The publisher I work for has given me a new assignment. I am to travel to 19 US cities (over the next year or so), visit historical sites, take photographs, and then blog about my experiences. The blog will be directed at 6th and 7th graders. The cities are ones that middle school students who take the required class, United States History 1865 to the Present, study over the course of the yearlong class. For someone whose bliss truly is to travel and experience new things, this is an incredibly exciting prospect. My head is spinning as I think of all the places I will go and everything that I will experience. Just last night I was watching Food Network and one program highlighted three different food sellers in NYC. One was a restaurant that sells only homemade pies. What could be better than that? Who doesn't swoon over homemade pie? Heck, I'd even like to work in that kind of place. So, yes, food is a consideration along with historic sites. After all, I have to eat while I am away, and I only want to eat the best of the best food available. Today I briefly watched a program on National Geographic about New York Harbor. Holy cow! Do I ever want to set off on this adventure.
I need help figuring out what to see in each location. I've already come up with two criteria. First, I must visit at least one place that is well known. As an example, when I go to Philadelphia, I surely must visit Constitution Hall. Second, I want to visit little known places that are historically significant, ones that can easily be overlooked. I have been told that art museums can be included. I think it would be fun to visit places that the students will enjoy reading about, perhaps a toy museum or something of that ilk. So, below are my cities. If you have any suggestions about historic places I should visit OR restaurants with to-die-for food, please post a comment.
--Lissie
1. New York City
2. Boston
3. Philadelphia
4. Pittsburgh
5. Atlanta
6. New Orleans
7. Miami
8. Chicago
9. St. Louis
10. Detroit
11. San Antonio
12. Santa Fe
13. Denver
14. Salt Lake City
15. Los Angeles
16. San Francisco
17. Seattle
18. Juneau
19. Honolulu
Right now my yard is a constant work in progress. As I've mentioned before our lot has a lot of challenges. We are on the corner and we back up to a cul de sac - both are huge positives. And prior to moving in I didn't realize that because our street side yard is north, it is the perfect place to set up some chairs in the shade and watch the kids play with their friends in the cul de sac. Lots of other families seem to agree and we have all sat in the grass, on blankets, on chairs and even stood in my north side yard over the last several months while children played because it is the perfect spot. It is also a great place for children to play as it is visible from all other yards on the cul de sac, so we had a lot of sprinkler/wading pool play in this side yard lots of afternoons this summer. Our yard may not be ideal for privacy or for appearance but for practicalities sake, there have been so many good advantages that I am really beginning to love it.
With that said, it needs to look a whole lot prettier than it already does. I've been planning obsessively and my husband has been working like a dog to get it whipped into shape. So far we have a gorgeous island with trees anchoring our tiny back yard and giving us a hard break between our property and our neighbor's drive way. Eventually the cryptomeria will grow large enough to afford us great visual privacy and the crape myrtle and japanese maple on either side of the cryptomeria will soften the privacy screening effect. It is really pretty right now as the seasons change. We have been (with the help of our neighbor who owns a pick up truck) getting loads and loads and loads of compost to amend the beds that we already have and to create new beds with. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to grow plants in subsoil that has been dredged up during the building process and then compacted into dense, unrelenting clay with sod laid over. The pH of our "soil" is 5.1 - yes, I heard your gasps through the computer monitor. SIX lime applications are going to be needed over the next several months to correct the extreme acidity of our "soil".
Over the last few weekends Bob has helped me create a very long, narrow bed that pops out into a much larger semi-circle beyond our house that runs along that shady north side of our house. I really wanted to grow some climbing roses up the side of the house to soften it but they were just never going to work well because of the intense shade. We've put in three hydrangeas, two Annabelles and an Endless Summer Blushing Bride to anchor the narrow part of the bed, along with some hostas and huecheras and at the end of the bed where it pops out and widens considerably and gets loads more sun we put in a Korean Spice viburnum and a Chasteberry/Vitex tree (shrub). I am going to be working in 200 spring blooming bulbs into this bed sometime in November when the weather decides to finally cool off. I am going to be growing a variety of climbers in this bed to cover the wall about 6 feet up, possibilities include climbing hydrangea, honeysuckle (yes, I know it can be invasive) and spring blooming sweet peas or maybe even... GULP... ivy. We'll see what I can figure out. I would rather in look like it is naturally climbing rather than trellised so that is posing some problems as I sort out what to choose. I will probably end up with a combo of a few plants and it is really fun trying to find the perfect ones. With the hostas and heucheras near the driveway I will work in some columbine to give it some pretty blooms in the late spring/early summer. I also plan to put in skip laurels all around the heating/cooling units in the spring to hide their ugliness from view.
In the back of our house we will be putting in stairs off of the covered back porch. The stairs will come right off the middle of the porch and on either side will be garden beds. I am hoping for a naturally shaped patio that follows the shapes of the garden beds and bumps into the large tree island, we'll see what happens budget-wise in spring. In the beds on either side of the stairs will immediately be Pinky Winky hydrangeas. They can take full sun, are repeat bloomers and are gorgeous. To the left of the stairs just beyond the hydrangea will be a Bloomerang lilac which will get to be about 5-6 feet tall and 4 feet wide. In front of the lilac will be spirea and some other blooming perennials that I will not have to stress over on an annual basis. We'll see what I come up with before March/April. To the right of the stairs just beyond the anchoring hydrangea will be two shrub roses, not yet sure which varieties, I could absolutely see any number of possibilities there. I am almost sure they will be a soft pink or white to complement the hydrangeas. I am creating a sea of yellow and apricot roses in other parts of the yard so I have some room for some soft pinks in the back. On the porch rails above each bed will be rail flower baskets and I will be putting in jasmine, my very favorite floral scent which performs beautifully on my back porch.
On the south side of the house running along towards the veggie garden beds and attaching to the main front island bed I will be planting 4 types of roses. Hopefully they will be gorgeous as this is the sunniest and hottest part of my yard. I will most likely put some leafy perennials in front of the roses to soften the effect in case the roses defoliate due to heat, disease or something else. Roses are reputed to be finicky, you know, and I am counting on a lot of trial and error before getting it right and having them do well in my garden.
I am still trying to plan the front beds. Our builder is replacing 17 shrubs in the next week that I think are shockingly awful in both hardiness and appearance - the japanese holly inkberries have got to go. Once I know what I'm getting (hopefully it will be better) I can plan to either use those in the future landscape plan or know I am going to have to pull them and try and budget for something else to go in their place. I'm working on some plans now but all could change in two weeks. I'll keep you posted. I definitely want something climbing on the side wall in the photo above and I also want the beds to look full, dense and interesting. Quite a challenge considering how pitiful they are right now. I put a lot of red and white annuals in to give some pop in the front this spring/summer and I tried to cover up with coleus this summer the ratty shrubs that are going to be replaced. Let's hope next summer it looks a lot better from the street than it did this year.
-Jess
I've decided on which roses I am ordering. I've read and thought about and reconsidered and now I've settled and I am moving on until next spring, which I'm sure I'll have decided on a few more. Let me tell you, diving headfirst into the world of rose growing is quite an adventure. There are something like 100,000 varieties, there are hot debates about spraying for disease vs. not within the rose growing community along with differences in opinion on original root or grafted root and if grafted then with what - multiflora, Dr. Huey, fortuniana and so on. There are some roses that are gorgeous but have fallen out of popularity and are now almost impossible to find (which sort of makes them even more desirable for some reason!) and others that are not so great, in my opinion, and can still be found in late October at the local big box home improvement store. It seems most people want pink and easy and going a little farther than that makes the experience all the more interesting for me as a gardener.
I've discovered that I have very little interest in pink and red roses, I much, much, much prefer yellows and apricots and some showy whites. The one exception is the Christopher Marlowe which is supposed to be an incredibly watermelon/salmon/orangey-pink that sounds very interesting and has certainly caught my eye. I've decided to order all my roses bare root from a Canadian seller, Pickering Nurseries, who graft onto muliflora root stock. This rose seller is really highly reputed in the online community so I am ready to give them a go.
For now the front beds will receive Christopher Marlowe by David Austin and OSO Easy's HoneyBun by Proven Winners. Both are low, small growers which will give a nice pop to the front of my house. I am going with the HoneyBun because I am new to growing roses and I want to see if a rose bred particularly to be disease resistant really is compared to the showier, more finicky roses I seem to prefer (from images).
Next, we will be creating another bed along the south side of our house which will extend the existing front bed island down the side towards our garden boxes. What is most exciting about this bed is that my husband has no idea it is going to be created! He really thought we were done with landscaping this fall aside from mulching and I know he is going to be just thrilled to discover yet more sod needs to be removed and more holes need to be dug and more compost needs to be liberally dumped into the area - creating these kinds of garden beds are really his favorite way to spend the weekend
We removed a medium sized pine tree last weekend that was going to eventually get too big for where it was planted near our neighbor's much larger cryptomeria (the landscapers just put it in based on the plan for the house right before we closed rather than realizing that longterm it would never work out, ridiculous) and now there is a nice bare spot begging for a medium sized shrub. I will be putting in Crown Princess Margereta there, another David Austin variety because she packs a lot of punch with her color and she is almost thornless, which is a plus since she will be close to where children are playing. It was really hard choosing her, the lack of thorns being the most important feature. I was loving Grace, and Sweet Juliet as well.
Moving back to the front of my house, there is a wall on the right side of my front bed that is begging for a climber, and I am going to give Maigold by Korbes a try. It is a gorgeous peachy/yellow rose that is supposed to be a prolific bloomer and I think I can train it to climb. 5-6 feet or so feet to give a nice splash of color.
If we decide to move forward with a patio in spring then I will probably order Grace and Lady Emma Hamilton to go in huge pots to add some color to the space. Or maybe not. We'll see what has caught my fancy by then.
A couple pics to show where roses will be planted.
This long stretch behind the laurel and in front of the veggie beds will be a dedicated rose bed, it gets full sun all day until around 4 p.m. 
This interior wall will be where Maigold is planted. Let's hope she likes it here! It also gets full sun from sunrise until about 3 p.m. so she should be fine. 
-Jess
I am one of those people who gets really intensely interested in a subject and I read and research, devouring books and websites as I gather information about whatever topic that has caught my interest until I know enough to feel satisfied and I move on to something else. I've researched everything from yurt living to raw foods during these crazed periods of interest.
Gardening as a whole topic is something that I doubt I will ever exhaust because there are so many sub-categories under the gardening umbrella - veggie gardening, gardening for sustainability, urban gardening, off-grid gardening, succulents, roses, shrubs, trees and so on. Just scan the lengthy list of forum categories over at Garden Web and you'll see what I mean.
My current obsession is roses. I have no idea why, there are many plants that are far less finicky that also have great fragrance and put on one hell of a show for the entire length of the growing season. Roses can be incredibly picky plants, they are prone to fungal diseases, are particular about their soil conditions, how much light they get and so on. They can be scrawny sticky plants with gobs of thorns with just a few blooms to pay you for your trouble. And to top it off, my mother has never grown roses that I can remember and so I don't even have any prior experience to whet my appetite. So why roses and why now?
I'm concurrently obsessed with cottage style gardening. I love big showy blooms - mophead hydrangeas being my favorite flower ever - and I love a loose and comfortable landscaping style. I like the idea of towering hollyhocks, big fat pink peonies, lilac and dogwood trees and... roses. Roses are a must in a cottage garden.
I've been planning and drawing up landscaping plans for the rest of my yard. The north side of our house is the garage side and it faces the street. We have the unsightly AC/Heating units there along with the driveway and it isn't very attractive. We are going to put in a long bed that stretches the length of the house with skip laurels to block out the units, and other shrubs and perennials to fill in. The north side of our house gets very little sun, so this will be where I get to play with shade loving plants - hostas and columbine, bleeding hearts and so on. The bed is anchored by a larger island that juts out with a Korean Spice Viburnum and a Vitex/Chasteberry tree (which were just planted this weekend). There is a 12 foot length of space between the island and the heating and cooling units that would be a perfect place for some medium sized shrub roses that have a bold color and are repeat bloomers... except that roses don't like shade. But the initial planning of this long bed is what got me thinking of roses and now that I've started thinking about them I can't stop.
Roses must find a home somewhere in my yard. I am determined to make this happen. I found the Rose forums at GardenWeb and wow, those folks are knowledgeable. Tea roses, hybrid teas, Old English roses, and so on. There are thousands and thousands of varieties in all sorts of shapes, sizes, colors and petals volume. Tall climbing roses, short ground covering roses, and everything in between. I, of course, love the showiest, most opulent roses, no plain tea roses for this lady. David Austin Roses provide just the style of rose that I love. I almost think I would love to specialize in rose hybridization when I go back to finish my B.A. in Horticulture (a million years from now when I have all my children in school) because the work that rose hybrid specialists do is just fascinating. As a lady who loves open pollenated, heirloom veggies it is sort of a shock to realize how much I appreciate the tinkering that hybridization accomplishes with roses.
I've stumbled across many roses that I would love to grow, unfortunately I lack the space and the right growing conditions to really give many varieties a shot (there is also the always annoying budget to consider). I am not a pink person - much to my 5 year old daughter's dismay - so I have very little interest in traditional pink roses though some of the really spicy dark pink roses are interesting to me. I am absolutely going to be ordering Christopher Marlowe from David Austin to plant this autumn in my front bed and I am considering a couple other varieties for spring delivery to be grown in containers. I may try and convince my husband to give a climbing rose a shot on the south side of our house right near where our veggie garden boxes are. I've got my eye on a few yellow climbing varieties but I've got all winter to continue my research.
Varieties that I think are gorgeous:
Bouquet Parfait
Moser House Shed Rose
Golden Fairy Tale
Crocus Rose
Charlotte
Graham Thomas
Grace (for a container, wouldn't this be lovely on a patio?)
Other online rose sellers with great reputations:
Pickering Nurseries
Palatine Roses
-Jess
I stumbled upon a blog called Love Made the Radish Grow via the Frugal Green Co-Op site about a month ago. We had just picked a ton of peaches at a local farm and I was trying to figure out way to process them. Imagine my delight when I read an interesting recipe for peach salsa and direction on how to can it. I figured 8 pints of peach salsa weren't too huge of a commitment and Bob and I got the rest of the ingredients together and put up several pints.
Peach Salsa
6 c pitted peaches, diced
1 1/4 c diced onion
4 jalapeno peppers, diced (seed these if you don't want it too spicy. I personally like only a little edge)
1 bell pepper, preferably red, diced and seeded (though an color will suffice)
1/2 c chopped fresh cilantro or 1/4 c dried
3/4 c white vinegar
2 T honey
Oh.My.Goodness! We pulled out a jar of it to use to dress up fish tacos the other night and let me tell you, I think I heard the choirs of angels singing in heaven as I chewed. It is delicious, it is easy to can, it is delicious, it requires very easy to find ingredients, it is delicious, it takes very little time to process at 20 minutes, it is delicious, and it can be used in many ways in many various recipes. I think we are going to try it over pork roast next.
Absolutely a pantry staple for the rest of my life. I will brave all kinds of buzzing and stinging insects in the orchard to get loads of peaches each summer so I can make a lot more of this. Yummy.
-Jess
And the winner from the tomato garden this year is... PAUL ROBESON. Clap, clap, clap.
This tomato is everything it is reputed to be. The flavor is unbelievably rich, slightly smokey and not too tart or sweet. The vines produced an average crop and while it wasn't my most prolific tomato it certainly produced enough to make it worthwhile because of the gorgeous, delicious taste.
I grew out two plants and gave one of them to my neighbor. She agrees, that it is hands down the best of the summer.
Yum!
-Jess
