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Some morning this week when we wake up and look out the window we will see an entirely different landscape. Essentially, we will see a nearly blank slate punctuated only by the large trees it takes a lifetime to grow.

After decades, nearly seven for me, we are packing our belongings, deserting the shores of the west branch of the Octoraro Creek and making a trek west. We are not going far. Twenty years ago it would have been a nice afternoon hike. Today it is a short drive.

The house has all the facilities an aging couple needs on one floor and my wife was attracted to the good sized kitchen and dining area. My wife has a large family and we live nearest to where they all remember as home.

The oversized wooded lot quickly sold me on the new house.On the west side is a sizeable dense woodlot. The east side boasts the same thing but maybe only 40 or 50 feet wide. The expanse of grass is in anything from full shade to near full sun.

At this point, and possibly in the future, it will not win any more awards than the long abandoned cow pasture I started to mow as a yard at my previous residence.  Oaks dominate the yard area. Spending their youth and part of their adult life as part of a dense woods, the survivors provide a good canopy with few lower limbs. According to the experts, oaks attract more spring insects than any other species. My bird friends know that, too.I also spied several good sized walnut trees in one corner of the yard. Walnut trees are a favorite of summer insects. Fall migrating birds know that, too. In fact, walnut trees are so insect prone that they are the first trees to drop their leaves in the late summer and early fall. Less leaves makes the birds easier to see. I know that.

There is also some Virginia Creeper climbing several trees along the woods edge. They are prolific berry producers and a favorite of late fall and early winter birds. The downside is that I will be pulling seedlings of Virginia Creeper until they drag or carry me off the place.That’s my preliminary inventory of where I start with some of my next projects.

Primarily what is lacking is the understory and the groundcover. We have visited several gardens looking for ideas, as if that is necessary.  My wife is excited because she heard me say at several stops that the plantings were too thick and crammed together.

It’s fun to say something to your wife that she would never expect. She will be in disbelief when she discovers that I really mean it.The wooded part of the lot provides enough thick and crammed together for wildlife cover. What we need is some understory and ground beds to accent our yard trees.

The first project will be defining a large bed and planting a dozen or so trees and shrubs that will eventually range from seven to 20 feet tall. After that we will see. I think my near blank slate will provide many projects and a well of ideas to write about in the future.

My enthusiasm for a southern shrub that has crept into our landscapes in the last two decades is rising rapidly.Crape myrtles have moved from my try it list to a recommended mainstay if you are looking for a long lasting summer blooming shrub.

I planted my first crape myrtle maybe 30 years ago on a southern slope. It most likely was a southern cultivar being sold by a northern nursery. Each winter it died back to the ground, but returned with new shoots each spring and yielded beautiful pink blooms by midsummer. It never got more than two or three feet tall.

Becoming knowledgeable of the breeding work being done, I tried some of the more hardy varieties.Starting about 15 years ago, I have planted more than 20 plants. None have been added in the last five years. The largest of the full sized varieties are now over 10 feet tall and wide. The dwarfs now would not fit into a bushel basket.

With the exception of two I sited incorrectly and removed, all the full sized plants are thriving. I lost several of the smallest dwarfs in the first few years.

Culturally, they like light but aren’t fond of wind. With our mild winter and the sunny dry spell of June and early July, they are putting on a show the likes of which I have never seen.  Plainly stated, they bloom on new wood based on light accumulation.

I am fascinated by a group of dwarfs planted along both sides of steps going down to my patio. The steps are on the east side of my house, thus falling into shade in the waning hours of the afternoon. One side is maybe 10 feet from the house and the other is fifteen.  For the first time ever, the ones closest to the house are heavily budded but are at least four days behind the ones on the other side. The other side is at least a week behind a nearby plant that never falls into the shade of the house.

My advice is still the same. If you wish to plant crape myrtles this fall, now is the time. Give them plenty of time to get acclimated. Otherwise, wait for spring. Let the ground freeze and then mulch lightly. Pay attention to light and wind.  

In a normal or colder winter you may experience some tip damage. Be patient as they are very slow to leaf out in the spring. I would wait until late May to remove any winter damaged twigs. By then my guess is that you will a have very little to remove. You get flowers on new wood so it is difficult to mess up unless you insist on snipping in June and July.

I’m sure the dwarfs are not quite as tough as the full sized ones, but they have improved. With the full sized ones I would stick to multi-stemmed bushes rather than trying to duplicate the single stemmed small trees you find in the south. The temptation is there, though. It has been written and sung that for everything there is a season. This year crape myrtles have delivered everything a season could offer.

Its like the Academy awards of the plant world. Ok, so maybe not quite, but it is still a big deal.

The Perennial Plant Association- a group comprised of horticulturalist, educators, breeders and general plant enthusiasts get together every year and select a plant of the year. This groups also holds conferences, awards scholarships to horticulture students, and publishes some great written materials.

Beginning in 1990 each year an outstanding plant was chosen that surpasses the competition in adaptability, disease and pest resistance, multiple seasons of interest, and all around garden-worthiness.

If you are new to gardening, this list of 22 plants is a great place to start. (Available at http://www.perennialplant.org/education/past-winners).

Last year's winner- Amsonia hubrichtii, Arkansas blue star, is one of my all-time favorite plants. Topped with small blue star-shaped flowers in the spring, the delicate green ferny foliage grows to 3 feet, then turns a flaming yellow in the fall. It is absolutely spectacular planted beneath dogwoods to contrast with their red fall color. It grows well in sun or part shade, in moderate to dry soils.

This year's selection, Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost', is a beautiful variegated cultivar of the Siberian bugloss. Again, small blue flowers in the spring, are its biggest appeal, but the variegated foliage holds up well the rest of the season. This plant is a great addition to the woodland garden growing well in part sun to shade.

Earlier winners have included such garden staples as purple coneflower, lenten rose, tickseed coreopsis, Japanese painted ferns, 'Rozanne' geranium, 'May Night' salvia, and 'Palace Purple' coral bells.

Not to be excluded, the American Hosta Growers Association started naming 'Hosta Of The Year' in 1996 to promote superior hosta cultivars that are in good supply and are offered for a reasonable price from the hundreds and hundreds of commercially available varieties. This year's winner 'Liberty' is a creamy variegated midsized variety. Past winners include my favorite 'Praying Hands' a vase-shaped narrow leaved variety,blue and yellow 'June' and the tiny 'Blue Mouse Ears'. Other winners can be found at http://www.hostagrowers.org/Hosta_of_the_Year.html

Various other groups offer tree or shrub of the year, vegetable of the year, even Bulb of the Year (if you're curious its Crocus 'Spring Beauty'). Like the Academy Awards, some choices are a little suspect. I have yet to see "The Artist" and will probably never plant purple peas. But hopefully these awards cut through the noise of hundreds of choices, and a give you a few good standbys when selecting plants for your home.

Week four of July found us just north of the halfway point from the equator to the North Pole in the great north woods of New Hampshire. That’s closer to Canada than to a supermarket.

Our search was for cooler temperatures and some new scenery but our excuse was bird watching. The area is mostly wooded with an abundance of lakes and mountains.

The forest is dominated by a skinny spruce in addition to maples, light barked birch and a few aspen. The short limbed spruce easily sheds the heavy winter snow without breakage. The forest floor is a spongy collection of moss, tree roots and stones.

Wild blueberries, Joe-pye -weed, and fire weed were plentiful. Many of the lakes were dotted with yellow and white water lilies, a few cattails and large swaths of purple flowered pickerel weed.

Typical garden and container plants were exceptionally beautiful. I guess, here, our plants do pay a price for our higher temperatures and humidity.

Bird watching is hardly on the popularity radar up there. Now it’s ATV’s, boats and fishing followed by hunting , skiing and snowmobiles as the temperatures cool. If you are just looking, moose are the target.

Road signs everywhere warn that you don’t want to hit a moose with your car. Yet I learned the moose often hang out along the roads. The salt used to clear the roads of ice and snow drains to low spots along the sides of the road and become salt licks.

We saw our requisite moose along a road. We also saw several road side salt lick areas where the soil had been churned enough to make any dirt barnyard full of cows proud.

By the end of July bird watching is in a lull. Most young are out of the nest. The hormones and the singing wanes and the young usually don’t dress exactly like their parents.

We didn’t go with great expectations. Maybe what we didn’t see was more surprising than what we did. Being used to the crowds of waterfowl at the Octoraro Reservoir during migration I was shocked by how few we saw in their nesting area.

Our cabin overlooked a large lake that would have swallowed the Octoraro several times. At the check -in desk we were proudly told that there were three nesting pairs of loons on that lake. Not exactly what I had envisioned. Their nightly serenade, however, was a highlight of the trip.

Our target was to find one of several northern birds whose southern range ends just south of the Canadian border that we had never seen before. The other was to see 50 different species of birds in New Hampshire.

We got it all - cooler temperatures, interesting scenery and our bird goals. By the time you read this we will be back in town.

Everyone has a hobby they enjoy spending time doing. Whether it is bird watching, hunting, sports reading, or gardening. Usually these are activities that someone spent time showing you how to do. Either a family member or a friend expressed their love and friendship to you by saying -Let me spend time with you sharing something I love to do.

My father often tells of the hours he spent helping his elderly grandmother in her immense flower garden helping her divide perennials, cut bouquets, and harvest fresh vegetables. I know he enjoys birdwatching now more that mom has a set of binoculars too. I learned to sew painstakingly with my grandmother who enjoyed needlework. Now whenever I have time to do a few stitches, I am reminded of my time with her.

Where am I going with this? In the last week I visited with two customers at the greenhouse that were purchasing sizeable quantities of shrubs and perennials.  I enquired if there were adding to existing beds or creating new ones.  In both instances the plants were for their childrens homes.  Both were newly married couples who did not know anything about gardening, and their unlandscaped yards apparently bothered their mothers enough to drop several hundred dollars of their own money to fix.

Now having just benefitted greatly from my fathers now nearly-retired state in some landscaping improvemets in my own yard, I do not have a lot of room to criticize.  But in my humble opinion a better appoach would have been to bring the daughter or daughter-in-law (!) and spend some time seeing what colors they liked, what was in bloom, or what plants had the most butterflies around them.  It would have been a great way to share their obvious love of gardening with their grown children.

People seem busier today- and gardening is something that forces you to slow down.  Hulling peas or pulling weeds are not quick tasks.  Waiting for young transplant to grow is anything but instant gratification.  It is good for your psyche to slow down a bit.  At least it is for my Type A personality.  

My kids love watering.  Granted sharing gardening tasks with young children often takes longer.  Dragging the hose around when a lot of the water splashes on the mulch and tiny bare feet takes twice as long.  Sometimes the petunias get pulled up with the poke weed.  But the Monarch caterpillar is much more exciting to my 3-year-old than it is to my jaded eyes.  Taking a break to watch a parade of earwigs exiting the rotting stump with my 6-year-ild is something I will not see sitting in front of facebook.