Welcome!
I’m Dee Nash, a native Oklahoman, and I’ve gardened here since my teens. I know from personal experience how challenging our prairie climate can be.
But my blog isn’t just for Oklahomans. Gardening can be challenging in other climates too. So, I share how to garden wherever you grow.
Enjoy the garden you’ve always wanted!
Featured posts
A bowl of blooming amaryllises and more for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day
Hello friends! For you this month, I have…
Continue Reading A bowl of blooming amaryllises and more for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day
Letting the garden grow
As I’ve been garden coaching so many of…
The bones of the garden
The wind is blowing, and leaves are falling.…
Zinnia favorites
It’s probably no surprise I love zinnias. I…
Stories from the Garden Bloggers Fling: Chickadee Gardens
If your mind is still a blur from all the sensory input even two weeks later, how would you write the stories of the Garden Bloggers Fling? First, we'll start with some facts: This year the fling was in Portland, a gardener blogger paradise. Three full days of glorious garden touring. We went to seventeen gardens. That's a lot! The first two days were sunny and very hot--yes, in Portland. The last day was cool and rainy, perfect for taking photographs. Eighty plus people came. It was overwhelming for this introvert and others I hear, but also, so much fun. Like other garden bloggers, I'll tell the stories from the fling with my favorite photos. You can get other fling posts on the Garden Bloggers Fling website. They are linked either under the gardens, or under a miscellaneous category of sorts. Let's start with Chickadee Gardens and their creator, Tamara Paulat. I loved her tightly-planted, urban garden...
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Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: July
I got home last night at Midnight after a seven-day journey first to Boise, Idaho for a visit with Mary Ann Newcomer and then to Portland, Oregon, for Garden Bloggers Fling. I am weary. I almost posted one tomato blossom for this July Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Almost. In the middle of the south side of the back garden looking back toward the house. You can see that the split-rail fencing needs repair. It should be more straight. There's something about coming back from garden tours that always makes me full of dismay about my own plot of Earth. My house isn't grand. It's a log cabin. My garden wasn't designed by a famous designer. It's a collector's garden designed my me, and I'm no Beatrix Farrand. I try to use all the tips and techniques I've learned like repetition of form, focal points and symmetry, but mostly, I garden for the plants....
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Four B’s to daylily garden zen
You may have noticed a lot of daylily bloom posts on Red Dirt Ramblings this year. For those of you bored by all this hemnut nonsense, I promise we'll be back to regular programing soon. I'm headed to the Garden Bloggers Bling in Portland this week, and I hope to post a lot of photos to take you along with me. Several friends commented they wished daylilies bloomed longer in their gardens, and that when they do bloom, there aren't enough blooms to go around. I sense their frustration, and I aim to please--so I'll share how I get my daylily plants to bloom for a two month stretch. It's all in choosing your plants wisely. I know it's hard, but don't simply fall for a pretty face. H. 'Victorian Lace' is all about bud count. This whole photo is one clump. If you'll notice, there are also buds and blooms behind the rose bush....
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Come on over to daylily’s dark side
Hemerocallis 'Black Arrowhead' (Roberts 2002). Oddly, a lot of dark daylilies have Native American themes with Apache often somewhere in the name. No comment on why I think this is so. Imagine, for a moment, Darth Vader holding a daylily scape in his hand instead of a light saber. He's exhorting Luke Skywalker to come on over to the dark side, but instead of talking about the Force, he's speaking of velvety soft and dark daylily blooms. How could Luke ever resist? My garden will never be without H. 'Laura Harwood' (Harwood 1997) because of its great, big yellow halo and green throat. Okay, maybe you don't like the Darth Vader analogy. I always did have a certain sympathy for him even though he was a baddie in bad mask and a black cape. Hemerocallis 'Midnight Madness' (Peat 2002) was one of the first dark daylilies with a ruffled edge. It is...
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