Our very own Martha Stewart (she’s in Katonah) has started a new weekly segment on vegetable gardening on her TV show. Click here to see video of the ones that have already run. Typically, they’re well produced and filled with good info.

With a few basic design principles in hand, anyone can buy a simple bouquet of supermarket flowers — tulips, carnations or roses — and learn to create a centerpiece arrangement, Barbara Cohen says. The key is to keep it simple and natural looking.

“Good floral design imitates nature,” says Cohen, the owner of Petals and Stems Florist in Monsey. “You want to use as many natural things as you can. Everything in nature is in proportion — you want to bring that to your work.

(Video and stills by our Kathy Gardner.)

“My mission is to take the mystery out of flowers,” says Cohen, who teaches floral design at Rockland Community College and at area libraries like the Finkelstein Memorial Library in Spring Valley. She also hosts hands-on workshops in her large shop on Route 59.

“I find that flowers are very therapeutic for people,” she says. “I find that the more people understand about flowers, the more they buy and use them.”

When selecting a vase, you want the tallest flowers to be twice as high as the vase. Glass cubes are very popular now; so are gathering vases with a cinch in the middle. Read more of this entry »

Nancy Inzinna, Media & Membership Coordinator at the Native Plant Center in Valhalla, has a new blog on native plants. Good for you, Nancy — it looks great. Here’s what she emailed:

“According to the calendar Spring is here. I’m sure many of us are looking forward to getting outside and enjoying the warm air and sunshine on our faces, and ultimately breaking ground for the new planting season. Which leads many to the question, “What do I plant this year?” My response is, “Natives, of course!” I’d like to help you all learn more about wildflowers and native plants.

“I have recently created a blog about native plants and their usefulness in the garden, as well as to area wildlife.

If you are interested in putting a link from your site to my blog, I would very much appreciate it. Or if you would consider sharing the blog url with others, that would be helpful also.

Here is the blog url: http://npcnativeplants.blogspot.com/

From Joanne Scarmato of the Garden Club of Nyack:

“Spring is Almost Here”

“The Garden Club of Nyack will be presenting its 16th Annual Community Flower Show on Saturday, April 4.

“It will be held at the Upper Nyack Elementary School located at 336 North Broadway, Upper Nyack, NY.  The flower show is open from 12:00 pm- 3:00 pm and free to the public.  Adults and Children can bring their entries to the school on Friday evening, April 3 from 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm and on Saturday, April 4 from 7:30 am – 8:45 am.   Read more of this entry »

Isn’t it great to keep reading about a vegetable garden at the White House?

Poor Michelle Obama, though — I wish somebody had given her a better tool for the photo-op of the groundbreaking that landed on the front page of the New York Times. (Here’s a link to a blog with the photo.) She’s sure not going to get very far with that rake — somebody should have handed her a shovel or a pitchfork. And those boots look a tad nicer than most gardeners wear. But good for her for bringing this idea to fruition. And I can’t wait to see photos of the First Family weeding.

Here’s more on the garden from Chris Beytes’ GrowerTalks newsletter:

“First Family goes gardening

“You probably heard the news from the mainstream media: Michelle Obama last week helped break ground for a White House vegetable garden—the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II. The shoveling took place Friday, with the help of 23 fifth-graders from a Washington, D.C. elementary school. Read more of this entry »

Wave Hill has always been one of my favorite gardens — small enough (28 acres) to fit into the Bronx but big enough to feel like you could be anywhere in the Hudson Valley.

For a few years I’ve been meaning to visit during the magical couple of weeks in early spring when the glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa sardensis) are in bloom. Wave Hill is famous for its big sweeps of this early blooming bulb.

I finally remembered in time this year and stopped in on my way to the office this morning. Wow wow wow — what a treat. The most glorious shade of blue everywhere you step.

Read more of this entry »

Here’s a video with Glenn Niese of Putnam Valley. His great-grandfather first started tapping the trees at Niese’s Maple Farm in 1892:

And here’s a link to an earlier post on tapping maple trees with Doug Maass of Sleepy Hollow. That one had a link to my story that ran in the paper that day. That link is long gone, so here’s my story from our electronic library:
—————————
Doug Maass has been tapping maples trees for syrup for the last 33 years, first on 17 acres he owned in Goldens Bridge and more recently around his suburban neighborhood in Sleepy Hollow.

“I just picked it up from reading and watching TV,” Maass says. “I thought I’d give it a try and sure enough it worked on the first try.”

When you watch him tap a neighbor’s sugar maple and hook up a 1-gallon plastic jug in just a couple of minutes, you realize how truly easy this late-winter rite can be. He just drills through the bark to a depth of about 2 inches with a hand-held auger and plugs the hole with a hollow spile, or tap. He then cuts a small hole near the top of the plastic jug and fits it gently over the spile and ties a loop of string around the tree to hold it in place.
Almost immediately, the clear, watery sap begins to drip into the jug. Read more of this entry »

Even in long, cold winters, you can always count on ‘Tete-a-Tete’ daffodils to bloom in March. In mild winters, you may see this miniature early bloomer in February or even January.

Known botanically as Narcissus ‘Tête-a-Tête,’ this spring charmer offers golden-yellow outer petals that curl back to highlight deeper yellow trumpets.

Each stem produces two to three blooms that are just 6 to 8 inches tall, making them ideal for rock gardens or small borders. Plant them near a walkway so you can really appreciate their cheery yellow faces when not much else is around. Try mixing them with crocuses, which bloom at the same time.

‘Tête-a-Tête’ will naturalize and spread in your garden over the years, and its short, sturdy stems make it a good choice for indoor forcing. If you’re looking for another early-blooming daffodil, try ‘Rip van Winkle.’

Daffodils are virtually critter-proof — no deer, no squirrels, no bunnies — and a really good choice for Hudson Valley gardens. Plant them in fall, up until the ground freezes.

They are not fussy about soil as long as it’s well drained, and they like full sun. Keep in mind that most deciduous trees have not leafed out by the time daffodils come into flower.

Feed them with a bulb fertilizer such as Bulb-tone after they bloom in spring and again in the fall.

Let the foliage die back naturally when the blooms fade (the bulbs are still gathering energy for next year’s blooms). You can hide the yellowing leaves by planting daffodils among later-emerging plants such as ferns, lilies and hostas.

Want to know more about Westchester County’s proposed ban on phosphorous in lawn fertilizers? Here’s a link to an article in the weekend papers by Greg Clary, our environmental reporter.

March 28
Bronx: The Orchid Show: Brazilian Modern. Through April 12. In the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. $20, $18 seniors and students, $7 children. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. New York Botanical Garden, 200th Street and Kazimiroff Boulevard. 718-817-8700.

Garrison: Volunteer Landscape Day. Topic: Caring for trees with arborist with Chris Galligan. Free. 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center, 584 Route 9D. 845-424-3812.

Yorktown Heights: Composting with Worms. Topic: learn how to build a worm bin and care for them. Registration. Free. 10 a.m.-noon Hilltop Hanover Farm and Environmental Center, 1275 Hanover St. 914-962-2368. Read more of this entry »