the bark tree

Arboretum visit

August and I visted the Dallas Arboretum in April during their Dallas Blooms spring event with my friend Johnette, her boys and her mother Donna.  Though we live close by, it was only our second time to go.

Giant snowball viburnum (V. macrocephalum) blooms were gorgeous in the spring sunshine.

We taught the boys how to identify Wisteria.

Though it's flowers are stunningly pretty, I was surprised to see that they had planted an invasive species, Paulownia tomentosa or Princess Tree.

We used to see these sprouting in cracks in the sidewalk when we lived in Brooklyn so I recognized it immediately.

As you can see, they have hordes of azaleas which were in full bloom.

Another interesting beauty was the Red buckeye tree (Aesculus pavia var. flavescens).

We certainly enjoyed our visit.  We must return more often to this nearby garden.

Alter-Meeker garden

My dear friend Johnette has been working on adding perennials to the large garden bed in front of her house.

 

A big winter snowstorm tore up a large yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) that was shading this side of the bed.  It looked horrible so they had it removed, creating a new area with more sun.

She got all new soil with compost as well as mulch in bulk.

 

I'm watching with interest to see how her "Endless Summer" blue hydrangea will perform. So far it looks beautiful.

 

We house and cat-sat for them while they were on vacation and I put a few annuals in pots for them.  They looked a little skimpier that I hoped initially, but they'll fill out.

Hummingbird feeder

We visited our friend's family ranch near Gainesville, TX around Memorial day and Brandon took some good shots of their hummingbird feeder.

 

 

Harvest dinner

For a dinner at Wave Hill, I was asked to design some table arrangements from materials gathered from around the property.

My co-workers, Molly and Gelene assisted me in gathering, cleaning and preparing the branches and twigs as well as putting the arrangements together. 

Since it was just after a hard freeze, there was nothing left in flower.  Everything we used had either colorful foliage, winter berries or grass plumes.

 

These gorgeous, bright purple berries came from a bush aptly called Beautyberry (Callicarpa sp.)

 

 

 

 

We all enjoyed the process and everyone seemed very happy with how festive and seasonal they looked.

Fireworks!

Our friends invited us to spend Independence day with them and watch the fireworks from the roof of their apartment building in nearby Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  We had a great time.

Welcome back to New York S&T!

 

Photos by Brandon.

Magnolia cottage

Last weekend we visited our friends in Garrison, NY, who have a magnificent garden they've been working on together for 10 years.



Marilyn, who works with me at Wave Hill, designs and maintains the garden plantings and Eric creates the rock walls and pathways.





This was our first time to see the garden in it's springtime peak, which in zone 5, is a little later than ours in Brooklyn.





It's always an inspiration to visit this lovely oasis and a pleasure to spend time with our friends.

Artist's garden

While looking for information about Amy Stewart's lecture at the Hort Society of NY, I noticed that an artist exhibiting there was also opening his garden to the public. He happened to live in our neighborhood so I was quite curious to see it.

Ricci Albenda's garden was a beautiful surprise. It's filled with woodland ephemerals and exotic delights.

He created the paths himself with bricks and chunks of concrete.

Ricci served a spread of snacks and champagne mimosas while we chatted with other guests. I met Alex Feleppa, the Director of Horticulture at the Hort Society of NY (whose sunglasses are in the photo, left) and we spent a long while with Ricci discussing the myriad of plants he has stuffed into this tiny garden. Brandon had actually met Ricci, as well as some of the other guests, before in art circles so we were in good company.

We truly enjoyed meeting this wonderful host!

Borrowed view

We appreciate our next-door neighbors' lovely tulips through the fence.

And their beautiful Magnolia 'Elizabeth' is blooming this year for the first time since they planted it.

We got hitched!

Brandon and I tied the knot!

We married at City Hall in Brooklyn on December 14, 2007 and had a small party at The Black Rabbit in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Then on December 29, we had a big reception in Texas with all our family and friends at the oldest dance hall in Dallas, the Sons of Hermann Hall. Both events were wonderfully memorable and great fun. Many thanks to all who attended. (Photo by Kevin McDermott)

Texas critters

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.

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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.

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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!

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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)

Rolling Rocks: A photo essay

Another interesting event happened yesterday because some neighbors across the alley behind our house have torn up their backyard and dug a big trench for some unknown purpose.

Instead of renting a dumpster to rid themselves of the numerous rocks and chunks of concrete, they've had some guys using a shopping cart to haul them away and dump them at various points in the nearby area.

My gardening friends and mentors from Texas: Bob and Carolyn, years ago gave me the idea of using rocks in pots or alongside edges of garden beds. Ever the scavenger, I wanted one of the two large rocks plopped right across the street, for my garden.

They were too heavy to lift, but Brandon and our neighbor, Douglas (always rather easily persuaded into service) volunteered to roll them over after they finished playing basketball at the nearby court.

One rock was rolled inside the neighbor's garden fence without much trouble. But how to take our rock up a couple of steps and into the area we had in mind?

A little engineering was needed.

Beer-can Chickens

We ended the day with dueling beer-can chickens grilled by Brandon and Douglas — standard and spice rubbed!

Nathan visits

A dear friend and former roommate, Rachel and her husband, Sam, came to visit NYC from Durango, Colorado and brought their toddler, Nathan for me to meet for the first time. He enjoyed rock rolling, flower sniffing, yoga and general relaxation in our garden. We grew quite fond of him.

Mutual inspiration

One of my goals as a gardener is to encourage others to try gardening and/or growing plants themselves. I've experienced endless delight from growing plants – even just looking at them – and enjoy sharing these pleasures with others.

When we lived together many years ago, my dear friend, Karl, took care of my plants, which filled our house, while I was away for two months on a trip. He is now an accomplished grower of succulents himself and claims that the time he spent caring for my plants gave him the motivation to try some of his own.

Since then, Karl has also learned a great deal about mushrooms, a subject with which I am fascinated, but have only dabbled. He sent me these beautiful photos and I think he should start his own blog about his findings. So now he's inspiring me to learn more and seek out these fungal wonders in my city neighborhood.

Goat roast

Brandon and his pal, James concocted a somewhat kooky scheme to roast a goat for Easter. In our front yard.

Of course, my concern was for the garden - that they would alight something on fire or possibly alert the authorities. But they built a nice pit from cinder blocks and purchased a goat from a neighborhood butcher and it all went quite smoothly despite the un-easter-like weather. There were snow flurries for part of the day and temperatures in the 30s.

Personally, I didn't love the taste of goat as much as the meat-loving, Australian-born James, but the event was fun and my garden remains undamaged.