Blooming in winter and early spring when other flowers are still sleeping~ Camellias provide a punch of cheery & unexpected color when the landscape is barren.
So I’m celebrating the Camellia~ which satisfies my craving for flowers in the garden this time of year ~
The Gardener’s Prayer
O Lord, grant that in some way
it may rain every day,
Say from about midnight until three o’clock
in the morning,
But, You see, it must be gentle and warm
so that it can soak in;
Grant that at the same time it would not rain on
campion, alyssum, lavender, and others which
You in Your infinite wisdom know
are drought-loving plants-
I will write their names on a bit of paper
if you like-
And grant that the sun may shine
the whole day long,
But not everywhere (not, for instance, on the
spirea, plantain lily, and rhododendron)
and not too much;
That there may be plenty of dew and little wind,
enough worms, no aphids and snails, or mildew,
and that once a week liquid manure and guano
may fall from heaven.
Amen.
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The calendar says February, but a few sunny & mild days with temperatures in the 60′s has me Thinking Spring~
Anticipating Spring’s arrival~ I’m enjoying some tabletop gardening~ with the warm weather having whet my appetite for. . .
Spring Bulbs. . .
Blooms. . .
Butterflies. . .
Birds. . .
And Bees~
In addition to the warm weather, I found some tabletop inspiration with new napkins from Kohl’s~
~along with some Lenton Roses my mother-in-law shared from her flower bed to fill some jars for the table.
My matelassé coverlet is top-dressed with a jute runner from Pottery Barn (last year) for texture & warmth~
While a pair of zinc trays have been transplanted with bird seed, a found nest & a small watering can~
Vintage gardening trowels, a pair of salvaged corbels, and a wire cloche are perennial favorites, making a return appearance at the table~
And this bird topped server took flight from HomeGoods to migrate home with me last year and has nested at the table previously here~ serving up fruit & flowers.
I found this idea for an appetizer, ideal for a Spring Garden Party, in a back issue of Southern Living Magazine~
A bird’s nest constructed from basil pesto and a blend of goat & cream cheese~ wrapped in thyme sprigs~
Flour tortillas + the magic of cookie cutters + the oven = bird shaped crackers :)
I added some chopped pecans to my reserved cheese for the bird’s eggs to give the spread a little texture~
You can find the recipe for Pesto Goat Cheese courtesy of Southern Living here.
Wishing you Warm Temperatures and an Early Spring!
Thank you for your visit, I’m joining:
Posted in Flowers, Garden, Tablescape
Tagged bird shaped crackers, Bird's Nest Cheese, Fresh Cut Fridays, garden tablescape, gardening at the table, Hellebores, Lenten Rose, Napoleon Bee flatware, Pesto Goat Cheese spread Bird's Nest, Southern Living recipe, vintage garden trowels
We’ve been Celebrating the Grape and enjoying Bottled Sunshine during September in observance of North Carolina’s Wine Appreciation Month.
Harvest festivals with serenades, grape stomps, and harvest-to-barrel celebrations are abundant with October’s arrival.
Taking my cue from the harvest events at North Carolina wineries this month, I pulled out my grandmother’s dishes~ Harvest Time by Johnson Brothers~ to enjoy with some wine we purchased during our tasting visits.
I harvested some Goldenrod along with clippings from some shrubs for filler~ grasses in bloom, Loropetalum and Abelia for a centerpiece.
Mums for some seasonal color and produce from the grocery store~ artichokes, apples & grapes~ are paired to fill my urn for a full-bodied arrangement for the table.
I fitted a wine bottle with a candelabra insert ~ a fun addition for the table & a keepsake bottle after the contents are gone :)
Cradling a bottle from RayLen Vineyards & Winery~ this little bird told about the upcoming mini-release party of RayLen’s newest vintage of Carolinius~ a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot, with details found here.
Ripe for the picking, I found a grape-producing tablecloth & napkins ~a Ralph Lauren varietal~ at HomeGoods a couple of weeks ago~
I found a cheese pairing suggestion for one of our wines~ a Childress Barrel Select Barbera~ since I had ricotta on hand, it was a natural choice and was simple & delicious~
Ricotta with Blackberries & Lime~
Serves 4
Ingredients
-
3 cups fresh blackberries
-
2 – 3 tablespoons sugar, depending on sweetness of berries
-
Zest & juice of 1 lime
-
8 ounces whole milk ricotta
Method
-
Place 1 ½ cups of the blackberries in a blender and puree with the sugar. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a small bowl. Add half of the zest and lime juice, stir & refrigeration a minimum of 20 minutes
-
Reserve the remaining blackberries and lime zest in the refrigerator.
-
Using a small 1- ounce ice-cream scoop, place 2 tablespoons of the ricotta in the middle of each of 4 small dessert plates or bowls. Toss the blackberry sauce with the remaining berries and spoon a quarter of the sauce around the outside of the ricotta on each plate.
-
Garnish with blackberries & lime zest.
Harvest Table details:
Tablecloth, Napkins & Bird Wine Caddy/HomeGoods
Dishes/Harvest Time by Johnson Brothers
Goblets/Mikasa French Countryside- Tuesday Morning
Chargers/ Pier 1
Flatware/World Market
Thank you for your visit, I’m joining:
Posted in Decor, Flowers, Food, Wine
Tagged Alphabe-Thursday, Childress Barrel Select Barbera, Foodie Friday, Fresh Cut Fridays, Harvest Time by Johnson Brothers, HomeGoods, NC Wineries, RayLen Vineyards & Winery, Ricotta with Blackberries and Lime, Seasonal Sundays, Table Top Tuesday
I was thrilled to have found lilac bundles at Trader Joe’s about six weeks ago, which was the inspiration for this table~ a surprise as delightful to me as their fragrance~ and the only way to enjoy them here since our climate is too warm for them to grow.
I pulled out my Mikasa Daylight Dinnerware for this table~ instead of dining with butterflies, I’m feasting on quilted fields of flowers with the lilacs~
Little clusters of flowers on the lilacs diffuse their heady fragrance, that I arranged with white hydrangeas and the new, green blooms of Chinese snowball viburnum for a centerpiece~
I love the viburnum’s first lime-hued blooms, that appear before they transition to white. . .their arrival holding the promise of the flowers to come. . .
. . .and whose blooms are the same vibrant shade of the leaves on my Mikasa Daylight pattern~ a hue that reminds me of the energetic, new growth of spring~ trailing across the plates, winding their way inside the bowls & outside the cups.
Since our style is relaxed at the lake, quilts are my table covering of choice~ since they serve double-duty on beds as well as the table and best of all . . .don’t require ironing :-)
A few open-face cucumber sandwiches garnished with the last of the violas (organic!) and basil leaves for fresh-from-the- garden flavor~
While the recipe called for blueberries, I used a medley of berries that I had in the freezer~
Refreshing and light for hot summer weather . . .
And fun for a lunch with the girls, served with a salad garnished with the last of the violas and edible organic nasturtiums. . .
A flavorful as well as colorful combination of strawberries, nectarines, feta cheese, green tomatoes, glazed pecans, and fresh basil~ on a bed of mixed baby salad greens~
This 5- Star rated recipe is served with Lemon-Poppy Seed Dressing. Not a huge fan of Poppy Seed Dressing, we enjoy Balsamic or Raspberry Vinaigrette on this salad. Adding chicken from a deli roaster, would make this an entrée salad to be enjoyed in hot weather without heating up the kitchen!
“What makes lilacs treasured is not the years they can accumulate, however, but the beauty of their flowers, which come just as the last memory of winter and its ice and snow and barrenness are passing away in the May sun. They flower exuberantly then, hundreds of cobs of bloom appearing over gaunt, gray trunks. That conjunction is itself an emblem of the renewal of the year, but we wonder whether without the fragrance peculiar to lilacs they would matter so much.”
Please Eat the Flowers :-) Lunch Menu
Open Face Cucumber Sandwiches~ a mosaic “how-to” can be found in my post here.
Lilac & Daylight Table details:
Contoured chargers/ World Market
Flatware/Portmeirion Botanic Garden/HomeGoods
Green Goblets & Napkins/HomeGoods
Bird Napkin Rings & Green Urn/ Pottery Barn
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Posted in Decor, Flowers, Food, Tablescape
Tagged Chilled Berry Soup, Chinese snowball viburnum, edible viola tea sandwiches, Feathered Nest Friday, Foodie Friday, Fresh Cut Fridays, Home Sweet Home, Lifetime Brands, Lilacs, Mikasa Daylight Dinnerware, On the Menu Monday, Open Face Cucumber Tea Sandwich, Seasonal Sundays, Southern Living, Strawberry Fields Salad, Tablescape Thursday, Tabletop Tuesday, violas for garnish
I’m dining with the butterflies~ enjoying this book~ with its beautiful illustrations by Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), German-born naturalist and artist.
At a time when few women were educated or literate, and rarely travelled, Maria Sibylla Merian was a pioneer, and made history with her studies of insects in Surinam.
Trained as a copperplate engraver and watercolorist, she documented the metamorphosis of butterflies, laying the foundation for modern entomology.
On seeing a collection of butterflies from Dutch Guiana, (modern Surinam), she decided to study tropical flora and fauna, to discover whether the moths and butterflies she saw in collections shared the same life cycle as those she had bred: the egg and caterpillar stage.
In 1699 she sailed for South America with daughter Dorothea, the first time any woman had ventured on a journey of exploration on this scale.
Having evaluated and categorized her specimens, in 1705 she published her major work Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, in Dutch and Latin.
She made 60 copperplate engravings to illustrate the stages of insect development, arranged around the cultivated and wild plants she had encountered on her travels.
With its detailed text and imagery, the Metamorphosis is the first work on the natural history of Surinam. For 17th century Europeans it was an insight into an unknown world.
This quilted throw from HomeGoods migrated into my cart recently and was the inspiration for this table.
I thought it would be the perfect foundation for this book, with the butterflies sipping nectar from the quilted flowers~ while I sipped on tea from my Portmeirion Botanic Garden Blue Tea Set and dined among the embossed butterflies on my Lennox Butterfly Meadow Cloud plates.
Quilted throw/ HomeGoods by Ridgefield Home
Plates/ Lennox Butterfly Meadow Cloud/ HomeGoods
Trays/ HomeGoods
Bee Stems/ Sur La Table
Napoleon Bee flatware/Horchow
Napkins/Pier 1
Tea Set/ Portmeirion Botanic Blue/ Marshalls
I spread my wings with a little bow tie pasta chicken salad, recipe courtesy of Pillsbury~ to fly over and join the fun at Lynn’s Celebrity Cook-Along with Pillsbury~ and a few Pepperidge Farm butterfly crackers served on the side.
Dried Cherry-Nut Chicken Pasta Salad, recipe can be found here.
I substituted chopped pecans for slivered almonds in the recipe and made an additional substitution with the dressing called for. Not a huge fan of poppy seed dressing, I decided to try Trader Joe’s Champagne Pear Vinaigrette that is slightly sweet, and has some gorgonzola in it, when I read a comment that suggested adding some gorgonzola to the pasta salad for additional flavor. It was a quick & tasty substitution for the poppy seed dressing that I mixed with Olive Oil Mayo and complemented with the dried cherries, nuts, chicken & bow tie pasta.
I recently had a milestone birthday, and was gifted with my very own Poppin’ Fresh Pillsbury Dough Boy napkin holder, since the Dough Boy was introduced 5o years ago, in 1961 :-)
A metamorphosis~ from crescent rolls to sugar-sprinkled butterflies garnish a layer of berries, lemon curd & whipped cream.
“TASCHEN’s reprint of a hand-colored first edition copy, belonging to the University Library of Basel, includes the complete plates with a commentary by Katharina Schmidt-Loske. Merian accomplished a pioneering achievement of the modern age. This publication pays homage to her work and offers readers an opportunity to appreciate her sumptuous engravings.”
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Posted in Books, Flowers, Food, Tablescape
Tagged Celebrity Cook-Along, Crescent roll butterflies, Dried Cherry Nut Chicken Pasta Salad, Feathered Nest Friday, Fresh Cut Fridays, Home Sweet Home, HomeGoods, Insects of Surinam, Lennox Butterfly Meadow Cloud, Maria Sibylla Merian, Pillsbury, Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, Pillsbury Dough Boy introduced in 1961, Portmeirion Botanic Blue Tea Set, Tablescape Thursday, Tabletop Tuesday, Trader Joe's Fresh Flowers
Gardenia blooms and buds are beginning to appear, just as the temperatures climb into the 90′s. . .
There is something soothing to my soul and inner thermostat :-) when I see white~
“Sultry as a summer evening and as intoxicating as an exotic perfume, the scent of gardenias settles like a memory onto your soul. The blossoms are just as enticing. Buds shaped like seashells unfurl into velvet soft flowers in the warmth and humidity of early evening. But it’s the fragrance that captivates.”
“White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.”
~ G.K. Chesterton
And more whites . . .
If we’re not on the boat, trying to generate a breeze, you can find me here~
On the porch, under the fan, surrounded by white & thinking cool thoughts~
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Posted in Bird, Dogs, Flowers, Lake Life
Tagged bluebirds in house, Cottage Flora Thursdays, Fresh Cut Fridays, gardenia, Mosaic Monday, Outdoor Wednesday, Seasonal Sundays, Southern Living Magazine
by Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd
An Edible Book Review inspired by Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
“Plants, like words in poetry, observe Eck and Winterrowd, are both beautiful in themselves and also for the associations they trail behind, the histories they have in the world and in one’s own life.”
Cofounders of the garden design firm North Hill, the authors, Eck and Winterrowd share the history of their Vermont garden, writing about “the plants they have lived with, nurtured and nourished, in a sort of inverse family memoir, where the parent remembers the children—the trouble-free, the troubling and the troubled.”
Each chapter begins with a pen & ink drawing by Bobbi Angell, botanical illustrator and artist. Her work continues to win awards, including the prestigious Jill Smythies Award from The Linnean Society of London, The American Society of Botanical Artists’ Award for Excellence in the Service of Science, and Center for Plant Conservation’s Star Award.
My life in gardens is limited to the table~ I wish I had one to rival North Hill or my Portmeirion Botanic Garden~
*sigh*
Instead, I’m gardening vicariously with dishes . . . enjoying the buzzing of the bees and fluttering of butterflies among the flowers.
I can dream about flowers as I mentally traipse through the authors’ Vermont garden and enjoy their bits of wisdom as they share their passion. . .
. . .and gather bits of knowledge, nostalgia & new plants to cultivate while enjoying essays that range alphabetically from ~
Agapanthus: “we fear you must resort to shoving and hauling, smashing and splintering, to a cold bedroom full of nasty, yellowing foliage, always anticipating the pure bliss that will come,”
to
Xanthorrhoea Quadrangulata: “it is painful to say that plants are very scarce and that ours is not likely to produce any progeny we can share.”
“From a chance encounter, gardeners, like lovers, often form lifelong relationships of great intensity. You see a plant, your eyes widen, your pulse accelerates, and huskily you ask even complete strangers its name, importunately tugging at coat sleeves.”
Much like what happens to me when I spy a new botanical image or design of Portmeirion at Home Goods or wherever I stumble on it :-)
Since its creation in 1972, over 70 botanical images have been added to this collection. To see this exuberant botanic garden with all the blooming motifs, look here.
“Buried in every gardener’s memory are plants he has seen or read about and vows to grow, or wishes he could grow, if only he had the right conditions.”
“Dame’s Rocket can make its gentle way at the edges of woods or in partly shaded ditches, competing with weeds and making them glorious in mid-June, with three-foot-tall branched candelabra of little four-petaled flowers in beautiful shades of purple, pink, and white, blended together like the colors of an old, much-bleached housedress. The smell is that of fresh laundry, a rich, spicy, powders sweetness elusive to Chanel or any other parfumier.”
“ ‘Fife Yellow,’ ‘Cowichan Blue’, ‘Barnhaven Gold’, ‘Duckyls Red’, ‘Enchantress’, ‘Guinevere’, ‘Granny Graham’, ‘Broadwell Milkmaid’, ‘Sailor Boy’, ‘Prince Charming’, ‘Satchmo’, ‘Winter Dreams’, ‘Hurstwood Midnight’. . .
. . . even without a picture in a catalog, it is hard to resist ordering plants with such names, for as with roses, their beauty begins there. Add a picture, and the gardener is sunk, the plant budget spent, and the vegetables unordered.”
Annuals: “Though they are often very beautiful themselves, their charm resides to a large degree precisely in their naïveté, their simple sense of ease and well-being, just in themselves, just in what they are. It is true that their colors are often bold and unsubtle, usually in the part of the color wheel called ‘hot,’ which includes the hardest yellows, crimsons, and reds—but they are beloved by children and to any adult they offer the same kind of lift to the heart that occurs when walking through FAO Schwarz at Christmastime.”
Hybrids: “Crossing species madly ending up with a diverse swarm rather like a barnyard of mixed bantam chickens.”
Seed: “There is something deeply touching about any flower that blooms so late, and we wonder how it has time to make seed. It seems forgetful of that necessity, and even therefore, faintly tragic, or at least melancholic.”
“Within the group of plants classed as biennial are some of the most treasured in gardens, not for their rarity, certainly, but for their homely, simple charm. Usually, they are considered ‘cottage flowers,’ and their ranks include hollyhocks, forget-me-nots, dame’s rocket, Sweet William, Saint Barbara’s weed, and foxgloves. Like all cottage flowers, they seem to carry resonances far beyond their individual beauty, suggesting fine June country mornings and casement windows flung open to the bright sun and the sound of bees at work. Somewhere near them there will always be an old, well-waxed table spread with good, fresh things, and the chance to linger in the garden, to work perhaps or just to sit and stare.”
“Early each spring, we wonder whether we would love snowdrops if they bloomed in June, rather than at the end of a long, cold winter. Certainly they are beautiful enough to love at any time of the year: silken pearls in bud and winged when open to the warmth of an early spring day. They dangle on delicate, threadlike pedicels, dancing in the slightest breeze.”
“What makes lilacs treasured is not the years they can accumulate, however, but the beauty of their flowers, which come just as the last memory of winter and its ice and snow and barrenness are passing away in the May sun. They flower exuberantly then, hundreds of cobs of bloom appearing over gaunt, gray trunks. That conjunction is itself an emblem of the renewal of the year, but we wonder whether without the fragrance peculiar to lilacs they would matter so much.”
I played with violas, sugaring them for Food for Thought to embellish cupcakes~
Ideas and directions for crystallizing edible flowers, courtesy of Martha Stewart here
Dishes: Portmeirion Botanic Garden
Napoleon Bee Flatware: Horchow
Napkins: Pier 1
Napkin Rings: Home Goods
Rattan Chargers: World Market
“For more than thirty years, Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd have been gardening with extraordinary, indeed legendary, results. Part memoir, part omnium-gatherum of horticultural wisdom and practical advice, Our Life in Gardens is at once literate, learned, sensible, and, often, sheer luscious poetry. There are delights to be sampled on every page. From a cultivated life, they have brought forth, once again a cultivated book.” ~Phillip Gambone
“Any gardener may find its specific (and sometime technical) advice helpful, but walkers among gardens and those who dream of gardening will find special pleasure in plant lore and history and in the lucid descriptions that render them visible.”
Sadly, Wayne Winterrowd passed away last September~ his work with Joe lives on, not only in their books, but in their beautiful garden, North Hill.
Thanks for your visit & to my hostesses, I’m joining:
Posted in Books, Decor, Flowers, Tablescape
Tagged Alphabe-Thursday, an edible book review, Bobbi Angell, cooking my book, Cottage Flora Thursdays, Crystallized Pansies, food for thought edible review, Fresh Cut Fridays, Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd, Our Life in Gardens, Portmeirion Botanic Garden, Sugared Pansies, Tablescape Thursday
