Houseplants

It’s hard to think about gardening when the temperatures dip down to zero every other day, but I finally came up with a solution – Houseplants! I’m anything but an expert on this subject. Almost all of my houseplants are just common foliage plants. They sit in their pots for years without doing much of anything, but they add much needed greenery  to various corners of the house.

Foliage plants require much less care than houseplants that produce flowers. Most can survive with very little light.  Philodendrons are a perfect example. The ones  pictured above live in the upstairs bathroom, and only get sun from a small north-facing window.  They were given to me by daughter Tam in 1988 when she moved from NY to New Orleans and have never been repotted.  Think of that – 25 years!

What houseplants need is water.  A deep container that can be watered from below is best, as it easy to overwater from the top.  Smart gardeners choose a specific day of the week to check whether their plants should be watered.  

I tried that once, but I didn't last long. I managed to kill several of my ficus vines when they were young before  I realized they were as thirsty as alcoholics, needing a drink every day, especially when sitting in a sunny spot.  After all these funerals, Hank built a tall wooden box lined with rubber  he had left over from a roofing job for the next new seedling I'd bought. 

 If you’ve never grown Ficus Pumilla. you should try one as they’re quite easy to grow. Most little seedlings bought from a nursery will sometimes sit for several months without doing a thing, so don’t get discouraged.  These are the male branches, but eventually the females appear.  It turns out that male branches just sit around all day doing nothing, while the females climb the walls.  Hmmm.

A nice deep container works pretty well, but Hank’s second solution was even better.  He designed a planter to sit on top of the toilet tank.  It’s nothing but a bread tin with a hole in the bottom, so when the ficus roots get long enough to reach through the hole they have a continuous supply of water. This ficus has thrived for years, sending its vines all the way to the ceiling.  

 The big yellow pot pictured below holds just the right amount of water, only needing to be refreshed once a month. I had to have this room repainted after Hurricane Irene blew its roof off in August 2012.  The painters just yanked the ficus right off the wall, so I had to cut it back to almost nothing. Those vines are ones that have climbed up since then.

The container pictured below was one daughter Tam made when she was in first grade.  I found it so appealing that I tried using it as a container for  half a dozen different plants,  but it didn't hold much water. If I watered it too much, the funny-faced creature actually cried.  I tried a variety of plants in it, but none survived. I’m ashamed to admit that my final solution was to use plastic flowers!

My pride and joy is a white camellia that lives in the guest house, which is solar-heated and ideal for this cool loving plant.  It blooms each January,  but unfortunately right now its buds aren’t quite ready to open.  Luckily I had a photo of last year’s blooms to show you.  Everyone who sees this plant thinks it must be a gardenia, but they soon discover those handsome white flowers have no smell.

The reason I thought of writing about houseplants today was because I saw one blooming several weeks ago that I could not believe.  Have you ever seen a Christmas cactus like this?

My friend Angie owns this magnificent specimen  It was raised originally by Elisa Becket, and is probably even older than Angie. Isn't it amazing!  

As I've already admitted, I am not an expect on houseplants. I have half a dozen books on the subject in my library, and I read a few of them for the first time last week, and found most of their suggestions very obvious.  So, my apologies,  I'm afraid you learned more about containers for your plants than the care and feeding of them today.  

What a Vacation!

Ah, it was such a nice white Christmas here in New England,   I hope you all enjoyed it as much as my dogs and I did.  

Unfortunately we now must get through a month that is cold and  bleak,  its only  accomplishment the January thaw that gives us a tiny taste of spring.  Hank and I always tried to manage a vacation at this time of year - lying on a  warm sunny beach in the Caribbean instead of shoveling snow and starting the wood stove each morning. 

This January  I will be right here on Locust Hill where today's temperature is 11 below zero!  So I  thought  you might enjoy hearing about  a nice warm vacation Hank and I took many years ago, not in the Caribbean, but in South Africa! It was by far the most exciting vacation we ever took, but it was back in 1995 which may be a little risky as my memory for things that occurred more than 15 years ago will undoubtedly be limited. Fortunately  I have pages of photos to hopefully fill in the gaps.

Unlike taking a safari in hopes of seeing elephants, lions and other exotic jungle animals, we chose to rent a comfortable cabin in Kruger Park where it was guaranteed we'd see not just elephants and lions, but giraffes, impalas, wart hogs, ostriches – you name it -  by driving around the park in our car. 

Sad to say, I've just discovered this is no longer allowed. You ride everywhere in large tour buses. In fact from what I've just read on the Internet, I would hardly recognize Kruger Park at all. Nowadays the accommodations are very fancy  and so are the prices. 

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised about the tour buses, since two seconds after we entered the park we were confronted by a very large animal with marvelously curly horns who stood in our path aggressively stamping his hoof.  With our Field Guide to African Wildlife still in a suitcase, we had no idea what kind of beast this magnificent specimen was.

As I  got out of the car to retrieve the field guide, I heard a loud voice say “Please get back in your car!”  and whirled around to see a large uniformed man pointing at the sign I hadn’t seen. “NEVER GET OUT OF YOUR CAR.”  After much embarrassment and many apologies on my part, the ranger explained the dangers and kindly stood guard while I rummaged through the suitcases for the field  guide. He then found me a photo in the field guide of the Greater Kudu, who by then had disappeared.  We never saw another Kudu, but the field guide had a nice  picture.

By the time we’d signed in and found our cabin, we’d probably seen a dozen different animals -  herds of impalas and wildebeests,  zebras that danced across the road in what Hank called "their silly pajamas,"  and our first glimpse of a giraffe!  

Our cabin was very simple, one room with table, fridge, sink, two beds, plus a bathroom, and a porch with chairs and a grill for cooking.  We’d stopped at the store which offered a limited supply of food and bought a pound of hamburg and some fruit, so when we got the grill tooled up, Hank opened the hamburg.  As you can see, it turned out to be a package of sausages!

Despite a 14 hour plane ride to Johannesburg and the long drive to the park, we got up at dawn the next morning as we’d been given directions to a nearby watering hole where we could see a large variety of animals at the start of the day.  We sat in the car and gaped as one variety of exotic animal after another appeared.  

A group of six giraffes, my favorite of all the animals we saw,  were already clustered at the water’s edge.  Our parked car didn't disturb them at all, but they took turns between drinking and keeping guard for each other, as being down on your knees with your front legs spread wide (how giraffes manage to drink)  is a dangerous position to protect oneself from attack. It’s also hard on a giraffe’s blood pressure. 

Fortunately giraffes need very little water, only drinking every two or three days as the acacia leaves (their favorite food) contain plenty of moisture.  There were no young calves in this group.  When a calf is born it falls a good six feet to the ground, but is up and walking within just a few minutes. 

Besides these marvelously tall creatures, there were wildebeests, definitely the homeliest animals in the park, plus many zebras and other four-footed animals we couldn't identify, but no elephants, a big disappointment for Hank.  What topped off the morning was the sight of a mother hyena who arrived at the far side of the water hole with her seven cubs, unfortunately too far away for a good photo. but we had no trouble getting this unusual turtle we later learned was a leopard tortoise!

  

As we headed back to our cabin we passed a dozen termite nests that looked like tepees, put together with rocks and dry sticks. We never saw any termites, and eventually found out they were the insects who had constructed these weird houses. 

 Of course we saw dozens of  birds, but I'm afraid neither of us were bird experts.  The birds I enjoyed seeing most were the ostriches, grotesquely uncoordinated creatures, unable to fly properly, or even walk with any dignity,  but very amusing to watch.  We also saw two big black hornbills with bright red heads flapping their huge wings in an obvious fight over the female who complacently watched them from a safe distance. 

One day we saw a huge collection of birds' nests similar to those of an oriole. We finally spotted the bright yellow birds who were busy building the nests, one right-side up and the other upside-down. They made soft hissing noises as they worked. We later learned they were golden masked weavers, famous for their ability to construct such intricately woven nests.  

I think it wasn't until the third day that we finally  saw our first elephant, so enormous it took my breath away.  

Thank goodness we’d learned not to get out of the car, as this giant proceeded to stalk right into the road and stand directly in front of the car, flapping his enormous ears and trumpeting loudly.  He looked as if he would soon charge us and crash the windshield. 

When he finally finished trumpeting he reared up on his hind legs, gave one more angry bellow, and much to our relief, stalked back into the jungle.  The photo below is  not of Hank and me, just one I found on the Internet,  but it gives you an idea of what that experience was like! And the reason Kruger Park no longer lets its guests drive their own cars!

We saw plenty of elephants after that, once even a huge herd which included at least three babies all trying to keep up with their mothers.  We also saw monkeys every day, some brown, some black, some sleek, some furry.  It was always such fun to watch their acrobatics  that we forgot to take any pictures of them. 

The most beautiful animals we saw were the impalas, who usually travel in a flock.  They are incredibly graceful and delicate,  their brown coats  short and glossy with immaculate black markings on their faces, backsides,  just above their hooves and on the tips of their ears. Only the males have horns, handsomely curved.

The only way to see lions in tghe park was to take a tour bus in the early morning.  We shouldn't have bothered as what we saw was not even worth a photo - one lion sprawled out asleep in the middle of the road  and another one just standing there yawning.  Below is a photo I took of Cape buffalo taking an afternoon nap.  We also saw resting hippos and crocodiles in the river.

A pretty scary creature you wouldn’t care to meet on a dark night is the one we met on the road one afternoon, a wart hog.  Isn’t he something! He never moved a muscle, obviously wanting us to get a perfect photograph.

Tired of seeing all these exotic animals?  I certainly got tired  putting together this column, and was very sorry to learn about all the changes in Kruger Park. How lucky that we went 18 years ago!

Christmas Trees

Have you picked out your Christmas tree yet?  Last week I read an article about three new species of evergreens being raised in this country as Christmas trees,. Two are originally from the mountains around the Black Sea, the third from the mountains of  South Korea. All three are considered superior in their ability to last many weeks without losing their needles.

The Nordmann fir, Abies  nordmanniana, has strong branches, a statuesque shape and retains its needles for as long as a month.  The needles have silvery undersides that can create a “two-tone flash” when brushed.  The Turkish fir, Abies bornmeulleriana, is similar to the Nordmann in shape, but smaller, and has deep green needles. 

The Korean fir,  Abies Koreanna, has silky needles with  silver-white  undersides that can also create  the “flash,” as well as producing a nice lime fragrance.  The picture in the article made this species look pretty much like most Christmas trees, but when I went on the Internet I saw huge cones on all the Korean firs that hadn’t even been mentioned in the article.

Unfortunately not many Christmas tree outlets in New England stock any of these fancy new trees yet.  They are all pictured on the Internet, however. and can be ordered on line.  I assumed they'd all be pretty expensive, but actually found that the Korean Fir costs only $7.95 and could be shipped for free.  Alas, it turned out to be only 2 feet tall, root and all,  not exactly a great tree for Christmas.    Hopefully by next year we’ll start finding all these new species available here in the East.

As you might suspect,  our family has never had a store-bought Christmas tree., chopping down a variety of evergreens from our own woodland over the years.  Nowadays I walk around the sheep pasture each December and usually  find a nice baby cedar to be my Christmas tree. 

I've always decorated my tree with nothing but tiny lights and hand-crocheted stars my friend Edna Ford made for me many years ago, but when I got them out two days ago I found they'd gotten badly discolored.  I can bleach them, but since I'm headed to NYC this Christmas to be with Bridget and John and the boys, I think I'll just skip  having a tree  this Christmas. 

The most attractive Christmas tree  I’ve ever seen was created by my friend Henny Mead. The Meads' tree was always a live tree that could be planted come spring.  It was decorated with tiny white lights,  small bouquets of baby’s breath, and a dozen white feathered doves that looked so real you almost thought they'd fly away any minute.   

When I began asking friends about their tree decorations, I  was amazed at the infinite variety of ornaments they used,  but there was no variety about who did the trimming.  Husbands were allowed to string the Christmas lights, but that was all.  Just about every wife had experienced seeing their husband throw handfuls of tinsel at the tree.

 Besides the standard glass bulbs, tinsel and lights,  carved figures, strings of cranberries and popcorn, seashells, and heirloom ornaments were mentioned, but the most unusual decoration was  a labor of love by my Hungarian friend’s wife who always tied dozens and dozens of his favorite Hungarian candies on the tree which George continually snitched until the tree no longer had any decoration at all.

I get very nostalgic when I remember my grandparents' huge Christmas tree. It was always decorated with  real candles in beautiful leaded candle holders.  My cousins and I all loved this tradition because  every year the tree caught fire, causing lots of screaming and excitement and rushing around for buckets of water. The fire was always doused long before any real damage was done. It would be fun to continue that tradition, but I don’t know which cousin inherited the candle holders.

 Besides the standard glass bulbs, tinsel and lights,  carved figures, strings of cranberries and popcorn, seashells, and heirloom ornaments were mentioned, but the most unusual decoration was  a labor of love by my Hungarian friend’s wife who always tied dozens and dozens of his favorite Hungarian candies on the tree which George continually snitched until the tree no longer had any decoration at all.

My real favorite has always been the decorations on my grandparent’s huge Christmas tree,  real candles in beautiful leaded candle holders.  My cousins and I all loved this tradition because almost every year the tree caught fire, causing lots of screaming and excitement and rushing around for buckets of water. The fire was always doused long before any real damage was done. It would be fun to continue that tradition, but I don’t know which cousin inherited the candle holders.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah  or whatever you feel like celebrating.  Oh, and Happy New Year. My next column won't appear until 2014.

At Last, A NEW DOG!

This is Coco, my new beagle.  Thank you! Thank you! So many dog-loving readers responded with helpful suggestions that the result ended my long search to find a really sweet companion for Clover. I’m afraid I’m still so wrapped up in canines that I couldn't think about anything else to write about today, but I promise  we’ll get back to gardening soon.  

I just counted them up, and Coco is the 12^th dog to come live on Locust Hill. Some were smart, a few a bit dumb, and one we will never forget, Rasta, an American water spaniel named for the glorious Rastafarian dreadlocks that covered her from head to clicking toenails.  I couldn’t find a photo of her, so I used a drawing  I did years ago. 

You may not be familiar with this breed – fat, short legged, oily brown dogs with oversized heads, but Hank considered Rasta 

                                       The Perfect Dog.  

I was solely responsible for acquiring Rasta, a surprise birthday present for Hank’s 50^th.  Greater love hath no man for a wife who buys him an absurdly expensive six-week-old puppy, shipped all the way from Wisconsin, and eager to be housebroken during the winter months.

When we met Rasta’s plane at Bradley, the overpowering reek of her crate resembled an uncleaned lion’s cage at the zoo. And the poor sick puppy who crawled out of it was a wet, watery-eyed ball of kinky curls. I’m still not sure how it was possible, but Hank fell in love with her at first sight. He prepared her three meals of cooked rice each day for the next month until her intestinal  problems were cured.

The thought of house-breaking during this period was a joke, provided you had a sense of humor, but eventually Rasta learned to go on the lawn just beyond the front door.  She also learned to sit and stay, sometimes as long as 10 seconds. She never chewed shoes, gloves, baskets, houseplants or library books, so long as they were out of reach.  She rarely dug holes in the lawn, only in the gardens where the digging was easy.

Being no greedier than Henry VIII, she grew into what I called a bloated blob while Hank affectionately considered  her  a beautiful butterball.  She was neither.  She was pregnant! That November she produced 11 offspring  resembling at least four different fathers.  They were cute, but not one of our fourteen Thanksgiving guests could be talked into taking one home.

Becoming an unwed mother subdued Rasta a bit, but even being spayed didn’t dampen her greeting which was not just a wagging tail but a grotesquely wagging body of violent  s-curves of ecstasy.  When she slept, usually in a packing box in Hank’s shop, her pink tongue always hung out of her mouth, and she’d wake up with it  so dry she’d be unable to get it unglued for several minutes, so she’d waddle around with this strange pink appendage stuck to her lip, sort of like a young lady unaware of the lipstick on her front teeth.

Coco is as energetic as Rasta was, but I doubt if she will be as entertaining. Obviously her previous owner allowed her to sit in her lap, so every time I sit down she tries to sit in mine.  Not entertaining! 

Coco is very affectionate, but poor Clover's nose is a bit out of joint.  Getting a decent photo of the two of them together was so difficult I had to have Bridget come over to take these.  

Thanksgiving Thoughts



I bet I’ve written at least 20 columns about Thanksgiving over the past 30 years .  Their subjects included turkeys, Indian pudding, gourds, Indian corn, desserts and decorations, so I hope you’ll excuse me if today’s column on bittersweet sounds a bit familiar as an earlier version of it was included in my first book.

 Unlike most holiday decorations, bittersweet can be had for free.  Just drive along a country road and you’ll have no trouble spotting this vine, its stems twining over shrubs and tree branches and laden with clusters of bright red berries with orange caps.  That was how I got my Thanksgiving decorations for many years.

When we moved to Locust Hill however, I was sure I would find lots of bittersweet on the property, and I did, but only after much searching.  The vine I finaly found was very far from the house, so I decided to transplant some , thinking it would make a good screen in front of the ugly propane tank. 

I dug up a small piece of the bright orange root and planted it, unaware of its bad habits.  That vine grew faster than the national debt, but instead of hiding the unattractive propane tank,  it clambered over the fence into the sheep pasture. What was even more disappointing, it never produced any berries.

Eventually I learned why.  Bittersweet vines are like humans, they’re either male or female , and you need both a mama and a poppa to get any berries. The female vine may blush and bloom each spring, but if there isn’t a male flower around to provide her with pollen, it won’t do her a bit of good.

By studying the blossoms on my vine with a magnifying glass as if I were Sherlock Holmes, I learned they were boys, not girls.  By that time my plant had gone berzerk, tearing up the pasture fence and climbing the walls of the sheep barn until he had managed to get in a window.  What sort of sex-starved monster had I brought into my yard?

That summer I cut the stems down to the ground and painted each one with brush killer, but by fall a dozen new sprouts had appeared.  It took two more years before I finally managed to kill that bittersweet.  I kept looking for an appropriate spot where I could plant a new bittersweet, and eventually I did.  The town had just cut down a sick locust tree that was too close to the road, leaving behind a stump almost 8 feet tall. 

It was the perfect place to plant a new bittersweet vine, a spot where it could do no damage, and only a minute or two from the house.  As you can see from the photo above, it has enveloped the stump so thoroughly I can cut large clumps of it each Thanksgiving.     

Unless you have an equally safe place to plant some bittersweet,  I highly recommend that you don’t try growing this hungry plant.   Take a nice drive along a back country road until you spot those bright orange-capped berries clambering up a tree and cut some for your  Thanksgiving decorations.  Or get some nice colorful gourds and Indian corn to decorate your table.

Happy Thanksgiving.

A Request

Just Photographs

Did you all have as pathetic a gardening summer as I did?  This is what Ogden Nash wrote after a long hot season is his vegetable patch.

Say not that Eve needed Adam’s pardon

For their eviction from the garden.

I only hope some power divine

Gets round to ousting me from mine.

Since Locust Hill’s vegetables were a disaster this summer, I came close to feeling like Mr. Nash, and couldn’t think of a thing to write a column about, so instead of pulling up all the frost blackened plants so I could spread well-rotted manure on the garden, I took my camera and snapped a bunch of pictures of the summer’s trials and tribulations. 

I can’t remember which thunderstorm managed to break off the apple tree limb that supported Hank’s grandfather’s beautiful swing, but as you can see, there couldn’t have been much strength left in the hollowed trunk of that ancient tree to support it. The really sad thing is that there is not a single  other tree near the house with an appropriate limb  for that swing on. 

My next picture shows a small section of the backside of the perennial border’s fence.  That fence  originally bordered the meadow in front of the house when we bought Locust Hill, but since it was no longer needed there,  we dug it up and “replanted” it to be part of the sheep pasture.  Eventually the perennial border filled the area in front of it. 

Of course  pasture grasses loved to creep into the nice dirt of the border, so Hank laid sections of sheet metal down to discourage them.  Unfortunately this was a total failure, and after years of constantly uprooting these weeds, I decided this past summer it was time to fix the problem.

It was a mammoth job,  Just getting rid of the weeds and finding the  buried sections of sheet metal was a challenge.  Digging a  trench, then burying the sheets as uprights, lugging stones and buckets of well-rotted  dirt from the compost pile to firm them up was all such hard work that I could only manage to do a single section a day,

In fact when I took the picture above, I  saw that I still had a single section of fence not done.  How could I resist finally finishing the job?  I put down the camera, found the shovel, gloves and buckets and got to work.

You can see my reward in the next photo. The previous week I'd finally come up with a place to hang Hank's grandfather's swing. By standing on the seat of the tractor  I was able to reach up and loop rope around two beams of the long shed, and in  half an hour I'd hung the swing.  

I went up and collapsed on it when I'd finished fixing the last section of fence. Daughter Trum happened to arrive as I was rocking gently in the sun and snapped a photo with her cell phone.  

And since she also took a perfect photo of the sheep eating the remains of a Brussels sprout plant,  I will end with it.  Pilot is the big one in the center, my only male. On his left is Wimpy, a shy, elderly ewe who must be eight or nine.  My two newly acquired girls, are facing each other.  They came already named, Valiant on the left and Intrepid on the right.