In Gretchen's Garden

Sweet Woodruff | Pachysandra
Periwinkle | Astilbe | Ferns
Hellebore | Lungwort ---> Spring
Impatiens | Hosta | Flag Iris
Coral Bells | Trillium
* Siberian Buglass
Columbine | Some day lilies (ex: wood, trout)
Some Irises (ex: crested)
Soloman's seal ---> gets tall
Bleeding heart | Fern Leaf bleeding heart
Narcissus | Daffodils | Big leaf aster
Jacob's ladder | Violets
Rhododendron | Wood anemones
Moss | Wild sweet william
Foam flower | Golden Star
Jack in the Pulpit | Lily of the Valley
Goat's beard | Primrose
Turtlehead | Turks cap lilies


These are my first brainstorming notes, courtesy of my brother's girlfriend. It's a good list to start with. It also got me thinking that what I need to do is get into the mindset of WOODLAND PLANTS. In the woods, there is little or no sunlight...what kind of plants do you see there? I do gravitate more towards natural style gardening rather than formal anyway. I think this can work.

As this is my first ever blog, I feel I should introduce myself...every literary piece has it's introduction, and even magazines have their "letter from the editor"...so I am thinking, why not this as well? It just doesn't feel proper to go without.

So anyway, I am beginning this as a jolt of inspiration hit me first thing this Saturday morning at 7 am. It's winter...and literally 9 degrees outside. So naturally I've been daydreaming of spring gardening. I've always loved gardening since I was a little girl munching green beans picked from my parent's vegetable garden in the back yard. I would also stereotypically wander off Goldilocks-like into the woods picking wildflowers and trying to spot wildlife (though I'm a brunette, not a blonde, but let's go with it for the metaphor.)

In my prior living space, I was blessed with a ground-level apartment that came with a patio and a landlord who allowed me to dig up the lawn and put in a flower garden. (Well, I should say, allowed me after it was done and looked incredible!!) It got full sun all day. I grew flowers and vegetables and anything that I plunked into the ground thrived. I had explosions of color spilling over the garden trim. It was nearly out of control. Throughout the summers, I shared it with a nest of baby bunnies and a huge praying mantis - which I found out later is an ancient symbol of strength. The garden became a sanctuary for me from all the stress and anxiety of life. At that time, there was a lot of it so needless to say, I spent most of my extra time there. My realization for my love for gardening (can't resist saying it) BLOSSOMED. It had always been there, but I had never acknowledged it. Prior to that, there were plenty of philodendron and spider plants on windowsills of dorm rooms and Christmas cactuses on desks at work... I hadn't realized it, but there has always been a plant in my life.

Now zooming back to more present times, we get to the heart of the blog's theme. My apartment now is beautiful and I'm in love with it. This May will be my second garden season there and I've got a LOT to learn in preparation. It's a second floor duplex and has a lovely front porch which stretches the front of the building. Thus, I was flung into the world of container gardening. What a fabulous niche of gardening this is! I already had two wonderful large raised-bed planters my dad built for me, and last spring I scoured garage sales and ended up with a multitude of colorful pots and terracotta planters. Then I went straight to Home Depot and bought beautiful flowers and packages of herb seeds, put everything in it's place, and dreamed of how beautiful my porch would be.

The result was...nothing. I had a bunch of pathetic withering seedlings. A complete failure. A combination of my haste and my luxury of the previous full sun patio made me realize that -- though I admire the hobby -- I really don't know anything!! Part of the problem was the alluring age-old sumac tree in the front yard. It added to the charm of the place, but it was blocking all of my sunlight!!

So not only am I new to container gardening, but I also now have to learn how to garden in full-shade. Not impossible, but as I said, I've got a lot to learn. I've been reading a lot about it, and jotting notes and lists down on scraps of paper which are now littered around my computer screen and jammed in the bottom of my purses.

I need focus. So I am going to document what I find and chronicle my experiences to slowly develop a knowledge of what works and what doesn't work. So many things around me are inspiring and I am going to try to take pictures and post them too. This is not really going to be a how-to blog, but more like what I am doing with my garden while I find out "how-to" life. If you are following along, I encourage you to share what you find or any suggestions.