Garden Gate Newsletter for June
We love this place!
The Garden Gate
3268 Fordham Pkwy.
Gulf Breeze, Fl. 32563
850-932-9066
thegardengategb@bellsouth.net
June Class Schedule
Cut Flowers
Flowers are used to mark every occasion in our lives — bouquets celebrate the birth of a baby, weddings and engagements, or other special celebrations and even help us mourn the passing of a loved one. Since Victorian times, certain flowers and flower colors have had special meanings and were used to convey tender (or not so tender) sentiments. Many of these meaningful flowers can be grown in our landscapes, either in an area dedicated to cut flowers or incorporated into other plantings. Join us Wed. June 9, from 10:00 until 11:00 A.M. to learn the about the language of these flowers plus how and where to grow them. Cost of the class is $5.00. Please call to register.
Shade Gardening
Even though shady sites can limit the plants that can be used, and are often hard to dig in because of roots, these areas can provide landscaping interest with color and texture. Many plants that grow in shade don’t bloom as long as their sun-loving counterparts but continuous color can be achieved by choosing species that flower in succession. Join us Sat. June 12, at 10:00A.M. Until 11:00A.M. to learn about plants that thrive in shady areas and how to successfully grow them. We will talk about under-story trees, shrubs, perennials, and ground covers to use in shade, how to amend your soil to plant them, plus other ideas to turn you shade into an low-maintenance asset rather than a landscaping problem. Cost of the class is $5.00. Please call to register.
Cooking Demo – Tomatoes!
Tomatoes will be the main ingredient in this cooking demonstration. Beefsteak, heirloom, cherry, grape – no matter the size and shape, they are delicious! Join us Sat. June 12, at 11:30A.M.when Kim Armstrong will demonstrate simple and exciting recipes using these home-grown favorites (we will talk a little bit about growing tomatoes in our area, too). The cost for this cooking demo (and tasting!) is $7.50. Please call to register.
Natural Pest Control
As the heat and humidity rise, so do the number of pest and diseases that attack our gardens and landscapes. Join us Wed. June 16, to learn ways to keep your plants healthy without using manufactured fungicides, pesticides, and other “cides”. We will discuss using organic products, physical barriers, beneficial insects and other wildlife, and companion planting plus other tips and techniques for less toxic gardening. Class will be held from 10:00 A.M. until 11:00 A.M. Cost of the class is $5.00 – please call to register.
Topiary
Join us Sat. June 19 to learn about the craft of topiary — growing plants on forms or by pruning plants to create shapes. This ancient form of gardening is enjoying a resurgence in popularity right now, adding a touch or formality or tradition when used in the landscape or in interior spaces. You will learn which plants to use for topiaries and how to plant and grow them, whether in containers or in the ground. Tips for maintaining topiaries will also be discussed. We will provide all materials for you to make a topiary during the class, to take home. (This is the season to start topiaries to use or to give as gifts during the holiday season.) Class will begin at 9:30 A.M. until approx. 11:00A.M. Cost of the class is $30.00. Space will be limited for these classes, so please call to register.
Summer Containers
This class will teach you tricks to plant and maintain beautiful planters in summer’s high heat and humidity. Choosing the right plants for your growing conditions is only a part of successful summer container gardens. How to select plants for dramatic effect will also be discussed – combining “thrillers, fillers and spillers” (using flowers, herbs, vegetables, or grasses) to make fantastic, functional focal points in your landscape. Learn watering, fertilizing and maintenance techniques in the lecture part of the class. After the class, you are invited to put together a great container garden to take home. We will provide all plants and materials. This class will be held on Wed. June 23, and Sat. June 26, at 10:00A.M. Second session will follow immediately at approx. 11:00 A.M. Cost of the class is $5.00. Cost of the after-session is $25.00. Please call to register and let us know if you will be staying for both sessions.
News and Notes
Hot weather, rainy weather, steamy weather – it must be summer! Spring flowers are beginning to fade but the heat-loving flowers are coming on strong. Annuals such as zinnias, cosmos, and coleus are tried and true for summer color. Unlike in our grandmother’s time, however, coleus can now be grown in the sun and cosmos can be found in dwarf or double forms in a much wider range of colors. The dwarf zinnias are our favorites, blooming from now until frost with a low mounding habit that does not need dead-heading. They are available in pinks, oranges, reds, yellows, and whites. Try the Profusion series or the Narrow-leaf zinnias in hanging baskets or other containers or in the front of a flower bed. Plant breeders have also worked to improve some old-fashioned perennials. For example, there are many new forms and cultivars of rudbeckia (black-eyed Susans) and gaillardia, or blanket flowers. Some of the most recent and interesting breeding breakthroughs have been with Echinacea (or purple-cone flower). By crossing a yellow species with a purple species, a series of orange flowered Echinacea have been developed. These North American native perennials are now available in all the colors of a sunset or a sunrise. They make spectacular and long-lasting cut flowers, blooming from summer well into fall. Purple cone flowers like sunny sites on the dry side, with a little compost or manure to slightly sweeten the soil. Butterflies love them!
We are seeing lots of birds at our feeders right now, mostly hard-working moms and dads feeding their nestlings. The Carolina wrens that have built the nest in the canvas bag on our porch seem especially busy, not only visiting the feeders but also combing the gardens and container plants for insects for their ravenous young. This week, we have seen the wrens, chickadees, house finches, cardinals, sparrows, bluejays, and red-bellied woodpeckers at our feeders. And then we have our “other” birds — for those of you who have not met “the girls”, we now have six chickens (all hens) brought to us by a customer in early April. We have two California Whites (Beatrice and Gertrude), two Rhode Island Reds (Perryia and Katherine Hepburn), and two Americaunas (Betsy Ross and Martha Washington). We are busily preparing to build a new coop for “the girls”. Come by and check our progress.
We are planning a number of new upcoming classes and cooking demos, and we would love to have your input about garden subjects or related crafts that you would like to learn about. Ideas that we are working on include classes on meditation gardens, romantic gardens, gardening on the water, living roofs and walls or vertical gardening. We are always looking for ways to engage children in gardening or the environment, we are always interested in connecting cooks and gardeners, and we are always interested in passing along information that makes gardening easier or more successful. Please let us know your ideas for classes and other activities, by calling, e-mailing, or just stopping by. Thanks!
Old Time Pottery
We were on a reconnaissance; an exploratory trip, or so I thought. We had passed through Elberta, Alabama, “Woh Das Leben ist Gut” and the Lutheran Church welcomes you; AdventureMan said it was a settlement of Germans, and the German names still dominate as you scan the businesses in town. We had perused the Foley Outlet Mall, and we were on our way down to the beach road to head back to Florida when AdventureMan said “What’s that?!”
It was Old Time Pottery! We had looked for Old Time Pottery in Destin last week, but I didn’t know there was one in Foley, too. I could see the grin on AdventureMan’s face, he had known.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Oh, zee internet, it is a vonderful sing,” he replied, grinning and turning into the huge, gigantic store.
Right in front were the terra cotta pots I had been seeking, at a reasonable price. I picked up two 14″ pots.
For some reason my camera refused to focus, but as I pulled off the pots, I was surprised to find two bright green frogs. I thought they were decorations, and one quickly hopped through the pot hole and back into the dark:
“Only two?” AdventureMan asked, disappointment loud in his voice. “We come all this way and you only buy two?”
“I wasn’t planning to buy anything!” I protested. “You totally caught me by surprise! I thought we were just looking around.”
You can look around inside the Old Time Pottery for a LOOONNNNGGG time. They have everything. A lot of what they have is also available around the same price at other discount stores, TJ Maxx, Bed, Bath and Beyond, etc. But the sheer massive amounts of stuff was purely mind-boggling. It would be easy to buy stuff you didn’t even know you needed, just because it is all there. Actually (she congratulates herself) I managed to hold it to just the two pots. I know where the store is. It’s not that far away, about an hour, I can go back if I need to. 🙂
Garden Gate Nurseries
We’re new, but new-with-a-difference, as we have had so many good people to help us with all the decisions that come with settling in. Today, we spent most of our day exploring health care options. We are so lucky to have a military health plan that will cover most of our needs, but it is a bureaucracy, and our daughter-in-law’s step-father helped guide us through the channels, and introduced us to people who could help explain the benefits and rules. Today we searched out doctors who might work with us. At one point, I told AdventureMan, “the problem is, if they are available, I wonder why? Like maybe all the really good ones are taken?”
Our therapy is thinking about gardens, working on our gardens, and exploring ideas for how our yard should look in the future. Again, our daughter-in-law knew just the right person to help us out, and introduced us to Garden Gate Nurseries, a little piece of heaven on earth.
Garden Gate Nurseries specializes in educating clients as to what grows well in the Pensacola / Gulf Coast Climate, how to enrich the soil, which plants are particularly drought resistant, salt resistant, which attract butterflies, or hummingbirds, etc. You don’t just plonk things in the garden, you make a plan, and work little by little to accomplish that plan.
A visit to Garden Gate Nurseries is like a foretaste of Paradise:
They have herbs and vegetables, plants that love the sun and plants that love the shade, and trees, fruit trees, flowering trees, and some wonderful and unique hand crafted gifts and garden-friendly items in their gift shop.
Best of all, they have a landscape designer, Carole Simpson, who loves gardening, gets her thrills from incorporating your dreams into her designs, is thoroughly knowledgeable about growing things in this climate, and on top of all that, is gracious and kind and generous with her time.
Garden Gate Nurseries / Carole Simpson Landscape Design
3268 Fordham Parkway
Gulf Breeze, FL
850-932-9066
How To Be a Southern Lady
You’d think moving back to your own country would be a piece of cake, wouldn’t you? We nomads know better. Young people who travel to other countries to go to school know better. Military people know better. Missionaries know better. Diplomats know better. Anyone who has spent time living abroad know that it works both ways – you have an impact where you are living, and where you are living has an equal impact on you. You may go back, but you are never the same.
With this move, AdventureMan and I have been too busy trying to get settled and to take care of the incredible amount of bureaucratic detail it takes to relocate. Even with AdventureMan ‘retired’, the days are flying by, and we don’t know why we are so busy.
For one thing, I am doing my own housework, and I am finding I am not very good at it. Like I am good at getting laundry done, and even folded, but I haven’t ironed in a long time, and the things that need ironing are stacking up. I have bought a beautiful new ironing board, and a beautiful iron . . . and some starch, the liquid kind I like, not the spray kind. . . but I haven’t set it up, and I haven’t ironed, not a thing. I have discovered that all my packed things looked a lot better after hanging in the closets for a week, most of the wrinkles fell out, lucky me. But . . . the day of reckoning is coming.
The worst part, for me, is cleaning my floors. My floors are supposed to be beautiful; wood and tile floors. They actually ARE beautiful, maybe two days a week, the day I clean them and the next day, but five days a week, they need work. I wish I had asked my cleaning lady in Doha how she got my floors so beautifully clean. I wish I had paid more attention. I keep looking in the store for some miracle, a machine that will clean them in a heartbeat and make them all shiny. . .
The wonderful thing about moving into this culture – and it truly is a different culture from the one in which I was raised – is that we have our wonderful son and his wonderful wife to give us hints on what to do and not to do, and we have his wife’s wonderful family.
Mostly, I try to keep my eyes open. Southern women admire things extravagantly, and after living for so many years in the Middle East and Gulf, learning to admire extravagantly goes against all my instincts.
In the MIddle East, when you admire extravagantly, you can make people nervous. Some people worry about attracting “the evil eye” of jealousy, evil intentions, people who envy you and wish you harm. Some people, if you admire something, will give it to you! It’s true, those stories, it has happened to me. So now I have to un-learn my lessons in retraint and learn to appreciate, if not extravagantly, at least enough to be polite.
One of my wife’s relatives gave us a house-warming gift, an iced-tea maker, with a darling card that states Rule #1 is that every Southern Hostess knows that a pitcher of iced tea is a MUST for all occasions. I like iced tea, but I have never kept it on hand to serve, and I guess I need to start!
Her second rule was one that made me burst out laughing – “A Southern Lady, the most interesting ones anyway, know that rules are made to be broken.”
“Just be prepared for people to leave your home saying “Bless her heart, she must be getting forgetful. There was no iced tea!”
And then rule #3 – “The only correct and acceptable way to criticize anyone is to add ‘bless his/her heart!’ and then, anything goes!”
At a party at her house this weekend, I learned a couple more – the first rule being that when you are invited to a great big family dinner, bring dessert! Thank God, I did take a little guest gift, but now I know – bring dessert! And it had better be sweet!
The next rule is would make any Kuwaiti or Qattari feel right at home – spare nothing in making our guests comfortable. This Southern Hostess had seating areas inside the beautiful air conditioned home, and also seating outside for those who don’t mind a little heat. She had a big basket loaded with all kinds of insect repellents to keep her guests from being bitten. She took time with each guest, and although she was running her little bottom off getting everything organized, she made it all look easy, and as if she was having a good time. I have a sneaking suspicion the truly was enjoying having all the people around and that her great big heart loves taking care of the crowd. She was the essence of gracious hospitality. Did I mention she has also lived in Kuwait?
Dinner was “Perlow” an old Southern tradition, made in a huge old kettle from her husband’s mother, and hung from a tripod over a roaring fire to cook. The actual cooking was the men’s work as they sat outside drinking iced tea:
Home grown peas and beans mix – delicious!
Serving up the perlow:
My Middle East / Gulf friends would be comfortable eating this meal – Perlow is a variation of Pilaf, and very similar to Biryani. No alcohol served. No pork. Lots and lots of fabulous sweet desserts.
It’s funny, I used to tell people in Kuwait and Qatar that it was a lot like Alaska; when the weather got too bad, you just stay inside most of the time. When the weather gets good, you go outside as much as you can. When it’s too hot/cold, you run from your air conditioned/heated car to your air conditioned / heated store or movie theater, or restaurant, and then back to your air conditioned / heated car and back to your air conditioned/ heated house.
In the same way, I am beginning to wonder if the South and the Middle East know how much they have in common? In Pensacola, on Saturdays, we have the religious people on the corners shouting at passing cars, not a whole lot different from the volunteer morality police in Saudi Arabia. In the South, as in the Middle East, ‘family’ isn’t just blood, it’s also who you’re married into, and there is a lot of emphasis on family getting together and spending time together. In the South, as in the Middle East, men tend to gather in one area, women in another.
In the South, they drink iced tea; in the Middle East, it’s hot tea. Both have passionate patriots, fundamental believers and a tradition of gracious hospitality. Both have a passion for hunting and fishing. Nobody much likes obeying the rules in either culture. Maybe I’m still in the MIddle East?
AdventureMan Cooks a Florida Bouillabaisse
One of AdventureMan’s retirement dreams was to have time to cook. There have been two times in our lives together when he has had the time – one, when our son was born and he learned Chinese cooking so he could stir-fry while I held the squalling baby (he had colic, and squalled from about four in the afternoon to eleven at night. Do you know how long every single minute is when you are holding an inconsolable baby?)
The second time was when he retired from the military, and spent several months at home, keeping house, taking our son to visit colleges, and serving up some of the most fantastic meals we have ever eaten. (I was working; it was a total role reversal. Kind of fun to shake things up, do things differently in a relationship now and then. 🙂 )
So when he started thumbing through cook books, I started grinning to myself. This man is very talented, and while I am very good at ‘survival cooking’, i.e. getting a meal on the table that will nourish and quell hunger pains, AdventureMan takes cooking to an art form.
First we had to make a trip to the grocery store for some basics. When you set up housekeeping after a (yet another) move, you are missing some of the most basic things – like cayenne pepper, or garlic.
Then – oh heaven! – we visited Maria’s Fresh Seafood Market, heaven on earth for this little old Alaska girl.
Fresh, fresh seafood, and people who know how to cut it. The prices are good. As we entered, a drama began, a woman buying a lot of (something) picked a fight, first with the man serving her and then with the cashier. We were there about half an hour, and during this time, she complained, loudly and vigorously, to anyone who would listen. I think she wanted her purchase comped.
AdventureMan bought what he needed, got it cut mostly how he needed it, and also got a fish head and tail for making stock – a great big grouper! He said as he cooked it up, the head and mouth were sticking out of the pot like “Help me! Help me!” but I wouldn’t know because I was upstairs minding my own business while he worked his magic on the Florida fish bouillabaisse. 🙂
Soon, tantalizing odors drifted upstairs, rich, complex odors, with a hint of sherry . . . it was divine. I had to pop down to let him know how much I was appreciating his efforts.
“Do you think it’s a little too thick?” he asked.
“I think it’s like a fish stew; I think thick is OK. You can add a little more liquid if it seems to need it,” I added, but actually, he is doing just fine without any input from me.
Finally, it was time to eat. AdventureMan dished the concoction into some shellfish soup bowls I found many years ago at that exotic resource store, TJ Maxx (LOL) and dinner was served.
Total YUMMMMMM. Bravo, AdventureMan, Bravo! I am having a lot of fun with your retirement! 🙂
What Matters?
For twelve years, most of my life prior to 1998 was in storage. When we first headed to Saudi Arabia together, then back to Germany for several years, then to the Gulf for several more, we had thought it would be just a few years . . . actually, we didn’t think of any time, we just never expected to pack almost everything we owned for that long.
As we were awaiting our shipment from storage, AdventureMan asked me what mattered most. In the greater scheme of things, what matters most isn’t coming out of storage. What matters most is the lives who have connected with mine over the many years.
But there are a couple things I wanted to see again.
First, when we married, we started saving for our first trip to Africa. We didn’t eat meat. We didn’t go to movies. We saved, and a little after we had been married for a year, we went to Kenya and Tanzania for a month, three weeks on safari and then a week on the beach at a marine reserve, where we could snorkle. During that time, we saved every penny, but out of his lunch money, AdventureMan saved enough to buy me this little candleabra, which I cherish. He bicycled to the shop to pay the $25 per month until it was paid for. It was a total surprise, one of the best surprises I have ever had in my life. I wanted to see it again:
Also during that first year, we were looking for wedding china. We had met and married. We hadn’t gone through a long process, just made a decision and followed through. It seemed so sensible to us at the time. Then we had lots of time to search for just the right china.
It took us forever. We would ‘kind of’ like one or two, but not enough to buy it. Then, one day at the Heidelberg Officer’s Club, we found it. We visited it again three months later, and found we liked it just as much, even more. We also had an income tax refund, so we made our first major purchase together, and, after all these years, we still love it:
It is simple, white, with a little encrustation, and – to us – still as beautiful as the day we bought it. It is made by Reynaud, an old porcelain manufacturer in Limoges, but they were bought out several years ago by Cerelene, and now this pattern, Cheverny, is no longer made. I am registered on several replacement sites, but not a single piece has appeared in all the years I have been registered. One year in Germany, just before we left, we bought four more plates and coffee cups, but the replacements are not the same. The china was thicker, not so refined as the original. And then they stopped making it altogether.
Every piece arrived intact. We have a couple chips – we’ve had the china around 36 years, so a broken piece here and there, a chip from time to time – it’s hard to avoid.
We also have an Ethiopian cross, and some very old cookbooks and etiquette books I have collected – I was happy to see them again, along with some French hunting ducks I found once in the Metz flea market. 🙂 Old friends. By the grace of God, we have come through these 12 long years with only a few chips ourselves, nothing broken, and nothing of great importance missing.
Grafitti Bridge
Grafitti Bridge turned purple last week. The Run for Life (Cancer Survivors) had painted it purple and then had to put guards on it because the Oil Spill protesters wanted to paint it black.
You know how there are the rules, and then there are the way rules are enforced – or not? Grafitti is discouraged in Pensacola, but Grafitti bridge – a train bridge – is kind of exempt. The informal rule is that as long as the police don’t actually SEE you painting on the bridge, they won’t bother tracking you down. So the adventure is to do it in the middle of the night, with someone keeping watch so you don’t get caught in the act.
Pocket Park with a View
As we were winding our way home from lunch, we came across a tiny parking area – two cars worth – and a pocket park with a view to die for.
The park is about where it says Chipley Avenue, and has a view of the Garcon Point bridge; a perfect place to watch the sun rise, if you are a sunrise person, which . . .I am!
The park was donated by a gift from a woman who is memorialized in a tiny plaque in the park:
Isn’t that a beautiful legacy to leave behind when you depart this world?
Unexpected and Delightful – Dancing Outbreak
My Kuwait friend sent me this – it delighted my day! I hope you love it as much as I do – wouldn’t you love to be there when one of these events happen?
I told her I would love to see this in Kuwait! A group who dances, unexpectedly, here and there . . . even at a traffic light. Can you see the look on people’s faces? Some would get it, and share the joy. Some would think that men and women dancing together is the end of the moral world as we know it, LLLOOOLLL! A little outbreak of high spirits might be a good thing now and then . . . 😉
Short Break
Tonight is our last night in the hotel, and tomorrow morning we move into our house, with all it’s fresh new wiring, and fresh new paint, too.
I was in the house, picking up mail, when our contractor was there.
“Have you picked a color yet?” he asked.
“I’m still not sure, ” I said.
“Do you want the electricians to leave the receptacles off so you can paint and then replace them?” he asked, and I didn’t know what to say because yes, what he was saying made sense, but no, I wasn’t so sure I was ready to start painting.
“Look,” he said to me. “We’re coming in under budget. I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking you can do this cheaper yourself, but with the house empty, our painters can come in and get this all painted for you and you will still be under budget.”
I almost cried. I know the paint is very fashionable, but it made me think of mushrooms, and caves, and it was just too dark for me. I need light.
“Lilting Laughter,” I said.
“Lilting Laughter it is,” he said, “But if you want anything done differently, like one room painted something else, it is OK. We can do that. How about the ceilings?”
“White” I said, without a second of hesitation. I need light! I want the rooms to be light and airy!
What a difference. The color is peachy in some lights, rosy in others. In the morning light, you think it is a white, but it has all these subtle undertones. I love it, and we love this company and the way they do their work.
It still smells a little painty, but we have our air shipment arriving tomorrow, and a house full of furniture we haven’t seen for 12 years arriving next week. We’re going to have our hands full.
I will blog if I can, but we don’t even know when we will get internet connected. I’ll be back. 🙂
Recent Comments
Kitchen on Isiais: Winding Down intlxpatr on Shampoo Ginger tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on Shampoo Ginger intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
