From Fulcrum publishing

This may be the book of the year for Rocky Mountain garden lovers. The Plant Select organization has showcased all 74 of their tried and true outstanding plants in one concise, beautiful volume.

This wonderful handbook includes:

* multiple color photos of each plant in various seasons
* plant characteristics and detailed descriptions
* background on why each plant was chosen
* recommended landscape use
* native range of each species
* exposure, soil, and elevation range recommendations
* advantages and disadvantages of each plant

I thought I was pretty well versed in plants available in our area. I have to admit, after reading this book front to back, in a single sitting, I have discovered at least three incredible new plants for my garden.

The delightfully named Moon carrot is a chubby looking version of Queen Anne’s lace. Seseli gummiferum will find itself showcased in my garden straight away.

I don’t believe I’ve ever come across the gorgeous Kintzley’s Ghost honeysuckle until reading this book. The flowers open pale yellow, with silver dollar size bracts, fade to pale orange, followed by orange to red berries.

I can’t get over this shrub: Mock bearberry manzanita. “Extremely tolerant of dry conditions,” and “low-growing glossy-leaved groundcover shrub” positively sets my hair on fire. Glossy-leaved? Do you know how hard that is to come by in the desert? Hard, I tell you.

Just when you think you can’t ask more of a garden book, several other great features should be noted: the inclusion of the drawing of a person, next to the plant, showing the relative size of each plant. Brilliant. Easy. Helpful. Included are lovely botanical illustrations for each plant, created by students at the Denver Botanical Gardens. A section on Design Considerations will help every gardener. Last but not least, the reference Table of Plant Characteristics detailing, name, seasons, height, water requirements, and exposure.

One last kudo: the authors repeat, over and over phrases like this: “too much water will cause the plant to be straggly; extremely tolerant of drought; very tolerant of drought; dry, not too wet”. This is music to my ears……and to any gardener in the sagebrush steppe of the American West. Ohhhhh, you are going to love this book.

Find this masterpiece at www.amazon.com for $16.47 plus shipping.

Dear Friends and Gardeners (Carol and Dee),

I so look forward to our (now) weekly exchange of notes: where we are in our various states of gardening and fresh optimism for the new season upon us. I am almost certain you all noted the vernal equinox this last Friday morning, March 20th and did the appropriate dance for the first day of spring. Send pictures of the dancing, please.

As promised, our weather this week ran the gamut from snow and hail, cranked up to 70 degrees and ended up with a wham!- an incredible two hour thunder and lightning show last night. The big storm was gracious enough to show up just in time for cocktail hour, so I assumed by favorite position on the covered patio, wineglass in hand, with a 55 pound dog in my lap. When the wind started sending the rain sideways, and under the patio roof, we had to grab a waterproof blanket to keep us dry. It was downright awesome.

I would guess we rec’d almost a half an inch of rain – a great amount for Boise. Earlier in the day, I was lamenting the powder dry feel of the garden soil and hoping I would not have to get out the hoses. I have to get a new rain gauge this week. (Like hose-end sprayers, seems like we need a new rain gauge every other year. What’s with that?) We really like to keep track of the rainfall as the discrepancies in the amount reported around town seem to be so at odds with what we’ve actually experienced. The rain barrels probably filled up at least three times, and we have them set up to capture the rain from the roof then drain it away from the foundation of the house. Later in the season, I will use them for holding water to be used on the flower beds. I just took a look at my soil and it is nice and wet down to at least 8-9 inches. Big sigh of relief. The ski hill got 4 new inches and looks gorgeous.

Time for true confessions:

I did get the poppy seeds spread around.

I planted a big pot of mixed greens, and I have stopped to admire the bulbs coming up everywhere.

The three big pots of tulips I have been bringing along in the garage, well, they are blooming! I guess it’s about time to take the balled-and-burlaped white pines (leftover from Christmas decorating) out of the big pots at the front door. I will drop the tulips into these same containers and hope they can withstand 26 degree nights. All this I, I, I talk should really say, we, we, we since I can’t lift the pines out by myself.

The raspberry canes are languishing in a big plastic container, still moist and needing desperately to go in the ground. In other words, they are screaming, “Plant me!!!” The rhubarb is growing and still in the plastic bag it came home in. OK, so is the asparagus. Having admitted that to you, I am now heading out with my gloves and the shovel to do something remarkable: like, plant this stuff.

We are not EVEN going to talk about the little holding nursery I have around on the northwest side of the house. No we aren’t.

Cleanup and rake up will continue here this week betwixt and between storms. The forecast doesn’t show a single day even reaching 60 degrees for the upcoming week. That’s why the wise ones made polar fleece. The good news: my three week cold and the ague have passed (finally).

I’m sure Carol got her peas in on St. Patrick’s Day, and Dee probably has blossoms on her tomato plants by now. Never fear, my Felco-carryin’ friends, I am on my way back to the garden.

Until next week, yours in sun and soil.
MA

PS, I ordered a used copy of 84 Charing Cross Road and put the movie in my Netflix queue.

Let me start off with a great big whine. Want some cheese with that whine? Whaaaaaaa. Here’s what’s up in my garden: some crocus, a fistful of hellebores, and and iris reticulata. Pretty slim and pathetic pickins. I haven’t even FOUND and violas or pansies but folks are calling to tell me, oh, yes, they have been buying them by the armload at Freddies. So, you know, gentle reader, where to find me tomorrow.

Here’s the my sad story of show and tell:

They tell me the first day of spring is Friday. Harumpf.

Thanks of course, go to Carol, of May Dreams Gardens for putting together the Bloom Day project.

I do believe you might start to see a pattern here: one more packet of seeds has just made the “must have” list:Rudbeckia Cherry Brandy. I’ve seen this in 3 or 4 catalogs, but will wait and pick up a packet or two at the Seattle garden show next week. I couldn’t possibly come home without buying a little somethin. And seeds don’t weigh or cost much.

Is this a luscious color or what? And it sidles up nicely with all those other great plants/seeds I have on order.

Tip: cut the photos of the plants you want from the seed catalogs (with the description attached). After carefully reviewing the exposure, height and water requirements, create combinations on the kitchen counter or dining room table by shuffling the photos into pleasing arrangements. You can then use a glue stick to affix these to a sheet of printer paper, saving the plan for planting time.

You all know by now I am a self proclaimed book sl_ t. Same goes for plants, fabrics, and sometimes shoes. But books, books are by far my biggest addiction and so far no intervention has worked. Not that anyone tried very hard, I think my friends and family are worried about what I might do if they actually tried to cut me off…from books. It wouldn’t be pretty, that’s for damn sure.

I actually get a bit of a high from handling new books. From getting them in the mail. From buying them. There is a moment, when I have a big bag of new books, and magazines, and I drag them into the house and onto the bed, and lay them all out to marvel and admire them- that is the moment I am overcome by a giddy high.

This is not unlike the giddy feeling I get from the first sip of white wine on an autumn evening, sitting on the patio, looking at the blue of the sky and the gold of the setting sun on the Owyhees through my glass of chardonnay. We probably shouldn’t even talk about combining the two events. It would send me over the edge.

So, gentle reader, imagine my delight at being laden with a (new) running list of books which (of course) had to be purchased straight away as evidence of my undying love and devotion to my fellow plant-geek-garden-writing friends. Writers are generally voracious readers and this group has a characteristically insatiable lust for books.

First, my two cents worth which will actually cost you about forty-five bucks should you purchase these lovelies. This is my contribution to the list for Scott, Dee, Susan, David, Debra, Carleen and Gwen.

Flower by Christopher Beane is a sight to behold. One look at this book and you know there is a higher power. Way higher. Beane’s and his work has been described as the love child of Robert Mapplethorpe and Georgia O’Keefe. The photos of the peonies and the iris still take my breath away. They made me want to quit painting flowers because I knew there was no better way to portray them than the way they were offered up in this book.

Next up: Ms. Booth’s Garden, a loving look at a beloved grandmother from rural Tennessee/Mississippi. Jack Kotz pays homage to this regal woman and the world around her. I want to write a book like this. And I’d like to write it about my grandmother, my shining light and garden inspiration. But I can’t take the same kind of photos – my grandmother passed away in 1974.

A gift from my friend David, The Wild Braid. I have posted my favorite piece of prose from the Braid on Muse Day, October 1st, titled “The Layers.” I especially love the last two sentences which, speak straight to my heart:

“Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.”

Stanley Kunitz passed away at the age of 100. He was a poet laureate of the United States; an eloquent, elegant man.

Of course, I have a couple more to share. But you will have to come back tomorrow to see what they might be. Think of it this way, like turning the page….

Huckleberries could be the reason Idaho is called the Gem State. Wild mountain huckleberries are definitely precious edible gems. They are part of the great Uber Garden plan of the Universe. A gift from a higher minded being. Definitely a gift.

[caption id="attachment_5313" align="alignleft" width="298" caption="The O-fficial state berry of Idaho"][/caption]

Wild huckleberries are so incredibly aromatic it is hard to describe them. If they were a piece of music, they would be Ode to Joy. The wild mountain huckleberry, vaccinium membranaceum, is, in the author’s very humble opinion, one of the most intensely flavored berries in existence. They smell and taste exotic. When they are ripe, they are a purplish red color and are about the size of shelled garden peas….if you are lucky. Many are smaller but they pack so much fruity essence into their very small size, they are worth their weight in gold.

Beg, wheedle or cajole a seasoned Idahoan to take you huckleberrying. Most of the best berry patch locations are held pretty close to the vest, i.e, guarded secret information. If they tell you they’ll probably have to kill you. That said, if you get to go along, if you are not skeered of bears, if you can scamper up a hill or two, and manage to get any in your bucket instead of eating them all, you might come home with a fabulous reward.

I am one lucky lucky girl. A friend of mine went huckleberrying this week. Last night, JP bestowed upon YOURS TRULY, his very humble and adoring friend, a one pint bag of fresh huckleberries!

No one has ever handed me a bag of fresh picked wild huckleberries. Ever. I am almost paralyzed as to what to do with them other than wax poetic over them, smell them every couple of hours, and stare at them. I am thinking huckleberry daiquiris. Or I could make them into a jammy sauce to ladle generously over fresh cheesecake. How about over a warm piece of pound cake? Make that a scoop of French vanilla bean ice cream. JP, I’ll be your huckleberry!

Huckleberry Daiquiri

3 tablespoons white rum

3 tablespoons crushed/mashed or pureed huckleberries

a splash of lemon or lime juice (to taste)

1/4 tsp. superfine sugar (start with a little sugar, some berries are sweeter than others)

Shake with ice, and pour into a glass. Some folks like to strain them. I want all the berry goodness.

For more info: U of I Research Center in Sandpoint Idaho. as well as the Western Huckleberry and Bilberry Association in Weippe, ID.

You’re demands have been met.

I know, I know, I KNOW! Most of you are way ahead of me here. But what can I say? I have a stack of books to read that resembles the Leaning Tower, I kid you not. You know that tee shirt: So many books, so little time? I am all over that.

Anyway, I started Barbara Kingsolver’s new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last night and made it as far as page 6 and didn’t put it down – it fell on my face when I fell asleep. I want to take a magic marker and highlight something on every single page, sometimes two or three comments on every single page. I LOVED The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer, etc, but I think this is her best work yet. I believe its because she is writing in her own voice, telling a personal story, and it comes through, direct and clear, often glib, yet matter of fact. I appreciate that.

Again, I am just getting started, but this strikes me as the perfect companion book to Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dillema and should scare the crap out of folks. I love it when she refers to the Farm Bill as the Farm Kill, and the book was copyrighted in 2005. Aren’t we in the same damn boat this year?

Also on the reading table: Pollan’s new “In Defense of Food,” and “Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally,” by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon.

The crowd is getting louder about eating locally. TV programmers are listening. Already folks are raving about Jamie Oliver at Home, the cutie pie Brit cook and restauranteur dishes from his potager all fresh and colorful like. Here’s a little You Tube preview for your viewing pleasure, click right here.<>. In the Boise viewing area, you can catch the show starting Saturday morning at 10:30 am on the Food Network.

Look for more grooviness in the world of vegetable gardening at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle. You heard it here first (or tenth, but you heard it/read it), veggie gardening rocks. To borrow a little hippie phrase from the 60’s and 70’s: “……dude, grow your own”.