"The Power of Beauty is Underestimated"

That is a quote from Patti Smith.

So is the power of fantasticism (not to be confused with fanaticism, though loosely related)...

In closing, I hope to captivate you with an image of my great friend Maria Pessino at her most fantastical - an inspired Christmas seraph is there ever was one....


Photo by Pavel Antonov

Garden Gift

There is no better time to succumb to your desires than now. Especially for we shopping passionistas.........take all of your spend-spend-spend frustrations out on buying gifts for those you love --- and even for some you only like or you owe a little favor to or especially --- to those who might need a special little lift... Read on for a few highly selective gift ideas beside the terrific

DIANNE B ULTIMATE GARDEN GIFT BAG And no matter what you decide to buy or create...make sure to
give-give-give: adopt families, make wishes come true, give away your coats...
Just give

Leave Some Leaves

Not only do they provide wonderful piles in which sweet kids like The Wolf boys can play---- but there are many reasons to leave some leaves. Don't be so fastidious about getting rid of each and every one --- tell those yard guys with their big blowers not to be quite so meticulous. Fallen leaves are part of the natural cycle for God's sake and as such they provide good and natural cover for the winter ahead. Let them pile up around trees and shrubs and leave a thin layer on the gardens too --- it is part of Mother Nature's plan.

And often, they are spectacularly beautifulThis contrast of fabulous fallen Magnolia macrophylla - all veiny and golden - with the sheeny green of Summer Magnolia is just, let's face it, divine...And be sure to leave grasses and seed-poddy things for the poor starving
birds....

Tennis Anyone?

I write this on a gorgeous November Sunday - the air filled with life and the promise of a garden newly fenced in - going about spring bulb planting with wild abandon. During the bulb ordering process it had not yet been decreed by our village that it was OK to put up an 8 foot deer fence.......so I find myself on my knees with way too many Allium (totally deer resistant, those onions) and not nearly enough tulips (deer caviar)! But now that the fence is up --- perhaps the dear damn deer will just concentrate on neighboring tennis courts and stay out of my garden.

Dianne B Guarantee

Tools get the best workout of the year in autumn - all that clearing, pruning, transplanting and bulb planting. I would like to assure all of you who have ordered and received your Dianne B Tool Belts that they will soften up! If you use it even half as much as I use mine - it will look like this in no time... Francesca Freedman, a very cool gardening friend, suggested I sell vintage tool belts, as the new ones seem so rigid at first, but I promise you that this stiff riff is fleeting... It only takes one season of immersion in the garden for it to contour to your body and become yours forever.
Don't forget, it's just like the handle of a Vuitton bag and needs to be broken in.

The Ten Best For Christmas

The Ten Best for Christmas
Assembled especially in a Fabulous package of 5 garden can't-do-withouts for the unbeatable price of $95 - a great deal...

We will also strive to get an engraved shovel to your most beloved in time for Christmas if you let us know now...

Any combination of the Ten Best will be cheerfully wrapped with hand-written heart-warming Holiday wishes, just tell us what you desire. Allow us to send something special from you to all of your gardening friends. We're here to take your order at http://www.diannebbest.com/

What You Missed

Robert Wilson's Quartett with Isabelle Huppert.
In the same week that the New York Times rave-reviewed Quartett and the fascinating play was having a smashing sold-out eleven night run at BAM in New York - Bob Wilson himself was at his arts compound, The Watermill Center on Long Island. Armed with sheaves of drawings and much newly gleaned information about spring bulbs, instead of his usual museum installation or a theatrical extravaganza, he was making art of a different kind --- super-minding the weave and flow of 2500 hundred white daffodils and 500 beautiful plump guinea-hen fritillaries. Procured from Brent & Becky's Bulbs , who were very generous with this arts foundation, next spring's display is sure to be spectacular. Watch this NewsLetter for bloom-time...before and after...

Beware of VARIEGATION !

I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SAY IT

Considering that I am a variegation lover --- seek it out on petals and leaves and every plant part --- as well as an astute tracker and big fan of classic plants with a twist... I must rant that they have gone to far with poinsettias this year.
Red is one thing....it's classic...it's Christmas, so one tends to overlook the scrawny nature of the plant, the insubstantial leaves and bracts prone to withering ...the ubiquitousness of the whole idea.

But this new breed of poinsettias in horrible shades of pink and with endless pointless variations on variegation is just too much to bear... and they are everywhere looking half-sick .
I am ignoring this new category of Christmas plant in the hopes that it will go away. Jettison these scraggly dogs and look around your garden for some real holly, the bronze backed leaves of summer magnolias and ultimately, elegant whole branches of the glossy and ultra chic Mahonia.

My holly berries are not too abundant this year...how about yours?

Listen to the Radio

Right here on your computer...a podcast

Friday December 11 (and thereafter) at 1:30 in the afternoon

Ken Druse is not only a great writer and gardener --- he also has a mellifluous voice that treats his weekly audience to a gardening program.

I called my book DIRT and he calls his program REAL DIRT, so we have all sorts of things in common. I am delighted that Ken has asked me to be his guest this week...so Please tune in to hear us both. It will be so much fun.

The Handyman Can

Have I got a guy for you....
This is a note especially for resident s of East Hampton Village. Our code has just been altered to allow for a particular kind of 8' deer protection fencing --- here is the best way to get one installed right away as the deer begin their rut: Call Nick, The Handyman that Can at 631.265.8613. He has just installed the new village-approved method for us and here it is.Instead of the ineffectual 6 foot fence that up-until-now was the only option, the village code now allows for a smooth, round, dark-color wire at 8 foot (you can keep, or still build, whatever you wish up to 6 foot). It is promised that this measure will deter the hungry beasts and so we immediately went about getting estimates from many of our local classic fence installers. The fast, honest and reliable Handyman Can won the bid by a mile.
So, even though having to have this fence at all is a drag, with this method there is still a sense of yard and community on our beautiful Davids Lane. And what is worse? - gnawed-on hydrangeas, chewed up Japanese maples, nibbled-to-the-nub heuchera and hosta - or this innocuous fencing that soon enough will be vine or leaf covered and fade into the periphery? Get the fence.

Black Tulips

Well, there is no such thing --- there is sanguine, pitch and deepest purple, also that shadowy color like the darkest part of a bruise and there is the profound color of aubergine, though it never seems to really translate beyond an eggplant. So, just stop searching for black tulips( blue too, like tree peonies just don't exist)and instead revel in the fantastic shapes and kinds of the near-blacks that you can have... Black Hero Black Parrot

Black Hero is a little more inky and a little taller than Black Parrot (more velvety and fringier). Queen of the Night is the standard bearer of all the sooty darks, also try some Cum Laude to appreciate the difference between 'the Queen' and a really good purple. Any of these tulips will enchance any floriferous bed in any color. Just think ...pale off pink/lavender (Oillioules is great) and black, orange(Annie Schilders)and black, white and black. Everything always looks better with black and you will be sorry if you skimp and don't plant enough. YSL has a divine new nail polish called Black Tulip that really captures the hue --- those of you who manicure might reward yourself when all the planting is done.
Queen of the Night Cum LaudeAll of these pictured tulips were still available from Van Engelen when last I checked.

Two More Fall Planting Tricks

# 1. It is easy to discern with most bulbs which end is up, but there are some that are genuinely confounding...like Arum italicum, Anemone blanda and the lovely little Corydalis solida. Technically these are not bulbs and should be called corms and tubers; though when you are down on your knees and up to your elbows in the midst of the planting ~~ who cares about botanical technicalities... When in doubt, use this small rule: Do Not Fret or Waste Time, just Stick Them in on Their Side or Any Which Way --- the growing end has a very definitive mission and you will find that the growing tip will invariably made its way up to the top ...

These are Corydalis bulbs --- put them in any old way....

Trick # 2 . I use this next ploy all the time...to make an accent of a few tall knock-out allium or a spray of muscari hyacinths where there is already a tight crowd of plants. It is not always necessary,or even possible, to wedge yourself (shovel in hand, of course) into just the right position to dig a hole. Instead - just take your shovel, lean into it and with gusto plunge it into the tight spot and then wriggle it back and forth to make a sort of slit. Once done --- just reach in and slide the bulb/corm or tuber with your gloved hand into the narrow passageway and tamp the earth back together. This really works....

Winds howl, rains deluge, the creepy chill of autumn encroaches while bulbs pile up overwhelmingly in their stashing place on the porch. Mark you, this porch is not of the all-weather-comfort-zone variety, but just a nice old screened-in one with a sizeable summer-evening dining table that does double duty as a staging platform for the placement of the spring garden. Enough room to create different groups - all the red/white streaked and striated tulips (Estella Rynveld and Carnaval de Nice from Scheepers, Semper Maxima from Colorblends) that are going to chromatically comingle with the purple allium (5 from Brent and Becky here, a mixture from New Holland Bulb there) -- things like that...
Waiting for all the bulb orders to arrive is a heady and frustrating exercise that can easily be remedied with advance planning. Early ordering works best but frantic last minute calls, thank God, work too. Our favorite suppliers are still shipping - usually till around November 10th or so... Time and effort-saving devices like layering different bulbs in the same hole (i.e. Spanish bluebells with Fritillaria meleagris and poeticus daffodils) work very well, but means you need them simultaneous
.ly. That goes for tulips too --- the only way to mix and match is the same system as putting together your outfit . It's important to have all your bulbs around you (just like the clothes in your closet)....and treat the muscari hyacinths and the little reticulata iris like accessories...

With Lys Marigold taking in the wonders of Philip Johnson's Glass House ----
accessories in place.

Trees as God

I have heard forests described in many ways and seen magnificent landscapes from the ever-influential Capability Brown phenomena of Blenheim Palace to the exotic Arum-strewn entrance of the Oberoi Hotel in Bali in the 70's --- before there was an Aman - let alone a Hilton. Today I was no further away than Connecticut, but saw something there in New Canaan --- as exhilarating and visionary as anything anywhere in the world. Philip Johnson and David Whitney created such an extraordinarily lush layered landscape that describing it in hush and sacred terms seems appropriate. Hearing that the trees were illustratively dubbed 'Cathedraled' was a first and suited perfectly the conceptual advantage that had been taken with the 47 acres surrounding Philip Johnson's Glass House

Coming Soon!

Watch for HOLIDAY GARDEN GIFT BAG
http://www.diannebbest.com/

Get all of your ducks in a row.....
along with your perky
holiday presents...


COMING SOON!

Can't Resist

It's that fabulous Jack in the Pulpit again, Arisaema consanguinem, now the seed pod has turned RED - can you believe it?

Take Advantage of the TEN BEST

The first mail-order catalog was delivered in 1872. It was sent out by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and it was just one simple page and listed 162 items. By the mid-1880s, the catalog was more than 200 pages and sold 10,000 items. Thus began the exhausting burgeoning catalogue business. I find too many choices very confusing and that is why, in our hyped-up-too-many-products-age, the Ten Best remains only ten because these tools are really the best and the ones you actually do need. November is the ultimate bulb planting month and the 20% Fall Planting Special is in effect right now. Only a few more weeks...The discount calculates when you enter the word FALL into the Offer Box at the end of the order form...Don't miss it...

Frit Tip

One must make time - just as soon as they arrive - for planting the expensive special bulbs that by virtue of their immediacy and priciness can't wait out on the porch until Thanksgiving. All the lilies are in this category, also colchicum, its lesser cousin autumn crocus, my beloved arisaema and fritillaria (big and small) are in this group. Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, galanthus, allium are much hardier souls - most will probably not even arrive until mid-October and planting is good through Thanksgiving. I know that Jack Larsen successfully plants all sorts of spring bloomers as late as January at LongHouse Reserve, which is a fine indication of the steadfastness of spring bulbs (and the singular methods of Jack Larsen), even though the flowers look so ethereal when they bloom, many are as tough as nails


Which summons up another reminder - when planting fritillaria - they all have a sort of chasm or cavity in the middle of the bulb. The big ones and the small ones all follow this same pattern. The last thing you want is for water to collect in this crevice once your bulbs are planted, so to avoid this water-logginess - when you place your fritillaries into their nicely dug hole be sure to tilt them to one side, like this

Well, the picture is not very good...so do - just tilt them....

More Great White Combinations

Some plants really come into their own in September, bringing a completely new life to any garden, and especially to a white garden that has long been devoid of many flowers. With the exception of the great Cimicifuga racemes, it's all about the leaves...Cimicifuga racemosa purpurea wafting over the delightful dogwood, Cornus kousa 'Angela' (much like the more well-known 'Wolf Eyes', but with a 'tighter' habit)

The graceful branches (ones not eaten by the deer) of the superb Aralia elata 'Silver Umbrellas' in perfect harmony with the small shrub Hypericum 'Glacier'. Its leaves seem to be getting whiter as it produces it's dark contrasting berries....

Turned On By A Tuber

It's the little delights that often make my day. As a more-than-grown woman you wouldn't think the sight of an Arisaema tuber, no matter how healthy and pink, could elicit a screech of pleasure, but it did. Filled with life and fraught with growing buds galore, this big fat tuber caused me to circle around the garden for - at least - fifteen minutes - clutching its little protective plastic moss-filled bag - trying to decide where to place this one pricey tuber (franchetianum, a kind I have never tried before)...

I realize it may not look like much to you, but to me it was heaven and Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery (http://www.siskiyourareplantnursery.com/) gets a huge thumbs-up for delivering this gorgeous sure-to-be-amazing tuber and other very nice whoppingly healthy plants - of course, it's those shipping charges from Oregon that always get you; but what can you do...you go where you have to go.

Deadline Looming

If you haven't ordered any spring-blooming bulbs - the time is now and if you haven't ordered enough - it's not too late. Thank God, because September's end has arrived much too quickly. A garden can really never have enough spring flowers; but of course, when the orders add up and you have to produce a credit card --- well, that's another story and when it is time to dig the holes (or the trenches) and the weather has turned chill --- it seems like you have ordered an insurmountable number - but press on! Come next spring when everything looks breathtaking but paltry, you will say, But why did I only get 10 of these and 20 of those....???It is easy to go whole hog withVan Engelen - one of my very favorite suppliers and should be yours too. The wholesale trick is that you have to buy in some quantity...but believe me, it is not so much and there is no garden into which you cannot tuck 100 Fritillaria meleagris, 50 English bluebells (though the Spanish bluebell - Hyacinthoides hispanica 'Excelsior' - is a little bigger and blooms later) and an assortment of a few hundred tulips - at least.

Fritillaria meleagris are happy in sun or shade and100 cost only $16.50... Not everyone knows that the venerated John Scheepers and Van Engelen are one and the same, though it's no secret given they both distribute their fine Dutch bulbs from an adorable address at 23 Tulip Drive in Connecticut. Ordering on-line is by far the easiest because the well-working web site adds everything up for you and you can see how much you are spending as you go along. (This is good or bad, depending on your spending attitude) Anyway, making the decisions about which kinds and colors to buy I find much easier with the catalogues in hand. The Scheepers book has great pictures with smaller minimums and slightly higher prices, while the Van Engelen catalogue is nothing but words. They sell exactly the same great things and there are fabulous collections too: all-white, deer-proof, pastel tulips etc; but my favorite this season is The Magical River Special.
Comprised of the elegant Narcissus Thalia (without question, my favorite daffodil) - you get 200 of these white-winged beauties to spread among 500 classic blue Muscari hyacinths. Having seen this simple blue and white combination in Holland - I promise you it is most breathtaking. And just think, every year you can add more bulbs and make you enchanting river flow further...Here is Muscari in its blue splendor popping up among variegated Solomon's Seal as they innocently and gracefully burst forth from the earth - little did we know that the deer would soon devour e
.very single one... heartbreaking

Get Busy

Now more than ever, you need the trowel to dig holes and all of the other Ten Garden Greats uniquely available at The Best @ Dianne B (http://www.diannebbest.com/). With the Fall Fantasia Sale now in full force, you would be crazy not to stock up on the very best tools available. Enter the code word FALL when checking out for a juicy 20% off - for this propitious limited time.

"Money is like a sixth sense, without it what would you do with the other five?"

loosely translated from Somerset Maugham

BUY BULBS

BUY TOOLS

Think Tulips - Part 4

Rembrandt's Favorite is the tulip on the right in front of a mixture of the biggest best whites, Maureen is the classic "French" tulip and the other is the lily-flowering 'White Triumphator' peeking through he new growth of a Japanese maple. Should you be a traveler on the Montauk Highway in the springtime, Maureen is the white tulip that is planted in profusion in front of The Creeks.

Think Tulips - Part 3 - Where to Buy

Not only which tulips - but from whom to buy them - and just how much to indulge . Oh decisions, decisions...

BesidesVan Engelen (http://www.vanengelen.com/) and Scheepers (http://www.johnscheepers.com/), there is not a season goes by that I don't turn to Brent and Becky's Bulbs -this year especially for Fritillaria, Arum and Allium. Odyssey Bulbs captured my attention with their variegated leaf Fritillaria imperialis and I am returning to Colorblends for another great assortment of French Blend Rose mixed with Gudoshnik. These Darwin Hybrid tulips have a great prismatic quality --- each one is actually slightly different. Another terrific one that changes in its feathering and spotting is'Silverstream' --- this variable quality plus white-marginated leaves!

This fusion is the last to bloom and absolutely compelling for cutting. Order a few Ollioules while you are on that same Darwin Hybrid page - it is unbelievably big and beautiful.

Think Tulips - Part 2

Tulip enjoyment is the best --- but tulip ordering is absolutely the worst. I can deal with making the decisions in all the other genre/categories/kinds, but when it comes to tulips - I am waylaid, flabbergasted - totally irresolute. This year I am torn between whether the black and whites should be Single Lates (Queen of the Night, of course + Maureen) or Peony Flowering (or Double Lates), Black Hero and Mount Tacoma. I am inching toward a purple/orange patch, but can't decide where to put it - and can't live without my favorites: Carnavl de Nice and Red Parrot are two that go particularly well in my hand-painted tulip vase. The beauty Estella Rynvald is outstanding among red and whites.

Think Tulips - Part 1

Cut from last years' garden: Tulips Burning Heart, Gavotta and Salmon Parrot with that gorgeous white daffodil Thalia, Leucojum 'Gravetye Giant' (do not settle for the other) Fritillaria meleagris standing tallest... Some early bulbs have already arrived (some special fritillaria, divine autumn blooming colchicum) and other orders are done, but I am still (still...at he end of September!) dickering over the last tulip orders. Variegated (or broken) ones like Rembrandt's Favorite, Jackpot and Gavotta have already been ordered because they are invariably the one that seem to sell out, which can be crushing.

The Shapely Garden

Now is also the perfect time of year to get into Exterior Decorating (a great phrase fully attributed to the debonair garden historian John Danzer's). Read all about it in my dirt column in the September issue of Hampton's Cottages & Gardens and watch my blog for other uplifting autumnal schemes.

But Is It A Garden

As the season fleetingly draws to a close, I am plagued more and more by the question of what is a garden? Or more precisely, do I have a garden? Is it merely just a collection of increasingly vulnerable plants - some of which I cannot seem to get enough of - no matter what the consequences. No matter how delectable to the various creatures, hooved, furry and/or winged, those which inhabit our neighborhoods above and below ground - there is always the allure of a new season, a different challenge, the hope that the weather will be just rainy enough to keep everything thriving and warm enough to cause those incredible growth spurts and that somehow, next year we will keep the creatures at bay.
Usually I find getting too philosophical about the garden boring, but the other question that vexes me: is a garden still a garden if no one ever sees it but the gardener? Which reminds me of a joyous trip to the Cotswolds some years ago - a literal gardening feast - and the opportunity to make one lonely garden-keeper happy. Idbury Manor, is seldom used but meticulously maintained season-in and season-out.


So imagine the joy of this dedicated groundskeeper when seven of us eager American garden-lovers descended on this idyllic 16th Century house for a week of oohing and aahing . Even the plants perked up - so happy were they to be viewed so adoringly.

Irresistible Iris

If you plant some of the best from every category of Iris - you will have them blooming from earliest spring (the first real color along with the Hellebores)

through to high summer with the crescendo of the delioursly beautiful Japanese Iris ensata...the more delicate 'beardless' variety that often have face-up sometimes filigreed-looking 6" diameter flowers... (see the first picture). All those big blowsy bearded ones are inbetween. They are my least favorite but they do come in glorious color combinations (see the mixed bunch).

But those to order right now and plant along with your tulips and daffodils, are these incredibly sweet and small early Iris. Sometimes they are referred to as Dwarf Iris and other times Rock Garden Iris; but whatever you call them they create a great buzz of heartwarming excitement when they come peeking out of the ground --- planted around snowdrops they are really the perfect counterpoint. Even peeping out from under this Deer-Away stained Yew, they give that magic resilience...though usually classified as Iris reticulata, there are a few other species (they are always classified together in the catalogues). This dreamy pale blue-green one is Iris histrioides Katherine Hodgkin. They come in an amazing range of colors, the blues alone are described as sky, flax, bluebird, lobelia, blackish and so on. The secret is to plant lots of them and not in one big clump....the bulbs are small and you can go about digging little holes everywhere so they will spring up unexpectedly all over the place.

Brentandbeckysbulbs.com have a wonderful selction with good pictures....but if you are willing to get into a little quantity - then vanengelen.com has more than a dozen to choose from at prices a fraction of the others.

Propitious Moss Modes

One of the most charming elements, and certainly the freshest of the autumn garden is the lushness of various mosses. Some around here are God-given but others have been initially acquired from Moss Acres and coaxed along by me. The company ships vibrant clumps of live mosses and if situated just right, they actually do spread and of course, you can help it spread. Under the big old magnolia, there is now so much moss galore that I pick up big clumps of it with my wonderful trowel and move it to north facing moody shady places that look particularly susceptible. Now that summer is heating-down - the time is ripe to dream of big endeavors like creating a Moss Lawn - extremely ambitious - but little pockets of moss are easier and can be a big wow. The Moss Acres site is filled with information, mosses to buy and Latin names. Forget the Moss Milkshake (no directions really, so one is expected to be something of a magician and just conjure up how it is supposed to be diluted, spread - how it works) but the sheets of mosses they ship arrive ready to grow. Plant (or place) immediately.

Labor Day Garden Blues

Almost nothing is on the come and the sun-kissed bliss of summer has turned many leaves to leather and only made the weeds more audacious. Putting the garden to bed is next on the agenda and as you do this gradual clearing, note all the room you are making for the fabulous bulbs and tubers that you should begin to order right now. When you think of daffodils and crocus - you normally do not think of this:
But the time to order it and when to plant is the exact same as that of your favorite tulip or hyacinth. The very name Dracunculus vulgaris is more emblematic of necromancy or some other dark art than a reminder of the coming sighs of spring, but that time is still now. This astonishing plant will emerge just as the spring lovelies are waning and it shocks the garden into a new sort of splendor. During the 3 weeks of the unfurling of the big carmine-red-drenched spathe, even the dog is spellbound. After the 'flowering', a fabulous arrangement of circular leaves becomes more apparent. Their luminous white markings become almost transparent at the twilighty end of the day. Available from Brent and Becky's Bulbs and quite a bang for your buck. Five for less than $20 and although it looks like the most exotic of rain forest denizens - it is completely winter hardy here on Long Island.

The biggest news...and a spec of info that I didn't discover until this year when our winds and rains of June knocked one completely down - it can even be kept inside in a vase for ultra-drama. It's fabulous and not nearly as stinky as some would have you believe.

Watch my blog for other great bulbs, both classic and otherwise, and where to get them. Plenty of time for planting - October, November and then some. But ordering is September - that's now!

Cooling Off This is Loyse de Pury dousing down at The Watermill Center Discovery Day. Cool in every way. This wonderful free-to-the-community Open Day of Fabulous Performances and scintillating Children's Workshops occurs annually in mid-August. Put it on your calendar now for 2010 and look for reminders on my blog and in this NewsLetter.

People Are Talking

Judi Roaman is a restless ball of high-flying energy: neverendingly seeking out the best, the brightest, the quirkiest and the most style-arresting. Her new blog, The Accessorator, is one of the hottest sites in the decorating world as befits her editorial positon on House Beautiful. How thrilling that she chose to highlight http://www.diannebbest.com/.

The Beech Tree Abode

A world within a world within ...

There is no darkness quite like the barely-thereness of the environs beneath a tree. In this case - two trees - two magnificent old European beeches growing for centuries on Middle Lane in the yard a very fine gentleman.

These have been shapely pruned to create a canopy...or a sort of procenium...to show off elegant urns and a comely goddess.

It might just as easily be the perfect setting for a lifesize doll's house or a reimagination of a Balinese temple.

Either way - one could absolutely move in and what a woodland could be created there. Heaven for my Arisaemas...they love the dark

Deer & Destruction

Even I, an eternal optimist, am occasionally bedraggled by the forces of nature. End-July raging winds and rainstorms have toppled stately trees and collapsed my prized Aralia elata 'Variegata, the silver one that is so hard to find. And if that is not bad enough, while it was down the damned deer came and ate the op that they normally couldn't reach. Woe are we.

Just look at this picture. See how they push aside the things that they don't like (in this case Petasites variegata and Trillium or is it Pinella?) to get to things they do like -- that delicious Hosta. What is the ingredient they so crave?