November / December 1996

The last Brandywine (a tomato, not a spirited beverage) is but a memory, which means that winter is settling in around us. For growing outdoor plants, that is bad news. For gardeners, it should mean moving from one type of activity into another.

Consider our feature on bringing more species of wildlife to your yard on page 12. These months can be great times to plan where to place a butterfly garden and what plants would make sense for your landscape. On the more immediate front, Jeff Rugg's sidebar on getting birds through the winter can be added to any weekend list of things to do.

Anyone who has tangled with some of the more obnoxious four-footed members of the wildlife fraternity may sneer at the notion of bringing more critters into the home landscape. Consider a conversation from this summer with a veteran of the wars with truly wild life:

"I used to shoot 'em until I found out you could get fined for doing it," began her sermon on groundhogs. Her vegetable garden is protected by fencing trenched a foot into the ground and wired with a battery-powered electric wire around the top. She wishes she could see one climb the fence, get zapped and fall stunned to the ground. "We've trapped them and taken them to a forest preserve. Now we gas 'em in their burrows," she says. Such a demise leaves the rodent underground and discourages the next wave from using that set of tunnels-at least for a few months.

Look inside her beautiful gazebo/toolshed and you'll notice some ominous hardware cloth covering the openings. "Raccoons have tried every way they can to get into that area," she continues. Then there's the stroll along the perennials, which is more of a what-deer-eat recitation than it is a description of the flowers. She was not alone in describing the brazenness of the deer population-many gardeners with whom we visited related the same sad tale or demonstrated their latest attempt at discouraging the Bambi crowd. (Just thought we ought to point out the other side of the wildlife situation.)

On a more positive note, an introduction at the spring Best of the Midwest Market at the Galleria Marchetti leads us to the festive holiday food article by chef Michael Foley on page 20. We're expanding the Edible Garden section to give you more ideas on how to enjoy a vegetable garden, whether it's your own or one you bring home from your local grocer.

One of the great challenges of this issue was the Gift Guide. We know there is a lot of garden-related merchandise in the market but when we went out seeking the best gifts, we didn't expect to see the variety we found. Beth Capettini has done a fine job keeping it all straight-and we hope you find just the right gift starting on page 24. And don't forget that a subscription to the magazine will remind the recipient of your generosity six times over the next year.

Speaking of challenges, judging our Gardening in Small Spaces Contest was quite an experience. More than 70 entries were received. An all-star panel sorted through those and boiled it down to 28 gardens that Carolyn Ulrich or I visited. Since she had seen some and I visited others, we had to arrive at a consensus of whose was the best small space. Tune in for the January/February 1997 issue to see if you know any of the winners.