Saturday, August 20, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Perfect Cornucopia Advice
Perfect Cornucopia advice... for your garden.... for your life...
What do you need? What is working? What is not? What will you keep? What will you eliminate?
Thank you Dan Gill.
Take stock of your landscape
Published: Thursday, August 11, 2011, 8:00 PM
By Dan Gill, Times-Picayune garden columnist NOLA.com
It's really too hot to do much of anything strenuous in the garden this time of the year.
I would certainly put off labor-intensive jobs such as creating new beds (or even reworking old beds), building structures like decks and arbors or major landscape plantings.
About all I feel like doing now is slowly strolling around my gardens in the early morning or late evening when the temperatures are somewhat cooler. Oh, I'll stop to take care of some weed issues (that never ends). Still, I try to keep the physical activity to a minimum. But, I'm not wasting time.
I'm doing three important things as I ramble around my landscape.
First, I'm enjoying it. I'm appreciating the beautiful flowers and bright colors of summer bedding plants and tropicals blooming this time of year. I'm sticking my nose into the flowers of butterfly ginger (Hedychium coronarium) and devouring the wonderful fragrance. You work hard to create and maintain your gardens -- don't forget to appreciate and enjoy them.
Second, I'm evaluating. I'm looking carefully at how well new plants are doing in this stressful late-summer weather. I'm also scrutinizing new plantings to see if plant and color combinations look as good in the garden as they did in my mind.
Finally, I'm re-evaluating my landscape. I tend to do this fairly constantly to some degree, but this time of the year I like to put a little extra thought into it. This is a good thing for everyone to do.
Why re-evaluate
As landscapes mature, things change. Trees get taller and cast deeper shade, and bushes can become overgrown.
People's lifestyles also change, and that area given over to a sandbox or a swing set may no longer be needed. Or you may have purchased an older home with mature plantings that no longer work well, or at least they don't satisfy you. Maybe the arrival of a new baby limits the amount of time you once had to maintain your gardens.
Whatever the reason, reevaluation is an important part of maintaining a landscape that is attractive and provides for the current needs of a family.
To start re-evaluating a landscape, you have to take a hard, honest look at what you have.
Changes in the garden can happen subtly over years, and you might overlook the obvious, such as an increase in shade or a physical change in your garden, unless you really focus.
Or, there are more sudden changes that haven't been properly integrated into the landscape. Maybe you added a deck, for instance, and traffic patterns have changed, but you haven't reworked the walkways.
Pretend you are the new owner of the house and garden you are surveying, and look at it with as much objectivity as you can.
Trees
One of the biggest changes that can creep up silently on a landscape over time is the growth of trees. They not only grow taller and larger, but they can dramatically influence what can or can't grow under or around them.
If your landscape has been planted for a number of years, you may find that some plants don't perform as well as they used to.
You might notice, for instance, that a bed of azaleas that has bloomed well for many years is no longer doing so, and the plants look leggy and thin. It could be that they need more light. Trees that were smaller when the azaleas were planted will grow larger over the years and cast more and deeper shade.
Lawns also often succumb to shade from a tree that has grown large over the years.
When shade makes existing plants grow poorly and look bad, consider removing those plants and replacing them with something more shade-tolerant. Plant areas where grass will not grow with shade-loving ground covers such as monkey grass or Asiatic jasmine.
In a few rare circumstances, you may decide that too many trees were planted in the landscape (easy to do, since trees are small when first planted). Sometimes it's necessary to make the difficult decision to remove a tree.
Shrubs
Overgrown shrubs can be trimmed back, trimmed up or removed entirely if no longer desirable.
It can be visually unattractive for a while, but a severe trimming can rejuvenate some types of old shrubs.
Hard pruning is best done just before shrubs start active growth. February or March is a good time to hard-prune shrubs that bloom in the summer. Prune spring-flowering shrubs in late March or April after they flower.
Once they begin growing again, you can control their size with regular pruning.
In other cases, if height is not an issue, you can trim a shrub up. To do this, selectively remove the lower branches of an overgrown shrub, training it into a small tree-form. This opens up space under and around the plant, making it less dominant.
Do you find yourself constantly pruning back shrubs that are too large for the area where they are planted? This is a fight you will never win. Often, removing and replacing these shrubs is the best idea. If you do decide to do this, make sure that you select new shrubs that will not grow too large for their location.
Planning ahead
The best time for planting hardy trees, shrubs ground covers and perennials in the landscape is November through March, with fall and early winter being best. That's why now is a good time to start doing this type of re-evaluation.
It gives you plenty of time to rethink your landscape and make plans for what needs to be done when the weather turns cooler.
And it's a great way to avoid working hard out in this hot weather, while still doing something important.
What do you need? What is working? What is not? What will you keep? What will you eliminate?
Thank you Dan Gill.
Take stock of your landscape
Published: Thursday, August 11, 2011, 8:00 PM
By Dan Gill, Times-Picayune garden columnist NOLA.com
It's really too hot to do much of anything strenuous in the garden this time of the year.
I would certainly put off labor-intensive jobs such as creating new beds (or even reworking old beds), building structures like decks and arbors or major landscape plantings.
About all I feel like doing now is slowly strolling around my gardens in the early morning or late evening when the temperatures are somewhat cooler. Oh, I'll stop to take care of some weed issues (that never ends). Still, I try to keep the physical activity to a minimum. But, I'm not wasting time.
I'm doing three important things as I ramble around my landscape.
First, I'm enjoying it. I'm appreciating the beautiful flowers and bright colors of summer bedding plants and tropicals blooming this time of year. I'm sticking my nose into the flowers of butterfly ginger (Hedychium coronarium) and devouring the wonderful fragrance. You work hard to create and maintain your gardens -- don't forget to appreciate and enjoy them.
Second, I'm evaluating. I'm looking carefully at how well new plants are doing in this stressful late-summer weather. I'm also scrutinizing new plantings to see if plant and color combinations look as good in the garden as they did in my mind.
Finally, I'm re-evaluating my landscape. I tend to do this fairly constantly to some degree, but this time of the year I like to put a little extra thought into it. This is a good thing for everyone to do.
Why re-evaluate
As landscapes mature, things change. Trees get taller and cast deeper shade, and bushes can become overgrown.
People's lifestyles also change, and that area given over to a sandbox or a swing set may no longer be needed. Or you may have purchased an older home with mature plantings that no longer work well, or at least they don't satisfy you. Maybe the arrival of a new baby limits the amount of time you once had to maintain your gardens.
Whatever the reason, reevaluation is an important part of maintaining a landscape that is attractive and provides for the current needs of a family.
To start re-evaluating a landscape, you have to take a hard, honest look at what you have.
Changes in the garden can happen subtly over years, and you might overlook the obvious, such as an increase in shade or a physical change in your garden, unless you really focus.
Or, there are more sudden changes that haven't been properly integrated into the landscape. Maybe you added a deck, for instance, and traffic patterns have changed, but you haven't reworked the walkways.
Pretend you are the new owner of the house and garden you are surveying, and look at it with as much objectivity as you can.
Trees
One of the biggest changes that can creep up silently on a landscape over time is the growth of trees. They not only grow taller and larger, but they can dramatically influence what can or can't grow under or around them.
If your landscape has been planted for a number of years, you may find that some plants don't perform as well as they used to.
You might notice, for instance, that a bed of azaleas that has bloomed well for many years is no longer doing so, and the plants look leggy and thin. It could be that they need more light. Trees that were smaller when the azaleas were planted will grow larger over the years and cast more and deeper shade.
Lawns also often succumb to shade from a tree that has grown large over the years.
When shade makes existing plants grow poorly and look bad, consider removing those plants and replacing them with something more shade-tolerant. Plant areas where grass will not grow with shade-loving ground covers such as monkey grass or Asiatic jasmine.
In a few rare circumstances, you may decide that too many trees were planted in the landscape (easy to do, since trees are small when first planted). Sometimes it's necessary to make the difficult decision to remove a tree.
Shrubs
Overgrown shrubs can be trimmed back, trimmed up or removed entirely if no longer desirable.
It can be visually unattractive for a while, but a severe trimming can rejuvenate some types of old shrubs.
Hard pruning is best done just before shrubs start active growth. February or March is a good time to hard-prune shrubs that bloom in the summer. Prune spring-flowering shrubs in late March or April after they flower.
Once they begin growing again, you can control their size with regular pruning.
In other cases, if height is not an issue, you can trim a shrub up. To do this, selectively remove the lower branches of an overgrown shrub, training it into a small tree-form. This opens up space under and around the plant, making it less dominant.
Do you find yourself constantly pruning back shrubs that are too large for the area where they are planted? This is a fight you will never win. Often, removing and replacing these shrubs is the best idea. If you do decide to do this, make sure that you select new shrubs that will not grow too large for their location.
Planning ahead
The best time for planting hardy trees, shrubs ground covers and perennials in the landscape is November through March, with fall and early winter being best. That's why now is a good time to start doing this type of re-evaluation.
It gives you plenty of time to rethink your landscape and make plans for what needs to be done when the weather turns cooler.
And it's a great way to avoid working hard out in this hot weather, while still doing something important.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Scents and listening to subtleties
Cooling scents: the right perfume can lift your spirits and cool you down
Published: Tuesday, August 09, 2011
By Susan Langenhennig, The Times-Picayune NOLA.com
Debra Jones-Scie has an old-fashioned trick for dealing with the sticky heat and humidity of late summer in the city.
She keeps a bottle of Verveine, a bright, lemon verbena cologne, in the refrigerator. Before stepping outside, she spritzes a little on her skin, sending a chilling tingle down her spine.
“When I go on a walk, I pull it out and give a little spray,” said Jones-Scie, the “nose” for Hové, the 80-year-old French Quarter perfume house. "It cools you."
Scents are the escape artists of the beauty world. One whiff of the right perfume, and you can be in another place and time — one preferably about 20 degrees cooler and 50 percent less sweaty than August in New Orleans.
I’ve come to Jones-Scie's door seeking relief from the relentless humidity that’s sapping my energy like a tapeworm. She turns to a shelf in Hové’s 19th-century townhouse and her hand falls on a few options.
There’s Elan d’Orange, a surprisingly bracing scent that features orange blossom, but presented in a way that’s not like the sweet floral we often associate with the heady flowers of the bitter orange tree. Elan d’Orange has a pleasant tang, like iced tea with a slice of lemon.
Plage d’Ete is another option, but it’s a little too suntan-lotion-like for me, with those familiar notes of coconut and lime. It conjures thoughts of a frosty pina colada by the pool or memories of slathering Coppertone on your skin.
Hové’s Vetiver, a pure, green, grassy scent, is refreshingly sharp and has a side benefit. “I use the Vetiver on my legs, and it keeps the mosquitoes away, at least on me,” Jones-Scie said.
Perfume blogger Victoria Frolova has a poetic way of describing the cooling effects of certain perfumes: “The effervescence of citrus — be it the bracing sharpness of lime, the peppery shimmer of bergamot, the intense verdancy of petitgrain or the playful sweetness of mandarin — has a refreshing, exhilarating effect,” she writes. “It instantly cools, evoking the delicious sensation of an ice cube melting on hot skin.”
Frolova has a technical nose that gives an insightful edge to her fragrance observations at BoisdeJasmin.com. There’s a reason, she said, why some colognes are particularly appealing in warm climates.
“Neroli and petitgrain oils share the same pungent component as perspiration and allow it to become masked by the bright, green freshness of orange flower,” she writes in a post highlighting summer scents.
The bitter orange tree — the variety that gives marmalade its bite — is like “the pig of the fragrance world,” Frolova said during a recent chat by phone from her home in New Jersey. “Every part of the plant is used.”
Orange bigarade, an essential oil, comes from cold-pressing the fruit, while sweet neroli oil is derived from the orange blossoms. Petitgrain, another essential oil, comes from distilling the twigs, making for a green, woodsy smell.
“Neroli is less floral and more citrusy,” Frolova said, “while orange blossom absolu is richer and sweeter, more seductive.
“One of my personal favorites is Annick Goutal Neroli, a blend of orange blossom and neroli,” she added. “It has so many facets, but when you put them together, you end up having an accord that’s very fresh.”
Orange blossom fragrances can be boldly feminine, like Serge Lutens’ Fleurs d’Oranger, which leaves a lingering sweetness to the skin.
Or they can be darker and brooding, as in the case of Narcisse Noir, a scent launched in 1911, said Barbara Herman, who blogs about vintage perfumes at yesterdaysperfume.typepad.com.
“Narcisse Noir has amazing orange blossom, but the predominate character of that perfume is dark and sexy,” she said. “It’s mixed with incense and in a musk base, which makes it very interesting.”
Herman has been living in New Orleans this summer while writing a book, with the working title “Scent and Subversion: A Century of Provocative Perfume.” She doesn’t subscribe to the idea that hot months call only for simple scents.
“Just as you probably don’t want to eat beef stroganoff in the dead of summer when it’s 96 degrees out, you don’t generally want to wear heavy perfumes in the Oriental family either,” she said. “Lighter and fresher scents in the floral and chypre perfume families act like olfactory air conditioning to lift your spirits and cool you down. They may be light, but they’re not lightweight. Some of these are complex beauties.”
Chypres (pronounced “SHEE-pres”) are that lovely family of fragrances with notes of citrus mixed with oak moss, musk and, often, patchouli. One of Herman’s favorite summer scents is Clarins Eau Dynamisante, a chypre she describes as “citrusy, woody, herbaceous, spicy. Prozac in a perfume bottle.”
Some of her other warm-month favorites include Estee Lauder White Linen — “as elegant and fresh as a starched white shirt; smells like summer to me” — and Hové’s Vetiver — "peppery, dusty, salty, wild. One of the best vetivers out there.”
But Herman has a special affection for Christian Dior Diorella, which she describes as “fresh, funky, fruity, mossy, like citrus perfume spilled inside a suede purse.”
The first time she smelled it, she was on a lunch break from her office job in San Francisco. “I sprayed it on and just got a funny look on my face,” she recalled. “I walked around, sniffing my arm for the next half an hour.
“I think perfumes are really visceral experiences. You feel more connected to yourself and your senses.”
Sitting around a coffee table last Friday in the back of Avery, a new niche fragrance boutique in the Warehouse District, Lauren Lagarde was having a perfume moment.
We were discussing summery scents when Shannon Drake, director of marketing for the company, opened a bottle of Nuda, an intense jasmine fragrance by Nasomatto, a line created by perfumer Alessandro Gualtieri. The fragrance is derived from jasmine blossoms picked at night by gloved workers on a farm on the Cote d’Azur.
Lagarde closed her eyes and shook her head. The scent didn’t bring her to the Cote d’Azur.
“We used to have jasmine growing around our house in Bay St. Louis. This takes me right back there,” Lagarde said. “When I smell this, I’m seven years old again, and it’s summer.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found this post on Herman's blog particularly interesting:
"The more you smell and categorize what you're smelling, comparing one scent with the next, etc., the better you get at recognizing aspects of perfume, even being able to conjure it up in your memory."
Which is exactly why ritual and smells and bells are so important to our practice.
Published: Tuesday, August 09, 2011
By Susan Langenhennig, The Times-Picayune NOLA.com
Debra Jones-Scie has an old-fashioned trick for dealing with the sticky heat and humidity of late summer in the city.
She keeps a bottle of Verveine, a bright, lemon verbena cologne, in the refrigerator. Before stepping outside, she spritzes a little on her skin, sending a chilling tingle down her spine.
“When I go on a walk, I pull it out and give a little spray,” said Jones-Scie, the “nose” for Hové, the 80-year-old French Quarter perfume house. "It cools you."
Scents are the escape artists of the beauty world. One whiff of the right perfume, and you can be in another place and time — one preferably about 20 degrees cooler and 50 percent less sweaty than August in New Orleans.
I’ve come to Jones-Scie's door seeking relief from the relentless humidity that’s sapping my energy like a tapeworm. She turns to a shelf in Hové’s 19th-century townhouse and her hand falls on a few options.
There’s Elan d’Orange, a surprisingly bracing scent that features orange blossom, but presented in a way that’s not like the sweet floral we often associate with the heady flowers of the bitter orange tree. Elan d’Orange has a pleasant tang, like iced tea with a slice of lemon.
Plage d’Ete is another option, but it’s a little too suntan-lotion-like for me, with those familiar notes of coconut and lime. It conjures thoughts of a frosty pina colada by the pool or memories of slathering Coppertone on your skin.
Hové’s Vetiver, a pure, green, grassy scent, is refreshingly sharp and has a side benefit. “I use the Vetiver on my legs, and it keeps the mosquitoes away, at least on me,” Jones-Scie said.
Perfume blogger Victoria Frolova has a poetic way of describing the cooling effects of certain perfumes: “The effervescence of citrus — be it the bracing sharpness of lime, the peppery shimmer of bergamot, the intense verdancy of petitgrain or the playful sweetness of mandarin — has a refreshing, exhilarating effect,” she writes. “It instantly cools, evoking the delicious sensation of an ice cube melting on hot skin.”
Frolova has a technical nose that gives an insightful edge to her fragrance observations at BoisdeJasmin.com. There’s a reason, she said, why some colognes are particularly appealing in warm climates.
“Neroli and petitgrain oils share the same pungent component as perspiration and allow it to become masked by the bright, green freshness of orange flower,” she writes in a post highlighting summer scents.
The bitter orange tree — the variety that gives marmalade its bite — is like “the pig of the fragrance world,” Frolova said during a recent chat by phone from her home in New Jersey. “Every part of the plant is used.”
Orange bigarade, an essential oil, comes from cold-pressing the fruit, while sweet neroli oil is derived from the orange blossoms. Petitgrain, another essential oil, comes from distilling the twigs, making for a green, woodsy smell.
“Neroli is less floral and more citrusy,” Frolova said, “while orange blossom absolu is richer and sweeter, more seductive.
“One of my personal favorites is Annick Goutal Neroli, a blend of orange blossom and neroli,” she added. “It has so many facets, but when you put them together, you end up having an accord that’s very fresh.”
Orange blossom fragrances can be boldly feminine, like Serge Lutens’ Fleurs d’Oranger, which leaves a lingering sweetness to the skin.
Or they can be darker and brooding, as in the case of Narcisse Noir, a scent launched in 1911, said Barbara Herman, who blogs about vintage perfumes at yesterdaysperfume.typepad.com.
“Narcisse Noir has amazing orange blossom, but the predominate character of that perfume is dark and sexy,” she said. “It’s mixed with incense and in a musk base, which makes it very interesting.”
Herman has been living in New Orleans this summer while writing a book, with the working title “Scent and Subversion: A Century of Provocative Perfume.” She doesn’t subscribe to the idea that hot months call only for simple scents.
“Just as you probably don’t want to eat beef stroganoff in the dead of summer when it’s 96 degrees out, you don’t generally want to wear heavy perfumes in the Oriental family either,” she said. “Lighter and fresher scents in the floral and chypre perfume families act like olfactory air conditioning to lift your spirits and cool you down. They may be light, but they’re not lightweight. Some of these are complex beauties.”
Chypres (pronounced “SHEE-pres”) are that lovely family of fragrances with notes of citrus mixed with oak moss, musk and, often, patchouli. One of Herman’s favorite summer scents is Clarins Eau Dynamisante, a chypre she describes as “citrusy, woody, herbaceous, spicy. Prozac in a perfume bottle.”
Some of her other warm-month favorites include Estee Lauder White Linen — “as elegant and fresh as a starched white shirt; smells like summer to me” — and Hové’s Vetiver — "peppery, dusty, salty, wild. One of the best vetivers out there.”
But Herman has a special affection for Christian Dior Diorella, which she describes as “fresh, funky, fruity, mossy, like citrus perfume spilled inside a suede purse.”
The first time she smelled it, she was on a lunch break from her office job in San Francisco. “I sprayed it on and just got a funny look on my face,” she recalled. “I walked around, sniffing my arm for the next half an hour.
“I think perfumes are really visceral experiences. You feel more connected to yourself and your senses.”
Sitting around a coffee table last Friday in the back of Avery, a new niche fragrance boutique in the Warehouse District, Lauren Lagarde was having a perfume moment.
We were discussing summery scents when Shannon Drake, director of marketing for the company, opened a bottle of Nuda, an intense jasmine fragrance by Nasomatto, a line created by perfumer Alessandro Gualtieri. The fragrance is derived from jasmine blossoms picked at night by gloved workers on a farm on the Cote d’Azur.
Lagarde closed her eyes and shook her head. The scent didn’t bring her to the Cote d’Azur.
“We used to have jasmine growing around our house in Bay St. Louis. This takes me right back there,” Lagarde said. “When I smell this, I’m seven years old again, and it’s summer.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found this post on Herman's blog particularly interesting:
"The more you smell and categorize what you're smelling, comparing one scent with the next, etc., the better you get at recognizing aspects of perfume, even being able to conjure it up in your memory."
Which is exactly why ritual and smells and bells are so important to our practice.
Monday, August 1, 2011
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