The Garden Buzz

Fall Flower Arrangements: Autumnal Equinox Bouquet

 

Funny, but my favorite flower arrangements are not the fresh firsts of spring or the bright crayon colors of summer. I love fall bouquets.

It started when I used to teach herb classes in fall. I would go around my garden and find as many herbs as possible to show my students the depth and breadth of herbs; parsley and sage for sure, echinacea that's easy, but how about juniper berries and rose hips, and why not willow.

I would assemble them in a large glass jar, and then tote them across town, the combined fragrance of 20-30 herbs filling the car. I loved that by this time of year they had fruited and flowered, but also mellowed and withered a bit. I liked the sense of time and place it conveyed.

Now I go beyond the bounds of simply herbs and try to capture the essence of the season in one enormous arrangement. It's a little tradition all my own. I try to avoid some of the autumnal cliches and don't discount possible candidates for being bug-eaten or tattered. And every year, the results are different.

So don't think your garden is "over", now that frosts and cold temps are in town. Here's what I found interesting this time:

Complex fall bouquet

Fall Bouquet  www.thegardenbuzz.com

The contents...

• Sedum Autumn Joy
• Sweet Autumn Clematis
• Orange Hyssop
• Campanula seedpods
• Japanese Forest Grass
• Karl Forster Feather Reed Grass
• Hardy geranium leaves
• Viburnum branches with red leaves and berries
• Oregano blooming
• Black-eyed Susan seedheads
• African Blue basil
• Blue green baptisia foliage
• Jewels of Opar "beads"
• Signet marigolds
• Fennel seeds
• Rudbeckia "Herbstonne" flowers and seed pods
• Goldenrod

Imagine the herbal scents of licorice (fennel), root beer (agastache-hyssop) anise (basil) and pizza (oregano) all competing at once; it's actually intriguing. Add the pungent marigold too. It's feast for the senses.

Sometimes more is more.

 

The Autumnal Equinox, a time when day and night are equal for a moment, signals a shift in nature's rhythms. Not a time associated with rebirth, yet I watched newly-hatched snapping turtles seeking their first encounter with water as they marched from my flower beds to the pond. What signs of fall have you seen?

 

Another Idea for Arbor Day: May I Suggest a Serviceberry...

You may not have room for a mighty oak. An elm might be overwhelming. But surely there's a place in your yard for a Serviceberry. You may know it by other names; shad bush or juneberry are just a few of its aliases.  Beyond that, It's either a very tall shrub or a multi-stemmed tree.

Growing up to 20 ft tall and 10 ft wide, in full sun to partial shade, it fits a variety of garden situations. It makes an especially attractive hedge.

This great native is adaptable and versatile with loads of interest; fuzzy gray new leaves, pretty white flowers, yellow to orange fall color and juicy fruit. Butterflies like it for the nectar and as a host plant for their larvae as well. You can even bake a pie if you can beat the birds.

Planting a Tree for Arbor Day? Consider the Crabapple...

I've been kinda crabby after a couple of crappy days; nothing terrible, just annoying stuff that pales in comparison to many people's travails. Even so, I decided to treat myself to a little horticultural therapy. There's nothing like a visit to the crabapple collection in full bloom at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

If you're thinking of planting a tree in celebration of Arbor Day, and you should; a crabapple can be just the ticket.

Lots of people think they don't have room for trees; their yard is small or already heavily wooded. Come on, you can squeeze in something. Crabapples like the tiny "Tina" varieties can be shoehorned in even the smallest garden space. If you have a large, barren lawn, go big, how about an entire grove? 

Why crabapples?

They make people smile.

They make people gasp.

They make people ooh and ahh.

They come in all sorts of colors; white and watermelon red, purply-pink and pinky purple.

Some even have purple foliage.

  

They smell great and perfume the air around them.

They inspire artists with different shapes; round, vase and umbrella, and weeping as well.

They are beautiful while still in bud.

They age gracefully, looking good when old and gnarly. 

And we haven't even begun to talk about the fruit.

Crabapples attract bees, birds and butterflies for a livelier garden.

Check with your local extension or reputable nursery for a crabapple that suits your garden conditions. Then start digging. 

  
  
 

 

8 Great Shrubs for Your Butterfly Garden

I never went to proper journalism school like my daughter, where they teach you how to make catchy headlines among other things. I just throw stuff out there and see what sticks.

Apparently people love lists and better yet, numbered lists. I may be one of the last few people who knew this. But thinking back, I reviewed my own habits and yes, I like lists too. I think lists are for our lazy side; we appreciate someone else ferreting out the information and distilling it down to the essence.

In a previous post I discussed the importance of trees for butterfly gardening. Shrubs have high wildlife value as well, in the form of flowers, seeds and fruit, and all those things make for beautiful seasonal interest too. Shrubs are easy to grow, plant them, maybe prune them every now and then, but mostly they're just good to go.

So here we go...

1. Ceanothus or New Jersey Tea:  Butterflies are attracted to the nectar in the fragrant white spikes of flowers. It's also a larval host plant for some species of azure and dusky wing butterflies. In addition, turkeys and quail eat the seeds of this native plant. During Revolutionary War times the gray green foliage was dried to make tea.
2. Rhus typhina or Staghorn Sumac: A statuesque native shrub with large fern-like foliage that turns bronze-red in fall. The distinctive flowers attract butterflies and the large seed-heads are favored by other forms of wildlife.
3.  Fothergilla or Witch alder: This shrub has something for every season; starburst shaped flowers that attract butterflies, fresh green serrated foliage and gorgeous fall color.
4. Lindera benzoin or Spicebush: The eponymous larval host plant of the Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly, this shrub grows in sun to partial shade but likes a moist soil. The blooms are small and pale yellow, eventually turning to glossy red fruit.
5. Clethra alnifolia or Summersweet: The fragrant racemes of white flowers are a welcome sight in July and August. Both butterflies and hummingbirds are attracted to these blooms. The brown capsule shaped seeds are valued by other wildlife as well. This shrub is adaptable to both sun and shade, and tolerates moist soil.
6. Amelanchier or Serviceberry: Is it a tree or a shrub? It can be grown as a single-stemmed small tree or a multi-branched large shrub. However it is grown, the flowers and fruit are important to pollinators and other wildlife. Lots of lacy white flowers adorn the branches in spring followed by dark purple fruit in fall. It is also a larval host plant to many butterfly species.
7. Cornus or Dogwood: There are many cultivars of this native plant that are invaluable as both a nectar plant and larval host to many butterflies. Pagoda Dogwood is a graceful variety that provides food for wildlife and structure to the garden.
8. Syringa or Lilac: This beautiful but tough plant should not be discounted. Laden with clusters of nectar-rich purple, pink or white flowers, it is an important source of first nectar come spring time.

Fothergilla "Mt. Airy"     (The Garden Buzz)

Spring flowers of Amelanchier or Serviceberry    (The Garden Buzz)

Snow covered seed heads of Rhus typhina or Staghorn Sumac   (The Garden Buzz)

There are lots of other deserving shrubs that missed the list, buttonbush and coralberry to name a few. Are there others that you would like to add?  Let me know! 
 

 

Making Local Eating a Little Easier

Radishes (The Garden Buzz)

Just days after the announcement of Apple's iPad, it's easy to think that all the new ideas are hi-tech, complex and out of our reach. And then an idea comes along that is sweet and simple, and based on sharing. A smart lady with the appropriate last name of Farmer, has started a website called The Farmer's Garden, a place where gardeners, growers and farmers can register to sell, buy and trade surplus produce with other local growers and consumers. In addition, individuals and non-profits, like food pantries can register classified ads for wanted produce. She wants to make it easier for everyone to be a locavore. It seems a win-win for everyone.

Ms Farmer states that you can "trade your banner crop of one thing for your neighbor's bountiful crop of something else". I would think fruit tree owners might find this especially helpful when an entire crop comes at once, or even the everyday gardener with a zillion zucchini, and all kinds of good food in between. Delicious, unusual or rare varieties might be found growing not in your own backyard but mighty close. She encourages people to consider that even in winter there are still certain crops available.

It's not necessary to register to search the database. You can search with options for zip code, travel radius, transaction type and produce category. Always use common sense when using any online source.

This community resource can connect consumers and growers, create community, support better nutrition, and reduce waste. I bet you can think of more. Check it out at The Farmer's Garden. 

Alpine Strawberries: Perfect Fruit for Small Garden Spaces

The other day I was singing the praises of Alpine strawberries across the table at the Master Gardener luncheon, when I thought I might as well shout across the blog about them too. I think they are about as near perfect a plant as you can get. For gardeners expanding their edible landscapes or new kitchen gardeners, this red berry should be on your radar.

Alpine Strawberries (The Garden Buzz) 

Alpine strawberries have a taste that's hard to pin down. It has been described as perfumed, yet I think that gives a bad connotation. It's not the soapy type of perfume taste. It's complex without the tartness of a cultivated berry but with a certain 'je ne sais quoi'. No sugar needed.

You can't even use my "can I grow it better than the grocery store" rule. You'll never see an alpine strawberry in the store; they are simply too delicate to make the trip. They go from green to ripe to too ripe, too quickly for the marvels of modern food marketing. Yet the berries are in a perpetual state of production, so the supply never runs out until frost.

These delicious little gems rarely make it to the kitchen, I eat them in hand every time I pass the plant. So prolific, there always seems to be more as I rifle through the foliage. They can give your Cheerios a sense of European sophistication if you gather them early in the morning. A few times I have combined them with other berries, like regular strawberries, blueberries and  even mulberries on lemon cheese tarts. They combine well with other berries for more depth in taste.

I did have one problem last year; my new puppy watched me picking them and before I knew it he was nipping them off the plant to eat as well. As far as I know there are no ill effect besides the unwanted competition. 

Alpine strawberries, or Fraises des Bois, come from the wild woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca, in fact you can can grow the wild version, or any number of cultivated versions. Compared to when I started my first ones from seed, there are many varieties available. They differ from domesticated strawberries in that they produce small, pointed, almost conical berries on clumping plants. Without runners, the benefit is that these plants can be used in the perennial landscape and put in permanent positions without the need to constantly rejuvenate the patch.

The bright green leaves are attractive in their own right with deep serrated texture. The rounded shape is great for edging or spotting throughout the border. The dainty little flowers are adorable. The plant is easy to grow with good soil and adequate moisture, mine have seldom been bothered by pests. They'll even tolerate a little shade. These little jewels make it possible to grow fruit in small spaces.

Do be warned, there are impostors. In my haste one year I ordered plants from one of those iffy mail order places; the berries were rounder and bland, and then the runners started running and ruined my bed. Pay attention to the fruit shape and description if possible when buying seeds or plants.

Alpine strawberry plants are now available from a number of sources, and sometimes appear in nurseries. That can only improve as everyone learns about the flavor and versatility of this fruit. I've listed some sources for seeds and plants with the different varieties noted.

Seeds

Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants  Fragaria vesca

Renee's Garden Seeds  "Mignonette"

Thompson and Morgan "Mignonette"

Kitchen Garden Seeds "Red Wonder" and "Yellow Wonder" (The yellow not preferred by birds? The berries hide in the foliage so I don't know if this is truly an  issue)

Richter's Herbs "Ruegens"

Select Seeds "Alexandria"

Plants

Bluestone Perennials "Ruegens Improved"

White Flower Farm "Fraises des Bois"

And if you don't believe me when I tell you how great Alpine strawberries are in the garden and your tummy, take it from Henry-dog. Would he lead you astray?

National Pie Day - January 23 (Pear Tree Pie Recipe)

Let me be the first to wish you a Happy National Pie Day! Who knew? The American Pie Council (nothing to do silly song lyrics or naughty boy movies) designates January 23 for this auspicious occasion to help in "preserving America's pie heritage and promoting American's love affair with pies". Their aim is to "raise awareness, enjoyment and consumption of pies". Heck, I'm there.

 
Pumpkin Pie     The Garden Buzz

What, you say? Is The Garden Buzz going all foodie? Occasionally. In this case, I don't think it's that far from the pie pan to the garden, or vice versa. Name a pie that doesn't need produce to produce its filling. Cherry, berry, or kumquats, it all starts in the dirt. Chocolate cream? Little cocoa groves in West Africa. Rum raisin? Vineyards and cane fields. Chess pie? Maybe you got me there, but I like mine with a little lemon zest.

And lest we forget. Bees make pies. Every bite is just buzzing with bee-power. Without pollination, what could we look forward to; wheat pie, corn pie?

I love pie. I love how it is all contained in a crust, sort of like the perfect packaging of an egg. I love making pies; the fluting of the crust, paring apples, peeling peaches, or whisking the filling in a big bowl, and finally the finished piece. I love how it looks in the kitchen, the ultimate symbol of domesticity. I love slicing it in eight perfect portions and feeding it to people to watch them swoon. If I had one of those wide windowsills like in the cartoons, I would make pies just to see them sit there.

I remember some pies better than people; that purple raspberry/rhubarb/custard from last year that still elicits sighs and haunts us with its elusive qualities, the sweet-tart gooseberry pie at Kansas family reunions, the sweet potato pie when I grew my own, the dainty lemon meringue my mother-in-law makes. Yet my mom never made proper pies, but rather these messy, misshapen fried apricot pies, greasy and good, eaten with your hands, and even better cold.

Any day with pie would be a little bit happier. But here's a pie to honor the spirit of the American Pie Council's special day. It was inspired by the pear tree that grew by our old limestone house in Kansas. It provided shade, honey-scented blossoms and voluminous quantities of lumpy little green pears every other year. I miss it, now, every year.

Pear Tree Pie  

Use your favorite crust recipe or buy a ready-made frozen one, I wont' tell, it's only for the bottom.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

6-8 Bartlett Pears (or whatever kind is available) peeled and sliced

3 T. Lemon juice

1/2 C. Sugar

2 T. Flour

1-2 T. Chopped crystallized ginger (this is what makes it good, I think more is better)

Combine fruit and other ingredients in a bowl, then spoon into pie crust. Sprinkle with crumble topping.

Crumble Topping

1/2 C. Flour

1/2 C. Sugar

1/2 t. ginger and 1/2 t. cinnamon and 1/4 t. nutmeg

You can add oats or chopped nuts for more flavor

Combine and then cut in 1/4 C. Butter

Bake in oven for about 45 minutes.

Serve  with vanilla ice cream if desired.

PS: You can double this recipe in a 9X13 baking dish without a crust for a delicious fruit crumble, but then that wouldn't be pie. SHHH..Don't tell the pie council.

 

 

 

 

 

Big Hips

With Thanksgiving dinner just behind us it seems like the perfect time to talk about big hips. But I'm not talking about the turkey, potatoes and pie kind of hips. I love roses with big hips. I once grew a white rose named after Princess Diana; so small, pale and demure. Unlike the royal namesake the rose was unremarkable, yet the hips, whoa, the hips. Incredibly round, red and robust, these hips were the main attraction that overwhelmed the shrub in late summer. What would Diana have thought?

 
Rose hips (Pavement roses) The Garden Buzz 

 Not every rose has big hips. Rugosas are the most reliable for producing the large, pronounced seed pods. That's what hips are, just big seed pods that offer one more season of interest, as well as adding habitat value to your garden, because the birds adore them. Up north growing Pavement series roses I find consolation in their luscious hips; the blooms while highly fragrant are short-lived and shatter easily.

In shades of scarlet to burnt orange hips rival berries for winter decoration. However my Rosa glauca, an understated, still interesting native rose with small pink star-shaped flowers, blue-green foliage and red stems  puts out prolific quantitites of olive-green hips, pretty in their own way. 

While deadheading roses can prolong flowering, once the season wanes, blooms left to mature will produce hips of various shapes and sizes. They range from small bead-like pips to plump little apple-like productions. These larger hips like that of the rugosa, are the best for human consumption. As with all wild edibles, avoid those where pesticide was used and approach with caution should you suffer from allergies.

Rose hips (William Baffin)    The Garden Buzz

Touched by frost they start to shrivel then sweeten. You can harvest the hips to make tea, jelly or syrup. When making tea, use them fresh or dry them for a winter pick-me-up. Snip the hips and cut in half, scrape out the seeds and infuse with boiling water. Technically that process names the finished product; an infusion, but for simplicity's sake we'll call it tea.The resulting rosy-golden liquid has a delicious mildly tart taste that provides more vitamin C than citrus. And once again, it is so satisfying to find food in your front-yard.

Berry Grateful Birds

Winterberry Holly in the Snow   The Garden Buzz

Somewhere along the line my gardening goals evolved beyond feeding myself to feeding the wildlife that frequent my garden. And then I took it one step further; attempting to attract even more fauna to feast upon my flora. And while it seems awful altruistic, a few of my reasons were selfish, plain and simple. I consider an abundance of animals the mark of a successful garden.

 
Cotoneaster berries   The Garden Buzz 

 We almost all start gardening for purty flowers or tasty tomatoes, but after a while I think we crave a little more excitement, some unexpected variety, a new challenge. One day I realized I was just as interested in the insects as I was fascinated by the flowers. I needed a little more birdsong, a lot more flutter. I found the animals added movement, whimsy, and a certain wildness to an otherwise artificial space. But while I'm well aware of all that circle of life stuff, I insist that snakes are optional.

 
In Michael Pollan's book, Botany of Desire he ponders whether plants are manipulating humans to insure not only their survival but their spread; playing to our desire for beauty, sweetness, control and and intoxication.  So when I plant fruit-producing shrubs not only for the beautiful berries and subsequently the birds, I have to ask, who's beguiling whom?  Is that a two-tiered trap that I willingly fall into?

 
Frosted Snowberries (Charming Fantasy)

No matter. Shrubs with berries are easy plants that demand little attention in return for the show they put on. Which birds eat which berries and when, is the matter of much speculation. It is readily assumed that the sweetest and juiciest go first. Yet I watch the black crows eat the white berries of red-twig dogwood while the wild grapes hang on. Recently a red cardinal plucked a winterberry and dropped it like a rock. But the cedar waxwings strip the crabapple clean and move on.

 
Chokeberry (Aronia Autumn Brilliance)  The Garden Buzz

Red commands attention in nature, but there are other colors to collect like black chokeberry and blushed snowberry. As winter approaches I can't resist photographing the frosted fruits all day. They remind me of Victorian epergnes of sugared grapes and such; one last, lush display of excess all too welcome before the whiteness of winter.

Chokeberries

Apple Scrumping Midwestern Style

According to my Oxford Concise English dictionary, to scrump, is "to steal fruit from an orchard or garden."

I was lucky enough to live in the lush green hills of Herefordshire England for a while. It is an idyllic patchwork of sheep pasture and apple orchard, dotted with crooked storybook cottages and tumble-down barns. The ancient, gnarled trees make hard little apples that make hard strong cider, popular in the pubs over there.  Tales of autumn apple scrumping are common like those of outhouse-tipping in the States, in fact there's a brand of cider called Scrumpy Jack. Real hardcore scrumping goes on in groups under the cover of darkness, fueled by the very brew.

In the spirit of the new blogging disclosure laws I will go on record as having gathered a few windfall apples in my time. And I truly scrumped some pears from a neighbor's tree once when mine was having a bad year. I knew they didn't use theirs and they were out of town and I did confess later and send them my delicious Gingered Pear Pie recipe.

But there's a different kind of scrumping going on in the Upper Midwest. Over there in Wisconsin and down there in Iowa, people are trying to take credit for the heavenly Honeycrisp apple!  Some say it's from the U at Madison, others claim an obscure town in Iowa. Make no mistake, Minnesota breeds and grows the greatest apples. In winter when I am so cold I want to cry, I think about Minnesota apples. Even my mother-in-law, sweet little lady who wouldn't speak out of turn, has been single-handedly and staunchly having to defend the Honeycrisp heritage at bridge group way down in Illinois.

For definitive proof of the Honeycrisp origin...try this link from the University of Minnesota...

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/components/5877_01.html

With all the tasty varieties available, I love to experiment with different combinations in pies and desserts. So far, Haralson and Honey Gold together make for a fabulous pie. Ginger Gold makes an awesome applesauce. And Sweet Chestnut Crabs are just incredibly cute.Tell me about your favorite apple, even if it's from another state. I promise to be open-minded.

(Pie by Rose and Rhonda)