New Year’s Anti-resolutions

This year has begun the same way last year ended: I’m behind.

My intentions – like that of most other bloggers – are pretty straightforward. Most of us try and get a new post up every couple of weeks, if not weekly. My record does not reflect my intentions.

Yes, it’s been a crazy year… near death for my sweetie… a move…  grad school in another state … a new book out (well, sort of two books since it’s in TWO EDITIONS with different information in each)… me two surgeries and then surgery on two relatives that required travel and care for a week each… our 1st grandbaby born.  Is my year any different from anyone else’s, though? Have you overheard someone exclaim, “this year was so calm. I’m bored” ?I know I haven’t!

So rather than promise change, I’m gonna make a different kind of promise to you and to myself, an ANTI-RESOLUTION of sorts. (Did you know they have an APP for that, too?) I’m predicting unpredictable flurries of activity on this site, with random silences. There will be no pattern seen by the naked eye. Or even by the bespectacled one, for that matter. If I get lots of landscaping questions (usually in the spring and fall), you will see lots of posts. If I don’t, you probably won’t. What I’m saying is the frequency depends on YOU, not me, this year. This is not to put a guilt trip on anyone. It’s kind of like when my girls don’t call, I assume all is well.

When you DON’T get a call from your kids, is that 1 degree of separation from Kevin Bacon?

I do have many garden-blogging friends who report in a regular fashion. Some even posted their New Year’s gardening resolutions. Not me.

If you have a problem in your garden, or don’t; need some organic lawn care advice, or don’t; have a photo of something you need identified, or don’t;  need some life encouragement, or want to offer encouragement to others, let me know. If I don’t hear a peep, neither will you. c:

Garden gypsies love change!

We’ve moved. Again. For the last time. Again.

People ask “how can you leave your gorgeous garden?” Those people don’t know me. I’m a garden gypsy. When I get close to being finished, it is time to move on and find a new challenge.

BEFORE: the front entry of the garden – the front door is on the side of the house on a different street, so no one could find it. Okay for salesmen; not okay for UPS.

AFTER: the front entry of the garden – we created a new entry walk, brick wall and gate off of the cul-de-sac, which was our actual address. Everyone could find us, but need the secret handshake to enter.

It’s difficult to see things objectively with your own child. Someone says “oh, your yard is beautiful,” and I can’t help but tell them what things need to be fixed, bringing out negative aspects no one saw but me.

I guess we all need someone in our lives to breath affirmatives into our ear – and into our gardens – giving us a fresh look at what is GOOD. My “old” garden is good now, ready for another caretaker, one who loves plants but doesn’t have a vision for planning their landscape. I often wish I was more like that….. Probably not as much as my husband wishes I was like that.

BEFORE: the view to the golf course – NOT!

AFTER: the view to the golf course – adding a broad crushed granite path framed our view to  the course and an observation deck gave us a new view to the tee box and green. Edging keeps the wildness the wildlife and I love at bay.  There are lots of spots to harbor golf balls that go astray, and no, I’m not giving them back if they land in my yard!

Thought I’d share some shots of my “old” garden, giving insight into a couple of the challenges we found there six years ago and how we worked past them. Look for photos of my “new” garden and the obstacles – and delights – I find there in the upcoming weeks.

Hope you’ll share your gardens with me, too. Do you have problem spots that need a remedy? Send your photos and let’s discover the good in YOUR garden!

Nurturing nature(al) readers: YOU CAN GROW THAT!

My dad, Dr. Bob Foster, with me at 18 months old.

Watching the nightly news is painful, isn’t it?  I hate it in the same way I hate coming up on a bad car-wreck: I look but I always wish I hadn’t.  From the newscasts, it would seem playing outside is one of the most dangerous things a kid can do. As a child of the 60′s, I played outside a little bit every day and most of the day during summer. Nature called each morning. (Didn’t mean it THAT way….. I was young and had camel bladder!)

There were things to do and my brothers and I answered by doing them. We were in trees, making mud pies, pretending to be on safari (remember “Daktari” on t.v.?),riding bikes through paths or making our own. Imagination and room to roam were in ample supply.  We had a world to conquer, after all.  Either that, or my mom locked the screen door and told us not to return till lunch.  Regardless, I believe playing outside is one of the major influences in my life.  I think it made me a lover of nature.

Each month, dozens of landscaping professionals gather virtually during the 1st week – usually on the 4th – to share their expertise for an online event called YOU CAN GROW THAT! Although my  contribution typically emerges from gardening questions coming to my blog or from my landscaping clients, this month’s entry celebrates my new children’s book – BLOOMIN’ TALES.  I’ve been designing learning gardens and Schoolyard Habitats for the past twenty years.  I found using wildflower legends helps students and their teachers remember names of the plants in their new garden.  Often the stories also tell about habitat and pollinators necessary for the plants to thrive.  Generations handed down these legends, a tool for their children who were to become stewards of the land after them.

Recently, my friend Linda Lehmusvirta – who also happens to be the producer of Central Texas Gardener on PBS, – asked me to stop by and introduce her audience to some of my favorite BLOOMIN’ TALES and talk about my passion for wildflowers and their stories.  It was fun (and even a little intimidating) to walk into the old AUSTIN CITY LIMITS studio, but the CTG crew soon had me talking about growing up with plants.  Central Texas Gardener on PBS, Austin

So where will children’s love of nature come from if they can’t experience what I did?  While they are a poor substitute, t.v. and books do offer hope for the disaster MY generation created, dropping the baton somehow, leaving our world defenseless except for some slogans and cute animal pictures begging us to save things “before it’s too late.”  I hate to be dramatic, but in my view, if we don’t intentionally emerge kids early in nature, making it a NATURAL part of growing up for them to play outside, it might already be too late.

A special TEXAS edition of BLOOMIN’ TALES is available, too.

By the way, I’ll be giving away a copy of BLOOMIN’ TALES on my website – www.CherieColburn.com – on Friday!

Another gardening blog?

My dad, Dr. Bob Foster, with me at 18 months old.

Growing up with a gardening parent, I recognize my good fortune.  My childhood was spent soaking in Dad’s knowledge of the natural world, although at the time I looked at it as “work.”  Thankfully, by the time I started my own family, that changed.  The hours spent doing gardening chores as a kid paid out even before we saved up to buy our 1st house.  My dorm window was filled with ivies and aloe veras, items Dad deemed as necessary as a good reading lamp.  My apartment balconies (and there were several) were dotted with small pots of color and crop and greenery.  Every corner inside that boasted even a tiny sliver of sunshine hosted a variegated airplane plant.  Every corner that sat in darkness gained a mother-in-law’s tongue.  And when my daughters left for college, I made sure they not only had underwear, but also their ivies and aloe veras.  Hopefully, they now believe themselves lucky for having grown up with gardening parents.

With a generation now nesting raised with blow ‘n go, hire it done lawns, many find themselves horticulturally ignorant when striking out on their own, no experience to call on when the desire comes to build an Eden for themselves.  (My belief is that we are ALL built to be gardeners, designed with an Eden-sized hole in our psyche.  More and more, scientific data is backing up that theory.) And although I lap up a treatise on gardening like a thirsty dog, I realize my propensity for a nightstand stacked with landscaping literature is not necessarily a normal thing.  Especially for NEW gardeners, bite sized rather than force feeding the whole apple at once makes it easier to manage without choking.  So anyone looking for a few morsels to help them get started, this is your table!  Each entry of GardenDishes will serve a HIT and a MYTH: a plant or suggestion that, as a professional landscape designer I’ve found tasty, and a landscaping lie that we’ll toss into the compost heap for good.  If YOU HAVE A FAVORITE TIP OR GARDENING QUESTION, please send it to me along with a photo.  If I don’t know the answer, I know someone who does.  My daddy is still just a phone call away.