A lovely morning walk

Beaver Lake in mid-morning

There's a human-created lake (Beaver Lake) in North Asheville that's truly magical. 

It's a neighborhood lake, supported by the surrounding community, with the only "fee" being for boaters and dog-walkers.

I admit that we've been scofflaws, bringing Woody for walks without the annual permit for dogs (but always picking up after him, when needed!)  

But we'll be happy to contribute to their permit program when we're up here full-time.

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Fall colors

I'm grateful to have two wonderful places to enjoy fall color and inspiring views.

The views from the windows in our small mountain house are glorious right now - at their peak.

Black gum from studio window

kitchen window view

view from the deck

view from my small studio

The views from the windows in our older house are enchanting, too, created by enveloping plantings of natives, punctuated by a few special non-natives. Here's one from the front.  And a view from our bedroom of a wonderful gingko that we planted, that's gotten quite large.

We have a gingko in the mountains, too, that's just started to turn to yellow.  

Transitions are always lovely, with bittersweet overtones.

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A long fall season

This is a magical time of the year. In the Southeastern U.S., we have wonderful fall colors, spread out over many weeks.

In the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and in the Southern Appalachians, where I live, it is a time of both senescence and renewal.

Yes, the leaves are turning color and dropping, but it's also a time for reinvention, as we move towards the quiet time of winter.

A post about a full moon, a number of years ago, has reminded me of its magic.

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Beautyberry bread

Gathering the berries. I used only the ones at the ends of the branches because they
are the last to ripen.

I robbed the birds!

Many birds feast on our beautyberries (Callicarpa americana) including mockingbirds, catbirds, and cardinals.  So I felt guilty removing even one cup of their winter berry supplies, even though I have a dozen bushes plus more berries on the wax myrtles. But I saw a recipe for beautyberry cake in Peggy Lantz's new book, Florida's Edible Wild Plants and wanted to try it. I tasted a few berries right off the bush. They were fairly bland and only slightly sweet.

It didn't take long to gather the 1 cup of berries...

I modified Peggy's recipe to fit with the ingredients that I had on hand and added nuts and sunflower seeds to make it more of a bread.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup old fashion oatmeal (Peggy used wheatgerm)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (Instead of the vanilla and nutmeg, she used ground ginger root)
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup brown sugar (Peggy used honey and molasses)
1/4 cup hot water
1 cup beautyberries, washed
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup sunflower seeds, roasted and shelled

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease one 9" x 5" loaf pan. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, in a separate bowl mix the eggs, sugar, oil and hot water, add the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients, and then fold in the beautyberries, nuts and seeds. Pour batter into the pan and bake for 40 minutes or until the bread cracks on top.

Verdict: The bread was dark, moist, and quite tasty. Both my husband and I liked it, but neither of us could really taste  beautyberries in the bread and wouldn't know they were there except for getting occasional seeds stuck in our teeth. It's sorta like carrot cake where you can't really figure out where the carrots went, but you can still count it as a serving of vegetables anyway. :-)

The bread is beautiful: as it should be.

Hot out of the oven, the pat of butter melts readily. For
subsequent slices, we'll zap them in the microwave for 45 seconds.

Out and about...

A Muscovy duck and a large brood in a Chick fil-A parking lot. Hey what's in those sandwiches anyway?

A mound of mushrooms at the foot of a live oak tree is beautiful in the morning light.

Root beer anyone?? How's this for a catbriar tuber? We were clearing an overgrown area at the edge of the elevated drainfield for the septic system. The catbriar (Smilax ssp.) vines were as thick as my thumb, so I knew there was a tuber, but I did not expect one this big.

The other day, the skies were filled with a wide variety of cloud types. Beautiful.

October is supposed to be one of our 5 wet months, but the dry season has started early this year with not only no rain, but also record heat. We only received 1/2 an inch of rain early in the month and none since then. (The 30-year average rainfall in October for our area is 3.86".)  Don't forget to water your winter vegetables and if you've planted new trees and shrubs this year, be sure to give them extra irrigation as we move into winter so they'll get a good start on their spring leaves.

And most important, vote green and YES to Florida's Amendment #1.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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More monarchs

A warm afternoon yesterday saw more monarchs nectaring on the big Buddleia, as they were heading south.

These must be some of the last stragglers (I hope). By the weekend, temperatures look to be seasonally cold, and probably the first frost/freeze -- depending on the the lows.

The first monarchs are expected in Mexico any day now.

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Waterfall magic

My gardening companion just received layouts for his upcoming book about waterfalls and wildflowers.  Woo-hoo- I'm so excited and proud for him (it takes DISCIPLINE and hard work and a lot of time to write books;  many, many hours over days, nights, and weekends, with lots and lots of work, but it's magic to see the manuscript and photos transformed into something wonderful!) 

UNC Press is doing a lovely job, again.

Since I'm the first editor and photo manager, I'm sharing the excitement, too!

Here's a photo from last weekend's excursion -- with a created waterfall.

Bass Pond waterfall

An addition to a waterfall talk!

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More fall views

A morning hike in the mountains of Western North Carolina:

view beyond the field

distant view

reflections on Bass Pond

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Biltmore walled garden

view from terrace

Last Sunday's visit to Biltmore included a visit to the walled garden, as well as a walk up to see the far vista from the terrace.

the creativity with grasses, mums, and Mexican bush sage were nice, and way beyond the usual

the mums were the stars, but the interesting twists with grasses were clever

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Fall light

This is the first full week of clear, crisp sky we've had so far this fall.  The characteristically soft, hazy light of spring and summer blew away, leaving behind dramatically blue skies.

We don't see this kind of blue very often in the southeastern U.S.  Today's walk felt different, almost like I was in an unfamiliar place, even though it was one of my usual routes.

Bass Pond, Biltmore Estate

Yesterday's walk around Bass Pond found the sky reflected in the pond;  I was amazed to see that the camera managed to capture the reflection so clearly.

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An amazing mushroom

I've never seen a mushroom that looked like this before (nor had my gardening companion).

Its markings echo long-ago learnings about selective pressure around moths, and industrial Britain. (They became darker as coal ash polluted the air over a century ago).

Nevertheless, this was an extraordinary-looking mushroom, seen on a outing this morning to Biltmore  -- in the Winter Garden.

mushroom near Japanese maple

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Gardeners know when to "fold"

Gardeners are gamblers

We plant seeds or seedlings and we bet that we'll end up with a bountiful harvest, but it doesn't always happen that way. So when a crop is in distress, we need to yank it out and move on to something else. Case in point: our fall cucumber crop that I talked about last time. We had a pretty good harvest of 20 or so crispy cukes, but the vines got hit with a blight, so it was time to pull them out even though there were small fruits coming along and frost will not come until late December. The vines would not be able to overcome this fungus, and the longer you leave an ailing plant in the garden, the more likely it is to leave tainted soil behind. So I pulled the vines, gathered all the fallen leaves, and put them out with the yard trash. I never put diseased plants in the compost. We have to know when to fold, just like the old gambler...

"You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
"Know when to walk away and know when to run..."

Even though there were more cukes coming, I ripped them out.

Fall blight...

Eat your seeds!

Eat the seeds!

We enjoyed a lovely acorn squash for dinner the other night and I also prepared the seeds for eating.
Separate from the squash flesh, cook for 10 minutes in about a half an inch of salted water, and then place the seed/saltwater slurry on a cookie sheet to dry. I turn my oven to 300 degrees for 10 minutes and then turn it off, leaving the seeds in the warm oven for an hour. You can also dry the seeds in the hot afternoon sun. Of course, this is also fun to do with pumpkin seeds, which you may have on hand very soon.

Add a little salt to about 1/2 an inch of water, bring to a boil, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Pour the seeds onto a cookie sheet or pizza pan. Put in a cold oven, turn the heat to 300 degrees for 10 minutes and then turn off. After an hour, delicious seeds to eat.

Snags are so important for bluebirds and other wildlife.

 

Snags, stumps, and logs

Whenever possible leave this deadwood in your landscape to provide food and shelter for bluebirds and other wildlife.

I covered this in my upcoming book, "The Art of Maintaining a Florida Native Landscape." Marjorie Shropshire, my excellent illustrator, created a lovely drawing to illustrate the concept.

I turned in all the drawings and their captions into University Press of Florida this week. This was the last piece of the puzzle; I'd already turned in the final draft, the color photos and captions, the B&W photos and captions, and a collection of possible cover photos, so now the ball is in their court. Yay!

I hope you are enjoying the excellent gardening weather. Just remember, if you are planting trees or shrubs that this is the beginning of our dry season and extra irrigation will be needed for the best success.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

Sunrise this morning. How can you not love Florida sunrises?

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Mignonette

So I was reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and I reached a spot in the book where Mary has found the secret garden and decided to grow flowers in it. She has her friend Dickon buy seeds for her. He bought her poppies and Mignonette. He told her they were the sweetest smelling flower in the world. You know what, I want a secret garden, I want Mignonette. Mignonette, also called Reseda has very plain flower spikes. They are often used in flower arrangements or potpourri because of such a sweet fragrance. 

According to Outside Pride
"Growing Minonette from see is not difficult, but the flower seed should be started outdoors as the plants do not transplant well. Prepare a seedbed and place the Mignonette seeds on the surface. Pressing the flower seed into the soil and barely covering. Maintain moisture until determination occurs. Thin the Mignonette seedlings to the strongest plant. 12 inches apart. Young Reseda Odorata plants should be pinched back to encourage a bushier growth habi. Mignonette seeds can be sown over a period of time to create a longer growing season."

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Tapping into the creative side of gardening

I've been thinking about this topic for a while:  this post a couple of years ago reflected on some of my thoughts then.

I totally rediscovered my creative side through gardening and thinking about designing with plants, in general.

Writing about my nature and gardening observations has been a wonderful creative outlet, I've realized, too, for the past seven years.  And through many posts. Teaching classes about gardening, too, has focused my attention back to creativity as well.

What do YOU really want in your garden?  It's all individual.  We all have different tastes, color preferences, plant memories, etc.

An artist friend of mine said "creativity" was a word that would scare folks away from a workshop or class;  she was right.

I've not managed to have a workshop or class make (around gardening and creativity) until this fall, now with the "Tapping into the Creative Side of Gardening" title).

It's puzzling to me, as so many gardeners are truly creative, but perhaps don't recognize it as such?

Artists who are also gardeners frequently create extraordinarily unusual gardens.  I was reviewing images this afternoon from some that I've seen (on Garden Bloggers Flings) -- amazing gardens!

Here are some images from Kayla Meadow's garden in the East Bay (Berkeley), CA, from 2012, visited during the SF Fling.

tiles, lilies etc.

a colorful combination

out a side door

a wonderful tiled area

my clogs matched the tiles

inside her house

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Still more monarchs

one of many monarchs nectaring on the large Buddleia

The flow of monarchs continues;  the abundant Buddleia flowers are actively being visited, with the nectar resources shared with Painted Ladies, skippers and other butterflies, and bees of all sorts!

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Monarchs, in abundance!

I wish I'd managed a photo today, but our one butterfly bush (Buddleia spp.) was covered in nectaring monarchs all afternoon, along with a few painted ladies and frittilaries.

There were at least 25 monarchs visiting, at about 4 pm, when I went out to check with my gardening companion (and assistant, too).  Marvelous.

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Remembering...

We often walk through downtown after dinner, when we're in the mountains. 

We enjoy seeing the scene -- tourists, locals, street musicians, and restaurants full of folks.  Our dog Woody likes the walk, too.

Asheville has been a destination for visitors throughout its history, from its heyday in the early 20th century, to its resurgence over the last three decades.

There are many "travelers" of all ages who pass through, too, as well as people that are really at the end of their resources, too. Fortunately, Asheville has bed and soup kitchen capacity for most all of them, unlike many southern cities.

This evening, we walked past a fellow on a bench near Pack Square (clearly 'down on his luck') who noticed Woody.  Woody's a rescue Golden, so is sometimes a bit timid, but he responded right away to this fellow.

It was magical to see how the man on the bench responded.  It clearly brought back memories of dogs that he had loved in his past.  It brought tears for me, too.

It reminded me of another moment, some years ago, watching a homeless woman, waiting for a meal, transplanting weeds.

These experiences are magical for all of us.

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Thank you, garden clubs!

In an odd twist, my garden club group in the mountains is co-hosting our District meeting (it cycles around the member clubs) tomorrow.

I never thought I'd be a member of a federated club, but was recruited by someone who's become a good friend, and who was one of the founding members of what is a wonderfully eclectic group of folks -- young, old, and everything in between.

We meet at different times and days each month, unlike traditional clubs. This helps mix things up and also includes many folks who work during the day, too.

I've TOTALLY appreciated the contributions of garden club work and my associations with garden club folks for the 3+ decades that I was a botanical garden staff member.

They do good things, and have done so for many decades. 

So, thanks, garden club members!

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