I’M ON THE back porch drinking in the Kwanzan cherry blossoms, which have just passed their peak. The tree is still dense with flowers, but the petals are starting to fall, like pink snow, along the garden path. There are masses of overblown tulips as well, mainly pale yellow. I don’t know how that happened. I would never deliberately plant yellow flowers. But they are pretty. Like shot glasses of lemonade. I drink them in too.
This moment in spring is a love-hate thing. So brief is the splendid mass of color—the tree an umbrella over the entire garden and up to the second-story roof line, the tulips tucked into the greenery that covers the twin garden beds. In a few days it will be gone and all that will be left is shade. Though the ferns and hydrangeas are promising a big show, they don’t have the jelly-bean sweetness of the early flowers.
That was then. Now she’s 40. / Family photo.
Baby turned 40 yesterday, which also makes me happy and sad. I’ve loved every minute of her, from the moment after her (excruciating) emergence, when they popped her in the bin beside my bed and she stared at me with her big blue eyes. Hello, baby! Hello, Mama. She was that calm.
In the middle of the night, when all of the other infants were brought to their mothers for feeding, I was alone. Waddling to the nursery window in a bit of a panic, I said, Where is my baby?
The nurse said, Shhh, she’s sleeping.
I say and say, if I could have one of her every year—pain be damned—there wasn’t a one that was less than a joy. She’s beautiful, smart, talented in so many ways, and most of all: loyal and kind. I don’t know where she got the kind part. Oh, she’s still a sleeper, too.
She’s also a flower child. I’m not going to call her a gardener, because her gardening, like mine, is a lot of waving the arms around and having someone else do the planting. My Prince, usually, even though she has a fine prince of her own. Daddy will always help.
Ask her what she wants for her birthday and she says, plants. Luckily, her garden in Virginia is large and features both sun and shade, so she can have whatever she fancies. Peonies, begonias, lilies, hosta, roses, jasmine, hibiscus, dogwood, cherry trees. I do envy that. She picks flowers for me.
Speaking of My Prince. He has just bought me some astilbes. I used to buy a few each year, pink and purple plumes, like exotic feathers, perking up the shady spots in the early spring garden. When the plumes turned brown (too soon! too soon!), I’d take out the spray paint and color them up, which took them through fall. Try it. I swear you’ll forget that it’s paint, and no one will notice anything but happy flowers.
Unlike Baby, when you have a little patch of garden and no space to waste, you make do, and spray paint can be a blessing. A plug here for Design Master’s Colortool Spray, which will not harm plants—and is great for fading and dead flowers (like hydrangea) that retain their shapes and can stay on plants for months, and grasses that turn brown in fall but don’t need to be lopped to the ground until early spring.
Beyond the price, the number of bedrooms—the basics, you know.
It’s often something that makes you catch your breath. Romances you.
Some years ago I wrote a story about this. One man told me he saw the backyard of a house and the beautiful trees that lined a path to the back alley. He envisioned a Japanese garden, a path of white marble chips wending its way through. Unfortunately, and after the fact, he found out that the trees were black walnut. The marble path looked like a chewing-tobacco spitting contest.
A woman moving from city to suburbs saw the deer wandering through the backyard and had visions of them roaming through the flower garden she was determined to plant, nuzzling the daisies perhaps. Ha! on her.
There were several magical things that outweighed the practical when we bought this house in Washington DC’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. In 1983, it was a babe of 70 years, and beyond its original layout and woodwork, it had its original wiring and boiler—which the home inspector said was on its last legs.
But there were double back porches, chestnut woodwork, and a set of French doors in the basement, which had once been an apartment, that set off the space like a curio cabinet, promising Narnia, I suppose, but which turned out to be just leaning against the ceiling beam. There were also gardens front and rear. Or, at any rate, dirt that I could turn into gardens.
And there was the American elm tree in front of the house, planted when the house was built. It was, and is, one of two rows of elms that line this block. Some of the oldest and largest in the city, I’m told. Ours is now about 100 feet tall, with limbs that tangle with those of the tree across the road. It’s a grand sight throughout the year: bewitchingly bare in winter, then wonderfully shady from mid-April (it’s just now leafing out) through frost.
I read up on it. American elms, it seems, were once a common sight in the US. Not only do they grow fast—30, 40 feet in 30 years—but they have a dense canopy that filters the air. Then Dutch Elm disease, a lethal fungus spread by bark beetles, struck. First identified in the 1930s, when North America had about 77 million elms, by 1989, the disease had killed 75% of them.
Oy. So now along with the boiler exploding, the house going down (or is it up?) in flames from a frayed wire, I’m thinking we have to worry about the tree? That tree makes the house special.
The only thing to be thankful for is that if and when it dies the city will be responsible for removing its corpse and supplying a new tree—perhaps another American Elm, one of the strains that have been developed to be disease-resistant.
In the meantime, it carries on—as does the hundred-year-old boiler, by the way. We were told by our appliance guy that as long as someone is alive who knows how to repair it, there’s no reason to ever replace it.
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If you’re in DC and curious about your street trees, there’s a terrific map put out by the city detailing the placement, variety, and size of every one of the 165,000 elms and oaks and cherries that beautify the city, including 9,000 trees on the Mall alone. Quite the effort. Bravo.
Hibiscus syriacus “Aphrodite” from FastGrowingTrees.com. On the front: a closeup of “Aphrodite.”
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
SEVERAL DECADES ago, Baby and The Prince bought me a Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) for Mother’s Day.* I gritted my teeth, smiled, and thanked them. Though it was jolly enough with its white flowers and a splotch of red at the center, it brought to mind old ladies, aprons, fuzzy scuffs, and kitchen wallpaper with tea kettles and cats.
We planted it alongside the back porch.
Eventually, I began to like it. I can be slow, so it took some years for me to notice that the flowers were related to and resemble the tropical hibiscus, which should have been apparent given my plant’s Latin name. I’m a tropical sort of person, so of course it should suit me. What was I thinking?
It didn’t take long for it to become a tree, topping the porch fence, a good 15 feet above the ground. It’s now visible from the second floor, a froth of red and white that sets a jaunty mood for outdoor dining.
If it weren’t for these plants, I’d have virtually no color in the back garden.
As it grew, the tree threw off seedlings that somehow populated turf many yards away. We yanked some and planted others: one in another backyard border, several in the alley behind the garage, a few in the front beds alongside the sidewalk. Baby snagged some for her garden. Most of the seedlings came up purple, a mutation that just happens.
All grew tall and branched out, flowering in full sun or part shade, with virtually no water besides the rain from early summer through fall and virtually disease free. Perfect plants for the lazy and the sun-challenged.
We viewed the plants as free filler.
A “Starblast Chiffon” Rose of Sharon from Hirt’s Gardens’ website.
Unfortunately, and this must be said, since if I don’t some plant person will give me a lecture: Most varieties of Hibiscus syriacus are considered invasive, a particular nuisance in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia. The plants can escape whatever confines you’ve confined them to, and crowd out more desirable plants while they’re at it. This led to the Rose of Sharon being named as the Weed of the Week by the USDA Forest Service in July 2005. Not sure which week—sorry, July was the best I could do.
BUT! There are several varieties that have been cultivated not to mount invasions. The National Arboretum introduced several varieties that are considered sterile: Diana (white), Aphrodite (pink), Minerva (pale lavender), and Helena (white with a red eye). And there’s Sugar Tip, another pink that produces no seed.
Then there’s Pink Chiffon and Starburst Chiffon, which sound like dueling RuPaul contestants or Eddie Murphy characters. But the first is a divine light pink and the second is white with red and pink centers—both are big and fluffy and as ruffled as a Galliano ball gown. They’re also said to have a longer season, leafing out and flowering in early spring and lasting well into the fall.
No matter the variety, the branches of the Rose of Sharon are laden with flowers throughout the season, attracting bees and butterflies. Come those sweaty dog days of August, only the crape myrtle can compete with such color and bounty.
*As Mother’s Day approaches, one (that would be me) hopes someone is reading this.
Snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii), left, and blue Muscari (grape hyacinth), right, both from the Burpee website.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
HOW I CAN fail to see the obvious for . . . decades, I just don’t know.
It’s like my abhorrence of vegetable soup, which continued into my 30s. All those strange bits floating about: little white things, little orange bits, green murk. Anything could be hiding in there, my toddler brain was still saying.
And then I discovered the bits were barley, carrots, peas . . . vegetables. Oh.
This is how I felt wandering out to lunch today, a half-mile trek to Eastern Market to meet Maggie and split a BLT at Prego—they make it a bit too big for one person—and pick up a roast chicken at the Market so I don’t have to bother to cook tonight.
What I was noticing on the walk over was the abundance of “minor bulbs” in the mostly tiny gardens that front the row houses, here on Washington DC’s Capitol Hill. Bulbs that grow just 5 inches or so: snow drops and crocus and grape hyacinth (which you need to lie down on the ground to sniff, but it’s worth it) and candy tuft and star flowers scattered, as if tossed, ever so casually in the little plots.
These are not planted in a mass along a border or in patches, which would leave clumps of browning greens as they finish their blooming. Scattering them lets the spent flowers hide under summer plants as they leaf out.
How smart, I thought.
Oddly, with spring having come in a rush, with the Yoshino cherry trees peaking weeks before they were due, the tulips and hyacinth and even some roses already out, the daffodils have not done well at all. I think they lasted a week. Now they’re just bunches of foliage, not even attractive foliage, that one is to leave alone, allow to flop and shrivel and blacken and die while their bulbs feed like alien horrors underground, sucking up nutrients so they can emerge again next spring and once again either last a week or not.
For several years I tried ridding the yard of them, yanking what I could, throttling the rest with twine, cutting the leaves down hard. Nothing stopped them. In a small garden, they really are more of a nuisance than a pleasure. You can buy a bunch for a buck just about anywhere and pop them in a vase.
If you want them in the garden, get those little water tubes from (I promised not to say Amazon) from, I don’t know, a florist maybe—they sometimes put rose stems in them—or a craft shop like Michaels. You can take the daffs you bought and just stick them wherever—in the soil, in a window box—and yank them when they die. Clean, easy, dust off your hands. Done.
(Tip: When you have a bare patch or patches, you can do this with any flowers anytime).
These minor bulbs will just hide themselves when they’re done flowering, leaving inoffensive tufts of green that will easily hide in the groundcover, or under the hydrangea branches. And in the meantime, you have this floral carpet. In my case, they would be interspersed with vinca and its charming small purple flowers, adding texture and color.
THIS WEEK, I set out to wax ecstatic over spring. To rave about the cherry blossoms and tulips that have burst so early in Washington DC’s summerish warmth—and with the sudden dip in temperature promise to hold on for weeks. Like putting the city in a florist’s fridge.
But then I grew distracted by a question:
Why do people fall into toilet bowls?
Then answered it myself:
Because they expect the seat to be down.
This is probably mostly a woman problem. I need to do a survey. But men tend to thoughtlessly leave the seat up, preparatory for their next event.
Women, and I include myself in this, being female, pronoun me or she, expect things to be put and left in logical spots.
Take for instance eyeglasses. Specifically, for example, The Prince’s, which can be found in many interesting places, none of which is logical. The sofa, for instance, on the cushion I tend to sit on to watch the news and whatnot every night. Why put your glasses on the sofa? I’ll ask. Why don’t you look before sitting, he’ll respond. Snippily, I might add.
No, I don’t look, because who puts their glasses (very expensive, he reminds me) on the sofa where they blend into the pattern (monkeys climbing palm trees) and disappear, more or less. We have a coffee table, which is in front of his chair, so why the sofa?
The eyeglasses can also be found on the bathroom floor, in front of the aforementioned toilet (though he has been trained to lower the seat. Good boy!). But instead of placing them in a logical place, i.e. hanging off the magazine rack or on top of the radiator (which is cunningly disguised with a box-like cap topped with a lacy schmata to resemble a dressing table) where they can easily be reached, there they lie, on the floor.
He is also prone to misplacing his keys, wallet, and phone (a flip phone, by the way. Geezer!). Which can variously be found in the washing machine (no big deal for keys, messy for the wallet, disastrous for the phone), in the car, on the dining table, in the kitchen, in the bathroom (again), and—in the case of the keys—in the front door, the back door, or the garden gate. Sometimes the car ignition* or the trunk. Or his truck’s ignition or door lock.
But we are not here to discuss Princely habits. Let us tie these two themes together and discuss urine and the garden.
I offer this story.
Franklin might have been a friend: He’s a writer and photographer, interested in old houses, like me. But he announced at a dinner party where we’d just met that he only pees outdoors, and I said to myself, Not in my garden you don’t, and immediately crossed him off the dinner guest list, which means off the friend list as well.
Urine is said to be good for plants (they’ve got some program in Paris, also in Vermont and West Africa), but not undiluted. See, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, happen to be key components in the finest fertilizers and key components in human urine. I have written about this before: fascinating stuff.
The solution, as I see it, to the toilet-falling-into is to train boys to pee sitting down, a road Baby is not taking with her 4-year-old. Good! Good! she coos as he streams into the toilet. He usually gets a prize for this. Pah.
Train him to sit, like civilized people, i.e. those with the she/her/me pronouns.
Men, I say: Either sit down or go in a bucket. All you need to create a fabulous fertilizer is to dilute it. The ideal mix is said to be about one part urine to eight parts water. Then pour it on the peonies and leave the toilet seat alone.
There’s a win-win solution for you. Enjoy the cherry blossoms.
*We don’t lock the 1989 Mustang; we live in hope that it will be stolen.
The Philadelphia Flower Show featured a few spectacular window boxes. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
THERE WERE many happy faces at this year’s Philadelphia Flower Show. Was I the only grinch? Let’s get to the good stuff first.
Creative re-use was a major theme. A shipping container nestled in a riot of greens and tulips was converted into a delightful dining room. A TV armoire from an earlier era, when sets were deep and bulky, was transformed into a colorful garden shed topped with a green roof and painted butterflies and hummingbirds flitting about. A couple of rubbish-filled vacant lots were transformed into wildflower rambles. And a do-try-this-at-home archway made from mismatched picture frames painted gold and ebony provided support for climbing vines.
A plant-filled terrarium at the Philadelphia Flower Show. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Several gorgeous table settings bloomed with stunning flower arrangements—including a few with flowers forming umbrellas over the china and crystal.
There have always been competitions at the show, for things like orchids, azaleas, miniatures. But other than a few spectacular flower boxes and one breathtaking urn, piled sky-high with blossoms and trailing greenery, there were too few fantasy competitions.
Where were the high-wire acts of yesteryear (a/k/a pre-Covid)? Gardens where roses jostled tulips, and pansies might rub shoulders with mums. Gardens with flowers that have no business blooming together, impossible for the amateur to replicate, there for the dazzle.
This garden shed at the Philadelphia Flower Show was once a TV armoire, from the era when TVs were bulky things. Note the green roof. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
One from a decade or so still haunts me. It could have been Savannah—Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil comes to memory—the scene after a party on the terrace of one of those wonderfully decadent homes with a frilly wrought-iron balcony strung with moss, overlooking up-ended wine glasses, tipsy tablecloths, the surroundings flamboyant with vines and flowers.
This year the emphasis seemed to be on entries from garden clubs and schools and included some strangely funny categories. “Plants Grown in Artificial Light in an Office,” for example, included an award to a rather small tradescantia, the most stupidly easy plant on the planet to grow.
Well, not everyone got a prize at the Philadelphia Flower Show. At least Baby, LittleBird Stephanie’s daughter, Monica, hopes not. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
There were far too many plants growing in teacups, which seems to be a thing, and too many plants that looked as if they came directly from a grocery or garden center. I have several at home that coulda been contenders. Oh! The ribbons I missed out on.
Almost everyone that entered got a prize, as if this were nursery school. No hurt feelings! My favorite was “Plant(s) Grown on a Stuffed Form.” Note the parenthesis around that “s”: There was only one entrant, a foam block stuck with a few green sprigs. It won third prize. Third prize is quite a feat when there’s only one entry.
Here’s looking at a bunch of mirrors transformed into a garden arbor. Creative re-use was a major theme at the Philadelphia Flower Show. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
I spoke to several people at the show; reactions were mixed. Two friends who’d traveled from Allentown, Pennsylvania, that morning said they loved it, though they felt there were more vendors than flower displays this year. Another woman, from Virginia, looking at a flower arrangement said, I can walk into Trader Joe’s and re-create this for 40 bucks. The lighting is also very weird.
I’ll second that. Several areas looked as if they had no direct lighting at all.
Kathy Jentz, editor and publisher of Washington Gardener Magazine, co-author of The Urban Garden, who was a guest speaker at the event, and a far kinder gardener than I am, messaged: It is very hard to be everything for everybody I commend PHS [Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, creators of the show] and all its volunteers for all the hard work they do. She was particularly pleased with the roster of speakers and the revival of the educational component. Not including or referring to myself, of course!
I think a lot of people go with weird expectations and they also don’t read the signage, so they don’t get a lot of the conceptual flower art, she added. And there I was, wishing for more.Kathy’s podcast review can be heard here.
We haven’t cut back on any production elements for the Show post-Covid, said Grace Savage, media contact for the show, in an email. If anything, this post-pandemic world has challenged us to be even more thoughtful and intentional about continuing and growing the areas of the Flower Show that work well and deliver a great experience for our guests.
She took mild issue with my feeling that there were fewer major exhibits than usual and apologized for my disappointment: The 2024 Flower Show featured over 30 major floral and garden exhibits—designed by a crop of world class designers, all of whom are making headway within the garden and horticultural industry.
Which does sound like they’re not quite there yet.
The Hamilton Horticourt, where I’ve focused my snippiness, is for non-professionals, she said. It features primarily houseplants and other designs that are more achievable but still inspirational.Anyone, she added, regardless of experience level, can participate.
Perhaps people don’t want to see what they can’t replicate? I hope not. So what, you can’t make it, or have it. The flower show should always be a not-to-be-missed field of dreams. May it be so again next year.
Agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear your take.
A “vacant lot” at the Philadelphia Flower Show was brought back to life with wildflowers and brambles. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Detail of an idyllic flower-arranging room shown in the online catalogue of Garden Trading, gardentrading.co.uk, out of England.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
WE DO NOT have a mud room. We just tromp that street muck on through.
We do not have a gift-wrapping room. People do have such things, rooms with ribbons lined up neatly, wrapping paper in neat cubbies along with scissors and tape and so forth.
We don’t even have a gift-wrapping corner. I knew someone who had one, though. A cushy bench staged as if she were perpetually in the process of gifting, with a half-wrapped box, and a cunning tangle of ribbon curling . . . She was a little nuts.
And I certainly don’t have a dressing room, with walls of closets and bins, a little table to hold my prosecco next to the leopard velvet pouf where I can slip on my Manolos and admire myself in a gilded mirror.
Never mind a home gym, a theater room, a music room, a pool room, or a library,
Ours is a row house on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, one of approximately 6,500 cheek-by-jowl dwellings in the neighborhood. Many other city streets are lined with them, such as Philadelphia, which has the highest concentration. Wherever they are, most are two stories, with maybe a basement. The average size 1,200 to 1,500 square feet. Ours is 1,800 square feet, if you count the basement, which is on occasion the guest suite. On other occasions, now for instance, it’s a disaster area.
This is a historic district so there’s not much you can do to expand the space. So, where does one fit in a mudroom and a gift-wrapping room in a house where a powder room is a challenge—never mind a second bath. And a dressing room? Hoo-ha!
Let’s not even mention those poor souls in apartments.
Which brings us at last to flower-arranging rooms, which are currently all the rage in England. Not just your average flower-arranging rooms either. These are Bespoke Flower-Arranging Rooms, according to the London Times.*
The deliciously named Butter Wakefield, who helms the eponymous garden design company, says: If you like to cut and arrange flowers, a room dedicated to this joyful task seems an obvious choice.
She adds that you will also need a purposefully deep sink [note the purposefully] . . . generouswork surfaces [note the plural] . . . and plenty of shelves for your vases. She suggests an easy-to-clean tiled floor and . . . an oversized window overlooking the garden to inspire the creative spirit.
Designer and architect Claire Sà says, The flower room at the Reschio Estate in Umbria epitomizes what I think such a room should be: rugged old flagstones on the floor, mottled limewashed walls . . . a large rustic table. None of it is too precious . . .
Right! I can move to Umbria. Or . . . follow designer Melissa Hutley, who converted her kitchen into a flower room. It’s a place of peace and calm where I can switch off from work and get creative.
And then go out to dinner, I presume.
The Bespoke Flower-Arranging Room does not, you should note, replace the potting shed, which might contain many of the same items plus mulch, soil, and gardening tools but is adjacent to the garden. I imagine each place requires a different wardrobe, though this is not expressly expressed in the article. Maybe Laura Ashley for the Bespoke Flower-Arranging Room, Wellies and an ensemble from The Row for gardening—they do such fine basics.
Of course, if you have gardeners, you’ll just wear Laura Ashley and lambskin gloves, and carry a trug in the crook of your arm for the blossoms you’ll snip with your monogrammed secateurs. Or have someone else cut the flowers while you relax in your dressing room, or wrap some packages . . .
*Thanks to follower Maggie Hall for digging this up and sending it along from her home in Yorkshire. Your suggestions and questions are always welcome!
A dedicated flower-arranging room designed by Melissa Hutley, of Hutley & Humm interiors of London and Surrey, England.
Green Acre #464: Spring’s Apoppin’, Blooms Abloomin’
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So many flowers, so little time. Above, from the 10th annual "Art in Bloom" exhibit, a fundraiser at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. Here floral designers make exhibits inspired by various works of art.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
PEAK CHERRY blossom bloom is expected to be in about two weeks. “Between March 19 and 23,” says the Washington Post: 10 days earlier than normal and . . . one of the earliest peak blooms on record.”
Yep. It’s balmy outside here in DC. Not the sort of freak warmth we have from time to time in February, the sort of weather where you can run about in a T-shirt but still sense a sneaky clutch of freeze beneath the heat. This is spring warmth—as if it were already April.
It hardly seems necessary to go to a flower show, does it? We could just sit on our lazy rumps and watch the flowers take off at home. The daffodils are already blooming, the tulips are rising, and some of the early cherries are full-blown. I’m not going to get into global warming—though this weather is craziness.
However. It is showtime, folks, and not just in Philadelphia, with that grandmama of U.S. Flower Shows blossoming from March 2 to March 10. I hyped it last week, read it here if you missed it or need a refresher.
Here are a few more beauties that can be reached in a day’s drive or, perhaps, an overnight . . .
The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion, through April 21 in the conservatory of the New York Botanical Garden, features avant-garde (i.e., unwearable) fashions from avant-garde designers (it is New York, after all) inspired by the colors and shapes of the botanical garden’s fantastic collection of orchids. With this record heat, the 250-acre garden should also be awash in spring bloom. Plenty here to delight the eye. Admission to the show and the gardens is $35 for adults, children 2-12, $15.
Blink and you’ll miss Art in Bloom at Anderson House in Washington, DC, which runs just four days, March 14-17. This fourth-annual event features sensational floral sculptures and displays by more than 30 local floral designers, taking their inspiration from the art and architecture of this 1905 Beaux Arts mansion. Once the winter home of Larz Anderson, an American diplomat, and his wife, Isabel, Anderson House is now a museum that includes the owners’ English paintings, French furniture, Flemish tapestries, and a collection of Asian ivories, lacquerware, screens, and sculptures. Admission is $60.
Pairing flowers and art (or fashion) has really become a thing, as if flowers need extra help. That said, Art in Bloom at the North Carolina Museum of Art is a five-day floral fantasy featuring designers from across the nation who interpret the museum’s superb international collection of art and sculpture with clutch-your-pearls displays. This year, 10 additional large-scale displays portray the decades from the 1920s to the 2020s in flowers and who-knows-what. The show runs March 13 to 17, tickets are $50, free for kids under 6.
At Pittsburgh’s magnificent Phipps Conservatory, which opened in 1893 and is worth a visit anytime, this year’s flower show features tens of thousands of spring blooms including narcissus, tulips, and hyacinths that can be viewed through rotating kaleidoscopes, a spinning geometric sculpture, topiary ants, and an animatronic butterfly. The show opens March 16 and runs for four weeks. Admission, which includes access to 15 acres of garden, is $21.95 for adults, $19.95 for seniors and students over 18, and $13.95 for kids 2 to 18. Under 2, free.
Jennifer Reed of Jennifer Designs took the theme America in Bloom. Routings for a floral road trip is part of that, complete with a TripTik from Triple A. / Courtesy the Philadelphia Flower Show.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
ONCE UPON a time I was invited to a costume party and a friend suggested I go as Little Bo Peep, all ruffles and pink, with a staff and stuffed lamb (or lamb chop). At this suggestion, another friend, a little more astute, about died in laughter.
You’re the least Bo Peep person I can imagine, she said, or words to that effect. Quite rightly too.
I’m reminded of this total irrelevancy because they’ll be selling flower crowns at this year’s Philadelphia Flower Show, Gorgeous pieces of wearable art, they say. Not only at a stationary Bloom Bar, but from carts roving the vast convention-center floor.
Detail of the installation by the Philadelphia area’s landscape-architecture practice Apiary Studio. / Courtesy the Philadelphia Flower Show.
You can also take part in flower-craft sessions, including Energetic ContainerGardening Classes, led by designer Tu Bloom, the official botanical artist for the Grammy Awards. I don’t exactly know what this means, but it sounds like an exciting calorie burner.
There will also be butterflies, kids’ activities, and Fido Friday, if your dog has a thing for gardens, besides peeing on the hydrangeas. And floral competitions, including window boxes, miniatures, and botanical jewelry.
All this plus grand-scale gardenscapes by world-class designers and florists, though their number at this point, is a bit vague, and the focus somewhat woozy. This year’s theme, says a release, United by Flowers, will put the full power of flowers and gardens on display as our exhibitors interpret the theme in creative and inspiring ways.
One would hope.
No matter what, there will be flowers, and be assured it will be a breathtaking spectacle. It always is, with enormous displays covering the 11½-acre venue. Flower-filled vignettes with sometimes unlikely, if glorious, pairings of blossoms have been coaxed into perfect bloom for the event. Many months of effort go into the creations for this 195th show, the oldest and largest indoor flower show in the world.
Of course, there will also be a gallery of vendors, more than 200 of them, offering everything from kitsch to beautiful and unique garden accessories and plants—including sticks that may or may not develop into a fragrant and exotic plumeria. Buy at your own risk.
Go on a weekday, if you’re able; the crowds can be enormous, particularly difficult getting about for the wheelchair-bound and those with strollers (wear your children if you can).
Philadelphia Flower Show, Philadelphia Convention Center, March 2 through March 10, 2024. Tickets (online or at the door) are $49.99 for adults, $35 for students (18 to 25 with valid ID), and $25 for children 5 to 17.
Lush and languid, Florida holds garden promises that Northern states ca’t keep. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
OH YES, said Nick, with a huge grin. I got four pineapples last year.
We were looking at two pots outside his front door in south Florida, each with a small pineapple growing up from the center of spiky leaves. He’d cut off the tops from a supermarket pair, and potted them up. They not only grew, but they fruited, twice, and are just starting another round.
Last summer, I bought a pineapple plant, with a wee pineapple on top, setting it on a pedestal on the front porch of my Washington DC home, like a welcoming finial on a newel post, and slapped myself on the back, as if I’d done something. For $30.
The wee pineapple got bigger and began to ripen, but wanting to savor the precious crop, I chopped the fruit off too late. It was a tad rotten. I tossed the plant.
Nick, who happens to be my niece Alexandra’s husband, also has orchids growing on the trunks of palm trees. It was easy, he told me. Just take them out of their pots and tie them to the trees. He had orchids shooting out every which where and tentacles tipped with more buds.
I could do this! I said. How long did it take?
Just three, four months, he said. Talk about deflation. If I start just after first frost, they’d be about ready to freeze in about that time span.
My mood was no better at the house we were renting for the week in West Palm Beach, with a pool and a waterfall in the backyard, surrounded by stands of palms and birds of paradise. Mammoth plants, sky-tickling. So gorgeous, I’m thinking. And, of course, I want. I want.
We were in Florida to celebrate The Prince’s birthday, my baby sister’s birthday, and for a grand send-off of our older sister Jeanie, who passed away last year, almost to the day. We were out in a boat and left her in the waves near her Juno Beach condo, which is what she wanted. Then we ate deli and listened to Sinatra. She would have wanted that as well.
In between, Baby and I—she came too, along with her personal Prince Pete and 4-year-old Wesley—soaked up the gardens, the flowers, hedges so green and perfect I had to touch them to make sure they weren’t plastic. Orchids just . . . growing.
That is the difference between Florida and here. While we in DC are technically below the Mason-Dixon Line, and therefore in the South, we are only so in relation to Pennsylvania, or New Jersey.
We can certainly match the Palm Coast for heat and humidity each summer, but our summers are far too brief to import such fantasies, struggle as I do. A couple of months and it’s already fall.
At least this isn’t Maine.
I did plunder three plumeria branches from an abandoned garden that was forested with them. This bit of thievery made me feel guilty for about 20 minutes. The branches are now sitting on my printer, the ends needing to harden off before they’re planted and become more sticks to pray over for the next few years.
Meanwhile in the land of frost: The first daffodils are opening in sunny spots, and the forsythia is fattening up nicely. Take that, Florida!
It’s going to rain for a few days. Schlepping out into the front patch yesterday, with half a bag of Burpee Hummingbird and Wildflower Mix,* I broadcast the contents with a smooth-sailing wave of the arm. Last month the other half was scattered over the snow, which I’d heard (somewhere) was a good way to get the seeds started. I’m figuring, if those don’t sprout, maybe these will. Heavy downpours will soon be smacking the potential poppies, zinnias, clover, cosmos, scarlet sage, and about 20 other plant possibilities into the soil. There are 50,000 seeds in the package—what are my odds?
Certainly better than growing orchids on the red-leaf maple. Or pineapples from scratch.
The author’s “garden,” leading to the garage, circa 1983, when she and The Prince purchased their Capitol Hill house. COVER: The lush green that now envelops the same space, some 40 years later (complete with a charming new garage door). / Photos by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
While LittleBird Stephanie is off with extended family, we thought you might like to re-read the column that started it all: Green Acre #1.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
THIS IS NOT a tutorial for gardeners, at least those sorts of gardeners who are organized and careful about watering and pH levels and plants that prefer acidic or alkaline soil, or who consider pruning, for god’s sake.
Fundamentally, I am very lazy, and would much prefer to direct gardeners to do this and that, not do it myself. But thirty-odd years ago my husband, The Prince, and I happened to buy a house, spitting distance from the Capitol, and the house happened to have an area behind it that could only be called potential.
Here is what was there: dirt. Not particularly good dirt either, just dirty dirt, not soft and turned and rich and lovely and squirming with fat liver-colored worms. It was gritty and dry and heavy with clods of clay.
There was also a stick that the guy who owned the house before us said was an apricot tree. When he left we found a naked GI Joe doll in the attic, with hair glued on in a strategic place, and a hand gun. There was a rare lack of dispute between My Prince and me about the disposition of the doll. The gun was more contentious, though it eventually went. I believe there was some manly Clint Eastwood make-my-day vision involved as the neighborhood was—well, let us just say, to put it calmly, 30-some years ago there were no fancy prams, nannies and $35-a-pound cheeses on Capitol Hill.
But that is neither here nor there.
On either side of the 15-by-30-foot plot of dirt were walls. On the right, between us and the alley, was a six-foot-high wooden fence, which is just high enough for children to pop up and down on some miscreant race or other, little jack-in-the-box faces grinning big-eyed at the steaks on the BBQ.
On the other side was a rough-textured block wall, also six feet, which was just high enough to hide the neighbor’s derelict car and clothesline. This was painted salmon, as was the garage, which brought up the rear and had actual charm, like a little brick cottage with two windows flanking the center door.
So we had walls and dirt and a stick and a straight, if a bit cracked, concrete walk that led from the back porch steps to the garage.
Oh yes, there were also some tufts of patchy grass-like stuff, like an adolescent beard without the zits, about which there is a story that will be told.
The Prince brought me a soil test kit, which I admired and stuck in my “potting shed,” a jumbled table under the porch. It’s still there under something, I’m sure. Then, as now, my philosophy is: If it grows fine, if it dies it’s an opportunity to plant something else.
Over a winter of daydreaming I developed a plan. Certainly not a plan based in any knowledge of gardening, which previously consisted of several pots of this and that on our apartment’s fire escape in Adams Morgan, and before that a collection of guacamole pits stuck with toothpicks and arranged on my New York apartment windowsill. There was also a hideous philodendron in bondage to a wooden post, but that’s another story.
Chez Cavanaugh some 40 years later. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
I worked up my nerve by studying House & Garden, the endlessly amusing gardening columns of Henry Mitchell in the Washington Post (his books are still available on Amazon and make for a lovely read), and the insanely expensive White Flower Farm catalogue. So armed, I bravely set forth.
Along the ugly path I trompe-l’oeil-ed a brick walk with brick-colored stain and hung lace curtains in the garage windows. The Prince topped the walls with an extra three feet of trellis, which could arguably be called temporary plant supports should the gendarmes that enforced the wall-height code ever catch us going over the sanctioned six feet. And upon these walls would grow vines and various climbing things in splendid profusion.
Two flagstone patios were put in, one on either side of the stick that insisted it was a tree. One would be used for the round dining table that used to live on my parents’ terrace, the other would be set up with the white wicker sofa and chairs we found at a garage sale for a hundred bucks, the first of many coups. That this was the sunny side of the garden had yet to occur to me.
My planting decisions consisted of two words: I want. Some of these rank with my finest irreversible mistakes.
So it was that I observed a neighbor’s magnificent wisteria, perhaps 40 feet of twisting branches hung with what I liked to call “pendulous” of drop-dead purple sweetness across her garage roof, and I wanted one.
A few blocks away was a ridiculously floriferous yellow rose that scaled a two-story wall, splayed out to clamber along a second-floor railing. I wanted one, or something similar but in pink.
And the honeysuckle that draped a wall on Independence Avenue, I wanted that too. Is there any other plant that so brilliantly announces that it’s spring?
So the wisteria went in the far right corner, where I imagined it draping fabulously across the garage roof to meet a climbing Queen Elizabeth rose on the left. The pale pink rose blossoms would be trained (hoo ha) like a frippily scented umbrella above the dining table. I could pass out at the memory of this thought.
Along the side walls I planted ivy, which I figured would grow thick and fast for a splendid background. And overplanted a honeysuckle, dead center on the alley side, which would tendril along toward the wisteria.
And good lord. I’m hyperventilating.
The garden “bed” or “border”—I use quotes here solely to indicate how delusional I was— would be planted mainly with annuals, since I have absolutely no patience and needed to finish Wonderland the first summer, since in a year or three surely we’d move into something a bit bigger. To this I say again, hoo ha.
I smashed away at the hard-packed soil and dug in a patch of lily bulbs, because I wanted them. Other than they, Eastern Market provided flats of fairy-colored cosmos and frilly cleome, fringes of white alyssum along the edges and masses of zinnias and dahlias. A psychedelic blather of color and texture that needed only a dusting of glitter to resemble a birthday card for a 5-year-old girl. My favorite sort of birthday card, by the way.
I had no space to waste on vegetables, which were easily found at the market.
It’s amazing how well annuals can do growing out of their itty bitty plugs of soil. That you can get an entire season’s growth from so little is simply extraordinary.
If you continue to plant those little plugs every summer for 30 years or so you’ll find you’ve absolutely inadvertently created rich and friable soil out of hard-packed dirt.
And sticks that are said to be apricot trees do grow, eventually. One spring day it will tickle the second-story roof and burst into white blossoms that will in turn drop away to reveal little nubbins that grow round and apricot-colored and continue to fatten and then fall, since there’s no way to pick them, and that rot and drop on your head and squish underfoot, bloated with maggots, and befoul your life until the damn thing up and dies, thank god.
Organize the potting shed. Somehow the strangest things gather in the potting area under the back porch. It’s normally so heaped with this and that you might not even recognize it as a potting area: a leaf blower, a saw, sticks, stones, tarps, bike parts, 14 kinds of lethal sprays, and other useless things My Prince found for free on the sidewalk. I would like to be like Martha Stewart, trug on my arm to collect my flowers (see below), shiny sharp secateurs, pristine gloves (without holes in the fingers and crusted with dirt). Birds would sing . . .
Water. You know why those fancy planters and hanging baskets that line main streets look so lush and beautiful? Just spilling over with flowers from spring to frost? They’re watered, pretty much every day. I confess this is something I am not reliable about, having trained my eyes to glance sideways, actively ignoring wilt and cracked soil so I can pretend to be surprised when the flowers expire. I am going to change! I am going to check my pots and boxes daily. Is that really so much to ask of me? Mmmm.
Deadheading. As with watering, I can easily avoid doing this, and the impact is what one would expect: a dearth of flowers on plants that should be happily reblooming throughout the season. Yes! I will snip (not tug, or bite off) dead blossoms. If nothing else, my plants will look more groomed.
Fertilize. Years ago my friend Bruce told me the secret to his impossibly prolific hydrangeas was fertilizing with Miracle-Gro at Thanksgiving and again at Easter (so easy to remember!). And each year, as those holidays roll around, I am reminded that I need to fertilize. I remind myself daily that this must be done. And day after day I manage to forget. This includes last Thanksgiving. And what was I doing instead? Nothing nearly as important, I’m certain. This will now change . . . When’s Easter again?
Think before buying. I have so many plant mistakes in such a small space, it is truly astonishing. I have a shady garden. I have always had a shady back garden. It grows shadier by the year, in fact, thanks to the monstrous Kwanzan cherry that’s risen like Godzilla and hovers over the little patch, heavy limbs threatening the sun. Yet, show me a zinnia and I swoon. Oh! peonies. Oh! Oh! roses. Oh! so many plants limping along, begging for sunlight and eventually, sadly, succumbing. Stick to ferns and moss and fertilized hydrangeas.
Attract butterflies. Yes.
Follow instructions. See all of the above.
Test the soil. Right. Somewhere under all the mess in the potting shed is a 40-year-old soil-testing kit that I haven’t gotten around to using. What’s the point if I’m just going to plant what I want anyway? This year I shall solve the Mystery of the Soil!
Stop automatically ordering from Amazon. It has become so knee-jerk. Need orchid food? A bird feeder? Plaid mulch?* Ask Amazon. It’ll probably arrive tomorrow, free shipping, often no tax. The only difficulty is choosing, and even that they make fairly simple, far easier than most other websites. This year I shall get out of my chair, unglue my eyes from the screen, and head to a nursery or garden center. So, I’ll be tempted by more plants I can’t grow, and pay a little more for them. At least I can feel good about supporting local businesses, and not buying a golden bidet for Bezos.
*Not a real thing. I don’t think . . . ask Amazon.
HOW IS A cut flower like the male “member”? At some point, both tend to droop, to disappointing effect.
Thankfully, there is a solution for both: Viagra.
According to the National Library of Medicines, which catalogues such items of scientific interest, “Viagra (sildenafil citrate) is good not only for treating male impotence . . . small concentrations of the drug dissolved in a vase of water can also double the shelf life of cut flowers, making them stand up straight for as long as a week beyond their natural life span.”
If this happened to a penis, they’d tell you to call a doctor. Fun’s fun, but . . . *
Loyal reader Maggie Hall, writing from her vacation perch in Corsica, and apparently having nothing better to do, forwarded a link to a column in the British publication The Daily Mail. Reporter Sarah Rainey put a pill to the test and was “astonished at the brightening and freshening effect” Viagra had on roses, tulips, and lilies, plus they stood tall for weeks longer than expected.
She compared the drug with aspirin and flower food, neither of which gave an impressive performance, giving a boost for a handful of days. A copper coin dropped in the water fared much better. The water remained clear and the flowers stayed bright for nearly as long as those fed Viagra.
The Business Insider, also following up on the story, said compared with 50 mg for an adult male, two vases of flowers need just 1mg of Viagra to stand erect. This is good since a 50 mg Viagra dose will set you back between $6, the online price for generic pills, to well over $100 from a pharmacy. Plus, the doctor visit.
Viagra’s effect on cut flowers—fruits and vegetables too—has been known for 22 years. One wonders what made scientists test it on plants. It’s like the first person who ate an artichoke. Really, why would you?
One also wonders why it took 22 years for us to hear about it. For various reasons they just might not want us to know. Conspiracy theory ahead!
Wouldn’t grocers love to peddle an old head of cauliflower weeks past its sell-by date; and street vendors would make out like bandits, buying flowers that are past their prime, rejuvenating them, and selling them at a hefty profit.
Florists, on the other hand, would have an interest in keeping this magic under wraps. Using Viagra on tulips would cremate their profits. If flowers last two to three times as long, you’d buy less than half as many, quickly bankrupting the industry. They must have some great lobbyists.
But maybe it’s already happening in the grocery aisle. Consider lovely, spongy white bread. The quintessential vehicle for toasted cheese (American, of course). A month ago, I skipped the whole-grain and bought a retro loaf of Sara Lee Butter Bread, suddenly craving the squish and ooze of that toasted cheese sandwich. The last few slices are in the bag sitting oh-so-innocently on the kitchen counter, as fresh (looking) as the day they were born—presumably in the chemical factory. Just what are they spraying on that wheat?
I’ll leave it there for you to dwell upon.
By the way, there was a delicious romantic comedy on TV a few years ago about reviving desiccated fruit for pies, Pushing Daisies. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a treasure that’s due for a resurrection.
*They say, Call a doctor, but never say what the doctor will do. You can dwell upon that too.
For winter color, try (clockwise from top left) long-lasting orchids, psychedelic bromeliads, velvety cyclamen, fragrant jasmine, and heart-shaped anthurium. Plus, there are always citrus plants. / Photos from Calloway’s Nursery, Costa Farms, the Plants & Blooms Shop (Amazon), and the Kviter Store (Amazon).
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
I BELIEVE this is what’s called the dead of winter. The least favorite time of year for the garden lover, with nothing to do but flip through magazines, Internet pages, and books for spring inspiration and do nothing but take desultory notes, since, as I said, there’s nothing to do.
This is also a time for SAD, Seasonal A-something Disorder, a time when you’re too down in the dumps to look up what the “a” stands for. Affect? Affliction? Agony?
It doesn’t help that the Christmas tree/Hanukkah bush is now lying on the sidewalk, anointed by passing dogs, waiting for the trashpersons. What a sorry end to something that brought such happiness just a few weeks ago.
Except for the diehards who keep them lit until sometime in April (or never take them down at all), the outdoor holiday lights are stashed in the attic or basement or garage for another year.
We should really move the winter holidays to the end of January: They’re all too close to Thanksgiving anyway.
What a dismal swamp January is. The New Year starts with a bang: fireworks, revelry, hangovers. Now what? At least a month of cold gray skies before the first bit of green bashes its way through the hard-packed earth.
Have I cheered you up yet?
This is a zygopetalum maculatum, a deliciously fragrant orchid now blooming the U.S. Botanic Garden. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Thankfully, there are plenty of plants that do well inside, even with a dearth of sunshine, and a personal antipathy for fussing. There are the tried-and-true parlor palms and schefflera, which, given the occasional watering, will filter the air and liven up a corner or two. They can grow quite large and stand alone—or make a leafy backdrop, or a sidekick, for flowering plants that will make a heroic attempt to lighten your mood all winter long. They also filter the air
Like.
Orchids. I have a love/hate relationship with these plants. Phalaenopsis, in particular, have become so associated with real-estate open houses that they’re rather a cliché. But beautiful and inexpensive they are, and the flowers can last a month or more. Then they look like hell until they bloom again—many months later. Toss them, unless you have a place to hide them.
My little calamondin. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Citrus. Oranges, lemons, calamondin, limes, all do well indoors. Give them a drink of water every week or so and they’ll blossom on and off several times over a winter with small white flowers and nose-delighting, room-filling scent.
Jasmines. Again, small, white, rather insignificant flowers but with a powerful scent that will instantly transport you to the tropics. I have two in my rather dark dining room and they’re doing just fine with the extremely indirect light and my haphazard watering.
(I could mention gardenias here, with their prettier flowers and fabulous scent, but in my care they quickly succumb to some malaise. Maybe you’ll have better luck.)
Cyclamen. Velvety petals in pinks, purples, and white softly rise from layers of green leaves. An enchanting plant to buy in bloom; the flowers will last a month or so. Nestle them among your leafy green plants to enhance the show. However, unless you’re compulsive, when the flowering stops, toss it. While the cyclamen will look dead, it’s just gone dormant, but the chances of reblooming are pffft.
Bromeliads. In brilliantly psychedelic shades of orange, pink, purple, and yellow that you don’t have to be stoned to admire, these relatives of the pineapple are so insistently cheerful it’s difficult to be around one and remain in a sour mood. They also pull focus—so if the house isn’t particularly tidy, keep yours front and center and no one will notice.
Anthurium. The heart-shaped red, pink, or white flowers on this plant are almost always in bloom, spraying out from the center of the heart-shaped leaves at their base. Mine bloomed all summer in the garden—and is still in bloom now, in a bright window but no direct sun. Consider gifting one for Valentine’s Day—heart-shaped flowers . . . subtle!
Most of these should be available at big-box stores and supermarkets, though citrus and jasmine are harder to find at this time of year, though not impossible. Keep your nose primed.
TO ME, “CURLY” IS one of those words where the more you look at it the wronger it seems. Like it’s missing an “l” or needs two “r”s. “Willow” is fine the way it is—no matter how many times you look and look away and look back. But “curly”?
That was neither here nor there. But when one (me) chooses to write about curly willow branches and finds oneself stalled over the first word, one feels compelled to share.
Moving right along.
It is suddenly almost the middle of January and spring is right around the corner, though that corner being a few blocks farther down the street than you might wish. The other day I passed a front garden blessed with mounds of purple and yellow pansies and a red camellia just coming into blossom. It was a sight so cheerful I was nearly in tears.
I took a photo, but the startled joy of such color on a dreary winter day does not convey. The brown mulch and twiggy branches of this and that grab the eye and strangle the cheer.
So we bring brightness to the house—a bunch of flowers, clusters of greens, and my favorite of all, curly willow branches.
Time was, not too many years ago, that these sometimes 3-, 4-, 5-foot clippings were rarely seen. I first came across them at the Philadelphia Flower Show, in the retail/shop section, the same area that snagged me on plumeria sticks, a continuingly fraught relationship.
Curly willow is fairly common now. I used to order online, but now I pick them up at flower stands and have even found them at Trader Joe’s. Keep in mind, the window of opportunity is brief: They’re available for just a few weeks in midwinter. When you see them, snap them up immediately.
Pretty as is, the long red or green branches, coiled like loose springs, mean that you need only maybe six for a fantastic display.
You can let them dry—or plop them in water, which is a little like watching spring explode. In just a few days, tiny no-account leaves begin to sprout along the branches and you think, That’s it? But noooo. A few more days and WHAM! you’re looking at a fantastically frothy miniature willow tree, covered with leaves the deliciously fresh color of butter lettuce. Set the branches in a tall narrow vase on the dining table, break out your prettiest china and stemware, don your most colorful kimono, and it’s a garden party.
It might be nice if it were snowing.
While you’re enjoying the display, which should last at least a month, you’ll notice the branches are rooting in the water. When they form a healthy-looking mass, try planting them in soil, keeping them indoors until after the last frost date for your area.
It’s quite possible that those lovely branches will turn black, and the leaves shriveled, and the whole thing becomes a stinking mess, but maybe not. I did see a pot of curly willow outside a flower shop once: It was midsummer, and the branches were healthy and quite special to see. Want to try your hand? Tally ho!
Poppies, poppies, so attractive to the eye, so soothing to smell . . . cackles the Wicked Witch of the West.
This is the year I am determined to have poppies. A field of poppies mingled with the periwinkle and ivy that more or less cover the front garden. Dotted here and there with potted roses and azaleas, the forsythia and daffodils would be a sight so bewitching that one would want to lie down in their midst and sleeeep. Sleep.
Sadly, I always forget to sow seeds early enough to fight the massive foliage from the elms that line the block, and the young but rapidly growing red-leaf maple that creates a strong border between our house and the neighbor’s.
This year I won’t miss out. Poppy seed can be strewn now and can root about in the soil, taking advantage of this brief period of full sun to grow strong and burst forth with blossoms come late spring.
At least this is what I’m assured will happen. A little snow would help, just a measly inch or so—toss the seeds on top and don’t cover them (sunlight is needed for germination). If your climate is dry, keep the seeds moist with a fine spray from the hose until they come up. When the plants are about three inches tall, thin out any crowded clumps.
You can buy poppies online. Amazon (surprise!) has plenty of possibilities, whether a packet of 100,000 traditional red “remembrance” poppies for $8.68 or varieties in colors such as watermelon, orange, white, and pink.
You can also try spreading poppy seeds from a jar or loose from some grocery stores. From what I’ve read, these flowers are, for some reason, white. Check the packing label if you can for the freshest seeds.
Smart tip from a reader online: Use a saltshaker to spread the seed. Poppy seeds are the size of nits, and unless you’re an anal type, unlike me, they’re a pain to spread. The last time I tried to sow the seeds—too late in the season, of course, to get sufficient sun—they clumped up in my fingers and dropped in lumps, instead of flying about in the wide arc I had envisioned. A saltshaker forces the little grains apart.
Can puppy seeds get you stoned? Ah yes, the important question. Per West Texas A&M, depending on your tolerance, you would need to consume 1 to 130 pounds of poppy seed to get a nice high. They say: If you had a particularly potent batch of poppy seeds, and if you were particularly sensitive to morphine, and if you really liked poppy-seed cake to the point of eating pounds of it, then unintentionally ingesting medicinal levels of morphine is entirely possible. But for the rest of us, a sprinkling of poppy seeds on our bagels may give us just barely enough morphine to fail a drug test, but not enough to do much else.”
Yes, eating a poppy-seed bagel can cause you to fail a blood test, and you won’t even get high. You have been warned.
Wildflower seeds can also be spread now and through February, also blooms such as columbine, foxglove, hollyhock, butterfly bush, forget-me-not, lavender, alyssum, lupines, bachelor button, coreopsis, delphinium, and larkspur. If you are not me and have planted these in the past, they may be self-seeding. Lucky you.
Burpee has a wildflower seed mix designed to attract hummingbirds and butterflies, a mix that includes poppies. They’re packed 50,000 seeds to a bag, which they say will cover 1,000 square feet—which is about eight times more seed than I need for my space. $8.97 on Amazon.
Sounds like a decent bet. Surely something will come up.
To be on the safe side, I’ll parcel out the sowing. Some now—snow is forecast for this weekend in Washington DC—and toss out more as the weeks pass.
Gecko pollinating a Trochetia flower. / Photo courtesy Larry Janezich, Capitol Hill Corner.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
ONE GOOD THING, and it may be the only good thing, that came from Covid is that the annual holiday model train display at the US Botanic Garden is outdoors.
Pre-Covid, the trains were confined to one wing of the glass-roofed conservatory at the foot of the US Capitol. Lines to weave through the displays stretched around the main hall, creeping forward at an unacceptable pace for the average 3-year-old.
Euglossine orchid bee pollinating a vanilla orchid flower. / Photo courtesy Larry Janezich, Capitol Hill Corner.
Now installed in a gated outdoor plaza adjacent to the building, there’s space to jostle about and feast your eyes on the magical display, where G-gauge trains travel in and out and above the miniature towns and forests, and there’s no pressure to move along. That said, the most relaxing time to visit is weekdays—and particularly now, with schools still in session.
Caution, snowflakes! This year the spectacle includes the sex life of plants. Larry Janezich, who brilliantly covers the Washington DC neighborhood at Capitol Hill Corner, and contributed the photos for this piece, was particularly enamored by the Gecko loving up a Trochetia flower and the Honeycreeper having its way with a lobelia.
Among the other racy offerings are an Euglossine orchid bee pollinating a vanilla orchid, a Chocolate midge feeling up a cacao flower, and a Fruit Bat carrying on with a banana—all made from plant parts.
Inside the building, you can opt to stay in the Garden Court, the main hall, with its fabulous trees, hundreds of unusual poinsettias, giant topiaries and more than a dozen amber-hued models of Washington’s iconic buildings and structures, from the Smithsonian Castle to the Jefferson Memorial (with a dome made from a gourd), to the magnificent U.S. Capitol—all also made from plant parts.
Honeycreeper bird pollinating a lobelia flower. / Photo courtesy Larry Janezich, Capitol Hill Corner.
Or wander through the tropical forest under the 93-foot dome, drool over hundreds of orchids, and sniff at the citrus and jasmine, all a divine respite from the hurly-burly just up the Hill.
New this year, a gift store run by the Friends of the US Botanic Garden. And local DC small business Rewild will offer a variety of botanically themed gifts for purchase in the Conservatory’s West Gallery, open 10am to 5pm daily.
Season’s Greenings, US Botanic Garden, 100 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington DC. Admission to the Botanic Garden and the train exhibit is free. G-gauge model trains circulate from 10am to 5pm daily through January 1, 2024; closed December 25. The train display will run until 8pm on two more Thursdays this year: December 21 and December 28.
The US Capitol nestled among the poinsettias and seasonal greenery. On view at the US Botanic Garden in Washington DC through New Year’s Day. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Mixed media! Just remember that mistletoe, at least the American variety, can cause indigestion when swallowed. Potato pancakes, latkes, on the other hand . . . don’t. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
I LOVED MARGOT; she was one of my dearest friends, and I miss her terribly. A woman who gave up downhill skiing only when she turned 80, she died last year, at 94, from a mosquito bite. She’d just finished renovating her beach-house kitchen. As I say, I miss her terribly. What I don’t miss is the wreath she gave me every year. Oh, it was nice and green and fresh-smelling, very full, ordered from Vermont and pricy. I hated it.
The first thing I always did was to yank out the plastic cherries that studded the circle, and rip off the red “velvet” bow. Then I’d stick in bits of this and that, such as baby’s breath, purple statice, gilded pine cones, and whatever else appealed from the exhausted garden. I’d change the bow to purple to match the window boxes, and string in tiny lights. The wreath did form an excellent base.
This year I’ll use a wonderful brass wreath that Alice, another dear friend, gave me some years ago, fluff it out with cuttings from the bottom of the Christmas tree, tie it with the big purple ribbon and twist in white fairy lights. No hurting Margot’s feelings.
All Christmas on the outside. Inside, it’s a bit different. Tonight is the first night of Chanukah. My Prince, my goy toy, and I celebrate the festival of lights along with Christmas. Tonight we’ll light the first of eight candles on Uncle Jimmy’s menorah, trim the Chanukah bush, and have latkes (potato pancakes) with Baby and her Personal Prince Pete, her goy toy, and a few friends. Maybe I’ll gift everyone with lottery tickets and a bag of chocolate coins.* Wesley, our grandson, who’ll be 4 next week (as it happens, my mother’s birthday), will get a small gift.
It’s a T-shirt with a dinosaur in a yarmulke playing with a dreidel, a spinning top with Hebrew letters on each side, a traditional game I’ve never played. While I was raised Conservative, we’ve always leaned toward secular—showing up at shul on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah and the occasional who-knows-what. So, I’ve always been what-do-I-do-with-this about the dreidel.
When I saw the T-shirt on-line I lit up: Wesley adores dinosaurs (so what else is new?) so this felt perfect. When it arrived the other day I showed it to My Prince, who paled beyond an Irishman’s shade of white and said, “Do you want to get him stoned in the playground?”
My God. Has it come to this?
I woke up this morning, wondering if I should even give him the shirt. He’s bound to love it—what does he know? It’s a dinosaur. In a yarmulke. I fear for him, I fear for my beautiful daughter: There’s madness in the air that goes beyond the current war. Hatred is spreading.
Wear it in the house only, my sweet bubeleh, my delightful blue-eyed, blond-haired baby boychik. Be safe.
The horror.
Ending on a note of uplift, and a bite of weird Jewish humor . . . As the mantra goes for many of our events, They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat. And so, my mama’s recipe for latkes, the best. You’ll kvell. Click here.
*In ancient tradition, Jewish children gave money, called gelt, to their teachers to thank them. In a modern miracle, we’ve turned the coins into chocolates. Let’s eat.
