The Ruly Blog

For the record, alive and well . . . the black cohosh!

It was reported recently on this blog that I “never grew” or, alternatively that I produced “one small leaf or shoot . . . not memorable enough to photograph.”

I am here to correct this vicious attack on my character.  As you can see, I am most certainly alive.

As are two of my fellow cohoshes.

We find it very interesting that someone who cares so little for our needs, including water and fertilizer, would be so quick to criticize us for failing to perform to expectations.  With a little research, you would know that we are “slow-growing perennials.”

We are most certainly here and with a little patience and time perhaps one day we will produce “fairy candle” flowers for you.

In the meantime, please be careful of jumping to conclusions on our behalf as your record in this regard is sincerely in question.

Sincerely,

The Black Cohoshes of Your Garden

 **My apologies to the black cohoshes.  I don’t want to participate in the bullying of anyone via my blog, including members of the plant kingdom.  You are treasured members of my garden.

I am having a sort of zen relationship with my garden lately.  I try to do a little Frank Lloyd Wright style organic architecture contemplation when I am out in my garden to see if there is any way I can accommodate the natural tendencies of the garden rather than forcing it to do what I want it to.

This week, I had a delightful surprise.  I was voraciously weeding for my garden transformation pulling out so many different kinds of weeds when all of a sudden I came across this:

My weeding surprise . . . a strawberry?

“Huh?  That kind of looks like a strawberry.” I thought.  “Do strawberries grow in Virginia?”

I thought it was funny so I left it there and avoided weeding it out.

When I asked my husband if he thought strawberries grew in Virginia he said he thought they probably did.  “Look it up.” He said.

A little Googling later and I had the answer.

Yes!  Strawberries do grow in Virginia and they are even native plants!

Fragaria virginiana

The fruit is described as “the finest, sweetest, wild strawberry.”  The Virginia strawberry was hybridized with another strawberry from Chile (known for its large size) in the 1750’s to create the commercially produced strawberries we eat today.

Amazing!  And it took zero effort from me. Finally, nature provides me with a useful “weed.”  This incident reminded me of the book A Perfect Mess that I reviewed early on in this blog.

“Even though you can’t count on serendipity, it’s more likely to find those who are open to disorder.”

–Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman, A Perfect Mess

I informed my spouse of my interesting discovery and we now both feel as though we are cultivating a prized crop, right there in our front yard.  I thought this quote summed it up the best:

“Put up one of your little signs so I don’t run over it with the lawnmower.”

The serendipitous strawberry . . . an official plant in the garden now.

Has serendipity found you lately?  Please share in the comments.

The profuse salmon-colored azalea blossoms we had this year.

This week my blog posting schedule has been disrupted due to “first world” problems fretting about my master bath remodeling. We still have not started on the actual remodeling yet but the planning has taken me a long time to finalize. Fortunately, the planning is almost finished and soon I hope to be able to sit back and let my wonderful contractor take over and do all the work!

In the meantime, I am trying to continue to make progress on my gardening efforts and I have a few small updates to share with you. The first one is a very simple update to my prior post about strategies to make your garden deer-resistant.

In my prior post, I focused on things that are kind of tough for most of us to achieve because they are either expensive or time consuming solutions: fencing, deer repellants and choosing landscape plants that deer won’t eat.

This year, my neighbor inadvertently came up with a brilliant idea about deer management.

We were out in my front yard discussing both the sorry state of my garden and the fact that my azalea bush was in full, gorgeous bloom. I asked my neighbor if the timing of her azalea blooms had been affected this year by the warmer than usual weather.

“My azaleas never bloom. The deer always eat them.” She replied.

I told her that our azaleas never used to bloom either and we had pretty much given up on them until we forgot to prune them these past two years and we have had more blooms that we ever remember!

“That’s because your azalea is so tall the deer can’t reach it.” she advised. “See, it looks like they ate everything below which is why you have no blooms there.”

Azalea branches taller than the deer in bloom. Azalea branches at deer-height not in bloom.

A simple idea was born . . .

If you don’t want deer to eat your plants, grow things that are taller than the deer!

It was one of those moments of pure simplicity and outside the box thinking.

I am not quite sure how to take full advantage of this idea yet but thinking about growing vertically to avoid deer problems is an intriguing concept. For now, I will just resort to thinking differently about my “overgrown” azaleas.

Have you had any simplicity inspirations lately? Please share in the comments.

The lovely weedpatch we have cultivated.

There are numerous areas of my garden which require attention. This weekend I tackled one.

Sometimes it helps me stay motivated to break down a complex task into defined steps and track my project in a before and after. So while this post is really for me, I thought it might be helpful to someone else as well.

Step One. Survey the Situation.

Weeds. Check.
Lack of “real” plants. Check.

Step Two. Weed. A lot!

The enormous weed pile.

Step Three. Amend clay soil.

Adding sand and topsoil to the clay.

Clay soil is the bane of most Virginia gardeners. It’s thick and heavy when it’s wet and it dries rock solid. Most things don’t grow in it so you have to add a little sand and some “real” soil or organic matter like manure or compost. I recently met a soil scientist who informed me that, contrary to common belief, you can permanently fix clay soil in your garden by digging it up and amending it with sand and organic materials. It’s just that you have to do it five times(!) before it takes. I have yet to meet someone willing to dig up their entire garden five times so the rest of us just dig it up and amend in spots as we plant.

Step Four. Plant

"Real" plants

I borrowed liriope from the enormous quantity we have in our front flower beds so I got my edging for free. And you know the story now of the rescued Ruby Spice Clethra so that was “free” in a sense too.

Step Five. Mulch

Mulching completes the transformation.

I have learned to like mulching. It is kind of like painting. It finishes off the garden and gives the planting area an organized look.

Done.

The Clethra last summer in its glory at the nursery.

Know any funny stories about gardening? No? I didn’t either until this weekend. Gardening seems a sort of meditative, serious type of practice but I have found there is a lot of humor in it too.

Take for example, my recent experience with the Ruby Spice Clethra, (which just happens to be a native plant to the eastern U.S.) and is supposed to be a great plant for attracting butterflies.

Last year, I bought one on discount in the middle of summer to fill a spot near my front door. It had a few blooms as I recall and then didn’t do much. Early this spring, I looked at it and it was just a bunch of brown sticks.

“Oh great! I killed it.”

I dragged it off into the woods near our home to compost. I ended up ordering some more Ruby Spice Clethra online this year to put in my garden.

Imagine my surprise when I opened a package from one of the plant growers and found this:

The "stick" Clethra

It looked like a stick in a pot. Now, I have learned not to be surprised at what plants look like when you order by mail. Just the other day, I received this to plant (and yes, it did grow!):

Forget-Me-Not roots

So, after a while of sitting near the window in my kitchen waiting to go outside, suddenly leaves appeared on the “sticks”!

Sprouting sticks!

This development for some reason triggered memories of my Clethra hauled to the woods. Just for fun, I thought I would go check to see if it was still there.

Sure enough, there it was (with the plastic plant tag still on it).

Clethra abandoned in the woods

It was still potbound and stood up on its own. Would you believe it was sprouting leaves?

Rescued Clethra

So, of course, I had to put this survivor back in the garden!

Clethra survivor in its new home.

Around here, we like our plants practically iron clad!

During this whole incident, I could only remember the famous Monty Python “Bring Out Your Dead” sketch with the classic line: “I’m not dead yet!”

I know of at least one other plant with a Monty Python problem.

In the parking area of our local shopping center earlier this spring, there were all of these odd and pathetic-looking stumps.  Someone really pruned them back hard to just twigs sticking out of the ground.

“What happened to those trees?

Those have been pruned so hard

they are surely dead.”

I predicted.

Yet, in another Lazarus moment, a few weeks ago they were sprouting leaves!

"I'm not dead!" The resilient shopping center tree.

While I am still an authority on killing plants, I apparently have lost my privileges as a plant coroner.

Know a resilient plant? Have a humorous gardening tale? Please share in the comments.

Azalea bush in full bloom. One of the many "busy" inhabitants of our garden.

Lately around our house we have an abundance of life. We have huge azaleas, rhododenrons and peonies in an overwhelming, almost desperate, bloom.

Rhododendron burdened with enormous blooms.

Red peony. A new addition from last year.

Blood red peony. Too amazing for words.

This week, I was taking out the garbage one evening and in the short walk out the back door to the garbage can, a lizard scurried under the steps, large moths were fluttering in the darkness and a frog hopped out of the way of my path to rest on our garden hose. After dumping the trash, I caught something out of the corner of my eye near my foot. As I stooped to inspect, I found a large brown spider carrying an egg sac!

It felt like these creatures were saying to me:

Move it, lady! Can’t you see we’re busy?!

It made me stop to realize how important this time of year is for almost every other life form. Whether they survive next year depends on what happens right now.

It’s the kind of realization that makes you feel very small . . . and a bit claustrophobic too!

Just in time for Mother's Day, my pink peonies have bloomed. Consider planting something to honor the marvelous mother in your life!

While we may tend to think of the “holiday season” in December, one of the most important holidays of the year is now upon us . . . Mother’s Day! Mother’s Day is one of those holidays that you cannot miss. After reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother I can no longer think of Mother’s Day without thinking of Amy Chua’s instructions to her daughters on her birthday:

“I don’t want this. I want a better one – one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. . . . I deserve better than this. So I reject this.”

–Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Fortunately, none of the mothers I shop for are Tiger Mothers but I think the sentiment rings a bit true for all mothers. Motherhood is one of the most underappreciated jobs on the planet and even with an entire national day of recognition for it, it just doesn’t seem like enough. There is no card or gift we can give that adequately says thanks for all the things mothers do for us in our lives.

But just because we can’t achieve perfection in thanking our mothers, does not excuse us from our Mother’s Day obligations. We are now down to the last weekend before Mother’s Day and it is time to get our gifts together.

Last year, I wrote an exhaustive list of Mother’s Day gift suggestions.

This year, I will just share some of the interesting graden-related links that crossed my inbox this year:

• Wayside Gardens (Romance the garden with peonies, roses) – How thoughtful would it be if you planted something in her garden (easy to grow, please!) that would bloom every year on Mother’s Day? In the DC area, peonies or rhododendrons would fit the bill nicely.
• Gump’s – Enchanted Garden Accessories. Another low-maintenance garden item would be a piece of statuary. Gump’s cranes are particularly elegant.
• IKEA posted numerous affordable gift ideas for Mother’s Day, including a small greenhouse to grow herbs in.
• Cartier – on the other end of the expense spectrum, you could always help mom garden in style with a chic pair of rimless sunglasses or a beautiful floral perfume.
• Michaels – for handmade projects for mom from kids or others (including garden stepping stones).

Mom-oriented Charitable Donations (also consider donating to any charity your mom favors):

• La Leche League
• UNICEF
• Mothers Against Drunk Driving

What are your favorite Mother’s Day gifts to send or receive? Please share in the comments.

P.S. As always, I have no affiliation with any of the stores or organizations mentioned above (except Amazon).

A clever, customizable marker to distinguish the plants from the weeds in my garden.

In my garden, sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between the small plants that are still getting established and the weeds! To both help myself and clarify the situation for visitors, I wanted to create some plant markers that would be both functional and beautiful.

Punched metal has both a beautiful look and a durability that works well for outdoor use. I found an inexpensive set of metal alphabet punches at Harbor Freight Tools (that you saw in my Easter basket).

When I was browsing online for punch sets, I saw a comment on Amazon.com from a woman who said she used the punches to punch thrift store silverware and mark plants in her garden. Putting a few spoons and knives in the garden appealed to my sense of whimsy.

So, I tried the punches on a dollar store knife.

Attempting to punch a knife.

Unfortunately, the result was less than impressive and the punches barely scratched the surface. So, I tried again with a softer metal, a section of an aluminum can. The recycling aspect of this appealed to me.

Attempt #2: aluminum can

This time, I had success but the punch did not drive as deeply as I would have liked and it took a lot of effort to get it to work.

Punched results on aluminum can

So, I moved on to Plan C, which was to test a piece of aluminum tape I found at the hardware store. This tape is essentially like a heavy-duty piece of aluminum foil with adhesive on the back.

This time, I got the results I wanted!

Success! The punched tape.

The tape is also easier to work with and avoids the risk of injuring someone like the sharp edges of the aluminum can strips.

Once the tape section is punched, remove the backing:

and fold the tape onto itself.

With a sewing needle, punch a small hole in the top.

So, I had this cute little sign with a hole in it but no way to put it in the ground! After some brainstorming with my husband, I came up with using some of our jumbo size paperclip stockpile.

Straighten the larger loop of the paper clip.

Then, straighten the smaller loop of the paper clip, thread your sign halway down the short paper clip end and bend the paper clip in a small loop to secure.

You could leave it like this, but I was worried my children would hurt themselves on the pointy top of the sign (or that I would gouge myself on it while weeding) so I used pliers to bend it into a loop.

These little signs are fun and easy to make, inexpensive and easily customizable. You can punch anything you like and just cut the tape to fit. Up to 50 yards if you really wanted to! You could put the Latin and common names, care instructions, date planted, etc. A file label for the garden!

Happy punching!

A sneaky brownie . . . would you believe there are veggies in there?

I was requested to make a healthy brownie recipe for this month’s Ruly Ruth blog. I chose one with extremely accessible ingredients for everyone. It’s from:

The Sneaky Chef:  Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals by Missy Chase Lapine.

There is more than one brownie recipe in this book–I chose the one that was the most simple: Quick Fixes for Store-Bought Brownie Mix.

If you are not familiar with The Sneaky Chef, her premise is to make family-friendly foods that have healthier alternatives in them. Almost all of the recipes in the book involve one of her purees. A puree is a mixture of fruits and/or vegetables often cooked and then blended to be perfectly smooth so they will blend seamlessly with the rest of the ingredients. In order to make most of the recipes in this book, you first need to make the puree called for in the recipe. The brownie recipe calls for the purple puree:

First, you boil the spinach. I will say the spinach should be loosely packed. I believe I packed my cups too full hence why the following picture of my puree is slightly more green than purple from the blueberries.

The "sneaky" ingredient -- the "purple puree."

The puree took an extra 15 minutes to make–I made it at the same time I made the brownies. People who are die-hard Sneaky Chef fans make their purees for the recipes say Sunday night and either freeze them or refrigerate them for ease of access…but they are not too hard if you have the ingredients on hand.

The only other major substitution in this recipe is taking the 1/2 c of brownie mix out of the box and adding 1/2 cup of wheat germ. As you can see, the brownie mix once blended LOOKS like any other brownie mix you’ve ever made.

The brownie mix with purple puree and wheat germ substitutions.

I will say in person the texture is a tiny bit different–I’d say a bit more runny because the wheat germ doesn’t absorb the liquid like the traditional flour mixture in the mix. But the taste is fabulous–the same as uncooked brownies.

Once baked, as you can see, the brownies look EXACTLY like normal brownies. And hot and fresh from the oven, you can’t tell the difference! I have the ULTIMATE picky eater–my son! And I mean PICKY!!!! I did NOT tell him what was in the brownies and he gobbled his up instantly–the ultimate test!! The rest of us really really like them as well. Now, once they’ve sat for about a day, I would say the texture is a bit different–he will not eat these day-old brownies. Hence make them to share! They are delicious! We do love them–and do try them at home! I did share one pan with a friend and she instantly called and reported she was shocked that they had spinach in blueberries in them too–her kids ate them instantly as well! This recipe is a winner—and who doesn’t need some extra antioxidants in their favorite dessert!! Enjoy!

**Notes from Anne: We eat a ton of brownies at our house so we will have to try this one someday.  I still can’t quite get excited about putting spinach in the brownies, though.  My girls also like to help cook so there wouldn’t be much “sneaking” in our case.  Still, Ruth has inspired me!  Also, a couple of health-related research links on these ingredients:

• Strawberries and Blueberries Halt Cognitive Decline in Elderly, Medical News Today, April 26, 2012
• Regular Chocolate Consumption Linked to Leaner Bodies, Medical News Today, March 27, 2012 (who can resist good news about chocolate?)

Spring blooms continue . . . rhododendrons!

If you are surprised that today is the first day of May (May!), join the club! April for us was jam-packed and flew by altogether too fast. Easter, Spring Break, dog sitting, boom, end of the month! Sadly, I am nowhere near done with what I needed to get accomplished in April. I have more things to do and say about my gardening and outdoor efforts. I still have plants sitting in my kitchen sink awaiting their permanent homes. I still have projects to try and tell you about.

I can’t control time, except in the context of this website, so I am going to grant myself a Ruly extension into May! I will continue on with the gardening efforts and we will weave in a few other fun things as well.

If you have noticed my hiccups in posting this month, I apologize. In addition to the special events calendar, I have another excuse . . .

We’re remodeling!

It’s “just” the master bathroom but this being my first ever major remodeling project it is taking a lot of my time and energy to organize all the logistics. Yes, it is an indulgence to get a brand new master bathroom but we’ve earned it, literally! We have been in our house for 9 years now and dutifully saving up to remodel (since our household policy is that remodeling expenses should be paid in cash). If you have been reading my blog since the beginning, you have seen all the ways we have tried to save money, from eating at home, to saving on holiday clothes for our children, to putting in the elbow grease to refinish old patio furniture, and scrub the playroom clean.

So, finally we have arrived at a reward point! Remodeling gets expensive very quickly so we still have to watch expenses and make sure we stay in our budget. We are really looking forward to the results. I am sure the remodeling process will cause further hiccups in my posting schedule in the future but please hang with me.

In April, I did make a little progress in the garden and shared the following posts:

• Eco-Friendly Weeding Tip
• Patio Furniture Update Tip: Wrought Iron Furniture Caps
• Garden Status Report: Native Plants
• Braiding the Daffodils
• Slate Concrete Patio Makeover

I received some wonderful comments this month on these posts. My native plants status post earned a retweet from the grande dame of DC gardening, editor of Washington Gardener magazine (and one of the most generous Tweeters out there), Kathy Jentz

as well as from Martha of The Soil Toil, who has an amazing DC gardening blog

and Roland Park Native who promotes use of native plants in the Baltimore area and compiles a native plant daily from stories found on Twitter.

My “slate” patio makeover picked up several comments, including a kind comment from Alison Rice of “L is for Latte” (who is currently blogging about her house selling and moving adventures)

and diadia, my devoted reader who hilariously commented:

“Amazing & inspirational–only a chemist w/JD/MBA could detail this accomplishment. Where is the editor of Architectural Digest?”

And the best compliment of all. . . Behr Paint gave me a compliment when I shared the project on Twitter.

Sometimes in the blogging world, it is not about getting the most comments but the right ones. This month’s comments certainly gave me a big boost and I thank everyone for taking time to put your thoughts here.  I do read each and every comment.

On the lighter/personal side, I posted a few tidbits of our life:

• Easter Dresses
• Easter Highlights Plus Non-Sugar Alternative Easter Goodies
• What I Learned from Dog-Sitting for a Week

The Easter dresses have been fun. I ended up making a third dress from the leftover fabric for my niece and we learned through extensive testing that a) this design is perfect for playing “horse.” and b) this quasi-outdoor fabric holds up tremendously well to a dip in the ocean.

We also took the dresses to the ballet this past weekend, paired with a ballet sweater for the chilly, rainy weather and the girls received many compliments.

The Easter dresses also worked well for a spring ballet with a ballet wrap top and silver sandals.

The ballet itself was an organizing marvel. It was a joint affair between the Richmond Symphony and the Richmond Ballet centered around the theme of the American West. The symphony members wore bandanas, plaid shirts, belt buckles and cowboy hats. They played music synonymous with Western culture and movies, including the William Tell overture. Interspersed with the music were wonderful dance pieces, including Agnes de Mille’s delightful “Rodeo” and a children’s piece involving students from the public school system. It was one of those moments where you just sit and feel lucky to witness such creativity and beauty.

Elsewhere on the web . .

Artist (and Ruly character creator) Angie Jordan, had an event with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra doing live illustration of Babar the elephant! So wish I could have seen this one!

It was Earth Day on Sunday, April 22nd and alas, I didn’t find the time to note the occasion. I did get pitched with several blog stories that sounded interesting and so I am passing them on:

• Vegucated – A new documentary film called “Vegucated” debuted that profiles 3 people who take up the challenge to eat vegan for 6 weeks. While I am not vegan, it does sound interesting to learn more about what these people end up eating without meat, dairy or any animal products in their diet.
• Precycling – Organizing expert Barry Dennis just published a new book on decluttering. He pitched organizing as an earth-friendly activity that counts as “precycling.” What is precyling? “That’s when you return precious resources to the earth by not buying the product in the first place.”
• Irrigation – Consumer expert Andrea Woroch shared 22 tips on how to go green for Earth Day. One of them is particularly important for this month’s gardening theme: “7. Use an irrigation controller to manage watering. 20 to 50 percent of your water use goes toward the landscape, even more in certain areas of the country. Invest in a controller to schedule irrigation to reduce overwatering.” We all need to think carefully about water use when we are putting any plants in our garden. My personal strategy has been to just see what lives given the sunshine and water that we have available but I will have to water some of the newer plants I will be planting.
• Little Green – Apartment Therapy also compiled several Etsy seller tiny container garden creations that would work in any space. Gardening meets art!

Hope you are also enjoying your garden and the outdoors at this time of year!