A Rainy June, Herbally Speaking!

My Purchases from Beech Creek Botanical Garden & Nature Preserve!

Basil in a Container Until the Temperatures Heat Up!

Beneficial Insect Found the Calendula Flower Right Away!

And So Too the Rue Flowers!

The Lemon Balm Scented Geranium is Flowering!

I Know I Have Written About This Rose!  Can't Remember the Name!

The Yarrow is Blooming As Well!

My herbal companion, Bonnie and I had a splendid day at Beech Creek Botanical Garden & Nature Preserve in Alliance, Ohio.  We were pleasantly surprised by the school buses with children learning about nature and gardening.  They don't have nearly the selection of herbs that they did at their previous location, Lily of the Valley Herb Farm.  The quality of their plants is very good.

Well, well, well, June is busting out all over here in the 'Burgh!  We have had so much rain over the past few weeks.  Almost every day The Herbal Husband reports that we have received an inch of rain!  My weeds are letting me know how good it is for them.  I have voluminous amounts of weeds in the bad bag and still it keeps raining.

As you can see from the sampling of herbs and flowers in the photos, the rain has helped in great measure to liven up the landscape.  The mild winter helped as well.  I had verbena bonariensis come back from the plant itself.  I think they generally self sow here.  I have also lost some plants that I thought would come through.  The French tarragon had two very tiny stalks.  They didn't last.  Although my Texas tarragon that was in a container in the basement all winter is flourishing!   I thought a chocolate flower that never is hardy here, was going to make it through.  Sadly it died.  I also wanted to mention that we put the sweet basils I purchased into a container because we have not been consistently in the 80's in the daytime and the 60's at night.  Basils do not enjoy cold soils!  May was a beautiful month for gardens here and June is on pace to be equally as nice.

Hope you are having a great day in your herb garden and you will stop by from time to time to check out what is going on in my herb garden.  I have started the process of cutting my chive blossoms.  Make some chive blossom vinegar if you have some that haven't gone past!  Just go out and enjoy the beauty of your herb garden every chance you get.  You will get pleasure from growing fresh herbs!  Talk to you soon!

A Blooming May, Herbally Speaking!

The Angelica in Bloom!

Dianthus 'Sunburst'

Dianthus 'Sunflor'

'Linear Leaf' Thyme

Comfrey Attracting Bees!

Favorite Ladybug on Joe Pye Weed!

May Means Chives Are Blooming!

And A New Addition to the Garden!

I can't believe May will be over soon!  I have been busy on everything except blogging!  Not sure how to get this blogging motor started!  Maybe I will try once a week?  I think I tried that once before without success!

This has been an outstanding spring here in the 'Burgh!  The Rhododendrons have been spectacular and everything else has as well and as always the weeds are surpassing size and tonnage.  Of course, I was behind last year and it just keeps adding up!  We are moving towards a wild forest like garden in the back.  So the weeds will fit in?

All of the spring herbs are up and turning black from the four-lined plant bug! Ugh!  Our abnormally warm winter hasn't deterred them.  Some of my favorite spring herbs are pictured above.  I also try to use my lovage plant before it flowers in our favorite chicken stew recipe.   I love angelica because it is big and takes up space!  I love dianthus because they are an edible flower and a lot of them smell of cloves.  All of the thymes in flower attract bees.  Comfrey is such a pretty plant in flower.  And of course, chives and the herb omelets begin!  Oh and I almost forgot to share my new favorite foxglove!  Isn't it beautiful?

This Apricot-Pink Digitalis Is My Favorite!

 It is also a good time to get started trimming some herbs to dry them before they flower.  As I was walking around the front garden last week, I noticed that the spearmint is up and looking good.  I will try to get out on Tuesday when it is dry to cut some for drying.

As you can see by the last photo, we have a new addition to the garden, a new arbor for the grapes!  It is long overdue.  It is much shorter than the previous version, but maybe it will be more manageable.  We are also planning to recycle some of the old arbor into features and entrances into the gardens.  So stay tuned!

Tomorrow my herbal companion, Bonnie and I are taking a road trip to Ohio to buy some herbs!  Always an exciting day.  We have a rainy day here at the moment!  I hope you are having a fabulous spring day wherever you may be.  Have finished several cross-stitch projects and that has taken a lot of my time up.  I also have been doing reading about herb garden design and the 2017 Herb of the Year, Cilantro/Coriander.  Hopefully I will get my blogging hat on and will be blogging about those subjects and other topics that have been crying out for attention.  Will talk to you sooner than later!    

A Day of Herbs For Health and Well Being with the Western Reserve Unit at the Cleveland Botanic Garden!

A Folder Chock Full of Great Herbal References!

The Beautiful Centerpieces Made with Mulberry Creek Herbs!

A Full Room Eager to Learn About Herbs for Well Being!

At the Lunch Break, Bonnie and I Had To Go Out in the Herb Garden!

The Thyme Garden and the Mill Stones Give Structure!

Two Happy Herbies in the Winter Garden!

Even This Walk Is Grand Among The Roses!

This Is One of My Favorite Parts--The Knot!

Someone Found Some Green Shoots to Nibble On!

One of the Beautiful Tussie-Mussie That Was Won By Someone At Each Table!

We Even Made An Herbal Product to Take With Us!

And the Delightful and Old John Bartram Paid Us a Visit!

Bonnie and I are always looking for herbal escapes in the dead of winter.  This so-called winter has not been as bad as usual.  So when our wonderful herbal Ohio friend, Kathleen Gips mentioned last fall that the Western Reserve Unit of the Herb Society of America was having a Day of Herbs for Health and Well Being in March, 2017 we thought we should go.  Madame Vice Chair also offered us a room or two at Chez Gips.  We were definitely in then.  The day started at 9:00 AM and to be in Ohio at that hour from Pennsylvania would have had started about 6:30 AM for us to get there on time.  So thank you gentle herb lady and her bionic husband, Jack for being gracious hosts.

The speakers were a wide variety of subjects, including ancient herbals and their histories, historic medicinal gardens, a visit from John Bartram, American Medical Herbalist, creating a personal herbal retreat where we got to make an herbal product to take home and enabling gardens for the older herb gardeners.  Then there was a break and an additional evening programs were cocktails with an herbal twist along with a visit by Frederick Olmsted.  Bonnie and I decided that we needed to leave after the afternoon programs and head home.  It was a break that both of us needed to get recharged for the season to come.

As I have said on many occasions in this blog, any garden should have four seasons of interest and when you have a winter such as we have in the north, pathways, monuments, fountains need to be the structure to define your garden.  It doesn't have to be as elaborate as the Cleveland Botanical Garden but I hope you get the idea to have a visual feature in your herb garden.  Something for the birds to sit on or the chipmunks to dig around.  You get the idea.

I didn't realize that Holden Forests & Gardens a/k/a Holden Arboretum is part of CBG now.  I think I will have to pay them a visit because I have some old herbals, but the ones that were shown in the talk were very interesting.  The rare book room houses collections from Warren H. Corning, a founder's collection of the Holdens and the rare books of the Herb Society of America.  An extra road trip this summer.  The room is only open certain days and by appointment as well.

I also got some additional names of medicinal gardens to visit during our travels.  Some of them I have written about in this blog such as the Chelsea Physic Garden and the University of Oxford Botanic Garden which is England's oldest.  I just got to see the Oxford one last year and have yet to post about it.  The speaker talked about The Poison Garden in Alnwick, Northumberland, England where you must be escorted by a guide so that you are not tempted to touch the plants!  This is one that I think I must see soon.  She also showed The Cloisters garden north of NYC.  One of my favorites.  You get the idea.  I will work on putting a post together of some of the other medicinal gardens she spoke about.

The Western Reserve member who did the Creating a Personal Herbal Retreat talk talked about being the owner of a jewelry store and that she used to go out to her car to escape at lunchtime and took time for herself with various herbal aids.  We did a workshop at the end of her talk where we made a sugar exfoliating scrub with lavender and bergamot oils.  Delicious!

There was also a speaker who talked about making the garden more accessible and isn't that what some of us need right now.  She showed us many raised beds and tools that would help reduce fatigue in the garden.  Got me thinking for sure.  I think it would be good for The Herbal Husband to garden for as long as he can and these raised table beds from Gardener's Supply she showed maybe just the ticket.

So can't really have a great conference without the reenacting of Kirk Brown.  This time he was John Bartram.  Bonnie and I are always amazed that he embodies the character he is portraying and he never misses a beat.  You forget he is a contemporary.  All in all it was a wonderful day and we got home safely even with snow showers.  So glad we were able to go.

Very cold here.  Yes, I know I was too cocky about our weather and OK Phil you were sorta of right.  Maybe we are going to have two feet of snow this season, our normal.  So I really need to talk about my England trip and so that will be what I will concentrate on.  I have also started to read about Cilantro/Coriander.  So as always I have a lot to talk about, herbally speaking.  Hope you are staying warm and dry.  Will talk to you again soon.

 

A Visit to the Western Reserve Unit Herb Garden in Cleveland!

Wanted to do a better job of describing our visit with Kathleen Gips to the Western Reserve Herb Garden at the Cleveland Botanical Garden ("CBG").  The Western Reserve Unit of the Herb Society of America has maintained an herb garden in Wade Park Oval since the mid 1940's.  In 1969 the current herb garden was designed by Elsetta Gilchrist Barnes, A.S.L.A. and built by Herman Losely and Son.  They received awards for their efforts!

This is taken from the Herb Garden Guide from 1999:  "The Western Reserve Herb Garden was designed and is maintained "for use and delight."  Its use is educational:  to give its caretakers and visitors an understanding of the design and of how herbs have been used throughout history.  Its delight is the enjoyment of the scents, textures, colors, scale, design and traditional legends associated with herb gardens through the centuries."  Bonnie and I are always delighted to visit and this time there were the ladies of the unit along with a staff member from the CBG working on the maintenance.  I think I have said this before but I used to be intimidated by this garden, but now I am inspired.  All of the members who work in this garden have a big passion for herbs and educating the public.  It shows ladies in the beautiful precision with which this garden is maintained.  This will be a yearly visit for Bonnie and I.  The unit has a wonderful herb fair (the 71st) on Saturday, October 8, 2016 from 10 AM to 3 PM.  We are looking forward to attending!  There is so much more to the CBG and I will show you those gardens in a future post!

A Plaque of the Plan of the Western Reserve Herb Garden!

Beautiful Ornamentation!

Mill Stones and Knot Garden!  Perfect Combination!

A Bed in the Culinary Garden Celebrating the 2016 Herb of the Year, Capsicum!

Can You Find A Weed in This Double Chamomile Lawn?  Amazing!

The Medicinal Herb Garden!

The Hips of the Cinnamon Rose!

A Cardoon in Bloom in the Dye Garden!

Bayberries!

The Beautiful Formal Structure of the Western Reserve Herb Garden!

The Terrace Garden

The Herbal Posse!

Bronze Fennel Is Blooming!

It is another scorcher here in the 'Burgh! Wanted to show the bronze fennel in bloom.  One of my favorites this time of year in the herb garden!  Another road trip is happening tomorrow and I will share that with you later in the day.  Hope you are staying cool.  Talk to you tomorrow!

I Love Bronze Fennel Blooming in the Garden and So do the Beneficials!

The Western Reserve Herb Fest at the Cleveland Botanical Garden!

Will Lynch, a 16 year old that Has His Own Design Business!

One of Mulberry Creek Herb Farm's Miniature Gardens!

A Mini Garden for Halloween!

One of The Reasons We Came to the Herb Fest, The Herb Garden!

Millstones in the Thyme Garden

Pineapple Sage in Full Bloom

A Large 'Snowflake' Scented Geranium

A Lovely Lemon Verbena

The Cleveland Botanical Garden As a Backdrop to the Herb Garden

The Knot Garden

The Dye Garden

A Beautiful Tangerine Sage!

The List of Herbs for the "Garden Square"

The "Garden Square"

Hyacinth Beans in Bloom

Basil Bed Doing Pretty Good

Our Favorite Herb Lady, Kathleen Gips!

Wonderful Herb Rolls and Lemon Tarragon Butter, Yummy!

With apologies for my tardiness in posting this, Bonnie and I took a road trip to Ohio for the Herb Fest at the Cleveland Botanical Garden last Saturday.  The ladies (and maybe gentlemen) of the Western Reserve Unit of the Herb Society of America did an outstanding job making tons of herbal products for purchase.  Bonnie and I do a lot of our own stuff.  We both came home with herb bread and rolls!  We are always happy to see our herb friend, Kathleen.  She was busy answering the public's questions as she was herb lady for the day.

The other thing that we were anxious to see is the fabulous herb garden that is maintained by the unit!  Can I tell you that it is one of my favorite herb gardens in the eastern half of the United States.  Really! They have done their research and have really maintained a quality herb garden.  I told Bonnie that we will have to come back in the summer because it would even be better and it was really good now.  Looking forward to it already!

I am in the homestretch of making jelly.  I made lemon verbena jelly yesterday and today I set up the rose geranium jelly that I will make at the end of the week.  Then I will just have pineapple sage to go.  The pineapple sage is just so beautiful that I can't cut the leaves yet.  I will have my eyes on the temperatures at night.  I think we are going to have a succession of 30's and I will have to cut it then.  Oh, I almost forgot I have another batch of raspberry jam to do (136 jars)!  I was also thinking about making lemon geranium jelly.  So many flavors, so little time!  Maybe next year!

I still have a lot to cut in the herb garden, chives, lovage, salad burnet (going to make vinegar).  And tonight as I was posting this, I remembered there were German chamomile flowers to cut!  So had to turn on the outside lights and work in the shadows to cut the flowers that were ready.  Crazy or dedicated?  I'll let you decide.  Hope you have had a great day and evening!  Talk to you later.

The Pineapple Sage This Morning