In March of this year, my husband and I traveled to Northern India, mostly in the Rajasthan region.  I wanted to visit some of the local gardens, since I was interested in observing which trees and flowers grew in that region. The climate is very hot and dry in the summer with cold winters, and monsoon rains in between.  It turns out that for the most part, trees and annual flowers were very familiar to me. However, the layout of some of the gardens and their size was extraordinary.
 
Below, I describe some features of two fascinating gardens we visited. You can view the photos of these gardens and other interesting plants (courtesy of Mickey Bagg) by clicking on the link at the end of this article.

The stunning Rashtrapati Bhavan Garden in New Delhi, was designed by Edwin Lutyens who was commissioned by the viceroy of the British Empire in India in 1918 to create this garden in the style of 20^th century Islamic-Mughal and English design. In the photos, you will see the geometry of the classic Islamic garden with some contemporary features including water.

The Amber Palace Garden is just outside Jaipur, Rajasthan, overlooking the Maotha Lake. The palace was completed in 1752, with two gardens reflecting both the Islamic and Hindu beliefs of the emperor and his wife respectively. The gardens are defined by their central water source and quadripartite design with each section being further subdivided into geometric beds. The larger garden is set within the lake and appears to ‘float’ on the surface. Its stone terraces are composed of a series of complicated parterres. The main motif or pattern is the star, which was of great importance to the Seljuk Turks who had settled in the area.

Additional information
The Lotus flower is the national flower of India and the national tree is the Banyan Tree. Marigolds are one of the most commonly grown flowers in India and are used extensively in ceremonies including weddings (garland necklaces), festivals and temple worship, and during funeral rituals.
 
 Link for photos:     http://bit.ly/mbaggindia

You may remember an article I wrote about the Historic Landscape Institute last summer held at Monticello in conjunction with the University of Virginia. It was there that I met the president of the Southern Garden History Society and some of their members.  It sounded like a worthwhile group to be a part of as they are enthusiasts and professionals that fosters and shares scholarly research about our historic gardens, cultural landscapes, and horticultural history through educational programs and publications.  They celebrate the beauty and diversity of the South’s historic gardens and encourage their preservation and restoration so they may enrich the lives of others.
Their region of interest covers 14 states from Maryland to Texas including the District of Columbia.  Membership is open to all that are interested in southern gardens and landscapes. Go to  www.southerngardenhistory.org.  An annual meeting is held each spring in different locations across the south.  Last year the group visited Charleston, SC.  This year it was Lexington, KY and next year it will be Jacksonville, FL.  At each meeting the members gather to study the garden and landscape history of that area, take informative garden tours, hear educational lectures, and gather for social events that encourage membership interaction.  This year the society awarded a scholarship to a student in Charleston enrolled at the American College of the Building Arts.  The society also co-sponsors the Conference on Restoring Southern Gardens and Landscapes every two years in Winston-Salem, NC.  The Lexington event was my first to attend and I had such a good time I have already registered for Winston-Salem.
A quick rundown of the itinerary included educational lectures on “Roots of the Bluegrass:  Historic Overview”; “Olmsted, Olmsted Brothers and Lexington, Kentucky”; “A Splendid View:  Creating Beauty in the Bluegrass, 1796-1929”; ”Venerable Trees;  History, Biology and Conservation in the Bluegrass”; “Henry Clay’s Promised Land, Ashland, Henry Clay Estate”; and “History of the Ashland Garden”.
The garden tours included:

• Botherum, built around 1850, showing a combination of Greek, Roman, and Gothic architectural elements.  A large ginkgo tree on the property is said to have been a gift from Henry Clay.  Originally it was a 36-acre estate but now sits on a ¾ acre lot.  It is surrounded by beautiful gardens, lovingly replanted and revived by Jon Carloftis Fine Gardens.  Botherum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

• Round Barn of Red Mile, formerly known as Floral Barn was built in 1882 adjacent to the Red Mile Trotting Track.  It is approximately 4 stories tall surmounted by a large windowed cupola with a functional design for use as an exhibition hall for floral displays.  In 1963 the name of the building was changed to the Stable of Memories.

• Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate-The Garden at Ashland was established in 1950 when the Garden Club of Lexington was asked by the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation to create a formal garden on the grounds of Ashland.  During the era of Henry Clay, the estate was planted with almost every known variety of American shrubbery and trees.  There was a windbreak of pines, a row of cherries, trellises covered with grapevines, 4 large squares for vegetables bordered with shrubs and “sweet old garden flowers.”  In 1950 the original garden was in a state of neglect.  In a close vote the Garden Club decided to create a new garden located next to the original rather than restoring the old garden.   Landscape Architect Henry Kenney was selected to design a formal garden divided into six parterres with a yew hedge and a brick wall to enclose the garden.  Today it is home to over 120 varieties of trees, shrubs, and flowers.

• Darby Dan Farm, one of the most beautiful horse farms you would expect to see when touring the Bluegrass, with miles of fencing and carefully nurtured landscaping all done for the horses’ benefit.  The Darby Dan Manor House was built in 1828 with the surrounding property operated as a tobacco plantation.  At the beginning of the 20^th century it was purchased to accomplish the dream of developing a top-rate equine facility.  It produced 4 Kentucky Derby winners in 1921, ‘26, ‘32 and ‘33.  The property was purchased again in the 1950’s.  This owner produced 6 Kentucky Derby winners, 2 Belmont winners, 2 Breeders cup winners along with a Preakness and English Derby winner and countless other Grade I winners.

• Keeneland Racecourse, its beautiful, park-like grounds are open to the public every day. In 1933 the closing of the historic Kentucky Association track left the Horse Capital of the World without a race track for the 1^st time in 100 years.  In 1935 a volunteer committee began their quest to bring racing back to Lexington at Keeneland.  Keeneland’s sprawling stone clubhouse, grandstand, and other original structures were quarried from native Kentucky limestone.  It is one of the world’s 1^st and only not-for-profit tracks.  In 1986 Keeneland was designated a National Historic Landmark, only the 2^nd racecourse in the nation to receive landmark status.  Keeneland maintains its own plant nursery to replace as needed any plants, shrubbery or trees on the grounds.

• Lexington Cemetery-At the request of a group of Lexington’s most prominent citizens, the Kentucky General Assembly approved an act on February 5, 1848, that incorporated the Lexington Cemetery Company and authorized it to establish a rural, or garden, cemetery.  Charles S. Bell, from Scotland was hired on April 1, 1849 as the first general manager of the Lexington Cemetery.  His dream was to create a park-like, landscaped cemetery in Lexington.  Inspired by his training in Scotland as a horticulturist, Bell brought to the area a new “rural” concept that originated in Europe and was practiced in Boston, Massachusetts.  It was the responsibility of Bell to complete the landscaping and horticultural work.                                 Today the Lexington Cemetery encompasses 170 acres.  It has a reputation for being one of the most beautiful cemeteries in America.  There are over 200 species of trees and shrubs within the grounds, as well as 3 lakes with goldfish and waterfowl.  Trees in the Lexington Cemetery have been allowed to grow naturally with no use of insecticides or fertilizers.  In most cases, these trees are the best specimens of their species growing in the area.

• Gainesway is a premier Thoroughbred farm in Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region.  Gainesway’s 1500 acres are managed to maximize the land’s natural beauty.  In 2016 Gainesway achieved Level II arboretum status through ArbNet, making it the only horse farm in the world with such accreditation.  The property currently hold 10,000 accessions representing about 1000 species of plants, shrubs, and trees, including 70 species of oak alone.                                          Established in the late 1990’s, the formal garden is the zenith of Gainesway’s many residence gardens.  It consists of more than a dozen gardens with aesthetic viewpoints created to entice a person to move from one area to the next.  One of the 1^st projects to be planted is named in honor of renowned garden designer Rosemary Verey.  Ms. Verey visited the site in 2000 and spent several days laying out her plans and discussing the details with the owner and resident garden designer.                                                                                                                       When the leveling process for Rosemary’s Garden began, it was discovered the site was composed of heavy clay, making for an excellent foundation for the paths and brick work, but not for growing the vegetables and roses.  A drainage system was installed and each bed excavated, replacing the heavy clay with rich mixed soil.                                                                               For new plantings, the resident garden designer considers the site’s relationship to the house, the surrounding land, and the other gardens so as to achieve a natural flow.

• Gratz Park Historic District occupies a tract of land that was established in 1781.  Gratz Park is named for early Lexington businessman Benjamin Gratz.  In 1958 Gratz Park was named the first official local historic district in Lexington, as well as of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.  Numerous historic homes and lush gardens are located around the perimeter of Gratz Park, making it a desirable location for homeowners and visitors alike.

• Hunt-Morgan House stands as a reminder of early 19^th century life, when Lexington was known as The Athens of the West.  Built in 1814, the Federal style Hunt-Morgan House has many beautiful architectural features, including the Palladian window with fan and sidelights that grace its front façade.  John Wesley Hunt’s business empire included interest in banking, horse breeding, agriculture and hemp manufacturing.

• Cave Hill was built in 1821 by David Bryan, who named it for the large cave on the property where food was stored during the summer months.  In 1925, Dutch business man Christian DeWaal purchased Cave Place, he died before realizing his dream of establishing a thoroughbred horse farm at Cave Place, but the DeWaals did plan and execute a formal garden inspired both by the work of Dutch landscape artists and their interest in the gardens of China.  They engaged renowned landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman, who constructed her plan within the existing 19^th century walled garden.                                                                                A formal boxwood design outlined brick-laid paths and enclosed beds of anchusa, foxgloves, lilies, peonies, and delphiniums.  Wisterias twined over the crescent-shaped fountain in the wall.  With her love of Chinese culture, Mrs. DeWaal requested many Oriental details in the garden.  On each side was a Ming figure, and 2 great Ching fish bowls were found along the walks of old brick.  The figure of the Chinese Goddess of Agriculture stood at the door of a teahouse, which had a cock perched on its roof.  Of special interest were the French Hybrid lilacs which won prizes at New York flower shows.                                                                                      Shipman’s plans for Cave Hill reside at Cornell University in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library.  Only recently have these plans been identified as Shipman’s work at Cave Hill, and it is obvious from contemporary photographs that her plans were carried out.  Since that time there have been changes to the garden but its bones are intact.  In the 1970’s during a restoration of the executive mansion in Frankfort, Cave Hill serves as the residence of Governor John Y. Brown, Jr. and First Lady Phyllis George.

I took on a project of trying to improve the curb appeal of a plain black fence that stretches across my daughter's front yard. I also wished to decrease the amount of grass that required mowing in that space. Flowers and greenery are an easy way to bring color and charm to your home.  I needed a quick fix that was easy on the budget, had easy installation, and required low maintenance.  I had always wanted to try installing a Lasagna Garden, so this was the perfect opportunity.  

 A Lasagna Garden, also referred to as Sheet Composting, is a method for building a garden without digging or tilling.  This sounded perfect to me!  No digging!  No tilling!  No back breaking work!  But how hard was it really going to be?  After some quick research and reading the book "Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful garden:  No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!" by Patrica Lanza, I was ready to collect all of my "ingredients". 

I collected cardboard, kitchen scraps and leaves.  I roamed around my yard and divided my cannas, ginger lilies, papyrus and elephant ears.  I also purchased bags of compost, garden soil, and hardwood mulch.  Let the layering begin.
 
Layer #1:  Cardboard or several pieces of newspaper.  This acts as a weed barrier. 
 
Layer #2:  Shredded leaves, compost, straw or peat moss.
 
Layer #3:  Plant based kitchen scraps such as coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable peels, untreated grass clippings and alfalfa hay.
 
Layer #4:  Bags of "garden soil".  Amy Dabbs, Clemson Horticulture Agent, states in her article in the Post and Courier Feb 26, 2017, that garden soil is actually preferred to top soil.  "Top soil introduces weed seeds, soil bourne pathogens and soil fertility issues". 
 
Layer #5:  The plants!  I also planted zinnia seeds.  Cover with hardwood mulch.  Make sure to water each layer.  

I am very pleased with the outcome.  Several neighbors have stopped by and given their praise.

I was very lucky to complete the Clemson Master Gardener course in January 2017 and wanted very much to try to implement some of the things I had learned.  I looking at my front yard with it's sparse patches of grass and many bare patches.  The trees offer too much shade for a successful lawn so I am still thinking about what to do with it.
 
I learned that if I put up a Bluebird house I might see some very pretty birds and they may or may not eat bugs.  Late in March the house went up in the middle of the azaleas.  About three days later, I saw loads of activity and thought the birds had moved in!  I could not believe that I had actually attracted Bluebirds to a spot where I could sit on my porch and enjoy their comings and goings.  Now, I watched and waited.  I even sat 10 feet away from the house and played Bluebird songs on my ipad.  The activity slowed down through April and I thought I had lost my little visitors, so I cautiously opened the door.  Yes!  There sat 3 little bluebirds, beaks up, chirping, just like I remembered from a cartoon. 
 
My next adventure involved my struggle against carpenter bees.  The slow moving carpenter bees were boring holes in the fascia board around my porch.  I sat quietly with a tennis racket and hose and went to war.    It may be that these annoying pests have moved on to someone else’s house but I appear to be free of them.  The holes have been filled with carpenters putty and I am ever alert to the possible return.
 
As the weather improved and I happened upon herb seeds in the dollar store, I took a chance on having an herb garden.  So for a five-dollar investment in seeds and lots of compost (trying for more that a year at composting) I did invest in a raised garden bed, I would say I have what I would describe as HERBS GONE WILD.  I have dill, parsley, and two kinds of basil, chives, lemon balm, sage, thyme, cilantro, and oregano. 

I have cut back the herbs and hoped to see them return and this morning I had the best surprise.  I have beautiful caterpillars in the dill.  I googled the images and suspect these caterpillars will eventually undergo metamorphosis to become Black Swallow Tail butterflies.  I am hoping they will be around when my grandchildren visit in August. 

The rain barrels did not get installed yet but we have them!  The grass is still very sparse, but it is green from all the rain!  The bluebirds sit in their house and look out every morning, and the bees have not returned. 

I am a happy novice in the world of Yardification.

Steam heat’s still hissing through earthy pipes--
The call to turn the furnace down hasn’t yet come South.
 
Dewing more than early morning grass still emerald in the baking sun,
Walking down silent streets dalmatianed gray and blue by leaf-blotched sun,
I seek the secret bright bouquets of summer’s end.
 
Burgeoning blooms of Clemson orange roar under oaky stadia of green,
Crape myrtles flirt in their last pink crinolines,
Unassuming collars of great green leaves frame beautyberry’s glossy grape pearls,
And under the loblollies lantana lie in wait for *Emily’s buccaneers of buzz.
 
Lipstick pink roses just knock me out.

The night of October 7/8, 2016, Hurricane Matthew roared through Summerville.  When the sun rose, the morning light revealed our 15 year old pecan tree lying flat on the ground.

 
My heart sank because we had planted the tree right after moving into this Summerville house, and it finally had matured to a size where there were enough nuts that we actually got one or two after the squirrels and birds took their fill.  October was a bad time of year for pecan trees to deal with storms since they still had all their leaves and they were carrying tons of mostly green nuts.  It was a recipe for disaster when a top heavy tree encountered a vicious hurricane wind load.  Hurricane Matthew was a true hickory hater.  He took down very old, large pecan trees belonging to my relatives in both Georgetown and Williamsburg Counties.  The storm toppled most of one commercial pecan grove in Georgia as well as damaging many others.  Yes, Matthew had a cruel streak when it came to Carya illinoinenis.
 
After the initial sorrow at the sight of our felled tree, my first impulse was to prune the heck out of it and stand the tree back up.  Half its roots were still in the ground and I had seen much bigger pecan trees recover from worse destruction.  In the mid-1960’s, I was a child living with my grandparents in Georgetown County when a tornado crashed through early in the morning on Mothers’ Day.  The fine old pecan tree in our backyard lost a few limbs, but it was a different story across the back pasture where my great-uncle’s two big pecan trees both toppled right over.  His son was nurseryman operating out of Pawley’s Island at the time and his solution to the pecan trees’ dilemma was met with great skepticism within the family and in the general community.  He brought in chain saws and a crane on a trailer.  They cut back the exposed roots, and pruned those big old trees down to their trunks leaving only two or three major branches as very short stubs.  Then using the crane they pulled the transformed trees back to vertical positions and replanted them with minimal disturbance of the roots remaining in the ground.  Everyone predicted death for the trees, but instead they quickly sent out new shoots.  For years, those trees had odd truncated forms and no nut production, but they eventually recovered something like their previous selves.  My great-uncle is long dead as is his tree-loving son, but those pecan trees they rescued decades ago are still flourishing across the back pasture from my grandparents’ old home.
 
Faced with our downed tree, my husband met my pleading to stand it back up with great doubt.  We could do the major pruning ourselves but there was no way to get the tree upright without incurring major expense.  Finally, we agreed to salvage logs from the trunk and major branches for some piece of memorial custom furniture to be created in the future, but I would have to lose my pecan tree.  After days of heavy, hard work, the tree was dismembered and piled on the street along with half the trees in Summerville or so it seemed.  
 
Only the stump remained sticking half up out of the ground.  Having cleared the yard and stacked the precious recovered logs on wood blocks in an out-of-the-way corner of the backyard, our motivation for dealing with that last remnant of the tree faded fast.  So, the stump stayed with its great hump of yanked-up lawn through the winter and the spring of 2017.  By mid-summer the grass now newly awash in sunlight was knee high, and my husband was threatening the stump hump with a weed-eater, a chainsaw, an ax, and even a power-washer.  Since I had yet to decide how to deal with the garden redesign necessitated by the loss of the pecan tree, I kept stalling his drastic plans.  Silently I was hoping the squirrels had planted a pecan that was hiding a tiny sprout somewhere in that overgrown mess near the base of the old tree.  I needed time and gentle ground maintenance to find that treasure.
 
One day in early July, I was randomly pulling out grass and weeds on the stump hump trying to find anything of value hiding in the jungle.  There were quite a few baby crepe myrtles because the roots of my big crepe myrtle trees were tangled in the out-lying pecan tree roots.  Of course any place a wounded crepe myrtle root sees sunlight, it sends up a sprout.  The last thing I wanted was more crepe myrtles, but then I noticed a different kind of leaf: bright yellow green.  Following the stem down, I discovered that it was a new shoot emerging from the cut edge of the neglected pecan stump.  It was a better version of my wished for pecan tree treasure.  I was so happy that the entire time I cleared grass and weeds from the stump hump, I talked to that baby pecan tree (Look at you!  What a tough guy you are!  I am so happy to see you!  Your mother would be so proud of you!). 

As you can tell from the photographs, the new pecan tree is growing rapidly.  Most newly planted saplings take a year or two before they “catch hold” and take off growing.  Generally that is because they are waiting for their infant root system to build up and spread sufficiently to feed and water the new tree.  My pecan baby comes supplied with at least half of the root system that served a mature tree, so it already is rocket powered in that regard.  Currently, there are three sprouts coming out of one node on the old stump and I intend to leave them all for the time being.  Eventually one will show itself as the strongest and I’ll prune away the weak siblings, or they simply will grow together developing one new trunk.
 
When dealing with gardening novices, I often council them to have patience.  Gardening requires time: waiting for seeds to germinate, watching to see if a plant flourishes or fades away, pruning and hoping the bush will fill in the way you see it in your head, looking at the lovely purple flower and wondering how the eggplant will taste.  Time=patience=time.  My pecan sprout is another lesson in waiting to see what Mother Nature will do if you just step back and have patience.  Of course, in my case patience was often born out of simple laziness.  I did not want to chop out that stump; I did not want to decide what to do with that new bright sunny spot in the backyard.  Consequently, I did nothing, but the forces of nature were very busy cooking up a new pecan tree. 
 
In Greek mythology, the Phoenix was a magnificent long-lived purple bird who died in flames and was reborn from its own ashes.  That cycle was repeated endlessly.  I have taken to calling my baby pecan tree the Phoenix Sprout because it is rising from its own ruins.  Okay perhaps that is more that a bit pretentious; my husband just calls it Pecan 2.  But there is something timeless and miraculous about the way nature pushed that little tree out of a seemingly dead stump.  Take that Hurricane Matthew!

 Hey Y’all,  I am John Pieniadz MG 2011, and I want to tell you what prompted me to become a Master Gardener.
 
Back in 2011 I saw the opportunity to sign up for the Clemson Master Gardener class, and I signed up for it.  I was somewhat concerned when I found out there was an interview I had to go through to be accepted into the class. What? I thought it was just another class you take, pay your price and go, pass or fail.  Boy was I wrong. How hard can this be since I already know everything about plants and gardening there is to know?
 
Let me tell you my story.  I am 70 years old, and when it comes to plants, I was a know it all. Yes I knew everything about plants. When I was about 5 years old my father,  Henry Pieniadz, of Turtle Creek, a suburb of Pittsburgh PA. had a flower hobby. Propagating by splitting, cutting, bulb and rhizome division, rooting rose blooms and replanting, watering and weeding, he then gave out the plants to all the little old ladies in and around our neighborhood. 
 
In a loving way my dad kept me out of a lot of trouble by teaching me all that he knew, and having me weed and water our yard, which was a lovely space.  This went on for many years until I was in junior high school, and the neighborhood greenhouse and nursery,  Hutchinson's, gave me a part time job after school and on Saturdays. I sure learned a lot about washing pots, mixing soil, building wooden flats and moving plants. And of course this all added to my vast array of botanical knowledge.
 
We didn’t have the INTERNET or flea markets back in the 50s, so dad would go to the local shopping market and open the trunk or his car and sell or give away plants. Quarters were a lot of money then!   To keep up the stock for Dads hobby, he would propagate plants, which of course, was more work for me.  I guess I was not as appreciative or understanding then as I could have been.  Dad and I would go round and round about his hobby. Every time I would be negligent with the watering, Dad would remind me by saying “ Johnny, they are alive.  You have to take care of them or they will die.  Take care of them and they will take care of you”. I didn’t totally understand that but I did agree “They Are Alive”.
 
Well those years went their way and military life, marriage and children, employment and retirement, and 9 grandchildren, a lot of good and bad along the way, but life goes on and the plants remained and they are still a huge part of my life. Dad is long past, but he would be proud.
I guess by now you can see why and how I assumed that “I knew all there was to know about plants “
 
BOY WAS I WRONG!  In 2011 I met all of the wonderful,  knowledgeable and patient instructors of the Clemson Master Gardener Class.  I thought I knew it all, but I learned things I had never heard of: soil, tilth, which I called dirt, cation exchange - the way roots and minerals get along, and an inch and half thick book worth of many other things. What does entomology, geology, chemistry, climatology, pathology, and many other sciences have to do with botany and biology?  Well I am not going into all of these specific sciences but this is some of what a Master Gardener is and a lot more.  As a Master Gardener I am proud to be a part of an Elite Group of ever learning plant lovers “Taking  care of plants because they will take care of Us.”.
 
So you want to be a Master Gardener? I sure hope so. I guess we can add Doctor to the list cause it gets in your blood.