On Faking It ... Again

Margot Before

Observe my forlorn hydrangea Margot. She's eight or ten or who knows how old now with one lousy blossom.

This is all the flowering I can expect this summer as the hydrangea sets bud for the following season on the current season's woody stalks, which they more or less reliably do -- unless some Prince wanders by with loppers and in a fit of neatness (would that such a fit take hold in the garage) lops off the buds in September. 

Which is precisely what happened last fall.

I was unaware of this tragic happenstance until a sorry dawn in March when I took a somnambulistic perambulation (that was SUCH FUN to write) through my garden patch, sleepily observing the this and the that, and noticed the plant's sharply nipped tips.

Bracing myself, I approached the only possible source of this mishap, and asked if perhaps he'd exceeded the boundaries I'd imposed on his pruning - which was supposed to be confined to the (for me) unreachable. Well.  His Irish cheeks reddened and his bald patch began to mist and he insisted ... that it was the damn squirrels.

Squirrels, said I, do not have teeth like pruning shears, the branches would be nibbled not whacked. And he scurried away muttering something...

And so this year we have ONE flower, which is particularly tragic since we moved Margot last summer - or he did, while I supervised -- a terrifying feat in Washington's paralyzing heat. She'd grown so enormous that she could nearly shake hands with Phyllis across a path that one might (if one was of a mind to) call the ceremonial approach to the to the aforesaid garage. She'd spent last summer regaining her verve, and was fine and bushy until.... 

Margot After

Yesterday, in what will be will be fashion, we off and went to Michael's, purveyors of largely hideous fake flowers among other craft items, where I scored a coup of sorts: three reasonably realistic green hydrangea branches at a buck a piece that, when poked among the bush's branches, appear to have blossomed there.

Irresistible Invasives

Drinking my tenth cup of coffee at 7 am, perched on the back porch steps, I'm anticipating another season of thwacking at the vines that have been strangling my garden for 30-odd, emphasis on the odd. I wrote the following several years ago and haven't had a better thought on the subject since:

Apart from the pathetic wisteria that gallops across the roof of the garage, the trumpet vine was the dumbest idea for my bathtub sized garden.

I first saw it many years ago, in Rehoboth Beach, announcing a restaurant entrance.

What an exotic transition I thought it announced from the hurly burly scene on the street where the halter-topped and coconut scented beach-goers wandered, dripping pizza and ice cream. Being as this was so early on in my gardening, um, career, I had no idea what it was except that it looked fabulously tropical and was heavy with flowers and my id cried out I WANT ONE. 

Amazingly, it took years to find in a garden center. I don't know if this was because the trumpet vine was once uncommon or if it had been in garden centers all along but I hadn't noticed -- or if the wise purveyors of plants knew that this was a rascal, a mad weed capable of smothering everything in its path -- dueling only with the mighty wisteria for dominance; King Kong vs. Godzilla vs. the tulip.

It is clearly called invasive in every article I've read after I bought and planted it.

Window Box Doldrums

 

Why do I feel like a wastrel when lying abed on a sunny Sunday afternoon, nose to book, and somehow industrious when doing the same while basted and splayed out at the beach?  

This has nothing to do with the subject at hand, yet again renovating the window boxes, but it's a stuck thought that needed to shake lose.

Note the pink geraniums in the lead photo. These are fake.Geraniums, as you may or may not know, do not do well in 90 degree weather. They stay green, even flourish in their greenness, but are hard pressed to put out more than a measly flower or two between June and September -- at least in the tropical heat that smothers Washington, DC each summer. 

And so, we make do. The Prince and I took a highly organized trip to the Maryland suburbs yesterday, first to the fantasia that is Homestead Gardens to look for pond plants, then to Michael's for fake flowers, then to Pet Whatsis for a dozen feeder fish* for the pond.

We're late with the fish business since our little garden again became an aviary this spring with successive bird births and if the pond is not covered during this period, well, tragedy inevitably ensues. 

Of course, tragedy also occurs with fish, when one allows one's prince to tend to one's pond--though I am never one to assess blame.

So here we are in July and the five frontal boxes look good, if a little dull, with small leafed ivy dripping over the sides and green potato vine beginning to cascade down the front, but there's little of natural color -- just pops of purple wandering jew, some no-account coleus, and several experiments that are a complete waste of water. My red fauxberries are doing fine, as one would expect of fakes.

Here:

Fine, but a little dull

 Michael's supplied the following -- a couple of bunches of pink geraniums, and some little purple stuffs and these pink nubbins. All at 70% off -- so for like 6 bucks, replenishment. Dirt cheap is FINE for this sort of job, just look for reasonably natural colors  -- and don't fret the leaves, rip them off if they're too tacky. These blooms are about to borrow from reality.

The trick to effective fakery is to break the bunches apart so individual florets can be cleverly dropped into appropriate locations -- like next to the actual doing nothing geraniums, thusly:

Not Enough

  

Now one steps back and says -- NOT ENOUGH -- and sticks a few more stems in. And voila!

Repeat process with howevermany boxes you have and done. If one were really anal, one would move the flowers about each week as if they're actually blooming. One is not. 
  
*Feeder fish are what I suppose pet shops consider junk. Variously colored and frequently quite pretty, they are served to snakes and whatnots; lagniappes before the rodent course. They happen to be cheap. I bought a dozen for $3. And if the Prince doesn't do these in, they'll grow to impressive size, live for years, and be just as uninterested in me as those fancy koi the racoons got.

Larcenous Thoughts on an Urn

Despite frequently mentioning thievery as the cheapest, most efficient method of obtaining plants and ornaments for the small urban garden, I am not the sort to wander the neighborhood by night uprooting and scavenging peoples possessions. Really I'm not.

Oh, I might snip a bit of a plant here and there, nothing that anyone would notice, just enough to stick in some water or dip in rooting powder. Or I might pick up a twig at a garden center, something they'd otherwise discard, and do the same. But actually pillage?

Bad karma.

HOWEVER. If I was Going to Steal, this urn would be at the top of the list. With a witty interplay of color and texture it has the look of MacKenzie Childs, though I don't think it is. (And if it was, I couldn't afford it. Just look at the photos -- and prices!)

Nor can I think of a way to fake/make it, although I have most of the parts -- a reasonably similar urn, a base that would work, a husband that could be beaten into assembling the thing. My painting talents, however, are decidedly minimal. 

But this urn has taken this porch from charming to I-almost-clipped-someone's-new-Mercedes trying to get a look at it. 

So I shall put it out there into the universe, which is something I keep hearing one needs to do if one whole-heartedly wants something.

 Universe! I'm telling you I really really want this pot!

Peanuts are Plants Too

I know what Baby will say about this: Ma! If you want to write about food start a food blog.

But a peanut is a plant, oui? And I don't grow everything I write about. I also buy both plants and peanuts in the supermarket. It's all interrelated. And I like these peanut cookies, even if I nearly choked to death on a bit of one last night as The Prince instructed: Arms over head! Arms over head!

He always says that when I choke to death and it never works. Get me some damn water.

But that is neither here nor there.  And I have nothing else to write about today so peanut cookies it is.

Wikipedia says (you needn't bother to read this, I didn't):  "The peanut, or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea), is a species in the legume or "bean" family (Fabaceae). The peanut was probably first domesticated and cultivated in the valleys of Paraguay.^[1] It is an annual herbaceous plant growing 30 to 50 cm (1.0 to 1.6 ft) tall. The leaves are opposite, pinnate with four leaflets (two opposite pairs; no terminal leaflet), each leaflet is 1 to 7 cm (⅜ to 2¾ in) long and 1 to 3 cm (⅜ to 1 inch) broad."

Resume reading. 

I like these cookies because they take about ten minutes to whip together and another ten in the oven and they're done. You might have noticed that most cookies require some hours rest in the fridge.

Hours of rest? Really? When I want a cookie I want a cookie, now.

For these you just mix the batter and toss spoonfuls (spoonsful?) on a baking sheet. It happens to be a very tasty batter too, which is why I usually get involved in baking -- that sudden and insistent hunger for batter, preferably scraped out of a bowl with my finger while leaning over the sink (which means it has no calories). 

I can also make half a batch, roll the other half into a lumpy log, wrap it, and freeze it.

There are various reasons for freezing half, actually two: If I don't, the two of us will probably finish all of the cookies at a sitting; and I can whip out the second half, slice it into rounds and bake them in the unlikely event that someone pops by for tea.  

I think the tea thought because of my Aunt Ann who used to do just that, and it was like an amazing parlor trick. Growing up in New York, surrounded by shops tendering sublime pastries and breads, I didn't think baking was something one could actually do at home. I also didn't know that a veal was not an animal until I was 25, but that is neither here nor there.

PEANUT COOKIES*

1 stick softened butter**
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup salted peanuts (like Planter's)

Preheat oven to 350

Cream the butter and sugars, add the vanilla and egg, beat well. Add the flour and baking powder and then the peanuts. Blend well.

Drop by the tablespoon on a baking sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 10 minutes. 

**If your butter isn't softened, like mine never is -- see batter craving -- cut it into pats, it'll soften up quickly enough in the mixer.


*Next time, Jill's walnut and mushroom pate, a ringer for chopped liver! Walnuts and mushrooms are plant material, right? While chicken livers? That's too much of a stretch, even for me.