21 to love: my oddball list of favorite posts

There’s no doubt that every country in Europe is famous for something – they have their own national symbols like flags, dishes, alcoholic beverages, animals, sports etc. But have you ever thought about the national flowers of European countries?

We strongly believe that planning and preparing are crucial for success in every area. Gardening is no exception, but sometimes it can be difficult to know what you are supposed to do this month—especially if you have limited experience in the gardening area.

Summer slowly withdraws and autumn takes over. Days grow shorter and nights become cooler. And as trees shed leaf after leaf – little harbingers of the colder months to come, you can get your mind off how yet another summer has passed and how fleeting time in general is by doing some practical tasks around your garden this September.

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“Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.” Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

As temperatures drop and summer leaves change colors, outdoor physical activity becomes enjoyable. There are many ways you and your family can get active during the fall season.

SHE LOVES ME, SHE LOVES ME NOT.Andre Jordan seems to keep hoping for the best, despite a few well-documented cases of rejection (as in, loc. cit., The Girl I Love With All My Heart. Caveat emptor: Deliciously not PG!).

Colocasia ‘Mojito’ (Zone 7b-10), like all its cousins that we call elephant ears or taro, is a heat-loving plant that’s also hungry and thirsty. I grew it in a bright spot in a potting soil with lots of compost, and stood a big, deep saucer underneath—something I wouldn’t do with most other plants outdoors for fear of rotting them off. I don’t use chemical fertilizers, but I mixed in some all-natural organic formulation at planting time and occasionally added fish and seaweed emulsion to the water I gave it.In food production, prevalent in Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean, it’s the starchy tubers that are the thing—bigger is better. In ornamental horticulture, the above-ground portion is where it’s at, and here’s where the tricky part comes in about overwintering some of the most spectacular new taros—including ‘Mojito,’ and the better known ‘Black Magic.’ They don’t produce big tubers that can be lifted, like you might a canna or some of the elephant ears, and stashed dry in the cellar.

At the time of the transplanting of the young umbrella pine, I had never seen another except in botanical-garden collections; unusual or rare was the word. Now they’re at nurseries, but usually quite small and always quite expensive, and they’re pretty easy to kill, at least at first. But what did I know when I uprooted the tree and had it put in that truck?I was just getting really serious about plants, and was a beginning garden writer, meaning I had the privilege of getting paid to visit gardens and nurseries and interview experts for stories. Those years formed my advanced education in horticulture—and also my downfall in self-control. Everybody showed me or told me about something I simply had to have. Or two or three.An umbrella pine first spoke to me in a come-hither voice at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, Long Island, a place I’d visited a lot as a

100 Great Plants: From the English newspaper The Telegraph, a list of 100 great garden plants. (An aside: Why don’t our newspapers have garden sections like this one?)The Ambergate Lists: From Ambergate Gardens, Mike and Jean Heger’s nursery in Minnesota, a series of great lists covering topics from plants for deep shade to plants that don’t require frequent division.Vinnie Simeone’s Lists: Vinnie manages historic Planting Fields Arboretum on Long Island, my old stomping grounds, and has taught me many things. His personal website includes links up top to lists as desired as deer-resistant plants and plants for

I make about eight batches of red sauce late summer until frost, stashing it in the freezer for a year of enjoyment.  It isn’t much prep work, at least not the way I cook. Each “batch” constitutes a spaghetti potful of fresh, raw ingredients before it cooks down to less than half that, enough for 5 or 6 freezer containers of 12-16 ounces each. If you’ve got that last glut of tomatoes in need of processing, or see a bargain bushel of seconds at the farmstand, this lazy-person’s recipe for red sauce might be just the thing.Again, I don’t take the time to peel or seed the tomatoes (to you purists, mea culpa; I’m a whole-food type…and also a bit manic when I cook). The sauce is the tiniest bit more bitter, perhaps, but think of all that fiber (and time saved).Lazy Woman’s Tomato SauceIngredients Enough paste-type or other tomatoes to fill a spaghetti pot 1 head garlic Extra virgin olive oil Fresh basil Fresh parsley, preferably Italian flat-leaf Salt and pepper to taste; small amount of sugar optionalWash tomatoes and cut off stem ends and any blemishes