There’s no need for chemicals when growing these ancient flowers
By Sharon Parker
There is something about roses. Their lure and cultivation goes back to the ancient Sumerians some 5000 years ago, Greek and Roman poets associated them with the goddess of love; they are traditonally so wonderfully fragrant that you can probably smell them in your mind even as you read this, and may be the source of the earliest perfumes.

By Sharon Parker
A couple of years ago, about this time of year, I had the opportunity to take my daughter, Nora, to Western Wisconsin to look in on a couple of horses for her riding teacher who was out of town. After Nora had reacquainted herself with the horses and seen that they were adequately provisioned, we were about to head back, but then I noticed little white and pink flowers scattered in the unmowed lawn nearby. I had to go investigate. There were two different flowers, both about 5-6 inches tall, and with similar five-petaled blossoms about a half-inch across. One had white flowers and three-part leaves; the other’s blossoms were pale pink with darker pink pinstripes, and that one had grass-like leaves. The overall effect was utterly charming.

By Sharon Parker
Last year about this time I was just getting into making and swapping artist trading cards (ATCs, see note 1 below) and wanting to do something on a botanical theme and wanting it to relate to St. Patrick’s day. This quite naturally led to a little research on what is the true shamrock--is it the oxalis plants that are commonly sold as shamrocks at florists’ shops this time of year, or could it be the humble clover that grows in our lawns?

By Sharon Parker
The gardener inside me is beginning to break dormancy and I think it must be the lengthening daylight hours--11 as of today, according to my Weatherguide calendar. It’s also fueled by the swelling buds of the geraniums I brought indoors last fall, and other indoor signs of spring, such as renewed growth on houseplants that have been languishing the last few months.

By Sharon Parker
(This article first appeared in The Observer e-mail edition, February 25, 2002)
Garden planning goes well with a double latte, at a coffee shop, with notebooks and catalogs spread across the table, but I’ve also enjoyed it with a cup of tea in the kitchen. I could tell you that it’s most satisfying with a mug of herbal tea with herbs from my own garden, but how would I know?

By Sharon Parker
When I called this 99-year-old Wisconsin mail-order house to ask whether I should pronounce their name with a j as in jack or if it was more like the name of the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (yung), they said, “Oh, either way.” Now you know you’re dealing with a Midwestern company--an East Coast nursery would surely never be so nonchalant about their name.

By Sharon Parker
Earlier this week I wrote that Rose Nichols McGee, who owns Nichols Garden Nursery, gives garden talks “for gardeners who like to eat.” Well, Ellen Ecker Ogden, co-founder of The Cook’s Garden (www.cooksgarden.com), says their catalog is for gardeners who love to cook. But then you probably could have guessed that from the name.

By Sharon Parker
(First published in The Observer e-mail edition, January 6, 2003; revised January 17, 2006.)

I was sitting at the coffee shop thumbing through my Jung’s Quality Seeds when a woman who had been there nearly as long as I had got up to leave and spotted me looking at the catalog. “Planning your garden?” she asked. I said I was only looking at the catalog at this point, feeling no urgency to actually start planning anything.

By Sharon Parker
It’s just not the same, not having subzero temperatures and foot-deep snowfalls to make you want to sit in the kitchen and look out dreamily on all that frigid whiteness while garden catalogs and notes and plans, marked here and there with brown rings and splattered spots from your tea mug, lie splayed out before you. Perhaps it just doesn’t seem that fall is far enough behind us, that spring is far enough ahead, to make it feel like garden planning season. Perhaps it’s the easy visibility of the omnipresent weeds that were still standing last fall when we chucked it all in for the season, reminding us that we have work to do before any planting can commence this spring.

The Lyndale Park Peace Garden Project Committee has announced that they are selling origami items as a fundraiser to complete the ‘Spirit of Peace’ sculpture in 2006. The Peace Garden is located near the Rose Garden at Lake Harriet. Tiny hand-folded origami peace crane earrings, fabric origami pins and peace crane mobiles are available for a donation of $10.00 to the project. For further information on how to purchase these items, please call 612-313-7726.