Gardenig in Jordan. Tips & Guides

“All at once, summer collapsed into fall.”

The exterior facade of your home is what truly makes its first impression. Homes are often set in the same cookie-cutter designs and palettes, so it’s easy to ignore the exterior and jump straight to the inner walls of your abode.

The HGIC Staff recently visited the beautiful Riverbanks Botanical Gardens in Columbia. Plan a visit soon! ~Part 1~

Iris flowers are named after the Greek Goddess of the rainbow, which is appropriate for their extensive range of colours.

Anyone in search of planting ideas for their garden in the colder months is spoilt for choice when it comes to sources of inspiration. Up and down Britain there are sterling examples of gardens planted for winter interest: Cambridge University Botanic Garden boasts one of the earliest; Wakehurst Place is home to one of the more recent; then there’s Bodnant, Dunham Massey, the Savill Garden – the list goes on. One thing they have in common though is that they’re all quite large, and gardeners could be forgiven for feeling they need a separate ‘winter area’ or hefty acreage to create anything worthwhile in their own plots. Not so, says David Jordan, senior gardener at Anglesey Abbey, who cares for its well-known Winter Garden and has a host of winter plants to recommend that will easily integrate into your existing garden.

The Haw River cuts through North Carolina’s Piedmont region from its source in Forsyth County. Below Jordan Lake, it joins the Deep River to form the Cape Fear River, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean near the southernmost tip of the state.

Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores cultivating the cosmos, planting planets and sowing seeds in space. The second episode of Gardeners of the Galaxy includes a look at the current state of plant experiments on the International Space Station, a rundown of the missions on their way to Mars and a sneak peek at the future of space chillies. And there’s a seed giveaway too!

by Yasmine Shamma, University of Reading

HE READ IT IN MY DECEMBER CHORES LIST: Make the last mowing before winter a short cut, way down low. And even though the snow fell before he got to that task, the guy in the doodle (is that you, Andre Jordan?) didn’t want to skip a single to-do I’d suggested, apparently.

I KNOW A THING OR TWO ABOUT DIBBERS, and this one looks perfectly fine to me. Not sure what master doodler Andre Jordan, our Thursday columnist, is talking about.

YOUR NEW JAPANESE MAPLE MAY NOT HAVE ROOTED well, but it sounds like the Buffalo Springfied lyric paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep has rooted itself thoroughly into consciousness, hasn’t it? If we recall correctly, first you were going to pass the hot (homegrown?) potato for your plant problems back to the nursery the things came from, and now onto your neighbor? Oh, dear. (Is that the same neighbor whose fence you coveted, by the way, and considered stealing?) When I’m looking for reasons for why my plant died, I just refer back to this favorite poem; it mercifully has something to explain every situation.

APPARENTLY MRS. ANDRE’S TOMATOES succumbed to “tiny insect things that will not leave our garden alone,” we hear this week from Himself, who very sweetly shared the actual sympathy postcard he drew for Herself on the occasion of her lost tomatoes.

I AFFECTIONATELY CALLED ANDRE JORDAN A BIRD OF A FEATHER last Thursday, when his new weekly doodle debuted here. Apparently this is the migratory Englishman-turned-Nebraskan’s response.

I SAID IT WHEN I first saw this doodle by Andre Jordan: It’s as if the refrain of “Reunited” (circa 1980 by Peaches & Herb) came face to face with that “You complete me” one-liner from “Jerry McGuire.” Two halves of the same whole–but which in this case is whose better half?

SHE LOVES ME, SHE LOVES ME NOT.Andre Jordan seems to keep hoping for the best, despite a few well-documented cases of rejection (as in, loc. cit., The Girl I Love With All My Heart. Caveat emptor: Deliciously not PG!).

SOMETIMES I GET TWO VERSIONS OF A DOODLE from Andre Jordan, and he wants me to choose. And usually I can’t.

No, I have still not met Andre, though we’ve been in contact for more than a year. But we grow a little closer every week when the latest stash of doodles-in-progress arrives, and I get glimmers into the thought process that is behind them, just like I did when I read his memoir, “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.” (There is no better book to give your shrink; it should be on the curriculum of psychoanalytic institutes and departments of psychiatry in teaching hospitals and schools of social work, I swear. Insurance companies should mail it out to all patients using mental-health coverage, so they know they are not alone.) Some week

“And so I said very little,” his email continued, “and hoped (as I tend to do with my more serious doodles about depression) that people such as yourself would understand the enormous thing I did not try to say. If that makes sense?“I shall get back to my slightly passive aggressive doodling now. Ha. I am currently drawing a ladies bottom. I am as yet unsure how this will eventually become a garden doodle.”Stay tuned, dear readers. Next week promises to be a doozy. (I love my Andre emails almost as much as my Andre doodles, frankly. Well, except ones like this Quantum Physics Diagram, which actually does relate to gardening…and about 500 others.)Thanks for being Andre, Andre. And yes, of course it mak

RATHER THAN TRY TO GILD THE LILY, why don’t I just leave Andre Jordan’s doodle to speak for itself? To my mind the shed might still be too small and the house too big…but I will shut up now and leave mad enough alone.

THANK GOODNESS WE HAVE ANDRE JORDAN to warn us of the dangers all around us in this hazardous hobby of ours. I confess that even though I tried to exhibit restraint in this year’s seed orders, a few extra things have found their way into my stash.

Asparagus-Planting Time: Asparagus tests even the most committed gardener, asking for a major feat of excavation followed by a lot of patience. Whatever kind you’re planting (hopefully an all-male strain like one of the Jersey types, which yield 20 to 30 percent more than dear old ‘Martha Washington’) you have to dig a trench about 18 inches wide and deep—no less than a foot in each direction, please. Here’s how.Less-Than-Spectacular Daffodils? They need a diagnosis, now… and a remedy, even sooner. Too much Nitrogen, too little of other nutrients, overcrowding, not enough sun or moisture: These are just some of the factors that can cause Narcissus to make leaves but few flowers. Get the lowdown here (or for all your bulb worries, including this one, try the Bulb FAQ page).Potatoes—Prep Now, Plant Soon: While prepping my vegetable garden last week, I unearthed several potatoes that eluded me last fall. Potatoes go in early, a week or two before the final frost

THREE-HUNDRED SIXTY-FOUR DAYS of the year, he’s got me nailed: Yes, Andre, I am often seen in the wrong footwear (read: garden boots), no matter the occasion. They’re just so easy on the feet, if not the eyes. But today, as yet another glacier slid across beautiful downtown Cupcake Falls, N.Y., even I had to relent and change into crampons to go break up the ice, or at least give it my best shot. The storm and the aftermess were so distracting that I even forgot today was Thursday (meaning Andre Day), until faithful Johanna squawked “Where’s Andre?” a few minutes ago on some other silly post I loaded in, thinking it was Wednesday. But no: Today, the day I spent not in garden boots but my even sexier YakTrax, was Andre Day, and I have done you and everyone wrong. Mea culpa, Andre Jordan.

T HOUGH I HOPE MY FIGURE IS STILL A TAD BETTER THAN THIS GUY’S, despite all the dark chocolate and fig bars lately, he is definitely on to something: Miracles abound outside the window.

WHAT BETTER WAY TO START OUR NEW ERA as a nation than by sowing seeds of hope? Thanks to a recent transplant to America, doodler Andre Jordan, for a perfect message for this historic week.

I N A GOOD SPRING, BELOVED PLANTS COME BACK. Not everybody, of course; some just can’t find their way home.

I was trying to repair a failed de-icer in the pool. All that’s missing from his latest doodle: the flashlight I had in one hand, and the hammer (to crack the ice and save the frogs from suffocating) in the other. (Not the same tools I’d used earlier that day to dislodge ice dams from the roof.) I repeated the hammering periodically throughout the night to protect my beloved amphibians; who needs beauty sleep, when potential princes are at risk? A girl must be versatile, well-equipped, and ever-ready.When does spring begin?Tagsandre jordan

WHY DO BIRDS SUDDENLY APPEAR? Just in case you want the musical answer to be indelibly imprinted in your brain today (thanks, Andre Jordan, for the power of suggestion), how about a spin through the 40-year-old recording of Karen Carpenter’s decidedly non-horticultural answer to this question? This doodle is one ins  aeries of Andre’s “Songs for Ex-Lovers” (his own, shall we say, arrangement of some all-time favorite lyrics, that is). I hope we can see the rest sometime.

I MUST GO OUT TO THE STILL AND SEE IF THE LATEST VINTAGE is ready for the holiday weekend’s festivities. (And you thought I grew all those potatoes for mashing and baking, did you?) I love the play, dear Andre Jordan, on the somewhat obscure informal definition of “potted” (intoxicated by drink or drugs, esp. marijuana: a party where everybody was pretty much potted), which really matches the idea of a potting bench/table/shed. But it seems like a doodle (and a party) in need of a soundtrack…and so I made one. Feeling retro? Feeling brave? Caveat emptor: Heaven help us, since 80s music is not my strength or taste.

BESIDES OUR SOMEWHAT OFFKILTER HUMOR, Andre Jordan and I have another thing in common: We not so long ago each headed for the hills. (Wait, are there even hills in Nebraska?)

APOLOGIES: THE MASTER DOODLER IS AWAY THIS WEEK. “Now or never,” I warned him.

WI TOLD ANDRE ABOUT the male Eastern Bluebird’s annual rite of spring, the so-called Nest Demonstration Display, I didn’t think he believed me. It’s a little bait and switch in which the boy bird (in Andre Jordan‘s depiction, Darius) carries a twig or two around in his beak and makes a big show near the entrance to his proposed nest box or tree cavity. In and out he goes with those twigs as props, as if to say, “Look, gorgeous, I’m decorating a house for us. I’m your man.” But you know how it goes with men, don’t you? (Aren’t I just awful?) The thing is, the male bluebird never lifts a beak to really build the nest. He’s a faker, but a handsome one (in real life, his back and head are a brilliant royal blue and only his breast is reddish). No matter the hijinks; the female falls for it, happily giving up the goods. Then she has to build herself and the kids a nest and tackle all the other housekeeping chores, too. A woman’s work, as it has been said, is never done.

LIKE THAT SCENE FROM ‘JERRY MCGUIRE,’ what does one better half of a worm, er, couple, say to another? Answer: “You complete me.” The mad doodler Andre Jordan’s latest offering also has me singing Peaches and Herb’s 1980 Grammy nominated “Reunited” (“I was a fool to ever leave your side/Me minus you is such a lonely ride”). I will spare you (but it is really funny if you read it looking at the doodle…OK, so I don’t get out much).

OK, SO I HAVE A TWISTED SIDE. No big surprise to most of you, probably. And that being the case, I have some off-color favorites in various realms…including illustration. My all-time love is Andre Jordan from the UK (don’t know him personally, but he replied to my cold-call email saying it’s OK I post this). Jordan is a great talent, and since I had just left the city to live in the woods when I first came across this piece of his, I have adopted it as my motto. His doodles tackle life’s challenges, like love done in (or never achieved), depression, and other things that pull at my heart strings, including a popular if quite startling series for the BBC on disabilities. But caveat emptor: He can get a little wild, and is not PG. You are all grown-ups, no? So go see his A Beautiful Revolution site (or don’t, up to you), and especially his “Postcards I May Send” section, oh my.

APPARENTLY WE ARE IN A CONTEMPLATIVE MOOD this week, not raucous or irreverent or even downright wild. Yes, doodler Andre Jordan and I have moments of reflection, you know…it’s not just all go-go-go with us; sometimes it’s at a snail’s pace.

YES, MY HAIR IS A BIT STATIC-PRONE AT THE MOMENT, dear Andre Jordan, thank you very much; I asked you to please not make fun of it. More important, though: There is, and forever has been, only one Jack the Demon Cat, and my Jack (who has a drug problem) wants no part of morning walks with Mommy; he sleeps by day and hunts by night.

AS ANDRE SO CORRECTLY AND MODESTLY pointed out to me, nobody draws birds with the precision he does. Watch out, David Sibley, our dear Andre Jordan is nipping (chirping?) at your heels.