Fire escapism

Off my kitchen is my apartment's fire escape, something I've used for years as a graveyard for the empty pots of dead plants past. There is something quintessentially new york about a fire escape, it's romantic and depressing and unless you're vigilant, it's almost always full of something you don't want to keep in the house. A smoldering fry pan that's making the alarm go off goes on the fire escape, without question. Friend's cigarette butts, too.

I've turned over a new leaf and have been cramming mine with a silly amount of plants since I fell in love with Amsterdam's garden tenacity. If I'm allowed to continue unchecked, my fire escape no longer will be able to serve as an escape for actual fires. And we wouldn't want that.

Just today my morning glory seeds pushed through the soil, this variety, which I planted absurdly late in the game. Maybe they'll bloom in the fall, once I trick them into winding around the rail?

I've been standing at my kitchen window all month, dumbstruck and dreaming of having a garden not elevated 3 stories in the air. My eyes glaze over and I don't even mind the quantity of flies now entering my house through the open windows. In terms of reality blurring escapism, foxgloves are a highly recommended gateway drug.

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It pours

There's a creeping, slow subtly to April that really compels me. The grey skies, the icy rain, the just out of reach glimmer of, oh wait no never mind, warm weather is ages away. Landlords turn down the heat in buildings so everything feels damp. Thunderstorms thrash and freeze you to the bone in a way that not even the most paralyzing January blizzard can understand. At least then you're wearing woolly socks. By the time April rolls around, I've sworn off tights and winter coats till next November.  I'm defenseless.

April is quite possibility the coldest month out of sheer spite. All the while, though, there are flowers sneaking up on you when you least expect them. Impossibly big, lush magnolias enough to make your eyes roll back in your head before the first tree has even peeped a leaf. Every spring I say this and every spring it's truer than the last- I can't believe such beautiful things happen every year for us to see.

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The best thing about winter

I have finally reached that itchy, antsy stage of January. Stage three terminal January. I fled to the brooklyn botanic garden for the afternoon as I am wont to do when the going gets tough and stumbled upon spring, centrally located in one unassuming bonsai.

Just looking at the little pink plum blossoms I could feel my whole body sigh. Thank god. Remember how I recently said all of the charming things I liked about winter? Rosy cheeks the color of spring's first plum blossom and all that?

Well, I have just remembered my absolute favorite part about winter.  It ends.

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Potted thyme

Remember back when I used to have witty and funny and insightful stories to tell you? I don't either. But my mom swears there was a time and I think that time will come again (not that I'm convinced it ever existed in the first place).

Things have been so monumentally weird and sad and happy around here this month. So much to talk about but instead I'll just tell you that I've managed to keep a thyme plant alive in my bedroom this summer. Which is like a big freakin deal because herbs inside are hard.

My dad (a big plant man and also a mental health expert) likes to say that for plant people, there is a connection between the state of one's plants and the state of one's mind. Happy plants = happy people. My thyme and I aren't dead yet, so there's that. We persevere.

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I say tomato

When I was a kid, I used to go out to the garden and see how many cherry tomatoes I could fit into my mouth at once. Yes ladylike, but it gets worse. When I'd squeezed in the last one, I'd lay down in the grass, head turned to the side and count the seconds till they'd pop.

When you live in the country with no other kids around, you gotta do what you gotta do to amuse yourself. I was a really weird kid. Still am.

When I was home this week, I didn't stuff my face full of tomatoes with quiet the same, um, youthful creativity but I did eat more than would be considered proper right off the vine.

We used to grow enough tomatoes to set up a farm stand along the side of the road and my dad would let Micha and I manage it. We'd put our profits into the "horse fund" piggy bank. Micha was the fund's manager and somehow we never got those horses we wanted in middle school. Someone alert the SEC!

The smell of honest to goodness tomato leaves makes me weak in the knees. It is, without a doubt, the one smell that inescapably reminds me of being a kid. A few others? A small town hardware store (no, home depot doesn't count) and baking bread. I know for my mom, it's gardenias and horse barns. Isn't it funny how certain scents can be so evocative of childhood?

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Psst!

My terrariums are back in stock at Catbird.

This group is my favorite yet!

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Garden lust

Today I got to water the plants in the most beautiful backyard in Williamsburg. With a real hose and everything! Its funny, the unexpected things one misses while living in an apartment. Like hoses. I miss hoses.

So needless to say, I have gardens on the brain, big time. Since I'm not able to have my own, I like to A. volunteer to water other people's and B. read gardening books to prep for when I'll have a space of my own.

These 1920's magazine covers are from one of my all time favorite, dream worthy gardening books, "The Once and Future Gardener".

It contains a collection of magazine gardening articles from 1900-1940, along with old photos, illustrations and a ton of American history info. Amazing.

One day, I'll get my garden and when I do I'm going to have tea parties for all!

*Old fashioned hats required for entry.

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Lilacs

Roses, peonies, violets, hydrangeas; all very sweet and old fashioned. But there is only one spot in a girl's heart for the favorite flower, the dream flower that the boy is supposed to present you on bended knee (without ever being prompted).

Those flowers, for me, are lilacs.

Brooklyn's lilacs are blooming and I could just about die of happiness.

The smell! The different colors! All those little flowers combined!

I think the obsession started with reading Nancy Drew's adventure "The Mystery at Lilac Inn". Stolen lilac trees and ghosts? Yes ma'am.

My favorite bedroom at Elmwood has the most achingly beautiful antique lilac wallpaper, too. I used to stare at it for hours, it was so pretty my older sister pulled rank to sleep there and rightly so. That's the joy of being an older sister, I guess.

When I was little my mom's fancy, special occasion stationary was embossed with lilacs and I think we dabbed it with lilac perfume. They're in my blood, I can't help it.

Fresh off the bus from the botanic garden, I ran to the corner store and blew my budget on some for the house.

The lovely and amazingly talented food photographer Kristi Schiffman came over this afternoon and we did a little bit of shooting; lilacs and Butter Lane cupcakes (plus some liberty fabric). It's good to be a girl.

Kristi is so talented, shooting with her is such a treat. Thursdays are something I always look forward to.

Even when styling doesn't involve taking little bites of cupcakes.

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By any other name...

I am itching for spring, flat out dying for spring this year. On a warm(ish) day last week I took to my beloved rose garden to see if I could find ANY sign of ANY hint of spring.

This was before the biggest snow storm of this winter, mind you.

I love this rose garden, I come in here every month without fail. I've blathered about it in all seasons, here and here have photographic evidence to boot.

Gardens in winter are almost eerily calm and deserted, except for fat little sparrows trying desperately to find their next meal.

Bramble, thicket, brier. Undeniably a few of my favorite words in the whole world.

And they all seem to fit a rose bush in winter better than they do in summer. Something about stripping off the leaves and just seeing a skeleton of tangled thorns.

With a garden of only thorns, the lonely little black plant markers seem to be the shows main attraction. These names are so darling, it makes me want to get another cat just so I can name it after a rose.




Dainty Bess? Like in Little Women? Circa 1925? That would be one heck of a cute cat name.

Do you guys have any cute ideas for kitty names? Jim and I are going to the pound on Thursday to scope out possible new additions to the family and I want to be prepared with an arsenal of good names.

I've been pushing for a Mabel for months, but I guess it depends on the cat, too.

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