Each Little World

Quilted gardens

The temperature was 40 degrees outside when I woke up this morning. Lots of leaves and branches were down in the yard after a day and night of rain and high winds. When I heard the forecast on Sunday, I pulled some cold weather bedding out of the closet so we were warm and toasty despite the falling temps. It's suddenly the season of quilts — in the bedroom and the art gallery. 

Locally you can enjoy a vibrant exhibit of traditional and contemporary art quilts at the annual Olbrich Botanical Gardens Quilts in Bloom event now through October 11th. The quilts are displayed with grasses and fall plants keyed to the color and design of the textiles. There's a quilt raffle and even the outdoor Herb Garden is enlivened with a "quilted" courtyard planting. The quilt show is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and a $2 donation is suggested.

The star of this show must surely be Nora Bebee's quilted "Kokoro Kimono." An actual kimono is the foundation of the piece which has been enlarged and embellished with hand-beading and batik patterned leaves and images of Whitnall Park near Milwaukee (above and below). 

"Kokoro is a Japanese word that means heart, soul, spirit and mind," Bebee told the PR folks at Olbrich who noted the detail in an email to me. Bebee said she thought that was an especially appropriate title for her quilt, since "all those parts of me were used in creating the kimono."

If you're looking for artful quilted bedcoverings but can't make it to Madison, check out the Sundance catalog. They offer a wide array of quilts made from antique Indian saris (below). These come in different sizes, colors and patterns and are all handmade using antique textiles. 

Another attractive offering from Sundance is this Suchitra quilt (below). It comes in Queen and King sizes and is made of hand-printed cotton bordered in a matching floral and backed in brown cotton. Kantha stitching binds the layers together without batting. 

The top three photos are courtesy Olbrich Botanical Gardens and the bottom two are from the Sundance catalog web site. 

Market madness

My garden is still mostly green with the majority of leaves on the trees. My neighborhood is the same. It's at the Farmers Market that the explosion of fall color is most obvious. The beans are still green as is the leafy produce. But the only green tomatoes are zebra-striped while the peppers are shading into red. The pies are changing from peach to apple. And everywhere are the solid, round shapes of fall produce: shallots, cabbage, apples, and beets. Everthingis jewel-like, whether we're talking carrots or berries or blooms. The transition from September to October is marked with the last dramatic burst of color; a bouquet of rainbow hues.

Still glorious food

"Glorious Food" by Christoper Idone is considered to be the first of the "coffee-table" cookbooks. It certainly has all the necessary hallmarks: price ($45 in 1982!), size (9 1/2"' x 12 1/2"), and page after page of full-color photos. The book is dedicated to "Sean and Geraldine and a weekend in the country." Sean is Sean Driscoll, Idone's partner in "Glorious Food," the catering company of the same name. Geraldine is the late, incomparable Gerri Stutz, doyenne of Henri Bendel's and tastemaker in food, fashion and festive occasions. 

I've owned "Glorious Food" since shortly after it came out and, in all those years, I've only made three recipes from it — and one of them is a garnish! What I loved when I bought this book — and still love now — are the pictures of the rooms where these glorious meals are served. That — and the presentation of each dish and each meal, from the dinnerware to the flowers to the serving dishes. This is a book built on the theory that presentation is all.

I just made the Salad Nicoise which is shown on the cover. Inside the book, it's pictured being served on the deck of Lee Bailey's summer place on Long Island. (The late Lee Bailey is another favorite cookbook author who sold assorted kitchen and dinner ware in a shop bearing his name within Bendel's). 

I served my Nicoise on a huge white platter just as Idone did — with one important difference. No canned tuna for us. We always substitute grilled tuna steaks. They ramp up the glamour and most importantly, the flavor.

This is a dish that you can assemble just by looking at the cover of "Glorious Food." Idone's secret ingredient is pickled red onions which I always make. The hot pink color adds zip to the other colors as well as introducing another flavor. But with or without Idone's onions, this is the perfect meal for this moment when gardens and farmers markets are brimming with fall bounty.

GLORIOUS PICKLED RED ONIONS

2-3 thinly sliced large red onions

1 cup tarragon red wine vinegar (I used half white tarragon vinegar and red wine vinegar since that's what I had on hand)

1 Teaspoon sugar

3 whole cloves

4-5 crushed black peppercorns

Put the onions in a saucepan with the vinegar and enough cold water to cover (about 1 cup or a bit more). Add the sugar, cloves and peppercorns. Simmer over medium heat for about ten minutes or until the onions are tender. Refrigerate until ready to serve. (I always add the red onion skins to the pot for maximum color).

The chef describes the dish.

Garden journals: A handwritten history

Maybe it all started because the first gardening books I read were penned by English authors about their personal landscapes. And the English always take the long view when it comes to gardening. Thus I thought everyone kept receipts of plant purchases, drew plans and created written records of the history of their garden — as well as including interesting asides about weather, garden tours and daily happenings.

My first garden notations date from 1984 and were recorded in a diary from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each page of that hardbound book was divided into three horizontal sections with a place to note the year. Each page was devoted to the early, middle and late part of the month, providing an easy format with just the right amount of space to make my brief comments. 

I experimented with lots of Running Rhino brand journals before I settled on a favorite.

I use my garden notebooks to help me focus on design problems, to record observations about gardens I've visited or plants that have caught my eye. The books have been an invaluable resource when I've gone plant shopping because I can easily find the names of the exact varieties I've seen or read about and want to purchase. While I still record highlights in that original diary, I now use "Running Rhino'' brand journals as my main method of record-keeping. I'm currently writing in Volume Twelve.

The Running Rhino Sketch Journal has a photo of my garden on the cover to personalize it.

Over the years my journals have morphed into “scrapbooks” that include favorite quotes from Confucius to Aldo Leopold, pasted-in newspaper clippings, seed packets, pressed leaves and photos. The Rhino volumes have the advantage that they are spiral bound and can expand a bit to hold the extras I put in — and they stay flat for writing. I always replace the cover illustration with one of Mark's pictures of the garden; an easy way to personalize a mass-produced item. 

When writing, I make an effort to use words that are descriptive and not subjective. So rather than saying a plant is beautiful, I note its height and whether it's sprawling or standing tall; the date it first appears and the date it blooms or is ready for harvest. Most likely these things were noted in the catalog when I bought the plant, but the journal lets me compare advertising with reality.

An article about Patrick Chasse glued in the journal with my take on his design on the facing page.

I include a lot of weather data and observations. I always try to note the amount of rainfall because the day a drought begins is never obvious until later (4.25" inches of rain so far today as I’m writing). I always note any kind of unusual or severe weather. That can be anything from a tornado to a winter where the snow cover has not been deep or constant and there's been a lot of ice and freezing rain. With these records, I'm less likely to blame myself for plants that don't make it through the winter. 

Made a "snowflake" potato print using silver ink around a haiku to note snow on April 28, 2008.

What records you keep and the format you use are personal decisions. But I've discovered most gardeners do, in fact, keep some kind of records. Thomas Jefferson was so concise in his observation that he recorded the sighting of the first lightning bug of the season. The original owners of our house passed along a planting plan that showed the name and location of all the trees and shrubs they put in when the house was built in 1954 as well as the landscape architect's bill. That kind of documentation gives one's garden instant historical context.

Gardens are ephemeral; never the same two days in succession. A journal is the only place where you can make time stand still, where you can return to your garden on the days and years that you've captured in words. Someday your garden may be out of sight, but with a personal journal it never has to be out of mind. 

A stack of mostly "Rhino" garden journals. The one with the embroidered cover is from the Met Museum.

Parts of this previously appeared under my byline in The Capital Times.

The beginning of autum

The beginning of autumn:

Sea and emerald paddy

Both the same green.

 

Poem by Matsuo Basho, translated by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite

Fiber folk take note

The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection (HLATC), located on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, unveiled its new Web site on Friday. Now, even if you don't live where you can take advantage of this wonderful resource and its library in person, the Web site gives you a taste. With 13,000 textiles and related objects in the collection, there is something for everyone to chew on.

HLATC

Renie Breskin Adams, who created "Let's Be Civilized" (above), was one of my teachers in grad school at UW. This is just one of many wonderful fiber pieces in the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection.

There are a number of things that I particularly like about this new Web site — besides the fact that it is colorful and easy to navigate. The site is as smart and lively as the collection and its staff. Along with information about the collection's founders, there is actually a page dedicated to the staff and volunteers where you can see photos of all of them and then click to learn more. It's about time that the folks who keep this valuable resource running, get a little notice! 

Of course, the Web site has info on how the HLATC is used as a teaching resource, but it also offers armchair visitors images and information about a cast of featured textiles. Currently you can learn more about an embroidered Chinese Lotus Shoe (below) via a concise essay that gives the history of the object and compares it to a modern woman's floral motif shoe. Two other featured textiles are a Chinese child's hat (HLATC is particularly strong in ethnographic textiles) and a 1934 printed linen furnishing fabric by Ruth Reeves from her Hudson River series.

HLATC

In addition, there is an "Inspiration" category which features images and an article documenting how a student in a textile design class, "Manual/Computer Generated Imagery and Pattern," did a modern take on William Morris' "Honeysuckle" textile pattern. This is a more typical use of the collection — as a university resource — but just looking at this essay is enough to get the creative juices flowing no matter where you live.

SUSANNA HANSSON/BOHUS STICKNING

The site obviously includes information on how to "participate": how to become a supporter of the collection, how to volunteer and how to sign up for the e-mail list. There's an events category listing things like the textile book club and this afternoon's 8th Annual Membership Meeting ("An Afternoon with Friends" more aptly describes it) which includes a presentation on Bohus Stickning, a historic Swedish knitting tradition (examples above).

And there's information on the larger textile world like the fact that the United Nations has declared 2009 the International Year of Natural Fibres. This was news to me but now I know where to go to find out what's happening elsewhere. 

Shrink your lawn

For those of you who haven't decided to go all the way and eat your lawns a la the "Edible Estates" philosophy — but want to get rid of some grass — along comes Evelyn J. Hadden to tell you how to shrink your lawn. Hadden's book, "Shrink Your Lawn: Design Ideas for Any Landscape," looks at gardens large and small, and of every type, including woodland gardens, lawnless front gardens, small scale gardens and island beds.

But if you live in Madison and its environs, you can hear Hadden in person when she presents an illustrated talk on Thursday, Sept. 24 at Olbrich Botanical Gardens to help you make the lawnless leap. Registration deadline is Monday, Sept. 21. The fee is $11 for members, $13 for the general public and Hadden will sign copies of her book which will be for sale.

HADDEN/SHRINK YOUR LAWN

A neighborhood of lawnless front yards has a unique character and mood.

Hadden is only one of many people offering information and advice on how to downsize your lawn. Among the folks who are part of the Lawn Reform Coalition, along with Hadden, are the delightfully opinionated Garden Ranter Susan Harris, who offers her own take on the subject on her Sustainable Gardening blog. The Coalition's Web site has lots of valuable information as well as links to Madison's own Healthy Lawn Team, which is a co-sponsor of Hadden's Madison appearance.  An unexpected bonus of a visit to the coalition Web site was finding a picture of Austin blogger Pam Penick's front garden. (Mark and I had the pleasure of spending time with both Susan and Pam at the garden bloggers' 2009 Spring Fling in Chicago). 

As one who eliminated my entire back lawn in the early 1990s, I've been collecting images of landscapes with less lawn, no lawn and alternatives to the ubiquitous blue grass turf as well. So here are some of my favorite ideas to get you in the mood to shrink your lawn.

The lawnless entrance to a large house in Illinois (above) with the driveway running across the bottom of the image.

The front yard of a Victorian house on the grounds of the Chautauqua Institute (above and below) retains a bit of grass to tie it to the neighboring property.

Small, sloped and shady: A Madison front yard shows why grass isn't needed to create a beautiful entrance (above and below).

Three views (below) of a Milwaukee lot whose steep slope has been brilliantly planted for privacy and beauty.

Looking to the right at the end of the driveway (above) and looking left (below).

Olbrich's Meadow Garden is inspired by English meadow gardens, according to the staff, and features low-maintenance fescue grasses and spring flowering bulbs (below). 

SHARON CYBART / OLBRICH

"The short, drought-tolerant fescue grasses eliminate the need for high maintenance and energy consumptive lawn care," they noted in an email message. "The grasses don't require supplemental watering or fertilizer and are mowed just twice a year — once in late spring and again in late fall."

JEFF EPPING / OLBRICH

This garden has always struck me as the perfect solution to a large lot where one wants some spring color and then to take the rest of the year off. It's romantic and low maintenance — a winning combo!

Lifelong inspiration: Mary Allin Travers

It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.

1936 — 2009

Lemon herbs

I began growing herbs long before I had a garden. They were in pots on porches, tucked next to steps and back doors; anywhere there was a bit of room and a lot of sun. The minute I had a plot of my own, I planted chives; a pass-along from my garden mentor who also sat next to me at work, a lovely arrangement and one conducive to impromptu garden (and life) lessons.

I planted all the things that I never saw to buy at the grocery store but were critical recipe ingredients in the cookbooks I was reading at the time. Things like Lovage and Summer Savory and Perilla. Over the years, my taste in various herbs has waxed and waned, along with the amount of sun in my garden. But two herbs that I'd never be without are Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis, below) and Lemon Thyme (Thymus citriodorus variegata; the variegated variety is the prettiest, above)

These days, most of my herbs are planted next to paths for easy clipping and close to the house (when possible) so I can run out whatever the weather. But if I only had room for a few, Lemon Balm and Lemon Thyme would always top the list, because they're the flavoring in my favorite summer dessert: Double Lemon Tea Bread. This recipe is probably from the 1970s and is likely from House Beautiful magazine. It's pasted on an index card and stuck inside a plastic sleeve in my recipe box where I can easily find it, even if I can no longer recollect the source.

DOUBLE LEMON TEA BREAD

 

BREAD INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon grated lemon peel 

1 tablespoon finely chopped lemon balm

1 tablespoon fine chopped lemon thyme

3/4 cup of milk

LEMON GLAZE:

Juice of two lemons

Confectioners' (powdered) sugar

Mix flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside. Cream butter and gradually add in sugar. Then beat eggs in one at a time. Continue beating until light and fluffy. Beat in lemon peel and chopped herbs. Add flour mixture alternately with milk. Mix until batter is just blended.

Pour batter into greased 9 x 5 x 3 inch bread pan. Bake at 325 degrees about 50 minutes until a broom straw inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from pan and set on a cooling rack.

Add lemon juice, a few drops at time, to sifted confectioners' sugar until you have a thick but still pourable glaze. Pour the glaze over the still hot bread. Decorate with sprigs of Lemon Thyme. It's prettiest if the thyme is flowering. Mine had flowered once and been cutback (along with the Lemon Balm) and virtually had no flowers.

The flavor is very subtle and the bread has a fine texture and slices easily. Great with a glass of iced tea or lemonade on a hot afternoon — like today. You could easily increase the amount of lemon zest for a sharper flavor, but you don't want to increase the herbs so much that you wind up with green bread!

Lemon Balm can be pretty rampant but it smells wonderful as you pull it out to keep it under control! Mine also gets ratty looking by August so I cut it back to about 6 inches tall and it puts out a flush of new growth. Lemon Thyme likes perfect drainage and mine dies out every few years and I have to start again. The biggest, hardiest clump of it is growing in my traffic island bed where it gets lots of sun bounced off the concrete and also picks up lots of dirt and car exhaust fumes.  

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: 09.15.09

This post marks our first year of participating in GBBD. Rather than showing you what's blooming at the moment, we decided to look back at the past year to review what was blooming then. Click on the name of the month to see the complete post for that month.

SEPTEMBER: Sweet Autumn Clematis was done in this year by unknown forces.

OCTOBER: A toast to toad lilies.

NOVEMBER: The earliest Spring plants also put on a strong show as the garden season ends. 

DECEMBER: China and pottery are all that's in bloom this month.

JANUARY: Mark went to the Bolz Conservatory at Olbrich Botanical Gardens for some winter color.

FEBRUARY: We found inspiration with Elizabeth Barrett Browning and my romantic stash of dried roses.

MARCH: Snowdrops made their appearance in time for Bloom Day.

APRIL: Buds, shoots and leaves. 

MAY: Rilke and reckless blooming in the garden.

JUNE: is bustin' out, turning the garden into one big bouquet.

JULY: Mark makes a pointilist arrangement.

 

AUGUST: Doll's Eyes dominate the August landscape.

Thanks as always to Carol of May Dreams Gardens for hosting GBBD. Visit her to see what's growing in gardens around the country and the world on this September 15th, 2009.