A girl’s got needs.

As I carry the fifth box of herbs up onto the front porch for planting on my day off I know that I have to acknowledge that I am being somewhat excessive. Certainly, since I preach buying things in mass, as opposed to onesies and twosies, I must follow my own advice, but did I really need thirty thyme? Hmm, well then I would have to ask you to define need. This noun, defined by the online Merrian Webster dictionary as, “a lack of something requisite, desirable, or useful” as well as, “a physiological or psychological requirement for the well-being of an organism” is, I think, the perfect explanation to the overflow on my porch. Plants make me happy. Of course I do not need so many artichokes I could create a forest of them, but they give me joy. And I have great need of that.

I am going to be fifty this year, and as I approach the midsummer date, I find that the upcoming fifth decade is a very going reason to treat myself to things I love. I could take to my bed and eat chocolate, or perhaps loll in a hammock and drink champagne, two pastimes that are quite pleasant and definitely would contribute to my psychological well-being – instead I choose to indulge myself with plants.

My upcoming half a century is my reason why, but age is not the only reason why one should, or rather needs to bring home plants.

Got something to celebrate? A plant is a wonderful gift. For yourself as well as others. They are not fattening, they will not impair your ability to operate a moving vehicle, they are good for the environment, they will even breathe oxygen into the air.

Feeling blue? There’s nothing like an armful of annuals to brighten your day and your window boxes.

Everyone has a moment where they melt down and reveal their inner southern belle, honor yours with a camellia like the ones Marders has on special this week.

Feeling happy? Why not celebrate with a tree that will flower each year at this same time and reminder of they wonderful day you brought it home?

Redirect hostility – plant hostas. Feeling blue? Plant a mass of forget me nots. Seeing red? Invest in geraniums for every pot and container on the property?

Deer got you down? Create a library of boxwood shapes and varieties (don’t forget variegated) in the back forty

It’s a new moon? Get yourself a moonflower.

Pesto is the food of the gods, and with the new variegated basil called Pesto Perpetuo, you’ll never have to worry about it bolting, and therefore can use all that extra non-worrying time to actually learn how to cook.

Made it through some tough times? Don’t collapse on the floor, stand tall, grab a spade and plant potatoes so as god is your witness, you’ll, “never be hungry again.”

And speaking of fattening, much like shoes, plants always fit. Feeling a little chunky? A handful of perennials is so much more rewarding than a handful of donut holes.

Angry at a lover? Go ahead and buy that Meyer Lemon tree they never said would go with the wicker in the sunroom. You’ll show them.

Feeling contemplative? Installing a perfect grid of lavender along both sides of the entire drive will be as meditative and a Zen koan.

When speaking the language of flowers, hydrangeas symbolize devotion. Use them to tell someone how you really feel by filling up their driveway with piles and piles of them.

You’re getting married? Forget about china and pots; face it we all already have plenty, why not register at a nursery instead. Dereyk and I have a fern leaf beech that is a wedding gift from some of the people at the nursery where I used to work who all conspired to make sure we got to spend an awfully large amount of time together. How brilliant is that.

My sister has two different beeches planted for each of her sons so they and their trees can grow and mature together.

Depressed by the plight of the planet? A row of blueberries provides sustainence for you and the wildlife around you, or start smaller and plant dill until your wrists hurt to feed monarch butterfly caterpillars all summer long.

Got a raise? Get a rose! Won the lottery? Create an arboretum.

Bored with life? Start learning Latin and collect all the plants in the Dicotyledoneae category alphabetically.

Too many rainy days in a row? Don’t get glum, go jump into your boots and stuff your car with Dahlias, they’ll love the rain and brighten the darkest cloudiest afternoons until the first hard frost. And if you dig them up and store them properly, they’ll do the same year after year.

Children making you nuts? Significant other just saying, “Yes dear,” no matter what you say? And orchid will ease that headache, and two would make you feel so much more serene.

When I lived in nyc I used to go clothes shopping as a therapy of sorts, I habit I apparently share with many, many people – but now I am a proud plantaholic, and I have the garden to prove it. Besides, most of them really just jumped in my car and followed me home, I swear.


Paige Patterson knows orange roses are as restorative as bubble baths, which is why there’s one in her car as we speak.

Threading things together.

Now that I have gathered every variety of hellebore on the east end of long island into my hot little hands, my focus is turning to some of the other early spring bloomers popping up in the garden and at the garden centers. It appears that my forget-me-nots have disappeared due to over-energetic edging, so they will have to be replaced, but they’re not in yet, so my dirty fingers are wandering towards other interesting temptations.

I vowed this year I would be better at creating a tapestry of plants that have coherence and not just be seduced by the showy things that so often catch my eye, so along with the big flowers, I’m trying to make sure I’m bringing home plants that knit areas together.

I’ve always thought the best deal in the world was to buy Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’ (Creeping Jenny) in the 4” size people sell as an annual for pots, and instead stick it in the ground. After years of doing this, I’m finally starting to build up a momentum of chartreuse that works fantastically as connective stitches between different plant families.

I discovered the spotted dead nettle or lamium called ‘Purple Dragon’ last year, with a large white splotch on the leaf and a great purple flower that’s going gangbusters this spring. It’s much, much more vigorous than other varieties, so a few more jumped into my car and followed me home along with another variety called ‘Ghost’ that has the same deep purple snapdragon like flower and a bigger white blotch, but is meant to be an even taller, more vigorous version. I’m going to have a run off between the two to see which does better and I feel compelled to bring ‘White Nancy’ home too just because a girl can never have too many white flowers in her yard.

I also snatched up some of the variegated white edge salvia nipponica 'Fuji Snow.' It really isn’t about flowering (it has yellow blah flowers in mid summer that really do nothing for me) but instead is spreading nicely under the shade of my largest apple tree. And that’s a tough spot; my ajuga ‘Burgundy Glow’ is just sort of sitting there sulking, so more of it just happened to jump into the car. I

I know, I know, I know that for us plantaholics there’s always room for one more plant to squeeze in somewhere, but too many onesies and twoies end up as a polka dotted jumble, so repetition is the key – and a great excuse to buy things in bunches. At least five at a time is my new rule. This doesn’t mean that I’m not going to still slip one of each of those beautiful new tiarellas into my box of things I have to have, but it also means that when I’m deciding which of the two new edging salvias in the dimension series, I’m going to make sure I buy enough to make a real impact. I have to have the deep violet, rose-colored one, but I have to wait, because they were snatched up so fast it made my head spin.

For some reason, I’ve never really uses a lot of astilbes in the garden, but I adore goatsbeard, especially the dwarf aruncus called ‘Misty Lace.’ I think their flowers are just a little prettier and I love the way their lacey textured foliage blends in with other leaves, especially with epimediums. Now you might be a huge barrenwort fan, but if you don’t have soil that’s too heavy and they survive the winter, they will spread and run and eventually even take over your shady, dry places. And that’s a rare and amazing quality in a plant. I can’t remember if it was 5 or 7 that I added to my ever-growing pile, but I could have used a couple dozen.

Creating a tapestry doesn’t always mean buying just groundcovers, it also means thinking about how plants go together. So when you buy those amazing spring blooming plants, that you know you have to have and you know will go dormant, remember you should also plant something at the same time that will fill in later and cover the bare spot. With bleeding hearts, dicentra, the obvious partners are hostas and ferns – depending on your deer situation, but I recommend brunnera. People also suggest heuchera, but I murder those puppies with such impunity each year that this spring I’m going to try tiarellas and heucherellas instead, both of which seem a little tougher to me.

With oriental poppies, you can either use coreopsis or Russian sage or black-eyed susans or crocosmia. Anything that’s going to come into full flower after the poppies do their thing, but don’t push up so much foliage that they shade the plant out before it goes dormant will work. In other words don’t use daylilies like I did, as they’ll just run roughshod over the poppies. This year I only have three left as the rest got swallowed up. My solution? I’m trying the suggestion of a friend who planted bearded iris with the poppies, so guess what else is squeezing into the car? A mess of those new wine colored reblooming irises I spotted on the plant racks with a bushel of hot pink ‘Watermelon’ oriental poppies. Whoops I guess there’s not going to be a lot of room left in the car!



Paige Patterson is loved by her friends – especially the one who brought her a bag of Ivory Prince Hellebores from Whole Foods in Manhattan!

It's not February, it's Spring!

Well the snowdrops are up, the hellebores are in full bloom, my witch hazel has been going for a couple of weeks now and I have two prunus mume, Japanese flowering apricots, in full on pink riots of open flowers. Welcome to the winter that wasn’t! Not that I’m complaining as I loathe the cold, but my hydrangea buds are swelling, my daylillies are up, all my roses have started to push out new foliage and I’m not really sure what I should do.

I thought about sowing so mache lettuce weeks and weeks ago but didn’t because I was sure it was going to get super cold, now I’m kicking myself because I didn’t. Of course, if I had, we’d probably have had a blizzard, but for the last week or so every cell in my body is telling me that it’s spring time and it’s time to root around in the garden.

I’ve already bought all my seeds, I even got some sent to me compliments of Renee’s Garden so I can write and tell you how they work out, but how do you figure out when to start seeds when there hasn’t even been a first hard frost, let alone a last one?

I did start my Imperial Star artichoke seeds on my one windowsill with sun, but until I win Lotto and get a greenhouse, I’ve got to play it safe for a while with sticking things in the soil.  I must say the idea of having artichokes that can actually set buds their first year would be killer, as they just not meant to make it through the winter here. There are a couple of us trying to overwinter ones from last year, and this winter has been a godsend for us, but I’m excited to try the Imperial and I think I’ve got a source for organic Tavor artichoke plants, I’ve ordered 48! Woo hoo! I’m going to tuck them into all my flowerbeds.

But since I’m really itching to plant something, I made a quick round to the few nurseries that are still open and picked up some more hellebores, because who can have too many hellebores right? Shady loving, deer resistant, hard to kill and one of the first signs of spring – what’s not to love?  What most of the nurseries have right now are your basic helleborus niger, commonly known as the Christmas or Lenten Rose. Even during this mild, mild winter, none of mine were up at Christmas, but I heard tell of a few in a sheltered area of springs and I thought I spied one on Suffolk street, although I might have imagined it.

What was blooming for me before the holidays were my helleborus foetidus, or stinking hellebore. I happen to love these plants, mostly because I go nuts for green flowers, although I’ve lost a number of them to cold snaps when we have warm early winters and then the temperatures drop. I have just reestablished a nice grove of the variety 'Wester Flisk'; which has a thinner, more finely cut, ferny leaf; around my non disease resistant peach tree’s base, and I’m hoping the last of my straight species will set some seed this year, but if not I can always get more babies at Marder's when they come in at the end of the month. Anyway, the basic Lenten rose is wonderful, but keep your eyes out for the newer varieties which all have larger, more upright flowers. There’s one called ‘Jacob’ which blooms earlier then ‘Josef Lempur’ which is also very pretty and then there’s ‘Swirling Skirts’ which is a double so try and find all three varieties if you can.

The hellebores I truly can’t get enough of are the helleborus orientalis and it’s hybrids. The species self-seeds with abandon in my garden, which is brilliant. Unfortunately, I had to move a big Japanese maple smack into the middle of the oldest and most prolific bed, so the show this year isn’t going to be stellar, but I did transplant a bunch of them to other spots in the garden.

I know I’m always raving about there being no such thing as too many plants, but I really feel that way about hellebores, and their colors are getting to be amazing. From which really looks like true black to pure white, purple, pink, spotted, frilled, contrasting veins, red, green, doubles and now yellows and peach, the heart does little flippy flops just thinking about them.

‘Grape Galaxy’ is deep purple with black freckles and is to die, ‘Mrs. Betty Ranicar’ is triple layers of white that looks almost ranunculus like, ‘Blue Metallic Lady’ is a cool slate blue single while ‘Frilly Kitty’ is a double that ranges in shades from the palest pink to deep maroon.

The ones I want most desperately are those that were bred by Marietta O'Byrne and are distributed by a wholesale plant breeding company called Terra Nova, the same folks that are responsible for the whole heuchera craze. They breed plants with the “havetohave” gene. I need helleborus ‘Winter Jewels™ Onyx Odyssey’, with double slate, purple and black flowers the way I used to need Manolo Blahniks. 

And then there’s ‘Winter Jewel Cherry Blossom’ -- single and semi double anemone shaped flowers in soft pink with dark rose veins, with a picotee edging and a little starburst in the center. Be still my heart.

Paige Patterson must confess that the ‘portable’ chicken coop she purchased requires three people using all their might to roll around the garden.

The death of the $180 chicken

Last week when I went down to the basement to check on my livestock, one of my chickens was curled in a little ball and huddled as if trying to get warm. This is not normal chicken behavior. When I reached in and put their food down, the chicken only moved slightly and then she didn’t try and escape as I cupped her tiny frail body in my hand and lifted her out. In fact she tucked her head into my hand and sort of snuggled up to me. Definitely not chicken behavior, so I brought her upstairs, wrapped her in a dishtowel so warmth in my lap and sat down at the computer.

Lethargic chickens — the internet is overwhelming with it’s helpful suggestions: lice, injury, birth defect, coccidiosis (no diarrhea so we probably are safe there), worms, botulism, cancer, bacterial infection, egg bound (too young for that), crop impaction (nope, that I could check) arrrrrggghhh, I don’t know, I don’t know. They also say that most chicks that get sick don’t recover, but I don’t want to hear that.

So off to the vet we go. At this point you must know that I have failed as a farmer. I know that there is nothing as silly as taking a chicken to the vet, but this chicken is another living, breathing, sentient creature and it’s unhappy. And I just can’t deal with that. I’m a girl who will scream at the little mouse on the PBS nature program to,  "Look out, behind you, it's the cobra!" I loathe the deer that destroy my garden, but was thrilled when my husband found a desperately weak and sickly fawn and took it to the wildlife rehabilitation center. I cried hysterically when someone sent me a link to a video of a tiny white dog that appeared vicious and was going to be put down but was just and needed a hug. Sobbed. I can’t ignore animals in distress, so off to the vet we go.

My regular vet has said they don’t do chickens, but has recommended another around the corner. The chicken, Eeny, I am toting around in a red and white Igloo lunch cooler since I don’t have a spare cardboard box or a small enough pet carrier, and the vet’s assistant gives me a little bit of a hairy eyeball stare when I place it on the counter.  Soon enough however, Eeny Patterson is in with the doctor. $90 dollars later Eeny has received subcutaneous fluids and an inconclusive diagnosis. It’s not the vet’s fault, there are no obvious telltale symptoms, no sneezing, no mucous, no running eyes, no diarrhea, no swelling, no punctures, no breaks, no signs of infection, no compaction of the crop — no real leads. However, he does add that he’s not a chicken specialist, and that he could recommend someone locally who is.

I wish he had told me that before the $90 bill, but I did rush over with my chicken instead of waiting for the doctor to get to the office and call me first.  So it’s my own, anxious, fault. Besides I’m game, I mean once you spend $90 on a pet chicken, and you still don’t have an answer, you go the next step right? So we make the appointment that has to be late in the afternoon.

I’m bummed, and frankly Eeny is tired of driving around in the car and I have to go to work for a while (to pay for all these chicken bills) so Eeny got to hang out in her cooler in the warmest office at the nursery with Cathy who takes care of the nurseries chickens. I was also hoping she might have an idea about Eeny’s issues, but she’s stumped too.  I have a meeting, I talk plants for a while, and I explain to everyone at work that yes, I know, for ninety bucks I can buy a whole bunch of chickens, but I have a suffering creature in my care and I can’t just let it suffer without trying to help.

We have an appointment with the second vet at 4:30, but again, I’m an anxious gal, I thought the fluids would have perked Eeny up a little more, but he’s still just curled up in a ball, so I call and ask if we can come earlier and for thirty additional dollars I can call Eeny’s situation an emergency arrive whenever I want. So off we go to the second vet.

Dr. Grosjean is quite lovely, but he too has no specific answer. More subcutaneous fluids, some antibiotics and instructions on how to force feed Eeny, that’s what we leave with after another $90 bill. I was really hoping for a diagnosis, I wanted a problem we could fix, but we’re just sort of shot gunning Eeny’s treatment instead as the answer is, no one really knows.

When I bring Eeny home my husband is lovely and doesn’t point of that for $180 we could have bought over 100 new chickens and instead volunteers to help me force feed Eeny the baby food the vet recommended I try. I’ll have you know I stood in King Kullen and obsessed over which food to feed her, but finally settled on organic sweet potato and apricot with a switch up with some cranberry applesauce I made this fall. I demonstrate the technique of forcing a chicken to open it’s beak and Eeny shows a surprising amount of resistance for a chicken in distress, I can only imagine that someone shoving a syringe in your mouth and forcing liquids and baby food into your beak is not a pleasant situation. The doggies can’t believe there’s a chicken in the living room, but I have to keep Eeny separated from the other chickens, so he stays in her Igloo swing topped lunch cooler but is placed high on top of a cupboard where he’ll be warm and out of cat jumping height.  Hugo, the largest dachshund keeps wandering to the base of the cupboard and sighing – if he could talk it’s very easy to understand what he’d say. “Mommy, listen, listen, listen, if you could just get that box down there’s a chicken in there who really needs to be kissed a little, no really, listen, listen, listen, up there, it’s a chicken, and I know this sounds crazy but most chickens really like to be licked. I promise.”

Over the next five days the dogs whine and cry when I feed Eeny twice a day at the kitchen table. My husband takes over for me the day I drive up to Boston but I come home that same night due to concern over Eeny. Regardless of all our efforts, there really is no change. Eeny is not getting better. The other chickens in the basement show no signs of any similar issues, so perhaps it is something inherent in the way Eeny is built. This is something Dr. Grosjean tried to explain to me, telling me sometime birds will fail to cohere as they mature. I don’t understand how a creature could get so far along in the process of becoming and then fall apart, but then there is much in the world I don’t understand. All I know is that I hold Eeny as often as I can and I feel the heartbeat in the base of my hand as I cup the small chicken close to my body for warmth.

When Eeny dies, it is not an easy passing. It involves death throes and flailing and vomit and a contorted body position that makes me wonder why such pain and fear is necessary. It makes me understand why death is sometime seen as scary. No gentle passing in her sleep for my chicken, which off course makes me terribly sad. I wrap her in a paper towel and bury her in a part of the garden where I will not exhume her by mistake in the coming months and years, and I think of something to say but fail.

When he gets the text that says Eeny has died, my husband tells me it’s for the best and that it’s better that the chicken is no longer suffering and I know what he says is true. I however had wanted a miracle, I wanted the storybook ending, and I’m crushed that it didn’t happen. 

Chickens in the basement, woo hoo!

As some of you might remember, I asked for chickens for Christmas, and the universe, not my husband, brought them to me. Dereyk had agreed that, yes, I could have chickens, provided I addressed the rat problem and the next day a lady showed up at work asking if there was anyone who would be willing to adopt some silkie chicks that needed a home.

Needless to say, I now have six fluffy chicks in the basement in a pet shop rabbit cage covered with a packing blanket. Very Jane Eyre. Two white, one black, one grayish brown and two tortoiseshell beauties — I was going to get four and name them Eeny, Meeny, Miny and Mo, but two others came along in the box so I’ve added in as possible handles, Ooggie & Boogie. These are the names from the bedtime stories my mother used to tell although Dereyk says there’s no way he’s yelling, “Oogie, Boogie, dinner!” in the yard so the names might not stick.

And then there’s the strange cry one of them made last week, giving me feverish thoughts that I might have a boy or two locked up in my basement and boys are not allowed.

Anyway, one can’t keep ones chickens next to your washing machine for long, so I’ve been coop hunting. I figured I’d just get a shed, but sheds are now super expensive, and the old days of driving down Montauk highway to the place where they had old sheds you could get for a couple hundred dollars is long gone.

It’s a shame; I miss that world every day. They always had cool sheds; all the newer ones we found seemed, well how to put this? Ugly? Hmm, yes, that would be the right word.

So next I thought we’d build one, because I do have a husband who makes his living creating things out of wood, but in the course of looking up chicken house plans I stumbled across a few coops that were so cool, I told Dereyk his furniture making skills were not necessary. The Nogg sheen is a British designed beauty, shaped like a wooden egg but it only held 2 chickens so no go. And an architect in Holland named Fredrik Roije designed something called the Breed Retreat that was a masterpiece of Frank Lloyd Wright styling, but it didn’t look like it could hold more then four hens.

I figure my limit is twelve chickens, I’m a hobbyist, not a farmer and I want to have my chickens eat what they find outside, so I need my coop and my pen to be portable, or in chicken raising parlance, a tractor. A chicken tractor has wheels that allows you to (hypothetically) move it from one area of the yard to the other so the chickens don’t scratch to bare dirt and their manure gets spread around the property. My friend Ashley has her chickens in a trailer that she drags around her farm, but I couldn’t find a cheap enough Airsteam.

I would really like them to be free-range, but the losses I incurred the last round of chicken rearing have taught me there’s little to no chance of letting them really run free without their own secret service protective detail, and as I work almost every day, they’ll need to be protected in a run.

The Eglu was my first thought. Designed by some Brits from The Royal College of Art as their senior project, it is made of extruded plastic and comes in electric pink as well as an amazing chartreuse. Created for an urban chicken situation it looks fantastically easy to clean and to lug around, but I’m more Shabby Chic then Modernista so I was drawn to the buildings of Dan Cohen from Michigan who spent 15 years as an architectural model maker before deciding that chicken coops were his holy grail. Dan answers the phone himself at his company Green Chicken Coop when you call on a Sunday and understands exactly what you’re talking about when you express concerns about coop esthetics. They’re ecologically approved and supposedly stamped okay by Miss Martha S herself.

Meanwhile Dereyk is so excited that he doesn’t have to build the coop that he’s taken on my other dream project — a greenhouse. Of course, thanks to the internet he’s discovered that all the really fantastic greenhouses and conservancies and orangeries are English and come with a hefty price tag, not to mention the cost of heating them during the winter, so if I happen to find a big bag of cash on the side of the road…

Paige Patterson has already bought a slew of poppies seeds to spread in the snow for next spring’s garden.

And a Chicken in the Pear Tree…

This Christmas, I'm asking my husband for chickens. I love chickens, have since I was a child and so, when I first moved out here, I got 6 black & white Barred Wyandottes that looked like they were designed by Coco Channel to be tucked under your arm and shown off at fashionable social events. I’m fairly sure that I chose my chickens for their looks alone, but I loved those chickens desperately.

They were killed one by one over the course of the two years I had them. One was hit by lightning, a neighboring contractor’s dogs killed two and one disappeared into the swamp. A fifth chicken didn’t survive a hit and run (there are some really terrible people driving on Sagaponack Road) and one was beheaded but it was a long time ago and time has blurred the pain of all those funerals. I want chickens again.

They had the most delicious eggs, with yolks the color of Van Gogh sunflowers that stood so tall in the pan they were amazing. It was like eating sunshine. I miss those eggs, I’m a gal who has, for almost every year of her life asked for the same birthday meal – poached eggs. This year I want them to be homegrown eggs.

So I’m talking chickens up a lot. Or rather, I’m trying to persuade my husband that having chickens again would be a lovely thing and they won’t attract rats. Of course, I’m totally lying, there’ll be rats, it’s just something that none of those wonderful, “aren’t chickens the next cool pet” articles you read in trendy magazines ever tell you, one of the things you forget when you are suffering from chicken lust.

Susan Orlean writes about her chickens in the New Yorker and doesn’t mention rats once in all her words of feathered bonding.  I know all about chicken bonding, my favorite chicken, Poulette (of course they all had names, they were my pet chickens) used to garden with me and would grab worms that I exposed while weeding. I’d try and stop her, with heavy clay soil you need all the aerating help you can get, but she’d run too fast for me.

She came when I called. I used to give her head-petties – backwards against the feather grain as it were – which she loved, and share my breakfast or lunch with her whenever I was home.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t home that much as gardeners work constantly during the season, rain or shine and the trick to keeping chickens alive is to make sure they get safely into their house each night. The night I lost one to the lightning strike I got home way past dark and even with a flashlight couldn’t find the roosting chickens in the trees amidst the slashing storm. The next morning, she was laying on her back appearing for all the world like she was beheaded, but when I prodded her with my toe, her neck which had been twisted under her body, uncoiled and she let out a slow, chicken “beeraack” and hopped to her feet. She didn’t actually have scorch marks on her feathers and probably was attacked but possums or raccoons and somehow, miraculously escaped, but I like to say she was hit by lightning. It sounds more dramatic. She was, somewhat slow and stupid after the accident, after being oxygen deprived with her head twisted under her, but the other chickens took care of her, until a few weeks later when I again didn’t get back in time to put the girls away for the night and the next morning was short two. Emily who I now say got lost in the swamp, and Harriet who had been hit by lightning. It’s my way of not dealing with the guilt I feel over their deaths.

Poulette’s death was also my fault. I went out straight from work, knowing full well that I should go home first and put her away, I told myself she’d be fine. She wasn’t. I sobbed hysterically for weeks afterwards.

When I tell Dereyk all these stories he looks at me like I’m a lunatic, says things like, “And yet you still want chickens?” and shakes his head.  I know he’s right and that the path of pet poultry is filled with potholes like rats, death, dismemberment and cannibalism (did I not tell you about when the chickens stole half a vole from the cat?), but still wouldn’t it be something to look in your stocking and find an egg inscribed “I.O.U 6 chickens in the spring” – I mean wouldn’t that make the winter go so, so, so much faster.

No Bow Necessary

I’m a big gift giver.

I think it’s because I’m a bit of a compulsive shopper and so buying things, even when they’re not for me, gives me a frisson of excitement. I tend not to give gifts at specific times, I am a more random giver, but the holidays are filled with opportunities to do some bestowing, and so I tend to go a little crazy. And being that I am a certifiable plant maniac, I like to gift living things that bloom.

As I’ve written before, I am the queen of cutting crazy bouquets from the outside to bring indoors and to give as gifts. Utilizing everything from bittersweet to pinecones to dark purple viburnum leaves I’m still cutting the faded heads of my hydrangeas to make crazy dried arrangements (although this year, after the hurricane and the heat wave, the colors faded very quickly.)

Last year I found these fantastic sprayed silver branches that I tucked in all my arrangements, including my wreath, because silver makes everything more holiday to me. This year I’m thinking that I’m going to do a more out there kind of a thing and wrap found branches with yarn to give them stripes of color in a scaled down mini salute to the yarn bombing movement. It’s a little more time intensive and involves Elmer’s glue so it could be a dangerous thing, but I like the idea of pink silk cord wrapped branches among my faded hydrangea blooms.

Or I might just grab a can of hot pink spray paint and some glitter, it all depends on how much time I have.

What I know for sure is that those of you who aren’t just getting honey from my backyard beehive for the holidays, are going to revel in my flowering theme. The economy is depressing, the stock market is crazy and we didn’t even get a hard frost, but went right for a freeze two weeks earlier than I expected. It’s cold outside and so I think everyone needs something that’ll flower to bring a little life and color back into their lives.

Now I have all sorts of people to give gift to, from clients to family members, and each has varying degrees of plant expertise, so I can’t do anything too complicated which is why my first choice is the amaryllis. No one kills an amaryllis, I’m fairly terrible when it comes to inside plants, and I rock with amaryllis. So this year, instead of the bottle of wine or the baked good, I’m bringing a big, fat bulb of red, white, pink, striped, doubled and everything in between. I’m mad for the variety called Red Pearl that’s a deep, blood red and Christmas Gift, an amazing pure, huge, white. I’m going to give some of my more subtle friends the one called Exotic Star which is elegantly pinstriped like something you’d find placed in a wabi sabi pot in solitary contemplation on a Zen monastery sideboard. My more audacious friends are getting Cherry Nymph, a double flowered cheeky red bloom that looks like Tom Ford designed it.

For most people, I won’t bother starting the thing, but for the more horticulturally challenged, I’ll get a glass container, fill it full of pebbles and push the bulb in. Then I’ll hand it over with instructions to make sure when they add water that the bulb isn’t soaking in it, and I’ll be gifting them the easiest month of flowering they’ve ever had. Last year I stagger planted six around the house and had flowers from Thanksgiving through February -- it was crazy. I tell people that if they plant the bulbs in potting soil, they can then bring the plants outside in the spring, after all chances of frost is past, and let the leaves grow and replenish the bulb. Then, in the fall, when the leaves begin to yellow, they can bring the plant back into the house and cut back on watering to send the plant into dormancy. Remove the dead leaves, put the plant and pot together into a cool, dark place for about 8 weeks, then bring it out and viola, the whole cycle starts again.

I confess that I get new bulbs every year, but that’s because I want to try new colors and I have a limit on how much room I have for things in pots.

I also give paper whites. For those who find them overwhelming, there’s the Inbal variety, but for me paper whites have the best smell on the planet, a smell that totally signals the holidays in a way nothing else does. Then again, I don’t have the gene that captures the cat urine whiff of boxwoods, who knows, maybe paper whites really do reek, so I only give select, good-nosed people a few bulbs in their stockings.

For those folks in my life who need more instant gratification, I have two gifts to offer, the Christmas cactus and the orchid. I know, I know, everyone think orchids are difficult, but some of them (the Phalanopsis or Moth orchids) are actually quite easy as long as you don’t over water them (once a week in the sink with the spray attachment) don’t put them in direct sun and fertilize when they’re done blooming. If I can get an orchid to rebloom, anyone can.

I’m actually getting so confident I’m going to try one of the more unusual orchids like the one called Fangtastic ‘Bob Henley.’ Not only does it have a crazy name, it has flowers that look like Tim Burton drew them for Halloween hairstyles. It needs a more light and more warmth and more water, but other then that, the orchid folks at Marders tell me I can do it.

Last year’s Christmas cactus is still going, although my cats enjoy chewing on the foliage so I’m not gifting it to those with felines. It’s not actually in the cactus family, but is an epiphyte, which is what most orchids are. Who knew? They tell me the trick to getting them to bloom for the holidays is to make sure they’re spend the fall in a room where the light is not turned on at night which stays cool. The Internet suggests putting them in the closet but I KNOW that’s a mistake waiting to happen so I have mine in a guest bedroom away from the radiator. They like humidity, so get misted on a regular basis. I really should wait to see if mine reblooms before share this plant, but when it’s in flower its so fantastic that I’m willing to take the chance. Beside the white ones are incredible.

Paige Patterson thinks Tillandsia Xerographicas are the easiest plants in the world and are oh so very elegant.

Pages in the Garden

It’s been a strange Fall and I’m slightly stressed about the buds on my hydrangea pushing open in all this unseasonal heat, but since there’s nothing I can do about it, I’m trying to be more Zen. Now most people won’t use Zen as an adjective to describe me, but I’m attempting to reach a more peaceful state when it comes to the ways of my garden and I’m finding there are a few books out there that really help.

Although not a new book, Plant Seed, Pull Weed by Geri Larkin is a lesson on the importance of approaching both the world and the garden with an open and worry free heart.  Daniel Butler’s How to Plant a Tree, is not, only a practical how-to book, but speaks to the emotional, philosophical and folkloric reasons and ways to keep company with the branched entities with which we love to share our world. And Stephen Orr, the new garden editor at Martha Stewart, came out with Tomorrow’s Garden, a book that strikes a balance between the idea of having a gorgeous garden and the tenants of sustainability.  And isn’t balance what we should all be looking for as we head into the coming year?

Of course, there’s nothing balanced about the way I buy books, they’re just drawn to me as if I have a magnetic pull over them and to be honest I could fill this whole page just by listing all the titles of the books that followed me home this year. There are a few however, that would be lovely gifts for gardeners who will be jonesing this winter to get back out there in the muck.  The View from Great Dixter, all about Christopher Lloyd’s great English garden and the impact it’s had on gardeners the world over, is another book that shows what patience and experimentation and letting go of all your preconceived ideas can do to your outside world. Then there’s Hampton Gardens, Jack DeLashmet’s gorgeous coffee table book with the yummiest photos to let you explore and covet those gardens behind the hedges we’re all dying to wander through and own.

For the veggie gardeners out there, The Heirloom Life Gardener by the co-founders of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, is a sweet book. An approachable and simple guide to which heirloom vegetables will work best for you, no matter how or where you garden ­– it even gives you advice on how to save your own seeds for next year’s plantings. A more in depth look at the world of heirloom seed saving is found in the wonderful book Gathering: A Memoir of a Seed Saver. Written by Diane Ott Whealy, a leader in this country’s grass-roots movement to preserve agricultural biodiversity, she talks about how seeds given to her by her grandparents inspired her to co-found and nurture the largest seed bank in this country.

I myself am asking for the new Michael Dirr book, Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs. A combination of his two previous books on trees and shrubs for both warm and cold climates with new photos and new plants added, it should be the go to book of the season. Most zealots have or lust after the huge Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, his 1325 page opus with the black and white line drawings, but those who are slightly less crazy, or those who like color photos to peruse on snowy evenings in front of the fireplace as they are learning to be still, would love getting the Encyclopedia this winter. Hint, hint, hint.

As a final Zen thought, I want to share with you a fantastic book that has absolutely nothing to do with plants, but everything to do with learning to see through forgiving eyes. Arne Svenson and Ron Warren created the remarkably brilliant ode, Chewed, combining photographs of mangled and overly loved dog toys taken as if they were works of art with a few wonderful essays written from the point of view of the self same woobie, this the perfect gift for everyone who has ever been blessed with the company of a four legged critter.  

So at a time when we are thanking the world for all it’s given to us and our families, I’m going to promise to walk through the garden with a more peaceful and forgiving eye, to appreciate and be inspired by, instead of being envious of other people’s gardens and learn to observe the beauty in a wet, eyeless duck.

Paige Patterson has still got a big bag of bulbs that she’s going to plant to help burn off Thanksgiving calories.

Bring on the bad breath baby!

Love it or loathe it, rarely do I meet someone who is ambivalent towards garlic. I fall into the adoring category although, as I’ve gotten older, my body has had a harder and harder handling the bulb. Now that doesn’t mean I’m willing to give it up. In fact last year, for the first time, I decided to grow it.

In the process I discovered that I knew barely a smidgeon about garlic and it’s whole culture. Full bodied, spicy, mild to hot and flavorful, sharp with a kick -- the language garlic lovers and growers use to describe their favorites sounds a lot like wine connoisseurs. And that paper white fist you see in the market is just a tease, one of over 600 cultivated sub varieties of garlic from across the globe grown across the world. Although I don’t have the experience to go into all the varieties, the important thing to know is that true garlic fall into two sections of the Allium sativum family, the soft necks with flexible stems that can be braided when dried and the hard necks that cannot. Supermarket garlic’s are soft necks and have lots of tiny cloves, allowing people to tuck just a sliver of garlic into food. The hard necks don’t last as long when stored, and have larger and more flavorful (in my humble opinion) individual cloves.

Each individual clove is the equivalent of a garlic seed and if broken off and buried in very fertile but well drained soil, well amended with compost, about 1.5-2” deep and then mulched with a bunch of straw or good compost will grow into it’s own paper knuckled bulb. There’s a bit of a debate about when to plant garlic, but I’ve discovered that Halloween is the best time to this area. Plant each clove 5 to 6 inches apart -- I cheat some of mine a little closer as I tucked them among roses to deter aphids, but they’re a pain to harvest. You should add mulch to keep soil temperatures consistent and the soil evenly moist. The larger the clove planted, the bigger the garlic grown, so when you break garlic apart to plant it, is any cloves are tiny, just cook with them instead of planting.

In the spring, hard necks send up an elegant curlicue of a scape, cut this off to force the plant to send its energy back into the bulb. My husband, who adores garlic, makes wickedly good pesto from the.

Later in the summer, when the lower leaves start to brown or yellow, it’s time to dig the garlic. Avoid the temptation to yank the garlic out of the ground as this’ll destroy the outer skins of the garlic and don’t delay harvesting as to do so will cause those outer layers to disintegrate leaving no safe way to cure or store the garlic. I dug some of mine late this year, but it wasn’t a waste, as I just threw the naked cloves into the pickles I was making.

You’ll need to cure the rest of your garlic by letting it rest somewhere with good circulation and no direct sunlight. For me that’s my trusty garage, where I should have hung the plants but instead just laid them hanging over the edge of my spare wheelbarrow for 3-6 weeks. I thought I’d have plenty for the year, but my husband, seeing the wealthy of garlic available to him, has burned almost our entire supply, so this fall I’ve increasing capacity by threefold. I’ve already nabbed my supply from Marders as they sell out quickly, and I’m trolling the Internet for some of the other less common varieties like Chesnok Red and Persian Star.

Garlic also prefers to be stored in a cool, dark, dry space, so putting them in a mesh net and hanging them in the basement seems to be the best bet, although my basement is a little too warm (My dahlias never overwinter, but shrivel or sprout instead – very frustrating.)

Oh, and if you too suffer from garlic heartburn, get one of those little roaster thingies at William Sonoma or TJ Maxx, or just take a bulb and remove the outmost papery layers, slice the top off so that you can see the tops of the cloves, drizzle with oil, wrap tightly in foil and throw it in the oven at 425 degrees for 45 minutes. Then squeeze the yummy goodness over bread or chicken or pasta or anything else your heart desires.

Paige Patterson was forced to buy 5 of the 60 percent off Knock Out Roses  at Marders as at that price they’re basically free.

Bulbs Rule!

So the first thing all us bulb maniacs are going to have to do this year is find a source for real quinine water. It’s what tonic water used to be, but is much harder to find nowadays. The reason we need it is that we’ve just got a tip from a friend back from England who tell us that if you soak your crocus bulbs in quinine before planting, the squirrels will totally ignore them. Brilliant!

Tip number two, applies to planting anemone blanda. Forget about trying to dig among the tree roots, just soak the bulbs in water for 24 hours and then scatter among the roots where you want them to go and cover with an inch of compost. If you have a terrible squirrel problem, this might not be the right technique for you, but I’m going to try it. I figure the bulbs are so affordable that it’s worth experimenting, because there’s nothing like a swath of anemones to make spring perfect.

Another tip for peeps with squirrels is to push the bulbs under or next to existing perennials, as squirrels also check out fresh planting beds, and to spray the area with a pepper and egg repellent. You can also do the thing where you make a kind of pita pocket sandwich of small gage chicken wire for the bulbs and bury them in that to defeat the squirrels, but remember that the gage has to be small enough for the squirrels not to get at the bulbs, but big enough for the plant to push through, which means different size holes for different size bulbs.

Okay, I guess I should back up and fess up to being a bulb junkie, but there’s really nothing better then the bang for the buck you get with bulbs. And bulbs, starting with fall blooming crocus and extending all the way through oriental lilies, are an easy peasy way to extend palette of your garden without a significant expenditure. Consider the lily. It costs at least $20 to buy one pre-grown pot of three bulbs, get the bulbs straight you can get a whole sea of lilies, and they’re a lot easier to plant.

When this frigging heat wave ends, it’ll be prime bulb planting time, and there are a few rules you should know about bulbs.

One – plant all bulbs at least three times as deep as the bulb is wide. Two – it’s good to put the pointy end up, but you don’t have to, they will orient themselves. Three – always add bulb food or fertilizer to the hole when you plant. And when any old bulbs come up, fertilize them as well. And finally, four – you must let the foliage stay in place until it yellows and withers away. This is the most important rule, as a failing to do so means the bulbs can’t rebuild their nutrient supplies and they’ll start to fail.

Five – if you want to naturalize them in the grass you need to know that you’re not going to be able to mow that grass and it’s going to get to be at least knee high and not lawn like. My mowing guys laugh about at my lawn when they start mowing around my bulbs and say it looks like it’s got hair plugs that have gone crazy. Daffodil foliage can last up to 12 weeks so you do the math and if you can’t handle an untidy lawn, keep your bulbs in a bed.

Six – sunlight. Most bulbs need as much of it as they can get, excepting the woodland ones like English bluebells and Wood hyacinths, so try and plant them accordingly.  And remember that even though most bulbs bloom before the trees leaf out, they will need sun on their leaves to come back strong next year, so please don’t put Daffodils deep under Norway maples and then be surprised when they don’t thrive.

Seven – you need to wait until the soil temperature is between 40-60 degrees, so it’s looking like it’s going to be mid October before anything gets planted, but you run out and stock up now, because other bulb maniacs are already out there shopping. Marders got in this amazing new white parrot tulip that sold out the same week. They also have only a few bags of the white Allium Mt. Everest left, so skedaddle over there quick, quick, quick.

I’m braving tulips in a deer safe area so I’m in bulb friggin’ heaven, choosing deep blues and hot reds, which I’m sneaking into the house in waves, hoping my husband doesn’t notice, but (rule number eight) if you do have deer don’t do Tulips. It’s close to impossible to spray/protect them from the marauders, but not to fret, there’s more for you then just Daffodils. You get to try the world of alliums and what’s known in the trade as the minor bulbs. Camassia, Scilla, Leucojum, Puschkinia, Colchicum, Chionodoxa, the names sound overwhelming, but these bulbs are easy, hardy, deer resistant, affordable and beautiful. Now who doesn’t love those words when speaking about gardens?

Paige Patterson couldn’t resist 3 Japanese forest grasses on sale and is sure she can find a spot for them somewhere.

After The Fall

I was going to write about the way the light captures the fall colors and how, finally, trees and shrubs are on sale in all the nurseries and about the amazing deals to be found out there if you know how to look, but Irene interfered with my plans. Instead I get to talk about the clean up that happens after nature has a big party.

In many ways we were hugely lucky out here. Most of the rain missed us, so the number of trees that would have just slipped out of the ground and laid flat on the ground are significantly less. Now I’m without power and they say I’ll be that way until at least Friday, but none of the tools I would need are electric, instead I’m going to be getting a nice workout if my leg wasn’t in a cast. So I’m going to have help, and they’re going to get the good workout and I’m going to point.
First thing straight off the bat — be careful! Do not try and tackle any limbs or deal with any tree damage that is anywhere near power lines. Secondly, if you are using a chain saw, make sure you are not working alone. Now I am an animated talker and flail my hands around when speaking, or so I’m told. I made the mistake of engaging my husband in a long discussion while holding a running chainsaw. He says it’s a terrible thing to see — another human being waving a chainsaw and gesturing with it with no apparent self-awareness and has since suggested strongly that I never pick one up again. I can’t say he’s wrong, so if like me, you are an emotive speaker, I would let the more reserved person run the machine with the whirring, possibly flesh eating teeth. You, like I would if I wasn’t injured, could then be the “dragger away of the nicely sawn off limb.” But again, be careful.

You are also going to have to make some hard decisions. If you are taking off so much of the tree that it is no longer going to look balanced, it’s actually best to remove the whole thing, otherwise you are just creating more problems.

Try and make clean cuts angled so that when it rains, water doesn’t collect on the cut; and don’t cut flush against the trunk of the tree, but try and cut so that you leave a little bit of branch. Do not cover the cut with anything, as you want it to heal naturally. Don’t worry about it being perfect right now; we’re doing triage not plastic surgery at this point.

And the best thing to do would be to chip up the wood and add it to your piles of grass clippings that need carbon to become better compost, or to just get it into piles and let it start to break down on it’s own.

Most importantly, if like me, you have a number of prone trees you must try and immediately get them stood back up and cabled. And you should know that there’s a good chance the tree is not going to survive. If the roots have been exposed to air, the chance of the tree making it is not good. My trees are leaning very badly, all victims of root rot I believe thanks to my overwatering habits, but the remaining roots are still below the soil. Some of the roots have most likely snapped so the tree has lost a significant part of its support system and its digestive system. You are going to have to really cross your fingers and pray. You should use at least three cables in a Y formation and make sure the actual wires are not wrapping around the tree but are encased in a protective sleeve. Bolting into the tree is okay, if done by a professional, but I’ll be hoisting mine up on my own since they’re not that large (okay, okay, I’m going to ask the guys that help me with the lawn if they have time, but I’m not holding my breath.)

Now don’t get carried away and start pruning just because you have a pruning saw in your hand, it’s still a little too early for that. Go pull all the debris out of your shrubs instead and if you’re still feeling all ambitious you can go play around in the vegetable garden and seed fall lettuce!
Plus there’s the mess that was the perennial beds. Get out all the branches and debris and then do judicious cutting back. Prop up the dahlias, but everything that has an actual bend in it (if it’s floppy in your hands) gets cut right beneath the bend. Deadhead like your life depends on it as there’s still time for lots of plants to keep pushing flowers. Any casualties and empty holes can be replaced by some of those amazing fall perennials I talked about last month.
Besides, don’t the nurseries all have sales going on now?

Paige Patterson is truly impressed by the death of the street tree in front of her house. Snapped cleanly off right at the base.

How Local is Local

Yesterday I picked the first lemon cucumbers of the season. I’m growing them up a fence among roses that are still struggling after last years harsh winter, a cold, damp spring followed by a hideous heat wave and random deer munching. The roses are not doing so well, but the lemon cucumbers were delicious. I also gathered handfuls of eggplants and jalapeños, some zucchini and a random squash, but I had to go to a farm stand for tomatoes.


The farm stands have been stocked with tomatoes for over a month, as well as melons and peaches even, but I have a question for the various farmers, how do you all have Brandywine tomatoes already when mine are just barely starting? Basil, I have by the armfuls, but where are your ripe, red orbs coming from when mine are still hard and green? And how do you all really have melons already? And the corn? Although it’s sweet and white and delicious, I remember being a kid and the corn not being ready at the end of June. Strawberries end and then corn begins right? They’re not meant to overlap are they?

I don’t want to be a killjoy, but I’m a little suspicious of the “local” produce at some of our local stands. As impressed as I am by the perfect raspberries, cherry tomatoes and blueberries I’m buying at all these stands, I’m looking around and I’m not seeing the plants they’re growing on.

Is anyone else thinking these thoughts? I know that tomato blight has swept through the area, but only one farmer that I know of has confessed to not having tomatoes this year. He took a big loss, but when the blight showed up in his fields, he did the right thing and cut down every single one of the infected plants. And he doesn’t, miraculously, have tomatoes at his stand anyway. Look, he took a tremendous financial loss, but he’s at least being up front about it. Not so much, some of the other folks out here. Actually from the way things are stacking up at all the roadside stands I’m frequenting, it seems like he is the only guy on the entire island that was hit.

I don’t begrudge the farmers trying to earn a living, they have a ridiculously short season and the hardest job out here, and I love the fact that I can buy something local and help support the way of life that truly built this community, but I don’t need lemons at my farm stand. Really.

There are farmers out there I know I can trust. Marilee Foster wouldn’t be caught dead offering anything she didn’t plant, weed and pick. I’d bet my last dollar on that. I know David Falkowski is growing his mushrooms, I’ve seen the oyster bags hanging in his mushroom barn, and I’ve been handed one of his eggs still warm from the hen that just laid it. The Halseys will not have Pink Lady apples until they are ready on the trees down by Mecox Bay, no matter how much I long for them earlier. And if you don’t get there early, Bette Lacina and Dale Haubrich will sell out of their incredible mixed greens. I know Art Ludlow would be shocked at the idea of buying in milk to make sure he can tap deeper into the pockets of the summer shoppers who crave his cheese. And that pleases me.

When I was I kid I worked for John White on his farm that skirted the corner of Sagaponack Main Street and Montauk Highway. He was trying to be 100 percent organic (ahead of the curve by at least 10 years) and I not only helped plant all those crops, but I weeded them, picked bugs off them, hoed them, pulled irrigation pipe across them (using twigs to clear the heads when they clogged with caterpillars), harvested them and sold them. So I know a little bit about the timing of our seasonal crops.

So I’m a little disappointed. Look, given a chance I’d always rather put my lettuce money in a local pocket, and I thank the heavens every chance I get for letting me live in a place where I can get the best, tiniest, baby fingerling potatoes I’ve ever had in my life last time I stopped at Briermere Farms in Riverhead. On the other hand I do want to support farming on Long Island not shipping and marketing, so when you see me coming, put the stuff you guys didn’t grow under the table, please?
Paige Patterson just brought home five new panicle hydrangeas called Great Star created by the renowned plants woman Princess Sturdza of Normandy.