Beware The Squirting Cucumber!

At this very time last year we were in breathtaking Jordan wandering among the ruins of Jerash. I spied a drift of what seemed to be charming white flowers and, entranced, ran toward them with a great burst of closer inspection - thinking that the pendulous pimply fleshy fruit was some sort of poppy maybe -what hit me? I couldn't imagine, but in fact a startling liquid noisy projectile literally jumped from the plant and landed square on my cheek - what was happening?

Well, it was Ecballium elaterium, or the stupendous Squirting Cucumber. Well, in fact it was just doing its thing...which is spewing out seeds and juice as it becomes ripe. I hope you all get to witness this horticultural phenomena of the desert - because that means you will also get to see the wonders of Jordan and Petra. Don't miss it. Put it at the very top of your Things I must See in My Life.

The Taming of the Bamboo

I hope this Bamboo Barrier stuff works because it is now one of the most apparent sights in the garden --- endless running feet of unsightly black plastic edge. This 18" wide sheet of some kind of high-techno plastic sinks into the ground (perhaps my guys didn't sink mine deep enough)and is supposed to contain the rampant riotously running roots of bamboo. About four years ago I planted my 3 favorite kinds from little clumps that came from LongHouse (not only the most beautiful sculpture garden on Long Island, but also a fantastic source for bamboo: choose among dozens of kinds for a very modest donation of $25) and naively thought they would never get out of hand --- or that it would take so many years that I didn't need to heed warnings and plant with any precaution.

Well, I was wrong....the black bamboo has spread in every direction and instead of accentuating its shady border, it was obliterating it. The divine dwarf striped bamboo ( a kind of Pleioblastus ) has spread through the picket fence just like I wanted it to, but it is also on its way to smothering Hellebores and that good golden Honeysuckle, Lonicera nitida on the garden side while my very favorite, the Sasa veitchii , knows no bounds. Starting out as one meager clump, it now engulfs an Andromeda, a big yew and is about to overtake a very dramatic standardized blue spruce. I am praying that this Bamboo Barrier
will keep my bamboo where I want it in the garden and not where it wants to be.
I will report regularly on the results of this project...

India Garden Tour

Incredible India Gardens & The Taj Mahal Tour
March 3-15, 2010
This Tour is a One Off - So Don't Miss It! It's that special! Incredible India, where gardens, monuments and traditions meet is an unforgettable experience and http://www.gardeningtours.com/ is proud to offer this unique, one of a kind tour March 3 - 15th, 2010.

To Travel Is To Garden Too

Though Susan Sontag said To Travel is to Shop (in The Volcano Lover) - a concept with which I heartily agree - I might add, travel is definitely the best thing a gardener can do to combat the drears of winter. I know a wonderful gal named Donna Dawson who leads ultra-personalized garden tours and it just so happens that you are not too late to book ... March is India and end of May, of course, England........She has been enthusiastically doing this for years and really knows her way around. Seeing Rajasthan through the eyes of a gardener is a completely different experience than the same old Taj Mahal, and England at its peak and including the Chelsea Flower Show speaks for itself.

Magical Snow

Christmas was wonderful. The power of a blanket of white snow cannot be overestimated and it is no wonder that the Village of East Hampton is touted as the prettiest anywhere. Though there was no sign of the longed-for expensive tree peonies under the save-the-forest fiber-optic tree --- there was great spirit in our home: Peppermint martinis with candy canes as swishers (another great entertaining invention of Lys Marigold) and loads of red and white amaryllis (some real, some very good fakes) swimming in boughs of varying kinds of ever-so-greens and great presents: fabulous art-like hardback pop-up books, 3 golden things, 2 garden tomes, one silk hat... But it was the snow that made everything so magical...
The white barked birches looked even whiter...




The golden green of the ' FernSpray Gold' Hinoki cypress seemed the grasp at the whiteness...
The snow reddened the branches of the coralbark Japanese maple
And look at the really red leaves of the Nandina! This great plant (also called Heavenly Bamboo) looks lousy in the spring and takes forever to come into its own in early summer; but the autumn and winter rewards are wondrous...
And if it's even possible for Mahonia to look more elegant ...the snow is the icing on the proverbial cake...

You should have seen me as the first flakes of the eventual 24 inches of fluffy fabulous snow began to fall on December 17..... struggling to stretch my dwindling roll of burlap around the most precious and vulnerable of my not-yet-ready-for-ice specimens. It was Bob Dash's article in the East Hampton Star that urged me on...
I even found a new use for the great Dianne B English Garden Twine...it threads through the burlap (which you can buy by the roll from the great horticultural Supply Company A.M. Leonard) just by loosely weaving it in and out - so the twine becomes a giant spool of thread - it's just great...



Simultaneously deep in awe of our winter wonderland and deep up-to-my-knees in the profound white stuff....once again I was struck by how every single thing that contributes to the garden counts....

The New Year

I am glad that this muddle of a new century's first decade is coming to an end -
SO WHAT IS IT CALLED?
The decade that is...
Funny that it hasn't yet been given a name that has stuck - The Aughts is horrible name for a decade or anything else...maybe The Ought -Tos would be better, as in ought to have taken better advantage of all the dizzying new technology to advance the manners and morals of the planet a little ...
Perhaps The Teens will be more inspiring and the perversity that so many have come to confuse with chic will emerge, which seems to me to defeat the whole idea of coolness in the first place. So are we now in The PreTeens ? This is a classically awkward period. Hope these will be Obama's years to shine and hope that our unfortunately unattractive deer wire fence, another thing that looks better in the snow, will be obliterated by a giddy and gorgeous mix of clematis, tall bamboo, the great and fast-growing vine Akebia and overshadowed by our beautiful big old trees. The holly being the snow covered epitome....

May you, your gardens and your loved ones thrive.