As the holiday season descends on us, it’s time for gardeners to spruce up their home in preparation for the seasonal festivities. I love the smell of pine in my home and I always try to create an evergreen holiday centerpiece for my table. The addition of a Balsam fir adds a lovely fragrance to my living room.
As a New Yorker, I am bombarded by Christmas tree vendors when I walk down the streets around this time of year. Having moved several times in my 10-year tenure in the city, I’ve discovered that Christmas trees are like Rainer cherries. Their price changes as you walk from east to west, and they drop the further north you walk. I have vivid memories of living on the east side and walking from 2nd Avenue to Madison during cherry season, watching the price rise from $4.99 a pound to $13.99—all within a four-block radius.
Now a Westsider, I buy my trees anywhere from West 106th to West 118th. Last year, I bought an eight-footer for a wonderful price. The tree took a ride on the M10 thanks to a generous driver who understood that my eyes were bigger than my arms. This year I am torn between the good prices I see at my local Whole Foods and the deals that I see on West 106th. It all depends on how far I want to lug the tree.
With Thanksgiving and the season’s first snow behind us, the reality of winter is now upon us. At this time of year the rose garden is closed to the public, but the gardeners are still busy working. Fall clean-up is important!
As every rose gardener knows, the queen of flowers is particularly susceptible to black spot. The spores of the fungus will happily over-winter in the soil around your roses. It is paramount to clean up all the diseased foliage and be meticulous about keeping the area around the rose clean.
Once our roses start to go dormant for the winter and the ground starts to cool, we surround the base of the plants with mulch. The mulch acts like a winter Parka, protecting the base of the rose during the cold winter months. We use a finely shredded bark mulch that doesn’t get matted down into large clumps. “Hilling” or mounding mulch around the base of our roses to a depth of 6 to 8 inches provides ample protection during the cold winter months.
They are ubiquitous during the holiday season—and for good reason. Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) are affordable, colorful plants with an enormous amount of festive appeal. But, contrary to popular opinion, the flowers are actually minuscule. The beauty of the poinsettia comes from its large, colorful red bracts.
Poinsettias come not only in the traditional yuletide red, but in a selection of cream-colored and rosy pink varieties as well. Whatever your tastes, they adorn many public spaces and homes during the holiday season.
I wince when I see people walking down the street with an open poinsettia in hand, fully exposed to the elements. Do your part to be an informed shopper and insist that the florist or retail store you purchase your poinsettia from wraps the plant before you leave with it. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate affair—it can be as little as temporarily covering the plant with a shopping bag. You must remember that you’re dealing with a tropical plant, and it can’t handle our area’s cool temperatures.
I was watering containers around the Café one weekend in September when a woman stopped me to ask some questions about herbs. She had seen the large containers of parsley on display and was wondering what we did to keep the plant so healthy.
She explained that she had purchased parsley this summer and had placed it on her windowsill in her kitchen. It was not as verdant and vibrant as ours, and she was wondering what she had done wrong. I explained that our container displays comprised several plants to create a lavish appearance, but it was not simply quantity but also the size of the container that produced the bountiful display.
For your herbs to thrive, they need ample space to grow. Herbs are generally sold in spring in small, three- to four-inch pots. The small sizes of the pots are convenient for growers and it keeps the price down. Once you bring it home, the herb will need a bigger home so the root system can expand to support the plant.
If the herb is to be placed on your windowsill within arm’s reach of your cutting board, you probably won’t be able to repot it in a larger container, but even bumping it up to a six-inch pot will make a world of difference.
Polygonatum odoratum var. pluriflorum ‘Variegatum’
When we think of autumnal shade in our gardens, we always look to woody plants. It is the season when trees monopolize our attention. In New England and the rest of the northeast, a thriving tourist industry kicks into full swing for three weeks around this time, paying homage to the brilliance of fall foliage. New Englanders pray for the warm days and cool nights which will provide the ideal conditions for a colorful show.
While most of us are looking up at this time of the year, looking down isn’t a bad idea, either. There are many perennials that compete with the brilliance of the trees. I was perusing the gardens two weeks ago admiring some of the best fall performers, and now I’d like to share some of the best fall candidates for the home gardener.
As a biennial, parsley comes up in its first year with foliage in full splendor, then it quietly overwinters and flowers the following season. A member of the Apiaceae family alongside dill, fennel, and lovage, parsley’s flowers are beautiful yellow umbels. The foliage in the first year forms a lush rosette which is often what you’ll find in the grocery store. In the second year, when it flowers, the foliage is sparse and elongated.
But despite its versatility and hardiness, parsley is notoriously difficult to grow from seed. I generally recommend that people soak their seeds overnight in lukewarm water to aid in germination. While parsley can sometimes take anywhere from one to six weeks to germinate, the soaking still helps speed up the process.
Two large containers adorn the entrance out by Bedford Gate. Traditionally, we have used the narrow leaf fig (Ficus binnendijkii ‘Alli’) as the centerpiece for these containers. Our specimens are multi-stemmed with long, narrow, lance-shaped leaves. Ficus binnendijkii ‘Alli’ is not as fussy as the ubiquitous weeping fig, Ficus benjamina. It is more tolerant of low light levels and does not have a tendency to drop its leaves when moved.
Our Ficus binnendijkii ‘Alli’ specimens are terrific candidates to under-plant with annuals. In late spring we place the narrow leaf figs into larger pots that provide ample space for seasonal plantings.
The combination for this year’s summer display started with good intentions and then went awry. The errors that were made are common and instructive. We under-planted Ficus binnendijkii ‘Alli’ with the following: angel wings (Caladium ‘Miss Muffet’), English ivy (Hedera helix ‘Green Needle Point’), begonia (Begonia ‘Pink Giraffe’) and coleus (Solenostemon ‘Wasabi’).
We are heading into the final weekend of Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Garden. The show is awash with vivid autumnal color and exotic chrysanthemum blooms in every shape and size imaginable.
For those curious, there are 13 different classes of chrysanthemums. Some of my favorites are the Edo varieties which fall into the last class of mums—Class 13: Unclassified or Exotic. These are the chrysanthemum flower shapes that do not fit into any established category. They often have twisted, bi-color florets that change their shape as they open.
Beyond these, there are many fun and fanciful chrysanthemum flower forms to cover. Chrysanthemums from the Brush and Thistle class look like an artist’s paint brush. Spider mums look like fireworks exploding in the sky. They have long, tubular ray florets that hook or coil at the end. Anemone-type mums have centers that are raised up like a pincushion, and chrysanthemums from the Spoon class have long ray florets with tips that are shaped as their name suggests.
Last week I wrote about festive fall arrangements, with pumpkins carved open and colorful table centerpieces placed inside them. This week, I will provide a profile of pumpkins and other cucurbits. Pumpkins are in the Cucurbitaceae family and are one of the two oldest food sources in North America (corn is the other). Seeds have been found in caves in Mexico dating back from 5000 to 7000 B.C.
If you peruse the farmers’ markets these days you will find a nice selection of pumpkins. One of my favorites for eating and for decorating is the Long Island Cheese pumpkin or Cucurbita moschata ‘Long Island Cheese’. It makes a great pie. Another exotic counterpart is ‘Musquee de Provence’ which is an heirloom from the south of France.
There is a seasonally appropriate, ghostly white pumpkin named Cucurbita maxima ‘Lumina’ that makes a delicious soup. If you are searching for Cinderella’s pumpkin, it goes by the name of Cucurbita maxima ‘Rouge Vif d’Etampes’, a French heirloom that was introduced into the U.S. in 1883 by the Burpee Seed Company.
As the bounty from the farmers’ markets will attest, fall is a wonderful season for a wide array of other winter squash. One of my seasonal favorites is ‘Delicata’, a sweet squash that has an edible rind and can be sliced and sautéed or baked in the oven. When selecting this squash, choose one that is heavy for its size.
Every year, in celebration of Columbus Day and the advent of autumn, I conduct a Home Gardening Demonstration in the Fall Room of the Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Garden on autumnal centerpieces. Instead of getting my hands dirty, I get my hands gooey by carving exotic looking heirloom pumpkins and creating festive table arrangements.
I stand above the pumpkins with a sharp knife, grasp the stem for stability and start carving open the top. If you are carving a pumpkin with the intention of replacing the lid then you would place the knife at a 45-degree angle. Since I am carving with the intention of inserting a 4-inch square vase inside as a centerpiece holder, I carve straight down at a 90-degree angle. My objective is to create a clean edge and an area that is large enough so I can slip the vase in, leaving a small amount of wiggle room so that I can extract it with ease.
