One of many beautiful gardens at the show.

Sadly, our slumped economy has shut down flower shows across the country. The Northwest Flower & Garden Show set in Seattle was in danger of closing last year. Luckily for us, it was bought and produced this year by the family owned, O’Loughlin Trade Shows, Inc.

I was privileged to be one of the speakers at the 2010 show that was held last week. It showcased top garden creators, integrating thousands of flowers and plants with their rich colors, fragrances and textures into dazzling full‐scale gardens. As soon as I walked into the main show room I was overwhelmed by the flower fragrances. It was a happy place in deed.

I want to share some of my pictures of the show with you.

A cozy livingroom with a mossy chair, dog andTV.

Flowers in the bath has a new meaning.

An old truck became a planter.

The back of the pickup was a vegetable garden.

The front teeth of a porcupine has chewed the bark and wood off of this birch.

A family of porcupines ate the back of this birch damaging the tree but leaving a beautiful design.

We discovered that a family of porcupines is living under one of our cabins in the Adirondacks. Unfortunately, they  chose  a pair of white birch on the path to the front door as their dinner plate. Bark and wood  is part of their diet and what keeps them going in winter. If only they would go from tree to tree and not completely ravish a tree until it dies. There are large patches of bare wood along the trunks of the trees, some up near the top. The designs they carve with their large strong teeth are beautiful and visitors stop to admire them not realizing what has caused them.

According to National Geographic “the porcupines found in North and South America are good climbers and spend much of their time in trees. Some even have prehensile (gripping) tails to aid in climbing. The North American porcupine is the only species that lives in the U.S. and Canada, and is the largest of all porcupines. A single animal may have 30,000 or more quills. North American porcupines use their large front teeth to satisfy a healthy appetite for wood. They eat natural bark and stems, and have been known to invade campgrounds and chew on canoe paddles. North American porcupines also eat fruit, leaves, and springtime buds.”

For the last few days, swarms of birds have covered our lawn and driveway gorging themselves on grubs and seeds. They know my gardens are safe–chemical and pesticide free. I don’t even use chemical fertilizers, only compost. I think this is why I rarely find a Japanese beetle among my summer flowers. the birds have gobbled the grubs before they hatch.

The birds only have a few seconds before the dog notices.

The dog chased the birds into the trees.

The dog laid down and the birds decended again.

The dog continued to chase the birds until I dragged him in. Then the birds dined.

Last summer, the summer of 2009, was not a good year for tomatoes. Besides being too rainy and too cool, critters attacked. I found bites in all the nearly-ripe large tomatoes. The thief left the cherry tomatoes alone. I would have swapped him all the cherries for one Brandywine.

I have lots of suspects-rabbits, birds, squirrels, raccoons and rats. I never was able to catch a glimpse of an animal attacking the fruit. I was at a loss as to how to fix the problem until a friend emailed me pictures of her solution, a raised bed that was completely screened. It is so clever and good looking to boot.

Driving Bear Tooth Pass from Yellow Stone National Park through the mountains to Red Lodge, Montana we came upon many natural wonders. It seems a contradiction but at 10, 000 feet above sea level, snow and summer wildflowers coexist. The densest blooms are along the road where the soil has been disturbed by snowplows and cars. These flowers are nature’s survivors. The views were glorious and the flowers beautiful but at times it was a frightening drive. The narrow road curved around bends with little shoulder and a sheer drop down. It was a thrill of a lifetime!

A half-mile down the road from my brother’s home in Ann Arbor, Michigan is a tranquil marsh, the breeding ground and home for a family of trumpeter swans.  If you’re not familiar with them, you are not alone.  They have lived on the brink of extinction for decades and missed being on the endangered list by a feather. In fact, in 1900 they were believed to be extinct.

Snowy-white with long straight necks the trumpeter swan is, I am told, a spectacular sight. At maturity it is 4-feet tall with a 7-foot wingspan and weights up to 30 pounds. It is North America’s largest waterfowl. And yes, it does trumpet, unlike the smaller, mute swans that live in the bay by our house. I would love to see one. Unfortunately, when I visited my brother all I saw was a memorial posted by their many friends at the edge of the pond. Someone had shot the parents and their two cygnets in the middle of night and left their bodies along the roadside. Such a senseless act of cruelty! 

I posted a sign to alert visitors to my problems.

It is that time of year, when the weeds can be overwhelming.  However, my pleasure in weeding increases after a soaking rain and there has been plenty this summer.  After a rain even onion grass, dock, bindweed, lamb’s-quarters, shepherd’s purse, and chrysanthemum weed can be pulled out from soft ground without a trowel.

There is much to be learned from weeding, but not all of it pleasant. A streak of silvery slime on the ground or over a leaf tells me slugs have taken up residence. Squelching slugs is great sport, but not for the squeamish. If I weren’t at ground level, I might not have noticed what was afoot until huge chunks were missing from the leaves.

More often, however, this close-in approach is a treasure hunt.  Peering at the innocent, purple foliage of perila seedlings, I realize they might be good transplanted into a hole in the flower border.  Near-by I spotted forget-me-not seedlings—perfect for the woodland garden where daffodils will bloom next spring.  Verbena bonariensis too, is easy to spot below the sunflower seedling. I think I’ll leave the sunflower where it is. It will be conversation piece and I don’t want to chance loosing it. Of course, bindweed, clover, dandelions and other undesirables have reared their ugly heads. I’ll eliminate stress pulling them.

A zucchini masquerading as a peacock.

Six zucchini plants more than feeds my family of seven, weekend guests and neighbors all summer. After boiling, sautéing and baking tiny zucchini, and pureeing larger ones for breads, we still are surprised to find several hiding, in spite of their baseball-bat size, under even larger leaves. Conventional wisdom in peaceful Vermont advises locking cars at shopping centers to avoid finding your backseat filled with generous donations of zucchini left by a kind, over-productive gardener.

To solve the problem of an abundance of zucchini I came up with two additional solutions. My favorite is to make soup. Zucchini makes a delicious, nutritious, and low-fat soup, with a creamy, velvety texture without the addition of milk or cream. The skin of the squash gives the soup a rich green color and the seeds, cooked and blended into a puree, add rich flavor and texture. Here is my recipe:

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Green Goddess Zucchini Soup 

Serves 8

1 large yellow chopped onion, coarsely chopped (about 1 cup)

1 large garlic clove, chopped

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 small zucchini, washed, ends removed, cut into 2-inch pieces

6 cups chicken broth

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a large soup pot, over low heat, sauté the onion and garlic in the oil for five minutes, or until the onion is soft and translucent.  Add the zucchini pieces and chicken broth and bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the zucchini is soft when poked with a fork.  Puree one-third of the soup at a time in a blender or food processor, starting at low speed to prevent the hot soup from flying out.  Pour into a tureen and serve immediately  (for a cold treat, refrigerate for several hours. The soup tends to thicken a bit in the refrigerator.   You can thin it with chicken broth, water, or milk, even skim).

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One playful solution to the squash glut is to turn the largest into a peacock centerpiece.  To do it I sliced off just enough of the bottom so it sits flat on an oval platter.  Then I scooped out flesh near the back of the zucchini for the peacock’s tail flowers. The opening is filled with moist floral foam, then I poked in flowers and ferns with arching shapes including white Queen Anne’s lace, pink cosmos, purple butterfly bush, and blue scabiosa.  The beak and the head are fashioned from small yellow peppers and attached with straight pins. I sliced an opening in the top pepper for the beak. As the pepper dried over the next few hours the beak opened. If you are so inclined, a flower can be inserted in its mouth.  Small leaved ivy formed a collar where the neck met the body and where the head meets the neck. The crushed velvet of cockscomb provided the peacock’s comb. And a frilled collar of Queen Anne’s lace decorated the neck. The peacock may be a little quirky, but it amused guests and the seeds of a smile were planted.

A rhododendron that was hit by a falling tree branch.

Everyone is in favor of helping those less fortunate than ourselves, but sometimes we forget that plants too can have disabilities. Last winter a huge branch from a tulip tree fell on a Rhododendron breaking off all of its branches except one.  I thought it was a sorry sight—so distorted. I assumed I would replace it in the spring.  Once spring came, I changed my mind. I have never seen such bloom—all along the one lonely branch. It certainly was trying harder. New shoots are sprouting as well.

I decided I would point it out to garden snobs when they visit and tell them I was training it to be an arch. The truth is it doesn’t really matter what you do in a garden as much as how you rhapsodize about it.

 By Suzy Bales