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Wherever you go these days, from the garden stores to the grocery stores, you’ll see great big balls of flowering plants. These symbols of fall are chysanthemums which are found mostly in yellow and maroon, sometimes in white and occasionally in pink. For a plant that can display astonishing variety of form and color, it’s a little surprising that the tight, mounded variety is so ubiquitous.

Depending on your age, you might best remember chrysanthemums as corsages, so common that they were named “football mums” or “homecoming mums.” I thought these were a part of ancient history but a quick web search indicated that in Texas, Football Mums are a still a very big deal. Not content with just wearing a huge flower, Texans now add long ribbons, cow bells, teddy bears and on and on. It’s a bit of a phenomenon.

If you prefer your chrysanthemums without teddy bears, there are a lot of different ones to choose from. There are 40 species, native to Asia and Northern Europe and countless cultivars developed from these. Chrysanthemums are very ancient plants, as indicated by the fact that Confucius wrote of them in 500 BC. In AD 910, Japan held its first Imperial Chrysanthemum Show and declared it the national flower. There were records of 500 different cultivars by 1630.

Based on the Victorian language of flowers, chrysanthemums symbolized cheerfulness and optimism (especially with a teddy bear attached?). The Chinese consider it a sign of rest and ease and the Japanese take it as a sign of long life and happiness.

Chrysanthemum petals are edible and some say even tasty. Only flowers that have not been sprayed with chemicals should be used for eating. Blanch petals for several seconds before adding to cream soups or salads.

In spite of the onslaught of chrysanthemums right now, a better time to plant them is in spring. But, ironically enough, it’s difficult to find them in the spring in your local garden store! Though they are true perennials, fall planted mums don’t always survive winters. They have been bred and pushed for a glorious one – time display. When they are planted in spring, though, they have a chance to develop a good root system and become established.

Whether you plant them in spring or fall, use them in hanging baskets or as bedding plants, eat them or cuddle with them at night, Chrysanthemums are sure to bring beauty and joy.

When I asked my 12 year old grandson what his favorite holiday was he said, amazingly enough, Halloween! Better than Christmas? I asked and he nodded enthusiastically.

What!? What can be better than Christmas? Well, apparently Halloween is. I’m not much for Halloween food – except for the pumpkins! And I do love all kinds of pumpkiny things, especially muffins. I’ve included my favorite naturally sweetened pumpkin muffin recipe at the end of this blog.

Pumpkins are pretty fascinating. They are native to northern Mexico and the southern United States. They were first found growing 7500 years ago. The pumpkin is technically a winter squash with sweet meat and tasty nutritious seeds. The world’s love affair with pumpkins continues. The U.S. pumpkin production in 2017 was 1.5 billion pounds.

Though most pumpkins weigh in at an average of 8 – 12 pounds, there are some real monsters out there. At a giant pumpkin contest in Europe in 2016, a Belgian pumpkin won – at a whopping 2,624 pounds!!!

The best pumpkins for baking are marked as “pie” or “sugar’ pumpkins. They are usually much smaller than those grows for jack-o-lanterns and their meat is much more tender and tasty. The meat can be baked and pureed to use in pies, muffins and cakes. But really? Canned pumpkin saves hours of work and is almost as good for baking.

Here’s the recipe for Pumpkin Muffins – it uses the entire can of pumpkin and makes 20 – 24 muffins. They freeze beautifully! Enjoy

1 1/2 cups raisins and hot water to cover

1 3/4 cup honey OR maple syrup (OR 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar)

one 15 ounce can of pureed pumpkin (1 1/2 cups if you’re making your own)

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup light flavored olive oil

2 1/2 cups All Purpose flour

2 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon

2 1/4 teaspoons ground cloves

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Prepare muffin pans.
2. Pour hot water over raisins to cover. Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl. Add the sweeteners and stir until the mixture thickens slightly. Blend in the pumpkin and vanilla extract.
3. Pour in the oil and continue to mix until thoroughly blended. Drain the water off the raisins and add the raisins to the batter.
4. In a separate bowl, mix flours spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and stir until just blended.
5. Fill the muffin cups to almost full. Bake 20 minutes or until done.
6. Enjoy

It’s difficult to tell, these days, what is turning brown and dying back for the season and what is turning brown and dying for all time. My garden looks pretty dismal. Weeks with no rain and temperatures continuing to hover around 90 degrees have taken their toll. I don’t mind the annuals dying off, they’ve had their say, done their good deed, lived their lives…..it’s the shrubs and particularly the trees that I’m worried about.

If I could depend on it being hot and dry, I could plant for that but along with increasing temperatures comes erratic and extreme weather patterns and they are more difficult to plan for. So, I’m looking for plants that (usually) like hot weather but will withstand occasional extremely low temperatures. And, plants that (usually) like dry conditions but will withstand periods of heavy rain and flooding,

Ummm, the list is getting smaller. All I have to do, though, is to look at my back yard to see what is still thriving and what looks like it’s on its last leg. (Since I can’t irrigate everything, I have chosen to keep the front watered – it’s a smaller area, easier to water and it pleases me to show off my best garden to the neighborhood.)

My back yard pretty much has to exist on its own. And what still looks good are most of the native plants, a few weeds and some hardy, beloved ornamentals. Bee balm, phlox, green and gold and black eyed Susans, asters and the native ferns and grasses seem unfazed by the heat and drought. Lenten rose looks pretty perky, as does the slightly weedy ageratum. Good old – fashioned green hostas continue to look fine but the more delicate, unusual hostas all have some leaves that are turning brown and crinkly. My hydrangeas, marginal even in the best of times, have lost most of their leaves. Can I revive them? Probably. Should I? Probably not. They are not the best choice for the times. My Japanese maples all have some leaves that are turning brown and dropping – I pray that it’s a survival technique and that they’ll all come back next spring.

So, the question is, where do I go from here? How do I best garden in these times of erratic and extreme weather patterns? I think it’s a question of both what to grow and how to grow it. The following might offer some ideas:

1. Shade is your friend. Things will last longer and need less water in the shade. You may not get as many blooms on things but they will survive better.
2. Choose carefully how you want to “spend” your water resources. Water trees and shrubs first – they are the backbone of the garden. Annuals and perennials can be more easily replaced.
3. Practice good gardening principles. Keep weeds pulled up – you don’t want to waste water on them! And be diligent in keeping a thick layer of mulch around your plants – it will retain moisture AND keep weeds down.
4. Choose plants that are hardy and adaptable. Many, many of our native plants fall into this category.
5. Be wise in when you put in new plantings – wait until the weather cools and (hopefully) the rains begin again.

But most of all, I think we all need to realize that times, they are a-changing and that gardeners need to be a-changing too. Using water is not so much an economic choice as it is a choice of consciousness. Just because you can water doesn’t mean you should. As one NASA scientist said, ‘We need to get our heads together on how we manage groundwater…because we’re running out of it.”

In Robert Heinlein’s book, Stranger in a Strange Land, the main character is from Mars, where everyone considers water sacred. When he comes to earth, he is shocked at our wanton use of this precious substance. Perhaps it’s time that we all thought of water as sacred. Even here on earth.

Jack and I just got back from traveling in Switzerland for two weeks. It was absolutely stunning with green valleys and snow capped mountains. Traveling in September meant fewer crowds, which was nice, but also fewer wildflowers which was really okay too. Because I wasn’t overwhelmed with fields and fields of flowers, I was able to see and appreciate individual blooms. I would love to go back when the hills are alive with color but, I was thrilled to be there in any season.

I loved seeing plants that we consider Eurasian weeds happy and well adjusted in their native habitats. Plants such as dandelions and buttercups, which we consider invasive pests, seemed to be much better behaved “at home.” Perhaps the most impressive example of this was the bachelor buttons (cornflowers) and knapweeds, both members of the Centaurea genus native to Europe. There, at home, they are just a lovely part of the ecosystem. Here in North America, they are in a foreign land and have become so aggressive that they outcompete the natives for space and resources and endanger the health of the natural environment.

I also loved seeing how many American natives were being used as cultivated plants in the gardens that were so prevalent from small cottages to grand parks. Purple coneflowers, black eyed Susans, sunflowers, phlox were pampered and coddled in these Swiss gardens.

Perhaps the most thrilling sight was the fields of Autumn crocus that were in bloom. This is actually not a true crocus (and NOT the source of saffron) but a mildly toxic relative in the Colchicum genus. Toxic or not, it was thrilling to see hillsides come into bloom with this small pink flower.

Switzerland is reputed as being one of the most beautiful countries in the world and I would have to agree! I can’t wait to go back and roll in fields of flowers. And maybe even get to see the shy and ephemeral eidleweiss.

Though I love (almost) all my plants, it’s hard not to choose favorites. And, while I have some perennial favorites, it seems that each year, something tends to stand out and capture my heart. This year it was a stunningly beautiful, abundantly blooming milkweed plant.

I planted it in mid spring, primarily to contribute to the milkweed population that is so important for the monarch butterflies. Although monarchs will sip nectar from a great number of plants, they will only lay their eggs on milkweeds. Milkweed used to be…well, a weed and could be found in abundance in sunny fields and prairies in a wide range across the country. But with fewer and fewer empty spaces available for “just weeds” to grow, milkweeds have disappeared at an alarming rate – and the monarchs right along beside them.

I knew better than to plant the beautiful – but somewhat harmful for the monarch – tropical butterfly weed that is readily available in plant stores and catalogs. The problem with this particular species is that it will overwinter in warm regions (including our own) and the monarchs are tricked into thinking that it’s a good idea to lay their eggs here instead of making that LONG trek back to Mexico. The results are not good. Not only does the tropical milkweed host a parasite detrimental to the monarch, but the adults who hatch from the eggs laid on these plants are diminished in size and display a shorter life span.

Instead, I planted a cultivar of a native and oh my! not only did I make the monarchs happy, it made me very happy as well. It has bloomed profusely for months, putting forth yellow – orange flowers over and over and over again. When it began to go to seed, the air was filled with silken parachutes. We’ll see if they land on fertile ground and germinate next year.

I was startled, one morning, to go out and find my plants covered with orange and black bugs. A little research informed me that these “milkweed bugs” (appropriately named) would not really harm the plant and to just let them be.

As thoughts of fall begin to occur to my garden, the milkweed has slowed down production. Flowers are few and far between, milkweed bugs have left for greener pastures and the monarchs, hopefully, are preparing to make their trek back to Mexico. May they journey safely and come back next year!

Not many people can say that and mean it literally but I can, although I haven’t actually gotten to the weaving part yet. But the tangles! Oh yes. I know tangles.

It all started when my sister brought me skeins of white silk from Laos last year. The women in the village had done it all – raised the silk worms, then extracted the silk from the cocoons and spun it into thin – very thin – thread. Think dental floss on a diet.

The first step was to dye it. I used a cold water dye that I got at the art store – rusty orange – and threw in just a little bit of midnight blue, just because I can’t help messing with colors. It turned out beautifully – a rich, golden orange color. But when I pulled it out of the dye bath, oh my! the tangles, the matted threads, the gnarls and swirls, the kinks! I looked at it and had two thoughts: (1) the trash can (2) three weeks of untangling the thread. I couldn’t bear to throw it away so I set it out to dry and hoped that it wouldn’t be as bad as it looked.

Well, it wasn’t. Quite. I yanked on it (hard) to get some of the kinks out (praying that it wouldn’t break the threads) and then began winding the tangled skeins onto cones and miracle of miracles! it only took three days instead of three weeks. There were only a few times I rethought the trashcan option. Once was when I had long threads carefully separated, strung out on the floor of my studio and my dog, Sadie, heard a squirrel in the back yard and in a spasm of joy, tore out the door, right through my thread. That part did go in the trash.

The question is, why would I do this? Why does any crafts person spend such an enormous amount of time making a product that you can get on Amazon for a few dollars? Obviously it’s the process. I don’t know when I’ve experienced such satisfaction as when I finally got all those threads lined up neatly and smoothly, ready to put on the loom. I don’t have control over much in my life but I can control these threads. Or at least most of them.

Alexander Langlands, in his very excellent book Craeft, addressed this question of “why” when he says that craft is “a hand-eye-head-heart-body co-ordination that furnishes us with a meaningful understanding of the materiality of our world.”

Is untangling thread really “craft?” Well, it was an absolutely essential part of the process and, as I said, it’s all about the process. Can I really make a narrow, thin scarf (about the best I can hope for) out of these threads? Maybe, maybe not. But if I do, I’ll know that it was “loved” into being.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love trees. What’s not to love? They are beautiful, provide shade, food, wildlife habitat, shelter and help fight climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing pure oxygen into the atmosphere.

But a new Forest Service proposal may make it super easy for loggers to come in and cut down the trees in our beloved National Forest Lands, without any of us having a say about it.

The Administration is proposing a rule change which would “eliminate opportunities for citizen involvement and environmental review on more than 90 percent of all Forest Service projects” says Jim Furnish, the former Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

He goes on to say, in this article from the Washington Post, “Buried deep within 16 pages of legalese are some nasty surprises: a nearly unlimited license to commercially log nearly seven square miles — about 3,000 football fields — or build five miles of logging roads at a time without involving the public or disclosing environmental consequences.”

This proposal would not only potentially eliminate our trees, destroy wildlife habitats and damage fresh water streams and rivers, but prevent us from being able to influence that things that go on in our National Forests.

But we have not been silenced yet. We have until August 26 to weigh in with the U.S Forest Service about this proposed rule change. Please, please, voice your opinion while you still can. Do it today. Do it now. Comments can be posted here: http://regulations.gov/docket?D=FS-2019-0010. Just click on “Comment now.”

Thank you.

Below is my own comment.

I vehemently oppose the new rule change for the Forest Service that would allow more logging and road building in our National Forests without public input or without disclosing the environmental consequences. The new rule changes could have catastrophic consequences for fresh water, wildlife habitat and forest ecology. At a time when we desperately need trees to help fight the effects of climate change, we should ALL be dedicated to saving every tree possible.

Sometimes you’re just at the right place at the right time. Driving down a back road at Lake Lanier last week, I rounded the curve and there, standing in the middle of the road, was a white tailed deer and her fawn. Really no big deal EXCEPT that the fawn was white. I mean almost totally white with a few brown spots and one brown ear.

I stopped the car and reached for my phone, which took a few precious seconds of groping before I could find it, then clicked on the “camera” only I kept hitting other stuff, wasting still more time until finally, just as they begin to leave, I got a picture. Then one more and then they bounded into the woods.

I just sat still for a moment, goosebumps dancing down my arm. I had never seen anything like it, not even heard of a white deer except in legend. I was pretty sure it was not an albino, as it had a black nose and one brown ear. But there was no question that it was white (thank goodness I got a picture, otherwise you’d never believe me!)

Armed with my precious photos, I began researching as soon as I could. White deer ARE rare, though certainly not unheard of. The white color is a recessive genetic trait called leucism, which occurs in 1% of all the white tailed deer population. Leucistic deer display some combination of white and brown markings and are often called piebald. Other animals show this characteristic as well, including birds and squirrels.

There is a fairly large population of leucistic deer in the enclosed 10,000 acre Seneca Army Depot where they have been protected since 1951. There, where they are in an enclosed space and interbreeding is common, 1/4 to 1/3 of the 800 deer are piebald.

Like any rare animal, white deer are protected both by law and by legend. Killing a white animal has always been taboo in cultures all over the world. Legend tells us that a hunter who kills a white deer will suffer a long streak of very bad luck. White deer are particularly important in American Indian culture where superstitions and legends abound. If you want to read the Chickasaw Indian legend called the Ghost of the White Deer (and learn a lot more about white deer), go to http://www.protectthewhitedeer.com

Seeing this white fawn was such a gift. I feel reverence and awe for this tiny, rare white fawn and will pray for her safety as I celebrate her life.

I love my garden sages. And, when I stopped to count, I was surprised at how many different species grow in my sunny garden beds. Salvias (or sages) have a lot going for them – they are beautiful, easy to care for, deer resistant, drought tolerant AND are magnets for pollinators, including bees, hummers and butterflies. Another BIG plus for me is that many of my Salvia plants bloom in shades of blue that are absolutely stunning.

Probably my favorite (at least for this year!) is the “Black and Blue” Salvia guaranitica. It grows tall (up to about 40 inches) and has long tall spikes of black calyx (which surround and protect the buds) that open into rich purplish blue flowers.

Growing nearby is the smaller blue sage called Mealycup, which I always thought was a bit of an unfortunate name until I read that both the common name and the species name (farinacea) come from the Latin word “farina” which means flour or meal and is so named because of the whitish powder on the upper stem and flower buds. This species is native to Texas and Mexico and grows about 12 – 24 inches tall.

Both the Blue and Black and the Mealycup are considered tender perennials. They are hardy to horticultural zone 8 so Atlanta is right on the cusp. Mine did not survive the winter last year but this year I’m going to treat them to an extra layer of mulch and see what happens.

Perhaps the most used Salvia is S. splendens, or the bedding salvia which comes in that brilliant scarlet red color. Though red is the most common, it can also come in purple, lavender, yellow or white. All the bedding salvias have heart shaped leaves.

The word “Salvia” comes from the Latin “salvere” which means “to heal” and was given to this genus because of its medicinal value. There are over 900 species in the genus and the variety is impressive. The common cooking herb, sage, is also closely related. Salvia was dedicated to the Greed god, Zeus, and the Roman god, Jupiter. The ancient Greeks believed Salivas were good for enhancing memory.

Some species are used as flavoring some as medicines, some as dyes, and some, when ingested, are dangerous hallucinogens. But all are lovely plants to include in the garden – and your visitors, winged and otherwise, will thank you.

I love bamboo and am forever fascinated by it, both from a botanical viewpoint and an artistic one. Bamboo has been revered for it’s resilience and usefulness for thousands of years. Records dating back 7000 years indicate that bamboo was being used for arrows, building material, paper and books.

In the intervening years, bamboo has been used for food, clothing, housing, furniture building, transportation, musical instruments, fencing, weapons and garden ornaments, just to name a few. Today, bamboo is lauded as a renewable resource and is used for making a wide variety of products. And, of course, it’s the staple diet of one of the world’s most beloved animals, the Giant Panda.

Bamboo is technically a grass and has a hollow stem. There is tremendous variation within the bamboo family, which has been divided into 115 genera and 1200 species. Almost all species are native to warm, tropical and temperate climates throughout the world. In the Western Hemisphere, bamboo grows in South, Central and North America. There is even a species of bamboo native to the southeastern United States. called “river cane,” it grows in moist areas, such as along river banks.

One of the more fascinating botanical facts about bamboo is that it exhibits what is called “mass flowering.” Any plant taken from the original grove, and replanted anywhere in the world, will all bloom at the same time in spite of differences in geography, climate, temperatures, rainfall or anything else. Bamboo are notoriously sporadic bloomers and flowering is unpredictable. The plants often go from 65 – 120 years without flowering. Perhaps the reason is that when they do bloom, the trees mostly decline and often die. But, the flowers set seed which fall and germinate to maintain the species.

There are basically two types of bamboo – running and clumping. As a gardener, it’s imperative that you know the difference. Running bamboo (notice it’s not called walking bamboo) can be quite aggressive and fast growing. One species of bamboo can grow an astonishing 36 inches in 24 hours, a rate of about 1.6 inches an HOUR and some species of bamboo grow to be almost 100 feet tall.

There are many, many types of clumping bamboos suitable and appropriate for our gardens. The best way to determine what you might want to grow is to go and look at different kinds. We’re lucky in the South to have two wonderful botanical gardens with display forests. The first is the Bamboo Farm and Coastal Garden near Savannah (http://www.coastalgeorgiabg.org) where they grow over 60 different bamboo species. The other is in Gainesville, Florida and is the Kanapaha Gardens (http://www.kanapaha.org). Kanapaha also offers a yearly bamboo sale, mostly online from January – mid February. Go to their website in January to see what they are offering.

Oh, and about that “lucky bamboo” that are so popular as gifts? They’re not. Well, they’re not bamboo, but they may be lucky! I’ll let you be the judge of that.

I think that bamboo is not only an amazing botanical specimen and one of the most useful plants on earth, I also think it is so beautiful that I just had to paint it. I’ve created a set of bamboo placemats and napkins that are in my Etsy shop (http://www.naturebasedstore.etsy.com). Check it out!