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PAS Garden Home: Focal Point

Throughout this episode of P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home we will talk about ways to capture attention with focal points both in the garden and in the house.
 
Plants:
Agave americana (Century Plant)
Vitex
Agapanthus

Construction Update
The colors used in the entry hall help tie the spacious area together.  The soft green paint (Nantucket Breeze) used on the wall is complemented by the brown sisal rugs and walnut handrail.  The focal point of the entry hall are a series of reproduction prints of the History of the Indian Tribes of American originally published by McKinney and Hall in the 1800s.

The Green Component
Graywater
Gray water is waste water from the shower, sink, laundry, and dishwasher, basically everywhere in the house except the toilet.  Gray water comprises between 50 and 80 percent of residential waste water. That's a lot of water. This water can be used for other purposes, such as landscape irrigation. If gray water is collected using a separate plumbing system, it can be recycled within the home, reused immediately or processed and stored. Recycled gray water is not clean enough to drink, but it does go through a series of stages of filtration and can provide water for your garden. Now what we use it for at the Garden Home at Moss Mountain is to water the orchard. Water that would otherwise have gone right into the septic tank is filtered and goes to producing into delicious, juicy apples. Now that's a green idea.

Friends in the Garden
Cliff Baker, Director of Wildwood Performing Arts Park, describes how the garden arts and performing arts come together at this unique venue in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Hands on Gardening
Planting Heritage Tomatoes and Raised Beds and Rotating Crops
Raised, framed beds are perfect for those who don't want to grow a large vegetable garden. For instance what I built three 8 foot x 8 foot beds.  Three beds make it easy to do crop rotation. In the first bed I’ll plant members of the tomato family, that would include peppers and eggplants. In the next bed I’ll plant members of the cabbage family, which would include Brussels sprouts and broccoli. And the third bed will be reserved for members of the melon family, which would include squashes and cucumbers, and so forth. And then next year I’ll rotate all these crops to a different bed so the pests, and pathogens common to each vegetable family don't build up in the soil and cause problems down the road.

In the fall I’ll sow spinach seeds, as well as plant more broccoli, and I’ll have veggies right up until cold weather. And then in the spring I’ll fill the beds with lettuce.

Allen’s Collections
Silver Centerpiece 
I have to watch myself when I create a centerpiece for a dinner party.  It’s easy to get carried away and a centerpiece that’s too big to see around is a definite conversation killer.  A special piece of silver from my collection helps me create arrangements that have height, but guests can still see across the table. It’s an early 19th century Irish silver epergne that I use throughout the year for special gatherings. An epergne looks something like a candleholder with a bowl on top.  Some have branched candleholders or vases instead of or in addition to the bowl.  The bowl at the top just invites bounty without overpowering the setting. In this episode of P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home it is seen filled with wild and domestic pears. Small votive candles encircling the base create a warm glow that dances off the silver. Surrounding the epergne are several clipped boxwoods, planted in silver, mint julep cups, creating the feel of a French parterre garden. It’s dramatic, but guests can easily see around it. It's perfect.

Pets in the Garden
Poultry expert Tracy Hill describes the poultry show where he is a judge and makes some suggestions for people just getting in to raising chickens.  

Young people new to poultry shows should begin with a solid color chicken, like a white Plymouth rock, black cochin, white leghorn, black type chicken. And then get into something a little tougher with multi-colors, etc.

Some breeds are gentler than others.  Good breed for children to raise are Black Old English, White Old English and Modern Game, which will come right to you.

Virtual Makeover
Kim in Missouri sent in a photo of her charming cedar shingle cottage.  

Garden Home How To
Fall Vegetable Garden
Cool, fall temperatures don’t have to mean the end of vegetable gardening.   Cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, collards and kale like the cooler weather.   Now not hard freezes, but they can take temperatures down into the low 30s. And if you use a frost blanket on them, you can bring them through, well, even colder temperatures than that.
Learn more about fall vegetable gardening.