Through A Writer’s Garden with Wendy Macdonald

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A Writer's Garden, Author Catherine Castle's garden blog, cottage gardens, garden eye chocolate, Garden photos, garden poetry, In the Garden, Wendy Macdonald

Gardens Inspire My Writing

Gardens are eye chocolate and inspirational caffeine for my writing heart. I tend my own garden mostly for the sake of the inspirational beauty it provides around my home. Beauty inspires, calms, and fills me with joy. If I were given a choice between going on a shopping trip or a garden tour, I’d pick the tour every time. And if I had to choose between a vegetable garden and a flower garden, I’d pick a flower garden because I’d rather starve my body than my soul.

Cottage gardens are my favorite style because you can grow both food and flowers together, and I also love quaint little old character houses surrounded by mature perennials, shrubs, trees, and all things floral.

 

 

 

My imagination and cozy factor get fired up when I peek over the fence of an old-timer property rich with history and charm. I find myself wondering who first loved this home and what the owner’s life was like.

Time in a garden fills my inkwell to the brim. How do gardens inspire you? What’s your favorite kind of garden?

 

In the Garden

 

In the garden I like to go

For a break from daily chores

To dream of places far away

Of flowers grown on foreign shores

~

In the garden I like to escape

Into a land of make believe

And pretend I’m a princess in distress

Waiting for my Knight of relief

~

In the garden I like to be

Away from the hustle and bustle of life

As just a writer on her knees

Planting and growing stories to write.

Wendy/ 2016

 

About the Author:

Wendy L. Macdonald is a Canadian, inspirational writer/blogger who also loves to photograph nature. When she’s not writing, drawing, or gardening, she enjoys hiking in the beautiful parks of the Comox Valley with her husband of 32 years. She homeschooled her children and believes all those years of reading aloud helped develop her love of storytelling and writing. Wendy invites you to visit her blog where you will find nature photography, memoir style posts, and links to her” Daily Bread” style Facebook page etc. at www.wendylmacdonald.com  

 

 

 

 

 

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Through the Garden Gate – The Garden of Weedin’

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blog about moderation, Garden photos, Through the Garden Gates, weeding

I don’t know what your garden looks like this year, but because of multiple writing deadlines that hit in the spring, a cold, early winter that put snow on the ground most of the season, a wet spring, and several trips across the county during weeding time, this is what a tiny section of mine looks like. Multiple this by 60×120 feet (because every section of yard except for the house and a 10 foot square section of lawn is flower beds) and you have a gardener’s nightmare.

 

I had to take a shot of the gully area in order to actually show you what’s out of place, because if I had taken a picture of the hillside garden you would just see green—lots of green—with no mulch showing.

 

This gully is supposed to be completely weed-free and the left edge of the photo should look something like this:

 

The right side should be weed-free, too. Instead, it looks like this:

 

And yes, those are three-plus foot tall weeds, Canadian thistles and mare’s tail. Did you know they grow in colonies, so you don’t just get one, you get one-plus-one-plus-one-plus and so on.

Fortunately, for me (and my dear hubby who works alongside me, even though gardening is as much fun to him as changing dirty diapers) the ground is still fairly soft because we’ve had a lot of rain. It’s mid-July already and we are still pulling weeds. Even so, my fingernails ache every time we come in from a weeding session. Which, by the way, tend to be marathons because I’m always saying, “Just a few more feet.” “Just one more bag full, then we’ll quit.” “I just need a little break and we can keep going, right?”

 

So, you ask, what’s the point to a rambling story about Godzilla-height weeds?

 

Everything in moderation. Whether it’s weeding, writing, or wrangling the house chores, I need to learn moderation.

 

Oh, and did I mention I’ve decided to take up all the reseeding flowers and plant more maintenance free items? Like day lilies and iris bulbs, that don’t blow all over the yard or need constant deadheading or spraying and babying, and a veggie garden and Knockout roses.

 

Wonder where I’ll find the time to do that?

 

What about you? Do you need to learn moderation? If you have any suggestions, I’d like to hear them. And do any of you have any suggestions for maintenance-free plants that would do well in southern Ohio?

Through the Garden Gates … at Inniswood Metro Garden, Columbus ,Ohio

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Catherine Castle author, Columbus Ohio, Garden blog, Garden photos, Herb gardens, Inniswood Metro Gardens, Public Gardens, Through the Garden Gates

Through the open door

A drowsy smell of flowers – gray heliotrope

And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette

Comes faintly in, and silent chorus leads

To the pervading symphony of peace —

John Greenleaf Whittier, 19th century

 

 

Today is the last of the herb gardens for this series, but not the last garden blog. This herb garden is at Inniswood Metro Garden. Although the plants in herb gardens are often similar, there is always a surprise around every corner. Lets go …

Through the Garden Gates at Inniswood Metro Gardens … The Herb Garden

Through the Garden Gates … at Gantz Park

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Gantz Park, Garden photos, Gardening blog, Grove City Ohio, Herb gardens, Public Gardens, Through the Garden Gates

The herb garden at Gantz Park, in Grove City, Ohio, is quite different from last week’s offering. Gantz Park has subdivided their herb gardens into the gardens of yesterday, today and tomorrow.  They all were, in my opinion, interesting. So let’s go …

Through The Garden Gates into …

Gantz Park Herb Gardens.

Photos © C.Castle and D. Hershberger

Marshmallow flower

In the Garden of Today

Horsemint

The Garden of Today

The Garden of Tomorrow

Through the Garden Gates … Herb Gardens at Kingwood Center

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Catherine Castle author, Garden blog, Garden photos, Garden series, Herb gardens, Kingwood Center Gardens, Public Gardens, Through the Garden Gates

Herb Gardens at Kingwood Center

photos © by C.Castle

 Herb gardens are one of my favorite types of gardens. The array of textures, fragrances, and pure sensory pleasures cannot be matched in any other garden, save a rose garden, in my opinion. In my own garden, herbs are tucked into the borders and scattered through the vegetable garden. But if I had the room, and a flat area,  I’d lay the herb garden out in a wonderful pattern. I love the structured order of a well-thought out herb garden like the one in today’s garden blog. Kingwood Center herb gardens is the first of  three featured gardens  for my Through the Garden Gate series. I hope you stop back because  each garden is uniquely different and beautiful. So let’s go …

Through the Rose Garden Hedge into the Herb Gardens at Kingwood Center

Through the Garden Gates … at Kingwood Center Garden in Mansfield, Ohio.

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Catherine Castle author, estate gardens, Garden blog, Garden photos, Kingwood Center Gardens, Mansfield Ohio, Public Gardens, Through the Garden Gates

As I sit here today under yet another 90+ degree temperature watching my garden dry up, except for the weeds which seem to be the only thing thriving with my efforts to keep things well watered, I’m longing for the lush landscapes of the gardens we visited in May. So, on that note, here are a few of the many photos we took of Kingwood Center. Kingwood Center is a 47-acre former estate garden open to the public since 1953. There are a variety of gardens within the estate, some which will be featured in a later blog. There are just too many pictures for one blog! I hope you enjoy strolling through the garden as much as I did. If you visit the gardens, wear sturdy walking shoes and don’t forget your camera!

Through the Garden Gates at Kingwood Center Garden in Mansfield, Ohio.

All photos © by D. Hershberger & Catherine Castle

Through The Garden Gates–A Statuary Garden (Greater Cincinnati area)

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Cincinnati area gardens, Garden photos, Gardening blog, private gardens, Statuary gardens, Through the Garden Gates

Scarecrows peek from leafy trees at the entrance to this garden

Last week I went to a friend’s home for her son’s open house graduation. It had been a while since I’d seen her home and from the minute I walked up  the drive and saw the scarecrows peeking from the behind the tree branches, I knew I was in for an enchanting visit in her gardens. Come walk with me through Carmen’s gardens. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.

Statuary greets you as you approach the patio

Wide view of back gardens 

Angels in the flowers

A place for the birds

  Urn  and hostas

Take a rest under the canopy of the trees

Laughing Buddah

Through The Garden Gates–Introduction to the series

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Catherine Castle, Garden photos, garden quotes, gardening, Gardening blog, romance author

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into–Beecher

As the summer season approaches, I’ve decided to add a new thread to my blog–Through the Garden Gates. Each week I’ll highlight a garden photo or photos from my own garden, the gardens of friends and neighbors, and public gardens I’ve visited, and post one of my favorite garden quotes. Lest you ooh and ahh over the gate at the head of this blog, I can’t take any credit for it, although I would love to have it in my garden. It’s a free download from Microsoft Clip Art.

My garden gate is pictured below as well as some of the first blooms of summer, well, almost summer. I hope you’ll enjoy your trips…

Through The Garden Gates!

Catherine’s garden gate

The perfect Knockout rose bud
photo by Catherine

First Echinacea of the season
photo by Catherine

Dusty Miller ready to bloom
photo by Catherine

You might be a garden junkie if …

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blog, Catherine Castle, Garden photos, gardening, humor, romance author

Snowball bush in my garden
photo by Catherine Hershberger

At my house, garden season is in full swing. From bug killing (see my earlier post about Garden Wars), to spring cleaning; to mulching; to planting; the garden is taking every spare minute that blogging doesn’t. I’ve come to the conclusion, as I do every year, that I’m a garden junkie. If you are a gardener, are you a junkie too? Take this quick quiz to find out your junkie status.

You might be a garden junkie if…

1. A picture of a garden … any garden … makes you gasp in ecstasy.
2. You love the smell of newly laid mulch.
3. You subscribe to every garden magazine you find.
4. You carefully replant every earthworm you accidently dig up.
5. Horse sh**t isn’t a curse word to you, but a source of free fertilizer.
6. You plan your vacations around spring cleaning, summer blooms, fall blooms, and winter cleanup.
7. You know the exact number and species of every tree, bush, and flower in your garden, and most of the weeds too.
8. You always buy more plants than you can plant in one day.
9. You know the garden center employees by name.
10. You have more pictures of your garden in your smart phone than family members.

If you answered yes to number 1 you are definitely a beginning gardener. Don’t despair, just keep on digging and you’ll eventually reach junkie status. If you answered yes to numbers 1-5, you are well on your way to joining the elite. If you said yes to 1-9 then you are an avid gardener.

And if you said yes to all 10, statements, you, my friend, are a garden junkie.

Welcome to the club!

Garden Wars

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battling bugs, blog, Catherine Castle, creative writing, Garden photos, Gardening blog, humor, romance author

Spring down Catherine's garden path

Saul slew his thousands, David his ten thousands … and me … I’ve slain my hundreds. Flies, that is.

Today in between weeding sessions in my garden I stalked my prey with a yellow fly swatter, creeping across the deck carefully so I wouldn’t make the boards vibrate. I mashed sluggish flies ranging from the size of a speck to nearly a quarter-inch. Funny thing was, after I’d smashed a few on the deck boards, I’d come back from a weeding session and find three or four flies crowded around the flattened remains of their compatriots.

Wham! Three for one shot. I had no qualms about that. But I whacked them so hard I broke the edge off of my fly swatter more than once.

I left my swatter on the deck table and when I returned it was lousy with flies crawling around the black and red fly bits left on the surface, like cannibals dancing around a boiling soup pot. No kidding! I’ve never seen flies congregate around their dead like that before. They stayed there making my slaughter easy, unlike shooting wasps.

Two years ago I was in a wasp war. Every day after I’d finished my gardening chores I’d stalk wasps around the yard, shooting at least a dozen until they started to get agitated and move toward, not away from, me. Even with a 20-foot stream of insecticide I knew better than to stick around when I became the target. Seeing the deck peppered with hordes of flies brought back those memories. At least these flies aren’t biting … yet … and when they’re not congregating around bits of their smashed friends they take off when I get too near instead of dive bombing me.

After five hours of gardening and swatting I finally came inside. The throng of bugs appears to be gone for the moment. But I don’t know what tomorrow holds. Will my tan deck be black again? Will I have to do more stalking? More creeping toward my prey on tippy toes? If I’m lucky the sun will be behind the clouds. Shadows give the multi-eyed pests too much warning. Maybe I should try fly paper, but in the windy conditions we have it would probably end up a big yellow, sticky ball that leaves adhesive all over the banisters, but catches no flies. Or maybe I need to invest in a gross of 20-foot shot insecticide.

From Microsoft clip art

One thing is for sure, I need to buy a dozen more  fly swatters … or learn to kill them with a kinder, gentler hand.

Nah. I’ll go for more fly swatters.

Have you ever dealt with huge amounts of flies? Any suggestions for getting rid of the pests?