David Buchanan and I met at the Conway School of Landscape Design (CSLD) reunion in September where he gave a six minute talk about what he had been doing since he graduated in 2000. He talked as fast as he could, and I listened as fast as I could, but I was glad I could slow the journey when I received a copy of his new book Taste, Memory: Forgotten Foods, Lost Flavors, and Why They Matter.…
While attending a wonderful art show featuring my friend Trina Sternstein’s paintings at the Forbes Library I couldn’t help using the library services as well. I was searching in the garden section for a book on trees, but I came away with Anna Pavord’s big book, Bulbs. When I got home I found that the mailbox was full of bulb catalogs, from John Scheepers, Van Engelen, and Old House Gardens. That made for a very dangerous night,…
We’ve had frost and feel the outdoor growing season closing. Tovah Martin, author of The Unexpected Houseplant: 220 Extraordinary Choices for Every Spot in Your Home reminds us that we can now concentrate on the indoor growing season. I confess that I have never been much of a houseplant person. In the past I have grown spider plants, asparagus fern and grape ivy in pots hanging by holders I macramé-ed myself, supermarket cyclamen, avocado pit seedlings and occasional…
We continue to move into the 21st Century. The Kindle edition of The Roses at the End of the Road is now available at Amazon.com. I even have a new description. "By the time Pat and Henry Leuchtman unloaded the third U-Haul truck at their new old farmhouse at the end of a dirt road, Henry declared that this was it. He was never moving again. He had reached the end of his road. These lively essays chronicle the…
Yesterday I finished making a cake, to serve as ONE of the wedding cakes, for the wedding of our good friends Lyra and Ed. This is an All Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake with Mousseline buttercream frosting from my favorite cake cookbook, the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. When I bought this cookbook I was particularly taken by the love story Rose tells in her Introduction and I can never resist repeating it when I am serving a…
My friend Kathryn O. Galbraith was recently presented with a Growing Good Kids 2012 award from the American Horticultural Society for Excellence in Children's Literature. This book, beautifully illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin depicts the myriad of ways that we all, people, birds, and animals as well as the wind and the rain plant the beautiful and fruitful gardens that grow along the roadsides, riversides and meadows. I wrote about Kathryn and her book when it first came…
Our creative community got to display its imagination and skill at the 95th Annual Heath Fair from August 17-19. The Hall exhibits range from flowers, flower arrangements, vegetables and fruits on a plate or in jars, cookies, bread, maple confections, eggs, ciders, honey, quilts, knitted or crocheted hats, sweater and scarves, lego constructions, photography, art of every sort - and all categories are organized by age. Ribbons and money can be won by everyone! I spent a lot…
Carl Linnaeus, botantist and father of modern plant taxonomy scandalized his world with his talk about a plant's sexual parts, but his taxonomic system finally won out over others in use at the time. In her book, The Brother Gardeners, Andrea Wulf lays out the difficulties botanists had with identifying and naming plants that would be useful to scientists around the world. "priests bollocks" and "mare's fart" did not work everywhere. The important Miller'sGardener's Dictionary listed ALL the names various given…
Renovating and planting the lawn bed continues. I had to wait until after the Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale before I made my final 'design' decisions. This is the end of the Lawn Bed, all cleaned out of a nearly dead potentilla and lots of weeds. I also removed two clumps of ornamental grass that had been grown in pots last summer and just stuck in this bed in the fall. "Just sticking" a plant somewhere is always…
The trouble with the Handmade Garden Projects book by Lorene Edwards Forkner is difficulty in choosing where to begin. Steel trellises or other things made with metal scraps? Clever hose guides? Or creative containers? Then the Bridge of Flowers committee thought it might be a good idea to make hypertufa containers to plant and sell at our Annual Plant Sale on May 19. The decision was made. If you decide you want to have your own copy of…