Once the Mark O’Connor String Camp, which one of the kids enjoys each summer, moved its northeast session from New York City to Boston, it didn’t make sense to endure an urban inferno if we had to drive several hours. East Tennessee State University’s Mark O’Connor camp now seemed like the more habitable choice. After the ETSU dropoff, my husband and I pursued our own itinerary.

We stayed at the Carnegie Hotel at first, in Johnson City, TN. I recommend this place. We were very comfortable there. It’s right across from the university. They have a spa. I didn’t get around to trying it out, silly me, but you should. By the way, if you like to shop for groceries at Whole Foods Market, there isn’t one here. But they have Earth Fare, which is almost a clone. Shop here.

Our next stop was near Great Smoky Mountain National Park. I recommend this place too. I mostly recommend bug repellent and a rain jacket. We stayed north of the tourist madness that is Pigeon Forge, but near the main road leading to the park. On approaching the mountains, the skies opened up, so DH and I went first to the gift shop (because he had forgotten to pack his rain gear) and bought a nice jacket. By the time the purchase was made there was no more rain that day, of course. We did a short loop of 5.5 miles, halfway through which I decided I my “smartwool” socks were a stupid choice for such a humid hike.

DINNER AND A SHOW Enjoyable (except for my socks) as the hike was, the weather display we watched later from our restaurant seats was memorable too. We were at Uncle Buck’s Grill, in the Kodak-Sevierville area when the sky got dark fast. Once we noticed that some staff and patrons were looking outside with fascination and terror, and that the background hum of conversation had been muted, my situational awareness told me we were in a bad place to weather a tornado. Windows surrounded us, and a huge saltwater aquarium backed the entire length of the bar. There was a wall cloud, and branches of the small trees outside were being blown about fiercely. Power went out briefly and the emergency back up generators went on, while I scanned the exits and hoped the place had a basement.

Full-scale panic never occurred because ultimately that wall cloud did not give birth to a funnel cloud, and the storm soon moseyed off to scare another neighborhood. After a meal of blackened catfish washed down with a big margarita, we had relaxed. Dessert was a nice browse in the adjoining Bass Pro Shop, a bigger hunting and camping store than I’d ever seen before. Among its offerings is an assortment of hot sauces. (Anyone ever dare the one called “Nuclear Hell”? Still have any taste buds left?)

We drove to Kentucky the next day, on a quest for my husband’s ancestors. He got kind assistance from the ladies in the lower level of the Somerset Public Library, and left with new information, but more questions. That night we stayed at the Doubletree Inn, in Lexington. This is also a pleasant place to stay, with a restaurant onsite, as well as a Panera Bread shop mere yards away. On the news we heard that a tornado had touched down in Louisville, our next planned stop. Before leaving Lexington the next day, we toured the gardens at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. If we return there next summer (a possibility), we will also visit Ashland to see the garden, as recommended by the hotel desk clerk. She also recommended the cemetery for its landscaping.

YEAH — HAD LUNCH AT SUBWAY HERE, TOO It was sunny when we reached Louisville, where we heard that Lexington had just been issued a tornado watch (how’s that for timing?). Our first destination was the Filson Historical Society, which has a library of family records for perusal and copying with payment of a modest fee. While DH did the perusing, I toured all the rooms open to the public, with the help of a self-guided tour booklet that details the furnishings and many paintings on display, along with information about the original homeowners. It’s a lovely place and you should go. Afterward, we drove east on Bardstown Road in search of an historical plaque mentioned by one of the librarians. She did not promise that it still existed, and indeed, we didn’t find it.

One can get hungry perusing, you know, so dinner was next. From a number of appealing restaurants on a list, we walked from our hotel to the Mayan Cafe on Market Street — a delicious meal, which I accompanied with a drink that included fruit and prosecco. Along Market Street are other restaurants as well as shops and galleries we would have certainly explored if we’d had more time in Louisville. Another bit of Louisville that features intriguing shops, clubs and restaurants is Bardstown Road. It’s a bit bohemian in appearance. If you are in Louisville with a few spare hours, you should seek this area out. Then, please tell me what you find.

From Louisville, we headed back to Johnson City, Tennessee. The final night of the string camp featured a concert of all the instructors as well as Mark O’Connor himself. It was, as you might expect, outstanding fun, a delight for the ears. Once our teen had been retrieved from the dorms, we headed west again to visit family as far away as St. Louis, Missouri. Every day it rained a little while. Every day there was a tornado watch somewhere along the route. We dodged these by sheer luck, not planning.

WHAT THE HAIL? Around daybreak the final day of our trip, I awakened to the sound of hail hitting the hotel room window ledge. We all know what hail can mean, right? Worried that our tornado-dodging luck had run out, my first act was to hide my head under my pillow. Then I dared a look outside as the storm wound down, and saw not only NO tornado, but clearing sky! In fact, the ride home was through some of the best weather of the whole trip. Figures.

Along our hiking trail

Hometown farmer's market

Back home. It’s fair season. Trading funnel clouds for funnel cakes.

But I’m too soft-hearted. It’s a native plant. It is home, cafeteria and perch to too many of my neighbors.

If I think back to my childhood, I recall skating on an area of frozen swamp that was part of my grandparents’ property. Dodging trees and the bits of tall grass that stuck out of the ice was part of the fun, but no one tried to play hockey there. This was also back before I knew what lawyers are. There won’t be a rink constructed around our old tree. All it would take is for a neighbor’s kid to take a check from the trunk of the dogwood and there would go my landscaping budget for years to come.

Occasionally, I picture how it could be as I look through my kitchen window, but our feathered guests wouldn’t understand hockey anyhow. And the tree stays.

The bleachers?

Baptisia, one of my favorite perennials

Don’t hate me, but I don’t have a deer problem. I live in the middle of town, with fences on three sides of the property. This means that only slugs feast on my hostas, otherwise known as deer candy. I leave the slugs alone, especially now that I’ve read that they are a choice nosh for the many fireflies who live in my backyard. Let them make a few little holes in the leaves, so their short lives are not devoid of pleasure.

Various mammals cross my garden path — rabbits, chipmunks, voles, opossums, groundhogs and, more rarely, a skunk or two. Since there are bird feeders, there are two other logical visitors: the neighbors’ cats, and squirrels. The latter, furry tailed rats that they are, have apparently bribed a grackle or two: I’ve seen those birds use their beaks to shovel showers of seeds into the air while they search for their own favorites in the mix. On the ground beneath, enjoying the bounty, the squirrels seem unfazed by the hot pepper coating intended to make the seeds unappealing to them. Perhaps their taste buds have now short-circuited and they no longer notice the burn.

Their willingness to eat stuff that shouldn’t taste good makes me suspect that a squirrel is the culprit who ate one of my tomato plants, admittedly the runt of the litter, down to a stick. Otherwise, who eats tomato leaves? In fact, I thought they were poisonous, although I’ve read that some fools smoke them for a cheap high. (I don’t think I want to cross paths with a hallucinating squirrel.) Hopefully, a memorable stomachache will prevent the same thing from happening to more of my crop. Rather than take chances, I’ll defend my plants with chicken wire and garden hose at the ready.

Speaking of slugs, this year I used shredded newspaper in the strawberry bed, into which I wound up placing the tomatoes that were left after I ran out of big pots. My strategy is simple: the slugs would be so distracted reading the local news (in slug-size bits) that they’d forget where they were headed and leave the plants alone. So far so good, because I know that plastic snake lurking nearby would not make any impression on them.

Hope the squirrels don’t eat the snake.

Above is a bloom I would not try to pluck, basking in the admiration of visitors to Grounds for Sculpture last weekend.

As I was thinking of what I’d have to offer the bees from month to month, I started wondering whether I could also do an alphabetical list of some things that bloom hereabouts, not that I have an excess of free time to throw away on such an exercise, but it seems much more appealing than chores right now. You know the feeling. Let’s see now, Aster, Baptisia, Corydalis, D…hmm. Dianthus? No, that disappeared under a flood tide of vinca vine a couple years ago. Ah! Dandelion — I think they’ll continue to hold their own no matter what tries to overtake them. E? Elderberry, almost forgot. Foxglove (I may be cheating here because I can’t tell if these are first year or second year. They may just produce leaves this year.) I’ll go with Forget-me-not then, which kept up blooming for at least a month and still haven’t completely faded.

Back to my list: Geranium, Hosta, Iris, Joe Pye Weed, Kerria, Lobelia, Monarda (you’ll see I’m mixing a Latin and common names, or if that bothers you, how about Mayapple or Milkweed?), N? I don’t have enough sunny space left for nasturtium, but Nigella seems to like it here. For O I have Oenothera, but Q? Next is P for Plumbago, then Rose, Salvia, Tiarella, then U. U? What should I have that starts with U? Well, at least V is no problem, since I have Veronica, Viburnum and Virginia Sweetspire to choose from. Argh, can’t believe I’m stumped by W. No, I don’t have Wisteria, or even Wishbone Flower. Maybe it’s time to go shopping. The only X that comes to mind is the X in the names of hybrid plants. The Yarrow died. Good old Zinnia finishes off this list.

I could start up a second round with azalea, begonia, crocus, etc., but I think I’ll go out now and hunt for the missing U and W (hope I didn’t mistake them for weeds and dig them out). Anyway, it’s too nice a day to sit inside making lists. If anyone has a good idea for Q, U or W, I’d like to know.

In fact, time is our friend in this theoretical tactic. According to some forward-thinking astronomers, there may be a way to go back in time without being turned into a frappé by the event horizon of a black hole. The lecturer I listened to showed a nifty diagram of a curved universe (actually multiple adjacent universes) with a route — via wormhole, of course — between the two event horizons of a spinning black hole. If you don’t pass through the event horizon, the thinking goes, you might somehow find a way to wind up at the other end of a wormhole that opens in the past or future.

You are wondering where I stepped off the tomato track. I didn’t. Here is what I figure: if you catch the right wormholes, you can plant your tomato seeds in July, when you KNOW it will be warm. A few weeks of growth later, before fall’s chill, you and your pots of tomato plants hop the wormhole back to mid-May. This gives you good size plants which get a double summer to grow! You bypass all the fickleness that is April. Ta-da! Prize winning tomatoes for the state fair. BLTs all around.

Back here on present day earth, the first three ripe strawberries got harvested. It’s time to put those tulle covers on the blueberries. And almost time to put the tomato babies outside.

The photo below is variegated Solomon’s Seal. The only care it needs is watering in the driest part of summer.

One of my shade garden favorites

A garden thug with pretty flowers

DRAWING INCLUSIONS When I moved to my present address, I made lots of sketches detailing my plans for the garden. Then I (almost) totally disregarded them. Mother Nature is the final editor of my outdoor work anyway, and what looks fine on paper doesn’t always work in my yard. Nature wanted to keep adding more interesting things where I had lawn. Took a few growing seasons to get the hint, and now there is much less grass for my kids not to get around to mowing. This suits me fine. I still remember hosting an outdoor party the day after a rainstorm, and the toll it took on the lawn. The weeds, on the other hand — clover, moss, ground ivy and dandelions — popped right up after the last pair of feet made their exit.

COOL SHADE In the works now: a woodland planting (no matter how much I’d like to deny how shady a setting I live in, it’s impossible), with stone paths to get around. Latest: a clethra,  (here’s a little info): http://www.hort.uconn.edu/plants/c/clealn/clealn1.html, sitting between two elderly dogwood trees, and surrounded by tiarella. A plant swap I attended last year provided a good-size chunk of variegated Solomon’s Seal and some corydalis nearby. A happy discovery a couple weeks ago was that the trillium I’d bought last year at Whole Foods Market has survived and sprouted. A look around tells you my philosophy of shade: when in doubt, plunk down a hosta. Empress Wu sits imperially apart, in anticipation of her expanding girth, but a number of others mingle almost everywhere.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK I’m telling you now so you don’t make the same mistake. If you think that naturalizing crocuses in a front yard bed is a good idea, think again. It was fine when what followed was just grass, but planting evergreen ground cover to conceal the flopping, post-bloom leaves just made the leaves grow taller, so they poke through the sweetbox and juniper, and make the vinca almost invisible until May. The crocuses were not my idea, just a gardening time bomb awaiting an opportunity to engulf all my new stuff. Delightful in late February, dastardly in April.

WHAT ALSO DOESN’T WORK In case you don’t know, avoid planting Jerusalem artichokes unless you have a yard the size of Texas. Last year, I put in six, having no idea how tall they would get (usually I read up beforehand on new stuff, but obviously didn’t do my homework in this case). All summer they stood guard in front of one of my favorite rosebushes, but appeased me with their pretty yellow blooms. These sit at the top of an 8-foot stalk, so view them from the second floor or from your roof, if you live in a ranch house. They last pretty nicely in a vase, after you get up on a ladder to clip them. In fall I harvested what tubers I could find, but spent the winter with a nagging doubt that I’d gotten them all. Sure enough, this week I found about 20 (!) sprouts marching toward the blueberry bushes, and quickly dug out the area. Even with my warning in her ears, a friend wants to take all the tubers from me and plant them in her garden. I hope she’ll still be my friend next year when she finds out I was serious about their aggressive tendencies. Even now, I am certain I’ll have to dig up more escapees. Now, if the voles would only eat those things instead of chewing at the roots of my one remaining birch tree!

Now stop reading and go garden.

Kids, stop fighting. At a feeder which can and has accommodated several birds per side, I watched two chickadees chasing one another away. They expended more energy doing this than they gained in the small amount of time each spent feeding. Bird brains. I think that while they are the only ones at the feeder, they momentarily lose all perspective of their relative size to almost anything else. Then a flock of grackles surrounds them, and the chickadees’ illusions of might evaporate, sort of like ours would if space aliens arrived here in town.

Speaking of space aliens…I am extracting all kinds of promises from my teenage sons about how helpful they are going to be with this spring’s garden overhaul. Down will come the play fort, which has been an animal fort for a few years now. Once an animal decided to relieve itself on the upper deck, the fort became a permanent no man’s land as far as the kids were concerned. You can tell what outdoorsy types we’re raising here. Up will go a shed after we lay a bed of gravel for it. A tuteur needs to be sanded and painted, and paths laid out. Watch closely now, because I will demonstrate the amazing trick of the disappearing boys.

Sorry, no pics this time until I figure out why they won’t upload without crashing the browsers I use.

Anticipation In a few weeks, I’ll celebrate spring by attending the home gardener workshop at Rutgers. I can hardly wait. One workshop is on “Canning Fruits and Vegetables”. I’ve read about the process of preserving produce this way, but now I’ll have a chance to ask a live person, “I can do this without poisoning my family, right?” I mean, lots of people can vegetables at home and live to tell the tale. So this summer, I’ll be scouring the farmstands for a good deal on the yummiest fruits. My mother-in-law’s pickled cherry tomato recipe is another tempting possibility.

It was hard to choose from the many workshop offerings, but I think “Do’s and Don’ts of Purchasing Plant Materials” is a good choice for me, especially considering all the nursery plants I’ve killed over the years. Then I’ll head over to “Native Trees and Shrubs of NJ”, to give our area’s pollinators their best chance of getting a good meal from my garden. Finally, I’ll learn about “Renovating and Rejuvenating Established Landscapes”, because my yard is sorely in need of a makeover. There may still be time to sign up for this one-day event. Check http://www.cpe.rutgers.edu/brochures/intros/homegardeners.html for more information.

Testing 1-2-3 I have long thought that my enclosed front porch would function as a big cold frame, so this week, I’m getting together some containers with the lettuce seed I saved from last year and I’ll find out whether I’m right. Now if only I knew which salad greens the seeds came from! Then the waiting game begins, because the other vegetable seeds are zucchini and tomatoes, and from what I learned last year, I’m not doing them any favors by starting those seeds before late March.

What part of SQUIRREL PROOF do you not understand? There is one squirrel in my neighborhood who clearly does not learn from experience. His (her?) daily visits to the feeder yield less nourishment than the creature spends in getting it. A seed or two scored after a gymnastic exercise in which he can keep from leaning his whole weight on the perch for only a second or two, and after which he often plunges into the snow underneath, seems to be reward enough to keep him coming back. Pickings must be extremely lean this time of year in order for the bother to be worthwhile. I almost feel sorry for him, until I remember what squirrels did to the attic of our garage.

I haven’t yet hit him with the snowballs I’ve flung to discourage his return, but my appearance on the deck with a handful of snow sends him scurrying into the dogwood tree for a while. With the squirrel out of the way, the finches, chickadees, cardinals, juncos, woodpeckers and sparrows return, giving something enjoyable to watch through my new binoculars (Christmas gift from DH).

What are you watching in your garden?