MID-JUNE REPORT

Peas interplanted with green onions. Passion fruit Maypop at the end of the row, on right.

The spice barrel also houses tomatoes.

Our first radishes of the season.

Ornamental quince O Yashima from Bluestone Perennials.

Rose of Spain, aka Russeliana in my garden.

Red Meidilland roses are blooming. Calendulas, pansies, catmint and lavendar continue their lavish show. Dorothy Perkins explodes into hundreds oddelicate blossoms and Seafoam sends out buds to partner Clair de Lune clematis. I have plopped chaenomelis O Yashima and the roses Amelia, Belle Amour, Dublin Bay, Jacques Cartier, Cecile Brunner, Geant de Batailles, Gloire de Dijon, Maiden's Blush, Konigin von Danemark, Madame Plantier, Rosa Mundi, Russelliana, and Tuscany Superb into the rose borders. I have added hakonechloa and ferns to the shady border by the lily pond and began transplanting roses and perennials my poor planning consigned to places that have become too shaded by trees and shrubs. Blanc Double de Coubert, a nice white rugosa rose was the first for which I found new quarters. My old Konigin von Danemark also made the transition from shady border to a sunnier home. Peonies and irises will follow.

The deer continue to assault the vegetable garden, but so far there seems to be a chance that we will get some snow peas. We harvested radishes for the first time--those I plant as markers for carrots that are so slow to germinate I tend to forget where they have been sown. Okra, pumpkin and summer squash look promising. I think that the deer are waiting for them to get to the stage when their destruction will cause me the greatest heartbreak. They waited until the Casablanca lilies were in bud before they nipped them in half. That is how I became aware of their infernal cunning. Any kosher butchers out there? Any purvoyors of teeny quantities of Semtex--just enough to startle Bambi?

CHEESEMAKING REVISITED

CHEESEMAKING REVISITED TO INCLUDE HERBS

This is a brief update on the Fromage a Trois adventures. Encouraged by the experiment we tried last week, we made a batch of cheese with a gallon whole milk. This time around we doubled the amount of vinegar--four ounces to the gallon of milk--and we added a teaspoon each of marjoram and thyme to the curds after the initial draining of whey. Before unwrapping it, we pressed the cheese between two cutting boards weighted down with a cast iron Dutch iron filled with water. This shaped the cheese into a more appealingly, easier to cut round. After tasting the final product we concluded that its texture was creamier than that of the first batch which was made with half a gallon of a mix of whole milk and two percent. The yield of the second batch was much higher--closer to a pound. This is an easy an economic way to add protein to our diet.

RAIN GARDENS

RAIN GARDENS AND PLANTS THAT LOOK GREAT IN THE RAIN

Fairyhair maple.

Wild ginger.

Alchemilla mollis.

I have yet to find a book about rain gardens. When I Googled the subject, I found the following explanation at www.westmichiganraingardens.com

"A rain garden is an attractive landscaping feature planted with perennial native plants. It is a bowl-shaped or saucer-shaped garden, designed to absorb storm water run-off from impervious surfaces such as roofs and parking lots...Government studies have shown that up to 70% of the pollution in our streams, rivers and lakes is carried there by stormwater. Although most people never think about storm water, about half of the pollution that storm water carries comes from things we do in our yards and gardens!"

This is something I must consider. My house was built on a lot sloping down to a creek. It would make ecological sense to build a rain garden at the edge of the lowest part of the slope, below the area once known as The Selfish Garden. That is the space I reserved for myself alone. Visitors were allowed in by invitation only and no unkind words could be uttered within the privet walls. I have pretty much abandoned that space though occasionally I check to see if the Japanese fern and wild ginger still grow there. The white bleeding heart and white daylily I planted there years ago have been eaten by deer, but the fern and ginger endure.

The Selfish Garden is the perfect location for the rain garden I had in mind--a place filled with plants that look particularly beautiful during and after a rain. This differs from the gardens described above in that their function is more ornamental than environmentally beneficial. Granted, most gardens benefit the environment, but my aim was to put together a collection of conifers, bergenia, brunnera, maples and the all time champion of rain loving plants--alchemilla mollis. Green Gardens, in Oregon, offers a large selection of maples as well as plants suited for bonsai. The latter are excellent candidates for the contemplative garden I want to make. I intend for it to include as many shades of green as possible and I will include textures that showcase raindrops. Conifers such as Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Fernspray Gold' seem ideal for the job. So do Acer palmatum 'Fairyhair,' bergenia Bressingham White, brunnera, the more delicate ferns such as Athyrium Niponicum 'Red Beauty.'

BULB AND RHIZOME HUNGER

BULB AND RHIZOME HUNGER

Gardeners need incentives from time to time. It is a given that as the temperature and humid climb, energy flags to the point that some of us need to fix our hopes on future rewards. Mid-June is one of the stages of intense work in my garden. Basically, I am trying to tame a jungle that wants to revert to its original state. Consequently, it requires constant vigilance as an increase in rainfall infuses new crops of weeds and invasive trees with astonishing vigor.

This is the time plant nurseries choose for hard to resist sales. My mailbox overflows with tantalising offers from some of my favorite purveyors of glorious plants--Whiteflower Farms, Bluestone Perennials, Jung Seeds and Logee's, among others. Being a plant lover rather than I designer, I succumb. That is how I find myself in possession of twenty four peonies--the white Baroness Schroder, pink Sarah Bernhardt and red Kansas, and assortment of yellow and blue German irises. This only awakens my appetite for more, more and more bulbs and rhizomes whose flowers I will enjoy at a cooler and less hectic time.

Ideally, I would plant a huge drift of white peonies--the beginnings, perhaps of a moon garden. would choose Nick Shailor, Duchesse de Nemours and Bowl of Cream. To those I would I would add Bridal Icing, Camellia Heart, Crystal Cream, Elsa Sass and Moonstone, all available at Klehm's Song Sparrow, home of some of the most delectable peonies. Those should do nicely with the white Fialla's Remembrance, Krasavitsa Moscow and Edith Cavell lilacs I bought from Bluestone Perennials, Jung's seeds and miller's Nurseries, respectively. The white peonies I got from Freecycle last summer bloomed so beautifully with my Sombreuil rose I can envision an enormous border filled with peonies and roses. My budget is the catch. In order to execute such a plan I need to hire a couple of sturdy helpers, come up with amendments for the impoverish soil that lies beneath the lawn, as well as pay for the plants I will no doubt decide I must add to the border.

I will probably order a few more peonies though June seems a strange time in which to plant them. Those I added to the garden last year did well and that convinced me to take advantage of summer sale. My purchases will be modest, all the same. In theory, I will get truckloads of roots and rhizomes. In practice, I will pare my list to suit my means. That is OK. I am hard pressed to keep up with the garden as it is.

COMING TO FRUITION

Gooseberries waiting to be made into jam.

Pixwell gooseberries.

There are teeny green strawberries on this year's plants and the three year-old gooseberry shrubs are in full production. I planted the latter in honor of the main character in Chekhov's Gooseberries. I think that to rely on literary references for inspiration is a legitimate form of gardening. Chekhov himself was a gardener, as so many artists tend to be. At his home, in Melikhovo, he planted, in addition to roses, lilacs, firs and elms, he planted eighty apple trees and sixty cherry trees. Later, while living in Yalta, he wrote to his sister Maria,

"It is a sheer delight. I've planted twelve cherry trees, four pyramidal mulberries, two almonds, and a few others. They are good trees and will bear fruit."

My exiguous lot has no room for a fruit orchard. Even so, in the past couple of decades I have planted a self-pollinating cherry tree that fell victim to vile voles the very year it was supposed to fruit, an almond tree that died in infancy, countless raspberry bushes of which only three survived, half a dozen Nanjing cherries that feed dozens of birds and still have enough fruit left for my family and me, a quince tree whose abundant fruit rots prior to reaching maturity. On my sidewalk there is a mulberry tree that technically belongs to the municipality though in twenty five years no one but the birds has benefited from its watery fruit. Local gardeners tell me that mulberry juice yields a rather tasteless jelly, but I have yet to try it.

The stars of my fruit plantation are the gooseberries. That is cause for rejoicing since gooseberries are rare in my corner of the world. Some years ago jars of gooseberry in syrup made their way from Poland to the local Big Lots and I snapped up every jar practically before they hit the shelves. My best beloved, who are very keen on tart fruit feasted on gooseberry pie for days. Now that I have a modest amount of fresh fruit with which to experiment I think I will try making gooseberry curd. My family and I are discussing several of its possible use, should it be a success--as a topping for shortbread, as an accompaniment for scones, as filling for tartlets or pound cake, as topping for cheesecake.

The strawberry harvest is questionable. Bambi has been on the attack and by the time the fruit is ripe eastern box turtles and birds will compete to see who can eat the most. Dreams of strawberry short cake, pie, ice cream, strawberry Romanoff might remain nothing but dreams. Preserves are out of the question. At the most there will be enough fruit for a simple dessert. Gardening organically in an area relatively rich in wildlife has its price. The question of becoming gardening one's way into self-sufficiency becomes unanswerable. I have no intention of shooting Bambi nor the turtles and birds that gobble up so much in my garden. I can only continue to try to balance their needs with those of my family.

DREAM HOUSE AND GARDEN

Mrs. Caillebotte clips roses at their garden.

A dream cottage garden in England.

Chekhov's garden, Yalta.

The Custom Officer's Cabin, by Monet.

Caillebotte's villas in Trouville.

Yali (summer house) on the Bosphorus. Architectural Digest photo.

Lawrence Rizkowsky Malibu, California Home. Photo from House Beautiful.

Carl Larsen's home.

"Some houses are made of timber and stone. Some houses are made of words. Mine is made of bits and pieces of dreams." Luna Melull, Whip of Fire

In my novel, A Pocketful of Rubies, I gave the main character, private eye Luna Melull, a Queen Anne house on a quiet tree lined street. I also gave her a fragrance garden where some of my favorite plants grow--heirloom roses, lilacs, delphiniums, trumpet lilies, sweet williams and jasmine. I would have given a view of the sea, had she lived somewhere other than the village of Heavenly Hollow, West Virginia. Instead, I let her borrow the creek that runs behind my house and my own view of the Potomac river. That view is more like a glimpse once the trees in the woods that separate my half acre from the property of a rich lawyer leaf out. In autumn, winter

and early spring , I have visual access to a more satisfying panorama, especially from my study, on the second floor. Luna does her river gazing from a belvedere I covet almost as much as I covet the kiosk in Gustave Caillebotte's family summer home property in Yerres. Someday I might take Luna to one of the Ottoman yalis (summer home) Orhan Pamuk mentions in his Istanbul memoirs.

Water is an essential element in the landscape where I build the house of my dreams. I would like to walk into one of Caillebotte's painting of villas at Trouville as much as I would like to settle into Monet's painting of the custom's office cabin in Pourville. Neither of these places seems to have a garden though a greenhouse is visible between the villas. That is for the best. I can build for either gardens of the mind, borrowing from Chekhov's home in the Crimea and Renoir's in Cagne.

My all too real and much beloved log house is nearly engulfed by a wilderness of volunteer cedars, the dratted tree of heaven that pops up everywhere and that must be pulled up before it can kill its cultivated neighbors with poisonous exudations. Brambles that yield bitter blackberries spring up amid roses and peonies, poison ivy makes itself at home where there should have been a Whiteflower Farm abundance of daylilies, inkberries grow enormously tall between the little clump of gooseberries and the quince tree. Gardening at this house, variously called Traveller's Joy, Dove House and Roseiral, is a fierce battle. On one hand, I must think of the birds, turtles, and butterfly that share my exiguous lot; on another, I dislike intensely the uncouth inkberries sidling up to my supremely elegant Sombreuil roses. Dream gardens allow me to compromise. What are gardens, after all but ever evolving dreams? For all their apparent solidity, so are houses.

THINGS I DO NOT SEEM TO OUTGROW

Restful places--a hired man's bed from New England, vintage embroidered cushions from tag sales and thrift shops, cream and red Indian cushions from the Dollar Store. Toile from Anatole fabric outlet. Grey Halloween sock is a kitty toy, apparently. Oil painting by Jim Kline.

Beatrix Potter.

Bunnikins.

Restful places. This is my New Dawn rose and blue Chinese wisteria arbor.

Please note plate border and Ivan Bilibin's work.

The colors red and yellow. Plate is Heinrich's Gipsy pattern.

Molly Brett's work.

Picnics. Photo from House Beautiful.

Illustrations by Racey Helps

Sweet Williams

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List making is a time honored diarist's tool. Around 996 Japanese author Sei Shonagon preceded modern day bloggers with The Pillow Book, which is jam packed with her observations of Heian court life and snippets of her own likes and dislikes. Her list of elegant things, for example, includes,

"A white coat worn with a violet waistcoat. Duck eggs. Shaved ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl. A rosary of rock crystal. Snow on wisteria or plum blossoms. A pretty child eating strawberries."

My own list of elegant things will keep. After all, the concept of elegance varies from person to person, culture to culture, era to era. Objects such as gored hose, were one considered the essence of chic have fallen into disfavor while time and mores have conspired to legitimize Biedermeier, the style once thought to be fit only for the uncritical bourgeoisie.

Much as the Heian court, the village where I live teems with self-appointed arbiters of elegance. There are the folks who wrinkle their noes and look as if they were sucking a lemon whenever one mentions the greatly popular Mary Englebreit and Harry Potter. These are the folks who fancy themselves as so intellectually pure they cannot bear to contact with anything that please the lumpen proletariat. Whatever. I can be as much of a snob as the next guy when the occasion calls for --luckily that is a rare event--but I am not above feeling affection for much that my superbly intelligent fellow villagers despise. Take, for example, a somewhat sappy book, The Rosary, written in 1910 by Florence Barclay, who was a very High Church English clergyman's wife. I was all of thirteen when I found it in my boarding school's library and I loved it for its descriptive passages of an English country life that seemed so utterly civilised to the little savage that I was. English gardens, English formality, butlers, golf, magnolias and tea seemed utterly exotic. There were gardens in my school, but our trees-- avocado, jacaranda, flame trees mango and buriti palms--could not compare with the cedars of Overdene, the heroine's home. Our only roses were mostly pink and French--La France, from Guillot et Fils, Amelia, from the Vibert nurseries, and Cecile Brunner, a Pernet baby--with the red Principe Negro (Black Prince) as the sole British interloper.

My love for beautifully illustrated children's books preceded my love of European novels. I have no idea of who illustrated my copy of Pedro Malvado, Strumpfelpeter, as terrifying a tale as Grimm Germany could produce. Fortunately what remained on mind was was the pretzel, translated into Portuguese as "a biscuit shaped like the number eight" someone gave Peter and the baker's shop where our hero's greed for more pretzels almost led him to being thrown into the oven. I will not digress and talk about the effect of such literature on the impressionable mind of German children. I wil just add being Brazilian descendant of Sephardic Jews, I am constitutionally and morally averse to the idea of baking people.