LITMIR.BIZ

      Purple Row

      4- to 6-feet plants

      ‘Hopi Blue’ corn

      ‘Purple Striped-leaf’ ornamental corn

      ‘Sicilian Purple’ artichoke

      2- to 3-foot plants

      Purple zinnia

      Deep blue statice

      ‘Royalty Purple Pod’ bush snap beans

      ‘Rosa Bianco’ eggplant

      ‘Dusky’ eggplant

      1- to 2-foot plants

      ‘Victoria’ blue salvia

      ‘Opal’ purple basil

      Plants under one foot

      ‘Buddy’ dwarf purple gomphrena

      ‘Crystal Palace’ blue lobelia

      ‘Blue Mink’ ageratum

      The Rainbow Oz Garden

      Many, many years ago I removed the front lawn and planted a vegetable garden in my sunny front yard. I had become weary of trying to grow sun-loving plants in a shady area. As a landscape designer I knew I could make my garden lovely enough for a formal suburban neighborhood; judging from everyone’s reaction I succeeded. A fallout from front yard gardening I had not anticipated was that neighborhood children would come to visit and want to be involved. After a few years we were having lots of fun together and I found myself moving away from formal vegetable gardens and leaning more toward what “my kids” wanted. One year, that meant lots of flowers for drying; another summer we planted huge pumpkins. From one year to another I found myself growing more of their favorite rainbow-colored vegetables. Eventually I decided that while I had already grown a rainbow garden at Hidden Villa, it had been a summer garden. This time I would fill my rainbow garden with cool-season vegetables and grow them during the winter. Thanks to “my kids,” my garden style really loosened up. I thought, “Why not plan the garden with a Wizard of Oz theme and design it around a yellow brick road?” Well, that idea met with enthusiastic hoorays. All the kids on the street from ages three to ninety deemed it a spectacular idea.

      I designed a graceful, curving path through my front garden; my crew installed a brick path and painted it a bright, bright yellow. Getting in the spirit of the project my daughter-in-law Julie Creasy and assistant Gudi Riter started sewing costumes. Dorothy and the Scarecrow were stuffed with straw and dressed delightfully. My friend and the artist who drew the line drawings in this book, Marcy Hawthorne, painted Dorothy’s face. Barbara Burkhart assembled the Tin Man from five-gallon nursery containers, hand trowels, a hose nozzle, and a plastic watering can; she sprayed him with chrome paint.

      By the time the brick path was complete it was really too late to put in a cool-season garden. Instead, for a summer garden we planted the Oz garden with corn and lots of zinnias. It sure was a lot of fun but by early September we were ready for the main event— ”The Rainbow Oz Garden”. Out came the corn and zinnias and in went the cool-season vegetables. I designed color-matched beds on both sides of the yellow brick road and placed the shortest plants next to the road and the tallest the furthest away. Unlike the plot at Hidden Villa, no plants were very tall so planting them at the garden’s northern end was not an issue. I chose edible flowers of clear, bright, solid colors to fill in the beds; they also gave the garden and my salads a festive look.

      Both the summer and winter Oz gardens became a neighborhood institution—a part of Sunday family strolls More than once I saw some of the kids skip down the path on their way to school. Delivery people said it was the favorite address on their route; joggers and walkers told me they found them selves drawn to the street. The most fun, though, was picking baskets of those colorful vegetables and flowers and laying them out in their glory for all of us to admire.

      The scarecrow sits between the yellow and orange rows of the Creasy Oz rainbow vegetable garden. His harvest includes the many colors of ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss chard, ‘Burpee’s Golden’ beets, ‘Detroit Dark Red’ beets, ‘Stockton’ red onions, garlic, ‘Easter Egg’ radishes, and ‘Danver’s Half Long’ carrots. Behind him a broccoli plant flowers, attracting beneficial insects to keep the pests under control.

      Red Rows

      2- to 3-foot plants

      ‘Ruby’ chard ‘Detroit Dark Red’ beets

      ‘Stockton Red’ onions

      ‘General Eisenhower’ red tulips

      Plants under one foot

      ‘Juliet’ red lettuce

      ‘Telstar Crimson’ dianthus

      ‘Red Empress’ nasturtiums

      Orange Rows

      2- to 3-foot plants

      ‘Bright Lights’ orange chard

      ‘Danvers Half Long’ orange carrots

      ‘Royal Chantenay’ orange carrots

      ‘Orange Sun’ orange tulips

      ‘Pacific Beauty’ orange calendulas

      Plants under one foot

      ‘Orange Crystal Bowl’ violas

      Yellow Rows

      2- to 3-foot plants

      ‘Bright Lights’ yellow chard

      ‘Burpee’s Golden’ beets

      ‘Pacific Giant’ yellow calendulas

      ‘Garant’ yellow tulips

      ‘Yellow Sweet Spanish’ onions

      Plants under one foot

      Golden sage

      Golden lemon thyme

      ‘Yellow Crystal Bowl’ violas

      Green Rows

      2- to 3-foot plants

      ‘Premium Crop’ broccoli

      ‘De Cicco’ broccoli

      ‘Romy’ fennel

      Plants under one foot

      ‘Nevada’ crisp-head lettuce

      ‘Nordic II’ spinach

      ‘Tres Fine Maraichere’ endive

      ‘Triple Curled’ parsley

      Purple/Blue Rows

      2- to 3-foot plants

      ‘Osaka Purple’ Japanese mustard

      ‘All

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