This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

‘Tis the time of year when I find myself standing under a sprig of mistletoe expecting to be kissed! We’re putting branches of bright green holly with brilliant red berries in bouquets and wreaths to decorate the house for the holidays. And I see out the window, in the snow, that the ivy is in full bloom. What a crazy plant, to burst into bloom in winter.

The ivy featured in the carols and cultural traditions of Great Britain and Northern Europe is the English ivy, Hedera helix. It is in full bloom at the moment, covering itself with silver dollar sized umbels of small, inconspicuous flowers. No wonder the ancients regarded this plant with awe –- it flowers in winter. Today, in the Pacific Northwest, we also regard it with awe, as a noxious weed! Each small flower will mature into a pea-sized, black-purple berry in spring. Birds love these berries and spread the seeds of this plant far and wide. The seeds survive passage through the gut of a bird to be pooped out in a new location.

Curiously, English ivy flowers in winter when few other plants bloom

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A few weeks ago I was looking at the garden and thinking that there was a lot of color in it for December.  The chard was blazing away in the brilliant way that chard does, complimented nicely by the bright green parsley. The carrots were beautifully feathery. The leeks were perky.

Wasn’t everything supposed to be gray and mostly colorless? I remember last winter as being very un-green (expect for the moss).

Then we had a week of freezing temperatures, and when it thawed, the garden turned to mush. This picture was taken right after the mush began.

For a little while I thought that some of my more tender vegetables, like the chard, were going to make it through the deep freeze, but I was just being overly optimistic. As soon as they lost their support network of hard frosts they flopped down and gave up. (My husband was OK with this. We’ve been eating a lot of chard lately.)

Things I Learned:

1) “Recent mush” quickly turns to “rotting mush”. Be careful what you ask for. I was looking for gray, and I got gray, by golly.

2) It turns out that carrots that have been frozen solid do not, in fact, taste as good as carrots that have NOT been frozen solid. Ditto daikon radishes. Radishes DO, however, look really cool when they have been frozen and then thawed — they were almost translucent. I tried to eat them, but they tasted a bit too much like rotten vegetables for me.

3) When you hear of a frost coming your way, pick what is left in your garden! You may think it’s going to make it through the frost, but any number of gardeners in colder climates are silently shaking their heads at you. Pay attention to the silent, head-shaking, cold climate gardeners in your mind.

4) Look into banning freezing temperatures in the Portland area.

This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

White puffs of breath hang in the cold air. Snow dusts our heads and shoulders as we brush back the limbs of conifers that crowd the trail. David and I hike the Larch Mountain Trail near the Columbia River, east of Portland. We’re not going far on this wintry day, hoping only to catch a glimpse of noble fir, Abies procera, in its native habitat.

As we near the holiday season, we’re seeking a “wild Christmas tree.” David decided we should look for the “perfect” wild Christmas tree, the noble fir. “The most elegant of Christmas trees,” he says. “It holds its branches symmetrically, the boughs sturdy and level.” He extends his arms straight out, away from his body.

“It twists its needles upward, exposing the lower surface of the stem. A perfect place to hang ornaments. The needles have a bluish cast and the tree does not shed them as they dry. Yep, just about perfect.” He continues with long strides up the path.

Native noble firs dominate a ridge top

Larch Mountain, where noble fir is abundant, is the best location for our wild tree safari. We might even find a 200 foot specimen of this peerless winter holiday tree. Despite the mountain’s misleading name, it harbors no larch. Both mountain and trail get their names from timber men who harvested and sold the noble fir as larch. No one would buy fir in those days.

David leads the way to the right micro-climate: mid-elevation, a moist habitat, and rich deep soil.
“Here’s one,” I cry out in order to get his attention.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

Bringing a tree into your home to celebrate the holidays is a tradition that comes to us from ancient times. For many centuries before the birth of Jesus, pagans celebrated the winter solstice by bringing boughs of evergreen trees into their homes and decorating them. In the 1850’s Christians in America began to adopt the practice amidst great controversy. But no matter what your religious philosophy, whether you’re celebrating Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, bringing a tree into your home in the middle of winter is a pleasant thing to do. It symbolizes the return of the light and the promise of renewal in the spring, and that’s a good thing.

There are so many choices, how do you decide which kind of tree you want to bring into your home? Kathryn and I are oddballs in that respect because for many years we had a lovely old weeping fig tree (Ficus benjamina) in our living room. Through most of the year she was simply a houseplant. But on the winter solstice we transformed her by dressing her with lights, ornaments, and tinsel so she became a glorious holiday tree for a couple of weeks. Any large houseplant, palms or dracaenas for example, can be used for a holiday tree. Many people use a potted Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria excelsa) in the same way. Still, cold-hardy conifers are the tree of choice for many, especially a live tree versus a cut one.

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This guest post was written by Dave DeWitt, author of The Complete Chile Pepper Book.

Because I was in the radio business for twelve years (mostly working my way through college and graduate school), it’s only natural that I should turn to radio to promote my new Timber Press book.  This past September I was in Houston selling The Complete Chile Pepper Book at the Houston Hot Sauce Festival and my buddy James Beck arranged for me to be on Randy Lemmon’s GardenLine show on KTRH, the radio talk mega-station.  Randy, who grew up in El Paso, is a chilehead with a degree in horticultural science, so we got along great.  The call-in questions were much better than average on such a show, proving that his audience is mainly educated and devoted gardeners.

Yesterday, I made a radio appearance with my friend of twenty years, T.J. Trout on 94-Rock in Albuquerque.  T.J., a “shock jock,” is a devoted gardener who grows his own grapes and makes an excellent wine from them.  He also has the top-rated morning show in New Mexico, and since 94-Rock is one of the sponsors of my National Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show, I make regular appearances on the Morning Show.  My personality completely changes on the show and I revert to my old radio persona and make outrageous comments and puns, and T.J. is always threatening to throw me bodily out of the studio.  In this case we were broadcasting from Jim White’s Cafe as a benefit for The Storehouse, which provides clothes and food to the needy.  Last year, I persuaded another show sponsor, Pace Foods, to donate 2,000 jars of their new salsas to The Storehouse.  I still love doing radio — it’s almost as much fun as gardening!

This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

When I was a kid my mother grew an enormous poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) in a dormer window in my bedroom. She had received it one Christmas as a small potted plant to decorate the dinner table. We always gathered as a very large extended “family” that included close friends of my parents and their children. My siblings and I are still friends with the children of these families and consider them hanai brothers and sisters. Hanai is a Hawaiian word that loosely equates to “adopted”. Holiday gatherings of our hanai family brought many celebratory traditions together: Jewish, Egyptian, German, and Celtic. I’m not sure who brought the little poinsettia as a gift, because all those cultures embrace the practice of bringing greenery and plants into our homes in winter, especially during the winter feasts.

Most of the time, the plant lived in a giant yellow pot in the bay window of my bedroom. There, it soaked up plenty of sunlight, just enough water, and not too many nutrients. To tell the truth, I never really paid attention to how my mother cared for it. But she must have babied that plant, because by the time I was a teenager, the poinsettia was lush, robust, and six feet tall.

Every autumn my mother came to my bedroom each evening and dragged that heavy pot and plant into my closet. Shoving the shrub among my clothes, she’d pull on the sting to turn out the light, shut the closet door, and forbid me to open it until morning. And by Christmas every year bright red “flowers” festooned the branches. I didn’t know then what I know now –- that these are not really flowers, but modified leaves that change colors through the lengthening dark nights of early winter. Before the solstice and the return of the light.

Green flower buds and bright red bracts on my mother’s poinsettia.

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Portland just emerged from a long (for Portland) period of freezing temperatures, which pretty much froze any flowers that were still out. The frozen droopy flowers are interesting their own right, though. Here’s a marigold.

Dead seedheads, covered in frost, are delicate and lovely enough to be considered on Bloom Day, I think.

And one can’t forget frost “flowers”. They are rare and fleeting in Portland – enjoy them while you can!

Friday’s post brought you some staff favorites. But wait! There’s more! More staff, and more favorites!

“Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy. I love that his central message is so simple and yet so full of hope.  Everyone can help improve the world by the humble act of planting native plants. This book made me pay much closer attention to the insects and animals in my garden, and ponder what I could do to make them all happier and improve the biodiversity of my own backyard. A book that has the power to change the way I do things is a powerful book indeed.” (Chani, Marketing)

“My backyard just turned 1 ½ (granted, it has belonged to the earth much longer than that). In the ongoing evolution of converting yard to garden, I have relied on my heavily post-it’ed copy of Perennial Companions. The author — our very own Tom Fischer — packs in gorgeous combinations for every season. I’m drooling over Japanese Blood Grass + Feathertop for autumn (sigh…). I feel inspired every time I pick it up. The only problem: So many combinations, so little space. Maybe the neighbors won’t mind if I “borrow” their front yard?” (Dorothy, Sales)

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Timber Press has about 335 books currently in print. If you divide the number of books by the number of employees currently working for Timber, you get 13.4 books per employee.  (If you are a lucky employee, your 4/10ths of a book has pretty pictures in it.)

Reading employee reviews of all 335 of our books could get pretty tedious, though — so we asked everyone to just pick their favorite, and submit it to the blog.

The following books have been approved by Real People. Consider giving them as gifts to the Real People in your life.

“I love The American Meadow Garden by John Greenlee and Saxon Holt. I love the exquisite photographs, the heavy importance of the book (both in pounds and in subject matter), and the way it fills me with hope.  I think everyone needs to read this book!” (Jessica, Publicity Assistant)

“I don’t even know what is planted in my yard, so figuring out what is wrong with the unknown plants sounds virtually impossible. But it’s not, and that’s why What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?) by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth is the perfect holiday gift for the non-gardener in your life. A gardening book that only expects you to recognize the shape of a leaf before making a diagnosis? Sign me up!” (Kathryn, Marketing and Sales)

“The New Low-Maintenance Garden by Valerie Easton and Jacqueline Knox. This book is a favorite of mine because it provides ideas and inspiration as I look ahead to creating my first garden. I especially love the bulleted lists full of practical suggestions to keep my garden maintenance to a minimum.” (Olivia, Publicist)

“The Family Kitchen Garden by Karen Liebreich, Jutta Wagner, and Annette Wendland. I love the beautiful photos and as a novice edible gardener, I love the month-by-month calendar to keep me on track!” (Juree, Acquiring Editor)

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This morning when I opened up my browser (which is set to the Timber Press homepage) I was caught by the phrase “The Panic.” I did a double-take — surely we don’t want anyone to panic on our web site? It turns out that it was a truncated plant name — “panic grass” without the “grass” part.

That got me thinking about plant names, and how odd they sometimes are: panic grass, mother-in-law’s tongue, butter-and-eggs, venus’ navelwort, wolf-fart puffball, Molly-the-witch, kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, toadshade.

And THAT got me thinking about one of my favorite books: The Wonderful O, by James Thurber. The Wonderful O is about two pirates, Black and Littlejack, who are hunting for treasure in Littlejack’s ship. The ship is the “Aeiu”, which contains all the vowels except for O, because, as Littlejack says: “I’ve had a deep hatred of that letter ever since the night my mother became wedged in a porthole. We couldn’t pull her in, so we had to push her out.”

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