A Wreathy Business: Take 20 Mugwort Sticks...

There is snow on the ground in Brooklyn and it is wreath season.

For the last couple of years I have made our own wreath, attaching the pretty bits to a circlet of bent mugwort stems. Here is the most recent version.

 More about how to make this wreath in my story for Gardenista.

Aloft

 Furry balloons? Green balloons, or hairy...?

This graceful plant needs more respect.

Its air-filled seed capsules will form until frost, slowly dry, split, and release puffs of gossamer-borne seeds.

A Hummingbird Evening

The lablab beans are looking very good. Lablab purpureus, beautiful and edible. 

And yesterday evening, after six, we were treated to fifteen minutes of enchantment as a tiny ruby throated hummingbird came to feed on their flowers. We have spotted several in the previous days, but none has stayed this long, taking breaks to sit on the trellis, on the milkweed, on the vine, even on the African basil stems. 

Low light, and I have not developed these images, other than re-sizing them - the Frenchman's will be much better. But that exquisite little creature was not further from us than a terrace's width. And we standing inside the door, so...six feet.

How these tiny little birds fly so far, with so many obstacles, I don't know. They are heading south now, all three inches of each of them. And tonight, as last night, the powerful beams of the 9/11 memorial will attract and disorient thousands of migrating birds.

I do know that lablab flowers are not native to the hummers' range, but I also can't help wondering about the long-term effects (if any) of feeding these little birds sugar water, from feeders. Aside from the actual sugar and the water (and quality of the water), there is the risk of disease-transmission. Please sterilize those feeders daily.

I have wondered whether the hummers also visit the agastache we have planted for them. Possibly. We have not caught them in the act.

Look at the little feets!

Nkwe Pirelli says this would be a very nice snack. Which is why Nkwe Pirelli does not go outside, unsupervised. Mr Tuxedo cares little for conservation. 

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New Fall Walks

Moonflowers

The moonflowers began opening in earnest the day Don died. The night of the day. But, in South African time, the morning after the night of the day he died. Sensitive listening devices, trained skywards, scenting the terrace, calling a moth or a bat or nocturnal hummingbird. Would he say, No such thing? (Is there?)

I told Don's bereft Rosie today, I keep seeing Don in everything, even where I usually might not. Would he approve of the moonflowers? He liked perfumed flowers. And not just the indigenous and the imperiled, but the old fashioned and the scented and the garden-grown. He bought a vast bunch of flowers and herbs to supper in Kalk Bay the last time we saw each other. Part of the conversation was about the dignity and indignity of death. How it was important to him and Rosie to live somewhere where you could choose the time and manner of your death, should you wish to, and be able to. 

And then he fell off a cliff while hunting for an endangered species.

But maybe that is the same thing.

Ipomoea vines are very invasive in Cape Town.

Don was visiting a small population of critically Penaea formosa. Formosa means beautiful. One idiot news outlet said it is an orchid. Sloppy Google search. That would have driven Don nuts. A symptom of the larger problem. Plant blindness. 

These moonflowers will open for weeks, until the first cold snap. Then their sappy, jungle green leaves will blacken. And I may be very sorry I planted them at all, back when spring's nights turned warm enough for the tropical vines' fat seeds to germinate.

But for now, under a waxing moon, more and more of the delicate flowers open each longer and longer evening. From spiraled bud to fullblown in an hour. 

Far away, in the Cape Town that exists as a concept for me, of home and friendship, there is a growing emptiness I do not know how to fill. Like more and more stars winking out in the black sky—unknown, unknowable, unstoppable. 

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In Memoriam

Milkweed, fennel and lablab beans - late summer's compensation

Very, very late summer and the tall things are bending in the breeze. The South African milkweed and the fennel are irresistible to pollinating insects. So many bees, iridescent hover flies, wasps and hornets visit them. The creatures with stings don't bother us, so we don't mind them. It's good to see their free, flying life while the wider world's confusion and collapse press on us.

Beyond their airy stems, the lablab bean is in bloom. Yesterday we saw a hummingbird buzz its flowers. It's usually sold as an ornamental, as hyacinth bean or hyacinth vine, with occasional and vexingly ignorant warnings of toxicity. This is an ancient crop, hailing either from East Africa or South Asia (so far, its very early domestication has made its origin hard to pinpoint). 

I can't wait to have enough pods to make the two early fall bean dishes I've come to anticipate: a Southeast Asian-style curry made form from the sliced young pods, and a spicy and addictively good dish laced with berbere (an Eritrean and Ethiopean spice mix). 

You'll find both those recipes, and more about lablab beans, via the Gardenista story below.

Lablab Beans: An Ancient Crop and Stunning Vine

Pawpaw Cake with Spicebush Streusel

Recently, I served this Pawpaw Spicebush Cake - coffee-cake style, with spicebush-pecan streusel - after a plant walk at the Queens Country Farm Museum, a small but remarkably rural-looking farm in the heart of Queens. Because I needed to feed about 16 people I double my recipe and baked it in a big rectangular pan. It worked!

The pawpaw purée for the recipe was from my frozen stash, circa September 2024. The pulp freezes beautifully, and I keep it in half-cup portions for later baking or ice

cream.

And in case you are in doubt, we're talking the native American fruit, Asimina triloba, a custard apple relative, not papaya, which is also called pawpaw in countries with Commonwealth ties, past or present.

And pawpaw season is coming. And the hunt will be on. 

This recipe is in the pawapw chapter of Forage, Harvest, Feast (of course). The streusel in the original is for hazelnuts, but I think pecans work very well indeed. 

A nightly netting

 

Our evening suppers are now netted, which is normal for summer. Usually, it's for tiny flying insects (smaller than fruit flies, but what are they?) that are attracted to anything acidic, like salad dressing, or wine, into which they hurl themselves to perish. But these last few evenings we have been joined by a persistent, chunky hornet, who buzzes our dinner relentlessly. I don't really mind it, but the Frenchman feels about hornets the way I feel about spiders. Heebie jeebies. We both know that both are beneficial, yet neither of us can stand being near them. So, net. 

Supper was a tangle of tiny wax beans soused while warm in shoyu with finely ribboned shiso leaves from the terrace, and dropped onto crisp-skinned, curry-powder-dusted roasted chicken thighs. Before adding the steamed beans I deglazed the hot pan with elderflower vinegar and honeysuckle cordial (the methods for these delightful concoctions are in Forage, Harvest, Feast).

It's 99°F as I write, and the African basil continues to persecute me (see previous post). It's been watered twice, today. But the bees are happy. Very, very happy.

Dirty rice: Just add daylilies

Have you ever made dirty rice? It's a delicious mess of rice made exciting with all sorts of bits and pieces. The Southern Creole dish looks a bit different in our house, but I hope I capture its spirit. One of the staple ingredients  in my various versions is dried daylilies. Hemerocallis fulva is still in bloom here in Brooklyn, and the spent flowers are a delicacy (I think), once dried, with an unexpected flavor of carob. Daylilies are dead easy to dry, and last pretty much indefinitely.

My recipe for dirty daylily rice is now up on Gardenista, along with the how-to of drying. Bon appétit!

(Oh: the salad above? Just watermelon pieces with various basils from our terrace, a little salt, and little olive oil, and a drizzle of good balsamic vinegar.)

Summer's flowers

Summer flowers, wild and weedy, aromatic and opportunistic. Knapweed, Queen Anne's lace, white sweet clover and mugwort are feral fillers for this tangle of two bee balms and rudbeckia. 

Monarda punctata to the right, an underrated cut flower and edible herb. Plant more. 

And on the windowsill, some extras from the terrace: liatris and hyssop, and more obliging mugwort. Aside from being a very useful herb, this super-invader lasts exceptionally well in water. Just strip off the lower leaves and immerse it for 30 minutes to revive it after picking. Florists? Mugwort is everywhere, and it is free.

A tea to soothe sleep

 

Standing on the terrace recently I snuffed the air and smelled an unmistakable and welcome scent. Lindens were in city-wide bloom. Some still are.

Feeling besieged by the sense that the world is about to break over our heads?

Sip some linden tea.

Are the trees still in bloom, yet to bloom, soon to bloom, near you?

In New York, lindens are planted very, very widely. Littleleaf, bigleaf, European species, native North American species. 

Their flowers dry easily, and rehydrate gracefully. Linden tea has been used for a long, long time, to calm nerves, and soothe the sleepless. I am a convert.

Find the recipe and some gathering tips in my linden tea story for Gardenista.

Green

It is all very green, where lately it had been brown. Lately is months ago. Lately was March and April, the tentative days of spring. But time compresses. Now, the terrace, the parks, the streets of the city, are very green. 

Raindrops sparkle on jewelweed's leaves. The jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) blooms in late summer, and in fall. It is there for the ruby-throated hummingbirds. It is there for us, to lure the hummingbirds, for us to see.

The jewelweed is self-sown, from seeds detonated last year by spring-loaded capsules. Just two plants share a pot - come their height, they will be extremely thirsty, and the pot might be replenished twice a day. Jewelweed likes damp places. At night, it folds its leaves. 

On the terrace its companion, in another pot, is Thalictrum pubescens, tall meadow rue, a perennial whose shallow roots also relish water. Its parent grows in the Catskills, its feet in deep moss watered by a stream that trickles perennially down a clean mountain.

The raccoons are afoot again in the evenings, on the roof above the Boston ivy.

We wonder where they come from, and where they go.

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Peonies, two ways

On Monday I bought pink peonies in tight bud. $15 for three stems. Around the corner they are $20, and fully blown. Walking an extra 10 minutes gives me more days of flowers and money to spare. I photographed them today, Wednesday, in the evening. They have opened and smell exactly like roses.

I moved their vase to the stone table for our supper. After supper, they stay out on the terrace in the cool evening and cooler night, so they last a little longer. It's warmer indoors, and we're probably still a few weeks away - I hope - from succumbing to central air. 

Early in the month, when we had a brief heat wave, we closed all the windows and turned on that chilled air, and felt coccooned and shut off. It's better now, with open windows and doors, a through-draft, air clogged with pollen, and the singing of robins and mockingbirds, the warning of the kestrel, and the black headed gulls cracking hilarious jokes as they fly high above us, their voices beneath the jets and the choppers and the trucks and modified cars that ride like gunshots down the street.

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Daily, on Instagram

Candelabras, at last

Sometimes, dreams come true. A small whisper of an idea stayed with me as I booked a ticket to Cape Town for April. Maybe, maybe...maybe the Brunsvigias would bloom while I was here. And if they did, I would see them. 

The ones in Nieuwoudtville. About four hours north of Cape Town, in the Northern Cape's Namakwa region. At the end of a dry summer, rain comes. Maybe. And about three weeks after that rain, these geophytes - Brunsvigia bosmaniae - emerge and bloom like vivid pink candelabras. There's no fine-tuning the planning. Bear all possibilities in mind, but it has to be serendipitous. 

Word came, phone calls were made (I never call anyone), and here we are. It has been ten years since we visited this high escarpment, and then it was for its brilliant spring display.

There is so much more, too. There is Brunsvigia flava, another, yellow species that blooms earlier. There are thousands - hundreds of thousands - of tiny green seedlings softening the sand in the grey veld. They have risen after these rains and will be mature by spring (August, September) and will bloom in those famous carpets of flowers. 

There are blue cranes in the fields, and bokmakieries ringing in the thorn trees. There are glittering stars at night.

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The ramps have risen!

The ramps on the tiny terrace have broken their long hibernation. They made flowers last year, in summer, long after their leaves had disappeared in the heat. Several seeds formed and matured and I dug them back in. I wonder if they will germinate?

It takes around, give-or-take, roughly, approximately, more or less, seven years for a ramp grown from seed to be able to make its own flowers, and seeds. 

Don't encourage vendors to sell mountains of ramps. Do ask them to sell ramp leaves only. They can be packaged just like delicate leaves like chicories and salad. And do soak some of the rooted plants overnight before planting them in pots or in the soil where they will get spring sunlight and summer shade. They are an Eastern US native, and appreciate cold winters. Compost, leaf litter, and slightly acidic soil help, too. But mine just grow in potting soil, with some of their woodland neighbors. 

Many of my overwintered bulbs did not make it and turned to mush: lilies, alliums (the ornamental kind).  It's not the cold that bothers them, but a repeat freeze-thaw cycle, and wet feet. Ramps like wet feet, for a bit. And here they are.

Read all about how to grow ramps in this story. And what ramp habitat looks like in spot we visist every spring, in the Catskills.

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Forage walks for spring

New spring Plant Walks and Forage Picnics are ready. Find them and book your tickets via the link.

Pictured above? Bloodroot, and ephemeral native wildflower, doing battle with English ivy. Who are your rooting for (sorry...)?

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Daffodil hour

The Frenchman's birthday daffodils ablaze in the early afternoon sunlight, now bright through the skylight as that medium-size star climbs higher and higher in the pre-spring sky.

These were the first daffodils I have seen sold locally, and that means we'll have them for the next couple of months. In parks and gardens, they are already in bud, but still tightly closed.

Snowdrops

The snowdrops always surprise me. There's a patch of them in the northern reaches of Prospect Park (furthest from our local, southern end) that always blooms weeks ahead of anything else. And this really was the winter for snow, and real cold, at last.

The trees are many weeks away from leafing out, but buds on their bare are beginning to swell. the leaf litter below is thick, and the snowdrops lift brown leaves as they rise.

Even though I am drawn to native plants (wherever I - and they - may be), it's hard to dislike these small tokens of botanical life. And their emergence always makes me wonder what is happening, right now, in that narrow valley in the Catskills, where a wild, clean stream is rushing from the mountains, and a sunny slope is beginning to think about thawing.

It's the last day of dark afternoons (although even those have been growing brighter). Daylight Savings Time will give us sudden, Sunday sunlight, right past 6pm.

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Signs and wonders

Invasive, delicious, and it perseveres, nay, thrives!...in winter. Field garlic. Allium vineale. Right now relishing the snow.

Tonight it will add welcome green pungency to a chicken pot pie.

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 Book a Winter Walk and Picnic

Then, and now

Seeing red. Well, deep orange? Amber? A rufous hue? This is the perfect stage, not in a renewed presidency, not in the world, but in the short, truncated life of a tulip. Full blown. 

Supper began with snacks of olives that I salt-cured, given to me by the friend who came over last night to eat them. She grew them, just a few blocks west of us. Then, a couple of salads, drenched in a bright dressing of Thai lime juice (from the happier of our two trees) with fish sauce and some sugar: crisp endive, thin rounds of watermelon radish, a shaved heart of mustard, and tiny, vinegar-soused cucumbers. And another of peeled and naked pomelo sections, topped with fried shallots. After that, the duck legs, simmered forever in shoyu with many bay leaves (our tree, yay), on a starchy foundation of lacy lotus roots. With a side plate of chilled spinach stems, with shoyu and ginger and crisp sesame seeds. Followed by durian ice cream, just-churned, and cherimoya granita. 

Life in the big, evil city, where dozens of cultures collide daily and (mostly) get along.

Cherimoyas (custard apples) are in season for another couple of months, in California. I highly recommend treating yourself to a box, if you live within shipping reach of Rincon Tropics (a small business with a real, live human owner) whose fruit is wonderful and whose shredded paper packaging makes unpacking it a treasure hunt.

My granita recipe is at Gardenista.

That's all I've got. But we're all going to have to do better than gape, as each new violence unfolds. It is beyond anyone's experience, but catch up we must. If you don't already belong to the American Civil Liberties Union, there has never been a more insistent need to join. 

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ACLU

Bee balm

It's bee balm time again. I have grown Monarda fistulosa in pots but find that it is happier, in-ground. With a breeze and some grasses for company. In a tony patch of soil in front of our building a hot pink-flowered cultivar is very happy alongside agastache and fennel. (And yes, that entire four-ish square feet is vibrating with pollinators.

The stems, leaves, flowers, and seed heads can be used as a powerfully fragrant herb. Think oregano. But different. And cold-hardy.

Time for that summer caprese salad again. Recipe over on Gardenista.

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