Everything is blooming

This is a column from last year -- I publish my columns in the "Highgrove Happenings" monthly newspaper.

May 2007

Everything is blooming.

The ranunculus (ranunculi?) are up, lovely purples, pinks and variegated combinations, the penstemon is starting in. Mission Bells California poppies are lovely in shades of cream, orange, pink and a color which can only be described in sunset terms. Sweet alyssum covers the empty ground with mounds and drifts of white and wild purple verbena left over from my mother’s garden still puts in a beautiful appearance every year, even if I pull it up. This is the time I just sit outside and watch the hummingbirds hit every tubular flower there is in the garden (the sages and honeysuckle are their favorites but they even enjoy the tiny blue flowers on the rosemary) and enjoy the crowds of LBJ’s (little brown jobs in birder parlance) finding seed on the ground. The mockingbirds wait until I put on the oscillating sprinkler and then sit in the pepper trees to wait for a shower (one day we had SEVEN mockingbirds taking baths in the sprinkler at the same time – what a kick). I am hoping to see my barn owls back this year, Flo and Beau, as the gophers are making a comeback and I need help.

I decided that this is the month that I would tell my faithful readers why I have a garden. I have a stressful, sedentary job in front of a computer and in meetings all week and gardening gets me up and outside...I love being outside, with the plants, weeds, seeds, lizards, bugs and birds. I love dirt under my fingernails and mud squishing between my toes. I also love being able to share my flowers and vegetables with my co-workers. I bring in armloads of sweet peas or zinnias (depending on the season) or a load of tomatoes or eggplant, depending on what the bumper crop du jour is.

Puttering in the garden is my "Sabbath rest" and has the effect of completely de-stressing me and connecting me with creation. My yard is far from perfect and a constant work-in-progress (it would never make one of those fancy gardening magazines), but it's MY place and MY part of creation. It is full of birds, feeders, bird baths and bird friendly flowers (seeds and nectar producers) and some goofy garden art like my grandfather’s “Grim Reaper” type scythe which is wired to the fence. We see hummingbirds constantly along with all the resident birdies and passers-by on their way to the mountains.

I don't know what I would do if I couldn't dig in the dirt and play with my flowers. Garden therapy works for me!

Also going on in my garden this month:

We just picked up a huge load of well rotted horse compost from my friend June this past weekend – oh joy! (Only a gardener would get excited about a pile of horse p***!). On the way home from Gavilan Hills, my sister and I stopped in at Louie’s Nursery in Woodcrest (Parkview and Louie’s are my favorites around here) to see what they had and lo and behold they had the beautiful new Burgundy Iceberg roses. As you all know, I really should not be allowed to go to nurseries alone. Well, this time I wasn’t alone but it didn’t even help as both of us fell in love immediately with these roses. Those of you who live around Grand Terrace and Highgrove will recognize the Iceberg as the profusely blooming white roses on Barton Road. Well, the burgundy variety is STUNNING – we went home with two and another one in pink and cream, also an Iceberg cultivar. I am looking forward to roses in my garden all summer long. They also have a lovely fragrance. They will blend nicely with the flowering plum, purple fountain grass and the flax I am planning to get.

Also blooming are my white Lady Banks roses on the Villa fence. They have gone berserk for some reason this year and every time I walk by I inhale the beautiful rose smell. My honeysuckle and pink jasmine vines are also blooming – more great things to sniff! One of these times I will write about all the wonderful vines we can grow in Highgrove. My idea of paradise is walking through my yard and catching a whiff of something heavenly at every corner or sticking my head in a wall of sweet peas and inhaling deeply.

Which takes me back to a story from old Highgrove times. While I was growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandma Alice Haight, who was a fabulous and wonderful person and who lived on the other side of the block from us. One of my best childhood memories is staying overnight with her and going to sleep by an open window in her room, after saying our prayers --“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take…” and listening to the quiet sounds of the night and enjoying the smells coming through the lace-curtained window. This time of year, if it was warm, and the window was open, it would be orange blossoms. Later in the summer, it would be the geraniums. I would hear a mockingbird singing in the pepper tree out front in the middle of the night and the little birds twittering in the morning. What a wonderful sense of peace, calm and security. I was blessed.

That story calls for a recipe from my grandmother – Fudge Pudding Cake

This was a favorite of mine as a child and I could never figure out how the pudding got on the bottom of the cake!

1 c. flour
¾ c. sugar
6 T. powdered cocoa
2 t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
½ c. milk
2 T. shortening, melted
1 c. finely chopped pecans or walnuts
1 c. packed brown sugar

Combine flour, sugar, 2 T. cocoa, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Mix in milk and shortening. Stir in nuts. Pour into 9 inch square baking dish. Sprinkle with a mixture of brown sugar and ¼ c. cocoa. Pour 1 ¾ cups hot water over the top. Do not stir! Bake at 350 for 45 minutes until set. Cut into squares and spoon some of the fudge sauce over the top while hot – serve with whipped cream or ice cream. Yum.

Things to do in your garden in May

• Plant your cukes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, corn and anything else you want for the summer garden if you haven’t already done so. They will still get a good start while the weather is pleasant.
• Make up your flowering baskets
• Enjoy the spring flowers while you can
• Start to look for summer annuals in six packs
• Plant zinnias from seed – bait for snails. I learned this the hard way last year when every last zinnia seedling was chomped off at the root.
• Mulch everything to retain water and head off weeds

Joke of the month

Two good old boys go bear hunting. They are riding in their pickup truck down the road to the woods. They go around a curve and see a sign that says “Bear Left.” So they go home.