"A Room With a View" : Horticultural Art at Skylands by GCT

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THE GARDEN CLUB OF TEANECK’S DECORATING AT SKYLANDS

   short short video overview tour:
  Room with a View: GCT's Holiday Display at Skylands

Photos: Pat Fromm, Aura Altieri, Robyn Lowenthal, Pat Libutti, Doug Raska.
Video: Pat Libutti.

Robyn Lowenthal and Doug Raska worked on a design for the "Breakfast Room" at Skylands Manor for their Holiday Open House, opening the first week in December.The overall theme is "A Gardener’s Holiday." 

Since the room is very much in an Italianate style we chose to theme our entry "A Room with a View", after the E. M. Forster novel about English tourists in Italy. We also decided to create the feeling of winter holidays in Italy with an oleander, citrus tree, bay laurel, fragrant  flowering bulbs and an array of plant material, instead of the artificial greens so much used recently in place of living plants.

Garden Club of Teaneck theme: "A Room with a View."

Garden Club members Stella Franco, Danielle Brooks, Robyn Lowenthal, Olga Newey, Pat Fromm and Pat Libutti made ornaments for the many holiday trees that were part of the room's design.

On Thursday, November 10th   Members were making ornaments for the GCT exhibit at Skylands, “A Room with a View.” Materials for the ornaments used  many ingredients. Vintage Italian postcards from Florence and Rome were embellished with gold: braid, rick-rack and glitter. Cinnamon sticks, pine cones and star anise were combined with dried orange slices, creating a translucent decoration that was aromatic.

The cornflowers were placed on the Breakfast Room table to signify a key passage in Forster's book. "He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her."

The New Jersey Botanical Gardens/Skyland Holiday Open House is an annual event that many look forward to attending each year. Well, that time came. The dates were Thursday, December 1st to Sunday,  December 4th, each day, 10 AM-4 PM.There were also two evening receptions, Friday, December 2nd and Saturday, December 3rd.  

Each year, the theme for the Open House varies. It is always exciting to go through the Manor and be amazed by each organization’s interpretation of the theme.

Volunteers from each organization contribute their talents and time. This year, the Bergen County Master Gardeners, the Passaic County Master Gardeners, the Ringwood Garden Club, the Wyckoff Garden Club, the Garden Club of Teaneck, and other organizations and individuals designed one of the Manor rooms.

Breakfast Room before decorations were added.

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Overview of the Breakfast Room, replete with leaded glass windows, an elaborately carved green marble lavabo, a plaster mold constructed ceiling, and a large  hanging lamp, all ornamented with fresh plants and ornaments. Leaded windows extend the space into the Ramapo Mountains.

Orange slice decorations made by Garden Club of Teaneck members.

Glass decoration seen on trees everywhere at holiday time.

La Befana is an old woman who comes to visit children on Epiphany, January 6th.

If you were good, she brings you a gift, but if you were bad, she gives you a piece of coal.

Next to La Befana , in a wooden table top box, is a whimsical table top display of the Nativity. Two toy cars,  the Alpha Romero and Ferrari,  are parked outside a terra cotta crèche. The Wise Men visited in style.

Plant: Strobilanthis 'Persian Shield'

A White Pine tree is decorated with hand-crafted ornaments, glass and porcelain balls, and vintage Italian postcards. The tree is surrounded with fragrant plants: Lime, Rosemary, Lemon, Oleander, Narcissus, and Poinsettias.

Janet Austin, Garden Club of Teaneck member and Master Gardener, 

finished her docent shift for MGBC and came to  "smell the flowers" . In the elaborate green marble lavabo to Janet's left are Glacier Ivy, Angel wing begonias, Vick's plant, Monterey Cypress (lining the shelf), Cyclamens, and Poinsettia.

Below: The lavabo without floral decoration.

   Lavabo without plants
 

                      Lavabo area (lavabo, above, tree to right, below) decorated with fresh flowers and plants (Glacier ivy, Angel wing begonia, Monterey cypress, Vick’s plant, Cyclamen, Curry plant, Poinsettia, Bay laurel and Stromanthe.) Photos of lavabo areas: Robyn Lowenthal, Pat Fromm.

Robyn Lowenthal and Doug Raska, designers of the "Room with a View" horticultural exhibit Skylands, Dec. 1-4, 2016. They are next to the lavabo in the Breakfast Room.

Thank you, all, for preparing this beautiful display!

                                
      The “Look” of this Project would never have happened  without
        ROBYN LOWENTHAL & DOUG RASKA, who led the design
         and production of this project. ​DANIA CHEDDIE,  Volunteer
         Coordinator, Skylands,  helped to get us involved with the project. She coordinates all the volunteers from different organization's for the Holiday Open House.

Plants: Jerry Limone donated the Cypress, Gaultheria, and a Lime tree.

Plants were lent by  ​Denise George, Rocco D’Angelo, and Sarah Jones.

Transportation/Set up: Phil Brown, Mark & Pat Fromm, Stella Franco,
Bob O'Brien, Len Schwartz, Carmin Costa & Olga Newey.

Decorations:  Stella Franco, Danielle Brooks, Robyn Lowenthal, Olga Newey,
Pat Fromm, and  Pat Libutti.

Photos: Pat Fromm, Aura Altieri, Robyn Lowenthal, Pat Libutti, Doug Raska.
Video: Pat Libutti.

Text: Dania Cheddie, Robyn Lowenthal,  Doug Raska, Pat Libutti.

Docents: Pat Fromm, Laurie Ludmer, Victor Thomas & Yuan Hui Liu,
Anna Kurz , Anne Ediger, Robin Jackson, Annemarie Papa, Stella Franco.
Aura Altieri, and  Olga Newey.

Alpine Lookout on a Late Summer Day

Alpine Overlook. Exit 2, off of Palisades. The perfect beginning of a fall foliage hike. Flat surface for those that need it, more vertical trails for others.

Butterflies (Monarchs on their way south).


Hawks, black vultures (a swarm, or a vulture flight, more than 7, soaring above with their widespread finger tip wings), Long Island Sound visible across the Yonkers rise, Tappan Zee bridge being constructed north

---and a very good cheeseburger inside an overlook restaurant reminiscent of the Red Apple in the 1950s.


Need I mention: FREE!

See it on a Sunny Day.

Woe Be The Wily Woodchuck!

Woe Be the Wily Woodchuck!


Thoreau was angry, very angry,  at woodchucks on his land. One ate 1/4 an acre of his bean crop.


"As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented." ---Henry David Thoreau, Walden.


The woodchuck is just as much of a target in the 21st century as in the 19th, the wrath of current  gardeners comes across  Master Gardeners Helplines in  Bergen Agricultural Extension office..

This posting is a quick review of the methods most often used to curb the woodchuck’s enthusiasm for garden areas.The easiest of course, is if there are some plants that would be a natural chuckicide. There are essays on this venue to woodchuck control, none seem definitive or easy, including this one on the use of epsom salts. 

Herbs or other plants with noxious odors? My theory here is if the woodchuck got so far as to get into my garden with Rosemary, Santolina, Thyme, Wormwood, etc. in it, it would not deter it unless it was interplanted with the vegetables. Another anecdote way is that growing many marigolds will stop woodchucks. There is very limited evidence on the effectiveness, and the woodchuck can dig under them. I will go back to my aromatic herbs and line them with marigolds, which by sheer luck and superstition, has repelled woodchucks. Squirrels and rabbits, however, act as If I wrote a sign: "I have built it, you can come."


Shooting? 'There is a $99 fine for shooting the woodchuck out of season---but there is very little time that is out of season! And not in town, anyway. The woodchuck hunting season is  in the latest NJ Small Game Hunting regulations from the NJ Fish and Wildlife site. Permitted hunting by a licensed hunter with bow and arrow is from March 2 to Sept. 30, 2015, with no limit. Using a shotgun, the season is: 

Sept. 27–Dec. 6; Dec. 15, 16, 18–31, 2014; Jan. 1–Feb. 16, 2015 (It's not much different in 2016.)

Live Traps? Advice from many sources includes the observation that live-trapping chucks and letting them go causes their premature death. Their habits are inflicted on new people. It’s also illegal to release a wild animal in NJ.Look at the latest relocation regs in NJ (Fish and Wildlife)

Woodchucks do not appear to be scared by motion devices, nor much by a scarecrow. Sprays and hot sauces appear to affect them little---and the home gardener much. The amount of time for reapplication and concern about the chemicals on produce were key considerations here. 

Finally, the use of an electrified fence was seen as effective---as is a fence dug very deep under the ground. The fence needs to be bent outwards-and hung in a wobbly way so the critter cannot parade on top of the fence in front of you,taunting you with your own vegetables.

If the effort becomes too much, The New York Times featured a Thoreaurean way of dealing with the woodchuck: a recipe for Woodchuck au Vin , as well as a recipe for Peppery Woodchuck in Wine and Olives (June 05, 2008. ) It should be taken into consideration :

If that is not appealing, Food Republic offers Braised Groundhog .Or you can look at a Berkshire farmer's borrowed poetry ( Apologies to  Lewis Carrol:)

The time has come

The gardener said

To speak of unpleasant things

Of does and bucks 

And slugs and flies

And ravenous woodchucks.

Andrea Chesman then provides her recipe for Woodchuck Stew.

The gardener who created this dish notes that the herbs and vegetables in this recipe are available fresh from the garden because they have not been eaten by the dish’s main ingredient." NYT, June 2008

Take your pick-be a vegetarian by removing what the animal would eat, or try a fancy stew. If you have fencing solutions, write me---I will put them in Urban Herban.

Good for What Ails You: Herbal Teas

Good for What Ails You: Herbal Teas

Are you suffering from a cold in February, 2015? And that means runny nose, sore throat, sneezing, and coughing. You know it is 7-10 days to a normal life no matter what. You can be more comfortable: use herbal teas to sooth the symptoms. Scientists have found that hot liquids radically relieve cold symptoms better than warm or cold liquids. 

So drink one of many herbal teas to feel better:…

 

Mint Tea: Relief plus: this tastes good. It could be Spearmint (sweeter, milder), or Peppermint (bracing, enervating.) Some 50 plus chemicals are defined in Mint  that affect you. Catnip is also a  herb  of note.

Echinacea:  Tea is made from the roots---and the juice is used for prevention. The tea is called, as are all of these herbal concoctions, a tisane (pronounced (ti-SAYN), meaning  tea made of material other than black tea, usually without caffeine. Echinacea has been tested for efficacy by the NIH and found to be “moderately effective. What does that mean? It is better than “not effective.”

Try another root tea: ginger. Slice and pour hot water over it and steep. It has a hot, sharp taste, and is good with honey. You can try teas made from many culinary herbs that were once considered medicine: Rosemary, Sage, even Basil are held to have medicinal properties for colds. “Officinalis” in their botanical names means “used as medicine or in herbalism”.

If using Native American herbs is your interest, try You might also try Elderberry, Rose hips, or Goldenseal. Sample Mountain mint---and be prepared for a very strong taste, hopefully, so strong that you will forget about your cold. You will find it in the Midwest and Virginia, as well as in Anna Kurz's garden. Mountain mint is not of the Mentha family, as are Spearmint and Peppermint, but one can swear by its similar scent.

Ask me what that means another time.

Three Lemony Herbs

Lemon Verbena

Three lemony herbs come forth with March, all citrus aroma’d tender perennials. Lemon balm and Lemon grass haven’t been seen since fall; Lemon verbena has graced several benches in our greenhouse---and tables in my house.

 Lemon Balm (Mellisa officinalis) has many uses: as a cooling tea, bringing down a fever, in salads and drinks. The sweet aroma is useful in making potpourris; Victorians used lemon balm to signify “pleasant company of friends.” 

Lemongrass (Cymbopogon spp.).This herb is used in Thai cooking and thought to have health benefits. It has flavors of lemon and a bit of rose, is used in headache treatment, as 3 well as in perfume production. The grass can be suspended by string above steaming rice to with lemon; Tom Yum Soup made with the bulbs is a treat.

Lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora) is used as flavoring in medicinal teas, pastries, candies, and fragrance in fingerbowls. Use this in a green bean dish à la Pat Fromm. 

Lemon Balm Sauce 

¾ cup sugar. 
4 Tbs. water, 
1 Tbs. fresh Lemon balm or Lemon verbena leaves,
2 Tbs. butter, 
Juice of 1 Lemon, 
Dash of Salt 

In a small pan, boil sugar and water several minutes until syrupy, Add leaves and cook for 5 minutes. Remove leaves. Add butter and salt Continue cooking over low heat until syrup is of desired thickness. (From Old Fashioned Herb Recipes, Bear Wallow Books, p.26) Fun & Learning Opportunities Comin