Sunday, June 24, 2012

Celery Project

This is a fun and easy little gardening project. Take the end of a bunch of celery. Submerge the bottom in water. Place in a sunny window and watch it grow.
After several days it will have roots. Plant in the garden. Not sure yet how big the stalks will be but it sure is fun to see and, so far, appears to be flourishing.


Monday, June 18, 2012

What I learned from Little House

As I was sorting through my books I came across the entire "Little House" collection by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I had loved these books as a girl, but hadn't thought about them in years, so I casually began to read one. Nearly immediately I was caught up in the amazing stories of one family of American pioneers. I found several things compelling, first the almost unbearable optimism of the Ingalls family, secondly their scrappy resourcefulness and third, how much knowledge they possessed-simply through experience-about survival in the natural world.

No matter what this family confronted: isolation, blizzards, plagues and all manner of nearly unthinkable hardship, they remained stalwart in their optimism, often echoing the refrain "All's well that ends well". Time and again "Pa" moved them-sometimes with no more than a few hours notice-to stranger and more remote places on the American frontier. They would build a house-complete with luxuries like window glass-and have to move suddenly and then reestablish themselves with only the contents of a covered wagon. Possessing little more than a few simple tools, basic fabric and primitive kitchen equipment they could build a house, make clothing, craft furniture and grow food to sustain a family of 6.

How is this possible, I am forced to ask myself...How could people live, and indeed, thrive with so little? How did they know when to plant and when to harvest? How to build a roof and floor? How could they have been so in tune with strange environments? None of this to say is that they did not suffer, they suffered tremendously, but they did not see it that way. Every meal was delicious, every sunset was an event in and of itself, and every gift the best ever given or received. And the next question, why can't I be more like that?

I was so taken by the simple, pastoral tableaus, and the insights into all things home and garden, that I read all 9 of the books in a few days.  What a remarkable time in our history and isn't it amazing how far we have come...

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Giving up Props

I just read a really provocative article from the NYT via Apartment Therapy  http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/propping-how-much-is-too-much-172437  Basically the article is lampooning the over styled and under examined lives so many people appear to be living. The article is, I think, more than a little tongue in cheek but it provokes some interesting questions; poking fun at the abundance of redundant themes in interior design: taxidermy, terrariums, and chevron. Every design blog, website and shelter magazine seems to be liberally peppered with similar images of painted furniture, color coordinated bookshelves and "vintage finds". "Carefully curated" homes peopled with unique individuals that all happen to like the exact same stuff. The prepackaged hipster aesthetic that can be quickly consumed and will just as quickly be forgotten.

It is inevitable that when something (everything and anything) is photographed and cleverly staged and posted on design blogs that many people will say..."Oooh that's cute, I want that" and head to Crate and Barrel or Urban Outfitters to purchase it. That is exactly how marketing is supposed to work. There will always be fashion and design trends and most people will follow them simply because it is easy entre into a certain social strata. In a year or two everyone will throw their papier mache deer heads and cutesy owl figurines and replace them with sad clown portraits or whatever else is hip at the moment. The proof that there have always been trends in design? Look at my knotty pine kitchen and 60's psychedelic shelf paper...or all the "updated" homes with granite countertops and stainless appliances. For all those self righteous folk who would spew so much venom at the trend followers shut off your Internet connection and don't pick up a magazine and very quickly you'll have no idea what the hipsters are buying and you can be your own smugly original self.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Generation Gap

It's strange how some plants and flowers get labeled as "old fashioned" and fall out of popularity for a time, and that there are trends in the gardening world. But fashion, by its very nature is cyclical, and everything old and forgotten will eventually, given enough time, become the favorite new thing. There are, however, some flowers that seem to be trend proof. Old standbys that, due to some unique quality, seem to have always been and will always be. New gardeners make their own choices based on a lifetime of prejudices instilled by mothers, and neighbors and friends. Finding comfort in familiarity and excitement in the exotic.

When I was little girl I loved snapdragons (what kid doesn't) and moss roses. I begged my mother to plant big swaths of them in all their rainbow hues. As of today neither of us have them planted in our yards. Truthfully, I wouldn't even consider it. My mother's mother grew peonies and bearded irises. She had huge peony bushes, powdery pink and fuchsia, with their wonderful spicy sweet scent, always covered with bees and ants; and big clusters of purple iris lining her gravel driveway. I loved those flowers my grandmother grew. I thought the peonies magically ruffly and the iris were always so elegant; my mother hated them, at least hated them as much as anyone can hate a flower. In my case, ever since the first time I saw them, I have always hated geraniums and marigolds; thinking them  unattractive and  finding their scent repulsive. But now I know that there are reasons behind every planting decision, even geraniums and marigolds.

Now that I am  actually gardening, I get to make my own choices for what to plant. Initially I thought I would have an abundance of unfamiliar, special order flowers, but then realized that I don't have the water or the soil for such plants. So my garden seems to have sorted itself out into an amalgamation of the gardens of the women in my family before me: my paternal grandmother's hostas, my maternal grandmother's peonies, and my mom's hen and chicks, myrtle and coral bells. (Also the hopeless in southern Ohio, but oh-so alluring, tuberous begonia; my mother has never been able to resist them, and neither can I.)  But the other plants and flowers that I have read like a litany of traditional farm flowers, all with their unique qualities or purpose: geraniums and marigolds to repel insects, sunflowers for the birds, zinnias for cutting, lavender for the fragrance. All of these are classic farm flora, people have been growing these flowers in the Midwest for a hundred years, and I assume that they will continue to. They have all withstood the test of time and outlasted trends and fads because they each have something unique to contribute and somehow, they just make sense.