The Germinatrix: A Gardening Q & A

Sun, in a Flower...

dominomag — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:42:21 -0400

I have been praising the wonders of the homegrown tomato for a while now, but there is another emblem of summer that has been stopping me in my tracks lately ... the simple sunflower.

Again I have to come clean about my plant snobbery. Once I had my gardener's consciousness raised, I refused to use lots of good plants just because they were common, or 'ugly'. HUH? WHATEVER!!! Like the old saying goes, there's nothing more dangerous than a little knowledge - swaddled in my baby gardener arrogance, I was sure I knew all I needed to know to make sweeping pronouncements about what plants were worthy and which ones were 'icky'.

The sunflower, possibly the most proletariat of all blooming plants, was just too earnest for me. Too easy. Too eager to please.

But this year it is like the proverbial scales have fallen from my eyes. What was I thinking? These giants with halos of summer sun, icky? Please! Why was I exempting these plants from my version of the Golden Rule, that any plant, well combined in appropriate planting associations, can be beautiful? I can imagine these beauties rising up behind the majestic Phormium 'Sundowner', with Aeonium 'Zwartkopf' and Anigoanthus 'Red Cross' bringing the whole thing home. Add in Salvia 'Indigo Spires', and you have yourself a kick-ass late summer combo.

I make you a promise, here and now. No more plant snobbery. Not even for petunias. I'm sure I can find a way to use petunias in a way that will make me love them. It'll be a challenge, but I am up to it. Stay tuned for The Germinatrix Does Petunias Her Way! It might take a while, but I won't give up!!!

Dahlia Daze

dominomag — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:44:53 -0400

My little town within a city, Eagle Rock, is MAD about Dahlias. The biggest, oldest, fanciest, and somewhat haunted-looking house in Eagle Rock is on Dahlia street. The annual late summer street festival is called 'Dahlia Days'. And everybody plants dahlias.

I snapped a few shots as I rode my bike to the market the other day, and I passed by many others. They are so ... juicy. Statuesque. They almost look fake, but the bees buzzing circles around them clearly show you that they are very real.

I have never planted dahlias. My rule about plants is that I want at least three seasons of performance - I live in a climate that doesn't freeze, so I can demand alot. I've always thought dahlias were prima donnas - there's all this expectation for them to show up, and when they finally do, they show up with a bang. The leaves unfurl, shoot up, suddenly there are buds, and then WOW ... the FLOWERS! What divas - total scene stealers, these ladies.

But now I'm thinking, is that really so bad? A beautiful, beguiling dahlia is like a special guest star; the garden version of a cameo appearance by Greta Garbo (they had faces then!). With my insistence on toughness, drought tolerance and multi-season performance, am I throwing the baby out with the bathwater? As I look at these thick, petal heavy flowers, I start musing about interesting combinations I can make with them. I can see them rising up behind an Agave weberi, or mixing it up with a Salvia clevelandii. Why not take advantage of that sudden, dramatic appearance on the summer stage? Hmmmm...

I think I need to consider this plant. Who am I to be rigid and say no? I think I'll think about it.... I think.

Mine and Its

dominomag — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:41:37 -0400

This is my tomato harvest for the day:

Here's what the rat ate:

Do you notice anything? The light on the rat's midnight snack might obscure the fact that this little vermin is an epicurean. He only nibbles on the heirlooms. There are bites taken from my Black Krims, my Hawaiian Pineapples, my Juliettes, and my Stupice. What an A - hole, this rat!

Sheesh. I can't really complain, I've had lots of great tomatoes, and the season has barely hit it's stride, BUT STILL!!!

I have to admit, after tasting all the tomatoes except Stupice, Lemon Boy, and the Beefsteaks, my favorites are .... drumroll ... the Juliettes. I know. Not the Black Krims, not the Early Girls, nor the Green Grapes... not the Hawaiian Pineapples, the Heatmasters, or the San Diego Reds. IMHO, the little oblong Juliettes have the best balance of acid and sweetness, and the texture is perfect. I make caprese salads with them twice a week, cooked salsa, and I've roasted them for pasta and sandwiches. Total yumminess from these, and they keep on coming! My next favorite is Champion, but the production on my two plants is pretty low. Rounding out the top three is - Early Girl. I guess I love a classic tomato - to me, the Black Krims that I've grown are a little watery and a little salty. That could be due to a break in my driplines that flooded my Krim for almost two weeks before I discovered it - too much water is known to break down the texture of a tomato, but I can't account for the extra saltiness.

My dear husband is ready for my tomatomania to end. The only place he likes tomatoes is in ketchup or salsa. Whenever he hears me complain about the rat's nighttime raids while bringing in bowl after bowl brimming with red, pink, purple and orange globes of summer goodness, he rolls his eyes.

I know that in the vegetable war between me and the rat, my dear spouse is on the rat's side.

Foolish husband. Foolish rat...

Compliments... Contrasts... Oh My...

dominomag — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:03:07 -0400

Color means so much in a garden. When working for clients, I make lists upon lists of plants and their characteristics - winnowing and honing until only the plants that work best together are represented, and color is the most important factor I consider. I can't help it! I'm color MAD!

I tend to use alot of color contrast in my work - I love to punch up one plant by combining it with a horse of a different color (That's a metaphor, of course - I don't plant horses). In the picture above, the green of the juniper 'pops' the Echeveria 'Afterglow'...

In this image, the same echeveria is paired with a complimentary flax - Phormium 'Red Dark Green' ... the 'Afteglow' doesn't seem as rich, but the monochromatic pairing is so thrilling that I don't care! Looking at this combo in my garden would make me so happy. I think I'm going to get me some of this and make it happen.

Now, I am not a color theorist, and I'm not talking about contrast and compliment as they apply to the color wheel; to me, in gardens, compliments are colors that harmonize and contrasts are colors that vibrate when put together.

Vibration ... OOooooLaaaaLaaaa...

Oooo, Aaaaaah, ... Tomatoes... Mmmmmm...

dominomag — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:28:49 -0400

I never really understood about tomatoes.
Why do people flip their wigs when it comes to tomatoes?
They go berzerk - but it isn't those pale, mealy globes that we can get year-round at the supermarkets that inspires these strong feelings. No. This passionate lunacy is seasonal. It's all about summer, and it's all about ... Heirlooms.

Heirlooms. The word confers such status to this segment of the vegetal population ... they are precious, handed down to us from people who care about us; people who want the best for us - people who love us. They didn't want us to eat what is grown by some agri-business conglomerate; the kind of produce has been bred for storage and long-haul transportation with maybe a smidge of taste and nutritional value left intact. I found out that the lovely fruits and vegetables we ate before we were duped by convenience were quietly being saved, in the background, by small farmers and home gardeners all over the country... passed down to the next generation like the precious jewels they are. Heirlooms.

The poster child for the heirloom movement is a tomato. A big, beautiful, delicious wonder called 'Brandywine'. Doesn't the name sound juicy and tasty and great? Like you want to hurry up and put some of that in your mouth? The brandywine tomato radicalized the gardening community - there was no way to get that superlative taste other than growing it yourself. Or buying them at farmer's markets. they are simply too delicate, too easily defiled, to be transported the way their cardboard - tasting cousins are.

There are so many wonderful heirloom tomatoes, and I had a hand in writing an article in the glossy pages of DOMINO that gives you recipes so you can fully explore the flavors of these gifts of the summer garden. Here are some of the very best varieties that you absolutely MUST try before the cool winds of autumn make heirloom tomatoes a fond memory.

Jump with me to get my top picks!

Brandywine - was first introduced in 1886, but was lost to mainstream cultivation until an Ohio family gave seeds to Seed Saver's Exchange in 1982. This family had been planting this tomato and saving the seed, the n passing it down a generation for 80 years. The flavor is full, the acid balance is just about perfect, and one thick slice is perfect for a tomato sandwich - add basil, olive oil, salt&pepper, and your favorite bread. YUM!

Beefsteak - I am growing this, and it is a wonder (none have ripened yet, but I have at least 13 HUGE fruits on one vine). The flavor is slightly sweet and the flesh is firm and meaty ... this has been a favorite forever due to its excellent taste, and extreme versatility . Do with it what you will, and it will reward you by being simply divine.

Black Krim - beautiful and yummy... they ripen to a deep purpley-maroon color with green shoulders. They are bursting with intensity, and have a saltiness to them. I just ate the first one from my vegetable garden, and it was outstanding. People go crazy over this one.

Cherokee Purple - let me say it again : Cherokee Purple. Right now, hoards of tomatomaniacs (Shout out to my friend Scott Daigre - the leader of the Tomatomaniacs) are saying "AMEN". Many consider this the very best of the best - you have to taste it. It was inducted into the Slow Food 'Arc of Taste', which is basically the Academy Awards of edible anything.

Green Grape - cute as a button and a must for salads, or eating strait off the vine. Not as sweet as most cherry-sized tomatoes - a little fresher.

Green Zebra - is my favorite tomato! Clean flavors - a bit cucumbery to me, and so ornamental. Very easy to grow, and easy to find at most grocery stores during the summer.

Costoluto Genovese - one pretty tomato, with fluted edges and a deep red color. Meaty and tasty - a great one for eating fresh and using in caprese salads because of its striking good looks. A favorite all over the Mediterranean.

Hawaiian Pineapple - another big one I'm growing, and I can't wait to harvest my first one! This is a sweet tomato, mild and yet somehow classically tomatoesque. It is yellow, with some red striping and a reddish center - I love mixing it with red, purple, and green tomatoes for an over the top salad.

San Marzano - if you want to make sauce, don't you DARE reach for another tomato! Thick and meaty, with next to no juice - perfect to cook with. Those Italian sauce makers know their stuff, thy prefer San Marzano to Romas hands down.

Stupice - is perfect for cooler climates, and is a great all around tomato. Sweet/acid tomato-y flavor.

Vintage Wine - is new to me, but absolutely worth adding to my list of favorites. Firm flesh, slightly sweet, and what a beauty!

Summer is the only time I eat tomatoes - Heirlooms come in for a short amount of time, and so from late June to early October I eat them as much as I can. Sandwiches, salads, pastas - or just standing over my cutting board, sliced, sprinkled with a few grains of Maldon salt. Heaven. And when the season is over, so is my tomato eating. I am loyal - committed. I wait, my hunger for the fruits of summer slowly building. By late March my tastebuds are tingling, by May I can barely stand it - and then comes June ... and the wonderful burst of goodness that comes with the first bite of the season.

OMIGOD - I am SO HUNGRY now!

Don't Try This at Home!

dominomag — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:53:09 -0400

It isn't all about food in my garden - all though you wouldn't know it these days...

One of my favorite things to look at is the planting I call my "Side Porch Garden", because it is the garden next to my ... well ... you follow.

Check out that MADNESS! That crazy color work! This is not a planting for the faint of heart - it is a gaudy party dress of a garden ... and I LOVE IT!

I have a heart stopping amount of variegation in this garden - the orange flowered Canna 'Tropicanna', the tiny Euphorbia 'Helena's Blush' (in full bloom), Phormium 'Red Dark Green', and - somebody STOP me - Cortaderia 'Silver Comet'. What got into me? Well, mixing different variegation is supposed to be a no-no, so guess what I wanted to do? Play. Experiment. See if I could make it work.

If you look closely, each of the variegated plants has a soft yellow tone connecting them. The cortaderias - the grasses in the background- seem to glow with their own light, and that same color is present in the center of the canna leaves, as well as the edges of the phormium. You can't see the foliage of the euphorbia through it's spent blooms - but those blooms have become a soft buff that ties them to the rest of the variegated posse.

What makes this garden really sing for me is the blue tones of the agaves - Agave franzonii in the background and Agave 'Blue Glow' down in the left front part of the frame. They are like the yogurt raita you eat with a hot curry - refreshing, delicious, and neccesary. Their forms are dazzling, and even though this planting is a color study, shape and texture still have to be considered.

If I were putting this same moment into a client's garden, I'd probably bring in more green mounding plants to give a little more balance into the picture, and I might change the Euphorbia 'Helena's Blush' to the non variegated variety Euphorbia 'Martinii'. But in my garden - this planting stays as is.

Until another variegated wonder comes over to play!

The Sweetie in a Glass

dominomag — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:45:51 -0400

Reader Emotional Mullet - to whom I pledged my undying affection because of that rad name - has a mystery plant sitting on her windowsill! She has enlisted the Germinatrix to sleuth out the identity of this cutting she took from a friend's plant...

... and this was my answer:

So, fasten your seatbelt. I think that attractive slice of stem and leaf you have sitting in a glass is a ... sweet potato! Ipomoea batatas 'Ace of Spades' to be precise. I have these ornamental sweet potatoes growing in by veg beds - but my version is Ipomoea batatas 'Blackie', which has more pointed, witchy type leaves. If I am right, check the 'mother plant' at your friend's house. If you dig where the main roots should be, you should find a big, swollen root - the potato! That will make my guess right - but I'm practically 95% sure right now. The stem is correct, the placement of the leaves is correct, the fact that they emerge green and then turn purple is right on - and the fact that the stems root easily is 100% sweet potato! I think we can throw caution to the wind and call this case closed!

This is one of my favorite plants ever. I like to use it as a cascading element in containers, and I also often plant it where it can drip over retaining walls ... it is really sexy at the height of summer and well into the fall. It'll disappear in the late winter for us here in California .... probably a little earlier for you - but it comes back every June, bigger and better. There are also wonderful golden green and bronze varieties. Once you go sweet potato, you don't go back!

People say you can eat the root, just like the edible sweet potato - but I'm not gonna do it. This plant is the one 'cheat' in my vegetable garden, because it is so damned awesome! Good choice of plant, E-mullet, even if you didn't know what it was you were choosing! You have excellent horticultural taste... Let's be friends!

Small but Mighty

dominomag — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:31:45 -0400

Hel-lo!

The other day I was at the Minion's house, and I was completely enthralled by the tiny vegetable garden he has been cultivating. Since he rents, he didn't want to dig up the entire yard to facilitate his eating of fresh food - he made himself a modest plot where he grows:

(8) Champion tomatoes
(1) Cucumber
(2) Bunching onions
(5) Strawberries - there would have been 6, but one bit the dust...
And a plethora of lettuces:
(2) green leaf
(2) arugula
(2) mesclun

...all in a space that measures approximately 6' x 8'!

He started his vegetable growing project last year, before he became my Jack - Of - All - Trades, so it wasn't my influence - if anything, it's the other way around. My vegetable dreams have become bigger because of his encouragement and enthusiasm. Sometimes, a 23 year old can have alot to teach a ... a more than 23 year old.

What really knocked me out about MZ's tiny plot was the beauty of the lettuces, tightly packed together. I am seriously thinking of using them as a front of the border groundcover for an ornamental garden! Wouldn't that be so beautiful? And what a bonus - salad! MZ has been feasting on the thinnings and clippings from his lettuces for a couple of months now, and even in this heat, they are still looking great. I love it - the best way to keep your plants looking good is to eat them!

I've been integrating a few edibles into ornamental beds for quite a while - artichokes, red shiso, golden oregano ... but why stop there? Sure, most vegetables are annuals, and need more attention (read: fertilizer and water) than I like to give my "other" plants, but a lovely little strip of lettuces setting off a perennial planting - I can deal with that! Even if it means an extra sprinkle of water and a dose or two of Dr. Earth.

The dividends would be too delicious not do it!

Someone Gave Me A Kitty!!!

dominomag — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:21:24 -0400

Bella's painting
My day is so totally made! I checked my email earlier, and would you look at what reader Bella F. sent me! A beautiful watercolor of exactly the kind of friend I need to help me get this dastardly rat in hand. Would you just look at how she sat the pretty kitty just so on the fermob chair - the one I showed in the last posting; and look! ... check out the kangaroo paws dancing in the front, and there is my ever-present Aeonium 'Zwartkopf'! She's even put in my glazed pots in the background...

Original pic - kitty sorely needed!

I have to admit to squealing with delight and running around the house. What a lovely gesture! You readers are the best! I have Suasoria to help me co-ordinate my clothing with my gardens, Katef to bounce recipes off of, Sumcool to drop in on next time I'm up in her neck of the woods (she'll even let Dexter and Sadie come along!) - and now a new friend, Bella, who captures the exact feeling of my garden (plus kitty) in her lovely painting. I stand in awe, and am so very appreciative of Bella's generosity of spirit.

Readers, you are all super cool... I'm lucky to have you, all of you!

I feel refreshed and renewed, and will take on the marauding invader with vigor. I have a watercolor cat as my sidekick in this endeavor ... who I am naming "Kitty La Bella". Fitting, isn't it?

Well, I HAD to check out Bella's website - her work is a riot of color and texture and direction ... she seems to wink at the history of painting by using classic techniques in a very sassy way. I adore art that is rich and whimsical! You guys have to stop by and see for yourself ... you'll love the rest of her stuff!

Thank you, Bella! So much!

Check Out My Paws!

dominomag — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:07:10 -0400

Can anyone resist Kangaroo Paws?

Aren't they strange and cute and fierce, all at once?

I fell for them so hard when I first started gardening, but had such a hard time keeping them going! The first year after I put them in the ground they'd always look great, but every year after they'd just get skimpier and skimpier, until they would just peter out completely.

Well, what I found out after I installed my irrigation system, is that they do like their water. Since they are from Australia, they are of course pretty xeric (a fancy gardener word for dry-loving), but they seem to really appreciate a consistent, small amount of H2O. And another thing - if I cut down the stems right after they go crunchy and give up the ghost, I'll have a bumper crop of blooms the next growing season. I always like to keep spent blossoms on the plant as long as possible, to facilitate self-seeding and to give birds and other wildlife things to perch on and snack on - but this is one of those rule breakers. And I do love the rule breakers!

My very very favorite "Paw" is Anigozanthus 'Orange Cross' - see it here looking pretty snazzy in the foreground against my fabulously stripey Fermob chairs (see the ubiquitous Aeonium 'Zwartkopf' in the picture - there is no getting away from that plant in my garden, I have it everywhere). I also love the old classic Paw, Anigozanthus flavidus. The bloom in the first image is from one of the very first plants I ever put in the ground - over twelve years ago. It's doing pretty well, considering it's such an old timer.

If you don't have a garden, you can always indulge in these wonderful wierdos - florists carry them, and they are always appropriate.

In fact, I had them in my bridal bouquet - along with an Aeonium 'Zwartkopf', of course!