Garden Watch, 2018

April 29, 2018December 9, 2018Lauren

So… lot of gardening going on lately, to the detriment of the bank account, but for the benefit of muscles and souls; so it’s a good tradeoff. Besides, what else is money for? Oh, the mortgage, right.

So here’s what we’re going to do- I’ll be posting updates on the gardens, to record them as they grow in; and on the specific tomato plants, to track their progress and because I have 3 varieties I’ve never tried before this year. And because I make the calls around this here blog, so yall just enjoy a week by week tracking of tomatoes until you resolve to never come back, m’kay?

So, if you recall, this is the garden about a week after planting April 7th-ish

And here it is April 29th. And we picked up some of the sidewalk chalk and the racket finally!

Sweet 100 cherry tomato April 15th

Sweet 100 on April 29th

New one to me… HM 1823. We’ll see.

Mine eyes have never seen a more beautiful tomato plant… it’s called Bobcat… I really need to get a cage, but it’s awfully nice and stocky. Not pictured is the other new tomato called Sungold- it’s a cherry too.

Good fences make good and non-visible neighbors. And we did it ourself! Oh the pride… the PRIDE!

Francis Dubriel Rose- lovely and fragrant… awfully disease resistant so far. What? It’s gotta be constant with the zippy comments? I do what I want.

Dinnerplate Dahlia bulbs coming up… these are called Thomas Edison. Turns out he was a bit of a douchebag, but that isn’t the flowers’ fault

My husband and I love gardening together so much, looks like our pitchforks got married too! He’s wearing a simple bottle cap band, whereas she’s in a lovely impaled penny

The new garden on the other side of the deck. Can you believe we agonized for months on the new house color… and then ended up picking a color that was an exact match to the AC unit?

And the cats. The calico does have a tail… she’s just embarrassed and sitting on it due to the competition she faces on the daily round the other two

Of Lice and Zen

March 3, 2017December 8, 2018Lauren

Crap.

So yesterday our oldest put her pet mice (named Almond and Honey) on her shoulder and I cracked a joke about “Oh no! You have head-mice!” She laughed. I didn’t- because holy hell. When was the last time I checked your head for actual lice?!

She didn’t have any. Her sister did though. F*****CK!

So it’s laborious nit picking around here. It’s dousing a small little head in burning lice shampoo made out of flowers. Think I’m making that up? The main ingredient in Rid is pyrethrum, made from chrysanthemum blossoms.

Flowers of louse-y death.

“A Chrysanthemum by any other name would also totally reek.” These aren’t roses, but it’s not the very worst smell out there.

And so there will be much laundry and bagging up of stuffed animals, and weeks of staying on top of it… hours a night on nit checks. But, it’s an opportunity to sit and talk for uninterrupted time with my child. And besides, all I want is for her to feel better and to take care of this for her- it’s never had me angry or frazzled or super stressed out about whenever we’ve had to deal with lice. There is nothing to be done except slow waaaaaay down and invest the time to fix it. And that isn’t a bad thing, actually- the brakes getting thrown on life sometimes. So, I know it makes for a zippy title, but it is true, I do get quite zen about it.

And so I’ll go through the next few weeks with hands that smell faintly of flowers of death, which makes me feel like a minor Hindu deity in the Indian pantheon. And that isn’t a bad thing either, actually.

I will try to grab those silver linings as they race by, whenever I can…

“You know, Flowers and…”

October 29, 2016October 2, 2021Lauren

My husband and I love gardening- we like existing outside, as much as we can- and we like doing it in a nicely landscaped place. And I have dabbled enough in landscape design to be all annoying about it. I like a French Cottage style- not as chaotic as English Cottage, but still emphasizing an abundance of flowers while also incorporating veggies and herbs right in the same spaces. Also, all organic, and stuff. So.

Back in the day I used to work in a garden center and thus became a bit of a plant snob- I want the unusual, the hard to grow, the unknown, the ones with cool historical stories. Honestly, a landscape of New Gold Lantana, Salvia greggii, Knockout roses, and crepe myrtles might as well be beige walls as far as I’m concerned. (So Bourgeoisie! I’d have never made it through the Reign of Terror with that kind of attitude, let me tell you- Robespierre would have definitely seen to that. Ho, ho!) But also people- please don’t fall for the trap: most commercial growers and big box stores grow plants that look good in POTS so you’ll buy them- for a rockin landscape you want plants that do best in the GROUND- they should almost always be just green and unassuming looking in pots for sale. So.

Our house had been abandoned for 20 years before we moved in- and the people who flipped it as an income property ran out of money and bad ideas and installed next to no landscaping. They did put 8 shrubs in, actually. They were Yaupon Hollies. And if the latin name of Ilex vomitoria ‘Nana’ doesn’t just perfectly sum them up, I don’t know what would. We ripped them out. So… we get, finely, to my point here.

Slowly… ever so painstakingly slowly- we’ve been landscaping. The front yard has sod and new shrubs. (anyone care what kind?) They’re dwarf myrtles, Myrtus communis compacta. Sweet myrtle is a plant that dates back to ancient times, with the first recording of it in written history in 50 AD. White flowers. Purple berries (edible, yes. Palatable? eh.) It’s considered an herb, and I use it extensively in cut flower arrangements. Supposedly it was one of the plants Adam was allowed to take out of the garden on Eden (how’d that work? Some kind of severance package, maybe?). We also have a side garden in and establishing. We’ve planted poppies and larkspur seeds in the 70′ bed between our new driveway and our neighbors. So, even with a now 10 month old we have done some really big projects. Oh- and we took out the trash trees in the back: Cedar Elms and an Arizona Ash (Boo! Hiss! Who plants those awful things?! It’s dead now.) And my husband and some contractor (cough cough, Dad, cough cough) installed a new fence. Okay! Jeez, this is taking together all too long to get to the point of… “Hey, wanna see the few flowers we’ve got over here right now? There aren’t that many because we haven’t landscaped the backyard yet, but we eked out what we could this year.”

Francis Dubriel Rose. We get a rose for each of the girl’s when they’re born. Mary’s middle name is Francis (How Catholic are we, amiright?! Not very, actually.) so this one seemed like a good choice. Turns out it gets 8′ tall. Gulp. Maybe should have done a bit more research. It’s from 1894 and named for a rose breeder in Lyon, France who started out his career as a tailor. (My plant snobitude- it is DWARFED by my level of rose snobbery. lovelovelove me some antique roses. Hearts.) Hey and look! Turns out the jerks who sold us the house didn’t even sand the exterior before they painted! Haha…yeah. Don’t do that.

My Nutmeg scented geranium- love those leaves! Flowers are small but very cute and both are cute in cut flower arrangements. Hey and look! You can see that the jerks we bought the house from built the deck using nails instead of screws! haha… yeah. Don’t do that.

Chocolate Sunflowers… now that’s one to file away for future use! Grow, sunflowers, GROW!

Coreopsis from a wildflower mix the neighbor gave us to add to the driveway bed.

John Fannick Phlox named after… some guy in San Antonio. Owned a plant nursery. They can’t all be interesting stories.

Weed grass heads from the bamboo forest/ghetto in the back corner. The seed heads do look nice in flower arrangements, though. And that’s all I got… except for this last one, that is.

Happy Saturday. (“Don’t say Cat-urday, don’t say Cat-urday…”)

Resolution: More charitable giving

August 8, 2016December 8, 2018Lauren 7 Comments

For almost 2 years now I’ve been a sponsor to a girl in Sierra Leone- to save her from the practice known as FGM, or Female Genital Mutilation. This sponsorship pays for the ongoing guarantee that she will not undergo FGM, her education, food for her family, education for her family as to why FGM should be avoided, and regular healthcare. Since that time I originally sponsored a child in January of 2015, I’ve had another daughter. And as I look at my 3 girls it grew in me that I wanted to do more for this cause- and so I’ve recently signed up to sponsor 2 more girls each month. This allows me to match the number of my own girls and seemed eminently important to do. Honestly, I was totally unable to ignore the call to do so, it’s so grown in me recently. I feel as strongly about this cause as I did when I originally posted about it 2 years ago. And as strongly committed to wiping it out as then as well.

May more girls grow up unmultilated.

Healthy.

And Educated in this world.

Amen.

Below is my post from January of 2015:

The cause I cleaved to in the later part of 2014 and will be more focussed on helping in the future: Ending FGM, also know as Female Genital Mutilation.

Young Girl in Gambia- where the incidence of FGM is 76% (image by Joe Rodd)

In 2015 I started to contribute to Waris Dierie’s Desert Flower Foundation to end FGM around the world. Why? Because the thought of some innocent child my daughters’ age getting held down and screaming while she is permenantly mutilated with no anesthesia is so incredibly horrifying I want to throw up every single time I think about it. Having been a victim of this mutilation, that child’s risk later in life of contracting HIV and dying in childbirth go up astronomically; and that is in addition to the lifetime of pain caused from it. FGM isn’t a religious practice as many believe, it’s cultural- and therefore changeable within a single generation. Below is the link to The Desert Flower Foundation, which is the organization I chose to support after researching the ones that had proven positive results:

Desert Flower Foundation:

http://www.desertflowerfoundation.org

And yes, historically, charitable giving into Africa hasn’t always been successful. But that is because changes were attempted to be imposed from the outside. The Desert Flower Foundation works from within these communities, and is thus much more successful in achieving lasting change. And lest you think the work to end FGM is fighting a losing battle, it is actually quickly turning the tide of cultural practice- but nowhere near quickly enough. And even if it wasn’t, remember the story of the starfish:

Thousands of starfish had washed up on a beach, and a little girl was throwing them back in the ocean. Someone walked up to her and said “Save your strength, there is no way you’ll be able to save them all.” The little girl paused for a moment and then quickly knelt down and picked up a single starfish off the beach. As she threw it in the water she said “Saved that one!” Others around were inspired by that child’s action and started throwing the starfish into the water with her. Soon, no starfish remained on the beach.

Sure that story is smaltzy, I’ll give you that. But like in that story, I’d try to save just one girl even if it didn’t have a rippling effect on changing cultural norms in her community… but luckily it does. But also? These are not starfish. These are children. These are girls with dreams. Girls who love their kittens and their mothers’ cooking and being able to go to school. Who should one day have a right to grow from a child to a woman- with a right to love and have children, and not suffer in pain daily. Who should grow into women who will fight so their daughters don’t have to suffer FGM. And who should live to see their granddaughters be fully safe from FGM as well. These are girls who should not have to suffer this horrible practice. SHOULD. NOT.

Please learn more if you are interested and help if you are so driven.

There is a kids’ story or two in here somewhere…

July 1, 2016December 8, 2018Lauren

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away… I remember helping my cousin Jennifer collect bugs once for a school project. And now that I think of it- she was homeschooled so how the hell did that work? Anyway. I caught a huge red wasp in a tupperware container- and it beat against the lid like a drum. And there were a few beetles, maybe a June bug? All I remember is the wasp really (for obvious, scare the hell out of you reasons) and that I was SO good at catching bugs she put me in charge of the jar. (Gee… thanks? Is white-washing the fence fun too?) But anytime she would point out a butterfly I’d only pretend to try to catch it and shoo it away instead. At the end of the day we had enough bugs for her collection and not a single one was a butterfly. I was 10.

And today not only do I grow plants in my garden to attract and feed the adult butterflies I love so well, I grow host plants for their caterpillars to eat too. And while some of the caterpillars are cool, some really display the depth of my devotion because they… well they’re not cute. I have a key lime tree which is the host to my favorite butterfly, the Giant Swallowtail. Who’s caterpillar is basically bird poop. Think I’m kidding?

Boom. Evolution is wonderfully specific at times.

And then that thing turns into this…

My Precious!

And I really don’t know why the story was about an ugly duckling turning into a swan… because bird poop turning into a butterfly wins that competition ALL day long.

Insufferable Parenting… part 2

June 27, 2016December 8, 2018Lauren

So our seven year old had an idea for a summer job: she wanted to sell flowers around the neighborhood, and I love it. She planted some zinnias, we already had a bunch of cosmos, and we let some self sown sunflowers go eight-foot-tall-nuts in the backyard. Saved some jars (caper jars are the best) and a business is born.

And if my husband and I lose our jobs she’ll support the family with this… because she has not had anyone tell her no so far. I’ve never seen a more successful salesman!

We get to spend time together picking flowers and making arrangements. I’m teaching her about filler foliage (mint is the best, but fennel and germander are good too) and about proper proportions… it’s nice.

Nobody really wants lemonade made with grubby little hands and questionable food safety practices, but flowers… heck. The world could always use more flowers.

the something garden

Bridge Over the River Why

Category flowers