Steve Bender from the Grumpy Gardener issued the challenge, and I accepted the gauntlet where it lay. Which six plants in my garden could I not live without? That's a very tough question.  I've pondered it for several days and thrown some of my original choices onto the mental compost pile. Number one is obvious.  Come on, everyone knows it . . . yes, roses!  Not those silly Hybrid Teas which require a crash cart on continual standby, but instead, the beautiful, landscape shrubs, both old and new, which add such grace to a garden.  If that's not enough incentive, what about the old rose scents which are complex and beautiful. Number two is the daylily. I know there are some people out there in blogland who don't like humble Hemerocallis, and that there are others who are self-professed Hemnuts, but I fall somewhere in between.  I dearly love my...

As a reminder for everyone already reading our letters, and as an explanation for those who haven't previously, Carol from May Dreams Gardens (Zone 5), Mary Ann from Idaho Gardener (Zone 6) and I so love books like  Dear Friend and Gardener and The 3,000 Mile Garden: An Exchange of Letters Between Two Eccentric Gourmet Gardeners, that we decided to create our own 1,000 mile garden project.  This gardening season, we’ll be exchanging letter s with each other about our vegetable gardens, and we're now in week eight.  We hope you’ll enjoy our travels around three different hardiness zones. Dear Carol and Mary Ann, It's a cloudy, gray day in red dirt country this morning.  Yesterday, the sun was all smiles, but today, he's pouting behind the cloudcover.  That means it's a good day to transplant, and transplant I did.  I spoke in Claremore yesterday at the Everything Gardening Festival...

This morning, I chaperoned a field trip, and one of the other moms, Julie H., handed me a sack. Inside were pumpkin seeds, four different kinds, including a blue one, which she said was her favorite last year.  She couldn't remember all the names, but her face lit up with excitement as she described the attributes of each.  This one was bumpy.  That one was white, and another was good for cooking.   They were only seeds, but . . . her gift was priceless, for it was her friendship she shared. When I was a young gardener, I had no money, and for years, my finances continued to be between slim and none.  Still, I had neighbors and friends, and they provided me with the best plants in their gardens.  Some of those I carried to my Guthrie garden twenty years ago, and every time I gaze over its new...

Dear Carol and Mary Ann, My letter is a tad late this week.  This Red Dirt family had much too much going on over the weekend.  The Diva was confirmed and had a school function yesterday.  This week, ASW and Bear have field trips.  Such is the busy life of a family in April and May. However, now that we're here, let's all take a deep breath, walk through the garden gate and stroll.  Yesterday, while on the main path, I smelled the scent of roses.  I turned and saw the first rosebud on 'Cl. Old Blush.'  With that first bloom, I truly know spring is finally here to stay.  Soon, 'Cl. Old Blush' will be so decorated with blooms, that you will hardly see her green petticoats. In the vegetable garden, lots of wonderful things are starting to happen.  Bear and I thinned the radishes, and she even picked...