Plant Whatever Brings You Joy

arbor

Presenting my first booksigning at Gallery Bookshop in the village of Mendocino last Friday had an unexpected bonus: I found out the dahlias were in bloom at Mendocino Botanical Gardens. Synchronistically, I had arranged to drop off a stack of my books for their garden shop the next day, so after an early morning run with the Border Collies, on Saturday I headed north along the coast to Ft. Bragg. In spite of predicted rain it was dry and the hazy light was perfect for a shoot. However, dahlias, it turns out, are not as easy to shoot as one might think. When looking through the camera’s eye one learns this. They are random and independent fellows, and not inclined to bunch perfectly as a photographer might prefer. Topping this reality was a light breeze. Plenty of soft words were spoken to these flowers, asking them to cooperate for the split seconds of a camera click. Sometimes they actually did. Quite nicely, in fact. I find them cheerful, sturdy, and very very colorful! Enjoy!
4coral
yellsing
redmulti
lilacs
orngsing
purp
orngdouble
yel2
burgsing
bouquet
yellmulti
redsing

Which was your favorite?

Love and gardening blessings,
Kathryn xoox

Book News! Plant Whatever Brings You Joy: Blessed Wisdom from the Garden is now available in five Copperfield’s Books– in Napa, in Healdsburg, in Petaluma, in Calistoga and in Santa Rosa (Montgomery Village). Please note I will be doing three author Meet and Greet events, at Copperfield’s Books in Healdsburg November 6th, Copperfield’s in Calistoga November 20th, and Copperfield’s in Napa December 4th. Plant Whatever Brings You Joy is also available, happily, in Changing Hands in Tempe, AZ; in Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, CA; in Malaprop’s in Asheville, NC; in Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino, CA; in Mendocino Botanical Gardens Garden Shop in Ft. Bragg, CA; in Grace Hudson Museum, Three Sisters and Mendocino Book Store in Ukiah, CA! And my book is now available in Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park! Please feel free to recommend your favorite independent bookstore! For complete book information please visit www.estrellacatarina.com

Must share this lovely review which just came in from The Gardeners’ Club in Santa Cruz! Santa Cruz readers, again, can visit the lovely Bookshop Santa Cruz for their copies!
S.Cruz2

Posted on September 21st, 2010 by Kathryn
Filed under: Plants | 12 Comments »

The Face of Indian Summer

HHydrangea
September is the month when we gardeners are pruning back the skeletons of plants that have nurtured us and that we have nurtured all summer long. Overgrown branches of the plum tree. Forsythia running wild. Trumpet vine shedding flowers, its seed pods drying in the Indian Summer sun, bees scurrying over them for some invisible treasure. True myrtle testing its boundaries, stretching into areas it does not belong. Blue geranium not offering any blue these days. Done. While engaged in all the activities Indian Summer requires I noticed and was intrigued by an equally strong urge, upon which I was acting, to scout out new plants, and to incorporate them into my home and garden. It began, I believe with the heirloom antiqued hydrangea, pictured above, which I annually find impossible to resist when they come into the market. This one begged to be accompanied by the green pumpkin, true harbingers of the fall season now on the horizon.

Most likely this urge to fill in with beauty stems from a reluctance to resign oneself to the end of a summer season, and why should we? Even those in colder climes can resort to investing in a few houseplants to carry us into the holiday season and beyond. My second acquisition, following this impulse, was this jade, now comfortably living in a red pot in the kitchen, keeping the Dog Cookie Jar (filled with dog biscuits, not cookies!) company! So cute. This jade plant, associated with Good Luck, will also be my companion as I mostly likely bake my way through winter. The rain and cold ask for a warm oven, do they not?
jade

Meanwhile, in keeping with the opportunities of the current season, I picked a large bag of apples from the (very) old pre-hybrid delicious apple tree out back. Here they are.
apples

Washed, peeled and cut them up and popped them into a big stainless steel pot, and added some sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg. Bam.
applepot

Cooked them down and then tackled a skill I had basically forgotten and had great resistance to relearning: canning. Full credit goes to Sarah Gilbert, a lovely writer of Cafe Mama whom I follow on Twitter, for sending me a video (visual learner) that gave me the encouragement to finally relearn this. Imagine me and daughter Antonia (lending all manner of moral support) pouring over her laptop and my computer reading dozens of applesauce canning recipes trying to find The Real Right Way. Threads of conversation included:

“How do we get the air bubbles out? It says they can explode if you don’t.”
“Excuse me? Explode??”
“What’s this little blue canning tool for? It has notched measurements on one end.” [We finally decided for measuring the space left between the sauce and the top of jar. Maybe.]
“I know we have to boil the jars before we fill them, but for how long?”
“Fingertip tight? We screw on the lids fingertip tight??”
“But how long do we boil the applesauce jars? Fifteen minutes? Twenty?” (Back to the computers.)

It was a long afternoon. I’m not certain I have inspired my daughter to be a canner, but she will remember the event, of that I’m certain.

And here were the lovely results.
applesaucejars

I’m game to try again. If anyone has any comments on those air bubbles, we are all ears.

Back into the sun, the garden not to be forgotten or outdone, a new plant caught my eye at Home Depot which I assumed to be a coleus (wouldn’t you?)
perilla1
and was surprised to find Perilla frutenscens to be quite another plant. And this apparently is one of those plants that in some locales would be found to be an invasive weed and in another (if kept under control) a lovely addition to the garden. I’m keeping a careful eye on it, in a constrictive pot, and it’s blessing a corner of the porch near a lovely rocking bench. I’m admiring its subtle color and lacy beauty of its foilage.
perilla2

Other fall additions include a plant I always keep in abundance, but usually increase prior to Christmas. Indeed, I probably associate this cyclamen with Christmas as much as I to poinsettia. Do you?

And what Indian Summer Face would be complete without the uncompromising mum?
mums

Enjoy the season, dear readers. Celebrate your harvesting and draw mightily on your own creativity for the holidays which lie ahead.

Love and garden blessings,
Kathryn xoxo

Posted on September 12th, 2010 by Kathryn
Filed under: Plants | 10 Comments »

Interview with Tim Miejan–so fun!

Dear Readers,

Hello! Hello! Obviously at this point in time my focus remains tightly on the publication of Plant Whatever Brings You Joy and the unfolding of its making its way into the world. This morning I sat with Antonia (just back from a summer in Costa Rica!) eating freshly baked scones, sipping tea and eyeing the many many boxes of books which are at this time housed quite literally very close to the area where we were sharing our breakfast. Yes, indeed. And I found myself saying to her, “I wonder where these books will go? What is each one’s destiny? What thoughts will they evoke and whose lives will they change?” Point of fact, I have mounted a map on my office wall and every book I can track, I do track on the map, by adding a sticky-backed rhinestone (yes! they make them!) to the new location. True story and such fun!!
map
(It’s very twinkley on this end!) 🙂

So far the books have made their way to about 20 states (including Hawaii!), and to Toronto and to Poland (Ewa in the Garden–review coming!) and the first is off to England to Liz’s Nutty Gnome today! Now I will have to mount a map of Europe as they fly like the seeds of the dandelion off to new shores. It’s happening. It’s exciting! I wish you could all come for tea and I’d show you the full range of all the reviews, and the first tv interview. The first radio interview is coming up Sept. 5th which is two full hours with callers! It reaches 37 states and half of Canada. And I have just submitted an article to Science of Mind, due out in their January issue. (I will keep you posted.) But as it’s not possible to share all the dynamics, I’m going to be true to my process and to my heart and yours, and share what I think you might enjoy. Towards that end I’m including here the links to an interview conducted by Tim Miejan who is in Minnesota, a dear man, editor of a publication called The Edge. It was just posted this morning! He divided the interview into two parts, so I’m giving you both links. I really did take great pleasure in reading these and I think you will, too. I particularly liked Part Two as we talked about some of the stories in the book (which he loved!) and we talked about The Scarf Project, which included so many of you.

Part One of Tim’s interview here.
Part Two of Tim’s interview here.

Enjoy, dearest readers!

Love and garden book blessings!
Kathryn xoxo

9/6 footnote: A special welcome to listeners of “Amplify” last night. If you are interested in knowing more about Plant Whatever Brings You Joy, simply visit www.estrellacatarina.com I hope you enjoyed the interview last night and I thank you for your visit!

Posted on September 1st, 2010 by Kathryn
Filed under: People at Work | 4 Comments »

Mendocino Botanical Gardens: Dahlias!

The Face of Indian Summer

Interview with Tim Miejan–so fun!

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