Frankly Speaking: Gardening in the Heartland

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In keeping with the theme of this week's section on Real Estate, we note the crowds in the nurseries, garden centers, and at roadside plant vendors now that spring has finally sprung. |ret||ret||tab|

Most are homeowners set on prettying up their properties with a little or a lot of plant color and foliage. |ret||ret||tab|

For a few of them, the horticultural dressing is designed less for their own pleasure than to add beauty to a home they want to sell. It's amazing what a few flowers can do for the feel of a place, and, as a canny California Realtor once told me, nothing so inexpensive adds as much eye-appeal and value to a property as does a little landscaping.|ret||ret||tab|

For those intent on planting either for their own pleasure or for the marketplace, this column is about one Rachel Snyder. |ret||ret||tab|

Ive written about Rachel once before. That was in "Country Heart," a now-defunct gem of a magazine that many still recall for its uniquely warm and colorful features on homemaking and life in general in the Ozarks. |ret||ret||tab|

We have to revisit Rachel this spring, and probably will every spring, because she did something priceless for every person who gardens or landscapes in the Ozarks. She created a wonderful book called "Gardening in the Heartland."|ret||ret||tab|

Of the 700-plus garden books currently in print, nearly all are based on gardening on the east and west coasts. The reason is simple: that's where the major publishers and most garden writers live. As a rule, those books are useful to midwestern gardeners as very general guidelines, but they just don't deal with the hard-scrabble facts of real gardening in the midwestern clime.|ret||ret||tab|

Rachel Snyder, however, is a different story. For 31 years the editor of "Flower and Garden" magazine in Kansas City, Rachel wrote "Gardening in the Heartland" from decades of her own gardening experience and the actual gardening experiences of countless friends and readers over those three decades. |ret||ret||tab|

The "Heartland" of Rachel's title is Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, and she brings the special characteristics of the region into sharp focus:|ret||ret||tab|

She writes, "We are far from climate-tempering influences no oceans or great lakes are nearby, no mountain ranges to divert the winds, not even any great forests to help cool our summers and warm our winters. Wild extremes of temperature are commonly experienced within a short time."|ret||ret||tab|

Now we're talking. This is it, the very groundwork gardeners in this part of the country need for success. It is, after all, the commonly held notion that our weather should follow predictable patterns that leads to so many gardening mistakes. Rachel cuts through the confusion and clearly defines our wildly changeable climate and how to work with it. |ret||ret||tab|

"Heartland" is packed with info that can be taken straight to the garden, chapter by chapter. The chapter "Soil Matters" covers midwest soil formation, texture, and conditioning, and lists the pH ranges of 62 plants. "A Realistic and Satisfying Design" is an excellent guide to landscape planning. "The Lawn Question" gives the culture, drought tolerance, and seeding rates of many grasses. "Your Garden of Vegetables and Herbs" provides the culture and planting sequences for 34 vegetables. "Fruit Gardens in the Heartland" lists the sequence of ripening of the very best apple, cherry, peach, apricot, plum, pear, grape and berry varieties for our climate. Chapters on flowers, trees, shrubs, and vines are excellent, and "Dealing with Adversities" tells how to cope with drought, summer storms, excessive heat and cold, ice, snow, and more.|ret||ret||tab|

Then there are the plant lists. And these are not just plant lists, but lists of plants proven to do well in midwest gardens and landscapes. They include 84 perennials, 60 annuals, 57 deciduous shrubs, 29 groundcovers, 26 broadleaf evergreen trees and shrubs, 24 needle evergreens, 29 woody vines, and 16 flowering trees. Many smaller, specialized lists are included, too. This information includes height, spread, bloom, season, culture, and special notes. |ret||ret||tab|

"Heartland's" greatest feature may be Rachel herself. She writes truly and with a pure midwestern voice: clear and succinct. Her writing, in fact, has won many awards from the American Seed Trade Association, the American Association of Nurserymen, and the American Horticultural Society. She's also been elected to the Garden Writers Association Hall of Fame.|ret||ret||tab|

My advice to every midwestern gardener from novice to wily veteran is to get a copy of "Gardening in the Heartland." It's a book to be used and treasured for a lifetime. Published by the University Press of Kansas in 1992, it's still in print and, if not in stock at your favorite bookseller's, can easily be ordered.|ret||ret||tab|

One last note: Rachel Snyder is as direct in life as in print. I was so taken by her book that we phoned her to thank her for it. I also asked what she's doing now that she's retired from "Flower and Garden." She said, "Right now I'm going out to rake the leaves."|ret||ret||tab|

Happy gardening.|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|(Frank Shipe is the Inside Business editor.)[[In-content Ad]]