"Janet Baraclough"
in
. uk...



For those of you who don't read newsgroup rec.gardens, there is a cracking
gardening post there today. I've asked its author Marilyn ("Madgardener") if
she will crosspost it to urg, though some of you might have your software
set to reject such a lengthy post. You can read it in the google archive at
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.gardens

Thread title; Planting bulbs on a Winter's late afternoon.



(background for those who haven't encountered her befo M lives in rural
Tennessee with "Squire" (husband), a crammed garden and a load of pets, she
works at a "shed" garden centre)



Enjoy :-)

Janet


ok Janet, you've caused me sufficient blushing for my middle
age............lol I've got one for YOU................. I started posting
to wreck.gardens (rec.gardens) about 8 years ago. Around October of
1998.......or 1997. originally my e-mail address was .
but I changed it a few years ago to the ISDN line's address of
........here's the question (in my "marilyn" way LOL)
originally my posts were ALL there on deja.vu's archives. then google bought
or took over them when deja vu went out of operation. There was a couple of
gardeners over the pond there in your neighborhood who liked my writings and
rambles enough to ask if they could print them for themselves to keep or
share, and of course I said alright. I love to share.........I really do
want to compile the books of me writings and rambles, but the problems are
thus...............I consider some of those early posts when Squire was out
on the road and I was rattling around up here on the ridge by myself with
only Rose (me sweet black Lab) and the larger assortment of cats and faeries
and flowers to keep me from going totally mad, to have been some of my best
writings. I have a few of them, having snagged them off of google and copied
them and sent them to myself. Originally a gardener by the name of Tori who
went by IGROWROCKS had lovingly sent me the complete archives of my posts
before she severed her ties to me, killfiled me and put a block on my
address (I am just too intense for some people, which is alright as I more
than understand) then my computer seized up and I lost all her labors to
help me to have my stuff. My question............is there anyway you have
early posts of mine to send back to me, so that I can paragraph them and not
change them but clean them a tad and from there I can start trying to put
them together in a few books. I ain't shy about publishing. I just can't
find someone to SEND them to to publish them. I even wrote a children's book
a few years ago with the insistance of a dear gentleman in Chicago, who
turned a post of mine around, handed me the title and gave me his
inspirational thoughts on it, and told me to get at it. I sat down and in
three days had a "children's" book (not quite a children's book but
almost......kinda........sorta........g) but again, who would look at it,
not change too much, illustrate it with awesome illustrations and publish
it? I'm still waiting for that person who gardens and works for a
publishing company to e-mail me and tell me to send them my
stuff.....................no, not lazy, I've made calls and tried on
occaisons, but so far nothing (do you know how hard it is to type with a
kitten's tail lying across the right side of the keyboard???) my addy book
has lost yer address, send it to me, wouldya?? please? I promise not to
lose it again. I've actually got a handwritten list of e-mails of dear
gardening friends!

there will be a shorter second part to that bulb escapade soon, and as
beautiful as it is today, it might be today..........I actually now have
MORE bulbs to plant because I happened upon minature narcissus, Lord
Lieutenant anemone, De Caean anemone, Viking tulips (double red peony tulips
that never return the second year but who cares??) and a lone six bag of
lily tulips to plug in somewhere. thanks for being a gardening friend all
these years. you are a treasure!
madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36 where the day is
crispy blue bright and the birds are beckoning me to come outside and play
in the leaves and cold soil

On 13/12/05 19:48, in article , "madgardener"
wrote:

"Janet Baraclough"
in
. uk...



For those of you who don't read newsgroup rec.gardens, there is a cracking
gardening post there today. I've asked its author Marilyn ("Madgardener") if
she will crosspost it to urg, though some of you might have your software
set to reject such a lengthy post. You can read it in the google archive at
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.gardens

Thread title; Planting bulbs on a Winter's late afternoon.



(background for those who haven't encountered her befo M lives in rural
Tennessee with "Squire" (husband), a crammed garden and a load of pets, she
works at a "shed" garden centre)



Enjoy :-)

Janet


ok Janet, you've caused me sufficient blushing for my middle
age............lol I've got one for YOU................. I started posting
to wreck.gardens (rec.gardens) about 8 years ago. Around October of
1998.......or 1997. originally my e-mail address was .
but I changed it a few years ago to the ISDN line's address of
........here's the question (in my "marilyn" way LOL)
originally my posts were ALL there on deja.vu's archives. then google bought
or took over them when deja vu went out of operation. There was a couple of
gardeners over the pond there in your neighborhood who liked my writings and
rambles enough to ask if they could print them for themselves to keep or
share, and of course I said alright. I love to share
snip

So, will you please come back and tell us how those bulbs fared in your
garden? And will you PLEASE send some of your writing to gardening
magazines, local papers etc? You have SUCH a gift and thank you for sharing
it here. Your writing is lyrical - I cannot begin to tell you how much I
enjoyed it - and I think it would be inspirational to any new gardener
fretting about how to start, where to start, whether they'll get it 'right'
- whatever 'right' is! Your writing is your own creation but my goodness, I
do wish you'd share it with a wider audience. IMO, it's exceptional. Thank
you for a few minutes of unalloyed gardening enjoyment.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...

snip
So, will you please come back and tell us how those bulbs fared in your
garden?

absolutely!! I love revealing the terrors and triumphs of my constipated
gardens. (the evil kitten tail has returned..........I swear, I think she
believes this is her station in her life.......well each cat is an
individual after all)

And will you PLEASE send some of your writing to gardening
magazines, local papers etc? You have SUCH a gift and thank you for
sharing
it here.

well, I tell ya what, I will sort thru my writings that I have so far and
see what jumps off the page at me (some things I have from the past don't
apply anymore, but then, gardens change season to season and year to year!)
and I will send a couple of them to two of my favorite gardening magazines.
I HAVE been slightly published. (nothing much to crow too loudly about, but
being published is being published. And it was enough to give me that boost
to continue onwards) I appeared in "Weeders Digest" Green Prints edited by
Pat Stone in the 1994 Winter edition. He doesn't pay much. But at the time
(13 years ago almost to the day!) we were so poor, that his little check was
enormous to me.........He has good pen and ink illustrators and the person
who illustrated the side bars of the two pages of my piece captured the
whole thing. I was floored. I blushed everytime I picked it up. Heck, I
even blush when I find a letter I wrote to the editor in a gardening
magazine!

The piece was entitled Reflections of a Madgardener, Pat sent me a type of
informal contract, the piece is his as long as he publishes the quarterly
magazine. It was pretty good. (I hate bragging on myself, I'm hard on me)
and then the next year or so, there was a new part of his little magazine
(it's not as small as a Reader's Digest, it's a bit bigger, and he ONLY does
88 pages. Period. No matter how many wonderful stories people send to him. )
but the next year or so, he had a part called "The Broken Trowel Award"
which people could write a shorter piece and if it was printed, you'd get a
year's subscription. And my little ditty about planting 900 bulbs was
published and I got a free year...............I've had a letter published in
the November issue of Organic Gardening back when Mike McGrath was editor
(just before Robert Rodale got killed in Russia in that traffic accident) I
think back in 1986. I used to just EAT those magazines. I was learning by
leaps and bounds and was (and still am) insatiable to learn as much about
horticulture and greenies and growies as I can and could. I wrote a
"typical" letter to Mike and the magazine just talking a bit about my stuff,
and he not only printed it in the letters section, he titled it, he put the
title in the contents page, and lordy, he ANSWERED IT!! when I got to my
letter, the title leaped off the page and I got so red my husband though I
was blowing my blood pressure. I handed the magazine to the back seat where
my oldest son was sitting and asked if he'd read the article, (I didn't read
more than the first sentence before I got embarrised) and when HE read it,
and turned the page and finished it (I forgot, it was as lengthy as most of
my stuff, but not TOO much) he hollered at me "WOW MA, it's YOU!!!!!!!
KEWELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" once I had his approval, I then had the courage to
read the letter to Squire who was driving at the moment, and he was proud of
me despite that it "was only a letter". . But that gave me the courage to
write to another short lived magazine that excelled in what I considered a
good gardening magazine to be. Beautiful Gardens was the most awesome
gardening magazine. It was of course after Horticulture, which is awesome
and how I wish I had a complete collection to peruse through.......(that
would be hundreds, since they just celebrated 100 years) and about the time
that Garden Design and Fine Gardening were coming on the market. But
Beautiful Gardens had one problem. No sponsers. No ads. Which was neat, but
you had to have someone to pay the bills. It couldn't all fall on the
subscribers. And I wrote to them worried that it would be the death of their
incredible magazine. And lord, they printed my letter, or a piece of it, on
the BACK COVER..............(after five? issues, they indeed went under,
much to my dismay, and I have every issue. Very worthy to go back and ponder
and enjoy. How I wish someone had been foresightful enough to have saved
them and kept them afloat. The closest thing I've seen since is Birds and
Bloom's which also has no ads, but it doesn't hold a candle to Beautiful
Gardens.

But getting off the windy side of this.........I will sit down and see if
there is a one page piece to send to Fine Gardening for Last Word. And see
if there is a tidy, but informative piece to send to (shudder) Horticulture,
and to Garden Design. (I love their quotes at the bottom of the pages, even
if it IS a little preppy......LOL) and I'll pull out the rough copy of my
children's book and see if I can find some publishers to tempt with the
wierdness of it. I'll say the name to tease ya'll................the piece
I took the story from was called "Little Crayons", and the genius of David
Wslos seeing a story in that ramble and handing it back to me has been sadly
unfruitful in that I wrote it and never went further.



Your writing is lyrical - I cannot begin to tell you how much I
enjoyed it - and I think it would be inspirational to any new gardener
fretting about how to start, where to start, whether they'll get it
'right'
- whatever 'right' is!

Well I do love to sorta teach about stuff I'm doing. And considering I've
been practicing this now for well over 32 years means I must know a few
things to share. And I LOVE sharing information about gardening........and
I'll be the first to admit, I've killed many plants in my short life so far
and they won't be the last ones I'll murder in their
soils................it's all part of the fun and magic of gardening. Be it
in little pots on the window sill or a large acre or so. I will say there
are things that even I haven't been able to accomplish, but I'm also willing
to tell you when I fall short and when I go to someone else who is more
experienced and learned than myself. I'll tell you what I know, and the
rest I'll look up for you because that's who I am. I like doing it. It's
also fun! (I sometimes get frustrated by the anal people on wreck gardens
who give me hell when I call something by it's wrong new name, but I'm
always willing to learn and correct myself. and now I just laugh at their
pickiness and move on. When I let it bother me, I'll quit gardening, and
that will be when I am contributing as compost)

Your writing is your own creation but my goodness, I
do wish you'd share it with a wider audience. IMO, it's exceptional.
Thank
you for a few minutes of unalloyed gardening enjoyment.

why sugar, you are most welcome. You and Janet have made me feel that I'm
still here and appreciated. I never look for compliments, but I know that I
write not only for myself but for others as well. Like I said earlier (days
ago it seems like, or books at least g) I am my own worst
critic...................what I don't think is very "good" is thought of as
pretty good or excellent by others. just goes to show you we sometimes
don't appreciate how good we really are.................... now on that
slightly pompous sounding note, I will thank you again for the wonderful and
uplifting compliments and promise you that you will hear from me again.

side note.........I have attempted to share my writings with Garden Web and
holy shit.............my biggest problem with Spike and the strictness is
the censorship that their program is under. I literally cut and pasted the
piece onto a new post, copied the title into the title spot, and when I hit
preview, I got a "MESSAGE REJECTED" immediately because there was "offensive
language or an HMTL setting that was unacceptable" So I attempted to go
thru the writing with my fine tooth comb, took out the "**** and vinegar"
description of Abbey dawg, then took out the "rip shit, tear ass" outa the
other part, and resubmitted it under preview, and wonder of
wonder's............it was accepted. So apparently I can't write the way I
usually do for Garden Web unless I censor myself...........hells
bells....................they're just words! and if they offend someone,
then don't read it! (she says sarcastically, but fearful that if that were
to happen, who would read her stuff and criticize the pieces?)

You feel this way and you work at a nursery?? wow........I am honored
Sacha! Feel free to holler my way anytime. Janet does upon occaison, only
my silly assed computer has lost her e-mail address or I'd have sent her a
copy of my reply to her................my e-mail doesn't have any spam
deterrants. I have never done that. I figure that anyone who wants to screw
up my computer will do so. One thing I finally learned was not to open
attachments or things that didn't look familiar. I am a bit worried about
that virus or worm they are promising will wreck havoc January 6th (just
after my birthday, as I am a slap happy Capricorn!) but hopefully Microsoft
will have an update, or I'll just be more diligent about opening stuff.
(more than usual). I have a short piece to write about the remaining bulbs
from todays frantic plantings, and there's always something to write about
up here in Fairy Holler.


By the way, Janet......................I no longer work at the garden center
at Lowes (a home improvement superstore that has lumber on one end,
decorating and flooring and household cleaning stuff, lights and fixtures,
garden stuff, plumbing and then a decent gardening center on the end with
usually a greenhouse. I quit in April because I am the taxi service for my
grown son who works at another Lowes 43 miles away (they wouldn't let us
work the same store, and the conflicting schedules was killing me,
literally) Squire is still Squire, but having been home since November 18th
after his mom passed away at the almost ripe age of 90 in her house up in
brrrrrrrr Michigan, he is driving me bug nuts. So there will be many more
episodes outside in my gardens just to get outa the house before I throttle
him..........................

the dawgs and cats will always have something to make me laugh out loud and
wanna share, and there will ALWAYS be plant stuff. Janet didn't tell
ya.......I grow cactus, succulents, African bulbs, odd ball stuff,
Euphorbia's, tropicals, as well as the massive collection of spring and
summer and fall bulbs, tubers, rhizomes and perennials,vines, ornamental
blooming shrubs and a few trees (not many yet............) ornamental
grasses, I've been known to have had vegetable plots in the past but this
place where I live is reluctant to allow me a veggie patch. I'll have to
make a hillside French intensive garden to do that, and before I can do THAT
I'll hafta cut down five story Jack pines to let in more light. I also am a
master gardener, and despite that my little paper certificate is over 10
years old, I read, study and learn as much about horticulture as my day will
allow. not to mention the rare good gardening shows that are left. (don't
get me started on their demise lately....................)

I am also a fool for invasive and reseeding stuff. I'm still trying to find
a steady source for papaver somniferum poppy seeds............any color,
specifically the paeony varieties, but any reseeding poppy seeds are wanted.
I am determined to have a patch like my grandmammy had for over 68 years of
a variety of them that were shaggy, bright screaming pink and were finally
identified about 8 years ago in a much loved book called Passalong Plants.
specifically they turned out to have been opium poppies. but I love the
flowers, not the ablilties to make drugs..............hell, flowers ARE my
drugs!! LOL

thanks again Sacha, I'll be back, I promise you that.

madgardener (marilyn) or "maddie" up on the ridge (where it's almost a full
moon and I tried to drive up the dead end road without the headlights when I
was returning from dropping son off at werk, but
realized........duh......there are deer and coyote and skunks and possoms to
run into idiot, turn the lights back on!!) back in Faerie Holler,
overlooking a twinkly English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset
zone 36


--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh Paggers!! thanks, I'd forgotten about Pag................yer
a peach Janet. now send me that address! (is this is below?? if so, I'll
just copy it into my address book if that's alright)
maddie
"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from "madgardener" contains these words:
. My question............is there anyway you have
early posts of mine to send back to me,

Sorry, I used to but not any more; they were lost when my old
computer died :-(. Google still has 70 pages of posts from your
bellsouth address, dating back to 1999, but I can't find anything
earlier.

well outa 70 pages, only a few are actual rambles and posts of mine. others
are just comments......................g I am sometimes a windy broad,
you can say that, eh?
maddie.

so that I can paragraph them and not
change them but clean them a tad and from there I can start trying to put
them together in a few books. I ain't shy about publishing. I just can't
find someone to SEND them to to publish them.

See if there's a local writers' group where you live .They will
probably be able to point you to a writers' almanack of US publishers
and agents (or, your local library might have it). Or, ask Paghat, she
must have a lot of contacts in that field.

Janet