Meet Our Community: Gail Eichelberger, wildflower party host and wildlife gardener

 

Let's get to know each other!

Since we're not able to meet up in person this year, let's meet online. Every week we're introducing a member* of our Fling community here and on Instagram, in their own words. We're excited to see what everyone's talking about and sharing with their followers!

(*Any garden blogger, vlogger, podcaster, or Instagrammer who follows our Instagram or is a member of our Facebook group. If you'd like to be considered or recommend someone for a Meet Our Community profile, email us.)

Gail Eichelberger

I failed miserably when I started gardening 35 years ago, until I figured out that native plants made sense for the shallow soil over limestone bedrock in my Middle Tennessee garden. Native plants evolved for these conditions, and they’re able to survive in my clay soil that is dry most of the summer and wet all winter.

I decided long ago that a plant had to have more than a pretty face to be invited to my wildflower party. My favorite rough-and-tumble plants, as I call them, must also have excellent wildlife value and need no coddling. They’re simple wildflowers that bloom their hearts out and require little care. Many have never been hybridized, which means they haven't had their best characteristics bred out of them.

I garden for wildlife. Wildflowers like frostweed (Verbesina virginica), goldenrods (Solidago), ex-asters, cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum), and rudbeckias are doing the job nature intended them to do, which is to make a lot of food (nectar and/or pollen) and bloom exactly when the critters need it. Once flowering is over and the seeds ripen, they become feeding stations for over-wintering birds.

There were no local garden bloggers when I started Clay and Limestone in February 2008, and I was sure I could find an audience that wanted to learn about our wonderful native plants. My blog has grown to include a monthly Wildflower Wednesday meme, and many wildflower enthusiasts join from all over the U.S. and Canada, as well as South Africa and the U.K. It would not be hyperbolic to say that garden blogging has enriched my life. I’ve made lifelong friends, seen fabulous gardens, and even attended a blogger event in the U.K.

I love botanical gardens that showcase native plants. Missouri Botanical Garden is one of my favorites. I’m from St. Louis and grew up visiting the garden, and it’s been exciting to see how much their educational outreach about native plants has grown. The gardens are exceptional and showcase the best of Missouri prairies.

Gardening is my passion, and I am grateful for the buzzing bees that led me to the edges of my property and the wildflowers growing there.

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Thanks for sharing your work and your gardening passions with us, Gail! You can follow Gail on her blog, Clay and Limestone, and on Instagram and Facebook.

Photographs courtesy of Gail Eichelberger.

Meet Our Community: David Cristiani, desert dweller and ecoregion junkie

 

Let's get to know each other!

Since we're not able to meet up in person this year, let's meet online. Every week we're introducing a member* of our Fling community here and on Instagram, in their own words. We're excited to see what everyone's talking about and sharing with their followers!

(*Any garden blogger, vlogger, podcaster, or Instagrammer who follows our Instagram or is a member of our Facebook group. If you'd like to be considered or recommend someone for a Meet Our Community profile, email us.)

David Cristiani

I got into gardening as a kid, growing vegetables and melons in our garden plot at the Alabama Air Force base where I grew up. Attending college in Oklahoma, where I studied meteorology and landscape architecture, led me west, where I was inspired by more-open landscapes. My first job was in San Diego, and spending time in the harsh but exciting terrain of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, just 90 minutes east, sparked my interest in the desert. By the time I moved to New Mexico and bought a home, it had become important to me to make a garden with a sense of place.

I live in Las Cruces, part of the little-known Chihuahuan Desert, sitting at 4,000 ft. elevation with an arid, warm, temperate climate, a late-summer monsoon season, and year-round sunshine. It’s a happy medium without infernal summers, long and cold winters, or bipolar extremes. Yet the public here is only mildly interested in gardens, and there are few nurseries within a 3-hour drive. That should change. We can easily grow an untapped diversity of xeric native plants and the more-common adapted plants.

I’m into ornamental landscapes that balance a distinctive aesthetic, that prioritize form over fleeting flowers, with functions like outdoor living and water harvesting. If water or maintenance are cut off, a garden should still shine. To me, design is about executing a thoughtful plan tied to the space, to cause understated elegance.

My blog, It’s A Dry Heat, focuses on appealing landscapes of the Desert Southwest, built or natural. Posts include visits to designs from my former career in landscape architecture, my upcoming garden, and drive-bys of other landscapes. My blog also documents my design journey. I’m trying to help bridge the gap between New Mexico’s dramatic land of possibilities and landscapes that could be anywhere else.

My favorite plant is a local: ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens). Though winter-deciduous with a brief flowering or two, it stands out and up anywhere it’s placed. Paired with Southwestern oaks and anything bold and evergreen, and contrasted with masses of seasonal grasses or a scattering of desert wildflowers, it’s got staying power! My favorite garden is the nearby University of Texas at El Paso Centennial Plaza, a half-mile from the Mexican border. There’s a reason for constant photo sessions there, from quinceañeras to wedding parties. It’s a coherent design with great plantsmanship, many native species, and sleek but simple hardscape.

My plans include continuing a book I started years ago about dry-region garden design for the western US. I'm also developing an ecoregion-based application for climate zones in the West.

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Thanks for sharing your work and your gardening passions with us, David! You can follow David on his blog, It's a Dry Heat, and on Instagram.

Photographs courtesy of David Cristiani.

Meet Our Community: Margaret Mishra, garden experimenter

 

Let's get to know each other!

Since we're not able to meet up in person this year, let's meet online. Every week we're introducing a member* of our Fling community here and on Instagram, in their own words. We're excited to see what everyone's talking about and sharing with their followers!

(*Any garden blogger, vlogger, podcaster, or Instagrammer who follows our Instagram or is a member of our Facebook group. If you'd like to be considered or recommend someone for a Meet Our Community profile, email us.)

Margaret Mishra

My interest in gardening started when I was a kid visiting my grandparents’ farm. I sat on a terrace ledge, picked a tomato, and took a bite. It was a revelation! Fast-forward 20 years, and I had my own postage stamp-sized square of grass, which I promptly tore up to plant my very first vegetable garden. That garden is long gone, although I have a feeling the mint that I planted in the ground is still there – one of my first lessons in what NOT to do! These days, I garden on 1 acre in a small rural town in Southern Ontario, and my mint is confined to a pot.

When I first became aware of garden blogs, I was thrilled. There were people out there, just like me, sowing seeds, growing vegetables, and planting flowers, and they were writing about it for all the world to see. I learned so much, not only from their successes but also their failures. Gardening books had always made everything sound as easy as 1-2-3. My personal experience, however, told me that gardening is full of nuance, the unexpected, and one undeniable fact: that every garden is different, as is every gardener. Garden bloggers spoke to this reality. 

In 2014 I joined the blogging community. My blog was originally called Homegrown – Adventures in my Garden because the primary focus was my vegetable garden. But in 2018 I renamed it The Gardening Me to better reflect my evolving gardening journey, both in and out of my own backyard. While I’m still an avid vegetable gardener, I’ve become more and more enamoured with ornamentals, especially pollinator-friendly perennials. I attribute this to the wonderful gardeners I’ve met and the incredible gardens I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, thanks in large part to the Garden Bloggers Fling.

Whenever I travel, I make a point of visiting botanical gardens and parks. My favourite kind of garden to explore, however, is one that belongs to a regular individual who simply loves their garden, big or small. These are the spaces that I not only enjoy spending time in but also give me the best ideas for my own garden. I’m a backyard snoop and have no shame about peeking through the fence wherever I go, much to my husband’s chagrin!

I’m currently restoring many of the ornamental areas on our property – at last count, 18 distinct beds! – which gives me plenty of opportunity to try out new plants. While I have many favourites – echinacea, hydrangeas, hostas, and rudbeckia, to name a few – each year I find that one or two plants really capture my attention. Last year, Heliopsis helianthoides var. scabra 'New Hybrids' and Nepeta faassenii ‘Purrsian Blue’ always made me stop and smile. Both put on a season-long show, and pollinators love them.

Discovering unexpected treasures is one reason I prefer a fluid garden plan rather than one that’s set in stone. Last spring a solitary “get out of the house” drive to grab a coffee morphed into a spur-of-the-moment visit to the garden center. Two hours later, every nook and cranny of my truck was packed with 76 perennials, shrubs, and trees, most of which were not part of the “plan.” When it comes to the garden, I’m all about experimentation. My early experience with mint, however, did teach me to do a little bit of research before planting in the ground, just in case.

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Thanks for sharing your work and your gardening passions with us, Margaret! You can follow Margaret on her blog, The Gardening Me, and on Instagram.

Photographs courtesy of Margaret Mishra.

Once Again, We Must Reschedule the Fling: Plan for June 23-26, 2022

Dori, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Dear Friends: Unfortunately, we’ve had to make the tough decision to postpone the Madison Fling yet again. While we’d hoped the COVID-19 pandemic would be long past us by June 2021, unfortunately it looks like we’ll still be dealing with its many ramifications well into the summer.

 

And again, the Seattle/Puget Sound committee has graciously offered to reschedule their Fling to 2023.

So our new dates are Thursday, June 23, through Sunday, June 26, 2022. Most aspects of our itinerary will remain the same. Thank you for your patience. Stay tuned for more updates—here and on our Fling Facebook page. 

 

Here's the new logo: You can click on it to download it.

We hope to see you all in Madison during the summer of 2022. Here’s to better days ahead! Thanks for your support, and we wish you all good health!

Meet Our Community: Janet Davis, pollinator gardener and freelance writer/photographer

 

Let's get to know each other!

Since we're not able to meet up in person this year, let's meet online. Every week we're introducing a member* of our Fling community here and on Instagram, in their own words. We're excited to see what everyone's talking about and sharing with their followers!

(*Any garden blogger, vlogger, podcaster, or Instagrammer who follows our Instagram or is a member of our Facebook group. If you'd like to be considered or recommend someone for a Meet Our Community profile, email us.)

Janet Davis

Colour in plant design is a special interest of mine, which is why my blog is called The Paintbox Garden. Sometimes I use my blog as a travel journal, featuring public or private gardens I’ve toured or far-off places that inspire me, including African safaris and visits to geological wonders such as Yellowstone or Oregon’s Painted Hills. Last winter, I even did a series connecting my favourite songs – by Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, James Taylor -- with plants, gardens, or my personal history.

I garden in Toronto, at the house we’ve lived in for 38 years, with a front yard devoted completely to pollinator plants. I also have meadows and naturalistic beds at a cottage we built 20 years ago on Lake Muskoka north of Toronto. Orange-flowered butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and light-pink wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) -- two beautiful, native, prairie perennials -- are champion pollinator plants in my meadows, and I never tire of watching them bring insect life into the garden.

I’ve been a freelance garden writer for 33 years, including 8 years writing weekly gardening columns for two of Canada’s biggest newspapers. I’m also a photographer with a stock photo library on SmugMug devoted to plants of all kinds as well as bees, butterflies, and birds. Early in my career, I focused principally on the ‘how-to’ of gardening: how to grow tomatoes, use focal points, make a pond (I even wrote a book on water gardening), deal with drought, etc. But gradually I absorbed enough ecology to realize that gardening shouldn’t just be about aesthetics and what we gardeners need. It should also be about how we can give back to nature by planting in a way that benefits other creatures.

I’ve visited so many gardens it’s difficult to cite a favourite. I’ve spent the most time chronicling Toronto Botanical Garden, our local 4-acre jewel. In fact, the seasonal photo galleries on their website are my own images. But for sheer creativity, I love Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

During this long Covid winter, I’m posting a pollination photo story each day from November 1 to April 1 on Facebook and Instagram under the hashtag #janetsdailypollinator. Check it out!

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Thanks for sharing your work and your gardening passions with us, Janet! You can follow Janet on her blog The Paintbox Garden and on Instagram, YouTube, and SmugMug.

Photographs courtesy of Janet Davis.