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.

By Stephanie Cavanaugh

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?

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By Stephanie Cavanaugh

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.*

UNTIL THREE 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.

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By Stephanie Cavanaugh

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. 

Eat and repeat. 

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 . . .

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By Stephanie Cavanaugh

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 seen Pink 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 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, or très 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. 

You might call them garden toupées.  

Stocki

By Stephanie Cavanaugh

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.

A great hydrangea primer is here.

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. 

Finegardening.com explains it all….

And if all else fails, plant fakes. I’ve put off the subject once but really will tackle it next week, in my usual tasteful manner. 

By Stephanie Cavanaugh

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. 

A mass of coneflowers is one highlight of this native garden. / Photo above and on the front by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

By Stephanie Cavanaugh

LAVENDER SPILLS onto the sidewalk, rudbeckia floats purple flowers above a sea of milkweed and goldenrod. Down a walk, the tiny, sweet faces of summer-blooming iris bobble amid a tangle of yarrow, peonies, black-eyed Susan, and liatris. 

Over it all flutter butterflies, bees, and less-pleasant ankle biters. That’s what a “native garden” will do for you—equal parts eye-popping beauty and . . . extreme itch. 

A woman ambles by. It’s a neighborhood treasure, she burbled. I walk by often.

The house and quarter-acre native garden, just outside Washington DC in suburban Virginia, is about to go on the market. I suggest spraying for mosquitoes before that happens. 

Another cascade of color in this Virginia garden, soon no doubt to be bulldozed by a developer. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

Baby about bit off my head. The bees! she yelled. Oh, right, save the bees. I have two ankles and can spare one. 

Baby and her mother-in-law are a team of two Realtor/developers who restore, rebuild, and build new houses. One rarely hears I-love-my-mother-in-law stories, but this is one. The two have been working together for years (they also get their nails done together). 

A couple of guys created this corner Eden and tended it for 15 years before selling and moving to Germany. I don’t know why, just reporting. It appears they’ve shared the bounty, since many of the homes that line the street sport similar, if far smaller-scaled plantings. There’s just so much!

However. Even I, an avid preservationist or pack rat, depending on your viewpoint, consider the little ranch house that accompanies the garden a tear-down. (Baby and the MIL decided to flip it when interest rates rose and the price of the project grew too steep.) While it would be fun to tart up if one (me) had to, going far out with design feels reckless when the price tag exceeds $800,000 and you have resale in mind.  

Built in the 1950s, the house is a tiny place, with a master bedroom that you could barely shoehorn a queen-size bed into and two other bedrooms that are even smaller. There’s zero architectural interest—a nicely redone galley kitchen, though. 

No! No! yells My Prince. I’m getting a lot of abuse today. 

It’s a middle-class home, the kind people sought after WWII, he insists, even getting a little teary over it. The kind of home where Mom’s in the kitchen, your 2.5 kids bike the quiet streets, Dad comes home, and dinner is at 5:30. Donna Reed! Father Knows Best! It’s wonderful, he says. Those were the days. Old coot.

A developer has shown interest before the house is officially on the market; he’ll tear it down and build a mini-mansion, like others going up in the neighborhood. Of that, I’m sure. 

The house won’t be missed (by me), but the garden, how tragic to let that go, and once again I’m sure it will be let go. That’s what developers do: plow under the plantings, they’re just in the way of progress. Such a nuisance, those pesky hydrangeas.

We’re here to save what we can—digging for treasures to cart off to our own homes. The ground is so well tilled and improved that the plants come up easily, roots intact. They’re all sun-lovers, so it’s a bonanza for Baby, whose large garden is nothing if not sunny.

Our haul will go to the Prince’s patches, along the alley fence behind our house and the tree boxes out front beside the curb. Our neighbors have volunteered their hoses and water bills, if not their backs, to the effort. It will be a community cutting garden, with masses of flowers for bouquets. 

Just watch your ankles.

Look carefully: This may be the only blossom ever from this trumpet vine. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

By Stephanie Cavanaugh

IS IT TIME once again to discuss the judicious use of spray paint and fake flowers in the garden? 

Why, yes, it is!

Heat and lack of rain have been killers for some things (I wish, at the moment, it would kill the young mother across the alley cooing to her baby in the little blow-up pool; I hate baby talk). My two lower window boxes have been doing fine; the three upstairs are struggling. They’re under the house eaves so don’t get much rain, when rain there is. They also get too much sun, hard to believe when I spend so much time cursing the shade.

Oh, shut up, little mama, I will have to muzzle you. She sounds like a horse. A high-pitched whinny Huhuhuhuhuhhhhha every five seconds, I swear. 

We’ll save the fake plants and spray paint until next week because. . . . Suddenly breaking news . . .

Dateline: Washington DC, July 9, 2023, 8 am:

There is a flower on the orange trumpet vine. 

So far, this plant has been a supreme waste of invasive space. One flower in the decade since it was planted. Oh, it’s a lovely shade, though. I spent many minutes admiring it. Even getting my glasses so I could admire it more closely, dangling above the pond. Then I took a photo. It may be the only one we get, so memorializing it seems appropriate. 

I am queen of the invasives—arm-wrestle me for the title if you wish. There’s the trumpet and the white flower vine and the rose of Sharon and the vinca and honeysuckle and the never blooming wisteria, my prize, which flounces across the garage roof, and to which I’ve devoted a great deal of cyberspace in the 40—FORTY—years since it was planted. Stupid thing. My Prince was on the roof—the garage is freestanding and at the end of the garden—thwacking away at it the other day: The Kwanzan cherry’s branches are now a complete umbrella over the garden, reaching from the porch steps across the entire backyard, where it has become entangled with the vine.

Note: Forty years. Prince and his Irish skin. Brutal heat. Blazing sun. Black roof. I watch from the kitchen window, planning his funeral.  

Everything fights with everything for wall space in this garden. 

Speaking of which. Well, speaking of gardens, anyway. Have you thought of planting corn as an ornamental screen? I imagine not. 

We went to our first movie post-Covid yesterday, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,* co-starring the always delightful Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I love her sarcastic eyes. Out in time for dinner at Las Placitas, our favorite of the many Mexican (Salvadoran) restaurants in the neighborhood. They have tubs of corn plants outlining the patio that have actually corned, or whatever it is corn does.

These are not dracaena, the ornamental houseplants that are also called corn. These are the fruit-bearing—Wait! Is corn fruit? Well, on investigation, some call it a fruit, others a vegetable, and others a vehicle for butter. So, I guess we could say they fruited. 

Whichever, they looked very cool and tropical, in the context of margaritas and guacamole. I once suggested growing them to Baby, who in a previous house had a view that deserved screening and no money or patience to grow something tall and permanent for shielding.

She screwed up her perfect little nose. Corn? she snorted. 

However, corn is so easy to grow (I imagine. See wisteria). And it grows as high as an elephant‘s eye, they say**. It’s also interesting-looking, if not pretty, with its silky tops.

How does one do it, and when? It’s best to plant seed in full sun in April or May if you want to see cornlets, but you can start it now, in early July, if you’re just going for fast height and foliage.

Or buy the plants already started, Home Depot offers a six-pack for $5.98. You’ll quickly have a screen and you might see a corn.

*Antonio Banderas has third billing in the film in which he’s seen for about five minutes and is so grizzled he’s scarcely recognizable. Is that??? one says. Yep, one answers. The big question is WHY is he in this movie, on a fishing boat in Greece, for maybe five minutes. I can find no answer. 

** Rodgers and Hammerstein, who wrote Oklahoma!, whence originates “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” were both Jewish boys from Manhattan, meaning they had about as much knowledge of corn growing as . . . I do.