Hmmm. March 1. I don’t know you can call today “coming in like a lamb,” nor do I really see it as “coming in like a lion.” After all, 30s and some snow aren’t so freakish for March 1. But it is hardly sunny and 40s either. Maybe it doesn’t really matter what March comes in as. Maybe what really matters is that March comes. The weather may not sing “SPRING” but the calendar does a little trickery on the mind and I believe it is spring (despite three more weeks of official winter). There’s just something about March arriving that says you’ve made it. You survived another winter. You didn’t get put out on the ice floe. Wolves didn’t chew through the front door and drag you to their den for a January dinner date. Little things like that.

March is also the time of year when I am most likely to start losing plants that I am overwintering in my office. They’ve been here since late October, held on through November, December, January and February, but now are almost screaming “I can’t freaking take it anymore!” They work so hard to make it on limited light and my lackluster watering schedule. Eventually some of them simply say to hell with it. And that is okay. Actually they look better than usual this year. Don’t know I can say the same about the ones in my basement at home. I tend to throw the poor things down there and shut the door, only taking a cursory glance when I’m forced to go to the basement for something else. I’m a bad horticulturist. I should probably be spanked. But the majority of the plants usually make it and before you know it REAL spring is here and they and I almost break into song.

Despite my dislike of winter this year……. Okay. I know. At some point I dislike winter every year. But this year I knew early I would not like it, and despite fairly mild weather, it has felt bitter cold. Let’s start again.

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Yesterday we (the Environmental & Historic Preservation Division of the Indianapolis Museum of Art) held our inaugural Emily N. Daniels Horticulture Symposium. Titled “Shade Savvy,” the symposium brought together five highly respected speakers, both national and local, to the IMA to discuss the many possibilities that shade provides when planning or working in a garden.

Every kind of plant was presented as a potential partner in helping the amateur and professional gardener achieve success. A very large plant palette was presented to attendees, from small native spring ephemerals to large exotic trees, dappled shade to dense dark shade, and stunning tender tropicals to tough as nails perennials. We were thrilled to have 175 people from Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio join us for this wonderful event.

A quick note on each of the speakers, who not only educated but entertained the audience (you need to have a sense of humor when you deal with nature every day).

Dan Benarcik of Chanticleer Gardens opened our program with a visually stunning review of many wonderful plant combinations used in this highly respected public garden. Chanticleer is rightfully considered one of the finest gardens to visit. I always leave there inspired nearly beyond measure.

Karen Perkins was our one specialist, you might say. She covered the incredibly diverse world of epimediums. Her mail-order business, Garden Vision Epimediums, carries an amazing selection of plants with fragile looking flowers and exotic leaves that are in reality some of our hardiest perennials. Expect her to be online soon but in the meantime you can request a catalogue at by emailing her here.

Munchkin Nursery & Gardens, LLC in southern Indiana has been a destination and mail-order nursery for some time. Husband and wife team Gene Bush and JoAn Riley run the nursery and garden but Gene is the one that gets in front of audiences. Always knowledgeable and entertaining, he presented many tough shade tolerant perennials.

As the interest in using native plants in our gardens has increased, so has the research. This covers not only new colors and forms, but also less obvious things like selection for more robust plants that reproduce faster. Faster reproduction can mean more folks can add natives to their home gardens.  It also generally means lower cost so we can afford more of them. Brian Jorge of the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden’s Native Plant Program presented a program highlighting the diverse possibilities of Trilliums and other native woodland flowers. Always remember this zoo is also a botanical garden. You can get your flora and fauna fix at the same time.

Our final speaker, Paul Cappiello of Yew Dell Gardens, concentrated on woody plants for the shade garden whether they were for growing in the shade or creating the shade. Actually, most of the trees he mentioned did both. He could not resist presenting some prime herbaceous plants as well. Heuchera parviflora is in our future. Yew Dell is a young dynamic public garden only about 1 ½ hours south of Indianapolis and well worth the easy drive.

Before this first symposium started, we were already wondering aloud about next year’s possibilities. With the wrap up of “Shade Savvy” nearly complete we will soon sit down to evaluate the program and toss around ideas for 2014. We hope you will be able to join us in the future and contribute to our next savvy success.

While you would not believe it if you had not lived it, the temperature Tuesday night was 60 degrees warmer than the temperature Thursday night. And while I am as prone as anyone to gasp in horror at that fact, there is no ignoring those sorts of temperature swings are not out of realm of possibility in Indiana, even prior to serious climate change.

One kinda sorta gets used to it. In a way. In that holy-crap-good-god-almighty-what-the-hell-is-going-on sort of way. Kinda makes me want to scream and shout.

Admittedly it is only the first day of February but many of our early blooming plants are ready to strut their stuff when we get a couple warm days this time of year. Despite single digits not so long ago, as soon as we had that warmer weather at the beginning of the week the somewhat precocious members of our garden displays were bursting forth with the fervor of spring. The early shift in the gardens has had enough of a cooling period to initiate the launch sequence for flowering.

Flowers in January. Kinda makes me want to scream and shout.

And I know I have said this before in blogs in previous years but each year when these early plants start blooming? I swear. It’s like the very first time I have ever seen them. It’s like it IS the first time I have ever seen them. Despite the fact that I know where to go look for them because some of them I have been visiting for twenty years. It’s just so damn exciting to see them and know winter is going to end (although winters lately are not that much to recover from round here). That’s beside the point. The point is it is so damn wonderful that it kinda makes me want to scream and shout.

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I’ve been working on the vegetable selections for the Tanner Orchard this week. Normally I only advise on this, but we do not have anyone assigned to that garden at the moment so I’m stepping in it, so to speak. I do not mind. I rather like selecting vegetables, more than eating them, really. Though I consume far more than I once did. Oh, hell. Who am I kidding? I actually crave vegetables these days. I even have meatless meals on occasion. Meatless and cheeseless! So there.

Anyway, I’ve been selecting vegetable seeds for the coming season. I’ve stuck with heirlooms in all the species. I think. And all GMO free. Thanks to the folks at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds it is pretty easy to do.

They were very generous last year giving us seeds to pass out on National Public Gardens Day. That day, by the way, is May 10, 2013. And I know we are in the digital age and all but I still love catalogues and theirs is one of my favorites to sit down with at the kitchen table and dream through.  So what’s going in the Orchard in 2013? The usual things I suppose. Lettuces, radishes, beets, kale, carrots, onions, cabbage, beans (stay away deer), summer squash & zucchini, winter squash, peas, and what else? Oh! Tomatoes! To reduce numbers I selected one cultivar of red, yellow, and pink fruited plants. And now I remember sweet peppers (what my people used to call mangoes) and eggplant. As in the past, the produce will be given to Second Helpings.

Some of these will be direct sown beginning in early Spring and continuing on until after frost danger has passed. Some I will start early under lights in our basement. It is not the ideal spot but how often are things ideal in a garden? And some things I will have a local grower start – tomatoes, peppers, some early kale and chard. Maybe the cabbage.

We are doing a program with some local kids as part of National Public Gardens Day again this year. All the kids took home a tomato plant last year. This year I found one called ‘Bison’ that I think will be more ideal. It’s a dwarf one introduced in 1937. The year of the Great Flood. My thinking is kids that do not have a large yard or garden space will still have room for it and kids without a garden space at all can grow this one in a large pot. We introduce them to gardening, fresh food, and container gardening all the same time! The catalogue says it is a heavy producer. Shoot. I’ll be happy if they get a light crop.

Every year it is so exciting when the seed catalogues come with all their new introductions and can’t-live-without selections. I am so thankful I have not lost the thrill of opening those pages and reading and dreaming about all the things I’m for sure going to grow this year. Even if in reality I never buy nine tenths of what catches my eye, when the cold gray skies return the dreaming will get me to the next sunny day.

Now go eat your veggies. Meanwhile, I have to get these seeds ordered before they sell out.

Here we go with another year and with it another Pantone Color of the Year. This year’s Pantone color is Emerald 17-5641.

Image courtesy of www.pantone.com

It is much bluer in the Pantone World than in the Irvin World and that’s alright. My colors rarely match the accepted color of the moment. Even 2012’s Tango Tangerine was a bit redder than I like my oranges. And 2011’s Honeysuckle could have been pinker or more magenta. I know. I’m a little picky. But I’m also practical enough to work with reality, as nature does not always provide the exact color I truly desire. And certainly green, whether true emerald or not, is the dominant color in the world I work in. And just look at all those words associated with emerald.

The Pantone website says “Lively. Radiant. Lush… A color of elegance and beauty that enhances our sense of well-being, balance and harmony.” Well now, who does not want more well-being, balance, and harmony? Sign me up!

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