Gardening - Is it Work or Play?

Gardeners love to get out and work in their gardens. But, if it is so much fun, is it really work? Read the gardening blogs about all the chores and there are no complaints! We can work all day in our gardens, come in with aching backs and be happy. What makes gardening so enjoyable and rewarding?

It seems as though gardening is a journey rather than a destination. We strive to grow beautiful gardens, but we really don't want the garden to ever be finished! Even if the garden looks perfect to all visitors, we'll still get out there and start moving plants around. We can't help it. The activity of gardening is irresistible.

We may complain about weeds, weather, pests and poor-performing plants, but we do our best to solve the problems and keep on gardening.

We claim to have enough plants, yet we give in to the urge to "go look" at nurseries and come back with a carload of new plants.

We love to look at each other's gardens for inspiration, too. Show us some garden eye candy and we thrill over each other's successes. That's why we love forums, blogs, magazines, garden tours and even retail plant catalogs. We're always looking for new ideas so we can do more work in our gardens.

The rewards are numerous, but most of all - we beam with happiness over each bloom.

Happy Spring and Good Gardening!

Freda Cameron

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my posts don't seem to be showing up so this is a test run.

Bakugan and Cards & Kids

We recently got sent a Bakugan Battle Pack and boy were the kids impressed. Okay, for starters I had no clue what this was and to me it looked very much like Pokemon...not to worry I've since been told I was way off. For those that don't know Bakugan is a Japanese animated show that deals with magic cards on Cartoon Network. Here's the theme song on youtube:We got the battle pack Coffret Combat

Listerine Total Care: Do You Rinse?

MomCentral & Johnson recently sent my family a bottle of Listerine Total Care mouth wash. I will not lie, my children ar huge on the whole rinse and spit routine. They absolutely love mouth wash, ummm, I think this is a good thing. But the hard thing is finding a good one at reasonable prices. The Total Care actually does 6 different things for yo at once.Listerine Cares:*restores enamel*helps

Win Zoo Tots!

Another Contest is Coming soon! You'll be able to win some of these guys, keep watching my posts.

Tips for Growing Herbs

Many are interested in putting in vegetable gardens this year partly as a way of keeping the ever rising food costs in check. At the same time herbs should be considered for a few reasons. Fresh herbs are a wonderful way to add a lot of flavour to dishes without a lot of cost. Second and most important is some herbs act as companion plants improving the growth of some vegetables or acting as

No Fooling - It Is Spring

Mother Nature isn't playing any tricks on us for April Fool's Day. A visit to Coker Arboretum on the UNC Campus proves that spring has arrived!

In the Arboretum, the white blooms of both dogwoods and viburnum brighten up the shady pathways. The redbuds are beautiful and some of the camellias are in bloom, too.

The Arboretum labels most plants and so I noticed that the Burkwood Viburnum family has changed. This is one of my favorite viburnums for a spring show of white flowers. Besides the floral display, I love the fragrance of this viburnum. Suitable for zones 5-8, this shrub grows up to ten feet high and eight feet wide. Around here, it used mostly in part shade, but it can take a bit of sun with afternoon shade.



Under the canopy of trees, the hellebores are planted en masse and still in bloom.

Among other forest floor plants is the southeastern native, Little Sweet Betsy (Trillium cuneatum).

Little Sweet Betsy is one of the first trilliums to bloom and one of the largest. It can grow up to 15 inches high. It loves limestone soils and the population of this trillium can explode to the thousands under the right forest conditions.

One of the brightest blooms in the garden is from the Golden Ragwort, an eastern US native perennial. This native blooms profusely on thin, but sturdy stems. This ragwort is in the aster family and sometimes called Groundsel.


Other native flowers in bloom include Fern-leaf Scorpion-weed. That's a scary name for such a pretty, lavender-blue flower! This native is a reseeding biennial that grows 1-2 feet high.

The spring color display is just starting. Over the next few weeks, the gardens and woods of Chapel Hill will be full of beautiful spring blooms!

Story and photos by Freda Cameron