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Browse every published article connected to Francis Rosenfeld, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
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Browse every published article connected to Francis Rosenfeld, or search within this exact expert archive.
There are many traditions, myths and folk tales associated with the summer solstice, many of which involve the herbs and plants that bloom around this time and whose medicinal and aromatic properties are said to be enhanced when gathered on the eve or morning of the solstice.
I know this is a task for October and not February, but since the weather turned sour and put the excitement for gardening activities on hold again, I thought I’d put together a list of interesting daffodil varieties to consider next fall. Flower Drift is a double daffodil with pure white petals and a bright coral center, intensely fragrant. My Story is a light pink variety with an ruffled salmon pink middle. Fragrant. Apricot Whirl has a split corona which makes it look more like a day lily than a daffodil, including the pure pink color.
What is good weather? That is a very good question for a gardener. Some places are blessed with conditions that make plants thrive despite complete lack of interest or effort. People who for years tried unsuccessfully to grow a garden watch with incredulous envy out of their car windows the never ending wild meadows just exploding with colorful fragrant blooms.
First chlorophyll breaks down and gets reabsorbed, allowing the other pigments to lend their colors to the foliage and turn it copper, red, yellow and orange. The tree sends a chemical called abscisic acid to the terminal buds, which shut down the flow of sap to the leaves, signaling them to break off the branches. After the leaves have fallen, the tree enters dormancy, a period during which it ceases growth, slows down its metabolism and lives off the energy stored in its roots as starch.
You would think that hostas, like the shade plants with broad foliage that they are, would love nothing more than a rainy summer, right? Partially. They developed luxurious foliage, and yes, the large fragrant ones did bloom, but not as abundantly as they usually do. You are looking at a picture of very early variety here, I guess that’s the one that likes the rain.
Somebody who is fated to live a linear life can’t easily grasp the cycles of nature; I’m envious, almost, of the way the garden gets to reshuffle the deck at the end of each year and start fresh in spring, one level up from where it was before. Sometimes this cycle skips like a record with a scratched groove and the plants go back a month or two, to the gardener’s delight. I don’t know what enticed yarrow into its second flush of bloom, but I’m going to enjoy it, even though it looks a little strange in the company of stonecrops and ripe pampas grasses.
It is amazing what special status roses have in gardens! A gardener will move a tree, completely restructure a flower bed and change the location of a patio before they decide to touch an established rose. New homeowners who inherit roses plan their entire gardens in ways that feature and complement them.
You look at this modest spice and find it hard to believe than all through Antiquity and the Middle Ages it was more valuable than gold. Pepper was the first of the exotic spices to reach the Mediterranean Basin and the search for it opened up travelling routes that became legendary and fired people's imagination for almost a thousand years - the Silk road, the Incense route, the travel around the Cape of Good Hope.
The plants got the message that winter is over. Every year this message comes in secret, in subtle ways that only plants seem to understand, but they all get it simultaneously and come back to life with a speed and enthusiasm that always humbles me, even after so many years of gardening. This moment sometimes coincides with the spring equinox, but oftentimes it doesn't, and you are left scratching your head in disbelief and going back and forth between the calendar date and the trees that refuse to acknowledge it.r
Three major factors contribute to the health of your skin: good nutrition and general wellbeing, good conditioning and removing dead cells and impurities. Good nutrition and general well-being
Black Cohosh has everything a shade gardener can dream of. It grows six to eight feet tall and produces these almost surreal wands of rosy white fuzzy flowers that smell like honey and bloom abundantly against the background of its strikingly dark foliage in full shade from mid-summer to the end of fall. If this is the miracle flower of them all, how come I didn’t plant it sooner? I tried and failed twice, I’m thinking third time’s a charm. It didn’t grow from seed and didn’t survive the winter as a small plant.
I can't figure out the precise point when a fast spreading plant becomes a ground cover. Some, like ivy, periwinkle and the beautiful blue flowering plumbago, are quite obvious, others, like lily of the valley and sweet violets, take you by surprise, starting with a shy little clump in spring and filling the garden with their prolific progeny in one season. I guess if we define as perennial ground cover any plant that fills up all the space it occupies, we can expand the list to include daylilies, beebalms, tickseed, irises, raspberry thickets and strawberry patches.
Let me share a few things about this plant, some learned, some experienced. The learned facts first. French mallow originated in Europe and is as almost as old as written history. Some varieties are used as edible leafy vegetables and feature in traditional dishes from around the shores of the Mediterranean. The French name of this plant, mauve de bois, was chosen by William Perkin (the inventor of the first synthetic dye) around the mid-nineteenth century to define the specific purple hue which is the only color these wild flowers come in.
Growing a thriving garden is as much a result of the things you do as it is of the things you don’t do. Here is a list of what NOT to do in order to have a thriving garden. These are all things I learned from personal experience, and they set me back a few years: 1. Planting roses in the shade. 2. Hard pruning roses that should not be pruned. 3. Forgetting that the dirt will be impoverished if the nutrients are not replenished with natural fertilizers. Feed, rotate crops or both.
So, you have your heart set on creating a wildflower meadow and those packages of mixed seeds beckon you from the stands, irresistibly. You picture wild flowers and the thought of perpetual, zero maintenance beauty springs to mind. Wild flower meadows are not low maintenance, at least not for the first five or six years, while they are getting established. First of all, a wildflower meadow is not the same as a wildflower garden. Tall grass is an integral part of what makes it thrive as a whole and not something that can be easily accommodated on a small residential lot.
A perennial garden is an aggregate entity, not a discrete collection of plants. There is a surprising amount of interdependency that needs to develop between the neighboring plants, an adjustment that takes years and happens mostly underground.
The shade border rests at the end of summer, when it gets too warm and too dry for its taste. Since this summer was cool and rainy, the plants maintained the exuberant growth of early spring. The hostas are lush and full, the begonias are in full bloom and the toad lilies have doubled in size. What to grow in the shade? Flowers. White, if you would, they stand out in low light.
Squashes must be the most imaginative outcome of vegetable production. They start out a modest, vaguely round fruit and end up a mannerist commentary on surface topology. Fruits elongate and bubble at the end like hot glass, expanding curvilinear folds and dimples painted every shade of green, yellow, gold, crimson and purple, alone or in harmony.
Even a few climate zones change the landscape completely. The gardener finds himself surrounded by a different world of flowers unknown and enduring greenery. Despite the temporary chill the flora of Alabama maintained its subtropical resilience, attuned to the fact that temperatures close to freezing are fleeting, but zone 9 is forever.
Once the rose enchants you you become a life time devotee. In all fai ess who can deny this blossom anything, I mean anything, really? For what other flower would you suffer through the scratches and the winter protection and the constant fending off of beetles and blackspot and the capricious blooming schedule, if any? I would like to take this opportunity to remind fellow gardeners that tree roses have to be buried and dug up every fall and spring. There are two types of roses: the easy ones and the difficult ones.
The planters get a little tired and overgrown by the end of the summer, when the ideal combination of colors, heights and textures or their original design gives in to the whims of nature. There is beauty in that disarray, the beauty of the natural hierarchy that establishes itself outside of human intervention. The plant in the picture is a Canadian variety of tuberous begonia called “Illumination”. It put up a spectacular performance last summer but was a little shy this year, like all the other shade lovers. A few things about container care.
If you have established perennials, they are a readily available source of new plants for your garden.
If you only have one rose in your garden, it should be a Damask. Another notable descendant of the old cabbage rose, the Damask is the complete package: exquisite fragrance, spectacular flowers, perpetual bloom, well-behaved growth habit and disease resistance. Whenever fragrance is described as a pure rose scent, it refers to the smell of the damasks, which is sultry and saturated and has hints of garden pinks and cloves. Theirs is the variety used to make the coveted attar of roses.
You will not believe the level of chaos nature can impose on a reasonably well tended garden in three weeks. It took the plants that long to look scary and me one week to salvage the back yard from the wilde ess. Five foot tall weeds, cracked nutshells, broken branches, vines grown out of control, covering pathways, grabbing onto everything in sight and smothering their defenseless neighbors. And this is the extent of my whining. Seriously, it was offensive.
There is something I'm looking forward to this spring: I can't wait to find out if the two roses I started from cuttings last fall took root. It's almost time to start caring for roses, now that the threat of killing freezes is over and before they come out of their dormancy. If you are starting them bare root, they need to be planted sometimes mid-March, depending on your location. For the existing ones wait until forsythia blooms and prune them as follows.
A perennial garden is an aggregate entity, not a discrete collection of plants. There is a surprising amount of inter-dependency that needs to develop between the neighboring plants, an adjustment that takes years and happens mostly underground.
It seems fitting, on Saint Patrick's Day, to make a list of plants that bring luck, you know, just in case. Let’s start with the classics: lavender and roses. No garden should be without them - lavender for luck, roses for love. Honesty and sage attract prosperity to the household. It is said that if sage grows well in your garden, you’ll never lack for anything. Honesty specifically pertains to the increase of money, because of its round seed pods that look like coins.
Herbs are not demanding plants, but some rules must be followed when growing them in order to ensure their success. There are two kinds of herbs: those that adapted to the wind swept, sunny and dry cliffs of the Mediterranean shores, like rosemary, basil, thyme, sage, lavender, calendula and savory, which thrive in full sun and dry, limey soils, and those that enjoy shade, like parsley, mint, lemon balm, chives, dill and tarragon, which like a consistently moist soil and not too much sun exposure.r
Where I grew up, roses belonged in the pantry. Between the rose preserves, the rose syrups, and the rose water in pastry dough, the aristocratic flowers doubled up as bona fide cooking ingredients.
The temperatures heated up, the tomatoes started performing. Tomato plants don’t mind hot weather and will keep their composure even when more heat sensitive vegetables wilt pitifully, but they will not set fruit if the temperatures are above 85 to 90 degrees during the day or 75 at night. Considering the climate we live in, that’s most of the summer. It also explains why the extra leafy vines suddenly decide to become fruitful mid-September, when their fruit doesn’t really have enough time left to ripen.
The winter garden is a haven for the little creatures of the land; it provides them with shelter, food and cozy nooks to hibe ate. The gardener can lend a hand, goodness knows the wildlife can use all the help it can get during the coldest days of the year. Add bird feeders to your backyard and you'll be greatly rewarded by the flock of colorful birds that gather near them on snowy days: finches, cardinals, chickadees, blue jays, titmice and sparrows. Hang up a few suet cakes too, your backyard visitors need the fat calories to keep warm.
Usually the feast of St. John brings the coldest day of the year, but this time arctic weather was delayed for two weeks. I cozy up indoors with a hot cup of herbal tea and dreamy gardening books as the thermometer indicates 8 degrees Fahrenheit outside. No matter how enthusiastic one is about gardening there are limits to the possible and approaching 0F definitely rules out any outdoor activity. Everything is frozen solid, the dirt is harder than rock, I pity the birds and squirrels.
Every summer I plan to thin the violets and every summer I change my mind at the last minute, and this picture is the reason why. How can I pull these delicate flowers that cover the earth in spring in every shade of blue between aqua and indigo?
When a cottage garden is well designed it makes you forget the planning that went into creating it and takes over by establishing new hierarchies, thriving on apparent randomness and developing a personality of its own. Roses are very good companions in this environment and blend in flawlessly to add a romantic touch to the eager spikes of veronicas, tall stalks of delphiniums and fresh energy of daisies.
A resilient weed, native to the Northern Hemisphere, yarrow grows wild in open fields and along the sides of the roads, and had only recently acquired the privilege of being cultivated in flower gardens. Don't judge this humble herb to be ordinary, Achillea millefolium is a well documented medicinal plant, astringent, anti inflammatory and tonic, but above all it has a special gift: it is a hemostatic.
Pumpkin pie lovers are spoiled beyond reason between the end of November and the end of the year. There are infinite variations of the delicious desert, all nutmeg, clove and cinnamon, vanilla and brown sugar. I'd like to share my grandmother's recipe, which comes in strudel form. It is one of those food items that gets passed on from generation to generation and adds to the meaningfulness of shared holiday meals.
I didn't move the gorgeous Raspberry Sorbet peonies last fall and now they are spending another year trying to assert their needs in the midst of the rugosa rose thicket.
When you start looking into its qualities, rosemary can be quite intimidating, it seems to be good for everything: it makes hair grow strong and shiny, rejuvenates skin, boosts memory and concentration, sharpens eyesight, thins the blood and helps lower the risk of cancer. This impressive resume is due to the fact that rosemary is rich in iron, calcium, phosphorus, vitamins A, C and B6, folate, and some other plant specific compounds that act synergistically.
Hellebores are woodland plants, perfect to grow under the canopy of deciduous trees. They prefer alkaline soils - keep them away from pine trees - are adapted to the colder climate zones and are the first flowers in the garden, blooming as early as January during mild winters. They keep their flowers for an amazing four months.
The new light shade flower beds are quickly coming to life with plants from all over the yard, a constant reminder that a perennial patch is the gift that keeps on giving. My garden of hellebores is actually happening.
Talk about unbounded, here is to the endlessly growing morning glory, swirling around supports and draping over hardscape, deceptively strong with its springy vines weaving an intricately detailed and highly redundant veil the color of the sky. The braided loops that clamber trees shy away from the extremes of the weather, saving their huge trumpet shaped cerulean flowers for just the crisp bright morning.
Today was one of those rainy summer days when lighting is diminished and one derives a sense of well being from hearing the rolling boom of the far away thunder as rain raps heavily on the roof. I had picked herbs before the rain started, large bunches of herbs, opal basil and bee balm and parsley and flowering mint, and hung them to dry in the kitchen. The whole house was filled with a spicy aroma dominated by notes of basil and accented with mint.
The area I’m really looking forward to this year is the herb garden. I must have just the perfect soil for herbs, because they’re thriving, every one I planted doubled in size. The herb patch concept started as a wheel, but the space allocated has the wrong shape, so it follows the wild and unruly personality of my garden instead and has no definite contours. It sometimes spills into the lawn, but more often than not grass grows into it, to my great chagrin. I’m fastidious about keeping it free of intruders, nobody wants crabgrass in the turkey stuffing.
Garden phlox makes a big impact in the garden, it grows over five foot tall and its clumps get larger as it becomes established. Even one or two of them can brighten up a garden, especially when nothing else is in bloom. This feature is particularly valuable towards the end of summer, when the other perennials tend to fade. Garden phlox starts blooming in early June and will stay in bloom until the first frost. Remember to remove the spent flowers to entice it into producing new ones.
Although I am an enthusiastic advocate of natural gardening, I wasn’t much of a fan of composting until I procrastinated one fall and left a sizable pile of leaves and stems out on a concrete slab, thinking that I would clean it up in spring. When spring arrived, to my surprise, everything but the very top layer had turned to humus. It even smelled like woodland soil and was crawling with earthworms. It is one thing to know things in theory, and another to see them happen under your very eyes.
Us hopeful rosarians have to admit that roses are not just another pretty flower. There is something very special and noble about them, the older they are the more rare and valued their flowers and often the more persnickety they get. Here are some cultivars to test your rosarian mettle. Plant only if you are willing to dedicate a lot of time to these cherished heirlooms: -Souvenir de la Malmaison, a delightfully fragrant bourbon, feeling very at home in warmer climates, not so fond of winter. Susceptible to black spot, needs winter protection.r
After a few years of gardening I realized how much I take hostas for granted. They are ever present in the shade and will grow where no plant has grown before. Their relative worth of thriving in the shade tends to underscore their absolute value as ornamental plants, but hostas can hold their own with the rest of the perennials in terms of bloom quality, fragrance, foliage and easy maintenance.
You don't know how spoiled you are as a gardener until you grow a hellebore. Up here in the northern states we are not used to seeing flowers in January, maybe some evergreen foliage under a somber sky. Most of the trees are gray and leafless and the usual sights of the garden are tired dried stems of decorative grasses left to over-winter for cold season interest. In the middle of this landscape the hellebores look like they are pasted from another picture, one with lush gardens basking in warm humid air that smells like humus and mushrooms.
I was browsing through past years’ gardening articles and I got overtaken by this feeling of certainty and permanence. It is extraordinary how consistent nature’s cycles are, almost down to day for the first bloom, the last frost, the unavoidable late freeze. Keeping a gardening journal makes this pattern obvious and somewhat discomforting, this truth that all things green abide by a gigantic cosmic timepiece of uncanny precision.
This is an edible plant, widely used around the Mediterranean Basin to flavor omelets, pasta and risotto. Its young greens make a tasty addition to meals when stewed in a little olive oil, just like chards and spinach. It can be eaten uncooked, but the raw leaves taste bitter because they contain small and harmless amounts of saponins. In Cyprus it has become so popular that in recent years people took to purposefully cultivating and selling bunches of it with the other edible greens.