the bark tree

Eleanor Perenyi dies at 91

One of my favorite garden books, Green Thoughts, A Writer in the Garden, was authored by Eleanor Perenyi, who died Sunday, May 3, 2009.

The New York TImes published yesterday the obituary of her fascinating life.

On the back of the dust jacket of the hard cover edition of her wonderful book is a great photo of her.  She sits in her garden holding a cigarette in one hand and what looks to be an alcoholic beverage in the other.  She certainly appears to possess all the opinionated sass that she expresses in the book.

Thank you to Michael Pollan who wrote about her in his great book, Second Nature, and alerted me to her presence in the world of garden literature.  And thanks to Gelene who sent me the link to her obit this morning.

Ms. Perenyi won't be forgotten.

David Foster Wallace

I was terribly sad to learn last week about the death of one of my favorite (non-gardening) writers, David Foster Wallace.  Having read much of his work, including his 1079 page master work, Infinite Jest, I felt a sense of connection with this wonderful thinker.

I very much appreciated and answer he gave in a 1996 interview in Salon magazine, when asked: What do you think is uniquely magical about fiction? 

"Oh, Lordy, that could take a whole day! Well, the first line of attack for that question is that there is this existential loneliness in the real world. I don't know what you're thinking or what it's like inside you and you don't know what it's like inside me. In fiction I think we can leap over that wall itself in a certain way. But that's just the first level, because the idea of mental or emotional intimacy with a character is a delusion or a contrivance that's set up through art by the writer. There's another level that a piece of fiction is a conversation. There's a relationship set up between the reader and the writer that's very strange and very complicated and hard to talk about. A really great piece of fiction for me may or may not take me away and make me forget that I'm sitting in a chair. There's real commercial stuff can do that, and a riveting plot can do that, but it doesn't make me feel less lonely.

There's a kind of Ah-ha! Somebody at least for a moment feels about something or sees something the way that I do. It doesn't happen all the time. It's these brief flashes or flames, but I get that sometimes. I feel unalone -- intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. I feel human and unalone and that I'm in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness in fiction and poetry in a way that I don't with other art."

My heart goes out to his family and his wife. He will be greatly missed.

Some DFW links:

Times Topics: David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace interviewed by Dave Eggers, 2003
The Believer magazine

1996 Salon Interview with David Foster Wallace

Editorial appreciation by Verlyn Klinkenborg

The Howling Fantods

Butterfly season!

We spotted a new butterfly species in the garden! 
From this ventral view it looks very much like its relative, the Hairstreak which we have seen here before.

 

This tiny Summer Azure (Celastrina 'neglecta') showed it's blue-gray namesake coloring when flying ...or at least we never saw it rest with its wings open.  Brandon patiently took these photos in the few moments when he did pause on our bush clover (Lespedeza sp.) which hasn't begun blooming. 

According to my butterfly book, there is a great deal of variation and therefore confusion in this group called Azures or Blues so hopefully we have correctly identified it.  Anyway, we were excited to see a new species finding something of interest in our small garden.

Another (or perhaps our resident) Tiger Swallowtail visited the echinacea, which has seen a good bit of insect action lately.

 

These sweet visitors are so charming I can't help photographing them repeatedly.

Banksia update

Look where 'Seymour' ended up!
The cut flower that Brandon brought me a couple of months ago has a new home in the fence post between our garden and our next-door neighbor's. On his way to the compost pile, he was placed here on a whim. The neighbors happily approved and there he has stayed.

 

Incidentally, I recently found a used copy of this wonderful book called Plant Discoveries: A Botanist's Voyage Through Plant Exploration by Sandra Knapp which features beautiful botanical drawings.  Flipping through, I noticed a drawing which more closely matched the Banksia flower I had misidentified as Banksia burdettii, using the only book I had at the time which pictured any of the other-worldly Australian Proteaceae family.  This image shows Banksia speciosa which I believe is Seymour's correct Latin name.

The smaller bookshelf on the right, which I found on the street, now holds my alternative comix collection, music biographies and paperbacks so that my larger bookshelf can hold all my plant and nature books together.
 

My weeds

 

I've only read an excerpt of Sara Stein's book, My Weeds (in the highly-recommended compilation The Writer in The Garden, shown in my book list in the right-hand column), but it's one I'm searching for in my second-hand shopping expeditions.

My own list of weeds includes this year's worst offender, purslane (Portulaca oleracea) shown above. I'm forever reading about how this weed is edible and incredibly nutritious.  I've even seen it for sale at the farmer's market.  We've eaten it raw and briefly sauteéd, but I could never eat all that comes up in our small yard.

I sort of mentally rate various weeds by how difficult they are to pull and tend to feel less hatred for the easy ones. Moderately easy-pulling hairy galinsoga (Galinsoga ciliata) is an exception to that tendency because it grows so vigorously and profusely in warm weather.  I yanked this one from the ground and left it on the pavement to die, but a light rain revived it and its stems craned up toward the light.  It is also supposedly edible, but tastes bad to me.

Prostrate Spurge (Euphorbia maculata) almost looks pretty to me, but having allowed it in one corner long ago, I learned my lesson.  It has a taproot which makes it difficult to pull out and thrives in sidewalk cracks.

Common Fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus) is another common sight which has small daisy-like flowers (don't be tempted) that spread like wildfire, but are easy to pull.

 

Everyone has seen Oxalis, which looks like clover.  This stuff is also taprooted and hard to remove effectively.  I try and pull this when its tiny.

I must look up the name of this familiar, low growing, easy to pull weed.  A great reference book we have at work is Weeds of the Northeast, by Richard H. Uva; Joseph C. Neal; Joseph M. DiTomaso.  It features 3 photos of each plant, close-up and from a distance and as a seedling.

I could go on and on with this list.  These are just a few I photographed yesterday morning.

Update: My co-worker Charles Day informed me that this is the aptly named Carpetweed, (Mollugo verticillata) and a member of the Aizoaceae family.
Thanks Charlie!

 

Lecture coincidence

Forgot to mention that I attended Amy Stewart's lecture at The Horticulture Society of New York where she discussed her book Flower Confidential. I neglected to bring my camera, but unbeknownst to me, another Brooklyn garden blogger was there. He did a nice post about the lecture and happened to take a photo of me talking to Ms. Stewart. Too bad I missed the chance to meet "Xris."

Green Issue

Why Bother?

An inspiring article in the New York Times magazine by one of my favorite authors, Michael Pollan.

Winter inspiration

A few books have provided some inspiration while I wait out the winter. Two are by Christopher Lloyd: A year at Great Dixter and The Well Tempered Garden.

The Undaunted Garden by Lauren Springer has gorgeous photos and good ideas. I found all of these while we were in Texas last summer.

Homemade Tex-Mex!!!

Many folks are out there writing wonderful food blogs and I won't try and compete with them, but in the dead of winter there is not a lot of gardening happening so I'll briefly tell you about a wonderful meal we created thanks to a great new cookbook we received as a wedding gift.

We often experience withdrawl symptoms for the cuisine of our home state: Tex-Mex. No one in these parts seems to get it right so we made ourselves some wonderful Enchiladas suizas and a very decent batch of homemade refried beans if I do say so myself.

Yum! This meal really hit the spot.

For more on this particular topic visit Homesick Texan — a wonderful blogger and cook who really sums up the longing.

Highlights from Texas

I found lots of great old postcards at various used bookstores.

This is the garden of my friends Bob and Carolyn.

And the lovely nursery across the street from them.

Below, this Blackjack oak in my mother's yard has rotted away on one whole side. It's almost completely hollow, but manages to survive.

Mother and I outside our family's favorite Tex-Mex joint, Herrera's.

My brother Rand carefully drew all these beautiful Spirograph designs on index cards years ago and they still hang in a closet in my mom's house.

***

This is one of the last little independent nurseries left in my home town. I bought plants there for my mother and for Brandon's mother. I somehow forgot to photograph my mom's plants.

Brandon taking a bite of his birthday cake and checking out his Granny's lovely fig tree.

***

This is my friend Johnette's son Micah knocking over one of her plants.

My Dad at his place south of Ft.Worth. The pond is full this year due to heavy rains this year. He and I planted this pine tree together in 1993 when it was a scrawy, pathetic little throw-away that I rescued from the nursery where I worked. Now it's full and beautiful.

He restored this '73 Jaguar back in the 80s and we got to take it out for a spin.

Brandon's great aunt Bonnie lost an old tree in a recent storm. His cousin Sherrie gave us a piece of this cholla cactus.

More items unrelated to gardening... We visited the Kwik-E-Mart on the day of The Simpsons movie premier.

Mmmmmm squishy.

Brandon's mom and step-niece at the Ft. Worth Museum and my friend Natalie's beautiful twin daughters Sidney and Madeleine.

Birthday margaritas!

***

The great bookstore owned by Larry McMurtry, Booked Up. We make a pilgrimage there each time we're in Texas.

I found this interesting set of small format books on South African plants.

3 generations of Kennedys. Brandon with his grandfather, Weldon and father Kent.

Texas Sage (Leucophyllum frutescens)

Butterfly books

Butterflies of the East Coast: An Observer's Guide
by Rick Cech and Guy Tudor

The book I own on the subject from which I've learned a great deal about this most delightful of insects.

Another one I like:

Butterflies Through Binoculars
by Jeffrey Glassberg

Monkey Puzzle

We got a new Monkey Puzzle tree!

Brandon and I are both fascinated by this plant (Araucaria araucana). As you might've noticed, I am partial to many odd, spiky plants. Its kooky common name caught Brandon's interest when I first showed him photos in a wonderful out-of-print book I found at Larry McMurtry's amazing book store: Booked Up, in Archer City, Texas. (If you love books, you must visit this place).

When we traveled to France last October, we saw this large specimen in a garden. I argued to plant ours in the ground, but since we are renters it seemed a bit risky as we would definitely want to keep it if we ever leave this house.

Brandon took this amusing photo of the tree when we first took it out of the box.

Sad to say we actually had one before, but it weakened significantly when it dried out while we were in Texas for Christmas a few years ago and met it's demise soon after. I found it's carcass when I sifted through the compost bin. I promise we'll do better on this new one.

New/old garden books

I love garden books almost as much as gardening. Recently, I attended an antiquarian book fair with my boyfriend Brandon, who is an avid book collector. He can spend forever digging through things, whereas I typically lose patience within about 30 minutes. This time, however, I found something I wanted:

Two small format books on wildflowers from 1945. The author, T. H. Everett, has also written a 12 volume set of horticulture encyclopedias. He was president of New York Botanic Garden and was the mentor of Marco Polo Stufano - the director of horticulture at Wave Hill for 30 years.