This Saturday I am going to Homestead Gardens, the biggest independent garden center in the United States: or at least one of biggest. That means tonight I must draw up a rough landscape plan to fill the beds we prepared earlier this month.
I made glamour/mugshots of some plants that I photographed at the Patuxent Nursery. Top contenders for the beds include...
pieris flaming silver
cypress gold mop
nandina firepower
camellia
and I would really like some ornamental grass clumps and DEFINITELY euonymus green spire. It's so aquatic.
Each plant has a different texture and color, which will provide lovely variation. We are also having a Yoshino cherry blossom tree planted in the front yard, but I need to decide on a small tree or two to break up the shrubs around the house that I mentioned above. I desperately want a Japanese maple, but I think they need more sun than our very shady-in-summer yard can offer. Boo! Any ideas?
Despite the allure of the internet, I keep finding inspiration in magazines. It's like I'm being reintroduced to the medium. In the last year I've started reading outside of my typical magazine loop, and I've found new enthusiasm for taking them in. The magazine has been part of culture for a long time, now. (Well, at least since 1731, when The Gentleman's Magazine made its debut.) There is a reason so many of us love the glossies...
Apart from the design and imagery of magazines (how is strolling through a gallery all that different from thumbing through a magazine?) and the informative content, the magazines I am drawn to know how to teach me things. For example, cooking magazines offer recipes and techniques to readers. Many of you are like me - we recreate those recipes and oh, what tangible results they yield! Yesterday, I made this Moroccan carrot soup from Bon Appetit, substitute red onion for white. That's just one example, though. A quick jaunt to Popular Mechanics gave me this little gem on how to build a garden shed, which brings me to the online world of magazines...
Many fabulous magazines have never-ending online content. Sunset magazine is a great resource. And then there are the pioneers of the day, like LONNY magazine - digital publications with a hands-on, flip the page format. And they are interactive because they are totally digital! Oh brave day!
LONNY magazine uses a digital publishing platform powered by Issuu. Through Issuu, I can even include LONNY's entire magazine right here on my blog!
I am amazed at how accessible publishing has become, and now I'm dreaming of producing my own magazine. Now where can I find some writers, photographers, and so forth?
When Gourmet magazine folded, I was heartbroken. After their final issue, the remainder of my subscription rolled over to Bon Appétit, so it seems they inherited the Gourmet throne. I didn't have high expectations, based on my initial exposure to the magazine, circa 2004. I viewed it as a less sophisticated version of the iconic Gourmet. To my surprise, I have devoured each issue, prepared multiple recipes, and learned new things about food. I realized that for me, Gourmet was about food photography and clean, attractive design. Oh, and travel. I can map out half of the food world thanks to Gourmet's little trips into places like Trinidad and Tobago. Somehow, though, Bon Appétit's recipes appeal more to my everyday taste and are proving to be more accessible.
Bon Appétit now features a column called Cooking Life with Molly Wizenberg, who also has a popular blog called Orangette. Upon discovering this, I knew the magazine and I were on the same page, so to speak. For Christmas, my mom gave me a fabulous book by Molly W. called A Homemade Life. I was so taken by the stories and recipes that I made her chocolate cake recipe for my birthday, trusting it would make me proud. It was a hit with the friends - the perfect balance of moisture and crumb with a robust, smooth chocolate flavor. Molly's articles for Bon Appétit are like an extension of her book.
Bon Appétit does a great job of covering food trends, as well. The May issue features a piece on the NYC beer scene, highlighting German-style beer gardens, which seem to be popping up everywhere. Even D.C. has a Biergarten Haus opening in May!
Saying goodbye to Gourmet was tough, but I'm extending a big warm HELLO! to Bon Appétit.
One feature of my house that I love is the back porch, but it isn't quite ready to enjoy. My porch is all bones. It needs to be scrubbed, painted, and screened in. While I was inspecting the porch this morning to get a sense for the work I need to do in the coming weeks, I found about a dozen spider nests tucked into the corners of the porch. Oh horror! They are ready to burst.
In theory, I like spiders. They catch other jerks like mosquitos. But I don't want to find them in my house. Ask my husband Sam - he will tell you that I like my fair share of bugs, especially earthworms. It's not me, it's the spiders. My dad tells this story about stomping on a spider nest on his back porch when he was a boy. Hundreds of baby spiders went running up his legs. He might exaggerate a bit, but needless to say I have never wanted to find out by experience.
Maybe the spiders have already hatched and the problem is moot, but for now I assume they are planning to emerge and I am trying to work up the courage to remove these babies. The nests are creepier than the spiders!
Good Stuff Eatery has captured a flavor everyone knows and loves, and put it in a blessed milkshake. Toasted Marshmallow. It is unreal how straight out of the campfire this shake is. Probably my favorite sweet in D.C.
Today I learned about information design from Edward Tufte in a seminar called Presenting Data and Information. Tufte is much better on paper than on stage, but I enjoyed his ideas. More than anything, I was envious of Tufte's extensive knowledge of culturally significant works of art and his ability to integrate them into his research.
Some highlights include 1) watching his white-gloved assistant walk a 17th century book of Galileo's around the room, 2) discovering, thanks to the tea and coffee service, that "green jasmine" tea is the name of the mystery tea served at my favorite dim sum place, 3) receiving four gorgeous books by Tufte to dig into, and finally, 4) learning about Chopin's Op. 57 and the Music Animation Machine, see below
The house we moved into in September looks naked from the outside because there aren't any foundation plants around the exterior. I suppose I'm happy about that, since we can dress it up according to our taste without having to rip out existing shrubs and trees, but learning to landscape a yard from scratch has its challenges. In my dreams, my yard looks like a Henri Rousseau painting...
Take away the naked lady and strange animals, and you might have something like this...
Too bad I live in the Mid-Atlantic, where the climate won't support my dreamscape. I borrowed a pretty fabulous book from the public library that I'm using as a resource, and while the plants that thrive in my region are more traditional and conservative, at least I have the following to look forward to...
Bee Balm attracts hummingbirds, which are so small and incredible to watch. And I can also grow peonies, herbaceous perennials that I discovered during an architectural tour of a cemetery in Amiens, France. This is the Sarah Bernhardt peony.
And I plan to work in a few dahlias, because they are completely irresistible.
None of these plants address our lack of foundation plants, but I always start with the icing.
I've been buying a 5lb bag of clementines every week at Whole Foods for months. I think their run is coming to an end, as the fruit is less sweet and the store's stock is waning. What will I do? I know, summer has a lot to be excited about. Melons and stone fruits, but I want my citrus!
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