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Articles from Francis Rosenfeld | Selfgrowth.com
- Chocolatey Goodness! - by Submitted on Jun 13, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldIt appears that the regular consumption of cocoa increases blood flow to the brain, thus helping it work faster and stalling neuron degeneration. Just in case we needed more reasons to reach for that chocolate bar. We don't normally think about it, but it takes a lot of effort for said sweet ...
Views: 679 - Magic Beans - by Submitted on Jun 06, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldIf I knew how much I would enjoy purple beans, I would only have planted those to begin with. Besides being an attractive feature in the garden, they taste better and are not stringy at all, which is a blessing. Of course the purple color turns green in the pot, but that's beside the ...
Views: 621 - Yarrow - by Submitted on Jun 01, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldA resilient weed, native to the Northern Hemisphere, yarrow grows wild in open fields and along the sides of the roads, and had only recently acquired the privilege of being cultivated in flower gardens. Don't judge this humble herb to be ordinary, Achillea millefolium is a well documented ...
Views: 560 - Achenes, capsules, pods and pomes - by Submitted on May 24, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldHere is next year's garden, well, at least part of it, anyway. The seeds will go into labeled little bags and wait for spring. The peppercorn look-alikes are four o'clock seeds, the tiny grains spilling from capsules belong to nicotiana, the red fruit is a "Hansa" rose hip and the rest is a ...
Views: 592 - What to Do with Basil - by Submitted on May 16, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldToday was one of those rainy summer days when lighting is diminished and one derives a sense of well being from hearing the rolling boom of the far away thunder as rain raps heavily on the roof. I had picked herbs before the rain started, large bunches of herbs, opal basil and bee balm and ...
Views: 554 - Home apothecary - by Submitted on May 10, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldAs nature's shop closes, the home spice jars are finally put to good use. All the dried mint that hung in bunches in the kitchen all summer, the rose petals from June's bloom, the lavender kernels, the gentle chamomile, the dried aromatic herbs. It is time for scent in the diminished light, ...
Views: 1421 - Attar of roses - by Submitted on May 02, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldImagine an open field of roses extending as far as the eyes can see, an eighty mile long garden. Hundreds of thousands of bushels of rose petals get picked, boiled and distilled, and re-distilled, and purified, until out of one thousand pounds of petals five ounces of precious attar of roses are ...
Views: 696 - Pampas Grass - by Submitted on Apr 25, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldI honestly can't warm up to this plant; I appreciate its warm and golden chenille panaches at the beginning of fall but loathe its unbelievably depressing wet hay appearance in spring. It looks pretty for exactly three days, right before the velvety seed heads open, and then it turns into fluff ...
Views: 571 - Medicinal foods - by Submitted on Apr 18, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldStinging nettles are quite amazing plants, full of qualities both medicinal and nutritional, but who cares when their blistering touch burns like judgment and brings you to tears? Setting aside the fact that in the old days people allowed themselves to be whipped with nettles as a folk remedy ...
Views: 588 - Anise hyssop - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldI was walking through the plant nursery trying to decide what to add to the fall garden when a giant blue hyssop literally grabbed on to my sleeve. Its lavender flowers soaked the surroundings in a wildly intoxicating aroma of anise and licorice as I brushed against them, reminding me why hyssop ...
Views: 692 - Pumpkin pie recipe - by Submitted on Apr 04, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldPumpkin pie lovers are spoiled beyond reason between the end of November and the end of the year. There are infinite variations of the delicious desert, all nutmeg, clove and cinnamon, vanilla and brown sugar. I'd like to share my grandmother's recipe, which comes in strudel form. It is one ...
Views: 829 - How to grow a wildflower meadow - by Submitted on Mar 28, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldSo, you have your heart set on creating a wildflower meadow and those packages of mixed seeds beckon you from the stands, irresistibly. You picture wild flowers and the thought of perpetual, zero maintenance beauty springs to mind. Wild flower meadows are not low maintenance, at least not for ...
Views: 703 - Morning glory - by Submitted on Mar 21, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldI plant morning glory every year. Always in the same spot, always the same variety – Heavenly Blue. I forget about it after I plant it, it is slow to start in spring and its foliage gets lost in the jumble when the mid-summer growth takes over the flower beds. Come August, its growth ...
Views: 617 - Opal basil - by Submitted on Mar 15, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldSpeaking of purple plant pigments, the ones in opal basil are responsible for turning aromatic vinegar a beautiful shade of rose, I always look forward to preparing some during the summer. For all of us who enjoy this lovely herb it will come as a shock that the Greeks believed it to be ...
Views: 573 - Pumpkin, the big round fruit - by Submitted on Mar 07, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldMost suburban dwellers don't have the space and the sun exposure required to grow pumpkins, the big round fruit has a sprawling growth habit and an unruly disposition that doesn't endear it to its tamer vegetable companions. If you still want to grow pumpkins, here is how: pumpkins ...
Views: 590 - Growing tuberoses - by Submitted on Feb 29, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldAah, the queen of fragrance, Polianthes tuberosa, a joy to gardeners and perfumers alike, probably the most fragrant flower ever. Its heady perfume is sultry and intense, a single flower stem can saturate a room with fragrance. Tuberosa is a hot climate bulb, and much like show chrysanthemums ...
Views: 636 - Hepatica - by Submitted on Feb 22, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldHepatica has been considered a medicinal plant in the past, but this is one of the cases where scientific reasoning needs to override lore: the plant belongs to the Ranunculaceae family, just like the buttercup, and contains the same toxic compounds, albeit in much smaller doses. Hepatica is ...
Views: 686 - Kitchen garden marigolds - by Submitted on Feb 19, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldIsn't this beautiful? Few annuals are easier to grow than marigolds, a quality that makes them so ubiquitous one tends to overlook their genuine charm. All a marigold needs is sunshine, everything else it will do for itself. Of course, because I planted mine in the vegetable patch, they were ...
Views: 644 - Bugleweed - by Submitted on Feb 08, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldAjuga reptans, bugleweed, is a fail proof groundcover for any sun exposure or soil type. I started with its Latin name because I always thought it sounded more patrician and better suited to this plants' sophistication. I love bugleweed, it is a versatile plant which helped me bring back to ...
Views: 651 - Catmint - by Submitted on Feb 01, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldI got catmint for its pleasant scent, a blend of peppermint and pennyroyal, and its pale lavender flowers, a very refreshing sight on hot summer afternoons. It is one of the coveted perennials that bloom at the end of summer and it requires very little in terms of care. This mint cousin ...
Views: 678 - Betony - by Submitted on Jan 25, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldDid you know that betony was thought to chase away vengeful ghosts, evil enchantments and bad dreams? I'm not acquainted with its alleged magical properties or even the real medicinal ones (apparently it was a prized healing herb in the ancient herbal medicine collection, supposed to provide ...
Views: 621 - What to do with green tomatoes - by Submitted on Jan 20, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldEvery year the generous tomato plants bless us with an overabundance of fruit that doesn't have the chance to ripen before the first frost. Tomatoes take their sweet time to figure out how to bear more and more fruit and their best and most abundant yield goes so far into the fall they don't ...
Views: 724 - Perennial ground covers - by Submitted on Jan 11, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldI can't figure out the precise point when a fast spreading plant becomes a ground cover. Some, like ivy, periwinkle and the beautiful blue flowering plumbago, are quite obvious, others, like lily of the valley and sweet violets, take you by surprise, starting with a shy little clump in spring ...
Views: 609 - Perennial garden challenges - by Submitted on Jan 05, 2016 from Francis RosenfeldThe most important characteristic of perennial flower beds is tough soil. Their residents, once established, don't take kindly to being disturbed, and as much as you try to dig around their roots, the dirt tends to get much harder than it would in an annual border. This is both a good thing, ...
Views: 591 - Solomon's Seal - by Submitted on Dec 21, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldI am absolutely fascinated by this plant. I don't know what it is about it, its name, its relative scarcity, the unusual way the blossoms are aligned along the stems, unlike any flower I've ever seen. I waited a long time to get it, hesitating over mail-in orders and proper planting times, ...
Views: 605 - Growing peppercorns - by Submitted on Dec 14, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldYou look at this modest spice and find it hard to believe than all through Antiquity and the Middle Ages it was more valuable than gold. Pepper was the first of the exotic spices to reach the Mediterranean Basin and the search for it opened up travelling routes that became legendary and fired ...
Views: 734 - A divine tree that fulfills wishes - by Submitted on Dec 07, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldI once wondered through a park under a shady canopy of green leaves, heavy with flowers and sweet fruit and flocks of colorful singing birds seeking shelter in the glossy foliage. The park extended for an entire city block and its tree branches reached sixty feet up in the air. Twisted trunks ...
Views: 670 - Working with annuals - by Submitted on Dec 02, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldCreating themes with annuals is almost like painting, you can create infinite variations of color, contrasting and analogous harmonies, focal points and diffusion hues. The rules are the same as those of basic color theory, with the difference that the components of your art piece are alive. ...
Views: 651 - Lemon Verbena - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldWhether you grow lemon verbena as a medicinal or an aromatic plant, it gets plenty of uses, from flavoring fish and fruit salads, as a replacement or in addition to lemon zest, to pleasant calming brews. For those who love to exercise, it is particularly effective in reducing muscle and joint ...
Views: 691 - Growing hellebores - by Submitted on Nov 09, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldYou don't know how spoiled you are as a gardener until you grow a hellebore. Up here in the northern states we are not used to seeing flowers in January, maybe some evergreen foliage under a somber sky. Most of the trees are gray and leafless and the usual sights of the garden are tired dried ...
Views: 666 - A love story - by Submitted on Nov 02, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldPeople ask gardeners all the time why they waste so much time and effort on an activity that at any scale smaller than a farm yields so little benefit? Green thumbs may be blindsided by the question, shrug their shoulders and keep on with the activity they were engaged in, for how can one ...
Views: 680 - Tuberose fragrance - by Submitted on Oct 26, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldTuberose oil is a staple scent for perfumery, obtained through chemical extraction by means of concretes and absolutes, and it is one of the most expensive natural fragrances available to perfumers. Because of the flower's patrician demeanor and its expensive essence I always thought the ...
Views: 684 - Meadow treasures - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldSpeaking of wonders of the plant world, how amazing is it that a Pennsylvania Smartweed, a plant that only thrives in boggy sites, decided to pick the drought summer of them all to beautify my garden. Graceful and delicate, it keeps good company to the broad leaved nicotiana that undoubtedly ...
Views: 585 - Summer bulbs - by Submitted on Oct 12, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldIf you thought starting plants indoors worked for seed alone, think again. You can give your summer bulbs a good start by planting them inside in a pot four to six weeks before the last frost and transplanting them outdoors when weather permits. Tuberous begonias, callas and caladiums will ...
Views: 506 - Cyclamen, year three - by Submitted on Oct 07, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldOn a list of gardening mistakes that expands as I advance in experience and wisdom I have to place my lack of knowledge about the behavior of the cyclamen plants. After I threw away perfectly good tubers more times than I care to recount I found out that cyclamens only grow leaves in the ...
Views: 615 - Loops - by Submitted on Sep 28, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldTalk about unbounded, here is to the endlessly growing morning glory, swirling around supports and draping over hardscape, deceptively strong with its springy vines weaving an intricately detailed and highly redundant veil the color of the sky. The braided loops that clamber trees shy away ...
Views: 584 - Itinerant snapdragons - by Submitted on Sep 23, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldMy lovely itinerant snapdragons! Anticipating their next location is one of my favorite gardening activities. I am not sure why this particular plant likes to change its location, but it does so with a fluid path of movement devoid of the randomness of tomatoes or nicotiana in its slow ...
Views: 581 - Why leaves turn - by Submitted on Sep 15, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldFor the less romantically inclined among us, who don't get misty eyed over nature's autumnal carnival of color but would like to know why the leaves turn, here is the full prose version of it. Foliage comes with three pigments: green - the chlorophyll, yellow-orange - the carotenoids, and ...
Views: 543 - Toad Lilies - by Submitted on Sep 08, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldYou have to get really close to appreciate toad lilies' blossoms which are small but unbelievably detailed. I don't think there is a flower in this part of the world that so closely approximates orchids. They are hardy to zone 5 and bloom in the shade, the last flowers to bloom in the garden ...
Views: 683 - Lady Marmalade - by Submitted on Aug 31, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldSometimes you just need the right lighting to really appreciate colorful foliage, although this little purple beauty won't go unnoticed through the summer when it competes for interest with the daisies and the crane's bills. Another near miss in the battle with the mighty hellebores (I swear, ...
Views: 657 - Growing sedum - by Submitted on Aug 24, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldBetween the apple green of the unripe flowers and the velvety chocolate brown of the dried seed heads sedum touches every shade of from blush pink to burgundy. Somewhere mid-way it reaches this hue intensity and contributes a significant portion of the fall garden color. Like with many ...
Views: 628 - Sun, shade and the caprices of the weather - by Submitted on Aug 18, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldWhat is good weather? That is a very good question for a gardener. Some places are blessed with conditions that make plants thrive despite complete lack of interest or effort. People who for years tried unsuccessfully to grow a garden watch with incredulous envy out of their car windows the ...
Views: 603 - French Mallow - by Submitted on Aug 12, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldLet me share a few things about this plant, some learned, some experienced. The learned facts first. French mallow originated in Europe and is as almost as old as written history. Some varieties are used as edible leafy vegetables and feature in traditional dishes from around the shores of ...
Views: 1031 - About peonies - by Submitted on Aug 08, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldI didn't move the gorgeous Raspberry Sorbet peonies last fall and now they are spending another year trying to assert their needs in the midst of the rugosa rose thicket. Because of the one-two-three year garden rule and their slow start (they didn't come out of the ground at all during the ...
Views: 700 - Charming shade gardens - by Submitted on Jul 06, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldI just finished creating a lovely shade garden which features a very welcome addition, "Stained Glass" hostas. These plants have everything the sun-starved gardener could hope for: beautiful and resilient foliage that weathers heat and drought, dramatic colors and large fragrant flowers worthy ...
Views: 664 - Treasured heirloom roses - by Submitted on Jun 29, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldUs hopeful rosarians have to admit that roses are not just another pretty flower. There is something very special and noble about them, the older they are the more rare and valued their flowers and often the more persnickety they get. Here are some cultivars to test your rosarian mettle. ...
Views: 576 - Color for the heart of summer - by Submitted on Jun 24, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldI must start with a confession: I'm not really fond of daylilies. They are ever present in generic plantings, in places that don't really belong to anybody but still need to look presentable. They owe this dubious reputation to the fact that once planted they really require no care. I grew up ...
Views: 594 - Cottage garden roses - by Submitted on Jun 15, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldWhen a cottage garden is well designed it makes you forget the planning that went into creating it and takes over by establishing new hierarchies, thriving on apparent randomness and developing a personality of its own. Roses are very good companions in this environment and blend in ...
Views: 637 - The basics of home food preservation - by Submitted on Jun 11, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldJust a few rules that will make your food preservation safe and successful: 1.Processing Temperatures. Foods suited for canning are divided into acidic (
Views: 684 - Purple sophistication - by Submitted on Jun 01, 2015 from Francis RosenfeldIf you haven't grown eggplant before you probably don't know that the flowers boast the same unusual color as their glossy fruit. Eggplant flowers are the most beautiful of all bushy vegetables, deep lavender with a bright yellow middle. This vegetable is an acquired taste for many people, a ...
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