STARS OF TODAY

On my rooftop garden I aim to have plantings of major interest from March through December: that means interest to ME, who designs, plants and tends the garden for my condo building. In winter only the desperate smokers face the gale-force winds and frigid cold of the 18thfloor. Here’s what’s making me happy today.

One bush of blue hydrangea is coming to peak form, a Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Endless Summer’ that blooms on both new and old wood. The H.m.‘Nikko Blue’ that were planted before my tenure rarely flower but I hate to rip them out because the foliage is still nice. The hydrangea is backed up by some modest yellow potentilla, enhanced by the bright blue.Also starting to bloom is the lacecap hydrangea ‘Lady in Red’ whose new leaves and stems are a reddish color as advertised and whose foliage will turn deep maroon in fall.

The lavender ‘Hidcote’
is really showing off
and I picked a few
stems for pressing,
but the ‘Provence’
lavender (Lavandula x
intermedia 'Provence')
is just getting started.

The brilliant chartreuse
foliage of the Sumac
‘Tiger Eyes’ (Rhus
typhina) makes it one
of my favorite plants
now and until late fall,
especially in front of
the deep mahogony
of the cut leaf Japanese maple. In a container this sumac is beautifully controlled.

Just going off stage is the climbing rose ‘New Dawn’ that blooms here but once a year, even when I deadhead assiduously. It earns its keep by the month-long show it flashes in late May. Other roses like 'Crown Princess Margareta', 'Oso Easy Paprika', and
'Graham Thomas'
have finished their
first big bloom and
are setting new buds
for later display.
(Below, the climber
'New Dawn' trying
to escape.)And in the herb garden,
not much color but in
teresting sweet flavor
from my one specimen
of Stevia rebaudiana
that is making its debut
this year. Stevia powder
is all the rage as a
natural sweetener, and
I wanted to see what
this semi-tropical herb
would do here in NYC.
In the fall I’ll bring it in
to winter over on my
windowsill.

Below, Wreath design Ellen
Spector Platt , photo© Alan & Linda Detrick
If you like to dry
hydrangea for indoor
decorations DON’T
CUT THE FLOWERS
NOW. Wait until they’re
very mature. That
means that every stem
you cut will have been
on the bush for 1-2
months, feel papery
to the touch, and have
started to change color
slightly, i.e. the whites
get tinges of pink
or wine color, the blues
get tinges of green or
maroon. If you cut too
early, the petals will
shrivel as they dry. Cut
when the flowers are
mature, then you can
arrange them immed-
iately without even
hanging to dry. And don't try to dry the flower heads that have but a few petals like the lacecap varieties. You'll thank me for this tip!
(Design Ellen Spector Platt, photo© Alan & Linda Detrick)

It's not too late!

Here we are in the middle of June. Have you planted anything yet? Don't panic...it's not too late to start an herb garden in a window box.

One of the advantages of growing your herbs in a window box is that they can be placed conveniently near the kitchen (outside the kitchen window, on the stoop, hanging from the back fence.) The closer and easier your herbs are to pinch, the more often you'll find yourself reaching for a fragrant leaf or two.

If you're just getting started now, buy small plants instead of seeds for an earlier harvest. Most garden centers and farmers' markets sell herbs in 4" pots. Allow each herb six inches of growing space. In other words, if you have a 24" window box, you can plant 4 herbs; a 36" window box has space for 6 herbs.

Be sure you group herbs together that require the same growing conditions. For full sun try basil, thyme, sage, dill, parsley, cilantro, or fennel. A part shade location is fine for rosemary, bay leaf, chives, or lemon verbena. (These herbs can also take full sun.)

A word of warning: If you have your heart set on oregano or mint, DO NOT include them in a window box with other herbs. Oregano and mint, while delicious, don't play well with others. They'll quickly take over any container they're planted in, so give them their own pots.

The first step is to cover the drainage holes in the bottom of your window box with pottery shards or pieces of screening or landscape cloth. This prevents soil from running out the holes. If your window box doesn't have drainage holes, now is the time to drill them: 1/2 inch holes every six inches should do the trick.

Add enough soil to the bottom of the box so that when the herbs are in place, the top of the soil will be an inch or two below the rim of the box; this helps prevent messy spill-overs when you water. Be sure to maintain the original planting level of the herbs: don't expose the roots by planting too high or cover the stem by planting too low.

Take your herbs out of their pots, or, if they're in biodegradable peat pots, peel off the top edge so whatever is left will be below the soil. If you leave the peat pot exposed to the air it will wick moisture away from the root ball, where it's needed.

Place your herbs to see how you like the arrangement, then plant, firming in the soil around the roots as you go. You want each herb's roots to make good contact with the soil. The final step is to water, which you should do thoroughly! Thoroughly means until water runs out the bottom of the window box. This run-off tells you the entire volume of soil has been saturated.

How often you have to water your window box will depend on how hot it is, how sunny it is, and how much it rains! In the middle of summer, you might need to water every day. This self-watering window box is from Gardener's Supply and the reservoir holds enough water to get you through 3-7 days, depending on the weather. It's a reliable and effective labor saving device and I recommend them to anyone who likes to take a long weekend off in the summer without worrying about who's going to water the herb garden.

THE QUEEN OF QUEENS

Stream of re-cycled graywater fascinates at the Queens Botanical Garden

Five boroughs in New York City, four botanical gardens and I had only visited three of them until last week. It seemed a terrible schlep to Queens: two subways and a bus, and the outgoing express train not running against the morning commuter tide coming into Manhattan.

But the story of the Queens Botanical Garden is compelling and I’m more than delighted that I ventured forth. Queens is the most ethnically diverse county in the United States, with 48% of the population foreign born and people speaking 138 languages. The QBG itself is in a largely Asian neighborhood and this is a space that's heavily used by neighbors rather than by tourists. Explanatory signs throughout the garden appear in English, Spanish, Chinese and Korean languages.

This garden of 39 acres just opened the highest LEED rated (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) public building in the State of New York with its new Visitor & Administration Building, all under the leadership and vision of Exec. Director Susan Lacerte.Here are some of the attractions that go into the Platinum LEED rating and ones that you’ll see on a guided tour: solar panels on a large roof;
Re-cycled water from sinks, drinking fountains and shower; some compostingIntensive green roof, six inches of soil with a large variety of native and low water plants.

toilets; green roof over the large auditorium, one you can actually walk on; geothermal heating/cooling system; many building materials locally grown, manufactured, or recycled; captured rain runoff filtered by bacterial action of plant roots supplying a meandering stream graced with native plants and a fountain. AND THE BUILDING IS EXTREMELY HANDSOME AND SATISFYING. Currently under construction is a parking 'garden' with special paving to allow the capture and treatment of water from a typically impervious surface.

The garden itself has many traditional areas including these themes: fragrance, herbs, flowering trees, wetlands, perennials, woodlands, weddings, bee keeping, composting sites. The
rose garden is being
transformed with new
plantings of sustainable
varieties that will need
no spraying. To the
right, white and red val-
erian and bronze fennel
in the herb garden.

The children’s program
offers a huge selection
of classes for all grade
levels planned by the
amazing QBG Director
of Education Patty
Kleinberg. Neighbor-
hood kids plant in
a special garden area,
and explore nature on
weekends and summer
vacation.

But it’s not necessary to
have an official chil-
drens garden for kids
to have fun. Give them
some water to explore,
a huge blue atlas cedar
to climb and they’re
happy. I heard a smart
mother trying to lure a
recalcitrant four year-
old to “see the roses.”
He wanted no parts of
it until she changed her
offer to “smell the
roses” and they went
off happily together.
(Double-click on any
image for better view.)

For more information
and directions go to QBC.

Central Park...my favorite restaurant

Ok, it's not really my favorite restaurant, but I think it's pretty cool to take a walk in the Park and pick up a few wild ingredients for a delicious batch of cookies or a special yogurt treat.

Sophia Brittan and Emma Piper-Burket are the brains (and beauty) behind Kitchen Caravan, an internet cooking show (and so much more!). We bonded last summer over a foraged meal and weekend of foodie indulgence at my home in PA, and this spring I contributed to their series of videos on edible flowers.

Sophia and I took a wet walk in Central Park, then headed back to her apartment to cook and eat.
The dandelion cookies are sneakily addictive. I took only two with me and they were gone by the time I walked home (a mere 3 blocks). They're not super sweet, but they ARE delicious. Thanks to Peter Gail for the recipe.

Our second edible floral was lilac flowers in yogurt. Think of it as a healthier, more sophisticated version of a DQ Blizzard (...mmm...DQ Blizzard...). Of course my favorite lilac flower recipe is lilac flower wine, but since that takes about 2 years from start to finish it doesn't make for great television. Sure makes for good drinking, though.

N.B. I didn't actually pick the lilacs for this project in Central Park. While I have no problem foraging in public places for things most people consider weeds, picking flowers just doesn't feel right. After all, people go to parks to see pretty flowers and if I harvested them, that might decrease someone else's enjoyment of the park. And that would be bad.

And please don't judge my hair. It was raining!

VOLUNTEERING IN THE GARDENS OF NEW YORK

Above, volunteer bachelor buttons with the David Austin rose 'Crown Princess Margareta'
I’m a casual gardener, always delighted to observe as nature has its way with my rooftop garden. Eighty plus containers to choose, but portulaca from last year have sown themselves among the paver cracks some 20 feet down wind of their former site in a stoneware bowl.

Goldenrod, once dropped by a bird or brought in with purchased plants, runs rampant in one planter. It will look lovely blooming in August and September when I need a pop of late color. Why purchase quart pots of Solidago when I got it free.

Cilantro has reseeded itself in one of the herb containers near where it grew two years ago. Today there are four plants, as many as I need for my pinch-an-inch herb garden.

And all over the roof,
bachelor buttons vol-
unteer year after year.
I started with one pack
of Centaurea cyanus
‘Blue Boy’ and now have
the original bright blue
as well as pink and even
a few white flowers.
Right,Baptisia 'Midnight Prarie-
blues' and volunteer 'Blue Boy'.

My biggest surprise was
cherry tomato plants
growing with my zinnias
last summer. Hard press-
ed to figure it out, I
finally realized that the
seeds came from my
worm compost. Early in
the spring I had treated
those pots to a hearty meal of the precious stuff, product of my indoor
worm bin. By late summer, kids on the roof were plucking the tomatoes
as fast as they ripened up.

Taking a tip from
my plant volun-
teers, Ben & I
went to Central
Park on Mother’s
Day and volun-
teered to pick up
trash. Wouldn’t
you go if you
knew that the
Central Park
Conservancy was
offering official badges, bags
and GRABBERS,
not to mention
letting you
choose your own
territory? We opted for the Turtle Pond near Belvedere Castle. Don’t miss out on trash grabber fun. Visit the Central Park Conservancy or the park nearest you.

street hort...it tastes good

I give props to anyone who tries to brighten up our city streets with a little horticulture. But seriously folks, no hort is better than bad hort:


What does it take to keep a few evergreens alive? A little water, 6 hours of sunlight/day, and decent drainage in the container, that's what. If that's more than you can manage, be a mensch and admit it. In horticulture (as in everything else) it's wise to know your limitations. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to learn and grow as a gardener, but when you abdicate responsibility for the plants in your care, we ALL suffer. On the other hand, a single tree underplanted with a few shade loving begonias make a lovely, simple corner planting.

Street plants put up with a lot more abuse than plants on rooftops and in window boxes. Not all New Yorkers appreciate horticulture and those that don't can be brutal. I wear gloves when working with street plants, and not just because of the dog pee. You find all sorts of things in tree pits and curbside gardens: used kleenex, half eaten food, prophylactics (that's right, you heard me). Believe it or not, people actually steal plants from street plantings; it's not unusual to find a gaping hole in your tree pit, where once there was a glorious Caladium. (Ask Other Ellen, she knows what I'm talking about.)

This time of year, lots of restaurants add outdoor cafes, often surrounded by planter boxes. Do you suppose there's a correlation between the care given to a planter on the sidewalk and the care given to the food in the kitchen? Where would you rather eat?

Perhaps I'll experiment. Except I'm NOT eating at the last place...that Hibiscus looks pathetic with no flowers and all its bare branch ends. It doesn't bode well for the food inside.

HAY THERE!

My goal was to create an inexpensive garden play space for children where I could also try hay-bale gardening. Actually straw bales meant for animal bedding are better than hay; straw is all stem and with no grain seed, at least in theory, and straw bales are cheaper.
What I got was an architecture competition. Using 20 bales, my son, son-in-law, daughter, step-grandson-in-law and I vied for designing the best space. The three little girls didn’t care about the form, they climbed, scrambled, chased and hid no matter what the features, but they were particularly intrigued by the designs that included windows.When the party
disbanded for
the day, I re-
formed bales
into my own
favorite, then
planted the
top with low-
growing sedums
and semper-
vivums. First I
added about an inch of good garden soil to the tops of the bales, inserted the roots in the soil and watered them in. The plants were left to their own devices from then on, making it through the cold New Hampshire winter in Zone 4.This spring the plants are still growing strong and the girls now older and wiser will be coming back to play. The idea is that as the hay disintegrates, it turns into compost that will feed the plants. When the whole thing falls apart, the bales will be used for mulch between the rows of Jen’s fabulous veggie/cutting garden.

Note: If you’re
the kind who
worries that
the child might
fall off, don’t
try this at
home and
don’t try it
with toddlers
who might not
be able to
withstand the
slippage of a hay-bale. Above, the house last winter.

On the right, the house this spring: sedums and semps still viable.