Bluebirds Flock Where Flowers Bloom

Season 5, Episode 21, April 5, 2023

(My little Easter egg heads are ready for haircuts and faces…)

On this week’s episode, Dee and I talked about stock, asparagus, sunflowers, a new flower book, and what's going on in Dee's garden after the wildfires in Oklahoma.

Now there’s a phrase I never thought we would use in describing a podcast episode… “after the wildfires in Oklahoma.”

If you follow Dee on Instagram (you must!), you already know the fires in Oklahoma last Friday caused a lot of damage in her neighborhood and in her garden, including turning their barn into a pile of ash, but their house did not burn.

(Dee’s barn after the fire went through, or what’s left of it.)

So what would you call an episode like this? I thought we might call it “The Little Things We Can Do,” which is what Dee says she’s focusing on right now in her garden with the help of a couple of friends.

She also talked about “Work on the Pretty.” This afternoon as I write this, she’s probably potting up the two big pots by her front door with pretty flowers for Easter.

Or I could have called it “Nothing Makes You Happier Than Looking at a Bluebird.”

You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out why I finally settled on “Bluebirds Flock Where Flowers Bloom.”

Here’s some more information you might like to click on.

I wrote a blog post about weeding the other day. Dee’s thinking a lot about an article she wrote for Oklahoma Living about how it's hard to garden in Oklahoma. (She’s doing a talk on that topic in June… details closer to the date.)

Dee has posted several reels on Instagram about the fire and her garden and suggests the latest post because it is more optimistic than others.

For our flower topic, we discussed an old-fashioned one, stock, Mattholia incana. You can find some good info on stocks from the  Missouri Botanical Garden.

Then we jumped right into asparagus for our vegetable topic. You can get some good info about growing asparagus on Renee’s Gardens website and many other places, including books. (Books are magical!)

We found more asparagus history and growing info in The Seed Dectective, by Adam Alexander (Amazon link) (last week's book) and in The Chef's Garden, by Farmer Lee Jones (Amazon link). (A book we both love and have talked about many times.)

On the bookshelf, we’re both rhapsodic about The Story of Flowers and how they change the way we live, by Noel Kingsbury. (Amazon link). If you grow flowers, love flowers, or know what flowers are, you should get this book and read more about them.

Speaking of flowers, our “dirt” was all about Sunflower Steve and his recent sale of seeds for his Van Gogh sunflower seed mixture. Incredibly, I managed to buy some seeds since he sold out thousands of packets in just a few minutes. I’ll be sharing some with Dee, some with my favorite greenhouse owner, and we’ll see about maybe offering a packet to one of our listeners. Stay tuned.

Down in our rabbit holes, Dee is doing research about native shrubs which she wants to plant to replace some Japanese maples that didn’t survive the fire. And I’m watching YouTube videos like those from The Creative Cove about how to draw cute little mushrooms and mushroom houses.

Whew. We made it! We recorded this episode a little later than usual, so thanks to those who patiently waited for this newsletter.

(One last note… just as we were disconnecting from Zoom, Dee heard a crow out in her garden.)

The rest of the stuff:

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For more info on Carol  visit her website.  Visit her blog May Dreams Gardens.
For more info on Dee, visit her website.  Visit her blog Red Dirt Ramblings.

On Instagram: Carol: Indygardener, Dee: RedDirtRamblings, Our podcast: TheGardenangelists.
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