A Writer’s Garden–Why I Love Gardens by Carole Brown

Tags

a garden blog, A Writer's Garden, author Carole Brown, Caleb's Destiny, clean romance, flowers, mystery

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing.

Today’s writer/gardener guest is Carole Brown talking about why she loves gardens. Welcome, Carole

 

wild violets

Strolling down the graveled and sometimes oily, township road, I head to our neighbor’s home where an elderly lady lived who spoiled us and allowed us to be a little bit untamed while there. The walk to her house was as much a part of the evening as being there.

My eyes feasted on the festive colors of the scene around me, and my writer’s mind, even at that youthful age, stretched and recoiled much like a rubber band, exploring the beauty of the world around me.

Queen Anne’s lace

Stately white Queen Anne’s lace and wild, orange-coated, freckle-faced Tiger lilies grew side by side, best of friends. In the spring, miniature purple violets grew in profusion along beside the colonies of daffodils, their heads nodding like pools of golden butter.

Further back from the road lay a jungle of myriad plants and trees. Sassafras, with its two and three-fingered leaves and aromatic bark, the legendary Dogwoods, especially graceful in early spring when they wore their handsome crowns, were favorites. The walnut trees and nuts in the fall were captivating, staining my hands a deep, unwashable brown.

Among all these, closer to the ground, grew the Black-eyed Susans, looking like senoritas in yellow shawls, demure Buttercups, the milk maidens of the field, and the favorite Daisy, lending its petals for my childish chants of “he loves, he loves me not” and giving me hours of delight in weavings chains and rings. Overall sprang the heady smelling tangles of honeysuckle.

As I lay in in the grass staring at the bunnies who played close by or listened to the frogs croaking in a nearby pond, and watched the stars in the heavens wink at me good-night, no wonder my imagination grew and expanded as I imagined tiny fairies and Tom Thumbs peeking at me from beneath dandelion plants. With a beautiful, exotic world such as I grew up in, how could I not allow the talent God had placed inside me develop into a writing career where I could use my imagination to my heart’s content?

Honeysuckle

My love of Flowers: This i:s a beautiful, profound memory for me. I can still see that little gray shabby house with its steep banks and flowers galore around it. It’s a memory that has grown inside me, creating a love of flowers—all flowers, for my own gardens. Is there a flower I don’t love? I think not.

 

ABOUT THE WRITER/GARDENER:

Besides being a member and active participant of many writing groups, Carole Brown enjoys mentoring beginning writers. An author of ten books, she loves to weave suspense and tough topics into her books, along with a touch of romance and whimsy, and is always on the lookout for outstanding titles and catchy ideas. She and her husband reside in SE Ohio but have ministered and counseled nationally and internationally. Together, they enjoy their grandsons, traveling, gardening, good food, the simple life, and did she mention their grandsons?

Connect with Carole on her Personal blog: FB Fan Page:  Amazon Author Page:

 

CALEB’S DESTINY

By Carole Brown

Mr. Michael, Destiny Rose McCulloch, and Hunter have a mysterious history. Why were three fathers, all business partners, murdered under suspicious circumstances while on their quest to find gold?

• Hunter, who is Mr. Michael’s ranch manager, is determined to find the answers and protect the precocious young lady who he suspects holds a key answer to his questions.
• Michael wants only to be left alone to attend to his property, but what can he do when Destiny refuses to leave and captures the heart of everyone of his employees?
• Destiny almost forgets her quest when she falls in love with Mr. Michael’s ranch and all the people there. And then Michael is much too alluring to ignore. The preacher man back east where she took her schooling tried to claim her heart, but the longer she stays the less she can remember him. She only came west to find a little boy she knew years ago. A little boy all grown up by now…unless, of course, he’s dead.

Inspirational, clean, historical, romantic suspense

BUY LINK

Amazon

 

 

 

 

A Writer’s Garden–Looking to the Future by Catherine Castle

Tags

a garden blog, A Groom for Mama, A Writer's Garden, author Catherine Castle

 

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another garden season has come to an end and, unfortunately for me, I’m ending it the same way I began—with my right arm in a sling.

Just as I was gaining all my mobility back from my Spring shoulder surgery, I fell and broke my right upper arm in a lovely spiral break that starts midway up the rod that holds my bionic shoulder in and ends just below the prosthesis. In fact, the doctor said the arm probably broke because when I fell and twisted my body, my right arm, which was holding the bannister, twisted too. The rod in my arm was rigid and didn’t allow the bone surrounding it to give. So the arm broke because of the implant. Ain’t that grand?

Ah, well. Life goes on.

In the picture at the top of the blog you can see the north end of my garden as it looked this spring with the splayed mugos. The winter snows pulled them out of the ground and we had to dig them up. Beside that picture are the burning bushes, now in fall color, our replacement for the mugos.

As in the garden, and life, nothing stays the same. We plant, we weed, we reap, and we replant. And if we’re lucky everything comes back better the next season. At least that’s my plan for the future. I figure after the accident prone and health issue year I’ve had in 2019 I’m due for a good season next year. At least that’s my prayer.

I want to thank everyone who has been a part of this year’s A Writer’s Garden blog. Even though my gardening has been severely curtailed this year, I’ve so enjoyed reading about your gardens. I hope you’ll all come back again next spring, readers and guest bloggers alike, for another season.

To finish out the Thursdays this year, I’m hosting some Christmas Reads. So, please drop by on Thursdays and Wednesdays to see what’s new, and old, in Christmas romances.

Happy Gardening! May your weeds be few, your flowers plentiful, your sunshine bright and your rain refreshing. And may God bless your harvests.

Catherine

 

About the Writer/Gardener

Multi-award winning author Catherine Castle loves writing. Before beginning her career as a romance writer she worked part-time as a freelance writer. She has over 600 articles and photographs to her credit, under her real name, in the Christian and secular market. She also lays claim to over 300 internet articles written on a variety of subjects and several hundred poems. In addition to writing she loves reading, traveling, singing, theatre, quilting and gardening. She’s a passionate gardener whose garden won a “Best Hillside Garden” award from the local gardening club. She writes sweet and inspirational romances. You can find her award-winning Soul Mate books The Nun and the Narc and A Groom for Mama, on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Follow her on Twitter @AuthorCCastle, FB or her blog.

 

 

A Groom for Mama

by Catherine Castle

Beverly Walters is dying, and before she goes she has one wish—to find a groom for her daughter. To get the deed done, Mama enlists the dating service of Jack Somerset, Allison’s former boyfriend.

The last thing corporate-climbing Allison wants is a husband. Furious with Mama’s meddling, and a bit more interested in Jack than she wants to admit, Allison agrees to the scheme as long as Mama promises to search for a cure for her terminal illness.

A cross-country trip from Nevada to Ohio ensues, with a string of disastrous dates along the way, as the trio hunts for treatment and A Groom For Mama.

 

 

 

A Writer’s Garden–Garden Superstitions: Are You a Believer? by Catherine Castle

Tags

a garden blog, A Groom for Mama, A Writer's Garden. Catherine Castle, garden lore

 

 

 

Gardening is in my blood. My grandparents on my mother’s side were country people with a farm and a garden that Grandma frequently enlisted me to help pick the vegetables for dinner. I can’t say how much I picked, but I have fond memories of running up and down the rows of vegetables she so neatly planted in the large, fenced-in garden that ran beside the outhouse. Much of what we ate at Grandma’s came from her garden, including the shucky beans we strung and hung in the rafters of the summer kitchen to dry.

My mother continued gardening when she moved away from her country home to the big city. Every one of our yards had a garden, usually a BIG garden. If the garden it didn’t produce well, we would go to the local farm markets and come home with bushels of beans, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and every kind of fruit she could find. Then she canned them all for winter. She could have just gone to the store and bought frozen or pre-canned vegetables, but she didn’t. Gardening (and canning) was in her blood.

Being from the hills of Kentucky, my parents were a superstitious couple. Daddy wouldn’t give a knife as a gift, because it would cut the ties of the friendship. He wouldn’t dry his hand on a towel when anyone else was holding it, because the youngest person touching the towel would die first. He would drop that towel like a hot potato if I reached for it. And he hated Friday the thirteenth. He’d turn around and go the other way if he saw a black cat in his path. Spilt salt was always followed by throwing some over your shoulder to counteract the bad luck.

Mom had a few superstitions she followed, too. No opening umbrellas in the house (it was bad luck), and she always made sure we never brought an old broom into the new-to-us houses we moved into. I don’t remember as many of her superstitions as I do Daddy’s, but I do remember one garden superstition she followed religiously: “Don’t thank someone for a plant they’ve given you, or it will die.” To this day, I heed that advice, skirting around the gifts with platitudes like “How nice of you to offer,” or “That would be lovely,” or I just explained that I wouldn’t be thanking them and why. You’ll never hear the words, “Thank you,” pass my lips when I’m gifted with a plant. After all, who wants to kill a free plant?

But my mother’s garden superstitions are just the tip of garden lore. Here are a few of the odder garden superstitions or garden folk sayings I found that you might find interesting. I know I did.

• The number of seeds in an apple will be your lucky number.
• Plant potatoes at night so the eyes don’t see light.
• Planting peppers when you are mad makes the peppers grow hotter.
• For a good crop of watermelons, crawl to the patch backwards on the first day of May.
• A five-leaf clover brings bad luck.
• If you point your finger at a cucumber bloom, the bloom will fall off.
• For a better cabbage crop, sow the seeds in your bedclothes on March 17th.
• If onion bulbs are planted upside down, they will come out in China.
• Plant watermelons before breakfast for best results.
• If two people’s hoes hit together, they will work in the same field next year.
• Always plant your potatoes and green beans on Good Friday. Why? Because it was believed to be the only day of the year when the devil was thought to be powerless.

• Today, thanks to modern gardening knowledge of soil temperatures and seed germination, we know what is the best time to plant seeds. But old-time gardeners didn’t have our modern advantages. So how did they know when it was safe to plant? They followed this old saying: “If you can sit on the ground with your trousers down, it’s safe to sow your seed”.

What about you? Do you have a favorite bit of gardening lore that you follow?

 

About the Author:

Multi-award winning author Catherine Castle loves writing and flowers. You’ll find plants in many of her books. Her romantic comedy with a touch of drama A Groom for Mama features flowers in several scenes.

Before beginning her career as a romance writer she worked part-time as a freelance writer. She has over 600 articles and photographs to her credit, under her real name, in the Christian and secular market. She also lays claim to over 300 internet articles written on a variety of subjects and several hundred poems. In addition to writing she loves reading, traveling, singing, theatre, quilting and gardening. She’s a passionate gardener whose garden won a “Best Hillside Garden” award from the local gardening club. She writes sweet and inspirational romances. You can find her award-winning Soul Mate books The Nun and the Narc and A Groom for Mama, on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Follow her on Twitter @AuthorCCastle, FB or her blog.

 

Flowers and gardens play a part in Catherine’s award-winning romantic comedy with a touch of drama A Groom for Mama. Take a peek at the blurb, then hop on over to Amazon for a sample read or just buy the book.

 

A Groom for Mama

By Catherine Castle

Beverly Walters is dying, and before she goes she has one wish—to find a groom for her daughter. To get the deed done, Mama enlists the dating service of Jack Somerset, Allison’s former boyfriend.

The last thing corporate-climbing Allison wants is a husband. Furious with Mama’s meddling, and a bit more interested in Jack than she wants to admit, Allison agrees to the scheme as long as Mama promises to search for a cure for her terminal illness.

A cross-country trip from Nevada to Ohio ensues, with a string of disastrous dates along the way, as the trio hunts for treatment and A Groom For Mama.

 

 

 

 

 

A Writer’s Garden–Amy Anguish Shares Her Garden

Tags

a garden blog, A Writer's Garden, Amy Anguish, Hope and Faith by Amy Anguish

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing.

Today’s guest is Amy Anguish. Welcome, Amy!

Gardens are for Sharing

By Amy Anguish

You can always tell it’s peak squash or tomato season when you see fellow church-goers coming in with plastic grocery bags bulging with fresh fruits and vegetables from their gardens. It’s one of my favorite times of years, and finally, for the second year in a row, I get to be one of the ones who shares the produce from my backyard instead of relying on others to bring some of theirs my way. It’s one of the many ways I have found to “pay it forward.” After all, if that sweet, old man in Texas hadn’t brought me tomatoes for a few years, I would have had to get by with the ones from the grocery store, and we all know those don’t taste as good.

We expanded our vegetable garden this summer. It now has more room for squash and tomatoes, green beans and pumpkins. But it also has zinnias and sunflowers. Why? Because gardens are for sharing.

And I don’t just mean for sharing produce with friends and neighbors, even though my neighbors and I traded cucumbers for squash and bell peppers for tomatoes several times last year. We’re just starting to gather in a few cherry tomatoes and green beans, although flowers are adorning my squash plants and my pumpkins are starting to creep out of their bed.

I also share my gardens with the birds. My sunflowers were amazing giants, full of bright yellow heads bursting with seeds last year. And the birds made sure they devoured every single one, all the way down to destroying even the head of the sunflower. But that’s okay. Because we both got something out of it. I got my pretty flowers for a couple of weeks. And they got to feast.

My front garden bed has azaleas, roses, hydrangeas (if I don’t kill them), and several other little things, all meant to be pretty. The bed around my back porch has Lantana, Mint and Lavender, all meant to help keep mosquitoes away. There’s a huge butterfly bush in the corner that brings all sorts of gorgeous winged creatures to my line of sight. I have lilies blooming by my back fence. And daffodils and irises in various places in the springtime. Those might not share food for anyone beyond bees, but they share beauty and sometimes a nice fragrance.

I love driving through our neighborhood in the spring, soaking up the gorgeous colors popping in the dogwoods, tulip trees, flower bushes and shrubs, and various bulbs. In the summertime, the Hydrangeas and roses take over, keeping us all with something to admire. And in the fall, the leaves are stunning.

There is definitely more than one way to share. And I hope my garden can continue to flourish so I can keep passing on food and beauty to others around me.

Do you share anything from your garden with friends or family? Can you think of any other ways gardens can be shared?

 

About the Writer/Gardener

Amy R Anguish

Author of An Unexpected Legacy

Amy R Anguish grew up a preacher’s kid, and in spite of having lived in seven different states that are all south of the Mason Dixon line, she is not a football fan. Currently, she resides in Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and son, and usually a bossy cat or two. Amy has an English degree from Freed-Hardeman University that she intends to use to glorify God, and she wants her stories to show that while Christians face real struggles, it can still work out for good.

Follow her at http://abitofanguish.weebly.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/amyanguishauthor

 

Faith and Hope

By Amy Anguish

Hope needs more hope. Faith needs more faith. They both need a whole lot of love.

Two sisters. One summer. Multiple problems.

Younger sister Hope has lost her job, her car, and her boyfriend all in one day. Her well-laid plans for life have gone sideways, as has her hope in God.

Older sister Faith is finally getting her dream-come-true after years of struggles and prayers. But when her mom talks her into letting Hope move in for the summer, will the stress turn her dream into a nightmare? Is her faith in God strong enough to handle everything?

For two sisters who haven’t gotten along in years, this summer together could be a disaster, or it could lead them to a closer relationship with each other and God. Can they overcome all life is throwing at them? Or is this going to destroy their relationship for good?

Available on Amazon

 

A Writer’s Garden with Author Gail Kittleson

Tags

a garden blog, Catherine Castle's A Writer's Garden, Gail Kittleson, potato sprouts, Women of the Heartland series

Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing gardens—aka their books. Today’s Guest is GAil Kittleson with a question for all you veggie gardeners out there. Welcome back, Gail!

 

Treasures in Our Cellar

By Gail Kittleson

 

After being gone for several months, I ventured into the gloom of our old-fashioned (a kind way of putting it) basement, a.k.a. cellar the other day. Certainly not a “finished” lower level, its limestone foundation has been added onto more than once.

I’ve forgotten what we were looking for, but here’s one item we found:

Yep, potatoes sprouted to kingdom come, and that was before we meandered further into the bowels of the cavern. For in an even darker room with windows at all, we found—voila!

These hungry-for-light specimens made the first two pails full look like youngsters. Our granddaughter, curious and scientific-minded student, exclaimed over these sprouts’ spectacular growth, and tweaked my imagination in the process. What IS it in a potato that seeks light so voraciously?

Onward to practical matters—shall we dig holes three and a half feet deep to plant our crop this year? But from the looks of the frozen landscape outdoors, that won’t be for at least two more weeks…definitely NOT the year to observe the old wives’ tale, “plant potatoes by Good Friday.” Not in Northern Iowa. Not in 2018.

So what would you gardeners do with these eager-to-grow survivors? We can still cook some of the veggies, however wizened they may appear. But should we snip off these sprouts at the usual length of a few inches? Will they still produce a crop?

I thought I’d share this deep philosophical question with Catherine’s green-thumbed followers — HELP!

 

About the Gardener/Writer

 Iowa born and bred, Gail spends the worst of winter in the Arizona mountains, where she and another author/college writing instructor facilitate a writers’ retreat.  Iowa’s seasonal changes and growing grandchildren keep Gail and her husband active. This year, to celebrate their fortieth anniversary, they’re heading to England to tour WWII sites and add novel fodder to Gail’s Forties’ Women’s Fiction.

You can find Gail at her website and on Facebook, Twitter and Amazon Author Central.

Women of the Heartland Series

by Gail Kittleson

From Book 1: Pearl Harbor attacked! The United States is at war. But Addie fights her own battles on the Iowa home front. Her controlling husband Harold vents his rage on her when his father’s stroke prevents him from joining the military. He degrades Addie, ridicules her productive victory garden, and even labels her childlessness as God’s punishment.

When he manipulates his way into a military unit bound for Normandy, Addie learns that her best friend Kate’s pilot husband has died on a mission, leaving her stranded in London in desperate straits. Will Addie be able to help Kate, and find courage to trust God with her future?

Women of the Heartland can be found at Amazon

 

A Writer’s Garden– Flowers on the Beach by Gail Pallotta

Tags

a garden blog, A Writer's Garden, Breaking Barriers, Gail Pallotta, Wedding arbor, Wedding flowers

Flowers on a Windy Beach

 

As a youngster our daughter watched a wedding ceremony on a beach underneath an arbor filled with flowers. “When I grow up and marry, that’s what I want.”

From then to now things changed, but she didn’t. When she set her wedding date, she wanted to say her vows on the beach in Destin, Florida. I perused available arbors. Several photos showed bouquets on either side of netting draped over a frame, rather like ties holding back curtains. A garland of greenery wound up one, and all were beautiful. But they weren’t what she remembered.

photos courtesy of Personal Touch Photography

My friend, Rosemary, a flower arranger, who made the bouquet, explained that filling an arbor would take quite a few flowers. They needed to fit tight to resist a heavy breeze or a possible thunder shower.

I traveled to Destin to handle some of the arrangements, and the wind blew fiercely. In my mind’s eye I saw flower petals blowing off an arbor trimmed with only bare green stems. My daughter had mentioned seeing an arbor in a retail store where she lived. They had a branch in Destin, so I visited them, and there it was—an arbor covered in flowers—artificial flowers! But they looked so real.

Up close, the arbor was much larger than I had imagined, and the arrangement wasn’t exactly what we needed. However, as it turned out, I could rent the arbor, which included a garland of ivy, and create my own design, which the lady in charge of the store’s floral department would attach to the frame.

Relieved and enthused, I walked through their selection. I’d always loved arranging flowers. My heart danced knowing I’d do it to fulfill a childhood dream for my daughter’s wedding.

I used a garland of roses exactly like the one on the display, but added several purple Cali lilies on each side starting at eye level to match the real Cali lilies in the bouquet.

Then I asked the lady at the store to add three arrangements, similar to their model but consisting of purple bows with white roses and lilacs.

The arbor was perfect for my daughter and the groom. His favorite color is purple! The day after the wedding, my husband and I removed the artificial decoration. My daughter is thrilled to display her wedding flowers in her home.

All photos are courtesy of Personal Touch Photography in Fort Walton Beach, Florida www.personaltouchweddingphotos.com

About the Author:

Award-winning author Gail Pallotta’s a wife, mom, swimmer and bargain shopper who loves God, beach sunsets and getting together with friends and family. Even though she doesn’t have a garden, she grows flowers in her yard and loves to create flower arrangements. A former regional writer of the year for American Christian Writers Association, she won Clash of the Titles in 2010. Her teen book, Stopped Cold, was a best-seller on All Romance eBooks, finished fourth in the Preditors and Editors readers’ poll, and was a finalist for the 2013 Grace Awards. An author of inspirational, sweet romance, she’s published five books, poems, short stories and two-hundred articles. Some of her articles appear in anthologies while two are in museums. Visit Gail’s new website at http://www.gailpallotta.com

Gail’s latest book, Breaking Barriers, is number 8 in Prism Book Group’s Love Is…series based on I Corinthians 13: 4 – 8. The Christian romance is available at http://amzn.to/28VWW48

Through A Writer’s Garden With Catherine Castle–Art From the Garden

Tags

a garden blog, Art from the Garden, Catherine Castle, Ledger Art

Art From the Garden

by Catherine Castle

I have a few passions in my life, besides the love of my family. They are gardening, writing, and poetry. I am a poet at heart, and have often chronicled life’s events, and my gardens, with poems. Recently, I discovered an interesting art form that I can use to combine my passions and my dabbling hobby of art. It’s an art form called Ledger Art. Ledger Art is an adaptation of Plains Indian hide painting that developed as buffalo hides became sparse.

Before the Plains tribes were forced onto reservations they had a tradition of painting their personal stories on buffalo hides, shields, tipis, and clothing. The men usually painted representational pictures of life happenings. The women painted abstract, geometrical designs. After the Indians were forced onto reservations and buffalo hides became scarce Plains artists began painting and drawing on paper, canvas, and muslin. The art is drawn in one-dimensional outlines and filled in with bright colors. As used ledger pages and other written-upon materials were passed to the Indian artists, they began to draw over the written words, not wasting any materials they could use as canvases.

In recent years Ledger Art has had a resurgence. Contemporary ledger artists still draw and paint on antique ledger paper when they can find it, but they have added other sources of paper, including old maps, sheet music, railroad tickets, and other documents as their canvases. Often artists create juxtapositions between the paper’s content and what they have drawn. Many contemporary artists still use the flat, one-dimensional style of drawing. Others have begun to create more three-dimensional art on ledger canvases.

After reading about Ledger Art in one of my native American magazines, I was captivated by the art samples I saw. I have a bit of Indian blood in me, Choctaw, and I’ve decided to pursue Ledger Art with my own twist on it.

Every gardener takes hundreds of pictures of their gardens, and I’m no exception.

2009 Award-winning Hillside Garden

But integrating those pictures onto poetry that tells the story of my garden is, I believe, unique. So, using my poetry, I’m beginning a series of Ledger Art pieces that incorporate garden poems with my hand drawn works of art featuring my garden flowers. Here’s the first piece, taken from the photo at the beginning of this post. I didn’t use antique ledger paper, like the Native American art form does, but put the art on lined notebook paper, since that’s the kind of paper I use when I compose my poetry.

Purple Flags Ledger Art by Catherine Castle

The irises came from my mother and, like the day lilies I wrote about last season, have been moved from house to house, with specific instructions written in every home sale contract that I will be taking a goodly portion of the flowers with me. Where I go, the flowers go.

I’m looking forward to getting out the colored pencils and markers and creating more garden memories.

About the Author:

Catherine Castle writes sweet and inspirational romance and is a multi-award-winning author as well as an award-winning gardener. Her garden captured the 2009 Shaker Farm Garden award for Best Hillside Garden. Her debut inspirational romantic suspense, from Soul Mate Publishing, is an ACFW Genesis Finalist, a 2014 EPIC finalist, and the winner of the 2014 Beverly Hills Book Award and the 2014 RONE Award. You can buy her book at Amazon.

A Writer’s Garden is Back!

Tags

a garden blog, A Writer's Garden Through the Garden Gate with Catherine Castle, bees, bumblebees, honeybees dying off, pollination, Solitary Pollen Bee Nest

Welcome to a writer’s garden 2016!

Photo by Catherine Castle

 

Another garden season is upon us, and another A Writer’s Garden blog series will be coming to my blog beginning next week. Each week of the series will feature an author who loves gardens, flowers, or is a gardener. I can’t wait to see what all my gardener/writer guests have in store for us this year. I hope you’ll join us for their journeys through the garden gates. Today we are going through the garden gates with me—Catherine Castle.

I don’t know about the rest of you gardeners, but I’ve already been hard at work since mid-March cleaning my flower beds. It’s been a challenge since I hurt my back last summer. Bending at the waist from my normal standing or sitting position to pull those weeds has been nearly impossible. And forget twisting! The chiropractor says, “No! No, Catherine!” So does my aching spine and hip.

Not only has it been a challenge to clean-up the flower beds that were neglected last fall because of my back injury, but finding decent days to get in the garden has been challenging. Here in southern Ohio we’ve been fluctuating between 70’s and frost/freeze warnings since mid-March. I’m lucky to get three good days out of a week to get the garden ready.

Personally, I prefer to garden when it’s cooler. The ideal temperature for me is somewhere in the mid-50s. The bees and wasps aren’t out yet. They prefer 60 degrees and above. Most of the insects aren’t active either at 50 degrees, so it’s a relatively insect-free environment to poke around in the ground.

Speaking of bees, according to an article in the June 2015 Wall Street Daily  by Samantha Solomon, a microsporidian parasite, called Nosema ceranae, is proving to be particularly dangerous to the honeybee population. This parasite spreads through the air on spores and targets not only adult bees, but immature honeybee larvae. Even when hives are treated with medication to kill the parasite, the parasite can resurge at a later date. In the last half decade we’ve lost 30 percent of the national bee population, according to the Center for Research on Globalization, and nearly a third of all bee colonies in the United States have perished.

I may not like getting stung by bees, and it’s happened a few times when I’ve been poking about in the garden, but I certainly don’t want to see them disappear. Without pollination by nature’s helpers, the honeybees, the world’s food supply will diminish. So, this gardening season bee kind to Mother Nature’s pollinators. We depend on them more than you might think.

One of my guest authors will be talking about bees later on this season. She asked me to post a link to a no-maintenance, Solitary Pollen Bee Nest for bumblebees, who are also important in the pollination process, especially now that the number of honeybees are diminishing. Here’s a link to one place where you can purchase the nest. http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=70416&cat=2%2C47236

If you’re concerned about the pollination issue, consider reading up on this issue. You can also plant bee-friendly plants in your yard to help.

I hope you’ll enjoy this year’s A Writer’s Garden blog series. Please join us as we explore the world of A Writer’s Garden. In addition to interesting garden stories and garden information you’ll discover some new authors to read on balmy summer days while you sip lemonade among your flowers Happy Gardening!

 

 

A Writer’s Garden–Through the Garden Gates with Kim Hotzon

Tags

a garden blog, a journey with gardening, A Writer's Garden through the Garden Gates with Kim Hotzon, Catherine Castle's blog, contemporary romance author, garden pictures, writers who garden

 

My Journey with Gardening

Gardening must be a hereditary condition, passed down through the years and the withered, calloused hands. My grandmother planted beds of snap peas, strawberries, potatoes and carrots, and her massive pots of geraniums were the envy of her neighbours along the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, where she lived.

It’s no small wonder that I inherited a love of the earth. The activity of gardening provides me with a deep connection to nature and once the flowers begin to bloom, and the lawn is lush and green, I can sit and relax.

My previous garden was a Garden of Eden. I had 1/4 of an acre at my fingertips, and I wasted no time removing ground cover (lemon grass), landscaping trails with pea gravel and filling garden beds with lavender, azalea and rhododendron bushes. At one point, I happened upon a nearly dead wisteria vine that I patiently resurrected. Then we moved to a new city, and I had to leave my beautiful garden behind.

My new garden, on a much smaller scale, is in a different climate zone. The air is drier here, and in summer markedly hotter than the coastal region, and gardens must be equipped with irrigation. I will be spending this summer installing cedar trees and bushes of Russian Sage. But nothing will ever compare to the fairytale garden I recently left behind.

 

 

About the Author:

Gardener/writer Kim Hotzon has been gardening since she nurtured her first plant from a tiny seed into a flowering vine in her Grade 5 science class. Her favorite thing about gardening is connecting with nature, tending her plants into thriving bushes and trees, and enjoying the rewards of a colorful, life-filled oasis in her yard. When she’s not gardening, she’s writing sweet and sensual contemporary romance. You can learn more about her at http://kimhotzon.com/