January 23, 2014 by Born To Organize

The Sensual Garden

Daphne

Our singular Daphne is in bloom this time of year producing a sensuous, heady musk. Daphne is my garden’s Sacred Feminine, the goddess of sensuality. Her blooms intoxicate, drawing me to my knees to inhale her rich scent.

There are a number of pheromone-rich plants in my garden, and lucky for me, they all flower at different times. After the Daphne fades, the Jasmine comes to life. You’ll find me in the side yard making up things to do for the weeks it remains in bloom. The lavender revives in late spring, attracting bees all summer long. It lines our front deck, and grows a few feet from our seating area.

According to Skin Biology, perfumes arose from plant oils with smells similar to animal pheromones. Plant oils with the strongest similarity to human sexual pheromones come from jasmine, ylang ylang and patchouli.

The sensual garden is a gentle lover. Leaves stir smoothly on an afternoon breeze as buds unfold languidly when ready. Bees swoop in, spreading garden goodness from plant to plant.

Without a quenching rain, my earthly companions must reach for ground water. So far they’re holding their own. The garden wouldn’t be the same without them.

January 21, 2014 by Born To Organize

Garden Pop-ups

Sure *I* was late planting this year’s bulbs, but nature is always on time. Bulbs from last season (and the season before!) are popping up all over the garden.

Life on deck

Sometimes I’ll forget that a bulb is resting at the bottom of a pot, and I’ll dump the dirt into a planter. This explains the random placement of one of the bulbs I see peeking out from the center of the vegetable beds. I love nature’s optimism.

Mystery bulbs in the Veggie garden

There are signs of tulips along the rock wall, but there are also signs of the squirrels eating the greens. I hope they lose interest soon, or that will be the end of them.

Tulips, ever optimistic

The hyacinths are up and looking pretty. It looks like the onion-scented Allium are coming back from last year, along with (I think) a single freesia.

Emerging hyacinth

Freesia?

Can you smell it?

New Life for your Old Calendar

Several of you commented that you save your wall calendars from year to year. Here are a few more ideas for turning your beautiful calendar pages into something new. For more info, visit Garden Calendar Lives Another Day.

Re-purposed Calendar: postcard, covered box, gift tags and stickers, envelopes, gift card holder, fairy garden bunting, drawer liner, box dividers, napkin rings

January 20, 2014 by Born To Organize

Old Calendar, New Life

Last year Susan Golden of the Sereno Group, sent us a beautiful calendar depicting local places of interest. Instead of photographs, the locations are watercolors by artist Lou Ann Styles. Susan sold us our home almost 18 years ago and we haven’t moved since.

Artful pages by Artist Lou Ann Styles

I like to re-purpose my wall calendars each year into something useful. They’re always beautiful works of art on lovely paper. It seems a shame to toss them into a recycling bin.
This year I turned my calendar pages into bookmarks for the Little Free Library. The natural settings and lovely detail worked well, even when cut into pieces and folded in half.

From calendar page to book marks

Bookmarks using the center of the page

Bookmarks using the two edges of the page

I saved one of the pages to make an envelope. I used the back cover of the calendar with Susan’s picture to make her a special bookmark. I hope she likes it.

It’s fun thinking of ways to use an old calendar. I’ve made them into envelopes, bookmarks, gift tags, gift card holders and postcards. Last year I recovered a small box using several pages. It sits on my desk on holds note cards and scratch paper.

Do you hang on to old calendars because they are too pretty to throw out?

Bookmark and envelope

Front side of Susan’s bookmark

January 13, 2014 by Born To Organize

Narcissus and Freesia

Bulb Packets

Hopefully I’m not too late. The cliché “nothing ventured, nothing gained” is at work in my garden.

Today I planted nearly 75 bulbs, 50 Yellow Trumpet Narcissus and 24 Single Mix Freesia. The preferred planting time is November through December. We’re mid-way through January so I’m a teeny bit behind schedule. No matter. They’re in the ground now, a nice six inches below soil level. All these years of gardening and I’m still amazed that you can bury a bulb that deep. Their internal programming tells them when to pop up and where. If you plant one upside down, they’ll simple make a u-turn and grow up towards the sun anyway.

The narcissus will put on a show early to mid spring. They’re planted broadcast style in the curb garden. All that new, rich soil made quick work of the planting. It was nice to see earth worms in the mix too, always a plus. As a bonus, I unearthed my afternoon snack: half a dozen carrots that I missed harvesting last week.

The Freesia are early summer bloomers. I planted them in a curved row in the small triangle garden I created last year. The mix includes white, yellow, red, pink and purple flowers.

Rain

San Jose received a ‘trace’ of rain last week. It was enough to clear the awful air we’ve had, but nothing more. We’ve had 27 spare the air days this season days thanks to fires, illegal wood burning and lack of rain. Our five-day forecast calls for sunny skies and high temps. By Thursday, temps will be up to 72 degrees F (22 degrees C). January is typically our coolest month with an average of 58 degrees. I enjoy beautiful days as much as the next person, but it feels so strange to have winter skies, spring temps and summer ‘rain’.

Little Free Library

The Little Free Library is up and running a week now. Check back tomorrow for an update. I hope life is good in your corner of the world.

January 8, 2014 by Born To Organize

Roasted Vegetables: Savory and Sweet

Beta-Carotene.

It’s what’s for dinner.

The last of the carrots

More specifically, carrots, the last of them from the winter garden.

Next year I’ll plant quite a bit more, remembering to divide them, of course. It’s been so much fun.

Mike whipped up a vegetable roast, using the carrots along with new potatoes, parsnips, onions, green peppers and tofu from the market. It’s a nice, vegan/vegetarian dish for cold days. It’s warm and filling and easy to make.

Vegetable Roast

I’m spoiled rotten living with a man who likes to cook. Mom was a great cook, too, but this apple fell far from the tree, rolled down the sidewalk and into the woods. I can produce a meal under duress (and I cook for my boys when he travels) but most of the time I would rather be doing something else.

That said, I love to eat! Do you like to cook?

[Your caption here]

January 7, 2014 by Born To Organize

Icelandic Poppies in Search of a Little Rain

We put away all of our Christmas decorations this weekend and tossed the pretty tree decorating our lawn. Between the un-decorating and the frost damage from November, the garden is looking mighty bare.

Then this happened.
poppie

I potted a few plants in early fall, but kept forgetting to water them because, frankly it should be raining this time of year. (It’s not). I keep sweeping up the dirt the squirrels toss out of the planter, casting dirt on the steps. In spite of all that, nature persevered and produced two gorgeous Icelandic poppies. They’re a bright spot in my other wise dreary garden.

While parts of the country are suffering record low temps, we’ve had the opposite. Record-breaking warm days, preceded by a week of frost in late fall and now we’ve broken the record for driest year since the 1800’s.

How dry?

According to our local paper, the San Jose Mercury News:

Records are being broken all over the state, according to the National Weather Service. San Jose has only received 3.8 inches since January 2013, well short of its 14-inch average. Oakland is even drier — 3.39 inches this year, compared with its 22.8-inch average. The last time it was this dry in San Francisco was in 1917, with 9 inches. This year, the city has had less than 6 inches.

The state’s official rain year will end on June 30 and a good storm or two in January or February could bring back a touch of winter green.

I sure hope so. Perhaps I should wash the car, paint the house, and plan a picnic to see if Murphy’s Law kicks in and brings us an honest to goodness downpour.

Thanks so much for all the great Little Free Library love. The comments, shares and book offers made my heart sing. I have much more to share, and will do so later this week.

January 1, 2014 by Born To Organize

Garden Retrospective

When you’re a gardener, the start of the year feels more like the beginning of a countdown. Sure, the calendar year starts anew, but the planting calendar is still a ways off. It’s spring I’m pining for.

In case there was any doubt, two seed catalogs arrived in the mail this week; little teasers to get my heart pumping again.

I had fun putting together some of my favorite garden photos of 2013, set to a little rag time music by Terry Waldo called Maple Leaf Rag. It’s nearly impossible not to tap your foot to the beat.

Did you make any resolutions for the year? I’ve never had any success with mine so I don’t bother anymore. I *like* the idea of eating healthier, sleeping more, and remembering to floss. It’s just that promising myself (or the universe) that I’m really going to do it *this year* really doesn’t work.

Here’s what I will do in 2014: more gardening, more blogging, more reading and more laughing.

Do you make resolutions? Do you keep them?

December 30, 2013 by Born To Organize

Happy New Year!

Imbibe responsibly. That goes for the kitties too.

Catnip: Why Cats Go Crazy for It

Beijing enjoying her Nepeta

See you in 2014. Hurray for fresh starts.

December 19, 2013 by Born To Organize

Anthurium Christmasum

It’s not every day you receive a box on your doorstep from Volcano, Hawaii.

Squeal!!!

My friend Laura and family sent us a dozen Mini Anthuriums by way of Akatsuka Orchid Gardens in Hawaii. Aren’t they breathtaking? It wasn’t until I looked at the website that I realized we had been there on our visit to the Big Island several years ago. Goosebumps!

Anthuriums, banana leaves and flax

The waxy stems traveled 2,352 miles (3,785 kilometers) to get here. They arrived wrapped in beautiful green paper, soft foam, a sheet of plastic and damp, shredded newspaper. The contents smelled like an evening on the shore. I’m going to add it to my compost bin for a bit of Hawaiian flare.

Packaged in damp, shredded newspaper

In addition to the heart-shaped stems, they included several exotic greens, including banana leaves and flax. The greens, reds and golds light up the room. What an extraordinary gift.

Mini Anthuriums

Reds and corals

According to The Flower Expert:

The red, heart-shaped flower of Anthuriums is really a spathe or a waxy, modified leaf flaring out from the base of a fleshy spike (spadix) where the tiny real flowers grow. The anthurium flowers appear as a roughness on the spadix as compared to a smooth spadix. Most common colors of anthuriums are red and shades of red.

In Greek, the name Anthurium means tail flower. The plant’s stem lengths may grow to a height of 15-20 inches depending on the size of the spathe, i.e., the bigger the spathe, the longer the stem. Its leaves are usually simple, large, attractively colored and borne on long stalks. The flowering stalk is slender, ending in a fleshy column crowded with many unisexual flowers. They have leafy bracts which may be white, yellow, red, pink, orange or green.

This glass, lotus-shaped bowl was a wedding gift. I think it’s perfect for these blooms

Aloha

December 13, 2013 by Born To Organize

Birds of Wisdom: A bit of Goofing Off

I’ve been working extra hours these past few weeks, so when my client called to cancel this morning, I was (mostly) relieved. I decided to treat myself to a much-needed thirty minutes of goofing off. I sat in a chair facing the garden, played a game on my phone and within minutes had a sleeping cat on my lap.

It wasn’t long before my eyes drifted out to the usual wildlife antics. Foraging squirrels raced around the garden, so round and full I’m amazed they can still move. It looked as though they were working as a team. You don’t see that every day! It’s usually ‘every squirrel for themselves.’ The light grey squirrel moved across the lawn, into the shrubs and then used the camellia trellis like a ladder. I should have jumped up for the camera then, but I was busy goofing off. Right behind him was a dark, brown squirrel, following his every move. It looked like a game of follow the leader.

Just outside the window, a small bird flew from branch to branch in the maple tree. Then he turned and appeared to be looking in the window. How could I ignore an invitation like that!?

Camera in hand, it was still incredibly challenging getting his picture. He darted from branch to branch, up, down, back up. Then he flew to the neighboring yard, and within minutes was back again. Perhaps he could see his own reflection, though he never went for the window.*

I’ve decided he was keeping an eye on me, making sure I stuck to my goofing-off schedule before getting back to work. Meanwhile, he was keeping plenty busy for both of us.

Are you taking some time to goof-off during this hectic season?

*It’s disheartening to hear a bird fly into a closed window. One theory is that the sky reflects in the glass, and to the bird thinks it can fly through. These clever decals Window Alert: Protect Your Songbirds act as a ‘stoplight’ for the birds.