Westward Homan: Holding Our Breath

We have been holding our breath. And for three very good reasons. (1) The house in St. Louis finally sold, with lots of early interest and a contract after just two weeks on the market. But we found that this 100-year-old Victorian had many details and minor issues that prospective buyers wanted fixed -- so many that we were a bit overwhelmed. The digging up and lining of a small part of the ancient cast-iron sewer pipe under the basement floor was just one, and that fix came down to closing. Oy! My advice to anyone right now is to buy what's basically a good house -- one that you love (while interest rates still are within reason) -- take the help of a good Realtor (we got one), fix it up and never, ever, ever sell it! Or if you do, grit your teeth, suck in your gut, get an equally good Realtor (we had that, again) and prepare for a bit of a battle. Oh, and give up writing any blog posts for a month or four as the staging, selling and moving process wears on.

Bye-bye old house (our now-sold brick Victorian had a bit of a New Orleans look).

(2) Second on the breath-holding list is a long-distance monitoring of my Mom, as she went in and out of rehab after two stints in the hospital with what may have been a "health-care acquired pneumonia." This diagnosis is according to a hospitalist (the new term for a doctor who's only job is to visit patients trapped in hospital beds, and not very frequently, I might add). Mom's happy to be back in rehab and my brother is taking great care of her, as is a favorite nurse named Christopher and other family and friends. She's 86 and growing stronger daily.

Hello Montana -- specifically a friend's hammock near Skalkaho Creek (more about her garden later).

Meanwhile, (3) I got a call-back last week after an annual health-care screening the week before. It was a scary prospect, resolved finally with a two additional screenings plus an ultrasound and a wonderful radiologist. Even my new internist there in Missoula has a nurse who's called twice to follow up. I was worried about the health-care system here, having come from a massive one churned out by top medical schools in St. Louis. I worry no more, knock wood. But what a way to spend a week!

Now, thank goodness, I am back to normal life. I've re-planted my vegetable garden with new rows of spinach, arugula, kale and pink radish, after harvesting all of the lettuce and carrots that were taking over the little patch. Tomatoes called Celebrity, Oregon Spring, Sun Gold and Early Girl are ripening fast. Basil's taking over the herb bed and is getting harvested for pesto. Beets are ready to pull, boil and chill for salads (maybe even for borscht?). It's beginning to feel like fall!! Pretty soon, I'll be hauling the St. Louis-purchased Meyer lemon tree (with its 30+ lemons this year! none last year?) and our decades-old New Orleans bougainvillea into the mud room so that they can make it through another Montana winter -- by the glow of a weak sun enhanced with one very big grow light.

But while the weather's still good, I'm finishing up another gardening job.

I scout home gardens in Western Montana for a national magazine called Garden Gate. I did so in St. Louis once I was retired. Typically, this publication hires a local expert to find and take snap shots of good gardens. And next summer, it will send out to the mountains a friendly duo of editor and photographer. They'll professionally shoot as many places as I find. Their focus is flowering annuals and perennials. I'm spending many a morning these days knee-deep in aromatic phlox blossoms and mop-headed hydrangeas plus rugged native plants. And I'm admiring the heck out of bright, mostly re-seeding flowering annuals.

A volunteer checks on the garden at Bozeman's Museum of the Rockies' Living History Farm.

In Bozeman, I've fallen in love with the bounty of red and orange California poppies, blue Love-in-a-Mist, yellow coreopsis and the white-on-green leaves of Snow-on-the-Mountain (the native Euphorbia marginata) at the recreation of an early Montana home garden. In fact, this version of Euphorbia was first collected in Rosebud County, Montana, near the Yellowstone River by William Clark during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Already I have it in my Hamilton, Mt., garden. But guess where mine came from? St. Louis! Talk about "taking coals to Newcastle." At one last St. Louis dinner with my horticulture buddy Dianne O'Connell, she pulled out a little gift bag with the then-green-leafed euphorbia from her lush St. Louis County yard. The little perennial made it all the way "home" to Montana. It's been planted here for months and is now showing the white margins on leaves that give it its common name.

Snow-on-the-Mountain among poppies at the Bozeman farm/garden.

Among other home-gardening trends that I've seen here? Flower-packed islands in lawns...


The yard around Susie Moreland's home-based design business includes island beds packed with lilies and phlox.

Shade gardens, also flourishing under Hamilton's many mature trees...

This is the shady side of Susie Moreland's house.

Another island in the stream of turf:

This bit of riotous color is at Sandie Fleischmann's home. She's also the designer of Susie Moreland's space.

Even a little side street in Hamilton turns up more than one intensely planted garden:

Zinnias, sunflowers and a green house ready for more seed-starting fills a tiny side yard in Hamilton.

But the massive Hamilton garden of Kielian DeWitt (owner of the hammock at the top of this post) is one that I saw last spring. Its potential was bursting at the seams. It is among my top picks for Garden Gate. Kielian's garden also is featured in Fine Gardening magazine on a regular basis.