Weather inspires plans for spring and summer
We’ve had spring-like weather for most of a week – it’s raining today – and I’m itching to get out in the garden. The reality is that the snow and cold will come back in less than two days and outdoor work is not how I can get my gardening fix right now.
Instead I turn to books to help me plan to make next year’s garden even better. One of my go-to books for selecting plants is Tracy Disabato-Aust’s 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants.
Disabato-Aust’s first book, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques has been my bible for perennial gardening for the past 20 years. Now that we’ve remade the entry yard of our home completely into a flower garden I’ve found that her compendium of high impact plants suit an additional need – making the entry to our home a show stopper from May to October.
One of the reasons I like Disabato-Aust’s work so much and why it’s such a good guide for gardening is because she’s got the education and experience that shows in everything she writes. She has bachelors and masters degrees in horticulture and she’s worked as a landscape designer and horticultural consultant. That tells me she knows science and she’s experienced. Best of all, the plants she writes about are all things she’s tested.
As a result, reading this book has moved me to grow Siberian iris. Caesar’s Brother is the variety featured in the book and it is a showstopper. That was a big change for me as I grew up loving the German bearded iris in my mother’s garden. But as Disabato-Aust correctly points out the foliage of the German bearded iris declines too early in the season to use it in an entry garden. I still grow it but in places where it is less visible. Meanwhile the Caesar’s Brother in the entry garden flourishes and adds a great pop of deep purple color early in June.
We’ve decided to add some new plants to the entry garden this year, moving some others around and 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants will be my bible for these changes. On these spring-like January days I’ve already gone through and picked out a few spectacular blooms to try out this year including Tumbleweed Onion (minimal or no deadheading and minimal or no pruning caught my eye) and Raydon’s Favorite aromatic aster. That’s something to add to the spring mix of color and something for the fall mix. Now on to picking out something for summer…
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Creative and targeted programs that make an impact are the hallmark of experienced marketing professional Ruth Steele Walker. Focusing on results that improve the bottom line, she accelerates projects from conception to implementation with a mastery of writing, production, placement, budgeting and coordination.
During more than 25 years with Foremost Corporation of America, the nation's leading insurer of manufactured housing and recreational vehicles, Walker consistently produced effective communications programs that resulted in increased net written premium. Her expertise in crisis communications was a vital part of Foremost's exemplary customer service in the wake of hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. Walker specializes in communications targeting the 50+ demographic, with an emphasis in communications for the 65+ segment.
Among other achievements, Walker developed communications for the merger of Foremost and Farmers Insurance, addressing audiences including customers, employees, trade and consumer media. For Foremost's 50th anniversary, she created a celebration program of internal and external promotions, special events, recognition and a 162-page commemorative book.
Earlier in her career, Walker was a newspaper reporter, a TV and radio producer, and worked in national sales and traffic at network TV affiliates. Walker earned a BA in journalism from Michigan State University and an MS in communications from Grand Valley State University.
She and her husband Scott operate a small vineyard in Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula, producing premium vinifera wine grapes. The vineyard has been the largest local supplier for Suttons Bay wine label L. Mawby, recently named one of the world's top producers of sparkling wines.
