I was pleasantly surprised to see lots and lots of lemons on our potted Meyer Lemon (Citrus limonia) this January – over 30! I’ve tended this lemon since 2008, received from Edible Landscaping, but have only had 10 or so lemons every winter. It has a humble place in our basement in front of a sliding glass door. When our fireplace is burning, it’s quite warm there, but when it is off – quite frequently – it’s downright chilly (50s).  So it is subjected to erratic temperatures but has plenty of light. Not ideal.

I’m trying to remember what I did differently this summer when the lemon was outdoors and forming buds. Probably two things:  I’m sure I covered it with compost tea – from T and J Enterprises -  on my rounds, and I also likely included it my rounds of nettle tea.  The compost tea did such wonders for every plant in the garden, I think it takes first place. However, since citrus needs trace minerals like iron, zinc, and manganese, I’m thinking that the nettle tea provided that along with all its other nutritional treasures. French Gardening.com explains in detail the elevated status of the nettle in France and how to use it.

I think the lemon was just waiting for a catalyst to unlock its dormant potential. It had well drained but moist soil, about 1/3 peat/coir mix, 1/3 fine expanded shale , and 1/3 compost, and was fed with fish emulsion (5-1-1) and kelp sprays. Its pot is a soft root trapper type which causes the rebranching of small feeder roots resulting in many more root surfaces to absorb air and nutrients. But microbes seem to be the magic something that unlocks potential.

This compost tea, because it has been such a magic elixir, has inspired us in all things compost. Last summer, we built two compost bins to handle all our vegetable and garden residue.

I have always loved the colors, textures, sculptural forms and under-seascapes of coral reefs. One of the reasons I love gardens is that they remind me of the lush exuberant whirling dervish atmosphere of underwater life. I like the thought of bringing this primordial template onto land -  so if a plant reminds me of a sea anemone or sea urchin, I’m likely to plant it. So when Rico Cech  of  Horizon Herbs described the purple flowers of Baical Skullcap (Scutellaria baicalensis) as  “schools of dolphins breaking through green waves in a summer sea”, there was hardly a choice but to order seed and add to my seascape vision.

The seeds germinated well and I grew the small plants in pots most of the summer. In September, I put them in the ground. At that point there wasn’t much oceanic about them. This spring, I strained to see something – anything -  emerging, and finally there were some tiny but determined looking shoots.  Since they are native to Mongolia and Siberia I need not have been concerned. Our West Michigan winter only went down to zero this year. Over the summer they grew by leaps and bounds – maybe of those dolphins – surprising me at every turn.

I haven’t tested out their lauded medicinal qualities yet – harvest of the roots is the second year – but I plan to next year. Mr. Cech asserts that the roots cure dysentery (rare here is West Michigan) and avian flu (not so rare). He says “there is really no better anti-infection agent in herbalism, to my knowledge”.

With such ringing endorsements of its medicinal prowess, it may seem an afterthought that the flowers make beautiful short bouquets, perfect for a tabletop where you must be able to see the person across from you (well not “must”, in some cases a bouquet of sunflowers would be preferable). But if beauty itself has  any healing power, then skullcap is healing from top to bottom. Bees and hummingbirds are also Baical Skullcap enthusiasts. Between the Nicotiana (in the background) and the Cosmos (over yonder), the hummingbirds seem to be thrilled.

Now these gardens are a little closer to that uninterrupted, flowing, oceanic, mysterious quality I am cultivating.

Zucchini – ‘Black’ – Pinetree Garden Seeds -  1931 Heirloom – “Excellent taste” (true)

Zucchini may be common but there is drama in zucchini – at least this year, which, channeling on my Chinese roots (circa 5,000 years ago) must be called the Year of the Bug. Every day I’ve been looking for three villains:  dark grey large squash bugs, striped cucumber beetles, and weird grey spider/bugs which live in clusters mostly and have fast nervous movements. These last (which I haven’t identified so far) laid waste an innocent cucumber plant several years ago so I’m well acquainted with their serious intentions.  I’ve had no choice but to drown them in soapy water (with added lid for the Houdini-like cucumber beetles). Since I’ve been appropriately watching old reruns of Gunsmoke lately, I think I know a little about how to be the sheriff in the Garden of Dodge. It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it – even if it means not ever marrying Kitty – however I have managed to stay married.

So I got fast at dropping those bugs into my jar – all to maintain peace and order so the zucchini can go to school on sunlight and water, and graduate zucchinis for Zucchini Mushroom Quiche from the Cabbagetown Cafe Cookbook by Julie Jordan. This is my favorite all time cookbook.  It appears out of print now, but used copies are still available. Or the Vegetable Rosti with Tomato Corn Relish from the June issue of Vegetarian Times Magazine.

This zucchini has great flavor and texture – not watery and bland like some I have tasted.  It is an heirloom and doesn’t bear wildly as do zucchini hybrids. But this feature is one I sought out since I could just go crazy trying to keep up with barrels of zucchini. I am planning to save seeds from this plant – if it survives.  To save the seed, according to the book, Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth,  let a zucchini grow till its rind is hard and cannot be dented by a fingernail. Then remove the seed three weeks or longer after harvest. (I plan to store it in the refrigerator.) Rinse the seeds in a colander under a stream of water and remove any debris.  Dry the seeds in a single layer on a cookie sheet. I’m hoping to gradually evolve seed that is acclimated to my garden and maybe even has a little resistance to our bugs due to its better vitality. Another heirloom zucchini from Johnny’s Selected Seeds is called Costata Romanesco which also sounds delicious but looks a bit different than the classic zucchini, with ribs and a pale grey-green color.

 

 

 

Peonies seem more ethereal than other flowers, except maybe poppies, the way they float on longish stems just above their nitty gritty business like foliage. I respect these leafy engines of growth, but since the flower represents the distillation of all that is below it, my first thought was to isolate the flowers and juxtapose them in new ways. Since I have always been convinced that we see by contrast and sometimes there just isn’t enough, I set about finding new contexts in which to see peonies….

Watching the movie Dutch Light made me realize how much light affects what we see. Light has a mysterious quality (wave or particle?) but the movie’s prominent theory is that Dutch light is so very luminous because of all the tiny droplets of water vapor constantly in the air. This is due to the watery nature of the Netherlands – low lying seas, rivers, and lakes. Light like sound bounces off surfaces and water is especially multifaceted. There is a bit of water in this photo emanating from the melon, but there is a variation on a water droplet, the lush and moist peony blossoms which are reflecting light from every possible angle. In an ongoing justification for the decorative and the ornament in interior and exterior design, it appears that there is a sublime function for  these embellishments – to reflect light and sound into a complex richness and whole unattainable with flat surfaces. Alas the photo has no sound, but perhaps one can imagine a comparable sound reflected off intricately carved walls in a perfect acoustical setting such as Vienna’s Golden Hall.

Peonies Travel to Lake Michigan

 

Peonies seem too delicate for sport or action but we carefully carried a few blooms in a cooler to the shore on a windy day after a storm the night before. The flowers took to the water by floating beautifully, but the remnants of the storm had them windswept and churning in no time. This experiment demonstrated more about the ways of people throwing peonies into the surf and then running fast to photograph them.  We didn’t last long in this weather, but the peonies got to meet the Big Lake -  and there did seem to be commonalities, even between something so large and sweeping and something so small and delicate. They both have undulating movement and rhythm, intricacies and seemingly never ending surfaces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peonies and Onions

There are some good things about waiting to clean out the refrigerator. Way in the back,  I discovered these sprouting onions with their delicate green – a green very equivalent to the pink in the peonies, reticent, uncertain, and delicately beautiful.

I wanted to photograph an all over pattern, somewhat like fabric, and needed something to knit the pattern together visually – something to guide the eye around. In EMDR – Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, these eye movements going from right to left and back again  in a rhythmic way -  engaging both brain hemispheres, can actually create cures from emotional traumas and faulty thinking.  Perhaps there is a wholistic aspect to brain functioning that is strengthened by viewing artistic subjects. This reminds me of a book on my list I must read soon:  The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

Looking at some of my favorite 17th and 18th century botanical prints on Panteek.com, it struck me that these onion stems seem to take the place of the oft used trailing ribbons in the sky which guide the eye in such a delightful way around the print. The dark background also contrasts with the light pinks for visual contrast, a feature also seen constantly in 17th and 18th century Dutch art such as in Vermeer’s paintings. The darks are so very dark and the lights so light – but never pure white, instead a tinted off white.

Peony in the Sky

If  some of the 17th and 18th century botanical prints are surreal in nature, then they are a very benign and happy surrealism – the best variety in my opinion. I hope this photo is in the same spirit. And since all matter originates in outer space, I suppose it is scientifically accurate as well.

Lately, a few more Tamukeyama Japanese Maples have been planted on the hillside (as our aching arms can attest). More dirt is always an urgent need so husband Bob dispatched himself to the local sand and gravel yard for topsoil of some mysterious origin. It was so mysterious that even the owner knew nothing of its origin or previous treatment. So I suppose it came from heaven – pure, pristine, and of perfect organic composition.  My approach was that if it smelled earthy and not netherworldly, I would use it on the maples.  I used to have a garden that was treated with chemicals for many years and I will never forget the woe begone  aroma. This soil prospect smelled quite natural , so heaven it is…

Our outdoor stairway is planted along the edges with various annuals and perennials in a trial and error fashion. For some reason, the bottom half is mostly error. But in the top half resides one of my favorite plants. It has happily bloomed every spring for at least the last six years and is called Daphne cneorum. It has proven amazingly hardy in our zone 5a and is rated for zones 4-9. Its tight dark pink blossoms have a heavenly fragrance which is something I was aiming for along  the stairway. Lately it seems to be trying to escape its one step boundary by layering itself on the step above. It seems one branch has rooted so I may push this tendency by holding down a few other low lying branches using soil and fine mulch. The hope is to have a few more plants for the Japanese maple hillside.

Since this hillside is still in the fluid state of dreams, the daphne may have possibilities under the Tamukeyama maples as an understory plant. Possibilities abound at this stage before roots are attached and at home. This is when the gardener chess player sits staring and pondering the next move. The visual drama may be in the cascading and weeping maples on the hillside, but the hand to hand combat will be on the ground – hence the battle plans. The enemy is weeds, which sometimes used to be known as precious plants.  Some are native and some are naturalized imports but they all seem to know the territory well. Quack grass – probably the Michigan State Weed – already resides on the hillside en masse. Creeping Charlie (alias ground ivy) is somewhat contained, and creeping cinquefoil is about to take a nearby hill. These are listed in increasing order of dread. Cinquefoil not only creeps but sends down an anchoring taproot which can regenerate if broken – as in trying to pull it out. It is truly beyond creepy suitable only for a gardeners’ Halloween House of Horrors.

While pondering, I suddenly remembered a statement made by Vern Stephens from Designs by Nature  during his lecture at the Native Plant Sale:  that any plant, if left alone, without competition, will take over any area. This was his stark assertion to illustrate the checks and balances that native plants provide. To provide that checkmate, at least the perimeter of the hillside will need stalwart pawns to guard the Japanese nobility. Then, perhaps in future more peaceful years, my favorite Irish mosses and Elfin thyme can exist unmolested.

Yesterday I read more about the aggressive yet still admirable qualities of moneywort. Judging from its kindly yet strong qualities, it may be on the verge of conscription. I already use it under the Oshio Beni Japanese Maple and it has kept all intruders out – so far not even a vole has ventured into its domain.  It has also danced around the walkway edges of the greenhouse for years and pulls out easily (by me) when it oversteps.

The stairway Daphne cneorum, with its low evergreen habit and love of well drained sites, seems like it could also stand up to the wild, lurking aggression (or is it simply love of life?) of nearby weeds. So it is on the list. Enlisting native grasses may require something low and a bit Japanese looking, perhaps Prairie dropseed. But will it become a weed?? The chess board gets more complex….

Because I love the bermed architecture of the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute and because I can’t resist a plant sale, we dropped urgent gardening tasks and drove out to investigate. I had diminished expectations of any lecture on native plants. Hoopla abounds in the breeding of more and more dazzling and talented plants, so it seemed that native plants would only be  poor, deprived, pitiful cousins in need of some type of genetic infusion. However, I had gone so far as to become enchanted by bumblebees in the dead of winter and had a list of nine wild plants which are loved by them. The website Xerces.com sells a kit of the plants, but tracking them down seemed more interesting.

Upon arriving, one from my list (which of course I forgot), jumped out – Wild Bergamot.  Another one just looked powerful:  Great Blue Lobelia. Lobelia was the herb raved about by the herbalist Jethro Kloss in his book Back To Eden, the first herbal I ever read. Everyone but Mr. Kloss had a deep fear and dread of lobelia instilled by powerful war volleys put forth by the makers of the War On Nature. But Mr. Kloss could cure just about anything with this potent herb (including suspended animation). So I bought that one too. What bee wouldn’t want to revel in this herb?

We sat in the back at the lecture in case a quick exit was necessitated out of boredom. But I was shocked to have been immediately gripped by a new fever for the pristine, the unadorned, and the utterly natural world of native plants. The earnest and learned lecturer, Vern Stephens from Designs by Nature, began by explaining the advantageous nutritional value of native seeds and berries for the birds. Similar plants hybridized for other characteristics such as color or hardiness don’t have the high quality amino acids and proteins possessed by native plants. Birds who eat them often cannot fly fast enough to escape predators or lay fewer eggs. Some birds will not even eat non-native seeds and fruits. Native plants  have a crucial position in the woven tapestry of interdependence between plants, insects, and birds.

Seeing myself as at least somewhat bird-like, I couldn’t help but think about my human diet as well – that perhaps I am lacking in wild native foods too. Aside from Chaga mushrooms, I am not eating that many wild foods. I think I am surviving – but surviving may be more than walking and talking. Perhaps unbeknownst to us, we are all still in a game of survival. We have crude “foodstuffs” but do we have foods that can help us to survive on a higher human level……was the question. We perceive that we are safe, but what about higher human functions – the idea that never emerged, the mental retreat, the smile that never found its way from our brain to our face?

Since humans ideally bridge the gap between the physical and the spiritual, I suddenly found myself engrossed in the idea of spiritual ecology. Could there be foods that can help us break barriers between physical and spiritual realms, that can help us fly away to a safer place? The idea that our gardens and yards can help us survive on a higher level seemed worth exploring. Gardening always leads me to see relationships I never knew existed, and this lecture sparked new avenues and threads I’ll fly off to……if I can find the right amino acids.

This is the beginning of the Japanese Maple viewing hillside I wrote about last June.It all starts with dirt – in this case, anything I can get my hands on from other places in the yard to fill in the steep, concave hillside. Dirt from dug out pathways, small rises, and a hastily conceived excavated carnivorous plant garden, has all been heaved down the  hill. I even bought a few bags of organic topsoil, but it was a laughable drop in the bucket. It is always a cause for celebration when something else produces excess dirt for the collection.  In taking what I can get, some of this soil is clay subsoil, which Japanese Maples absolutely hate. (I’ve seen this soil kill them in pots.) This will be the acid test for the microbes in the compost tea I make with supplies from Tandjenterprises.com. In my phone conversations with the owner last year, he regaled me with microbe tales of converting humusless (and humorless) soils to thriving cities of soil biota ready to support life in the upper atmosphere.  I’ll put it to the test if  I can survive climbing our small mountain elixir in hand.

Part two of the recipe is adding a few nuts and bolts to the soil such as fine expanded shale (sometimes called Haydite) and sphagnum peat. I would have added some compost save reading the cautionary cultural information on the very imformative website Essenceofthetree.com.  Instead, a bark based soil is recommended. Never having been able to find this, I will be pressing my luck by mulching with fine pine bark instead.

 

Here in mid Michigan, we’ve had a cooler than normal April so these lettuces in our unheated greenhouse haven’t been growing very fast. The left 2 are named Emerald Oak – a very sweet lettuce, and the 4 on the right are Red Deer Tongue – an heirloom that is heat resistant. Both are sold at Seeds of Change among others.  I’m still in surreal mode,  so they may have fallen down from the sky.  We are due for some warmer temperatures, and none too soon, since the store bought lettuce is starting to have that 6th taste I call cardboard – in line after the newest 5th taste named umami.

 

I took some time out from covering our baby schizandra buds due to a frost warning tonight to try my hand at more flying orchids – with my husband’s help. We used 4 photos we took, one sky photo and 3 orchid photos from the Michigan State University Orchid Show this March.

The orchids were selected from their backgrounds using Photoshop, and then layered on the sky using Corel Painter. After the orchids were applied using a tablet and pen, the image was flattened into one layer and made ready for the web using Photoshop.

I have always loved fabric and find it fascinating to relate gardening and photography to other areas of design, especially fabric. I once took weaving classes, but my instructor was discouraging about ever earning a penny from it – and I did need to earn a few pennies. I should have been listening to Tom Petty when he sang ,”I don’t care what you have to say” in the song Melinda. I like the certainty of purpose which comes through in so many of his songs. But weaving ideas together is another form of weaving ever intriguing – and the ideas of gardening, photography, and fabric is a mix with many layers and intricacies to explore.