The impetus for reviving this blog is a class I'm taking at NC State, AEE 526- Information Technologies in Agricultural and Extension Education. The objective of the course is to become more familiar with web and mobile technologies and to understand their potential applications in extension and education. One of our assignments is to experiment with blogging and twitter. I have used twitter fairly extensively personally, but not at all in my professional life as an extension agent until the last week or so (follow me at @halifaxgardens if you'd like). I haven't really blogged at all, other than the handful of posts here many years ago, but I read numerous blogs daily, mostly music, sports, and entertainment blogs however, so it will be interesting for me to explore this from the professional side.
A few weeks ago I spoke to a garden club about native plants. I briefly listed some general advantages of using natives in landscaping and talked a bit about some myths associated with natives, but I spent most of my time discussing specific native plants that I love, most of which I argued were not used enough in modern landscaping. These included plants like Spicebush (Lindera benzoin), Strawberry bush (Eounymous americanus), and various viburnums (I really have a thing for viburnums. As the great horticulturalist Michael Dirr said, "a garden without a viburnum is like life without music and art"). The last plant I talked about was one called Indian Pink (Spigelia marilandica). This is a plant that I have never actually grown, but have coveted for years after discovering it in the Plant Delights Nursery catalog. Plant Delights is a wonderful nursery for rare perennials, both native and exotic, and is located just outside of Raleigh. I fell in love with this particular plant after seeing the picture in the catalog and reading its description. However, I lamented to the garden club, I've never been able to buy it because Plant Delights is the only place I know of that sells it and every time I've been there it has been sold out. Clearly I'm not the only one who fell in love with this plant after seeing it in the catalog. Sure, Plant Delights does mail order sales as well and I guess I could go that route, but it seems silly to mail order something from a business that is only a 45 minute drive from my house. Alas, I told them, I would have to continue chasing this plant until one day I could finally add it to my garden.
Yesterday, completely out of the blue, one of my Master Gardeners, who also happens to be a member of the garden club I spoke to that day, stopped by my office to say hello. As she handed me a small black pot, she told me that she had been to Plant Delights the weekend before and she had bought me my plant. It was snowing while she was there and there were only six of the Spigelias left and they were only barely poking of the soil after a winter of dormancy, but she knew she would make my day if she bought one for me. So now I have my very own Spigelia marilandica. All I have to do is keep it indoors for a few more weeks, then gradually start exposing it to the outdoors to harden it off, and find the perfect spot to plant it. It is days like yesterday that remind me why I enjoy my job and why gardeners are wonderful people to have as friends. Thank you Ellen!
When I said it was just barely poking out of the soil, I wasn't kidding. Here's to a life of vigorous growth and prolific blooms.
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