The table

The terrace, these days. 

Here, waiting to be transported to Alice Austen House, the intimate museum, gallery and home on Staten Island of photographer Alice Austen (1866 - 1952), where I am now no longer volunteering but working (hey - I was working when I was volunteering) are a clutch of tall thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana - whose delicate white flowers on tall stems evolve into touchable green seedheads), and Penstemon digitalis 'Husker Red'.

The plants are from the Gowanus Lowlands Nursery, and are part of my long-term project to introduce more native and native-ish plants to Alice's garden and park facing The Narrows, that skinny and very busy bit of water leading to and from the Upper Bay of New York Habor and whose shipping traffic passes almost within reach of anyone standing on the shore. 

The drink is a gin and tonic tinted with a fermented strawberry-bee balm syrup made in spring. The glass a gift from my sister-in-law Brigitte, to remember our holiday together in Maine, many months ago.

There you have it. Summary on a table.

Pirellikins on the daybed

Because sometimes you have to post a picture of your cat. Nkwe Pirelli. Pirellikins, Puss-Puss. Chunkey Monkey. Pudding Cat. Little Shit. Kit Kat. My Boooooy. I'd kill anyone who hurt him.

Now you know all our secrets.

He is staring at a mourning dove on the terrace. Which is why we cannot leave him unattended, outside. Dove killer. Quick, effective, proud. Devastating. 

The sunflowers are from Alice Austen House, on Staten Island, where some of them are due to be removed soon. So I got to pick them. I've been volunteering weekly in the garden there since August 26th last year.  

When I got home from pulling weeds that first day I received the impossible message via WhatsApp that my friend Don had died, dropped off a mountain. Calls followed. From Canada, to Cape Town - the web of friends. Calls with someone I'd never met, his death confirmed by this kind stranger whose day was six hours further advanced than mine. Patiently answering my disbelief. Unbelievable and unacceptable. Impossible to imagine how his wife, our friend Rosie, was living each moment as she learned. I sat in a ball on this daybed. The Frenchman coming home to wreckage.

The cat, the cushions, the sunflowers, the circles we walk. The flowers we grow. 

Swamp milkweed for monarchs

As I arrived home yesterday after a photography expedition (mission: liatris), I saw a butterfly's erratic flight above the tiny patch of garden I cultivate at sidewalk level. Its distinctive flight pattern, like a kite whose freedom is restrained by a string tugged at intervals, quickly identified it as a monarch. It had found the milkweed. I waited in the sun. Humidity 72%. She returned.

Swamp milkweed - Asclepias incarnata - forgives you if you do not plant it in a swamp, and it is ideal for narrow spaces. The monarchs love it. She came back again and again to deposit an egg at a time on the milkweed's leaves. 

This is the first year since 2020 that I did not also plant balloon flower (aka hairy balls, cough), the tall southern African milkweed Gomphocarpus physocarpus, thinking that it, like the annual tropical milkweeds, might do monarchs more harm than good. It's a tough decision because that plant is spectacular visually in tight quarters, and makes passersby very happy.

My monarch sign is now quite obscured by liatris, agastache, snakeroot and the swamp milkweed.

Apart from drought (we water by hand carrying the watering can down two flights), the biggest threat here is dog urine. Bafflingly, many dog walkers let their dogs lift a leg on this tiny garden, despite the sign asking them not to. The repeat applications of dog pee burn the plants' leaves and makes life challenging. It makes me very depressed.

 It's a scrappy garden, but apparently it works.

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Gardenista column: All about slender mountain mint

The tiniest garden of all

There is a block of earth in front of our building. I must measure it. I'm guessing about two feet by three feet? So that's six square feet. Neat. Its southern border is the concrete sidewalk. Some dog owners tend to let their pets linger here as they pass, where their stream of pee hits the plants on the frontline. Their leaves burn. Salt residue in winter, especially the icy one just behind us.

I began planting it years ago. It's the first thing that greets us when we come home,  between the townhouse steps and the omnipresent trash, recycling, and compost bins. You need to feel good, arriving at your doorstep.

A tiny agastache from the Gowanus Lowlands Nursery now towers by late summer and is a constant theatre of bees, mostly native. A self-sown white snakeroot (native Ageratina altissima) resembles a shrub, and does its species name proud. I have to cut it back hard to keep the steps to the basement accessible to delivery people who leave parcels there if no one answers the intercoms. It blooms in autumn, for white weeks. The agastache blooms continuously from mid summer to frost.

Sometimes there is fennel, sometimes balloon plant, that southern African milkweed. Tall and skinny, both. There should be native Asclepias verticillata, too, but it hates the dog pee the most.

But this year - last year - I planted bulbs, too. Alliums, liatris, and, in existential panic, tulips. I only plant tulips during Trump presidencies, apparently. The alliums and tulips are up, and I have now removed their sheltering fir branches, remnants of our Christmas tree. 

And I plan to squeeze in more. There is about six inches of soil depth nearest the sidewalk (the pee zone). Less towards the rear. Maybe an African basil, because it blooms constantly and bees adore it. 

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Find my Books

Early autumn on the terrace

Funny that it takes a whole growing season for things to fill out this much. The moonflower vines are rampant, the African basil is a forest, and the lablab beans and South African milkweed have reached the arm-waving stage, tall flowering stems tilting in any breeze.

At the lower end of the terrace is an eccentric leafy collection. It includes Thai lime, calamansi, bergamot citrus and a spicebush tree grown from seed that someone gathered on a plant walk with me, then germinated, and later gifted to me before she moved to Germany. Beside the trees are galangal and myoga ginger (producing edible buds through these fall months), ferns, ramps (now dormant, having set seed), sand ginger and asters. Natives of the Northeast, of Southeast Asia, and of East Asia.

Both annual vines take a long time to take off, but they are worth the wait. Moonflowers open every evening, and now, in the newly cool mornings, they remain open to greet us before folding up and withering by 10am.

September's edges

The edges of the terrace, with the dignified and aging skylights of Arrow Linen beyond. 

African blue basil is a seedless basil hybrid that popped up once upon a time in a bed at Companion Plants Ohio, who then propagated it and sent it out into the horticultural world (you may know that, if you read my Gardenista story about it). And the beautiful lablab vine. Also called hyacinth bean. Possibly Aast African in origin, possibly South Asian. An ancient crop. 

In these early evenings, muffled by a quickening dusk, the flowers glow briefly before the sun submerges behind New Jersey.

I plant the lablab for the flowers, which hummingbirds also visit (we have seen two, so far), but also for the bean crop. 

And the third African on the terrace, the southern African milkweed that is not classified as Asclepias, but as Gomphocarpus. Balloon plant. Hairy balls. Tall and willowy, delightful to insects, and generous with its late-season, green balloons. 

The bay tree, recently root pruned and replanted it in the same pot, with a good, slow drink of water.

We did not see the chimney swifts this evening. Surely they have not left already. We did see three nighthawks, flying west, in unison. 

Shrubs with White Flowers

It's early March. No new leaves, yet, in Brooklyn, but the Asian witch hazels are in bloom and little past bloom. Snowdrops have been out for weeks, as usual. Crocuses have appeared. It's a good time to dream of gardening.

Viburnum, above, the scented snowballs belong to a V. carlesii cultivar. I make a fizzing cordial from them every mid-spring.

One of the sweetest garden fragrances I know belongs to daphne.

 And a fat rhododendron on our terrace in very early summer.

I made a list of 17 shrubs with white flowers for a Gardenista article, because who doesn't want their garden to gleam at night?

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My Books

Endurance and Recovery

On the western side of our little terrace, African basil lights up as the sun dips.  It seems to be the most heat-tolerant of all the basils I have grown. Most really prefer some shade. But its windowbox still needs twice-daily watering.

Leaning across the laundry-roof void are Lilium 'Madame Butterfly' (I must buy more, they are reliable, graceful, and long-lasting as cut-flowers) and Graham Thomas.

Liatris just opening, and the source of the most scented rose petals, ever: Bolero. I layer the petals with palm sugar in a jar, crush, and forget. When you open the jar the sticky, amber syrup inside is essence-of-rose. Very good stirred into a long, cool drinks, and drizzled over chilled cubes of watermelon.

This is the first flush of roses since the shrubs were parched during a 10-day absence. We left the day after every single one was in full bloom, and came back to crisped leaves. A month later, they have recovered well, and are handling our week's heat indexes of 100 degrees Fahrenheit better than I am. 

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My Books

Graham Thomas

I think this was the best moment in May. A surfeit of roses. That doesn't happen often. I picked as many as I could and stuffed them into vases and bowls and kept a bowlful in the bedroom.

Their scent is described by David Austin as "a cool violet character." A good inscription for a headstone.

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New Summer Walks

What's easy to grow, unusual, and edible? Myoga!

One forgets how good pears can be. This farmers market Bosc sat on the counter for over a week, ripening. Then I sliced it, tossed with lemon juice and slivered myoga buds from the potted plant on the terrace, and added some chopped, roasted apricot kernels (they taste a little like almonds, and are from Ziba Foods, who source heirloom foods from Afghanistan). The fruit was creamily juicy and fragrant, the myoga buds spicy and floral.

Myoga is one of my favorite plants. It is completely undemanding. When its leafy stalks are long and lush in October, I begin to hunt daily for these rosy, crunchy buds.

I wrote about this hardy ginger for Gardenista, and you can read the article and get my two salad recipes, there. 

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New November Walks

September flowers and a gingery treat

The rosemary on the terrace thinks it is spring, and is in full bloom. Tomorrow the remnants of Hurricane Ian will rain down on it, but I'm not sure that will change the herb's mind.

After growing mighty leggy in August the hyssop (the trusty Agastache 'Black Adder') was given a haircut. I trimmed each stalk back by about a third, to above a leaf, and it has bushed out and bloomed again, more compact, like another version of itself. Good for late bees. Even our occasional little hummingbirds have tried it.  As ubiquitous a plant as it has become, there are very few perennials that will bloom as long and be as attractive to pollinators. So it is very welcome.

And September and October mean...myoga buds at last. They appear like little presents at the base of the plant, and every morning becomes a treasure hunt as I wiggle my fingers in the soil to see if another one is ready to snap off. This one - washed and slivered - was lunch, tossed with the first Honey Crisp apples, in a mayonnaise, lemon and gochujang dressing.

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Next walks and classes? 

15 and 16 October, North Woods and NYBG

Flowers for feathered travelers

For two days in a row our small terrace has been visited by the tiniest of birds, making the mightiest of journeys. 

You hope, when you plant a seed, that something like this will happen at the other end of the growing season, but you never know.

It has been magical, watching from a few feet away as this miniature creature flashes from flower to flower, sometimes pausing in midair for seconds, suspended.

There are three vines, in two pots. One is grown from a seed given to me by our friend Don in Cape Town, two are from Botanical Interests. But I don't know which is which. I call them lablab beans, but most Americans know them as hyacinth bean. Lablab purpureus is African, so hardly a native food for the ruby-throated hummingbird. (Weeks ago we saw them feasting on trumpet vine flowers - native eastern Campsis radicans - out at Jamaica Bay. But our tiny terrace is no match for that perennial twiner's aggressive behavior.) 

Still, can a foreign flower be worse for hummingbirds than sugar water? It's definitely less problematic in terms of passing on pathogens. And much more photogenic.

If only we could pack them a tiny lunch, for sustenance along the way.

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Book a Walk and Picnic

Summer savory: You can't buy it, so grow it!

Last week I cut down the mini hedges of summer savory in my windowboxes. I felt a bit bad about it because bees really love their tiny flowers.  But they have other tiny flowers to plunder.

I wanted to dry the herb while it was still very leafy. It dries quite fast, spread out on a counter or on baking parchment. 

After a few days I crush it, remove the stems, and squeeze it all into the designated container in my spice collection. Overflow goes into a mason jar. It keeps its strong flavor for many months.

And the flavor of summer savory is...? Similar to oregano, but not quite. Throw in a pinch of thyme. A whiff of bee balm. 

One of the ways I like to use it is to help turn ordinary cheese into fancy cheese: fresh goat cheese, say, with good olive oil and summer savory becomes very delicious, overnight (this is not something to leave out on the counter, by the way, unless you like botulism - keep it in the fridge)

My whole story, with growing tips, food ideas and a recipe, is on Gardenista.

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Beach plum gin

August in Brooklyn feels like January in Keetmanshoop, right now. Oven-hot. But New York also slings a bucket of soapy mugginess at you to make sure you will really, really look forward to September. And I do. Look forward to September.

There are compensations. For me, they are fruit. Beach plums are beginning to ripen. Elderberries (the ones that have not shriveled on the parched shrubs) are turning purple. And Aronia is ready, too.

I opened a 2020 bottle of beach plum gin the other evening. A maceration made in that first summer of pandemic. It is very good, but improved by a bitter strip of ruby grapefruit peel, with lots of dry tonic (Fever Tree Lite) and ice to make the glass bead. Perfect for this weather. This is the gin I refer to as Pits-and-Pulp, using the leftovers from a beach plum purée. I create another gin, too, that is redder and richer...

I explain that, with a recipe, in the recent story about beach plums I wrote for Gardenista, which you will find in that link. They are a wonderful East Coast fruit, and a very resilient shrub. I hope more people will grow them. 

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Find me @66squarefeet on Instagram

Cool flowers for hot nights

A potful of Silk Road lilies has opened. The darker it gets, the stronger their scent grows.

And salads are luscious with farmers market produce (the peaches - quick-pickled, the crunchy sugar snap peas and cucumbers), and small treats from the garden: Nasturtium leaves, and the Monarda flowers, which are finding their way into many meals. They taste like a cross between savory and oregano. The voluptuous burrata is wonderful with the medley of sweet, peppery, soft, and crisp. 

Much, much more about Monarda-slash-bergamot-slash-bee-balm in my story about this native North American herb for Gardenista. Plus recipes: for this salad, a drink, and for grilled feta (it might become your favorite thing to eat this summer).

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Or find me on Instagram @66squarefeet

Tiny terrace summer

Evening time. After leading a friendly pack of 15 people on a plant walk on the 4th of July - none of us feeling celebratory - and feeding them a tasting picnic (what's a tasting picnic? A picnic where you have a taste of everything, of course), I came home, washed up, and thought about supper. I like thinking about supper. The Frenchman rolled some paper balls for me (we use paper shopping bags as fire lighters; never, ever the smelly liquid) and carried out the charcoal (hardwood, not briquettes), and I lit the fire. 

Then I picked some flowers for the table.

The summer-leafed prickly ash, with ginger and sesame sausages grilling alongside chicken soused in shoyu* with chopped cilantro stems. 

*I can't think when I started using Ohsawa nama shoyu (a Japanese organic, unpasteurized soy sauce, still slightly active in the bottle), but it's a game-changer. Noticeably more expensive than the Kikkoman I used to use and infinitely more delicious and rich.

And the Oscar goes to: the liatris. Plus, nobody got slapped. These plants (they grow from corms) slept quietly all through winter in galvanized bucket (with drainage holes punched into the base), and are now around three feet tall. I lost several lily bulbs to the old freeze-thaw cycle, but the liatris seem immune. Bees love them.

While fireworks crackled on the street and local rockets burst nearby, and giant dragonflies patrolled the sky, occasionally zooming past at ear level, the first 'Silk Road' lily opened, unafraid of the bright competition. As the evening darkened the lily's perfume grew stronger. By the time the thunderworks of the Macy's display had started, way north on the East River, out of sight but not sound, the terrace was drenched in scent.

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Bzzzzzz

In front of our building, in a patch of earth about two-by-two feet, entirely surrounded by concrete, I planted some perennials for pollinators. The tall hyssop (Agastache) was bought as a tiny thing last year from the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, a not-for-profit that also creates swale gardens along some local streets, to guide runoff from storms into the planted areas. The hyssop is now close to five feet tall. The bee balm (Monarda) in front of it just opened its buds and has unusually small but pretty flower heads. I am not sure if this is because of stress, or whether it is a cultivar bred for them. It is rambunctious. Ideal as a naturalizer in full sun. Plus, leaves that taste like oregano. The unseen bronze fennel behind them is also flowering and already attracting eastern tiger swallowtails.

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4 July, Pop-Up Walk

Outside

It rained one evening, and we sat in it, getting wet. 

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The bay tree that asked to come in

Our bay tree moved indoors! It is the tree in my migrating collection that has received the least attention and yet it has also been the least trouble. 

Anyway, despite being moved outdoors every spring this year the decision was made to reverse the process, for its own good. The bay tree wants to be inside. The story, with tips on growing bay indoors as well as root-pruning the potted tree is on Gardenista. With a very simple but delicious recipe for the fresh leaves. I use them a lot.

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b255o? - I see you

There is an empty park a few blocks from where we live. Its beds have been bare for as long as I have known it (just over three years). It has benches, but it is barren. 

It could be a place where pollinators and people feel good. Some bee-watching and butterfly therapy. Maybe a hummingbird or two.

It is a fact of never-ending wonder that New York City's mayoral budget allocates less - less - than 1% to the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. It's closer to 0.5%. And it's not just about plants and greening: the department oversees sports facilities, playgrounds, tarmac stretches of basketball courts, community centers, lifeguard training. The list is endless. Plants come last.

Pandemic budget cuts have left everyone deeply backlogged and worse-off than before. Nobody has time, staff, or money. Yet where did everyone go, flee to, during the last two years? The parks. For classes, for exercise, for meetings, for work, for birthdays, for school, for everything.

Parks are green jewels in this populous city's crown. Privately-funded conservancies shoulder the burden of keeping iconic spaces like Central Park and Prospect Park (and so very many more) in working order. But small, incidental parks like the one in my hood fall between the weedy cracks unless someone takes a keen personal interest in them. 

I discovered (that sounds quick, it was a meandering process) that this little park has an identity, but no name: it is b255o. It is a "sitting park". There's just not a lot of incentive to sit here. The fresh layer of wood chips may have been spread during its last inspection (December 2nd, if one looks it up). While I have approached the parks department and a stewardship program to see how we can formally initiate the procedure of adopting a park it will be a long time (I think) before I hear back. I did this all over ten years ago in Manhattan for a much larger, locked space; and that shuttered park is now an open, thriving space, but times change. It will take longer for the un-greased wheels to begin turning, in 2022.  

So we're going guerilla. For now.

I'm holding my nose and jumping in. Which means I ordered 30 Allium bulbs and a sign to explain what's going on. Hoping it will attract some (welcome) attention and discourage dog owners from letting dogs in the beds. Making a commitment helps motivate myself, too. Two friends-through-my-walks have already offered their labor.  

Now we just need, well, plants.

The demands on city plantings are high. They range from drought, to compacted or poorly draining soil, to pollution (dog pee and poop, salt, heavy metals), to theft by humans who want the plants for themselves, to old-fashioned stomping and crushing. So plant choices matter, and after that fingers must be crossed once they are in the ground.

The plants must tough enough for the climate, obviously (USDA Zone 7b). That's the easy part. But they must also be resilient enough to be able to grow without more than the occasional presence of a gardener, and especially, no supplemental watering: new plantings are vulnerable. So I expect setbacks and some teeth-gnashing.

As I think out loud here are some wish list plants that will hold up and become self-sufficient. Most are North American natives, but some are not. I'm thinking seasonal interest, benefits for pollinators and birds, and even some edible plants (in case someone is in desperate need of fennel fronds for their fish stew). 

The space now is sunny, but in summer will be a mix of high, dappled shade, thanks to the plane trees nearby. The corner above will have direct sun. The choices below will evolve and will be influenced by what is available where, and when - these will hopefully be donations. Holler if you have some spare shrubs lying about. 

B2550 Pollinator Garden

Shrubs:

2 Serviceberry (Amelanchier spp) - question mark; early flowers, midsummer fruit, vivid fall color

3  Black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) - spring flowers, late summer fruit, beautiful fall color

3 Clethra/sweet pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia) - late summer flowers, scented, butterfly magnet

3  Dwarf fothergilla (Fothergilla gardenii) - mid spring flowers, vivid autumn leaves

3  Oak leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) - early summer flowers are a bee magnet, flowers persist through early fall, beautiful bronzing leaf color through fall

3 Rosa but what form and cultivar? - 'Knockout' is the municipal standard but the barren flowers provide nothing for bees

Perennials:

30 Alliums (ornamental, no-name brand) - tall, striking, disliked by squirrels, bee-magnets; acquired!

10 Anise-scented goldenrod (Solidago odora) - early fall flowers, pollinator-magnet, edible leaves and flowers

10 Bronze fennel - tall, gorgeous foliage, flowers for pollinators, leaves for butterfly larvae, self-seeding

10 Foam flower (Tiarella cordifolia) - early spring flowers, bees love em. Native (I have babies that will make babies)

6 Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) - long-blooming, bee-favorite, scented foliage

3 Milkweed - (Asclepias - not sure what species, yet) pollinator magnets, lovely flowers, showy seed heads

6 Ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) - sculptural, makes many babies, sequesters heavy metals

6 Thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana) - early summer flowers, attractive seed heads, disliked by pests

6 Mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum) - fragrant, edible leaves, pollinator magnet-flowers in summer

12 Violets - spring optimism, fragrance, weed-smothering, self seeding

Annuals:

Jewelweed  (native Impatiens capensis) - attractive to hummingbirds, bumblebees, self seeds

Nicotiana (N. sylvestris) - statuesque, scented, attractive to hummingbirds

Papalo (Porophyllum ruderale) - people-pleaser, purely to make neighborhood Latinex cooks and eaters smile

Perilla/shiso/sesame leaf (Perilla frutescens) - self seeds (too freely), tall, striking, fragrant and edible leaves, drought tolerant, appealing to everyone

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My Spring Classes at the NYBG