Fresh Dirt

Fruit for your cereal from one container

2009-11-06T08:34:00-08:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Here's another good idea I picked up from the recent Annual Garden Seminar of the Master Gardeners of Orange County:

Plant a blueberry bush in a large pot. Then underplant it with strawberries. (I'm inclined towards Alpine strawberries because they don't develop runners and stay in nice neat mounds.)

Since blueberries like acidic soil and much of the West has alkaline soil, growing them in containers is the only realistic option. (You can tell yourself you'll keep amending the soil, but it's so much easier to control pH in a pot.)

But even if I had acidic soil, I think I might grow blueberries this way just for the pretty factor. And the strawberries, especially, would be much easier to harvest.

Dave Wilson Nursery's recipe for a soil mix for blueberries in containers

More info on growing blueberries from Sunset

Blueberry recipes to try when your crop exceeds your cereal needs

The recipe I'm hoping I'll have enough berries to try out this summer -- Blueberries in black pepper-Syrah syrup

Got too many root veggies? Ivy Manning can help

2009-11-05T08:00:00-08:00

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Photographs © Gregor Torrence

In autumn, every food gardener, CSA subscriber, and farmers-market shopper faces the same dilemma: more root crops than they know what to do with. How do you prepare all those earthy-looking potatoes, celeriac roots, crispy carrots, and frost-sweetened parsnips?

Portland chef Ivy Manning knows—wrote a book about it, in fact. Called The Farm to Table Cookbook (Sasquatch Books, Seattle, 2008; $29.95), its recipes take you through the harvest year, making the most of everything from the first greens of spring to the last persimmons of autumn. By organizing recipes seasonally, Manning writes that she can “help you get a feel for an intuitive way of cooking that uses ingredients when they’re at their peak.” And that’s exactly the right starting point for anybody who wants to relearn the pleasures (and good sense) of using local, seasonal, vine-ripened produce.

More than just a compendium of recipes, all beautifully photographed by her husband Gregor Torrence, The Farm to Table Cookbook has how-to-choose-it sidebars, backgrounders on major ingredients (I love the pear and tomato primers), and meet-the-producer sections that introduce you to some of the growers responsible for local bounty.

Most of the recipes are Manning's, but she's also included some from several renowned Northwest chefs, from Maria Hines at Tilth in Seattle, to Fearn Smith at The Farm Café in Portland.

Ivy (her photograph here is © John Valls, 2009) is a food writer, chef, cooking instructor, and omnivore married to a vegetarian. This combination definitely informs Ivy's blog, and inspired Manning's next book, just published, called The Adaptable Feast (Sasquatch Books, Seattle, 2009; $23.95). It's filled with flexible recipes, each of which is adjusted during preparation so that part will delight a vegetarian or vegan, and part will appeal to an omnivore. The book guides you in preparation of full-on meals, quick fixes, cocktail snacks, and advice on how to maintain a mixed pantry and handle the ethical intricacies of food preparation.

Wabi-sabi at work in the Anderson Japanese Gardens

2009-11-04T08:08:00-08:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

The transitory nature of beauty is a concept to be cherished, believe the Japanese. They even have a term for it, "wabi-sabi". Seasonal changes may not be dramatic in Southern California, but they can be found and should be embraced as Southern California writer Debra Baldwin suggested and demonstrated and we blogged about recently.

Want more drama? How about these recent shots from the Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford, Illinois?

The photos were taken by Jean Warboy, a Sunset "alum." Warboy used to be a book designer for Sunset. And obviously she hasn't lost her great eye. You can see more of her photos of this garden on Facebook.

The creator of the Anderson Japanese Gardens, Hoichi Kurisu, is well-known to Sunset's readers in the Pacific Northwest. He was the director of landscaping of the Japanese Garden in Washington Park in Portland, Oregon between 1968-1972. And later his firm, Kurisu International, spectacularly repaired and improved The Heavenly Waterfall in that garden when it was damaged in a severe ice storm ini 1997.

Quince: the fruit you grow for fragrance

2009-11-03T08:49:48-08:00

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Walking through a friend's entry garden yesterday evening, I was enveloped in a cloud of fragrance that made me pause and breathe it in again and again. The scent, which spreads far even on damp autumn nights, was from the fruit on a gnarled old quince tree, which I'm sure many people take for a late pear.

Not many gardeners grow it any more, probably because this astringent fruit is only edible (and really very good) after it's been cooked into pies or preserves. Fruiting quince (Cydonia oblonga) is often confused with spring-flowering quince (Chaenomeles), a shrubby relation always grown for its early spring flowers, and sometimes also grown for its ornamental fruit.

Every year my quince-growing friend gives me one of these woolly yellow fruits that I put on my desk to perfume the room. But this year I'm thinking it makes more sense to get myself a tree. Then I can perfume not just a room, but much of the garden with one of the most evocative fall fragrances I know.

More about Dymondia

2009-11-02T08:11:00-08:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Though it has been over a year since our blog post on Dymondia margaretae, the carpet-flat South African ground cover shown below, we are still getting comments and questions about it because more and more people are taking out all or part of their lawns and looking for substitutes.

Phil's recent question seemed like one a lot of readers might have. I quote him below:

"We have a space of about 200 - 300 sqf. We purchased flats of Dymondia for it. What size clumps should be planted and what should be the correct spacing? The area had a lawn before which we sprayed a few times and lightly tilled. We are in Southern Cal. about 15 minutes inland. What would be the expected time frame for it to fill in and what's the best way to handle grass that keeps growing through? "

Though I have literally seen D. margaretea in hundreds of gardens--and liked it every time--I don't have it in my own garden and had no personal experience regarding growing it. So I went to an expert, Randy Baldwin, general manager at San Marcos Growers, a wholesale nursery in Santa Barbara that propagates the plant. Here's his answer.

"I tell people to plant this plant as close as they can afford. But, if the area is irrigated and the soil decent, this plant can grow fairly fast, and a one-foot spacing would be adequate. It would fill in within 6 months, assuming you planted in late winter through spring in an area with full sun and regular irrigation. Buy flats if you can and cut them into squares. As long as each piece has nice roots, they can be as small as one inch. But test out a few to see if you need to make bigger squares to get clumps with roots before cutting up the whole flat. If you can't find flats, break up one-gallon plants into multiples.

Regarding weeds, this plant can eventually do a good job smothering out new weed seed grasses, but when the Dymondia is young and there is space between plants, diligent hand-weeding is a must. Site preparation ahead of time really is the key, though. You need to get rid of the grasses that were there before you plant. If you are dealing with Bermuda, it often takes repeated treatments of an herbicide used during the grass's growing season and while it is being irrigated so that the Bermuda thoroughly takes in the herbicide. There are selective post-emergence herbicides that work on grasses that do not harm broadleaf plants, but my observation is they don't do a great job in controlling Bermuda. Also I am not sure whether Dymondia is tolerant of these herbicides. If a homeowner wantsto go this route, they should talk to a pest control advisor for specific recommendations. And, even so, I would test a small area first before treating the entire planting."

Thanks, Randy, for such a thorough answer. I'm sure a lot of our blog readers will find this immensely useful.

Rye ergot and witch trials

2009-10-31T09:49:58-07:00

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

I'm very interested in Amy Stewart's work, so I was happy to see Sharon's post about her yesterday. But I think Stewart probably overstated ergot's part the Salem witch trials—if it had any part at all. (Ergot is a fungus that infects grain and can cause hallucinations and erratic behavior in those who eat it.)

My great grandmother, 10 generations back, was a woman named Rebecca Nurse, who was hung for being a witch in those trials. I've spent a lot of time reviewing the trial transcripts to see what really happened. In a nutshell, it started with two girls, cousins, who had seizures that the adults around them blamed on witchcraft. It is these seizures that Stewart attributes to ergot—a charge that has been refuted by academics, and which doesn't make sense to me based on what followed. The afflicted girls singled out a West Indian slave girl named Tituba and two women who were social outcasts as witches. To deflect the anger of the community, they falsely implicated others, who implicated others, who implicated others.

In Rebecca Nurse's case, her family had had a property dispute with the family of the woman who accused her of witchcraft. During the trial, the accusers contended that Nurse used supernatural arts to inflict great pain on them. To bolster their case, when she cocked her head to the side during the trial to hear something more clearly (she was 71 years old, and reportedly hard of hearing), a couple of her accusers jerked their heads to the side and screamed. That kind of thing was obviously theatre designed to get a conviction.

As it happened, Nurse was acquitted by the jury. But sadly, this was before the day when one couldn't be tried twice for the same offense. Nurse was in the presence of others who had been accused when one of them said "she was one of us." When Nurse didn't respond, the jury took it as assent that she was a witch like them. But other explanations are more likely: she didn't respond because she didn't hear, or if she did hear, she didn't respond because she understood "one of us" to mean "one of those falsely accused." But then her accusers and the jury went to the governor and convinced him to override the innocent verdict and hang her, which he did, even after receiving a petition from dozens of people who put their own necks on the line by supporting her.

After the execution, the thing mushroomed until so many people were accusing so many people that the governor finally said "enough!" No more charges were entertained, no more trials conducted, and the thing died away as quickly as it came.

Rebecca Nurse's conviction was reversed posthumously, one of the girls who had charged her admitted to having fabricated the charges—and her house is now the Salem Witch Museum.

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote the following, which is on Rebecca Nurse's granite monument in Danvers, Massachussets.

O Christian Martyr who for Truth could die

When all about thee owned the hideous lie!

The world redeemed from Superstition's sway

Is breathing freer for thy sake today

Read Amy Stewart but go listen to her, too, if you have the chance

2009-10-30T08:27:00-07:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

I have read and enjoyed all of Amy Stewart's books from her first From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden to her most recent, Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities. But I heard her speak for the first time on the 17th of this month at the excellent Annual Garden Seminar of the Master Gardeners of Orange County.

Turns out Stewart is as interesting in person as she is in print. Low-key, drily funny, full of surprising facts told entertainingly. If she comes to your area, don't miss her. Check her speaking engagement calendar here.

Some tidbits from her book mentioned in her talk, which was based on Wicked Plants:

. Rye ergot, a fungus that grows on rye, especially after wet winters, may have caused the deranged behavior that lead to the Salem witch trials. The fungus causes wild hallucinations.

. The ghastly symptoms of pellagra, a syndrome caused by a diet containing too much corn, could have inspired the myths of vampirism in Bram Stoker's Dracula --- pale skin that erupted in blisters when exposed to the sun, sleepless nights, an inability to eat normal food, and a morbid appearance just before death.

But the most important thing I learned from Amy's lecture was that Sago palms are one of the most toxic plants your pet may encounter. All parts of the plant, but especially the seeds and leaves, contain carcinogens and neurotoxins. I was grateful to know this because there are Sago palms all over my neighborhood. Now I know I need to be attentive when I take Lucy, my Cavalier, for her daily walks because she thinks everything is edible.

To find out what other plants that might be harmful to your pets' health, visit the ASPCA website.

You might also want to check out our article on dog-friendly landscaping.

Why do gardens always have to look perfect in photos?

2009-10-29T08:28:25-07:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

I caught up with fellow Southern Cailfornia garden writer Debra Lee Baldwin between presentations at the Annual Garden Seminar of the Master Gardeners of Orange County on October 17. (If you haven't gone to this seminar before, put it on your calendar for 2010; their roster of speakers is always excellent.)

Anyway, somehow Debra and I got onto the subject of photography. And, more specifically, about magazines and books never showing anything but young, flawless flowers and plants. Never any spots or fading or crinkled edges or other signs of age. As if there weren't beauty in those stages, too. (I know, I know, Sunset perpetuates this illusion, too.)

"You'd like my post on Gardening Gone Wild about Wabi-Sabi in the garden," said Debra in response to our conversation. And so I did. If you're not familiar with the expression, here's how Debra defines "wabi-sabi" on her post--"the Japanese aesthetic that finds beauty in imperfection and transience."

Below are two photos from Debra's post. I encourage you to check out the rest.

I also found out from Debra that her second book on succulents from Timber Press, which will be titled Succulent Container Gardens is coming out sooner than I expected. It is targeted for a January release.

Despite our conversation, don't expect many photos like the ones above in Debra's new book. They're going to look like the one on the cover of her new book shown below. Gorgeous and perfect.

Also check out this short article on Designing with Succulents written by Baldwin on our website.

Garden up

2009-10-27T18:43:21-07:00

By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

We just can’t get enough of vertical gardens and, last week, I met the man who invented them. Patrick Blanc was in town working on a 1,700 square foot vertical garden for the Drew Schoo l in San Francisco, a project that will be his biggest in the U.S.

Having worked for nearly three decades as a botanist for a Paris-based research organization, Blanc travels the world studying plants. He recalled taking a trip to Malaysia when he was 19, and having a lightbulb moment: He saw plants growing from rocks, without soil, and that inspired him to create a soil-less systems for growing plants. He built his first large-scale vertical garden for a Paris science museum in the late ‘80s, but “nobody was interested,” he says.

That quickly changed. A few years later, at a French garden exhibition, Blanc built three living walls—and people went crazy over them. He’s since created countless vertical gardens around the world.

Bonnie Fisher, principal and landscape architect with Roma Design Group, the architecture firm behind the Drew project, says they wanted to work with Blanc because “he brings science and art together—that’s very compelling for a school in particular. When you see Patrick’s work, you see there’s another entire way of dealing with vertical surfaces that hasn’t been done before. We can see this is going to be a project that’s transformative to the entire city.”

I shopped with Blanc at Flora Grubb Gardens while he gathered ideas for the Drew project’s plant palette. This was his first trip to San Francisco, and he noted our enviable climate that makes this a playground for gardeners and allows us to grow a huge diversity of plants. “Side by side you see plants from desert and tropical climates," he says. "There are not too many places like this in the world.”

But he also noted the absence of natives in our landscapes, and plans to incorporate native Dudleya, penstemon, ceanothus, and mimulus in the project. “It’s important to save California natives because you have plants that need to be protected," he says.

And on a larger level, he hopes his work will help green otherwise gardenless cities around the globe, saying, "Now, more than half the world is living in urban environments, so it’s very important to have patches of nature inside."

This rendering of the Drew School vertical garden (courtesy of Roma Design Group) gives a glimpse of what you'll be able to see in person at California and Broderick Streets in San Francisco. The project's scheduled to be complete by the end of 2010.

Apples for mild climates

2009-10-27T08:00:00-07:00

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

In tomorrow night's PBS special, The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan tells how the genetic variability of apples allows them to fit neatly into a remarkably wide range of climates—and how people like Johnny Appleseed helped disperse them.

One might add Kevin and Marty Hauser's names to that list. Raising fruit in Riverside, a short distance from California's first Washington Naval orange, they've experimented with more than 100 apple varieties, most of which are clearly out of zone in Southern California—and most of which are healthy and productive.

So what's going on here?

In part, the Hausers succeed because they experiment with apples that nobody's tried because they shouldn't have had a chance in mild climates. 'Wealthy' is an example. The first apple hardy enough to tolerate Minnesota's cold winters, it should demand a great deal of winter chill (total hours between 32° and 45° F) to set fruit, and it clearly wouldn't get that in Riverside. But in point of fact, how does it perform in the Hausers' orchard? Well enough to make Kevin's top 20 list.

The Hausers have also connected with a large network of apple growers to find out which apples have a good track record in warm climates. Kevin told me that 'Rome Beauty' grows in the flatlands of Indonesia, so it's no surprise that it does well in his own orchard.

In fact, he says, "I haven't found an apple that won't fruit here. But just because it fruits doesn't mean it's good." Apples that do well elsewhere ('Northern Spy' comes to mind) can be "horrible" in Riverside. And 'Braeburn' "fruits like crazy but rots from the inside out."

All this success doesn't mean that the Hausers are going to start a commercial orchard any time soon. In mild-winter climates, apples that have compact flowering and fruiting times in cold-winter climates tend to flower and fruit over a long period. That's bad for commercial growers, who want everything to fruit at once to reduce labor costs. But it is actually better for home gardeners, who like the season to stretch out a bit.

The Hausers do sell small grafted apple trees of many varieties to people who want to mimic their success where winters are balmy. Most are available on dwarfing rootstocks, so if you get the apple bug, you can, like them, grow 100 varieties on a city lot. Their mail-order operation is called Kuffel Creek Apple Nursery. And for a bite-by-bite account of many of the apples the Hausers grow, check out Kevin's blog.

Can you grow peonies in Southern California?

2009-10-26T08:22:00-07:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

The answer, says Doug Ito of Ito Nursery in San Juan Capistrano, is "yes." But it's going to take a little effort.

First get your plants in the ground before Halloween (they'll be leafless-- just roots and growth buds at this point). Then, says Ito, fool your peonies into thinking they've had a real winter instead of a faux one by dumping ice on them every night for a minimum of two weeks. More is better.

You can dump out the contents of your ice drawer, put out several sacks of ice, or use big blocks. The method doesn't matter, says Ito, but the quantity does. You can't just toss out the leftover ice cubes from your ice tea and expect results. You need enough to cool the soil.

Since the coolest temperatures always occur between 6 p.m.. and 3 a.m., you'll get the most from your ice if you apply it in the evenings, says Ito.

Adding some cottonseed meal and bonemeal at the time of planting and then again in late December will also encourage bloom, he says.

The peony shown here, incidentally, is Ito's favorite, `Sarah Bernhardt." Others than he likes are `Karl Rosenfeld', `Kansas',`Festiva', and `Red Charm'.

I'm not willing to work this hard for flowers myself, but, if you long for peonies--and they are the most romantic of flowers, I'll admit--why not go for it? As indulgences go, plants are cheap. This icing method can also be used to fool other deciduous plants that would prefer a colder climate, such as lilacs and Chinese wisteria, says Ito.

You might also want to read my colleague Jim's previous post re peonies.

Brent Green on CBS with Katie Couric

2009-10-25T07:44:00-07:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Brent Green of the Los Angeles firm GreenArt Landscape Design, is, as you know if you are a regular reader of Fresh Dirt, one of our heroes. See our first post about him. And the second. And the third in which we let you know he was going to be a guest on The CBS Evening News Hour with Katie Couric.

That appearance was, unfortunately, postponed. Then postponed again. The episode on Green, who CBS is calling a modern Johnny Appleseed, finally ran on Friday, October 17. If you missed it, go to this link and watch it on video.

***

We don't like seeing Brent Green's name linked with Johnny Appleseed, though. If you've read Michael Pollan's book The Botany of Desire you'll know Appleseed wasn't quite the hero we were taught he was. If you haven't read the book, watch the upcoming PBS show based on it which will air the 28th of this month. Read Julie's teaser here for more about the show.

Spare the peat bogs -- start your seedlings in pots made from toilet paper rolls

2009-10-24T08:30:00-07:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Blogger Adriana Martinez, our favorite anarchist--she calls herself a cross between Martha Stewart and the Sex Pistols--passed on a great gardening tip on E's That Morniing Show recently. (That's Martinez below being prepped for filming.)

Instead of using those little peat pots to start your seedlings, suggests Martinez, make your own biodegradable pots out of empty toilet paper rolls, which she then demonstrates how to do. Looks easy. And it's good for the planet and your wallet, too. Clever girl, that Adriana.

See her do it in the video below.

What are these hats doing on these cactus?

2009-10-24T08:15:00-07:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

If you read my post a few days ago, you already know. If not, go take a quick look.

I didn't have a photo to illustrate the concept then, so asked you to use your imagination. Since then Donna Eadie's neighbor, Joe Licari, emailed me some shots he took of Eadie's garden last year. The idea is even more amusing in reality than it sounded on paper, don't you think?

Who’s cultivating who? Watch the Botany of Desire on PBS Wednesday and find out

2009-10-23T06:00:00-07:00

By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

If you love Michael Pollan’s work as much as we do, you’ll want to see The Botany of Desire, a TV special based on Pollan’s book of the same name.

Focusing on four crops—apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes—the show explores how the plants may very well be exploiting us instead of the other way around. And it’s packed with interesting factoids. Some of my favorites (that won’t spoil anything for you if you’ve not read the book):

Most apples in the wild aren’t sweet, and are basically inedible. (And Johnny Appleseed isn't quite the person you thought he was...)
During the Dutch “tulip mania” in the 1600s, tulips were valuable commodities that signified wealth—bulbs of one variety cost $10 to 15 million each in today’s dollars.
Cannabis extract was found in many over-the-counter medicines and was basically available anywhere before states starting outlawing it in the early 1900s.
We might think we have a lot of choices between Idaho russet, Yukon gold, fingerling, and red potatoes. But in Peru, where spuds were first domesticated, people still cultivate more than 5,000 varieties.

The Botany of Desire airs on Wednesday, October 28 at 8 p.m. on PBS.

Winter fuel for hummingbirds

2009-10-22T08:00:00-07:00

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine
Pickings can be lean for hummingbirds in winter: that's why most head far to the south. But if you live anywhere along the west coast from Vancouver to Mexico, you can help those that stay behind by growing plants that flower during the cool season.
One of my favorites is strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo), pictured below. Apart from its attractiveness to hummingbirds, it's attractive to me, with a combination of evergreen leaves, tiny white flowers, and yellow-to-red, edible fruits that you'll find growing together on the tree now. Native to Europe, this madrona relative usually grows 20 to 35 feet tall, with equal spread, but there's a compact form that tops out at about 8 ft.

Besides strawberry tree, other good winter-flowering hummingbird plants include a grassy perennial called crimson flag (Schizostylis coccinea); shrubby Camellia sasanqua, witch hazel (Hamamelis mollis), and Mahonia x media 'Charity'; and low, woody heaths (Erica).

Legalizing urban farming in LA -- The Food & Flower Freedom Act

2009-10-21T08:30:00-07:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Silver Lake Farms in Silver Lake, California, a small urban cutflower farm that sold to local farmers' markets, has been on my list of places to visit for some time now. If nothing else to indulge one of my fantasies. In another life or an alternate universe maybe it's a profession I would have pursued. Up to my elbows in sweetpeas in the spring and zinnias in the fall. Lovely thought, no?

Turns out growing cutflowers is considerably more complicated than I thought. Especially in cities. Or at least it is in L.A.

Here's what happened to Silver Lake Farms.

In March of this year, the owner, Tara Kolla, shown here with some of her harvest, was ordered to cease growing cutflowers in her sixth, and best, year in the business. It seems technically she was in violation of a 1946 Los Angeles Municipal Code known as the Truck Gardening Ordinance.

The Ordinance seems well-intentioned -- to allow the growing of vegetables in residential zones for sale off-site. But the Ordinance is being interpreted to exclude growing anything but vegetables for sale -- including fruit, nuts, flowers, and seedlings.

Kolla isn't about to give up farming -- she has switched from flowers to vegetables and has partnered with another larger farm to offer a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. She also still offers garden design and consultation services. See her website to see what else she's up to.

But Kolla is not accepting the status quo either. She and some like-minded urban farmers have formed an organization called Urban Farming Advocates. Their aim is to challenge regulations like the Truck Gardening Ordinance that restrict use of residential land for agriculture.

They already have LA Councilman Eric Garcetti on their side. He introduced a motion to explore changing the Truck Gardening Ordinance in July. (The Urban Farming Advocates have given this attempt the unofficial moniker "The Food & Flowers Freedom Act."). But the motion has a long way to go before any laws are changed.

If you would like the opportunity to buy flowers like the ones shown in Kolla's hand--sweetpeas, clarkia, godetia, `Bunny Tails' grass heads--things you don't find at every supermarket and that you know have been grown without chemicals--you might want to make your voice heard. Or if you would like to be able to buy a homeowners' macadamia crop, excess kumquats, pineapple guavas, chayote squash, eggs, or honey. Or their divided bearded iris or agave offsets, etc, etc. You get the idea.

Go to this link to find the name of your local councilmember. For some suggested wording, see Urban Farming Advocates.

Want the best fall color? Pick it now

2009-10-20T07:58:10-07:00

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

It's astonishing how much trees can vary in fall color. Two laceleaf Japanese maples, both photographed on the same day last week, make my point. I grow both in same-size containers, same exposure, same care. In summer, both are green, mushroom-shaped beauties that grow in pots on my deck and patio. But in autumn, only one—'Emerald Lace' (above)—is worth having. Its color is red and clean. The other (below) is an unnamed laceleaf whose autumn leaves turn dull green, go crisp at the ends, and drop.

You see the same principle at work in liquidambars and other deciduous trees grown for fall color, though not to the same extent. The lesson: when you choose trees for fall color, buy them only in fall so you see exactly what you're getting, or buy from a reliable mail-order source (I got my 'Emerald Lace' from Mendocino Maples).

Boxed lettuce

2009-10-19T06:54:54-07:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Seems like I am always having to eat my words. "I hate marigolds," I remember saying. Now I plant signet and/or French marigolds every summer. "I never want to see a cottage garden again," I said not that long ago. Now I rather miss them. "Let those girls out of their girdles," I used to think every time I saw roses or perennials squeezed in between squares of boxwood hedges. Yet these formal hedges in Cambria charmed me.

Is it because the pattern is on a diagonal which makes this traditional approach seem more novel? Or is it that lettuces are small enough not to look crowded when they are boxed-in? Or is it that some of the "boxes" have open ends which makes the whole pattern feel looser?

All I know is that I'm going to have to contradict myself once again. These hedges--they're germander, not boxwood, by the way--I can't help but love. I think the homeowner, Julie Rice, came up with a very clever way to include a few lettuces, herbs, and other edibles conveniently close to the kitchen and the barbecue without sacrificing the neatness and formality she was after. Cambria landscape designer Shana McCormick of Great Gardens assisted Rice with the design.

To see another Rice/McCormick collaboration, see our post about Rice's deer-proof front yard. This planting scheme inspired by a birdhouse is quite pretty, too.

Solve the pumpkin pie filling shortage -- make pumpkin pie from scratch

2009-10-18T08:15:00-07:00

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

The Los Angeles Times reported on the nationwide shortage of pumpkin pie filling we can expect this Thanksgiving because of poor growing conditions for pumpkins last year.

You can still have pie, though, Armstrong Garden Centers, reminds us, providing you're willing to do just a little bit of work. Their recipe for home-made pie filling follows.

You should also know that Armstrong Garden Centers is offering an all-you-can-carry-pumpkin promotion from now through Halloween. Fill your arms for $16.99.

Now here, courtesy of Armstrong, is the recipe:

1. Choose a pumpkin that is 10-inches or less in diameter for the best taste.

2. Cut the pumpkin in half, starting at the stem and going towards the base, using a serrated knife. Be careful not to cut yourself.

3. Scoop out the seeds and stringy part of the pumpkin and cut off the stem.

4. Place pumpkin cut-side down on a greased baking sheet.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the pumpkin. (It's done when the flesh is soft and can be easily pierced with a knife.)

6. Pat pumpkin dry, remove the pumpkin skin and puree in a food processor until smooth.

7. Drain any extra liquid from the puree.

8. Chill before using in your favorite pumpkin recipe.

Don't have a favorite recipe? Try our pumpkin streusel pie. Or ultra-sophisticated pumpkin-orange mascarpone pie. Or one of these five classics.