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.
White Flower Farm amaryllis, above. On the front, photo from iStock.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
THE KARDASHIANS have huge trees lining the walk to their house, which resembles (from the photo) a concrete bunker. The trees are covered with thousands of white lights. Could be millions. They are very big trees.
Why am I looking at this? I cannot stand this family. I canceled a subscription to Vogue with a note that I’d only resume if they stopped featuring them. Vogue paid me no mind.
It did make me laugh to think of the “girls” on ladders, stringing those lights. In the nude. Butts wobbling like bowls full of jelly.
Clearly, I am looking for a topic for this week’s column. It’s not going well. I keep getting distracted by the best way to apply lipstick, by makeup artists. This moment’s trend in trench coats, boots, sweaters. Underwear as outerwear. Villas in Italy. Hours pass.
More hours pass. I realized that this week I have nothing to say about gardening, flowers, holiday decorating, or anything else horticulturally related.
We don’t yet have a Chanukah bush/Christmas tree, the outdoor lights and boxes of dreck for tarting up the mantel and window boxes are still in the attic, the tropical plants are all inside for the winter, doing well or poorly, which is normal. Some are shocked by the move and faint for a time, then revive, or not. What more can I say about that?
Instead, I’ve been thinking about the general uselessness of psychiatry and how, for the most part, we’re just born the way we are.
Meandering aside . . .
My sister recently posted to Facebook a photo of me at age 2, maybe in the early 3s, sitting on the living-room sofa in a party dress, dirty ballet slippers, and—why am I wearing that stupid-looking bonnet?—and I’m writing on a pad resting on my lap. I am also glaring at the camera.
I imagine My Prince would recognize this expression, which is what I shoot at him when he interrupts my writing (or anything else). Spaced-out and on the verge of being pissed off for being messed with. Some might call it my resting bitch face.
My just-about-4-year-old grandbaby, Wesley, doesn’t shift gears easily either. His response to most things is “no”—which gives him space to reconsider. Where did he learn that? He’s also been flirting with girls from the moment his eyes focused. No wondering which way the wind blows for him.
End of meander.
At last, I come across a photo of an amaryllis flower sprouting from a mound of colored wax. Perhaps you’ve seen these. Somehow I’ve avoided them for what now appears to be decades. The copy says that, once encased, the bulb needs no water, no light. You do nothing (except maybe an occasional dusting) and within a few weeks a gigantic flower will emerge! I am galvanized.
Well, thinks I, this looks like a project for Wesley. You just melt down old candle ends and dip the bulbs, leaving the tip exposed, then paint or cover with glitter and whatnots. He can give them out as holiday gifts. His mother will be so grateful. Hot wax. Glitter. Paint. What could go wrong?
I flip through photo after photo, site after site. How have I not noticed these things. There are even debates about them. You’re killing the bulb, the arguments go. Encasing them in wax is sadistic, greedy, and cruel. My goodness!
Plus, they’ll only flower once and you toss the spent bulb away (which is probably what I’d do anyway).
THE SEASON for toting host/ess gifts is here again. Brunch and lunch and cocktails and dinners and have-to-bring-something, right? The default of a bottle of wine is just fine, but why not make it a little more special with a gift inspired by the garden that won’t set you back much more than a decent bottle of plonk? Why, how thoughtful of you! How creative!
Here are 10 (10 is a rule for lists, you know) garden-inspired house gifts. Many of them can be picked up on the fly . . .
A bit of sparkle. Pottery Barn has some choice offerings this year including six feet of itty-bitty lights mixed with sparkly faux leaves and multifaceted beads on a skinny copper strand. Weave them around candles for a smashing dinner table, drape them across the mantel, wrap a banister, hang them on a tree, rope a doorway . . . Battery-operated with a timer so they go anywhere and you don’t have to fuss with a switch. $59.
Paperwhite Kit with Copper-toned Ceramic Bowl $99 White Flower Farm.
A holiday classic. Pack a wine bag with paperwhite narcissus bulbs and hand it over. You can buy the bulbs for a buck or two each (depending) in hardware stores and garden centers all over right now. You can also Make a Production of It, setting the bulbs in a glass bowl filled with pretty pebbles and water. A couple of weeks and bingo, heaven scent.
Earthy handles.Anthropologie has a set of three herb-inspired cheese knives with handles shaped like the leaves of rosemary, thyme, and sage. In brass and stainless. $36.
Luscious scents. Candles from Sydney Hale, available at Salt & Sundry in Washington DC’s Union Market, at at Sydney Hale Company’s site, are like whiffing a most glorious garden. Neroli and Musk, Oaked Bitter Orange, Jasmine and Mint . . . If you don’t burn yours too often they can last for years, giving off little poofs of scent as you brush by. $34.
A growable feast. 1,305 Amazon shoppers give this Pink Oyster Mushroom Grow Kit by Forest Origins top marks. Said one reviewer: “The instructions said that it can take up to a week before you see growth, but mine started after a couple of days. Watching the mushrooms grow was strangely satisfying! They grew shockingly fast and would double in size sometimes within the same 24-hour period. About a week after starting the grow kit, I had a beautiful crop of mushrooms ready to harvest.” And, what’s more, “They tasted great.” $29.99.
A chic(k) laugh. Among my absolute favorite gifts this year was Kate E. Richards’s 2023 Drinking With Chickens calendar, so I’m overjoyed that not only will there be one for 2024, there’s also a book, carried by Amazon. Gorgeous, hilariously serious portraits of her chickens with floral arrangements are accompanied by drink recipes created from the spoils of her own garden. Think Lilac Apricot Rum Sour, Meyer Lemon and Rosemary Old-Fashioned, and a Rhubarb Rose Cobbler. $15.89.
Here’s to the pits. When you eat a lot of avocados and are filled with guilt when you toss the pit, knowing that it could be a tree . . . well. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) makes lemonade of that with a petite vase made to hold the pit as its little bottom gropes for water as leaves burst forth from the top. Available in clear and colors, as well as an acorn version if you’d prefer to go big. $55.
A time capsule. Do you remember the Twilight Zone (or was it Alfred Hitchcock?) episode with the glass container stuffed with something disgusting, maybe a dismembered baby? Neighbors would come and stare at it. I do not recall the dénouement. These vaguely disturbing glass domes filled with embalmed flowers echo that vibe. There are six to choose from including lavender, pussy willow, and one with a collection of pine cones and other Christmas dreck. I dunno, anything that involves “preservation fluid” . . . but it’s from MoMA, so . . . $80.
Livre! Just the thing for the gardener trapped inside for the winter: a toasty fire, chocolat chaud, and the droolingly photographed French Blooms: Floral Arrangements Inspired by Paris and Beyond. $23.99.
How crafty. Did you know you could make flowers out of Legos? Well, now you do. They call the Lego Icons Flower Bouquet Set a “great alternative to real flowers”; couldn’t agree more. Nasty things, real flowers. Always dying on you. These? 100% plastic! Enjoy ever-blooming roses, snapdragons, poppies, asters, daisies, and grasses. The perfect house gift. No water or vase required. $47.99.
The image on the front shows a photo from the Hawaii Travel With Kids website. It shows a plumeria from Moloka’i Plumerias farm. Above is a Puttaraaka (or Phatta Raksa) plumeria from the Thailand Collection at Florida Colors Plumeria Nursery in Homestead, Florida.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
AMONG MY never-blooming tropical plants is a plumeria, also known as frangipani, which is native to places that are a helluva lot hotter than here, and are perhaps best known as the flower Hawaiians weave into leis and wear with grass skirts when hula-dancing, and also hang around the necks of tourists when they arrive at airports. Or at least they did when I visited decades ago.
The scent is such that once scented it’s haunting, at least for me. The flowers are beautiful, tender leaves in pastel washes, and single shades of pink, red, white, yellow, orange—few of them obnoxious.
They’re sold by the 8- or 10-inch stalk, which looks like a rootless stick, which is what I will henceforth call it. They’re sold often at big flower shows, by petite, grinning, often Asian women who nod and tell you in halting English to stick the stick in a pot and watch it grow Beautiful flowers, yes. So sweet.
And you (meaning me) look cross-eyed at said stick and say to yourself, Really? And cross the woman’s soft little palm with $5, $10, $20, or whatever is the going rate that year. I started at $5.
The stick is introduced to a pot, you water it, and settle in to wait. Months pass. You fertilize. Gradually, the stick blackens and bends. Oh rot, you say, literally.
Another year, another stick. This time you read about nurturing it, finding, in the meantime, that it is named for 17th-century French botanist and Catholic monk Charles Plumier, if one calls it plumeria, and Muzio Frangipane, a 16th-century marquess, if one calls it frangipani. Having followed instructions, you once again settle in to wait, watching the stick slowly blacken.
More years, more urging from petite grinning women (it could be the same one!). So easy! So beautiful! More dollars cross her tiny palm.
Then you find a Facebook page devoted to plumeria growers and take a tip to buy from Florida Colors Plumeria Nursery for (agh!) $35.56, including shipping.
Your stick arrives. It’s marginally bigger than the flower-show acquisitions. Trembling, you pot it. And lo! Tiny buds appear, which grow into strappy-looking leaves. The stick grows taller, the leaves longer. Little nubs appear in the center of the leaves. Don’t hold your breath. More leaves are arriving.
Where do the flowers come from? They’re an inflorescence, the Facebook folks say. Or “inflos” for short. Inflos are greeted with such excitement, photos are shared. And I’m like, What the hell is an inflo?
Should the name of the Facebook group, Florida Plumeria Growers, have given me a clue that their advice would be close to useless? Florida does a bang-up job of standing in for Oahu, it seems. Florida is not here.
Well, at least I have leaves. And then as the weather chills, they fall off. At the time—this was several years ago—I had a little greenhouse, WHICH WE WILL NOT GET INTO, and I nursed my stick through the winter. Leaves once again appeared in spring, more of them! I wait. Is that an inflo? Nooooooooo, another leaf. That? Nooooo. Another leaf. And so it went, and winter once again arrived.
By now, the plumeria stick is five feet tall in its pot. Leafless, it is not an attractive sight. So, it was sent to Baby’s house, in Virginia, where I wouldn’t have to look at it. This is one of several reasons it is good to have children, or at least a child, so you can foist ugly things upon them. Just for a few months, Baby . . .
This past March, the stick was once again throwing off leaves, this time in three clusters. The excitement built. I consulted a new-found Facebook friend who divides his time between an apartment in Northern Virginia and a place in Hong Kong, doing god knows what. He told me his plumerias do splendidly on his balcony, flower freely, just . . . wait, he said. And I did.
Nothing. All but two of the leaves have fallen. Baby has rearranged her house and claims there is no room anymore for my stick. Wait until she reads my Will.
This is not a problem in Florida, where the leaves don’t even drop, the plants just keep infloing and blooming and scenting the air with such intoxicating sweetness that one could plotz.
Yet again, I investigate. There are several courses of action, but the one I liked best has an effortless appeal. Simply move the pot to somewhere in the house where it won’t freeze, maybe the basement, and leave it alone. Don’t even bother watering. Put it outside when the night temperature is at least 50 degrees and little leaves will begin to show again. With instructions like that, can an inflo be far behind?
A window box, one of five, from March 2022, chez Cavanaugh. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
IT’S BEEN MANY years (man years) since My Prince, in a burst of enthusiasm, not only began, but finished, five beautiful window boxes for the front of the house. We’d just returned from London and were both taken with the boxes that seemed to adorn every other window there, dripping with ivy and perky with geraniums.
It was late January. What a delightful shock when shivering in my shoes. Winter flowers! Can we do this?
We had tried before, with pretty clay boxes that rested on the sills, heavy enough, and narrow enough, that they posed minor danger to anyone standing beneath. A concussion perhaps, but not death. They were also totally inadequate for anything but cacti—unless they were watered morning and night throughout the summer; forget the winter, when the boxes were in danger of freezing and breaking.
The British boxes were big, wide, deep, and overflowing with plants that actually had room for roots. Who’da thunk it?
So, it was the first order of business when we got home. It’s rare when we agree, me and the Prince, particularly when it’s me who does the imagining and he who is tasked with the doing. Most times foot-dragging occurs. But this time, do it he did. The boxes aren’t quite as big as some we saw in London, but big enough, spanning the width of each of the windows on the first and second floors. Deep and heavy enough to decapitate if they fell, so they were well supported and painted deep purple to match the front door and trim.
I bought a fine book on window boxes, filled with delightful photos—but there was nothing I could find about maintaining them year-round. This is something I still rarely see—and yet it’s no more difficult than summer boxes. Just different.
Other than the corners, each of which has clumps of ivy and a few patches of sedum, the boxes are changed out with the seasons. Last weekend I pulled up most of the summer stuff, which was growing raggedy and browning, cutting back but leaving the sweet-potato vine for a little frill at the front and keeping sprigs of purple tradescantia and spikes. Though they’re both doomed when we have a frost, their presence does temporarily enliven the texture.
The soil was freshened up, scooping out some of the old and putting in some new. The highly scented Earlicheer double daffodils I got from Colorblends, and wrote about last week, were put in the holes and topped with pansies and small ornamental cabbages. I lucked into those little ones: Big ones are plentiful, and the little ones often hard to find, but it’s best to use them in boxes, letting them grow up in place.
Blanketed in soil, the daff bulbs will grow and push up their creamy white heads, which resemble little roses or gardenias, past the flowers, and burst into perfumed bliss as promised. (Colorblends is out of Earlicheer, but I see that White Flower Farms has them in stock).
To give the boxes some height in the back, I stuck in dried fan-palm leaves that I picked up on sale at Lowe’s. These were spray-painted leafy green, which you should note is a great remedy for many flower failures. (Hello, boxwood!)
Next up, Thanksgiving, and then the winter tart-up will take place, bows and balls and lights . . . oh my.
I TALK TO myself a lot, about which My Prince, who seldom agrees with me, will agree. I also answer myself. He’d agree with that as well. In that mode of agreeableness, today I will ask myself questions, as I do, and then answer them. Got that?
Q. I didn’t buy my spring bulbs yet. Can I still plant them?
A. Absolutely! So glad I got around to buying them yesterday, finally. What a lot of foot-dragging. If it hadn’t been for Baby waving her bag of bulbs at me on Sunday I’d still would be bulbless and thinking (stupidly) Do I really need . . . ?
Anyway. Costco was a missed opportunity. It’s been Christmas there since September. The pickings are lean at Lowes and Home Depot as well, so I did what I should have done in the first place, ordered from ColorBlends. I didn’t kick myself over the bulbs that are sold out—there are still plenty to choose from.
I don’t particularly like yellow flowers, but the collection of dainty pink and yellow tulips called Pillow Talk felt like a natural for under the cherry tree, if a bit sweet. I got 100. (I got there in time for myself, but not in time for you: Pillow Talk is sold out.)
To give it a bit more edge, Tom Pouce is a deeper pink with a yellow base; 50 seemed about right for sprinkling about and filling the big pots that flank the turquoise door to the garage (Whoops! I must’ve bought the last few; they’re gone now! You could try Banja Luka for a pop of color). Not sure what I’m going to do with 100 striped squill, but their faded blue that shades to white entrapped me, they’re so clean and fresh-looking.
I do know what I’ll do with the Earlicheer daffs, despite their cringe-inducing name. There was no question of passing on “ . . . a sweetly scented double daffodil that bears 6–12 small white flowers on each stem. The flowers resemble miniature roses or gardenias and are easily as fragrant.” I ordered 25 to go in the window boxes, tucked under the seasonal plantings, which I’ll discuss next week. Still available are the Daffodil Scilly Daffs Blend.
And no problem planting any of this, probably until December. As long as there isn’t a hard freeze they can go in anytime, and if I oversleep, I can shove the food out of the way and store them in the fridge until spring.
Q. Halloween is next week. Yelp! And I haven’t decorated.
A. Harrumph. Well, that’s just typical, isn’t it?
Forget the gourds and pumpkins: The temperature is supposed to be in the 80s this weekend, which means the pumpkins will begin to rot and the squirrels will romp and peck and the whole scene will resemble a horror movie.
My laser lights are somewhere. Two of them this year, I think. The one I use in the garden in summer that casts moving shadows along with the one that sprinkles green dots over the front yard and down onto the sidewalk, where the little urchins in their Superman and Catwoman suits try to stomp on them.
Pause to look for lights.
Okay, so the magical green dot light from Bliss Lights, is on the bookcase in my office. Damned if I know where the shadowy one has wandered off to. But checking with Bliss, I see they’ve now combined a shadow and dot thing—tormy skies. Great. And it comes in blue or green, I can have it by Monday, and it’s on sale for $29.74. Yes!
Meanwhile, My Prince is collecting bones from chickens and what-not. He has this idea of creating a skeleton, a plan he announced last night. When I said, let’s just go with lights, he replied, You’re always trying to ruin my fun.
To which I did NOT reply: Bones shmoans, where’s my porch?
NO MATTER HOW much you love someone, there are times when your fantasies grow dark and the urge to dispatch the object of your (usual) affection blossoms.
If you’ve been together many years you’ve probably considered the usual methods, the knives and other lethal weapons, the gentle push at the mountaintop or staircase, the dropped hairdryer in the bathtub, the tampered car brakes (does Triple A still have that $100,000 fatal accident coverage?). Please do share your faves in the Comments section!
Poisons should be right up there as well; rat poison and arsenic come immediately to mind. But most things are poisonous, if you use enough of them, including such seeming innocents as potatoes (glycoalkaloid), apple seeds and raw lima beans (cyanide), tomato leaves and stems (solanine). Dirt, we might add, contains arsenic. Some people like eating dirt. Just saying.
Then there are the gloriously lethal flowers, with their sprightly colors and tender leaves.
If you’re a devotee of Agatha Christie, you’ve surely come across digitalis, yew, poppy, henbane, ricin, yellow jasmine, datura, belladonna, cyanide, and monkshood. How lovely the thought of the dotty little old lady puttering in her greenhouse, tending her flowers. Such pretty, pretty flowers.
With the exception of hemlock, Shakespeare’s poisons were unnamed. Mystery writer P.D. James made lethal a cocktail touched with insecticide (brand not mentioned); neither does Nathaniel Hawthorne name his poison in he short story “Rappacini’s Daughter.” This seems terribly lazy: Different flowers offer such fabulous suffering, convulsions, running sores, hallucinations, comas . . . Well, one wouldn’t notice if one were in a coma, but one could be brought on with a tisane made of angel’s trumpet, a drop-dead-gorgeous flower, and so aptly named.
Ah, flowers, not only are many of them classic killers, they’re so romantic. And unlike rat poison and the like, you can grow them yourself in garden or greenhouse, even one of those clever herb boxes with the grow lights.
Did you know that flower colors, particularly those of roses, signify different emotions? You might color-key your flower selections to reflect your mood. For instance, yellow points to jealousy and infidelity, orange to pride, and red to passion.
Did you know that small doses of arsenic were once used as a skin-lightener? Just saying, again.
Tinctures, Tisanes, and Salads—the Basics of Dispatchery
Tinctures. Tinctures can be made at home with plants. It’s a fairly slow method of murder but, since they remain fresh for years, it yields an opportunity for prolonged theatrics (yours) and also the opportunity to put the operation on hold.
Making a tincture per Healthline.com:“The simplest way is to submerge herbs in alcohol in a glass jar . . .
Fill a glass jar two-thirds to three-fourths of the way up with finely chopped fresh leaves. Fill halfway with dry leaves and roots, bark, or berries. And fill one-fourth of the way up with dried roots, bark, or berries.
Pour grain alcohol of 40% to 70% over the herbs to the top of your glass jar, covering them completely.
Cover the jar with parchment paper and then screw on a metal lid.
Let it sit for 6 to 8 weeks.
Place a cheesecloth over a funnel and allow your tincture to drip through.
The strained liquid is your tincture. You can hold onto it for years if bottled and stored in a cool, dark place.”
Tisanes. A tisane is a tea made from herbs, flowers, and plant leaves. Faster acting than a tincture, some of these potions are near-instantaneous killers. To make one, gather your flowers and /or leaves, put them in a pot and pour boiling water over them. Let steep for a few minutes, and serve. If you wish, add a bit of sugar or honey to taste.
You might also treat your loved one to a juicy steak accompanied by a totally toxic tossed salad. Beautiful in texture and color, and swiftly lethal, would be a mix of rhubarb and tomato leaves, jimson weed, studded with red nettle berries and apple seeds. Chop a couple of Fool’s Funnel mushrooms on top and off he goes!
Don’t forget to top the salad with your beloved’s favorite dressing.
And . . . Happy Halloween! (Insert maniacal laughter here.)
The plant-filled painting destined for the greenhouse, if it ever gets built. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
MANY (MANY) YEARS ago I was dating a guy who became my first husband, a move my father called “a good first marriage,” which didn’t bode well. How right Dad was.
I should have seen this when Alphonse* and I were dating and he paired a brown velvet sofa, which I quite liked, with a multi-hued green shag rug, a combination I found repulsive. Dreary. Like someone vomited salad on the floor. I told him so; he ignored me.
While I quite like brown, green was never my color. I dropped out of Girl Scouts because of the uniform. I backed out of being a bridesmaid at a cousin’s wedding because of the dress. I itch to remember it. (I invented a fine excuse, blaming it on my little sister, who was also asked to attend.) St. Patrick’s Day has always been problematic.
Last week, the publisher of Prime Women, an online magazine for which I write a weekly column on fashion, suggested I devote my next piece to green and brown as an haute-style color trend. (Though I sit at my desk in tatty sweats, popping candy corn, I find I have a fount of opinions.)
At first, this reminded me of the ex, and then I realized with a startle that I live in a house that is almost entirely shades of green and brown: chestnut moldings, doors, staircase; dark-stained pine floors; green walls in the living room, foyer, and master bedroom; flowery paper in the kitchen and upstairs bath, which also has a dark green ceiling.
Maybe what made the combination so unappealing was that our apartment was in Manhattan, overlooking a parking lot. In a house, with gardens front and rear, green and brown feels natural. The house itself became part of the garden—even more so in winter, when the more tender plants get moved inside and palm fronds tickle your neck when you’re sitting on the sofa.
On our last trip to Florida, a sad farewell to my beautiful sister Jeanie, My Prince and I rented a truck to haul various bits and pieces back to DC. Included among them was a thrift-shop find, an impulse purchase enabled only by that truck: an enormous painting of a plant-filled atrium that goggled my eye. When our back porches are finished, this would go on one wall, I said. Baby, who was standing beside me, applauded the concept.† $250, the helpful woman at the desk said.
Mine.
While repairing the back porches (and resurrecting my greenhouse) are still a dream, and the painting can’t be exposed to the weather, into the dining room it went, filling a third of the space on one wall. A pair of loopy-iron bistro chairs set in front give it the air of a café. It’s hard not to get caught up in its charm, which will be intensified when the garden’s parlor palms come inside. I fancy setting them near the painting, as if it’s welcoming me in for a visit.
A green carpet might be nice.
∗ Not his real name.
† The older The Prince and I get, the closer Baby gets to inheriting all of my frequently over-the-top finds, most of which her Personal Prince Pete would otherwise reject and including items she has contributed and covet—here’s looking at you, peacock feather boa.
Cut branches—with blooms—from a Rose of Sharon fill a vase just in time for dinner guests to appreciate. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
If non-native, invasive plants upset you, please avert your eyes, snowflake.*
UNTILTHREE days ago, I didn’t know that cut branches of the Rose of Sharon would do quite nicely in a vase—if there are buds on the branch, they’ll continue to open. Sounds really dim-witted, right?
We had guests coming for dinner and the vase behind the sofa was empty, and I do like a powerful bunch of greenery in it. With minutes to spare before arrival, I dashed out to the curb and clipped a few branches from one of the Rose of Sharon bushes we’re cultivating alongside the curb, one branch with several buds and a single flower, though I didn’t expect that to last—maybe we’d get the evening out of it—before it shriveled.
With hibiscus, of which this is a hardy variety that survives freezing temperatures, the flowers open and are lovely for just one day, then poof. The flowers on the branch I cut stayed open and are continuing to open. Why is this surprising me?
We’ve been growing Rose of Sharon plants for decades. Some are in the backyard, some in the back alley, others along the curb. Such jolly non-natives with their purple, white and pink, all sprouts or offshoots of a red-and-white hybrid that the Prince and Baby bought me 30-some years ago for Mother’s Day.
Ick, or words to that effect, I said when I saw it. What an old-lady plant. Feh. But it was a gift from my loved ones, so it was planted (and neglected), and it grew and grew and became a small tree that hides the dining area of the back porch from neighboring eyes. The red and white flowers make me feel like I’m in the South of France, not 12 blocks from the US Capitol.
Now I’m an old lady, and I’m quite happily surrounded by them. We planted an offshoot in one of the two main garden beds; it came up purple. Others were added elsewhere from time to time—we never knew what color they’d be. They do breed like rabbits, although most sprouts disappear before they develop. I’ve never managed to care why.
Once planted, in whatever dirt you have handy, they’re completely trouble-free, they’ll grow like weeds and bloom prolifically from June through frost—one of few flowering plants to do so. Around here, the crape myrtle, a spectacular tree that I do so love, looks like hell for far too long, dead-looking branches amid the tulips, still dead-looking when the roses begin to scent the air. If the flowers on the Rose of Sharon come out as summer begins, it’s a leafy and green backdrop for spring bulbs and flowers.
*I say this most affectionately, as my preference is also for native plants. But sometimes . . . stuff happens.
A feathery vitrine found through a Google search. And there are LOTS of them!
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
I KNEW THERE WAS a reason I subscribed for over 100 bucks a year to World of Interiors, a British magazine with a bit of a cult following (see 100 bucks a year).
This month, in the section called “Aesthete’s Library,” writer Mitchell Owens features the now-out-of-print Maisons de France, a book published in 1950, when France was scratching a recovery from the “deprivation, occupation, and genocide” of World War II. Showcased are 96 residences . . . gathered into an “album of domestic escapism,” that were selected from the pages of French design magazine Plaisir de France.
On page 57, should you get your hands on the September issue (you won’t find it online) is the perfect repository for one’s dead parakeets (or canaries, doves, or vultures if you have). Would that I had noticed this before the deaths of Vinnie and Shakira, Buddy, Bossy, Blue, and Boychic. . . Peaches escaped, so she doesn’t count. Still with us are Cooper and Bonnie, who appear happy and healthy enough.
They were with us in pairs (we’re not insane). Each death was a tragedy. With each demise we swore off birds, but dammit, they’re entertaining, colorful, and make a design statement, which is, to my mind, the bottom line.
Getting to the point of the story: Filling a niche in the dining-room wall of a “suave country home” is an arched “vitrine of taxidermy birds set into the boiserie,” also known as wood wall paneling. Within the vitrine, which appears to be about 7 feet tall, is a small leafless tree, espaliered* against the back wall, with what appear to be 7 or 8 small colorful birds, presumably budgies perched on the branches. Judging from the number of photos of stuffed birds I found by Googling (see photo above and on the front), such displays were considered quite chic in Victorian homes, and are apparently collectible today. Keep your eye out!
So! To the point: Instead of a burial under the Kwanzan cherry tree, currently our feathered friends’ plot of eternal repose, Vinnie, Shakira, and those that followed could have been with us forever, some with wings spread as if about to take off, others sitting placidly, watching us dine.
Is this not the perfect accompaniment to oeufs cocotte or poulet chasseur? No feathers flying or raucous chirruping in the middle of dinner (they do like to chime in, opinionated little sots. The live ones, I mean).
Our friend Robert had his black cat taxidermied, a move I find strange. He’s an artist and architect of some renown, so one doesn’t question his sometimes peculiar ideas. Where has he put said cat, I have yet to see.
*Espaliered plants, says the agriculture wing of the University of Nebraska, are most often fruit trees trained to grow flat against a wall, which is useful in tight, confined areas where wide-spreading shrubs or trees won’t work. And that is all I have to say about gardening this week.
A tabletop extravaganza at J. Brown & Co.; shop exterior shown on the front. / Photos by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
LET ME MAKE one thing perfectly clear: I can’t afford much of anything at J. Brown & Co. in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Oh, perhaps a $35 napkin. One.
That said, I can never pass up a visit.
The little shop on upper King Street beckons, firstly, with a riot of plants outside the front door. That has nothing to do with the store’s contents, but the sight is so alluring it empties my lungs and causes my knees to go weak. It is a fantasia of flowers in pots and planters, spilling with color under a yellow-and-white awning. Pulling me in.
Which is what happened the other day with a visit on a whim, Baby and me. Lunch? she said. Thrift-shopping? Ah, so.
It was our first stop. When thrift-shopping you need to prime the eye. At J. Brown it is more than the goods, which are out of our range. It is the ideas that spill onto each surface—the glitter of crystal, the interplay of extraordinary patterns of china, the heaps of pillows that invite a wallow, the big round table that commands the center of the shop, always dressed so elegantly, plate upon plate upon service plate, embroidered napkins, ornaments interspersed and in the center . . .
This is actually the subject of today’s screed, a monumental, near ceiling-tickling floral centerpiece.
Surely, you’ve read at least 12 times that your centerpiece should be low enough that guests can see one another across the table.
What we have here is the opposite, an arrangement so tall that it explodes above the heads of the diners, creating an umbrella of flowers in a towering glass vase. What a heavenly triumph!
Of course, it would get messy should you have a chandelier above your table, or a ceiling fan (which I have) or particularly low ceilings. Yet the effect is so glamorous, dazzling, gob-smacking that it could be well worth moving the dining table to create head room.
Do also note, if you visit J. Brown the brick floors. This near-trompe-l’oeil masterpiece, which appears to be ancient, one might believe the store was at some point a stable, imaginatively resurrected as a home design shop.
It is not, Brown explains with a twinkle—he seems to love yelling this story—the bricks, which are about an inch thick, he laid himself about 20 years ago, when he had just bought the building. They were cheap—like nothing for a box of many—at Home Depot. He bought many boxes, neatly laying the bricks from doorstep through the main level, up a short rise of steps and into the next room. The bricks were then scuffed and well distressed, giving that patina of age, then covered with mortar, which was then scrubbed off, letting the residue settle for some texture. Several layers of polyurethane were then applied.
Glorious. Do visit.
Then hit the thrift shops. Fake it till you make it.
J. Brown & Company, 1119 King Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314; 703-548-9010.
DESPITE THE blazing heat that says otherwise, we are headed into fall. Nice fresh breezes, a little nip in the morning and evening, not enough for the fireplace, maybe, but if you’re rushing the season you won’t be sloshing about in sweaty new boots much longer.
It’s also one of the best, perhaps the best, time to plant perennials, with many favorites in bedraggled state on sale—they will revive—and the earth still warm so the plants’ little legs can reach down and wriggle about, getting settled and building strength to take off next spring.
It’s also time to divide overgrown plants, like hostas, daylilies, liriope, bee balm, and such.
You can pretty much just yank them up, brush off the soil, and either cut the root apart with a sharp knife or pull apart the plant, making smaller clumps. Replant these, water them well, and you’ve doubled or tripled the size of your garden bed, for free.
Then there are poppies to be planted, maybe. There seems to be a difference of opinion here, and I add no intelligence to the subject, having never managed to grow a single poppy since I started gardening 40 years ago. Or so. Give or take. But I’m always checking to see if I can find some miracle variety that will defeat my black poppy thumb.
I love poppies. Those big bright heads with the big black eyes, a big bed of them bobbing about is mesmerizing and, if you’re headed for Oz, might be soporific.
Now. Some say sow seed in spring, others say do it in the fall—the latter if you like to have an early spring crop. You can sow again in spring for a later display. A field of poppies! Sounds wonderful?
Nothing to it, they say. Just toss the seed, scratch it around the soil, and lightly water. Go to it Dorothy . . . poppies! Nothing. To. It.
It’s also time to consider next year’s crop of insects—and plant garlic, which not only dissuades ants, worms, stinkbugs, aphids, root maggots, carrot flies, and Japanese beetles (among other nasties) from nibbling at your fruit trees and flowers. It is also essential for warding off vampires, which are particularly troublesome in late October.
Just find a nice big, firm, tasty head of garlic—a visit to a farmers market might be in order here. The bigger and more pungent the cloves the better: Their children will inherit the traits. Separate the bulbs and peel off the tough covering that surrounds each clove, leaving the papery skin on for protection.
Plant 6 to 8 inches apart, cover with a couple of inches of soil topped with a light layer of straw or mulch.
In spring, coiled leaves will emerge. These are called garlic scapes. You need to cut these so the energy goes to bulb growth, not greenery, but they’re edible in salads and pesto. Meanwhile, the garlic heads are growing underground, getting fatter and yummier.
Dig the bulbs in mid-July, lay them out flat on something, and dry them in a dry spot. They cure in a couple of weeks.
An Akebono tulip from the Colorblends catalogue. On the front, Pink Cubed.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
THE MOST SPECTACULAR tulip display I ever saw was in front of a salmon-painted townhouse a few blocks from my home.
A front garden, about 15 feet deep and about as wide (though interrupted by a sidewalk), was solidly inlaid with tulips the precise hue of the house. It was as if someone had taken a giant paint roller and had run it from the sidewalk to the house and then up to the rooftop. A breathtaking whoosh of color.
I did not return to see the petals fall, preferring to keep that glorious sight in my ever-mind. Stupidly, I took no photos, which would have been an aide to that ever-mind, which sometimes doesn’t last as long as I expect.
I’m thinking of this while flipping through the new Colorblends catalogue, which found its way through the letterbox this afternoon. Last year I was a few weeks late— hey, it’s still summer—suggesting you buy bulbs now, not waiting for sweater weather. The best bulbs sell out fast! Or at least the bulb you’re particularly salivating over.
The easiest way to achieve a carpet of tulips is to flip to page 70 of the catalogue, or click on the link, for the section called (and rightly so) BedSpreads.
These collections, which seem intended for queen- and king-sized beds, blend four or more varieties with a range of bloom time, height, and color.
Gamay
Gamay,* for instance, includes six varieties of pink and purple tulips that begin blooming at the start of the season (around the time you see the first daffodils) and continue through late spring. Somewhere mid-spring the highs and lows, darks and lights, are all in bloom together for a splendid wave of color and texture. The assortment runs $250 for 600 bulbs, $912 for 2,400.
Beaujolais
Beaujolais* is a sweet mix of five varieties, a sweet combination of palest buttercup yellow and several shades of pink, all timed for a mid-spring blast. It’s a short run. Pow. Over and done. Yank the bulbs and plant your summer bloomers. $215 per 500 bulbs, $760 for 2,000.
Have only a twin bed-sized space, or a crib? There are many more-modest singletons and collections, such as the enchanting Akebono, a semi-double pale yellow flower that has a bit of a rose blush on the outside petals. Just $22 for 25 bulbs.
Pink Cubed
If you’re still into Barbie come next spring, Pink Cubed combines three gorgeous bloomers that start with the daffodils and last through spring. $42 for 100.
Tulips may be the highlights of the Colorblends collections, but they also offer daffodils, hyacinths, allium, and amaryllis. The company has been my go-to for the last few years, with breathtaking, well-priced, and well-described bulbs, and the staff is terrific. Shipments are made at the perfect planting time for your area, so you’re not stuffing bags of bulbs in the coat closet for a few months. If their slow arrival makes you nervous, call them. They’ll cheerfully give you a heads-up on when your bulbs should arrive.
Now off to Costco for a little comparison-shopping.
*BOTH Gamay and Beaujolais are already sold out. Dang it. I warned you. Maybe you’ll be besotted with something else . . .
EXACTLY WHEN does mansplaining begin? Is it something guys are born to do, or is it learned? I’m going to posit that it starts when they begin to speak.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the term (though, if you’re a woman, you’ve certainly experienced it), Webster defines mansplaining as, “explaining something to a woman in a condescending way that assumes she has no knowledge about the topic.” This usually goes on for a while, sometimes a very long while, in which the woman is expected to sit/stay, listen, and acknowledge the man’s rightness.
Case in point. The other day, my 3-year-old grandson, Wesley, was lecturing his mother, my daughter (also known as Baby), on the horrible mess she made of his books in his playroom. They were pulled from the shelf and left in heaps on the floor. He wanted to let her know, quite firmly, and exhaustively, why this was a terrible thing to do. It was a mess.
This tirade was performed without pause to let her explain that she was just organizing.
There’s a video, and it is very funny. It’s also alarming. Wes isn’t yet toilet-trained.
Have you seen the Barbie movie? It’s a hoot. I would suggest you not take your male person—go with a girlfriend. Not that guys shouldn’t see it, but they’ll sap the joy, the uninhibited laughter, that bursts from female viewers. Oh, does Greta Gerwig skewer the mansplainers—and trucks. I shall say no more.
It also needs to be seen on a big screen, the details are so delicious.
Once you’ve seen it, you’ll need a Barbie garden, one filled with pink flowers and sass. Perennials soft and sweet like roses and peonies. Add punch-drunk-annuals accents like zinnias and cosmos. Now insert something unexpected, like a flourish of grasses with fabulous pink plumage to perk up your patch.
I’d never heard of or seenPink Muhly Grass until last year, first in endless pop-up online ads, and then in a garden near me, where the owners had planted it as a border in front of their townhouse: A fantastic mass of wispy-poof pink plumes, it looks like cotton candy. I had to have it, and much as Baby slapped my hands—Ma! It needs sun!—I bought a clump, which has done nothing, as expected. It’s alive, though. Barely.
Should you have sun, the grass grows to 3 or 4 feet and blooms from July through September. Or should, if you’re not me. Plant it now, if you’re a month from first frost.
Pink Pampas Grass is another sun lover, native to South America, that throws off gigantic, feathery pink plumes that range in shade from shy to shocking. Able to grow an inch a day, they say, it can also escape boundaries and smother its neighbors—so beware where you plant it. But what a screen it makes. One clump can expand to 8 feet wide and 12 feet tall. For pink flowers, look for the ones called Rosea and Pink Feather.
Redhead Fountain Grass sends out puffs of pink midsummer, before most grasses show off their plumage. Another full-sun lover, the flowerheads resemble liatris, the plant is drought tolerant, it grows to 3 or 4 feet, and the pink fades to silver over the winter, for year-round beauty.
Now, kick off your Manolos. It’s Cosmo time!
For a great tutorial on these and other ornamental grasses, click here.
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The bird bath found on Facebook. There are variations of this do-it-yourself creation all over FB, Etsy, and elsewhere online. / Photo on front from iStock.By Stephanie Cavanaugh
MY FRIEND the illustrious architect and artist Judith Capen hates “one-of” ‘s: the last of a dozen wine glasses, a lonely platter, a single sconce shade. Or a hand-me-down that you shuffle about, and about. Sometimes there are three-ofs, which is honestly not much better.
The Prince and I have many of these odd things, the detritus of a lifetime in one place. Things that are pretty, but also pretty useless.
Toss them, she says. Yard-sale time. Or just kick them to the curb and let someone else say, Oooh pretty, and take them home to do nothing with for a decade or two.
So, when I came across a bird bath on Facebook, constructed of such strays, I thought, Yes!I can do this.
It’s like Swedish Death Cleaning, getting rid of things you don’t need or use so those who are faced with your home after your sad demise are not saddled with the job. And, you’re not actually getting rid of anything! You’re repurposing. What a hoarder’s dream.
What we have here, in the photo above, from the ground up, is a colorful Moroccan-style candle holder. It’s set upside-down on a solid thing to give the structure stability. Sitting on top is a kind of bobèche, an amber glass “collar” that may have belonged to a chandelier. On top of that is a green water glass filled with clear glass marbles. Repeat with another bobèche and another water tumbler and one more bobèche atop that. Then a pie plate is set on a mosaic glass platter.
The whole thing is glued together, except for the pie plate—which we’ll get to—and, Voilà! A bird bath that would be at home in Wonderland.
I know I have everything to create one—including a mirrored Moroccan-style candle holder. Also, some really sweet margarita glasses, pink with green stems, that I picked up somewhere years ago and have not used once. How could I let those go? And, I have enough plates and platters and unused vases and cups and saucers and bowls to take this to six feet, if I have enough glue.
Though, one could start with a pan on a platter on a bowl (glass or pottery—metal could burn birdie footsies), possibly no glue, which would take about 12 seconds.
Around now, and especially now, birds need water more than food. When it’s dry and hot, they’re frantic for a drink. Just set out a shallow bowl of water and see how they flock.
If you’re fearful of mosquitos, which are particularly nasty this year, just change the water in the pie plate each day. This is why it’s not glued down: You lift and dump and fill each morning. Mosquitos prefer standing, turgid, disgusting water. Not the cool, clear stuff. So, no issue. You get the joy of watching the birds splash about while you have a gin and tonic on the porch.
And if the bird bath falls over and smashes to bits, pat yourself on the back for getting rid of things you weren’t using in the first place—and start on another.
The Cavanaugh manse from below. Are the blooms live or are they Memorex? (And for those who are even older: Which twin has the Toni?) / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
IT’S TIME once again to discuss the judicious use of fake flowers in the garden, pots, and window boxes.
About now, you’ve thrown in the towel on seeing a blossom this season on the plumeria, the bird of paradise, or the hydrangea (bad pruning!). The peonies have developed a fuzzy rash and need to be lopped to the ground. Oh, that would be me, but you probably have a few sad-looking, or dead, plants.
Maybe you went on vacation, bad you, and the gorgeous, lush, enchanting garden you left just a week or so ago gagged in thirst and collapsed in a sad tangle.
Or, a raccoon demolished the herbs, your toddler made you a “bouquet,” or the next-door hound lifted his leg one too many times on the zinnias.
These are not disasters! They’re opportunities to visit a Michaels or other craft store, or let your fingers do the walking around Amazon, and gather a clutch of absolutely indestructible artificial flowers and greens that owe their good looks and unnatural health to substances unknown in nature.
I revisit this subject every year because every year there’s another issue. Early on, there were the lilies—there was a little sun in the garden back then. The lilies would come up all pink and splendid and then the flowers would expire and I had a clump of green sticks to look at for the rest of the summer.
Why I was moved to try wiring on some fakes is lost in the mists of time, but damn they looked good. So good that, most of the time, I even forgot they weren’t real. I’d remember only when a guest gasped in admiration at my brilliance: They’re growing so far past the season. HOW do you do it?!
Now, artificial flowers can be tacky. But there are ways to make them seem amusing, ortrès drôle. Saying anything in French provides an air of elegance, n’est-ce pas? Practice saying it while waving a bejeweled cigarette holder, cigarette not necessary.
You want subtle. The flowers and greenery should look as natural as possible: no oddball colors or unnatural-looking leaves (strip these off!!). And keep the fakes to 10% or less of any border, planter, or box. When you weave those fine mystery-substance stems into a living arrangement the eye just assumes they’re real.
For instance, my white Bird of Paradise (which is white in name only, since it refuses to flower) now has two flowers on a plant that bends under the porch ceiling (this variety grows to 30 feet, an event I did not anticipate when buying). These are not the fabulous birds one see in the tropics, with their strong beaks and colorful plumage; they’re kind of thin and wimpy. One’s kind of pinkish, the other is orange. But! They look real because . . . really, who would choose fakes like these?
(Baby found them somewhere for free and gifted them to me.)
My three second-floor window boxes are another story. Because they’re so high up, there’s no way of telling what’s fake and what isn’t. Multiple misfortunes decimated my accent plants this year, leaving me with (real) spikes in the center, sweet-potato vine in the front, and ivy on the edges. And two big gaps in each box.
I planted the most deliciously salmon-colored fake-silk—NOT PLASTIC—geraniums, a Michaels find, in the gaps. Looking up at them, you’d never know it. These will last for years. Just make sure you remove them after Thanksgiving, when geraniums would normally not be in bloom.
If you love geraniums, as I do, you’ve possibly, probably, had issues with them midsummer. They don’t much like baking heat and won’t do much if any flowering, though the foliage will be fine. If you have them at eye level and want to goose them a bit, get a bunch of fakes, strip off the foliage (that’s always a giveaway), cut them apart, and poke just a few flowers amid the greenery. Stop. That’s quite enough.
You can do this with other flowers as well: Just remember the 10% rule and keep them as natural-looking as possible.
Meanwhile, my two lower window boxes have mostly done well—except for something I put in (I forget what now) that didn’t make it, leaving a patch of dirt doing nothing. For this I have a collection of faux greens, plastic in fact, though of a non-shiny variety and a subdued shade, that work well as a filler—and could also be used in tricky little naked garden spaces.
A. MARY, MARY, quite contrary, why won’t my flowers grow?
Q. Let us turn to Alexandra, mother of the Midsized Garden, a British site that I follow. After all, she writes with that authoritative accent that makes one sit up, listen, and obey. Daringly, I have taken liberties with her words, as I do, adding a little this and that, here and there, but here’s the gist.
The No. 1 reason for blooming failures is, she says, you’ve planted the plant in the wrong location. A sun lover in the shade, a shade lover in the sun, plants that like bogs set in clay as dry as Death Valley in August . . . and so forth.
If you move it, it shall blossom. Sometimes it’s not even much of a move; a few inches over and all’s well. Of course, moving anything in late July is a fraught enterprise. But it can be done, as long as you promise to water faithfully and pray to Flora, the Roman Goddess of Flowers, lest Phthisis, the Greek personification of decay, rot, and putrefaction (the name even sounds nasty, like spitting. Try it), come calling.
You’ll have the most success with moving smaller plants during the height of summer—perhaps those you planted a couple of months ago. Just make sure they’re watered, and don’t go on vacation unless there’s a lot of rain in the forecast.
No. 2. Old plants. Eventually, all plants die; one can take that to the bank. But a seemingly young and healthy specimen might stop flowering, or flower stingily, after a few years. It needs to be dug, divided, and replanted. The bad news is you might not see flowers this season. The good news is, next year you’ll have several plants that (given you put them in the right location) will be primed to flower.
If they’re nice and healthy, albeit not doing anything notable, wait for fall to do your dividing and planting. You don’t have to risk death, and the plants will have a head start for next year.
No. 3. Sowing seeds too late—and don’t I know this one. Annuals need 14 to 21 days to germinate, then 90 to 100 days of growth before they flower. Do the math, which I never do. I do have to stop doing this myself; planting seeds in July is just tossing money in the wind.
For example, DO NOT try to grow cosmos in July. Even if they sprout, the chances of seeing a flower are about nil. Instead, see if they have some left at the garden center.
No. 4. Deadhead. Hurray! A remedy you can fearlessly apply right now.
As soon as a flower shrivels, nip it off. Alexandra says the reason flower-growers have such an abundance of blossoms is that they deadhead even before the flowers droop, so new ones are constantly taking their place.
A minimum of three times a week with the snippers should do it. She does mention one nutcase who does it three times a day, though the results are said to be glorious.
No. 5. Pruning flowering perennials at the wrong time can decimate a season’s growth.
Cut the rose too late (and too hard) in the spring, and gone are this year’s flowers. Hydrangeas are tricky beasts: Some flower on old wood, others on new, and messing about at the wrong time can mean disaster for the season.
No. 6. Ah, a tricky one. Too much or too little fertilizer. Don’t assume that a lack of flowers is due to a lack of fertilizer: Sometimes it’s from too much. You might get voluminous growth and no blossoms.
COOPER MIGHT remember living in the greenhouse, flying over the jasmines, perching on the bird of paradise. Maybe not, after all she has a bird brain.
Coop is a parakeet as white as a ghost, white as a sheet, as white as snow before the dogs pee all over it. We named her after Anderson Cooper. The whitest bird we’d ever seen, named after the whitest man imaginable. We thought she was a guy bird, and then found out she’s a chick.
As I mentioned, Coop once lived in the greenhouse off my second-floor office, along with two other budgies, tragically lost. Don’t even ask. Then My Prince dismantled the greenhouse—that was well over a year ago, though we still have the idea of rebuilding bigger and grander.
Coop was in mourning—or her buddies and her free-flying habitat—until we brought Bonnie home, named for my little sister because we brought him home on her birthday. Oh, yes. Bonnie is male. *
After an Internet search confirmed which plants are safe for birds, Bonnie (top) and Coop can enjoy a garden habitat of their own. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
They’re happy together, cuddling on branches, snuggling in the hollowed-out coconut house we’ve provided. It doesn’t seem possible, looking at them, that they could both fit in that small space, but there’s nothing much to birds but feathers. Try holding one, if you have a chance. Give it a little squeeze. They’re shockingly skinny.
I saw a photo somewhere a couple of years ago of a fine Victorian cage from Thailand, I think. A huge, ornate thing, warm wood with brass bits and a cupola. I would like that, but unless I find one on the street or in a thrift shop, anything like it would set us back thousands. This is unlikely.
Instead, the birds share a rather handsome black metal cage that in a bird’s view would be two stories, I suppose. A double-decker with a domed roof. Roomy enough for them to flutter about. We don’t let them out: When they occasionally sneak out they are nearly impossible to retrieve.
They like carrots, Edith Piaf, and being outside. Which is where I’m going with this . . .
Each morning I stock them up with food and water and roll the cage onto the back porch, pushing it tight to the rail so they can feel close to nature. They skitter about, cawing to their fellow birds, though they rarely visit, which seems strange and a little mean. While it often seems they don’t care a twig if we’re out there or not, they’ll chatter if I take the newspaper to the porch and become positively exuberant if we have guests.
So. The other day I’m having my coffee and reading the paper at the porch table and I noticed the birds nibbling the leaves of the Rose of Sharon, which butts up against the railing. I could tell this was an ecstatic experience for them because their little beady eyes rolled back in their heads and you could practically hear the moans of pleasure.
I immediately yanked them away from the rail to consult the Internet on the safety of chewing the plant and lo—it was fine. Not only that, I came across a list of plants that are perfectly safe for birds to eat, which gave me the idea of creating a garden inside the cage for them, that I started forthwith.
Filling a small Japanese vase (this just felt like an Asian thing) with florist’s foam and water, I jabbed in branches of the Rose of Sharon, which looked swell. The birds were put off by it at first but then seemed to enjoy the hide and seek-iness of the arrangement.
Maybe I’ll hang some spider-plant babies from the top rails, and plant a bottom tray with hen-and-chick succulents, and a small Boston fern—or a bouquet of leaves. They say African violets, orchids, and roses are fine too, but I have a feeling the birds are going to find them too delicious, and replacements could get costly.
A forest in the cage. Sometimes I impress myself.
*Figuring out the sex of a parakeet is not tricky, but the bird has to be at least 6 months old to make a positive ID. That’s when the cere, or hard bit around the nostrils, turns blue for boys and brown for girls. When Coop and Bonnie came home, they were too young for us to tell.
