Barbara M. Martin

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoy my recent crop of flower gardening articles. You may also enjoy my new blog, Reptitude, exploring creativity and and offering support to people who want to be more creative and for entrepreneurs who want to be more innovative at work. Besides being a writer, I am a member of the Creativity Coaching Association and have studied with some of the top creativity coaches in the US, including Eric Maisel; I also earned an MBA in an earlier life as well as a more recent certificate in public relations.

Follow me on Twitter! Or, shoot me an email at cottagegardenpro atyouknow yahoo.com

Brief Bio: Beyond being a trained creativity coach and innovation specialist, Barbara Martin has over a decade of published writing experience for a diverse range of clients. She holds an MBA degree (Thunderbird) along with a UCLA ext. Certificate in Public Relations. Member EPPS, Entertainment Publicists Professional Society. Her fine jewelry and gemological training includes Gemological Institute of America (GIA) coursework. Member, Garden Writers Association.

Brief Garden Bio: Barbara Martin is a genial garden communicator with decades of hands-on professional gardening and garden design experience garnered nationwide from the Mid-Atlantic states to the Midwest to California and now the Pacific Northwest. Her writing and photos appear on-line and in magazines. Member, Garden Writers Association.

For REPRINT INFORMATION, please contact me directly at cottagegardenpro at yahoo.com and be sure to put that address in your "good" contact list.

Long Form: Welcome to my many flower gardens! I have written frequently for a topic at suite101.com, Flower Gardens, now a significant online resource for flower gardeners -- from beginning neophytes to advanced enthusiasts growing everything from annuals and perennials and biennials to roses and bulbs, both in flower beds and borders as well as in containers.

I have gardened in seven different states across the USA, currently California -- oops moved again, make that Pacific Northwest.

I've was profiled as a by Gardener of Note by the nice folks at Osmocote, now moved on to their new site as a profile at PlantersPlace. Does that make me a celebrity?

You might run across my answers to gardening questions at the National Gardening Association Gardening Q&A -- it's a great horticultural resource for gardeners and is available through premium websites. I have worked on this project for many years. Our team of horticulturists has built the most extensive resource of its kind.

Through December 2005, you might have enjoyed my Mid-Atlantic Regional Garden Reports available at the National Gardening Association web site and others. This syndicated column ran every other week and appeared through numerous gardening and related sites across the internet. Sadly and understandably, I had to give this up due to moving to California. Archived columns are available and run back to 2001 when I originated the column. Archive of my Mid-Atlantic Regional Garden Reports for the National Gardening Association.

You might also have seen my column called Site Specific in the National Home Gardening Club's print magazine, Garden How-To. I had to give this up after moving to California, too.

I do still write the Power Plants (previously Over the Garden Wall) column for Penn Lines, a terrific little magazine read by 400,000 consumers of electrical coops in Pennsylvania. Penn Lines is available online as well as in print.

My work has appeared in all kinds of fun places. For example, I was invited to write a piece for the Kitchen Gardeners International Newsletter -- hence my riff on Earth Day, gardening, donut seeds, and whatever You can read it Kitchen Gardeners International April 2006 -- and enjoy the "choice" photos including one of my at-the-time, abbreviated California garden. (Grin.)

I am not completely new to suite101. For many years, I was contributing editor for suite101's Cottage Gardening topic. Catch my now retired Cottage Gardening articles here running from February of 1997 until 2003! There are hundreds of articles with reprints appearing in publications ranging from a gourd newsletter to an Australian bonsai journal. Please contact me at cottagegardenpro at yahoo.com for reprint information.

You might also enjoy my writing at Gardenguides.com.

You may see my name in the archives for or noticed internet (and print) references to the venerable email list, Gardens running on the UKY listserve. Barb Dorsett (from southern Indiana) and I were nominal co-owners, meaning we helped folks sign on and off and kept things civil, for many years. We passed the torch and moved on as of January 2003.

Although I recently moved to the Pacific Northwest from California, I have many strong memories of gardening in a four season climate. Before PNW and California, I lived and gardened in one place in rural Pennsylvania (zone 6) for over ten years. During that time I worked as a satellite designer for a huge garden center/nursery near Harrisburg and subsequently maintained a limited private practice. Basically, I made house calls for design and horticulture consultations, and created both master landscape plans and focused specialty designs for people. That's fun!

I also gave lectures and slide shows and taught gardening and design classes. In addition to numerous appearances for Garden Clubs, Master Gardener educational seminars and the like, most springs I taught a few classes at herb and perennial specialty nurseries in my area. In recent years I also taught for Harrisburg Area Community College, keynoted at the Penn State Gardeners School in Mifflenburg PA and lectured at the popular Lily Pons Festival near Frederick MD. You may have heard me at the big new Pennsylvania Garden Expo back in 2002. And of course, I attended many Philadelphia Flower Shows!

My favorite part of teaching and lecturing is trying to answer questions. It makes me think hard and I always learn something!

Much of my gardening knowledge is self-taught, but I have some formal training, too. I studied at the National Arboretum in Washington DC, the USDA Horticulture Certificate Program, and Brookside Gardens in Montgomery County, MD. I continue to attend as many classes and seminars as I can. In 1996, I took a course on how to teach garden design. Since that was in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area I had a great opportunity for some in depth study there. I always enjoy learning new things and seeing the familiar through new perspectives so I try to travel and visit gardens. My most recent grand garden tour was to gardens in Wales!

In spring of 2006 I enrolled in a college level horticulture class here in California. I am considering working towards professional certification in California. It was eye opening to be on the other side of the desk again -- and to be trying to learn so many new plants for a new climate! Yes, I aced the final and earned an A!

I have gardened all my adult life, first and foremost as a hobbyist and now as a professional. Over the years I have designed gardens for myself and others in six states (oops make that seven states now) and I have had the pleasure of working for both general and specialty nurseries as well as for an organically oriented small market garden. I have worn many different hats -- from chief weed puller to propagation expert to sales to designer.

Gardening has become a second career for me and in many ways it draws on disparate parts of my life experience. I have eaten thistle at the age-old port of Lamu on the east coast of Africa, sailed on the dhows in search of treasure and waded through mangrove swamps. But my favorite gardens are still in Williamsburg and at Alhambra in Spain where the spaces are controlled and the visitor's eye runs from and through darkness to light until dusk or winter twilight cuts across the countryside. But then, too, some of my fondest memories are of watching hummingbirds at Big Sur in California, and of bougainvillea and breadfruit on St. Vincent in the Caribbean and of strawberries and clotted cream in Somerset, England. Then again I liked the Joshua trees when I was a graduate student in Arizona and loved the birch woods in New England, too. Lately, I am falling in love with California natives, Mediterranean climate plants, and succulents of all kinds.

For over a decade I tended a rambunctious garden of my own, moored on the Pennsylvania landscape with a hint of Southern passalong plants and seed swapping thrown in. I guess I just love the plants wherever I find them, and I try my best to site them according to the philosophy of "right plant -- right place". Right now, I have a lovely container garden outside my back door. In Los Angeles, it's hard to find an unpaved spot of empty ground to garden!

As a teenager I found respite in the quiet of plants and rambles in parks. If you had asked me about the future then I never would have guessed horticulture and garden design would be ahead. In fact, I vaguely remember childhood trips to Longwood Gardens because there were huge fish (koi?) in pools. I don't remember a single plant. There is a lesson there in the sense that a garden can be whatever the current steward desires, limited only by the imagination.

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