Ben Raskin on Woodchips, Illicium

Plant of the Week:

Illicium parviflorum “Florida Sunshine”

An evergreen shrub native to Florida, Illicium can grow where I live in 7A and maybe a little farther north too. I do recommend giving it a try in a container— it’s compact and slow growing in its youth.

That color! Really great in deep shade, which the plant can handle. It’s also deer and rabbit resistant because of the anise scent in the foliage

Such GLORY of lime green in the middle of all the brown, And the pink stems are pretty cool, right?

Tiny specimens, right? But cute and they sort of light up the top of this woodland stairway.

Bring a little Florida sunshine to your garden with this plant. Even before you truly feel like traveling south, it will give you a bit of southern glow.

Painting and Plant Pairing

from

Karen Blair

You heard me mention my friend Karen Blair on the pod this week. Karen is a Charlottesville based painter whose work I know you would love. She is known for her joyous use of color. Her own garden and those of friends inspire the flowers and trees that are prevalent in her paintings.

I am so excited to have this partnership with Karen, and each week I feature here one of her paintings with a corresponding garden photo! Follow this link to see more of her paintings.

And follow her on Instagram here.

Ginny thinks the cairn she built is delicious.

Ben Raskin, Author of

The Woodchip Handbook

Mulch is essential to good gardening, and I shudder to think of how many bags (single use plastic— no good!) of the conventional double shredded hardwood bark stuff I have bought, and how many time trucks have made a special trip to deliver me yards and yards of the stuff.

What if you could get mulch for free from your arborist? What a system— the arborist comes to work on your trees, and you write him a check for his labors, sure, but he leaves YOU a tip in the form of free mulch.

I am not promising I will never indulge in the chocolatey look of beautiful shredded mulch, but using wood chips in addition to the fancy dark brown stuff on the edges of beds would save a lot of money and add great things back into the soil.

Ben Raskin said that composted wood chips are a very good medium for seed starting and potting soil. I intend to give that a try. Build up some fungi in your soil while you're gardening. It sure is a lot lighter in weight than manure!

You can buy Ben’s The Woodchip Handbook on my Amazon store front here.

Article on Woodchip for Fertile Soils from Soil Association here.

Innovative Farmers on Woodchips here.