550 KTRS Inside Out Show November 26th 2011 Plant of the Week Abies fraseri (Fraser fir) AND, Welcome Co-Host #3 Jennifer Schamber

I am so happy that Christmas trees have such a foundational place in the home in this season of celebration! I am also pleased that the past few weeks have been such a blessing for me. I have enjoyed this opportunity to welcome to the Inside Out Show some of the best green thumbs in the St. Louis region! Congrats and blog bow to new Mommy, Jennifer, manager of Greenscape Garden & Gifts!

Certainly for some families, tradition plays an important role as to how much focus the Christmas tree will have both in the house and as part of the holiday festivities.

For some holiday participants, there may be several trees and a whole house decorating bonanza with decorations and greenery in every room. For a few of us it is enough if we have a wreath on the door, or maybe a handcrafted table centerpiece or mantle decor. For a couple of my friends, it becomes an ever evolving, never the same, display that can only be described as an annual activity that is in its own right, an art form!

Here are some links to help you think about the advantages of purchasing a live tree, also some advice on caring for fresh cut greenery in the home and some interesting information about Fraser fir trees, the most popular cut tree choice!

Caring For Your Christmas Tree and Holiday Greenery (I am including a link detailing how to use wiltproof to help your greenery stay fresh looking longer!)

http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/plants/other/seasonal/hgic1753.html
http://www.helium.com/items/615314-choosing-and-caring-fo-holiday-greenery
http://www.humeseeds.com/xmastre.htm
http://www.christmastree.org/trees/fraser.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_fraseri
http://forestry.about.com/cs/christmastrees1/a/top10_xmastree.htm
http://missourichristmastrees.org


Where to buy locally grown Christmas trees: Members of Missouri’s Christmas Tree Growers Association and map of grower/ suppliers:

http://missourichristmastrees.org/graphics/MCTA2011MembershipRoster.pdf
http://www.christmastreemap.com/farm/MO.html
Why you should buy a real Christmas tree
How to buy and care for a Christmas tree



Here are the links to the new 550 Inside Out Show co-host’s, Steffie, Ellen and Jennifer, their garden center websites and some of their events and holiday information:

Steffie Littlefield

Garden Heights Nursery Open House
Bring Your Holidays to Life
with fresh ideas

Friday, December 2nd
5:00 – 8:00 pm
Wine and Cheese Evening

Saturday and Sunday
December 3rd & 4th
10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Visit Santa from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm

Jennifer Schamber

To Prep Your Pots For the Holidays check out GREAT IDEAS at Greenscape Gardens & Gifts

Ellen Barrado

To experience a warm and wonderful event to launch your holiday season visit Bowood Farms Bonfire & Open House: http://www.bowoodfarms.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/calendar.detail/event_id/152/index.htm:
Holiday Bonfire & Open House
Thursday, December 1
5-8 pm, FREE!

How to tell if your tree is a Fir or a Spruce

To tell spruce and fir trees apart, it helps to know that spruce needles are sharply pointed, square and easy to roll between your fingers. Fir needles, on the other hand, are softer, flat and cannot be rolled between your fingers. Spruce needles are attached to small, stalk-like woody projections. When needles are shed, these projections remain. As a result, the branches of spruce trees feel rough. Fir branches lack these projections, and thus have smooth bark. The color and length of needles are not reliable means of identification; these can vary from tree to tree, depending on cultural conditions and the planting site)

Faith Note:

Themed Christmas trees are so much fun. I have a friend who hangs ornaments that celebrate notable events and trips she has taken each year. Over the years, enjoying her tree with her reconnects her to the amazing journey she has been on and lets me enjoy it with her! It is a way she celebrates the faith life she has as well as her faith!

I have done an ornament exchange for 30 plus years with my best friend who lives out of state. We periodically discuss how much we think of each other when we look at our trees. It is my prayer that each and every ornament reminds her of how much we have in common, most importantly, our faith! I think at some point we have discussed how meaningful it would be to visit each other at Christmas so we can see the trees we have decorated from afar!

This year I was included with the tree trimming process with my friend Lisa and Julie at Oma’s Barn. I made a few new friends and got to share in an unbelievable transformation of the heavily used barn. It has been in the family for years and is a treasure chest of gift items, funiture, antiques and home decor all year long but at this time each year, it is totally transformed with the holiday spirit. Unreconizable to even frequent visitors, it has a new look, with each nook and cranny given a new purpose. It has been beautifully prepared to greet and warm the hearts of all shoppers and lookers.

Dressing it from ceiling to floor, was an absolute blitz of time and effort, but oh now it is bursting with treasures. It has more than I can begin to describe, it must be everyone's dream of new Christmas folly and old Christmas memories. They even included an upside down tree. Perhaps it is a visual for the way our days seem headed. Any way you look at the barn it is bursting with bliss!

Without a doubt each tree was so over the top that I was nearly overwhelmed looking at them. The completeness and the artistic gift God has blessed each of the girls is amazing. Even though I was there when the changes started, it didn't seem possible to do what was to come, I needed to see it to believe it!

The funny thing was, it was a blessing, because somewhere in the process, I was "re"-minded how much this blessed holiday should be a total celebration in my heart. If they can do it with ornaments and decorations, surely I can do it with song and prayer, kindly actions and thoughtful words. Like the old barn, I am praying to be so re-newed!

My prayer of hope this season is that God will find as many ways to use me as Lisa and the girls have found to use an old and well used barn!

Thankful For My Sisters

It is true but impossible to put into words the blessing it is to have sisters. I am more fortunate than some to feel so blessed because of so many people in my life, but it all began with sisters.

I have been blessed at the birth of each of my 4 sisters. They have taught me the most about being a friend. An with those lessons I hope I have shared the blessing with my friends, relatives and an amazing extended family.

So many of you have become an important part of my life. I have some special friends as close as next door and one as far as Denver. I am most thankful that Love has such an amazing reach!

We don't know the future and we can't change the past but Joanne use to try and explain the importance of living in the present and it being God's Present. I can barely grasp much less truly focus on the absolute truth of that important lesson but I will try this minute and say how blessed God has made me to have so very much-love to you! Ma (Re)

550 KTRS Inside Out Show November 19th 2011 Plant of the Week AND, and a belated welcome to Co-Host #2 Steffie Littlefield of Garden Heights Nursery

There may be a chill in the air today but it was warm and friendly yesterday on KTRS’s Inside Out Show’s earlier than normal broadcast from 11-12:30 Saturday. I am still smiling!

Like kids running in a field with outstretched arms, John and Steffie touched the tops of so many green topics that I am lagging and laughing still today! It was exhilarating!

I have heard if you listen closely you can actually hear corn “growing”, I started to wonder during this week’s show if we are growing corn in the studio, have added sound effects or if what I am hearing ( that sounds a little like crunching and whistling noises) is John going through his own “growing” spurt. If he keeps learning at this rate, his green thumb will outgrow the rest of him! I am so proud of him!

One thing is for sure, John Shea, of Collier, Thompson and Shea sounded like he has really enjoyed these recent weeks with his new co-host arrangement. I think he was impressed with Steffie’s quick and completely on target responses to the many garden calls. A worker bee himself, he seemed completely enthralled with Steffie’s energy.

Steffie is a green heart through and through, and shows it in her passion for nursery retail, landscape design, general gardening, vegetable and grape growing and heirloom plant preservation, garden writing and …so much more!

She is like her other two co-hosts; she is very involved professionally and personally with many horticulture projects, activities and endeavors. I am “blog bowing” officially now by adding all these great links (see links below) and apologizing already for whatever I have overlooked!

For me the pleasure is to be so “chat tuned” into the show. I was late calling, but we still had plenty to clamored about as we discussed the many attributes of Redtwig Dogwood as the Plant of The Week.

Cornus sericea better known as Redtwig dogwood has many homescape friendly attributes to appreciate. This shrubby dogwood’s deep red branches are stunning in the landscape in fall and winter. With a few well considered pruning cuts, He is happy to share some of his plentiful ruby colored stems as a festive accent in seasonal arrangements both inside and out!

He is totally a broad shouldered handsome and modestly low care shrub. Strong enough for rain gardens and erosion control, he can also hold onto slippery stream banks. This is a dogwood that thrive where there are periodic wet dry cycles, continuously soggy or even just routine clay soil issues.

My personal favorite attribute of this dogwood is his willingness to contribute to any habitat oriented / butterfly friendly landscape. It seems his real strength is to be able to wear rather lacey looking flowers without looking too delicate. It is pretty amazing that he can look so naturally at ease in such a nurturing role!

LINKS

John Shea, of Collier, Thompson and Shea

Garden Height’s Steffie Littlefield

Ellen Barredo, of Bowood Farms

Greenscape Gardens, Jennifer Schamber

This is the three person round robin rotation that will address the part of KTRS’s Inside Out Show’s focus on gardening, landscaping and turf care (basically the “Out” portion of the show.)

John Shea will continue with his team of experts and industry representatives from the home building industry and hardware retail suppliers as the anchor of the Inside Out Show and as professional advisor for the balance of home owner call in questions.

All three of the new Inside Out Show’s garden hosts/ experts are wonderful writers and have featured articles published on a frequent basis in the Gateway Gardener. KTRS’s website will surely be updated with this new hosting information shortly!

Faith Note:

Dare to Bare ( and bow)

As the leaves fall, the structure of my friend’s redtwig is laid bare and fully exposed, many of his strengths and weaknesses that have developed over time are obvious to me.

At this time I am grateful for this reminder that naturally this is an imperfect world. I am humbled by what I see in his branches. I can see the damage, blackened dead stubbed tips remaining from hesitant pruning cuts.

There are plenty of dead gray twigs, (a reminder that not all growth is meant to thrive) and some now obviouse without the cloak of leaves, a few random shoots have been rushing in the wrong direction!

With closer inspection, I can see some raw and irritated places where branches have crossed over each other, rubbing, chaffing, wounding each other, equally hurt, equally damaged. But then I see at my feet buried in the leafy rubble with bits and pieces of broken, fallen branches, and his scattered withered with age decaying leaves, a tiny fruit from a neighboring tree-a seed of hope. Oh how I pray I can keep this thought as I ask for God to bless me, each and every day: "Help me “re”-late!"