Gardens by Kelly Productions

As you may remember, March is the month of my birthday, the perfect time to be born for someone so unabashedly in love with spring.  I always joke that March 1st is the ceremonial start to spring in my mind, though the calendar often doesn’t agree.  With spring comes new things, obviously, and I’ve got some news to share with you today.

By now you’ve probably heard about my new project called Dig This: The bookazine for people who love dirt.  If not, here it is!  This project started with a simple question last summer in our offices–how can we shake up the publishing world by putting a new spin on how gardeners consume content?  In a world where book sales slump and magazines blow away in the wind, you might think publishing is a business you’d rather avoid.  In fact many would agree!

But I don’t.  I relish a challenge, particularly in a struggling economic environment where new ideas just might merit valuable attention for their innovation.  I don’t profess that the idea of a bookazine is new, because it really isn’t.  Publishers have been picking up content from old issues of magazines for years and billing them under special titles, issuing a “oncer” that appears on newsstands as a fat, coffee-table style magazine.

But we’ve taken that a step further.  We’ve hybridized a magazine and a book, publishing a 74-page issue (which we hope to expand to 148 pages next year) that focuses on many of the themes I make a point of talking about on this blog, in my lectures, and in my writing.  If you don’t have time to read big, long books that supposedly tell you all you need to know about gardening, we hope that 74 pages fits your palette just right.  If you’re tired of reading magazine articles that leave you unfulfilled, we hope this brand of content satisfies your appetite.  If not, tell us!

If you find yourself having less and less time to read information on the printed page, we’ve got you covered too.  By early April we’ll unveil http://www.digthismag.com (linked above), the complete online version of everything in print, and more!  We’ll announce a new blog called Dirt-y, introduce some regularly updated news sections, and much more.  Plus if you’d rather save a tree, you can subscribe to the online version for only $9.99 versus $19.99 for the glamorous print version.  We want to give you our brand of content the way you want it.

Also, you’ll never see a lick of traditional advertising in this thing, EVER.  This bookazine comes straight from my family’s nursery and my garden right to you.  That doesn’t mean we won’t plug our friends, or toss in information about where to find some of the hot plants we dish on.  We’ve also left behind the notions that books and magazines have to look “just so”.  Instead we’ve liberally used color, rich photography, and good writing in what we hope will be an inspiring blend of dirt that you’ll find inspiring and informational.

To get your copy of Dig This in print, use the link below.  The online version will be live in April.  Happy digging!

Hello from Nashville, Tennessee!  I can’t believe how long it seems since I last wrote you all a note.  The last month or so have consumed me with work, research, and writing beyond my website.  I have tried to write a little from time to time, but unsurprisingly my dissatisfaction with the weather jaded my words.  I’ve not had anything nice to say about winter this year (not that I usually do), so I spared us all the misery.

I’m in the heart of the south this weekend for two lectures at the University of Tennessee Master Gardener Leadership Conference on the future of gardening and how master gardener programs can attract new recruits.  Looking forward to sharing in a positive, progressive, and forward-looking discussion tomorrow with eager-eyed master gardeners and coordinators tomorrow!

But today I got to play hooky with my buddy Troy Marden, highly respected garden designer and hortiholic here in these parts.  Troy and I planned an outing to Shadow Nursery, the home of the inimitable Don Shadow.  At 55 degrees and sunny, we couldn’t have asked for a better day to follow along in the shadow of the man himself, hanging off every southern-twanged word and taking note of each great new plant we came across.  Here’s a few things I you really must see:

Acer palmatum ‘Bihou’
This Japanese maple boasts a glowy, coral-tinted bark that reminds me why, despite my fervent dislike of winter, I love winter gardens.  With bark like this, how could you go wrong?  No idea if this would be one of the few lucky Japanese maples that could survive in the hinter north, but we may just have to give it a shot and report back.  I’m always up for knocking off a few plants on behalf of the horticultural mafia.

Hamamelis vernalis ‘Amethyst’
Don found this in a Netherlands nursery, named it, and started selling this unique, floriferous clone of the Ozarks witch hazel several years ago.  Two are in a UPS box bound for Ames, IA and my greenhouse!

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Magic Fire’
One of the highlights of the trip I love witch hazels, and probably haven’t found one that I couldn’t live without.  Don’s amassed quite a collection in an effort to breed and select the best witch hazels for the southeast.  Seemingly lacquered in redness, this cultivar called ‘Magic Fire’ lured me in for a closer look.

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Quasimodo’
A DWARF witch hazel!  Superb!  Just think what the container gardening people will do when they get their dirty hands on this one?

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Treasure Island’
Boy did I have drool running down my lips when I saw this.  A treasured feast for the eyes indeed, these bright frilly flowers are quite large for most witch hazels at over 2″ across.  You won’t miss this one!

Nandina domestica ‘Sasaba Compacta’
I must admit, at the fear and threat of heresy, that I’m not generally head-over-heals for Nandina.  Meh, I say.  Maybe in my travels afield, I see them ad nauseum, the McDonald’s foundation planting of the south and west.  Plus, we can’t reliably winter them in Zone 5 nor enjoy much of a fruit set.  Beyond that, what’s the point?  But here’s one I did squeal about.  ’Sasaba Compacta’ not only sports “willow-like leaves” (as Don describes it) but carries a heavy coat of red color from autumn well into February.  Truly spectacular and just the kind of sore thumb you’d want to put streetside in your front yard garden.  Make an impact!

Nandina domestica ‘Tamahime’
Yet another Nandina that I was twisting and shouting about today.  This is a cultivar in the Kinshi group, known for their filiform foliage.  Green forms, red forms, the whole plant is unbelievably bizarre and a definite talking piece.  I kept walking past the block of them photographing each one, ooh-ing and aah-ing, and dreaming of how freakin’ awesome it would be to grow these.

Nyssa sylvatica ‘Zydeco Twist’
If you’re familiar with black gums, you know they’ve got three great things going for them: a) RED fall color that will set off alarms, b) ability to tolerate wet and dry feet with seeming ease, and c) call the U.S. home.  But add to that list contorted stems and you’ve just described the aptly named cultivar ‘Zydeco Twist’.

READ BEFORE READING:

{My recent interview with Ken Druse jostled my thoughts again relative to the topic of “the future” as it relates to communication and this passion of ours called gardening.  I don’t pretend for a minute to have all or any of the answers, and you know what they say about free “advice”.  I promise the next post will be something plant-related.  We need some relief from the doldrums, right?}

I just heard Craig Ferguson on his CBS late night TV show say this in reference to newspapers.  He’s implying of course that blogs basically substitute for newspapers.  But do they?  Now I’m not a likely defender of a business as lamely stifling as newspapers, but Craig’s caper of sorts deserves exploration.

As bloggers, we must really have the world duped.  Do blogs really suffice for the kind of journalism relied on and expected for generations in a format like newspapers?  Not hardly.  But is the point of a blog to really transmit news?  Some blogs do of course, particularly those kept by prominent columnists or newspaper writers.  They become subsidiaries of the larger publishing machine, transmitting early leads or insights that later formulate into full-blown stories.  But most blogs really are idea platforms, and only that, existing as the result of passive, fragmented consumption.  They give some writers 15-minutes of fame, offer popular authors a chance to keep in touch with audience members in a more personal way, and still offer more a chance to push agendas to the masses–even the 10 or so who choose to listen.  And while bloggers enjoy support en masse (that whole community idea), their demise comes from an overcrowded room.  Right now, particularly in the gardening realm, little oxygen remains in that room.  When a form of content delivery continues to fragment the market, it’s time for reconciliation.  A new mall only needs so many shoe stores before someone has to give.

So what next?  How does an oversaturated market correct itself?  In the world of real, tangible products and stuff, things start to disappear.  In the iris world for example, almost 50,000 cultivars have entered the marketplace in the last 100 years.  How many are left in existence?  Probably 10-15% or less.  How many are left and really popular, frequently sold, or grown in more than five gardens?  Probably 3-5%.  So let’s replace irises with gardening blogs in that analogy.  Nobody is mandating that bad, inactive, infrequently updated, or poorly written blogs disappear for the sake of others.  Anyone is entitled to share their opinions.  But who listens?

That’s where this whole mess runs astray.  Who listens and reads?  Who cares?  And more importantly, why do those people listen, read, and care?  Does a blog entertain?  Does it stimulate thought?  Does it deliver content that more than five readers want to read?  While blogs and other online media have unlocked the gates of publishing to all, they’ve also systematically unraveled standards of excellence.  No venture (whether market, business, hobby, etc.) has ever operated successfully in the absence of governing standards of excellence–they’re natural products of human-mediated enterprises that result when poor-quality products are perceived the same way as good-quality products.  My prediction, crystal ball firmly in tow, is that blogs will eventually become major powerhouses of content because the few that will remain post-excellence apocalypse will maintain tribal followings of people who demand and expect content produced and delivered in superior ways.  How do you think newspapers like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post still exist, even in this turmoil that publishing is in?

So how do those blogs exist pre-excellence apocalypse?  They impose those standards of excellence on themselves, rise above current expectations,  bond with their followers, and teach them to dream.  When people enter the business of teaching people to dream, the market drives itself.  Look at the success of Apple, for example.  One company has effectively inspired its clients (and those that aren’t yet) to dream of the possibilities.  If newspapers, blogs, and books inspired their readers to dream of the possibilities of their product (not just how it’s delivered), we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.

Really, all this is just a mantra for how to do business in this day and age…..any business.

Hey readers!

Here’s a quick plug for one of my favorite gardening podcast/radio shows….ever.  Ken Druse Real Dirt is hosted by THE Ken Druse of authorial and photographic fame.  Ken’s most recent book is the beautifully illustrated Planthropology. He garnered international acclaim with his 1988 book The Natural Garden and many others thereafter.

Ken was gracious enough to invite me on his show this week.  Check out the interview on his website.  We cover a lot of ground including irises, zoneworthy plants, and the future of gardening.  Feel free to comment and post feedback!  I’m planning a follow-up blog on some of the topics we discussed later next week.

Please consider subscribing to Ken’s podcast as well.  With lots of great information and interviews, his podcast has always been one of my favorites (gotta love his radio voice too!)

Best!

Greetings from frigid Iowa!

My heartfelt thanks to the 100 plus attendees of my lecture “ZoneWorthy: Underused Plants for Zones 4 & 5″ at the Des Moines Botanical Center this morning.  It’s always great to start a new year of lecturing activities with an energized, inquisitive local crowd.  To check out the slate of upcoming lectures, click over to my calendar.  If I’m in your neighborhood, give me a shout!  I’ve got a few engagements to add to that calendar, but it’s up-to-date for the most part.

For more information about my Zoneworthy concept checkout www.zoneworthy.com, a redirect to plant profiles from this blog.  In 2010, I plan to launch a standalone website that will serve as a conduit of information for people intrigued and engaged by the Zoneworthy concept.  Look for updates and changes!  Also feel free to download copies of my handouts and view my Powerpoint lecture on the Handouts and Downloads page.

Everyone seems to be talking about movements today, including me.  In the 21st century, movements sell.  Political parties bank on movements, tidal waves of change in hearts and minds.  Movie producers plug actors into multiple franchises, taking advantage of actors’ innate popularity that can make or break a brand.  Movements are everywhere.  Local activists lobbying for a recycling center or college students petitioning for greater administrative representation hope that their efforts result in wholesale movements of public opinion and perception.  All movements rely on three major components, roughly speaking.  First, an opportunity.  Second, an organizing force unhindered by norms.  Third, an interpretive theme.

So what moves gardeners?  Sustainable food sources.  Sustainable landscapes.  Etc.  Sense a theme?  That’s because someone (or some people) about 15 years ago started floating the word “sustainable” in effort to spur hearts and minds to action.  Now soccer moms, business executives, and gardeners hear sustainability almost every day.  But what does it mean?  We’ve got the first two components covered; 1) an opportunity to change public perception and understanding about humanity’s role in the environment and 2) a tireless throng of millions who readily, and for the good, monopolize our daily lives with talk of meaningful sustainability.  But have we done a great job of interpreting what sustainability means to someone who gardens less than six hours a week, or anyone for that matter?  I say no, and the field is ripe with potential.  We don’t do a great job posing the question either.  ”What can you do in your garden to be sustainable?”  ”Um, gee I dunno, start composting?”  Great!  But where does that leave us?  Someone now has the idea that composting, instead of buying fertilizer or other soil additives, is a sustainable practice.  Great!  But all they have is an idea.  Are they spurred to action?  Did the question we posed motivate them, or simply put them on the spot?  I stand behind nobody in my commitment to sustainable horticulture, which may surprise you given the critical stance I’ve just posed.  But too many have already grown complacent about the strategies we use to energize, enlighten, and inspire.  Here marks the spot where creativity sulks.

Movements die just as fast as they’re born, often because they lose spirit.  The message gets foggy, too many people vie for attention for attention’s sake instead of for the sake of the message, and chaos typifies the brand.  Maybe it’s time for a movement about sustainable thinking when it comes to gardening, rather than just a movement about sustainable gardening.  Otherwise, what does it all mean?

Growing up, living, and gardening in a winter-stricken, temperate climate gives you a unique perspective on the rhythm of life, particularly the cadence of the seasons.  I feel like that cadence is lost on many people, September bleeding into February and sinking into June without fanfare or celebration for the simple tide of weather, flowers, and birds.  Philosophical?  Maybe.  But impractical?  Not so!

With that celebration of the seasons in mind, please enjoy these images from my garden.  It’s not a perfect canvas, and I don’t care!  It’s mine, and that’s what matters.  If you take away nothing from this blog other than a feverish passion for independence and uniqueness in your own gardening space, rock on!  Happy digging!

Spring:

Summer:

Fall:

Winter:

(Ed. Note:  Many of you may not open your email until after Christmas.  At any rate, happy holidays from my garden to yours and thanks very much for your e-patronage this year.  I write this blog to keep me sane–a little outlet for my thoughts and ideas.  I always look forward to hearing from you and wish you the best gardening season in 2010.)

Today I baked a peanut butter chocolate cheesecake, one of my absolute favorite dessert cheesecakes.  But while throwing the ingredients together (albeit from memory), I couldn’t exactly remember the ratio of cream cheese to eggs.  Add more eggs and you make a lighter, porous cake.  Add less and you create a rich and decadent confection.  It was one of those moments where I needed an answer, a yes/no or a one-liner that I could put to use in the kitchen and get on with my day.  I needed to click and know something.  So I googled for the recipe, found a blog, grabbed the tidbit, closed my browser and boogied my way back to the kitchen accompanied by Mannheim Steamroller playing on the stereo in the dining room.

It wasn’t until later that I realized something.  I could have just as easily been looking for the hardiness information of a plant, or any other zippy answer to an otherwise quick, off-hand question.  I didn’t feel like reading that blog where I found the tidbit I was looking for, I didn’t care about who wrote it, what her personal story was, why she wrote the blog, or what her credentials were.  I just wanted to know something simple, something simple enough to be found in a recipe.  Now before we all get up in arms here, let me qualify where I’m coming from.

In my lecture this past fall at the Garden Writers Association symposium, I stressed the importance of “feeding the immediate need,” “answering the quick question,” and “responding to the finger snap,” all the while developing a community around that knowledge and passion for providing it.  I’ve had a number of exciting projects rise to the top in the past months, and it’s given me a lot to think about, probably while I’m reflecting on my actions today in the way that I am.  What I did today is something that most people do at some level every day.  Sometimes we just want a little info–solid expertise that answers a question and nothing more.  We want to use, not participate.

The sustainable strategy for us business types that look to source, develop, and provide content rests in finding harmony between our brand of content and a consumer’s value perception of that brand, while understanding that not all consumers behave alike (obviously, someone in my situation today might just as well have spent five minutes reading the whole blog post).  But did I care about the brand of that author when I scoured her blog for info today?  No.  I needed to finish baking a cheesecake so I could get on with gift wrapping.  Today, I was a user, not a participant.  Today my perception of value was about 15′ long, the distance from my computer back to the mixing bowl.  But I wonder what I’ll think about that tidbit tomorrow when my fork sinks into that luscious cheesecake after Christmas dinner.  If I got the texture just right, I might think “hmm, glad I looked that up.  Wonder what else she’s got to say?”  Or I might think “damn, good cheesecake Kel,” and bask in a little self-gloating while I finish my glass of wine.  How valuable was that information?  More importantly perhaps, how valuable was that information to the outcome of its need?  Will it move me to participate or just to use more?

Take home message on this Christmas Eve:  Think about your role as content generator and/or consumer.  What kind of consumer are you?  Do you use or participate?  Passive or active?  Do you fill out those customer satisfaction surveys, or do you just hope it’ll all work out right?  If you generate content, what kind of generator are you?  Do you just lob out information in hopes it sticks somewhere or do you find ways to custom tailor information to a specific group of people?  Who do you write for and why do they care?  Do they want to read a article or just have a question answered?  The challenge of course is to answer that question and provide accordingly.

More in this vein of thought in the weeks ahead.

Already?  Yes, I am.  Here’s a little dose of spring to cure your ailing, winter-weary mind…

A new album on Rainbow Iris Farm’s Facebook page that I uploaded just this afternoon!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141217&id=114489795763&ref=mf

And for you folks in places warmer and friendlier, my friend Elizabeth (who lives downstairs in the same apartment building as I do) took this photo today:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=41915693&id=16917312&ref=nf

Happy dreaming!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I’m thankful for friends, family, and the flora of my garden that bloom without end, even after a dip into the 20s last night.  What’s more is that here at Rainbow Iris Farm, we’re celebrating our first ever iris in bloom on Thanksgiving!  We’ve often had rebloom into the week of, but never enjoyed it on Thanksgiving day proper.  Check out out Twitpic stream for photos of floral do-gooders like Helenium amarum and Echinacea ‘Tomato Soup’ still in bloom, and of course that little iris.

Check out some of the autumnal divas (below) showing off late season color.  Who agrees that this fall has been a grand season for heucheras?  Some of the best fall color I can remember.