Bonfires and Blooms: Summer Solstice in the Garden

This Saturday will be the Summer Solstice, otherwise known as Litha, which celebrates the longest day of the year.  Aside from the traditional bonfire, (which seems counterintuitive in summer heat, but is lit to celebrate the power of the sun at its strongest), one important activity is the gathering of herbs on this day.  The powers of herbs are supposed to be at their peak on Litha, so it's a perfect time to gather them for drying and using throughout the rest of the year.  I have my eye on a lovely dehydrator that I found online, but in the meantime, I'll be harvesting the herbs and hanging them to dry in a dark, dry place with good air circulation (so they don't get moldy).

So many things are blooming right now that it's hard to list them all.  The Rose of Sharons are one of the lovelier things blooming right now; these are not roses at all, but large deciduous shrubs that have single or double flowers of various colors.  Some people refer to these as altheas, although their botanical name is Hibiscus syriacus.

Hibiscus syriacus, otherwise known as Rose of Sharon

Hydrangeas are another wonderful thing that are starting to bloom now.  Both oakleaf hydrangeas and mophead hydrangeas are in bloom; I can't decide which one I like better.  The pink one below is in bloom today at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  It's hard in Atlanta to get pink blooms on a hydrangea because of our acidic soil (acidic soil produces blue flowers on hydrangeas).  There are a few new varieties that stay pink despite the pH level, though; the one pictured below is evidently one of these.

A pink hydrangea macrophylla

Oakleaf Hydrangea

One of my favorite flowers, the daylilies, have started blooming in earnest, and even though each bloom is only open for a single day (hence the name), the succession of blooms is such that you don't notice the spent ones.  I have two new ones in my garden this year (H. 'Butter Curls' and H. 'Golden Prize') that I got at the Atlanta Botanical Garden's Garden Envy auction in the spring.  The 'Butter Curls' is already one of my favorites because of the ruffly edges of its creamy yellow petals.

Hemerocallis 'Butter Curls'



'Kwanzo Double' daylily

H. 'Golden Prize'

A zinnia that came up in the walkway; I didn't have the heart to remove it.

The roses are lovely again, and the bee balm is finally in full display (The bees are ecstatic about this last development.).   Bee balm, or monarda, is the herb used to brew Oswego tea (named for the Indian tribe who taught the colonists how to make it); use the small leaves just before the flower blooms for the best taste as well as the most potent medicinal value.  Paracelsus called this plant the "elixir of life;" it's good for uterine disorders, dysentery, nervous disorders, and is supposedly a safeguard against senility.


Bee Balm!

Use the extra light of the longest day of the year to enjoy your garden for as long as possible.  Plus, it's so much more comfortable than standing near a blistering bonfire. 

Wishing you happiness in spades,

M.R.S.

Don't Fear the Reaper

Harvesting vegetables, especially root crops, can be tricky (at least in my opinion).  How do you know when that perfect moment arrives, the day when your beets or carrots are at their peak of tender sweetness?  Maybe you learn by experience, by growing the same varieties over and over again.  Or maybe you mark the calendar according to the seed packet's harvest date.  I have a hard time discerning that moment in my garden, so I have to do a little test every time.  When I can't stand it any longer, I pull one up to see how it looks.  And tastes.  And only then do I know if I'm too early, or if I've waited too long and the vegetable is already past its prime. 

This weekend I was pretty much right on target harvesting my beets.  They were the perfect size and shape with a sweet taste that was perfect in the Harvard Beets  recipe I made for Sunday dinner.

Beets, cut up and ready to be steamed for dinner

The Tall Top Early Wonder beets were a beautiful pink color with stripes that held their color well after being steamed.  The sauce for the recipe was a lovely magenta that went perfectly with my side of fresh-harvested English peas (Peas are so easy; you can see and feel when they're ready to eat).

I got lucky with the beets.  I wasn't so lucky with the broccoli, which has bolted due to the heat.  I focus so much on the growing of things that I forget about the narrow window during which they need to be harvested.  I guess I think that once I plant my beets, they'll become a permanent part of the raised bed.  Makes me think of the Byrds' song "Turn Turn Turn."  To everything there is a season... a time to sow, and a time to reap. 

Speaking of reaping, a visitor has been enjoying my parsley.  I don't mind this intruder eating his weight in herbs, though, because he (or she?) will turn into a swallowtail butterfly one day.  I always plant a little extra parsley so there's some to spare for the caterpillars.

Other things being harvested right now are Bullnose Peppers, English peas, and young carrots.  The tomatoes, tomatillos, and hot peppers are ripening, along with blueberries (I hope I get some before the birds do!). 

Spicy bell peppers growing in a container

Tomatillo

'Blue Berries' cherry tomatoes

Blooming things this week include the snapdragons that I started from seed, yarrow, roses, sedum kamschaticum, spiraea, amaryllis, beautyberry, and the marigolds I planted to be buddies for the tomatoes. 

Sedum kamschaticum

 

A real bloomin' onion

Antirrhinum majus

Tagetes erecta 'Crackerjack'

Perfection in the garden is an illusion, the daily change being the only constant.  I know I shouldn't look upon the harvest and decline of certain plants with as much apprehension as I do.  After all, there will always be something to take its place, at least until the frost puts most of the garden to bed in the fall.  And if I were smart, I would have anticipated the harvest, and planned a better succession of edibles than I did, to camouflage the new gaps.  I started a new tray of seedlings this weekend as a consolation: the holy basil, hyssop, borage, and tansy seedlings will distract me long enough to forget the yellowing pea bed and the bolted lettuce and broccoli.  Was I humming old Byrds' songs as I prepared their seed flat? It's quite possible I was.

Wishing you happiness in spades,

M.R.S.

Going Ape in the Garden

How did I get here?

Walking around the Atlanta Botanical Garden these days, one might think he'd had a brain fart and gone to the zoo by mistake.  There are orangutans, gorillas, huge cobras, and even, yes - a unicorn.  One would indeed be in the garden, however.  Last year's mosaiculture display is back with even more critters.  The giant dueling cobras and grumpy ogre are in the same places just before you reach the courtyard.  The shaggy dog has moved to a new location, and now greets you as you come out of the Hardin Visitors Center.  The gorillas and orangutans are entirely new this year, and they're undoubtedly my favorites already.  They have such puzzled looks on their faces, as though asking how in god's name they ended up in Atlanta.  The answer to that might be "through a partnership with Mosaicultures Internationelles," but it still wouldn't explain the logic behind shipping them to Atlanta from Montreal, poking and plugging them with thousands of teeny annuals, and setting them among the southern landscape as though they belonged there.  It does seem to draw the visitors though.  And it's just funny!

Willie B, is that you?

See, there really IS a pink unicorn in the garden!

A ginormous butterfly

Things are in bloom all over the garden at the moment.  The rose garden is a heavenly respite from the day's drivel; you can close your eyes there and pretend you're in the old South, or maybe the south of France.  Some of the antique roses have such divine smells that you want to lie down among them and have a quick nap.

Lovely, heavenly-scented climbing roses























The delphiniums have almost finished waving their "imperialness" under your nose, and the poppies are a-poppin'. 

Poppy seed head filled with milky goodness

A still-stately delphinium just past its peak

As for my own garden north of the city, I've been focusing largely on vegetables and herbs this year.  I've started many of them from seed, such as 'Black Krim' heirloom tomatoes, "Giant Red Re-Selection' celery, catnip, echinacea, and 'Chocolate Habanero' peppers.  I bought others through  mail-order including bacopa, skullcap, St. John's wort, American elder, and goji berry. 

A 'Chocolate Habanero' pepper

A new narrow-leaf echinacea growing in front of an echinacea 'purpurea'

Even with the focus on edible and medicinal plants, I felt I couldn't leave the zoo entirely out of my own garden, so I hoisted my three monkey topiaries up into the branches of the Chinese fringeflower to hang out in the garden.  One has had a few plants poked into his moss; one day when I'm bored I'll poke a few more things into the monkeys. 

Three little monkeys hangin' in the tree...

Poor unfinished monkey!

Silly?  Yes!  But if you can't have fun in the garden, why garden at all?


Wishing you happiness in spades,

M.R.S.

  

Vernal Equinox

The vernal equinox arrived on March 20th this year.  It was a pretty day, perfect for the first day of spring.  Of course it would have been an even nicer day had I not spent the majority of it getting tested for allergies and having my oil changed.  For with spring comes pollen; it won't be long before cars and sidewalks are covered in the yellow stickiness.  But between sniffles, I think we should thank the gods for the mess, because it does allow pollination to take place for many trees that we would not like to be without.

We should defnitely be thanking the gods for the equinox itself.  Equinox is Latin meaning "equal night"; in other words, the day and the night are of equal length.  From now on, as we (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway) tilt toward the sun, the day will be longer than the night until it reaches its peak at midsummer.  Then in the fall, on the autumnal equinox, the day and night will once again be equal, and we will begin the slide back into the shortened days of winter.  A very important moment in days past; the vernal equinox indicated that spring was in fact coming (the ancients were for some reason never quite sure of its return, and prayed and even sacrificed to the gods to ensure its arrival).  There were moments this winter when I wasn't exactly sure if spring would return again.  But it seems to be on its way now and things in the garden are preparing themselves for its imminent arrival.

Spring is all around us in Atlanta.  The daffodils and crocus have been lovely at the Atlanta Botanical Garden lately, and now tulips have joined the show.  Hyacinths are just poking up out of the soil in the big pots lining the allee (can't wait to sniff those!).

Daffodils at ABG

 The Paperbush shrub (Edgeworthia papyrifera) at the garden has been a delight to walk by, although I can't pass by without stopping for a sniff. Its fragrance is one of the loveliest of the early-blooming shrubs.

The Paperbush (Edgeworthia papyrifera) has a lovely scent.

Bright red tulips underplanted with blue pansies and parsley

This appears to be an 'Angelique' tulip; one of my favorites

My own garden is preparing itself for spring as well.  The red creole onion seedlings have been set out in a raised bed, and the spring kale, lettuce, cabbage and brussels sprouts are doing well.  My tomatoes under the gro-lights have just been potted on for the second time, and even the celery seedlings are looking lively this week.

The weather report for this coming week indicates we may have some cool nights ahead of us (in the 20s anyway), but I still have faith that the spring is here (and thankfully, without having to do any animal sacrifices).


Wishing you happiness in spades,

M.R.S.

From Ice to Nice

What a difference two weeks can make in Atlanta!  Two weeks ago an ice storm turned my backyard into a winter wonderland.  Today, by contrast, was a gorgeous day with temperatures almost reaching seventy degrees. 

I went to Home Depot today to get some manure and compost to ready the raised beds in the kitchen garden.  When I saw 9-packs of cool-weather veggies such as kale, cabbage, and lettuce, I couldn't help myself.  I brought home a pack each of these as well as a pack of brussels sprouts.  It's probably a bit premature to set these out in the garden as I'm sure there will be more winter weather ahead, but I decided the risk is worth the pleasure of digging and seeing something green in the beds.  

The frigid scene two weeks ago

My Chinese fringe flower shrubs (at right leaning over fence) suffered some damage from the ice storm.

My indoor seedlings are also up and doing well.  Red creole onions, tomatoes, sage, basil, and parsley are already growing tall.  Tiny wisps of celery are just beginning to peek out of the soil, but the peppers are just lying there (as they require light to germinate, I don't cover them, but just press them into the soil).  I'm thinking as the temperature continues to rise, they will start to sprout.

Packs of kale and cabbage awaiting their new homes 

Newly-planted romaine lettuce (with fencing erected to keep the poodle from trampling it)

Brussels sprouts transplant 

I have cloches at the ready in case the weather takes an ugly turn again before spring (and as it's only February, I'm sure it will).  Today was so pretty, however, that several indoor plants were able to take sun on the patio before having to go back inside for the night.

Pumpkin seeds dreaming of the outdoors

My new "herb tower" with a few high-rise residents; the green onions were started from kitchen scraps.  

Here's hoping the weather stays fair.

Wishing you happiness in spades,

M.R.S.

Orchid Daze at the Atlanta Botanical Garden

It's time once again for Orchid Daze at the Atlanta Botanical Garden's Fuqua Conservatory and Orchid Center.  This year's theme is "Lasting Impressions," which celebrates the art of three of our most-beloved impressionist painters: Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Paul Gauguin.  Combining these artists and flowers seems a perfect pairing.  After all, it was Monet who said, "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."

Monet's lovely water lily-filled garden at Giverny has been symbolized using pansy orchids and Cattleya orchids massed into beautiful clusters that capture the spirit of his paintings.  There's even an arched "bridge" over the pond for you to cross as you enjoy this artistic world designed by Tres Fromme, ABG's Landscape Design and Planning Manager.

The happy faces of pansy orchids

Other sections of the Conservatory and Orchid Center have been designed to celebrate the works of Gauguin and Van Gogh, using orchids as well as other tropical flowers to bring to life the vision of these masters of impressionist art.

The Orchid Center is always a fascinating destination, but during Orchid Daze, its brilliant colors are a refreshing change from the usually dreary months of February and March.  The show runs through April 13, so there's plenty of time to work a visit into the schedule.  You can wander through on your own, or you can join one of the guided tours offered on Saturdays at 1 pm.  February 23 is Vanilla Sunday in honor of the vanilla orchid (yes, vanilla comes from an orchid) and will include cooking demos and vanilla sundaes.  I didn't notice any pods on the vine during today's visit, but maybe there will be some soon.

A vanilla orchid vine

I wasn't as impressed by this year's show as much as last year's, but it's hard to go too wrong with cheerful orchids in a warm conservatory while there's snow still melting outside.

For some reason, this orchid tickles my fancy.  Maybe because it reminds me of a perky little rooster.

If you would like to try your own hand at growing orchids, there are Orchid Market Weekends (March 1 & 2, April 5 & 6) when vendors sell orchids and their supplies between 10 and 4.  And if you still can't get enough of orchids, the Atlanta Orchid Society is hosting its annual show March 7 - 9 at the garden, where you can see hundreds more orchids on display and for sale.

Lady Slipper orchids in the Orchid Center