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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.
The day lilies came with the house and they were already established when we moved in, so I didn’t pay much attention to their care. It showed. I used to take day lilies for granted because they are so ubiquitous in public and commercial outdoor spaces people see them as care free.
No matter how passionate you are about gardening, there comes a moment when you just want to plant your flower bed and forget it, at least forget about having to tend to it constantly; rest assured there are many plants, both annual and perennials, that would take care of themselves without a lot of fuss. I resisted them, of course, out of a mistaken sense of pride: once you breached the domain of sedums, daylilies, coneflowers and Russian sage, you have become basically unnecessary. Of course I can’t grow the last plant on the list to save my life, but that’s beside the point.
As nature's shop closes, the home spice jars are finally put to good use. All the dried mint that hung in bunches in the kitchen all summer, the rose petals from June's bloom, the lavender kernels, the gentle chamomile, the dried aromatic herbs. It is time for scent in the diminished light, time to simmer clove oil on the stove, time to bake apples and dry fruit. The harvest of fall always requires vanilla, cinnamon and cloves.
Every year the generous tomato plants bless us with an overabundance of fruit that doesn't have the chance to ripen before the first frost. Tomatoes take their sweet time to figure out how to bear more and more fruit and their best and most abundant yield goes so far into the fall they don't have time to finish it. For any of the tomatoes that started ripening even slightly, just keeping them on a counter in your kitchen for a few days will turn them into salad fare. They may not be as tasty as the ones that ripen on a vine, but will still be juicy and delicious.
The beginning of fall usually saddens me, but not this year, I don't know why, for some reason even the cold rain, the wispy fog and the chilly mornings feel soft, like an embrace. The garden doesn't look sad either, it doesn't don the scraggly, despair driven appearance that usually accompanies the end of summer, it rather looks mature, self reliant, a landscape that endures.
Since plant foliage usually doesn't come in this hue, even for the namesake plant itself, and this is the first time lavender came out of winter looking alive, I didn't know if it was old growth I should prune or evergreen growth I should leave alone, so I looked up lavender care online. There are conflicting opinions about the correct way to prune a lavender shrub, some say you should prune it after it blooms, to keep the plant bushy and compact, others that it is slow to put out new growth and trimming leafless branches sets it back and doesn't allow it to thrive.
Summer is knocking on the door a month early and it brought with it sweltering temperatures more suitable for the middle of July; it arrived so suddenly it gets difficult for us poor humans to adjust. Everything tripled in size in a matter of days, desperately springing into bloom as if not to miss the narrow window of spring that’s closing way ahead of time. The late spring bloomers have to share the stage with the first summer flowers and they eagerly compete for territory while displaying a noisy mix of colors and textures that seems to be put together haphazardly.
After a streak of sunny days, mother nature decided to bring the gloom, and I never pass the opportunity gloom provides to indulge in relaxation and pampering, isn’t this what rainy days were created for? The flower buds are on the brink of opening, but it looks like they decided to wait for the sunshine before doing that. Back to the pampering, what better plant to chose to represent all things indulgent for skin care than the geranium? Well, maybe not this specific variety.
The one good thing about a cold spring is that the tree bloom lasts long enough to enjoy. The cherries, the dogwoods and the early magnolias covered the whole landscape in pink and white veils for over two weeks, it's very poetic.
People ask gardeners all the time why they waste so much time and effort on an activity that at any scale smaller than a farm yields so little benefit? Green thumbs may be blindsided by the question, shrug their shoulders and keep on with the activity they were engaged in, for how can one quantify that feeling of achievement, that inner knowing that one's own hands have helped, even if in a very small way, bring out life from the depths of the earth?
It seems fitting, now at the end of the year, 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.
You would think that the white fleshy flowers that have a heavy, almost overbearing fragrance would be the easiest to extract perfume from, but it is the very opposite: lilies, gardenias, lily of the valley, tuberoses, honeysuckle, and jasmine are notoriously difficult to pin down scent wise, as their fragrances are almost universally altered by the extraction process. The old fashioned method of effleurage, which infuses deodorized animal fats with the scent of fresh picked flower petals, yields the best approximation of the actual fragrance.
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.
The best way to describe the September garden is a charming mess. The summer plants don’t know whether it makes sense for them to keep going, and when they do bloom they do so in bursts and spurts that have a jarring effect on the fall landscape, which is of a completely different breed.
This is so exciting! I have heard so many stories and legends about this flower, but I never actually saw it before. This is Galium Verum, Lady’s Bedstraw, the flower of St. John, a plant so deeply associated with the summer solstice that some even believe it only blooms on the Eve of St. John’s Feast. That part is obviously not true.r
Have you ever had this sinking feeling, when you want to try a plant you’ve never grown before, and you look at the beautiful photos on the seed packet, that there is absolutely no way this botanical wonder will ever grow in your garden? I’m not one to dismiss instinct, it is usually based on a lot of fast logical reasoning and processing of already stored information that goes on in the back of your brain while you’re minding your daily routine, but that doesn’t mean it’s always right. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t this time, because they did sprout, and root, and grow big and strong.
If you have established perennials, they are a readily available source of new plants for your garden.
Ok, I didn’t actually plant fleabane, but so what! It’s here, it’s blooming and it blends beautifully with the orange daylilies.
Growing a perennial garden presents one with the weird predicament of having to work around the clock without actually planting anything. In a perennial garden, everything revolves around maintenance. Here are a few challenges.
I couldn’t imagine my garden without the toad lilies, whose blossoms are as close to approximating a tropical orchids as any cold weather plant is ever going to get. Don’t get deceived by their fragile look, they are hardy to zones four through nine and just like their cousins, the spring bulbs, require minimal care. Their flowers show up very late, often after the garden is already covered in a thick layer of fallen leaves.
The winter arrived, somewhat tentative but for good. Yesterday it snowed with the large and fluffy kind of flakes which form when the air is still warm. At least the garden is ready: the flower beds are mostly cleared of leaves, the bulbs are in the ground, the trellisses and the pots are cleaned and stored. Believe it or not, if the spirit moves you to spend time in the garden despite the cold, you might still find some stuff to do. Winterize Empty and store water hoses, mulch the perennials to give them some extra warmth during winter.
As we left the shore and I looked back at the beautiful, surreal landscape of Horseshoe Bay, it felt like all the worries and the cares of the world were also left behind to fade into the distance. The vast, placid waters worked their magic on me too, as they did on so many travelers throughout the centuries. The Pacific draws you in with the irresistible pull of its enormous mass, and makes you feel small and irreplaceable at the same time; its essence breathes peace into your very soul.
I sometimes forget how much I love summer rain, even the subdued kind, like the one right now, the kind that lasts for days. The light shifts to green from bouncing off lush wet foliage under a murky sky. There is harmony in the dance of raindrops tapping on the roof, life itself feels softer, more fluid, like its very essence dissolves in the rain. I walked around the garden for a bit, just to watch it delight in the abundance of water pouring from the sky. If the plants were overgrown before, they sure doubled in size now. The squashes took over the walkway again.r
Some plants don’t benefit from being started indoors. There are a few reasons for this: their tender foliage has a hard time adjusting to the change of environment, their roots dislike being disturbed or their growth schedule is so accelerated that they outgrow their starting containers too soon. Here are the classics. Cucumbers, melons and squashes. Not only they have to be planted directly outside, but the nets have to be in place and ready for their fast growing foliage and heavy fruit. They like being planted in nests, four or five seeds at the time, not alone.
If you were wondering what happens to your perennials during their winter hibe ation, here goes. At the approach of winter they transform the sugars developed through photosynthesis into starch, which they can store inside their roots long term and use during the winter in the same way hibe ating animals use stored fat.r
If you want a real cottage garden, don’t tame it, it is supposed to be wild, messy and overgrown, sort of jumbled together without too much focus on height hierarchy and perfect color schemes. Many of its traditional plants are tall, broad and thick and spill over railings, fences, trellises and retaining walls with reckless abandon. Hollyhocks, giant delphiniums, bell flowers, lupines and snakeroot can and frequently do grow taller than six feet.
I could never resist a hyacinth. I always plant some in the fall, of course, and am sure the squirrels and rabbits really appreciate my efforts, so every year I end up replenishing the fall bulb supply with full grown winter plants, which spend a few weeks of pampered bloom indoors and are then planted in the back yard as soon as the weather allows. A few considerations about growing bulbs, and hyacinths in particular.
Some plants don’t benefit from being started indoors. There are a few reasons for this: their tender foliage has a hard time adjusting to the change of environment, their roots dislike being disturbed or their growth schedule is so accelerated that they outgrow their starting containers too soon. Here are the classics. Cucumbers, melons and squashes. Not only they have to be planted directly outside, but the nets have to be in place and ready for their fast growing foliage and heavy fruit. They like being planted in nests, four or five seeds at the time, not alone.
Ok, I know everybody is busy and strolling through your garden at night is not the first thing that comes to mind at the end of the day, but if the spirit moves you to create one, a moon garden can be just as lovely as a bright patch of colorful flowers in the sunlight. As is the case with shade gardens, white flowers perform best in the subdued light of the moon, which casts a silver glow over light colored blossoms and foliage. Even better, find white flowers that bloom at night, fragrant one, if possible, like nicotiana, tuberose, evening stock, primrose and moon flower.
Today I was out in the garden before dawn and I watched the crescent moon fade slowly into daylight as carpets of clouds moved very fast across the sky. Slowly the birds and the moths started to emerge from their nightly hideouts, eager to catch an early meal before the morning rush.
Legend has it that the Knights of Malta where so impressed with this plant, whose four petaled bright red flowers reminded them of their crest, that they brought it home when they returned from the crusades; it has been a cottage garden staple ever since. The plant has many names, some of which sound aristocratic, Jerusalem Cross, Maltese cross, burning love, dusky salmon, flower of Bristol, scarlet lighting, fireball, meadow campion, nonesuch, and if you're partial to red flowers, they don't get any redder than that.
Did you know that betony was thought to chase away vengeful ghosts, evil enchantments and bad dreams? I'm not acquainted with its alleged magical properties or even the real medicinal ones (apparently it was a prized healing herb in the ancient herbal medicine collection, supposed to provide relief for headaches and gastrointestinal upset), I just love its graceful purple flowers that float above a thick rosette of oblong leaves whose edges look like they have been decorated with a paper crafts crimper.
If I knew how much I would enjoy purple beans, I would only have planted those to begin with. Besides being an attractive feature in the garden, they taste better and are not stringy at all, which is a blessing. Of course the purple color turns green in the pot, but that's beside the point.
Here’s to this year’s crop! I decided to try Independence Day tomatoes, and learned that it has a much lower germination rate than other varieties. Let’s hope they make up for it with taste. The seedlings look sturdy and enthusiastic, and have grown large enough that I don’t have to worry about them anymore. I haven’t fully planned this summer’s vegetable garden yet, but it will be pretty much the same as it is every year: tomatoes, peppers, sweet and hot, eggplants, squashes, beans, and cucumbers, together with an assortment of kitchen herbs.
Sometimes you just need the right lighting to really appreciate colorful foliage, although this little purple beauty won't go unnoticed through the summer when it competes for interest with the daisies and the crane's bills. Another near miss in the battle with the mighty hellebores (I swear, they are bent on garden domination if left to their own devices), these exotic looking coral bells seem very happy in their new location in dappled shade.
Summer garden maintenance usually goes unnoticed, masked by the fervent activity of the plants themselves at the peak of their vegetative cycle. Because this is the season when a lot of the perennials rush to bloom, you don’t notice any glitches in the life of the garden unless you happen to fall behind on any of the following activities, in which case the charming haven of renewal immediately turns into an unkempt abandoned wasteland:r
Today I was out in the garden before dawn and I watched the crescent moon fade slowly into daylight as carpets of clouds moved very fast across the sky. Slowly the birds and the moths started to emerge from their nightly hideouts, eager to catch an early meal before the morning rush.
I just finished creating a lovely shade garden which features a very welcome addition, "Stained Glass" hostas. These plants have everything the sun-starved gardener could hope for: beautiful and resilient foliage that weathers heat and drought, dramatic colors and large fragrant flowers worthy of flower shows. Almost everybody has a dry shady corner in their yard they would like to ignore, but gnaws slowly on their green thumb pride like a slug on a cabbage leaf. One resigns oneself to keeping it tidy, which turns out to be quite easy, since even weeds won't grow without sun and water.
I honestly can't warm up to this plant; I appreciate its warm and golden chenille panaches at the beginning of fall but loathe its unbelievably depressing wet hay appearance in spring. It looks pretty for exactly three days, right before the velvety seed heads open, and then it turns into fluff in the wind and oddly sticks out of the snow, purportedly to provide winter interest in the garden for the next six months.
Getting from the aromatic plant in the garden to the home made health or beauty product involves a couple of preliminary steps - preserving the herbs for long term storage and transferring their active ingredients into a medium easy to work with, usually oil.
I love watching bees swarm the stonecrops on nice sunny afte oons. If a garden is thriving, the bees will come to visit, but if you want to entice them further, here are a few pointers. Avoid using insecticides, pesticides or harsh fertilizers. Bees like tiny flowers that make it easier for them to collect pollen and nectar, so plant as many of the following as possible to attract them: sedums, catmints, beebalm, lemon balm, goldenrod, lavender, butterfly bush, mint, basil, thyme, rosemary and verbena. If you can, provide a source of fresh water.
The peonies would have bloomed by now, the buds have been ready to burst for more than a week, but it is so unseasonably cold, weird May weather! Temperatures in the fifties, I almost have to question the wisdom of moving the basil outside, it looks miserable. Peonies are the object lesson for why gardeners benefit from being patient. You don’t get this cascade of blooms from a plant that doesn’t ask anything of you until you put a few years into it. Three, to be specific.r
I can’t get over how beautiful these flowers are, and am so happy and proud to have them in my garden. Their eerie hooded flowers, decorated with elegant stripes that make them look like custom wrapping paper are, indeed, the packaging, called the spathe. The inflorescence, which contains male and/or female flowers, is the spadix inside it.
Climbers and ramblers are nature's gift to the land-locked gardener. I don't think there is anything cozier and more delightful than a little corner filled with greenery and flowers tucked away from the world, sheltered between walls covered in rose bunches or hiding behind an old arbor trailed by fragrant vines. There is a hint of enticing wilde ess in this landscape brimming with color and scent, which takes you by surprise and enchants you.
I woke up this morning to a wispy snow flurry, the thin and icy kind that comes about when temperatures drop too low. Eighteen degrees, to be precise. It settled, unsure, in a thin, powdery layer that still lets the ground show through. I almost hesitated to disturb the pristine cover when I went out into the back yard to put seed in the bird feeder. It doesn’t feel cold, though, I don’t know why, just eerily quiet and still, like it is in winter sometimes, as if the thin layer of snow absorbed all the sounds.
There is not much going on in the garden after mother nature rained and stormed and puffed the flower beds away. I spent the most part of yesterday cleaning up broken branches as thick as my arm that were strewn about the lawn, blocking access to my favorite spot in the back yard and crushing the vegetable garden. A scene worthy of the end of days, which is now, mercifully gone.
If you thought starting plants indoors worked for seed alone, think again. You can give your summer bulbs a good start by planting them inside in a pot four to six weeks before the last frost and transplanting them outdoors when weather permits. Tuberous begonias, callas and caladiums will especially benefit from this and they can be left in the pot outside too. Plant them in a good medium with peat moss and perlite in a warm and bright spot but not direct sunlight and keep them well watered until it's time to move them outdoors.
The fountain at the center of the garden was a staple of medieval landscape design. Its simple yet powerful symbolism was derived from necessity, but speaks to that part of the soul that envisions water as healing and life giving. Nowhere is a tiny fountain more at home than at the center of a medicinal herb wheel.r
As we left the shore and I looked back at the beautiful, surreal landscape of Horseshoe Bay, it felt like all the worries and the cares of the world were also left behind to fade into the distance. The vast, placid waters worked their magic on me too, as they did on so many travelers throughout the centuries. The Pacific draws you in with the irresistible pull of its enormous mass, and makes you feel small and irreplaceable at the same time; its essence breathes peace into your very soul.
The old garden roses are a proud tradition among rosarians, because they have a long history. These are the roses cultivated before the creation of the first modern hybrids - the gallicas, the damasks, the albas and the centifolias and the mosses. They have been immortalized in the classic botanical prints of Pierre-Joseph Redouté. The most famous gallica, the Apothecary rose, had become the symbol of the guild, especially in France, where it has graced the signs of apothecary shops since medieval times.