Winter aconites, snowdrops, glory-of-the-snow, narcissi, crocus, and the first early tulips; these spring-flowering bulbs are thought of as colorful harbingers of spring. Color in the garden is a welcome sight after a long, cold winter, and now is the time to plant for it. It’s not too late – spring bulbs can be planted from September to December – for as long as the ground is not frozen.

But who enjoys the spring-flowering bulbs more? Too often the spring fever remedy they provide is destroyed before we even see it! Deer graze and rabbits nibble. Mice don’t eat the flowers, preferring the bulbs themselves, and pesky squirrels dig them out of the ground. There are a few tricks you can try, though, to make the bulbs less attractive to the animals, and therefore more attractive in your garden.

1.) It’s the squirrels in my yard that most often enjoy the bulbs more than I do. They dig them up almost as soon as I plant them – they dig anywhere fresh earth is overturned. I found laying pieces of bulb sacks, onion sacks, or bird netting over the newly planted bulbs works well. Secure the mesh to the ground with landscape staples, and cover with mulch. Remove the fabric in spring when the bulbs begin to sprout. By that time the freshly dug soil has settled, and the squirrels have no interest in digging there. I’ve tried burlap instead of mesh without the same success; they dig under the burlap. Squirrels don’t seem to like pawing the mesh because their claws get stuck in it.

2.) The same principle can be applied to deterring deer from eating your tulips (or other plants in your garden beds). Grazing deer are a problem for many homeowners, and tulips are one of their favorite foods. You can keep them out of the tulip bed by placing deer netting on the ground around the bed. The deer will stay out of the area, afraid of catching their hooves in the netting. Chicken wire works just as well.

3.) There are many commercial repellants on the market, many of which are very effective. Deer can destroy a flower bed in a very short period of time. See the pretty tulips blooming as you’re walking out the door on your way to work, return home at the end of the day to only nubs. Spray before you notice damage and at regular intervals according to the product instructions. Most deer repellants will also work to deter rabbits. It’s been suggested that animals will sometimes get used to the scent of the repellant, and it’s been recommended that you switch brands every six months or so.

4.) In addition to commercial repellants, some household products are said to keep the animals away. Garlic powder sprinkled around bulbs deter mice, as well as keeping raccoons, rabbits and squirrels out of the bulb garden. The raccoons, rabbits and squirrels won’t come near cayenne pepper, black pepper and Tabasco sauce either.

Bulbs dusted with medicated baby powder keeps away moles, voles, and grubs. Place 3 tablespoons of baby powder in a sealed plastic bag with a half dozen bulbs and shake gently. This not only keeps away the critters that eat the bulbs, but it also helps reduce bulb rot.

5.) After years of frustration with rabbits, a friend of mine started taking his bulbs out of the garden, and putting them in pots instead. The rabbits don’t come up on his porch, and his flower boxes are too high for them to reach, so he enjoys his springtime display there where the rabbits can’t get to them.

Plant the bulbs in pots in fall, just as you would if you were planting them in the garden. Move the containers into an unheated garage or basement during winter, making sure to keep them moist … a handful of snow thrown on top of the soil every week works well. Or keep them outside, with the pots covered with mulch. The danger of leaving them outside in a pot comes from the freezing and thawing cycles of the winter weather; this can cause the bulbs to dry out – keeping them protected with insulation such as mulch prevents this. If leaving them outside, just be sure to store them in an area that’s not accessible to rabbits or squirrels.

6.) Plant bulbs that the animals don’t find appetizing. Deer and rodents dislike Allium, Chionodoxa (glory-of-the-snow), Hyacinthoides (Scilla campanulata), Leucojum (snowdrops), and Narcissus.

None of these remedies, of course, is fool-proof … or deer-proof, rabbit-proof or squirrel-proof. Whether they work depends on how hungry the animals are, and how tenacious they are in satisfying their hunger in your garden instead of moving on to other grazing grounds. The key is making your bulbs less appealing than other feeding areas. One, or even a couple of these methods used in combination, just might mean you’ll be able to enjoy a colorful display in your garden more than the animals passing through enjoy eating it.

Urban legend: n (1979), an often lurid story or anecdote that is based on hearsay and widely circulated as true; often called urban myth.

The term “urban legend” may have been coined in 1979, but these kinds of tales have been in existence since man began storytelling. Many of them may have a basis of truth, but it’s so far buried in embellishments as the story is circulated that it’s hard to distinguish fact from fiction. Some of these stories are now termed “folklore.” Others are so engrained in our history that they’re considered accurate accounts of actual events.

An odd story I heard recently made me ponder what makes a good urban legend, and how they get started.

This spring a local man purchased two pigs, a male and female. He never penned them, neither did he feed them, turning them loose to run wild and forage on their own instead. This has been going on for three or four years – every spring he buys two pigs, and turns them loose for the season. No one quite knows why, or what he does with them – whether he catches them in the fall, and takes them to slaughter, or if they are still left to roam the woods, neighboring farms, and property of other residents in the area.

There were nine pigs total this summer – the boar, sow, and their seven piglets. They’ve been charging through the area and leaving in their wake a swath of destruction likened to “a snow plow run amok” in farming fields and residents’ yards. As the pigs root for food they’ve created networks of ruts more than a foot deep. The neighbors have been “terrorized.” My boss, who told me the story, has a friend who is one of victims of the feral pigs. Not only has her yard been destroyed, but her dog, “Honey Bear,” has been chased by the boar.

The pig owner has been cited and fined numerous times in past years by Animal Control; this year was no exception, although it doesn’t seem to have any effect. In fact, he reportedly told the Animal Control officer that he didn’t care what happened to the pigs, and to do with them what they wanted. Since then, four of the young ones have been caught in large catch-and-release Havahart traps.

It’s a sad story – sad that the irresponsible pig “owner” has so much disregard for the animals he’s supposed to provide for, and sad for the pigs that are left to fend for themselves (although they seem to have no problem doing so). But the story also has the makings of an urban ... or in this case ... rural legend. “Feral Pigs Terrorize Local Inhabitants,” the headline would read.

Sound incredulous? Take then a headline from 2006 on the ABC World News web-site. “Hog Wild! Feral Pigs Invade Texas” begins with “Millions of dangerous pigs are roaming Texas soil …” The article goes on to explain the hogs were brought to America in the 1500s by a Spanish conquistador and are now running wild, eating crops, chicken, and sheep.

The Internet abounds with stories across the country of feral boar attacks on man. It’s known that feral pigs, feeling pressure from being hunted, will become almost nocturnal, staying hidden during the day and feeding at night. They will eat almost anything, even killing other animal species to do so. Sows are extremely protective of their young. And pigs are intelligent – one of the most intelligent creatures in the animal kingdom. Are the feral pigs in this area intelligent enough to realize they’ve been wronged? Can pigs hold a grudge? Are they vindictive enough to seek revenge?

Of course not ... but all it would take is for one chicken to disappear in the dark of night. A family pet runs into the house, quivering with its tail tucked between its legs as the sow protects her young. Perhaps an anxious mother fears for her child’s safety while playing out in the yard. Or a man is attacked by a charging boar. Take the element of fear; add a bit of imagination, a whole lot of embellishment and “The Legend of the Feral Pigs of Fennville” is born. The band of feral creatures roams the night, seeking revenge on any unfortunate soul that crosses their path.

Just like the Melon Heads …

I kicked off my Halloween season this year by attending a book signing here in town. The books are two in the “Haunted America” series: Haunted History of Kalamazoo coauthored by Nicole Bray and Robert Dushane, and Ghosts and Legends of Michigan’s West Coast by Amberrose Hammond. It was a fun evening of telling ghost stories, and listening to the authors’ experiences of the supernatural, many of which take place in this area.

Flipping through Ghosts and Legends of Michigan’s West Coast, one story caught my eye. It was ...

“The Legend of the Melon Heads”

I first heard about the “Melon Heads” just a few weeks ago when I related something strange I saw one morning to my co-workers. It was still dark, and I was sitting on the back porch, drinking coffee while I let Quetta out. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. The fur along her back rose, and she growled low from the back of her throat. A white ... thing ... bounced up the hill from the ravine. Bounced. It did not run, hop, or leap – it bounced. Like a ball. And it was round. Like a ball – about the size of a basketball, actually. It “sat” there for a few seconds, Quetta started barking wildly, and it bounced away, back down the hill and through the ravine. It was weird; I couldn’t – and still haven’t figured out what it was.

“Melon Heads!!!” my co-worker cried in mock terror.

Huh?

She grew up where the Melon Heads supposedly live and ever since she can remember the story has existed. “You gotta be kidding,” I said when she explained the Legend of the Melon Heads.

The legend goes that once there was a hospital that treated children with hydrocephalus – water on the brain that causes the head to swell to an extremely large size, hence the very cruel name “melon head.” Experiments were supposedly done on these poor children, leaving them incapable of the thought process we would consider normal. When the hospital was forced to close, the children were abandoned to the wild, banded together, and lived in the woods in what is now Saugatuck Dunes State Park – one of the most beautiful places in the area which I’ve visited many times, I might add, without ever once seeing a Melon Head. But many others have ... and still do insist they’ve seen small bodied, large-headed feral creatures roaming the woods and peering into steamy windows of parked cars inhabited by teenaged couples doing what teenagers will do in parked cars in remote areas.

Apparently, some of these creatures have kin in Ohio. Stories down there are nearly the exact same as the stories here, right down to the hideous experiments done in the hospital, excepting the Ohio Melon Heads are more vicious than the Michigan Melon Heads. Ohio Melon Heads will rip you apart limb from limb if given the chance. Michigan Melon Heads just scare the crap out of you. A two-minute drill on the Internet produced stories of Melon Heads that inhabit areas of Connecticut and across the sea in England as well.

None of this is true; there is no record of a hospital in the area, let alone one that performed hideous experiments – or no insane asylum as another version of the story goes. There was though, a school for disabled children in the early 1900s, and speculation says it’s quite possible some of these children suffered from hydrocephalus. And because kids can sometimes be cruel toward what they don’t understand or those they perceive as different, it’s also quite possible some of these hydrocephalic children were taunted and called names ... like Melon Head.

Despite the many theories, myths, and that it’s all improbable, Melon Head sightings are still reported to this day. As ridiculous as the Melon Head myth is, or that it’s beyond unlikely that a herd of feral pigs is roaming the countryside seeking revenge, we have a fascination with tales such as these. I love a good creepy story … even a bad one, especially during this time of year with Halloween right around the corner.

Ludicrous perhaps, but walking through the woods on a cool autumn evening, the rustle of leaves triggers a recall in the back of our minds of a story we once heard. We feel a prickle along the back of our necks, and we wonder what’s lurking behind that tree, or around the next bend. Ravenous pigs? Melon Heads? Or perhaps something else; something sinister ... something conjured up by the imagination and retold over and over until it becomes a local legend.

They’re out there ... so let’s hear ’em. What haunts your neck of the woods?

Walter’s Garden in Zeeland, Michigan – the country’s largest wholesale field grower of perennials, says yellow is the official color of the year, not only in fashion and home décor – but in the garden as well. Yellow is the color of “hope, warmth, radiant optimism, and positive energy,” and as we start to see improvement in the economy, yellow has become fashionable again. I’m glad! For years, I’ve heard the phrase “anything but yellow” when helping people plan their gardens. But it’s such a sunny, cheerful color! Is there anything that heralds the coming of spring so much as the yellow trumpets of daffodils. Or anything that signals autumn is approaching more than a field of goldenrod, dotted with purple asters? Yellow brightens dark corners in the garden, combines well with both cool and warm colors, and as an added benefit, is an attractant to pollinating bees.

From the first breath of spring through autumn’s first frost, yellow flowers are a welcoming sight in any garden.

(As a side note, if you’re ever in Zeeland, stop in and take a walk through Walter’s Garden trial gardens – absolutely gorgeous!)

The first frost might be hitting many gardens much earlier than normal next year. ‘First Frost’ has been named The American Hosta Growers Hosta of the Year for 2010. This medium-sized hosta is aptly named; it leaves hold up well until the first frost. A sport of the ever-popular ‘Halcyon,’ ‘First Frost’ has the same vibrant blue-green leaves, but each one comes with a gold margin that changes to white as summer progresses.

The 2010 Perennial Plant Association Plant of the Year is a native plant and an old-fashioned garden favorite. Baptisia australis (Blue False Indigo, left) is long-lived and easy to grow. From mid-to-late spring, bright indigo-blue flowers bloom above a dense mound of bluish-green foliage. After the flowers fade, long, black seed pods develop, providing interest through autumn and into winter.

Breeders continue to develop new varieties of Echinacea in shades of red, orange, and yellow. I love coneflowers, but I have to admit I’ve been disappointed with most of the newer varieties for the past few years. Coneflowers are supposed to be vigorous and easy to grow in most any type of soil, right? But unlike the those garden stalwarts – the sturdy, indestructible, Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’ and its white-colored cousin, Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’ – the red and orange varieties seem to always look weak and scraggly. The yellows seem to be a bit more vigorous, but not nearly as much and the purple and white. Though I’ve heard some positive feedback from some of my customers, most have been as disappointed as I am, so I stopped carrying them at the nursery a couple of years ago, and one of my largest perennials suppliers stopped growing them for the same reason.

During the Independent Garden Center Conference and Trade Show in Chicago this August, I had the opportunity to speak with a representative from Terra Nova, which developed many of these Echinacea hybrids. I asked him why they don’t seem to thrive, and often fail. They are hybrids developed from Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower) and Echinacea paradoxa (Ozark coneflower), he explained. In order to develop a more vigorous plant, the flower buds should be cut off just as they start to develop for the first one or even two years. Do not allow the plants to grow very tall either; pinch them back as you would mums. The problem with vigor may lie with the traits Echinacea paradoxa brings to the hybrids. This yellow coneflower, though very hardy in zones 3 to 9, has a very deep taproot. In its native habitat, this species may not reach its full size or may not flower for the first few years until that taproot develops. Cutting off the flower buds and keeping the plant from getting leggy will aid in developing a larger root system quicker.

Placing my perennials orders for the nursery this fall, I could not resist ordering at least one of the red coneflowers. Echinacea ‘Hot Papaya’ has flaming red-orange pom-pom type flowers. Though a hybrid, it’s touted to have the sturdy stems, foliage and habit of Echinacea purpurea.

We’ll see more of pom-pom type coneflowers in garden centers next year. The good news (in my book) is the majority of them are Echinacea purpurea varieties, both in the purple tones and in white. ‘Coconut Lime’ was a nice white-flowered variety this year; additions to the white pom-poms are ‘Meringue,’ a double-white with a green cone, and ‘Milkshake,’ a shorter variety.

Green coneflowers are becoming popular, and there’ll be a few more varieties available for 2010. One of my favorites is Echinacea purpurea ‘Green Jewel.’ It’s fragrant, fairly short at 2 feet tall, with a large light green petals centered around a darker green cone.

It’s not just the Echinacea, of course, that have plant breeders busy. In the shrub department, Lo & Behold^TM ‘Blue Chip’ butterfly bush (Buddleia x ‘Blue Chip’) is the first in a series of new miniature butterfly bushes that bloom continuously without dead-heading. Bloomerang^TM Purple (Syringa x ‘Penda’) is a new reblooming lilac, with fragrant flowers in spring, mid-summer and into fall.

Spring Meadows in Grand Haven, Michigan, has bred what I consider the most exciting recent breakthrough in hydrangeas. Nearly everyone is familiar with the ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea. It’s world’s most recognizable and most popular hydrangea. “Foolproof,” “ironclad,” “indestructible” – whatever you want to call it, it’s a cultivar of our native Hydrangea arborescens, and it’s extremely hardy.

But it only comes in white – that is, until now. Spring Meadows introduces us to the first ever pink ‘Annabelle’ – Invincibelle^TM Spirit (Hydrangea arborescens ‘NCHA1’). With a USDA hardiness rating of zones 3 to 9, ‘Invincibelle’ promises to be just as hardy as the species. The blooms begin a dark pink, maturing to a clear pink, flowering from summer through first frost.

As this year’s garden season draws to a close, we take stock of what worked in our gardens, and what didn’t. Already, we start to plan what changes we’ll make, and look forward to the coming season with optimism. These plants are just a few of the offerings that may be waiting for you at garden centers in 2010. Hope to see you there!

Note: Hybridized plants listed in this article, excluding Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus,’ Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’ and Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ are trademarked, patented, or patent-pending and must be listed as such at the point of purchase. Asexual propagation of these perennials is prohibited. Propagation of and/or the sale of listed shrubs is prohibited without a license.

There are times here that I feel like the black sheep of the GRIT blogging family. The one bad egg in clutch of good eggs. Why? Chickens, of course. I believe I might be the only blogger here that doesn’t keep chickens. I’ve never raised them. Not one itty-bitty chick; not once. Neither have I entertained the idea of keeping them in my backyard, nor do I (gasp!) have a desire to do so. It’s not that I have anything against them; I like a good chicken as much as the next person. I like them grilled, baked, or fricasseed. I don’t dispute the benefits of raising chickens. I know they taste better, are healthier, and there’s a sense of satisfaction in raising something yourself and presenting it to your family. That’s why I vegetable garden. But me raise chickens? No.

The same goes for eggs. I see no need for my family to keep a chicken coop in the backyard to provide us with fresh eggs. A carton of eight eggs can last our family one, two, sometimes three months. We just don’t use that many except for the Easter egg dying tradition, the every-so-often Breakfast for Dinner, and the occasional art project.

I noticed Shelby coming down the stairs the other day headed to the refrigerator with a carton of eggs in her hand. “Uhm, Shelbs ... why did you have eggs up in your bedroom?” Call it Spotlight on Eggs. Her art assignment was to draw a still-life of eggs emphasizing the shadowing techniques they were working on in art class. My following question was how long she’s been working on the project, and more importantly how long have the eggs been up in her room. Three days. Time for them to hit the trash. They expired a month ago anyway.

But I’ll make an attempt to join the flock to put a chicken in every blog, and a coupe in every backyard. Or in the case here, I suppose that should be a “coop” in every backyard.

There I go, mucking up a perfectly good saying again. If I think about it, I may have qualms about killing chickens in my backyard, but I’ve never thought twice about slaughtering English and the idioms and adages that are derived from it. Actually the phrase most everyone knows is “a chicken in every pot, and a car in every garage”, which has been attributed to our country’s various presidents, most often with the credit going to Herbert Hoover. But it wasn’t Hoover who said it. Without Hoover’s approval, a slogan paid for by the Republican National Committee during the 1928 campaign touted the prosperity gained during the party’s administration, claiming to have “put a chicken in every pot. And a car in every backyard, to boot.”

While Hoover himself claimed “the slogan of progress is changing from the full dinner pail to the full garage,” he never uttered a thing about chickens or backyards. Henry IV did though, in seventeenth century France. Great guy, that Henry. He reputedly said it was his wish that the each peasant in his kingdom have “a chicken in his pot every Sunday.”

It’d be nice indeed, to have a potful of chicken each Sunday. Oooo, Keith’s homemade chicken soup is to die for. But what about the poor chicken going into the pot? Well, uhm ... she died for it too. A farm animal, such as a hen unable to lay eggs anymore, was considered to have outlived its usefulness, and therefore “went to pot …” and then onto the dinner table. We’ve all seen better days; a chicken in every pot might not be possible in an economy that’s gone to pot (unless you have them handy to pluck from your backyard, of course).

There are many sayings featuring chickens, and a great deal of them are disparaging. With all these negative connotations, it’s a wonder anyone would want to be associated with them, much less keep them in such close proximity as one’s own backyard.

You can “scratch out a living” working for “chicken feed” trying to feather your nest with the end result having built a nice, little nest egg for you and your family.

But don’t count your chickens before they hatch, or put all your eggs in one basket, lest you end up with nothing. And that’s no cock and bull story.

You can be called bird-brained, a dumb cluck, and be mad as a wet hen when someone refers to you as no spring chicken. Your writing can be as indecipherable as chicken scratch. Feeling too hen-pecked lately? Just go ahead and fly the coop then.

Chicken Little cried, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” as nobody paid attention, while Henny Penny felt she did all the work. They both ended up running around like chickens with their heads cut off ... eventually ... when they went to pot.

You can be taken under someone’s wing, but be wary that the protectiveness does not become too overbearing or you might feel mother-henned to death.

You can be chicken-hearted, chicken-livered, and chicken out when the going gets rough. Being called “chicken,” plain and simple, is often accompanied by hand motions and an audio of bird calls as the name caller flaps his arms, and “bawk, bawk, bawks” in a bad imitation that should leave him tarred and feathered.

Shake your tail feathers and you’ll be proudly strutting like a rooster across the dance floor. Unless it’s a wedding reception, and the obligatory Chicken Dance is played. “I don’t want to be a chicken, I don’t want to be a duck, so I shake my butt.” Clap, clap, clap, clap. (Yes, somewhere along the way, the 1950s oompah accordion song was assigned lyrics.) Then you won’t appear to be a cocky rooster, but rather a certain part of the anatomy of another barnyard animal. This may be compounded after having imbibed in too many cocktails.

Speaking of which ... it was Betsy (or maybe it was Betty?) Flannigan, who owned an inn in Pennsylvania (sometimes it appeared to move to Virginia) who invented the cocktail, or at least the word “cocktail.” Serving drinks to the soldiers of the American Revolution, she used tail feathers of cocks as swizzle sticks. Or she served a soldier a drink mixed with the different colored liquors like that of a cock’s tail. Maybe she stole a rooster from a British supporter, roasted it, and served it up with accompanying drinks decorated with the rooster’s feathers. The Betsy/Betty from Pennsylvania/Virginia stories are but a few of many surrounding the origins of the word “cocktail,” which first appears in print in 1806. More then forty supposed etymologies existed in 1946 surrounding the drink, many of them still making the “rounds” today. Most are as muddled as one’s thoughts might be after slugging back a few of the drinks.

Ah, but does it matter? After putting eggs in your basket and counting them before they’re hatched, scratching out a living, and getting hen-pecked in the process, you must be tired. Sit and relax a spell. Have one of Betsy/Betty’s cocktails. I promise I won’t tell if you perform the Chicken Dance poorly.

And as I run out of bad chicken sayings and analogies, I vaguely wonder if I’ve laid an egg with this blog. Perhaps ruffled some feathers and will end up with egg on my face for displaying chickens in a negative light. They say curses, like chickens, eventually come home to roost. Some one will cry, “Fowl!” and I’ll be politely asked that I quietly leave without putting up a squawk.

Maybe I’ll join you in that cocktail now. While the eggheads of the world run around scrambling to decide which came first, the chicken or the egg, we’ll talk turkey about life’s more important issue: Why did the chicken really cross the road? Let’s ask Betty; maybe she knows.

If not, we can always try Betsy.

Photos courtesy of my fellow GRIT blogger who does raise chickens, the very generous and talented Lori Dunn.

In 2003, “Take Your Daughters to Work Day” expanded to include boys, becoming “Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day.” “Take Your Dog to Work Day” was instituted in 1999 by Pet Sitters International, and is now celebrated around the globe. On June 26 of this year thousands of canine companions accompanied their owners to work. Fortunately, the ill-conceived “Take Your Cats to Work Day” never got off the ground; plans of hostile business takeovers where discovered early on, and in a worldwide effort to prevent company break room pantries from being stocked with only Fancy Feast, the event was cancelled immediately. “Take Your Blog Readers to Work Day” isn’t as well-known as “Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day” or “Take You Dog to Work Day”; in fact, I’m pretty sure there is no such event. But it certainly can’t be as dangerous as “Take Your Cat to Work Day,” so I figure, why not give it a try?

Welcome to Huntree Nursery and Garden Center, my place of employment for the past nine years.

The nursery has been around long before I was even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes. It began in the 1930s after the lumber industry had clear-cut most of the white pines and other evergreens in Michigan. Walter Studley started raising seedlings in 1932, and his tree farm became the first private nursery in the state to grow large quantities of evergreens.

The nursery changed hands in 1954, when Howard Hunt purchased it from Mr. Studley. Howard and his wife, Sally, gave the nursery the name it still has today: Huntree. Along with the tree seedlings, the Hunts began to sell azaleas from their front porch. One azalea led to another species of plant, and soon a retail garden center was added to the nursery. In addition to still growing seedlings, the Hunts started growing ornamentals in a newly added greenhouse, using discarded tin cans from the Michigan Fruit Canners and Lloyd J. Harris Pie Factory as containers.

In 1971, shortly after graduating from Michigan State University with a forestry major, David Landry and his new bride, Jan, started working at the nursery. They purchased it nine years later, and are still the current owners.

Hop on board the Gator; I’ll give you a little tour.

David handles the landscape end of the business. He and his son, Matt, head up the landscaping crew. Plant and hard-scape installation are services Huntree has provided for over 40 years for private residences as well as for commercial properties.

The women’s crew works right alongside the men on landscape jobs, and also provides maintenance and spring and fall cleanup. The crew is in high demand, and no weed is left standing when they’re done. They’re headed up by Elvira, who started working at the nursery for the Hunts when she was just fifteen. That’s over forty years ago! The wisp of a weeping willow she and her mother (who also worked here back then) planted by the pond when she was a teenager is now fully mature. Underneath its branches is Shelby’s favorite spot at the nursery, and Shannon loves to swing from the rope swing over the irrigation pond.

Elvira may have the most seniority, but most of Huntree’s employees have a long tenure with the nursery also. Our staff is very experienced. Some of the members on the men’s crew have been at the nursery for over thirty years. Carmen, our landscape designer has twenty-seven years of design experience; over twenty of it spent at Huntree. The majority of the rest of the employees have been with the nursery for nearly a decade or more.

Jan is in charge of Huntree’s garden center. She works right alongside Paul, Koko, and me maintaining the retail area. The garden center encompasses approximately four acres of the nursery’s total thirty-some acres consisting of growing fields, and acres of tree, shrub, and perennial restock.

The garden center offers aisles of shrubs; we have fruits, rose, ornamental grasses, and fern sections also. We have trees from aspen to zelkova. Each department is clearly marked, and the different species and varieties within that department are alphabetically placed in rows, with each plant tagged with price and growing information. Signs placed in front of each row of plants further detail the information, providing customers with what they need to make a good choice for their site conditions.

The same goes for perennials – we’ve got over 500 species and varieties of perennials, and over 100 hosta and 60 daylily varieties. I do most of the ordering for these three departments, and I have to admit sometimes I get carried away. These past two weeks I’ve spent pouring over our perennial supplier catalogs, agonizing what to order for spring.

Daylilies are the hardest for me to choose; I’d love to carry them all, but we simply don’t have the space. Who can resist something that looks like this? I can’t; 'South Seas' is one of my favorite varieties, and, as well as carrying it at the garden center, I’ve got it in a few of my gardens at home.

We carry seasonal items too. Annuals, bedding and vegetable plants fill greenhouses in late spring and early summer; mums, bulbs, and pumpkins come in fall. Inside the store, we have everything for your birding, landscaping and gardening needs, from a full selection of organics to unusual garden décor.  

We’ll get you loaded ... not with drinks, of course, although a cocktail hour might be nice. (I’ll have to bring that up to Jan.) Mulches, topsoil, stone, and mushroom compost are offered in bulk, as well as in bags.

We set up vignettes throughout the retail area with informational signs giving “how-to” tips. Xeriscaping, prairie gardens, deer resistant gardens, shade gardening, and butterfly gardening displays have been some of the most popular among our customers. My favorite had to be “In the Garden of Good and Evil”, a fun display that combined plants with names such as Crocosmia ‘Lucifer,’ Salvia ‘Vatican White,’ and ‘Pope John Paul’ roses with ‘Bela Lugosi’ daylilies. Our planted display gardens show what plants will look like at maturity, and our Children’s Garden is a fun place to visit for kids of all ages, even the full-grown ones.

We have birds, bees, and butterflies, and smiling frogs. There is no shortage of furry creatures either; some of our regular visitors are of the canine variety. Dogs are welcome, (but leave the cats at home please; I have no desire to open the cupboard in the lunch room and find it fully stocked with Fancy Feast). Some of the not-so-welcome visitors are the deer, rabbits, and groundhogs. To them, it’s as if we had a neon sign out front stating, “Open buffet; all you can eat! Invite your friends!” (We much prefer the frogs – they eat the mosquitoes; we have them too.)

You name it, we’ve got it ... and if we don’t have it in stock, we’ll work to get it for you. One thing we never seem to run short of is customers after closing time, and that means I better cut this tour short, and see to their needs.

Many changes have occurred since the nursery’s early days. The total acreage was cut in half when Interstate 196 was built in the sixties, dissecting the property. Despite the decrease in size, Huntree expanded to a garden center, landscaping service, and wholesale nursery with an experienced staff dedicated to providing quality service and plants. To think it all started with evergreen seedlings, which are still grown here today.

Because at the nursery, we like to keep in touch with our roots ... and branches, and leaves, and flowers ...

Ah, the joys of parenting. From the moment of birth, every new experience is a lesson for both the parent and the child. Starting with the first tentative step, followed by the first skinned knee, parenting is a series of ups and downs. You praise your children’s accomplishments, and you help them work through their disappointments, all the while trying to instill in them a set of morals that you believe will help them grow to be responsible, caring people. There will be moments of intense pride. Conversely, it’s inevitable that there will be periods they’ll stumble. Even good kids make bad decisions, but you hope that they’ll learn from their mistakes and not repeat them. Enter the teenaged years, and with gained independence comes greater accomplishments and, unfortunately, bigger mistakes.

Shelby is a good kid. She’s a bright child in every sense of the word. Her colorful clothing matches her sunny disposition. She’s smart, creative, and witty, and when she uses those traits in combination, she’s the Queen of One-liners, laced with a biting sarcasm that seems much beyond her thirteen years. Other times, she’s just plain goofy. She oozes enthusiasm for life with every bouncy step she takes. She is both my sweet angel, and my scary monster under the bridge.

Keith and I were so proud of her accomplishments during her Middle School Promotion back in June. In a sea of boys in shirts and ties their mothers laid out for them to wear, and girls decked out in sparkles and gold shoes worthy of high-school prom night, Shelby bounced up to receive her “President’s Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence,” given for maintaining an “A” average in every semester of all three years of middle school ... and she received it in her funky, spiked hair with the silly bow, a patterned peace sign dress, and black high-top Converse tennis shoes.

“Gasp!”

“How could you let her dress like that for graduation?!” my friend uttered. Huh? Part of being a parent, I believe, is teaching children that who they are is more important than how they look ... or how someone else thinks they should look. Conformity isn’t all it’s cracked up be. Do we really want our children to be die-cast Stepford cookie-cutter models of what we think of as the perfect child. I like her quirks and her Shelbyisms, and whatever phases of hair styles and clothing she goes through, I hope she never loses that in an effort to conform to somebody else’s standards. Even Keith, though proud of her academic achievement, was disappointed in the way she looked – I was disappointed in him for saying so. I saw it differently: I thought she looked exactly like Shelby – her appearance fit her personality to a tee, and I wouldn’t have expected it any other way. But it didn’t matter that I thought she looked cute; it wasn’t about what Keith or anybody else thought. It was her night to shine, and if she wanted to shine wearing high-top sneakers, that was her choice. I was as proud of her confidence in expressing her individuality, as I was in the award she earned.

And I was more disappointed in her for a choice she made later that month than I ever thought I could have imagined being. That she didn’t put herself, or anyone else in danger, or that on the grand scale of her life this would be a small pebble that doesn’t carry much over-all weight, doesn’t matter. There was no gray area in this choice; she knows right from wrong, and in this case, decided to do something without giving thought to the consequences.

What do you do when a child chooses wrong over right? Ground them? Does keeping them inside the house, barred from seeing friends and taking away phone, television and computer privileges, and giving them extra chores, teach them anything? In my experience, it does nothing but produce a moping, miserable child, who makes everyone else in the household miserable during the period of confinement. Keith, at times, would like to keep her locked inside the house, if for no other reason than to keep her protected and safe from the world outside.

Instead of grounding, I sentenced her to two weeks of community service, starting with taking fifty dollars of her own hard-earned babysitting money – a fortune for a thirteen year old – and donating it to a charity or organization of her own choosing. And she had to write a one-page essay on why she chose that particular organization.

The essay was the only part of her punishment she balked at. “An essay? Mom, it’s like you’re making me go to summer school.”

In one of those moments of stereotypical parental corniness seen through the eyes of a teenager, I replied, “It is summer school…and it’s called The School of Life.” (Even I rolled my eyes at that one.)

The essay was completed the next day. She chose to give her donation to The American Cancer Society, citing in the essay a long list of people in her life who’ve been affected by cancer, and her desire that a cure be found to help them. Sadly, shortly after, one of those on her list – her best friend’s father – passed away after a long battle with the disease. Writing the essay may have made her realize that no matter how bad she thinks she has it (having to actually write something during summer vacation – “OMG!!! The horror!!!”), there are people who have it much worse, and the harder lesson, that even as hope fades, we must continue to help however we can.

The community service part proved to be harder than I thought. Because of her age, many of the typical places where one might volunteer here in town – the Humane Society, the parks and recreation department, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Visitors Bureau – require an accompanying adult, and are open only during the day on weekdays, or on Saturdays. Keith and I both work during the times she could have volunteered at any of these places.

Instead, we spent time picking up trash on the Kal-Haven Trail, and after the weekend tourists went home leaving behind a beach littered with garbage, we cleaned up after them. I held the bag, and she did the dirty work. She dressed Quetta in a t-shirt she’d printed with “Donate to the Al-Van Humane Society.” Shannon pulled the wagon, and they went door-to-door collecting much needed cleaning supplies, blankets, towels, and office items for the shelter. These experiences may have reinforced the idea that we are all stewards of the earth and the creatures contained within.

Clothing, books, and odds and ends from her own room and closet were bagged and taken to Goodwill, so that people less fortunate than herself may benefit from things she often takes for granted.

The library was an exercise in tedium. She manned a table set up for the children’s summer reading program. The program participants she logged in during the evening hours where few and far between. The time she wasn’t manning the table, was spent “sight-reading” the shelves – books had to be put in alphabetical order according to authors. She didn’t like it – it was “bor-ring.” But not all jobs are exciting – some are tedious, but still must be done given the same attention to detail as tasks that are fun.

And she did get to have fun during this time. I put her and her friend to work serving lemonade and refreshments during the nursery’s annual “Art in the Arboretum” event. Afterward they cleaned up and put away chairs, loading them on a trailer attached to a John Deere Gator, and driving them back to the barn. She commented later that night, rating the various things during her community service time thus far, that this was by far the best (the library ranked worst).

Then came the highest ranking task on her list. Enlisting her friend’s help again, they painted the “band stand” in the children’s garden. She surprised me a bit with this project; I figured they’d use left-over paint from home, but she spent $70 of her own money buying rainbow colors for the railings, and black and white for a checker-board floor. (Look at them – punishment spent behind the bars of a rainbow-colored jail; I laughed when I took the picture thinking it so appropriate.)

They not only painted the structure – they painted their clothing, their legs, shoes, and anyone who happened to visit the children’s garden that day. Visitors are immortalized in brightly colored hand-prints on the beams of the structure.

When the last book was properly shelved, the last piece of trash picked up, the last chair folded, and the last paint brush cleaned, I wonder what, if anything, this has accomplished. Will she remember any of it years from now? Will it help her somehow, somewhere along the way? I’d like to think she gained more from the experience than she would have folding laundry and cleaning bathrooms at home. But I don’t know; parenting is as much a learning process as is growing from a child to an adult.

You give your children the tools you think they’ll need in life. They get your guidance, support, encouragement, and respect. There will be times you’ll be proud of how they put those tools to use. Sometimes even with the best of tools you can provide, they’ll struggle, and you’ll try to be there to help them figure it out. As a parent, you have to expect that on their walk through life, there will be a few minor splatters along the way. Even that’s okay – splatters add character; character builds strong individuals. And strong individuals have the confidence to wear paint-splattered tennis shoes when everyone else around them is wearing dress shoes. Shrug. Or something like that; I’m not sure exactly – in the job of parenting, I’m still learning.

“Profusion best describes the cottage garden – a place where flowers of assorted sizes, shapes, and colors spill over walls and paths, where herbs, vegetables, and berry bushes crowd among roses and fruit trees. The bloom is perpetual, as new blossoms draw attention away from any fading flowers. Planting is haphazard and cultivation is minimal, since the fullness of the beds makes it difficult for all but the most determined weeds to find a foothold. Seedlings are pampered in the beginning to assure a healthy start, and then allowed to grow freely. Plants thrive on this benign neglect.” – Marina Schinz from Visions of Paradise: Themes and Variations on the Garden

Haphazard? Minimal cultivation? Benign neglect! Ah-ha! See, there is a method to my madness; a style to the semi-controlled chaos in my yard. “You’ve got a lovely cottage garden,” sidewalk passers-by have said to me as I sit on my favorite perch on the front porch; sometimes they stop to look at the flowers in the garden along the sidewalk; other times Keith will offer them a “tour.” He’s so funny. “Let me give you a tour of the grounds,” he says. Or to me, “The grounds look nice today, Dear.” Giving the impression we actually have “grounds” to tour, instead of a ¾ acre lot in town.

A visiting friend recently exclaimed after such a tour, “You’ve brought the country right here to the middle of town.” The term “cottage garden” presents romantic images of farmhouses along a country road fronted by an old stone wall; an unpretentious village house with the open gate of a white picket fence inviting visitors up the path leading to the door; a painted lady of the Victorian era with an arch of climbing roses framing the front porch, or a centuries old stone cottage in England, barely visible through the vines covering it, and the gardens surrounding it.

Is our house a Victorian or a farmhouse? It may have started out as one, but ended up as the other. It’s changed and been added on to so many times in its one-hundred-plus years of existence, who can really tell? A house with acreage in the country, a lot in suburbia, or a brownstone in the city: the style of the house and its location is unimportant. It’s not the type of dwelling, but the abundance and variety of plantings, generous doses of color and texture that blend with simplicity which define a cottage garden.

If I have a cottage garden it was created purely by accident; some of the elements are there, but it’s not a style I set out to adopt. And whether or not it’s “lovely” is most surely debatable. Come take a walk with me, and you can decide. We’ll tour some of  “the grounds” as I tell you a little bit about one of the world’s oldest forms of gardening, and the history of how it came to be. Welcome to the cottage garden.

Enter a cottage garden and most often you’ll walk through a gate and down a path to the front door. Look! I’ve got a path … although it’s concrete. And there’s no gate to enter before you step onto the “path,” but there’s a garden along side it. This little garden along the sidewalk and front walk was created out of necessity. It’s sand; turf doesn’t grow in sand, and the sand kept eroding onto the sidewalk. There are plants that do grow in sand though; this bed is a mix of flowering perennials and herbs – chives, sage, parsley, and winter savory. The bees love the masses of tiny white flowers of winter savory; if anyone can tell me what else it’s good for I’d love to know. I planted it strictly for its looks; I’ve got no idea what to use it for in the kitchen.

Cottage gardens began as necessities, probably during medieval times. Laboring families grew the essentials: herbs used for medicinal and culinary purposes, fruits were eaten fresh, and preserved for hard winters when food was scarce. Flowers were grown as nectar sources for bees, and to use inside the house for fragrance ... because let’s face it; people during that period did not have the same type of hygiene standards we practice today. To put it bluntly, they stank. Unpleasant odors not only came from their own bodies, but also from earth privies, and domestic animals in close proximity, often right outside the door and sometimes right inside the house. Pleasant counter-smells were used to combat the offensive odors. Roses were made into rosewater, flowers and herbs were used in pomanders, which were carried and sniffed whenever unpleasant smells reached the nose, and strewing herbs – sweet smelling plants – were scattered on the earthen floors, so that their scent was released when walked upon.

I actually do have a path to the front door – it’s the servant’s entrance; the servant would be me. It was also created out of necessity, again because this patch of front yard is comprised mostly of sand. When we moved into the house, the “lawn,” which was mostly a tangle of weeds, ran up to the foundation of the house. What little grass that grew there was worn thin from us walking across it from the driveway, creating a dust-bowl whenever the wind blew. The early garden once had a boundary of brick like the path’s outer edge, but it has long since been lost as ‘Fairy’ roses, lady’s mantle, and lamb’s ears are allowed to spill over the edge. Excuse the weeds in the path please; if I had known you were coming, I’d have swept them under the bushes.

Some of the weeds I would have left, even if I had known you were coming. A benevolent wind blew in seeds from this common white campion; a rather pretty weed I think, so I let it stay. In the spring, poppies, forget-me-nots, and tall wild phlox bloom here. The poppies and forget-me-nots are courtesy of my neighbor’s garden, the seeds also blown in from the wind. I waited for years for the phlox to arrive – it grows everywhere around here – and last year it finally came; this year it was beautiful. The wind here isn’t wicked all the time. In earliest gardens, flowers and herbs were collected from the wild, others were traded with neighbors. The plants in a cottage garden are often considered ordinary; they’re not fussy and are the plants your grandmother’s grandmother grew. You’d never find white campion and its companions in this garden – the ditch lilies, spiderwort, and rose checker mallow – on any hot new must-have perennial list.

Because of the simplicity of the plants contained in a cottage garden, it’s often thought of as a kind of botanical archive. Cottage gardeners are credited with preserving older species and varieties of plants, allowing new generations to nostalgically fill their gardens with the plants their great-grandmothers grew.

This ‘Seven Sisters’ rose bush is a very old variety of rose, first cultivated in 1817. The woman who lived in our house for fifty years may have planted it; it may have been planted by the house’s original owners. She took it with her when she moved, though. When we bought the house from its next owners, just a sprig remained, and even that Keith accidently cut down with the lawn mower. Its size now is a testament to its indestructibility. It’s considered a collector’s rose in cultivation for nearly 200 years, but those centuries have taken a toll; there’s much debate about what is a “true” ‘Seven Sisters.’ But it’s pretty just the same. If you look hard enough at this photo, you’ll see another weed growing up from the rose bush. Long after the roses fade and petals drop, tiny white asters on tall willowy stems will bloom in autumn. Who can think a plant as a weed when it willingly gives you flowers after everything else has faded?

Speaking of weeds ... the tall torch-like thing is common mullein. Somehow I always end up with one or two a year, always in different parts of the yard. Wherever they crop up, they get to stay too ... just because I think they’re really cool. In front of it are peach and rose-colored daylilies and purple coneflower. And yes, that’s really orange and pink. Together. It’s a combination that would make most people cringe, but it’s my favorite color scheme, and you’ll see variations of it in most of these pictures.

Aside from the clash of colors, there is a lot going on in this garden. I love flowers; the family and I are also fond of fruits and vegetables. We have very little sun in our yard; most of my gardening is done in the shade. In the few areas we do have sun, as much has to be packed into the garden as possible. In his book English Gardens, Peter Coats, garden editor of House and Garden quoted a friend as saying, “A garden should be like a fat woman in a tight corset – bulging out of it.” I couldn’t agree more.

Beyond the flowers are the squash and tomato patches; the two vegetables are separated by a mulched path which allows us to get to the blueberries planted in a row along the house. They took a hard hit this winter; ice built up under the eaves, and came crashing down on the bushes. As a result, I really had to prune them hard in spring. We’ve got berries though; maybe not as much as we’d like, but we’ve been picking a handful here and there. Potatoes are planted between the blueberry bushes.

Just on the other side of the fence is a smaller garden with asparagus, chives, and parsley. I’ll be moving the blackberries to the vegetable garden in fall; they only get about half a day of sun now and would really prefer more. Vegetables will continue to be planted here next year, though I’ll be expanding the side garden along the driveway where our beans are growing now to include more. A grape vine that bears heavy clusters of the sweetest amber-colored grapes is trellised in the foreground.

(Yep – that wooden thing is another piece of “Good Junque.” It’s a neat old hand-truck my boss was getting rid of a couple of weeks ago, which somehow ended up in my yard ... which had nothing to do with me putting it in my trunk and taking it home.)

Up until about a century ago, cottage gardens contained fruits such as currants, gooseberries, and raspberries. Apple and pear trees rose above mixed beds with herbs, flowers, and vegetables. Early in the nineteenth century as people became more prosperous, the gardens turned more toward ornamental plantings. I think it’s interesting that with many people now growing their own fruits and vegetables and adding them in existing gardens, cottage gardens are returning more toward their original form.

Cottage gardens are generous; plants are not singled out and defined, but rather are allowed to mingle, colors blend, and both useful and ornamental plants are grown in a manner that’s does not require a lot of effort to tend. It’s an intimate type of garden, simple and without pretension. Space is the only limiting factor; there are no restrictions about what to plant, or where to plant it – anything can be included – even if it’s pink and orange together, or an odd combination of hydrangeas and squash (see below). It’s a garden for people who love plants. It’s nostalgic and perhaps represents an idealized version our desire to return to more simple times; it’s less a particular style than it is an attitude.

And it’s not for everybody. My sister-in-law told me once that she looked at the photos in gardening books and magazines of gardens brimming with flowers and thought they looked messy. My friend, who has a gorgeous garden, likes things symmetrical and orderly and meticulously plucks blemished leaves and faded flowers from her plants. You’d never see a weed in her garden, much less one purposely allowed to grow there. If our gardens could be considered children, she’d constantly try to run a brush through my child’s hair; her child wouldn’t have a hair out of place, just tempting me to tousle it.

Whatever style of gardening you prefer, I hope you enjoyed this little tour, and the hearing a bit of history about the cottage garden. Are you tired after all that? Grab a seat and rest for a bit ... but be careful where you sit! You never quite know what you’ll find in a cottage garden.