I love the poem, but in real life, I have decided to let go of my frustration and anger.  Anyway, I don’t own a rifle. And I ought not to be shooting one in my small suburban back yard if I did. No, I will feed the critters if I must. I will be wiser next spring.  For now, I’ll just get a glass of iced tea and go sit on my patio and relax. Oh, I forgot, a robin somehow made her nest on a slanted blade of my patio fan. I don’t want to scare the babies. I don’t want the parents to poop on me, and I obviously can’t turn on the fan to cool off on this muggy day. Hmm. I wonder what’s on TV.

Jenny Sullivan became a garden club member here in Northern Virginia, after retiring from 42 years of teaching English.  She has authored two books in retirement, From My Father’s House, a southern novel click FMI here and The Purpose-Driven Life: A Children’s Catechism click FMI.  Jenny recently taught a course on Flannery O’Connor in the spring for Arlington County’s Encore Learning Program for Seniors. She will teach a course this fall on Hawthorne and Melville, beginning October 1. 

Rock Your World - A Guest Post by Teresa Payne

 Let's give a big NCAGC woot and welcome to our guest blogger and NEW TO GARDEN CLUB! Teresa Payne.  Teresa was born and raised in Alexandria, VA where she also currently resides.  Teresa joined the NCAGC's District II Red Hill Garden Club in January 2014.  Her mother, Janet Baker, is also a long-time member of Red Hill and is Teresa's inspiration.  Teresa works full time for the federal government, has a supportive husband (who plays guitar) and two lovely daughters , one a drummer, who also like to make their own mini-arrangements with Teresa's leftover flowers! (This is a family that passes the baton of gardening love down through the generations!)  

“Music” Notes from a New Member

December 2015

                As the Cowsills so aptly put it – I love the flower girl!  Flowers in her hair… flowers everywhere. 

                I look forward to making flower arrangements and gathering horticulture samples from my garden every month.  As a new member to the garden club scene, I had no idea how fun the monthly meetings would be.  The new friendships, beautiful flowers, delicious food and learning opportunities that abound are truly amazing!  After having two children, it was the first thing I really decided to do for myself.  And, I’m so happy that I did!

                While preparing to make my arrangements on a Sunday evening, I get all my materials organized and set up my work station right next to my most critical component – my iTunes player.  What I decide to play depends entirely on my mood and may subconsciously impact what I create.  I could pick anything from Beethoven to country to hard rock to classical jazz. 

I somehow visualize the flowers swaying to the music as I cut, snip, clean, and start placing them in just the right spot in my latest creation.  Who knows, they may even like the music, too!  As a result of the music coming out of the speakers, the end result may be a more classical, linear, or abstract arrangement.

                Gardening, flowers, and arranging are a creative outlet from my everyday routine of work, motherhood, laundry, dishes, etc. 

And it’s really all about some quality “me” time as I take a journey into another world where I’m creating something that reflects my innermost mood as expressed through the music I’m hearing from my playlist.  When I set my final product on the table with all the other beautiful arrangements to be judged, I’m judged on my creation alone that is brought to life through the joy of music, and oh how sweet that is!

photo by Teresa Payne

photo by Teresa Payne

As Mick Jagger would say … It’s only rock and roll and I like it, like it, yes I do!!! ~ Teresa

Teresa's essay is inspirational! I could not keep the smile off my face while I read it. I cannot emphasize enough the fun, the friendships, the creative challenge, and the joy of being a member of a garden club. Whether you are interested in horticulture, gardening, or floral design with a community service component, there's something for everyone in garden club. No matter where you live, there's a garden club nearby.  Interested in joining a garden club or finding out about one in your area? Just drop me a private message at ncagardenclubblogger@gmail.com. - Thea McGinnis, your NCAGC blog host