nitty gritty dirt man

Lights, Camera, Garden!

/ Kevin / 31 Comments

Following a recent post in which I compared Mother Nature to Scarlett O’Hara, Janet of Planticru Notes commented on my ability to weave films into a gardening blog. That small sentence was enough of a seed to get me thinking about gardening movies that I enjoy, especially now that Mother Nature has given the northeast a cold shoulder.

Movies, like gardening, have always provided an escape for me.  No matter the emotion of the moment, each activity gives me a chance to think and breathe and laugh and cry and absorb.  Sometimes I need a Zinnia, sometimes I need a period piece, like Dangerous Liaisons.  Certain films, like certain plants, are part of my very being.  The garden will always have Dahlias, and moments in life will trigger a scene from What’s Up, Doc, which I will then recite in my head.

At the same time, while each of these passions can be solitary in nature, they can also be quite communal.  Put a group of moviegoers in a room and a group of gardeners in another room – and there are endless conversations and accolades and critiques and comparisons.  Watching in the dark and growing in the sun — both bring us together.

Here, in no particular order, are some garden-related films.  Grab a pillow, a blanket, and a bowl of popcorn — our show is about to begin.

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Confessions Of A Seed Addict

/ Kevin / 22 Comments

I am a seedaholic – and this time of year is especially rough for me and others like me.  The seed catalogs have arrived, with all of their colorful glossy photos designed to tempt the gardener with promises of summer bouquets and homegrown vegetables – all of the scents and textures of life itself.

Each time I visit the mailbox and find a new arrival, I wonder what the neighbors think.  A wave of thrills and excitement passes through me.  I clutch the catalog to my chest as if it was the latest issue of Tiger Beat and I’m a giddy 11-year-old school girl.  And, I swear, I feel like skipping.

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It Might As Well Be Spring

/ Kevin / 28 Comments

What’s up with Mother Nature?  Has she forgotten to look at the calendar?  It’s January, and she should be full of bitterness and coldness and frigid wickedness.  Instead, it seems Mother Nature is having a bit of hot flash, teasing us with a taste of a spring fling.

That’s why I’m more inclined to envision Mother Nature as Scarlett O’Hara, flitting and flirting her way through the folks at a Twelve Oaks barbecue, while I am one of the admiring suitors gathered around her.  My heart beats with every flutter of her eyelashes.  My pulse races with each giggle of her southern feminine charm.  The temptation is overwhelming.  I so badly want to reach out and grab my rake to clean out the flower beds, to let my fingers sift through the soil, to plant seeds and to nurture them to full growth — and I want to do all of this without the protection of work gloves.  I am hungry to be in the garden.

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Bloomin’ Update 15: Greetings from South Florida

/ Kevin / 28 Comments

Like a good postcard, this one is arriving to you after I made it home.  Joe and I spent the past week in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, where we plan to retire in the near future.  We purchased a small home there almost 20 years ago.  In fact, we made one payment and a low pressure system became Hurricane Andrew.  We also removed all of the shade trees and replaced them with palms.  Since then, the house has been rented and we return several times a year to do yard work.  Yard work?  That’s a vacation?  For us – and probably for most gardeners who have little patience for winter’s dreariness – this is a vacation: the chance to feel the sun, to play in the dirt, and to see all shades of green.

There was some extra fun this time in Florida since I had the chance to play with my Christmas gift, a Canon SX40HS digital camera.  Armed with my new toy, I found every excuse under the Florida sun to snap some garden and vacation photos.   Would you expect anything different from a boy and his new gadget?

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2011 in review

/ Kevin / 8 Comments

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Holiday Traditions Yule Love

/ Kevin / 20 Comments

Photo courtesy of http://www.SnowCrystals.com

Traditions are a huge part of Christmas.  To mangle a line from The New York Sun, how dreary would be Christmas if there were no traditions.  It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.  For me, traditions come in many shapes and sizes – from Christmas trees to antique ornaments to home-made cookies.  Growing up, holiday baking was a family activity – Mom made the dough, Dad squeezed it out of the cookie press, my sister and I were in charge of the red and green colored sugars.  Butter cookies were shaped like trees; cream cheese cookies, my favorite, were shaped like wreaths.

With age and lack of time, many traditions either fall by the wayside or become chores that compete with day-to-day life.  It seems with each passing year, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain the spirit of the season.

And it’s when I feel myself slipping into that frame of mind that I return to two of my personal favorite traditions. Continue reading →

A Letter to Santa Claus

/ Kevin / 32 Comments

Dear Santa,

How are things where you are?  I know it’s been a while since I last wrote to you, but I have run out of options and I am turning to you and your elves to make this little gardener’s Christmas wish list become a reality.

I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to keep up with your reading, but a few posts ago, I wrote about the lack of G on HGTV.  Far be it from me to tell  you how to do your job, but you may want to consider a stocking full of coal for the network’s naughty executives.  They have not been kind to the gardening population — and, in fact, they have not responded to my letter requesting more G shows.

But if you would like to avoid coal, might I suggest sprinkling them with some inspiring Christmas magic so they may wake on Christmas morning like a renewed Ebenezer Scrooge?   To help you, here are a few ideas for gardening shows that I, for one, would love to watch on a snowy winter morning.

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Bloomin’ Update 14: The Holly & The Ivy

/ Kevin / 14 Comments

Like most people at this time of year, I have Christmas carols on the brain.  They’re everywhere: malls, supermarkets, non-stop radio stations — it’s hard not to hum a few bars.  That’s what I’m doing a lot of, especially with “The Holly and the Ivy.”   It’s a moving carol, especially when sung by a choir or by folks dressed up like eskimos. 

In my head, though, the song sounds something like this: “The holly and the ivy. Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm.”  I don’t really know the words — and this, my fellow holiday revelers, is the reason for this post.  My intention was to locate the lyrics and print them with pictures of, well, holly and ivy.  A simple, no-nonsense post —  until I began the research and uncovered a complicated history of the carol.

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Not-So-Wordlesss Wednesday: A Tale Of 3 Bloggers

/ Kevin / 26 Comments

A funny thing happened on the way to this post. 

I thought I would write about my Christmas wish list — you know, wishing it was warmer, wishing I could plant some seeds — that sort of thing.  At least, that was my plan until I opened up my comments awaiting approval, where I read the urgent request of The Last Leaf Gardener (TLLG), a gardener based in New York City.  She was worried about the health and well-being of another blogger, Patrick of Patrick’s Garden. 

TLLG had posted a comment on Patrick’s site but hadn’t heard from him.  When she tried to phone him, she learned that the phone was not in service.  Concerned, she contacted me because I was the last person to have posted a comment on Patrick’s Garden and to have him respond to me. 

I wrote back to TLLG.  No, I typed, I don’t know anything about Patrick — but if I do hear of anything, I will contact her. 

The truth is, I did know a bit about Patrick because of his posts — but that was it.  I had never met him or spoken to him.  All we shared were a handful of comments on one another’s blogs.  So why was I now so worried?  Why should I worry about someone I’ve never met, about someone where our only interaction had been type-written words?  And that’s when the lightbulb lit up.   I’ve read his words — not only about gardening, but about his life and all that he does.  He’s in Kansas and I’m in New York — but once we learn so much about each other in this personal-but-impersonal blogosphere, doesn’t that make us neighbors of a sort?   As gardeners, as bloggers, as people — aren’t we members of a community?

I too called the number on his blog, but it was out of service, just like TLLG indicated.  Next stop, Google.  I managed to find another number.   

“Hello,” I said.  “I’m hoping you can help me.  I’m calling from New York, and I’m trying to reach someone named Patrick. . . His last name?  No, I don’t know a last name, but he gardens and he’s a blogger.”  For a moment, I think I sounded a bit looney.  For another moment, I worried that I was completely overstepping some sort of boundary of appropriateness.

Within a few moments, I was connected to the man behind Patrick’s Garden.  The truth is, he’s doing fine — but some technical issues kept him from his blog.  And as for my believing I was out of bounds, nothing could have been further from the truth.  Patrick was impressed/flattered that a stranger had checked on him — but once we have read about each other, are we truly strangers?

It was a great conversation.   Suddenly, we were real.  We were the voices behind the typed words, talking about the weather and gardening and garden centers and gardening pet peeves — you know, shop talk.  Gardener to gardener.  Blogger to blogger. 

Neighbor to neighbor.

To All The Christmas Trees I’ve Loved Before

/ Kevin / 20 Comments

Part of the blogging experience is visiting other blogs –  for advice, for ideas, and in the case of this post, for inspiration.  I recently visited Visionary Gleam, where Jim Lewis posted “O Tanenbox, O Tanenbox,” a humorous and poignant look at his family’s Christmas tree tradition and the story of the ornaments. 

I am a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to this most wonderful time of year, a fact that seems to worsen as I age.  Jim’s well-written post, however, has left me thinking.  A lot. 

No matter how cynical I have become, the Christmas tree has always remained my favorite part of the holiday.  Now, as I drive around town and peek into the windows of my neighbors and see their decorated trees, I wonder about their stories – and I reflect on the ghosts of my own Christmas trees past – long past and recent past.

There’s a handwritten sentence in the baby book my mother started for me when I was first born.  There, in her cursive writing, is a brief sentence about the moment when the love affair began:  “2 1/2 years old .  Really knows what it’s all about . . . He says the tree has meatballs and a star.” 

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