Paperwhites, Narcissus papyraceus, are a wonderful bulb to coax into bloom at this time of year. The fragrance is strong and not to everyone's liking.

Paperwhites (Narcissus papyraceus) are cousins of daffodils and are a common bulb to force in the Christmas season. Actually, forcing bulbs has always seemed so violent a term to me. How about if we say coaxing bulbs?

Well, I purchased my paperwhites already potted, with the little buds already heading north. This is a wonderful way to go, if you are the impatient sort of gardener, and the already started bulbs are readily available at this time of year. But do yourself a favor, and at least get them out of the plastic sleeve they often come in and make them a bit more homemade in appearance.

Paperwhites will grow nicely in a light weight potting mix, heavy in peat moss, which is what mine came in, but they also grow wonderfully in just pebbles and water, which is a dramatic effect.

Anchor your bulbs in a pretty container with rocks and physics.

I took my potted bulbs out of the pot and the peat, and anchored them in an antique-ish casserole/serving dish with pebbles and physics. They take up a surprising amount of water, err on the side of overwatering.

If you are a fan of the movie The Devil Wears Prada, you may recall when Miranda chides Andy for smelling freesia in a bouquet at a fru-fru fashion event in Paris. This makes me think of Paperwhites, which emit a fragrance that is potent and potentially off-putting. But embrace it … like you do your Grandma’s perfume.

Paperwhites, Narcissus papyraceus, cheery, up close and personal.

You can prolong the somewhat fleeting blooms by keeping them out of direct sunlight and slightly cool, somewhere in the 60s.

When your favorite plants are more at home in a climate zone warmer than your own (that was almost a rhyme), parting is such sweet sorrow. So, I am bringing two of my favorites indoors for the winter, cutting them back, giving them the brightest light my old house has to offer, and whispering “you can do it” in their spores every day. Here are the two. I will keep you posted. Cross my fingers. XXX

Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue'. A garden must have in the Garden Drama test garden. It's also a butterfly and hummingbird magnet!

Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blue’

Black and Blue Salvia is a ta-da, wow-pow, must-have sort of plant. Once you have it in your gardening world, it will continue to rock it. It is hardy to zone 7, so all you fellow gardeners who live there, I am jealous. Think of using this beauty as a focal point in your yard.

It loves full sun and flowers from mid summer to frost, basically. The flowers are a magical blue with black sepals, making it very striking in your landscape. I will tell you, since I have introduced it into my yard, I have had hummingbirds like never before.  It’s also called Blue Anise Sage, and has a lovely licorice fragrance when you touch it.

Colocasia 'Coffee Cups' is a fun stunner that can reach six feet and collects water in its leaves. The contrast of its chartreuse leaves to the magenta stems is fabulous.

Colocasia ‘Coffee Cups’ 

This big fellow for the garden is a fascinating specimen that can live happily with wet feet in your water garden.

This plant was discovered in the wilds of Indonesia and though it is an exotic tropical, I can speak to  the fact that it melds nicely into the northern landscape. It is tall, striking, likes lots of sun, but will tolerate part sun. Needs plenty of water. My guess is that he will overwinter happily as  a houseplant, but I will report back in the spring.

An all-too-familiar site this time of year. Tomatoes, could you space yourself out over the summer?

I spoke to a fellow gardener yesterday who, like may of us, is in a quandary over mountains of tomatoes, many green.

Well, I am a big fan of picking all the green ones (I don’t go any smaller than a clementine for saving, but this is just my own personal creed) and bringing them inside to finish their ripening. Find the coolest, driest, most out of the way spot you can, out of direct light, and lay down some newspapers or my personal favorite, paper grocery bags. Spread out the tomatoes in a single layer, and try not to let them touch. You will lose a few, most definitely, but discard the little water balloons and keep enjoying the ones that do make it.

Cherokee Purple Red, Pear, and Juliet tomatoes, fresh-picked.

Here is the absolutely best tomato soup for all the ripe ones. Throw in the semi-ripe and even some green ones for an extra fresh taste. Trust me, you will love this soup and the family will gobble it up. You get extra credit for pairing it with grilled cheese sandwiches.

FRESH TOMATO SOUP

This can be doubled, tripled, etc.

Melt 2 T butter over medium heat and stir in 2 T flour until well blended. Add about 1 1/2 quarts of milk, can be skim or soy, and heat until warm. In a large pan, cook 1/2 of a chopped onion, a T sugar and about 5 processed or chopped tomatoes on medium high heat for about 10 minutes. Combine the two mixtures and add a pinch, maybe a tsp., of baking soda and watch it foam, but be mindful, it could cook over! Season and serve. So yummy.

Kellogg's Beefsteak or Breakfast is a must-have for next year. It's an heirloom variety!

You could just combine milk and cooked tomatoes and then add soda, to lighten it up. Also, freeze processed tomatoes, as many as you have the fortitude to do, and finish off the soup in the middle of winter when you need a summer pick-me-up.

The subtle blush of the divine 'Zestar' apple, espaliered on the backyard fence.

Six summers ago, I went French in my backyard potager (kitchen garden), and I espaliered an apple tree on my 6 foot privacy fence. Patience while I waited for the first fruit has been the only hard part.

Espalier is the French art of pruning, usually a fruit tree, into a decorative shape. Sort of like a French manicure for the garden.

Last season, many blossoms morphed into about five apples, that alas, the squirrels got to before they grew and ripened. Naughty squirrels. You are lucky you are cute with such expressive tails.

House numbers graphically decorate the fence around the espaliered tree. Blossoms promise forthcoming fruit.

This season, I got many blossoms, many apples, and four survived the ravages of the backyard wildlife, and they were large, the size of grapefruits, and incredibly delicious, so a shout-out to the U of M developed ‘Zestar’ apple. It really does have a taste of a caramel apple. Sweet and subtle.

The basic structure of the support for the espaliered tree is rather simple. It consists of, in a nutshell, 3 inch eye-hook bolts screwed into the side of the 6 foot posts. Using 16 gauge galvanized wire, connect the length of wire that will span your fence panel from post to post, with a turn-buckle on each end of the wire. The turn buckles then connect to the two eye-hooks, and allow you to tighten the wire, once it is connected to the eye hooks, and also tighten it in subsequent years.

The first horizontal wire can go about 15 inches above the ground, and then string the next wire a foot above the first, then another, and even another if you like.

I recommend beginning with a dwarf tree, and a “whip” from a seed catalog works wonderfully. Small trees from your garden center will work just fine, but look for dwarf varieties.

The pruning process is more intuitive than persnickety. Look for branches sprouting near the wires and let these grow. Prune away sprouts in-between the wires. And prune away sprouts from your lateral branches as they take hold and grow along the wires. Commit to two or three brief pruning sessions throughout the growing season.

Espaliered fruit trees are a wonderful way to grow fruit in a small space and the apples actually respond wonderfully to the extra dose of sun that this growing method provides them. You do need two apple trees for cross pollination, so find space to do two, or you can also borrow cross pollination from a neighbors tree within 500 feet, even a crabapple tree.

Colorful marbles make a plain old fence sparkle.

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Lake Owasso Garden Club this week. It was a full classroom of avid, fun-loving gardeners and the topic at hand was Art in the Garden. As I told the group, I think art and the garden go together like peas and carrots and as I prepped my talk, I was reminded of one of my favorite DIY project from my own garden, the Garden Drama test garden.

Festooning a six foot privacy with marbles is addictive fun that really adds a pop and punch to the garden setting, especially when the sun hits it from the back. The process is pretty simple.

I would recommend using new marbles. Vintage marbles will vary in size, slightly, so it you can deal with this, go ahead. So first, find your marbles if you’ve lost them, then determine a drill bit size that will bore a hole, ever so slightly smaller than your marble. You want it to press in snugly to help it stay put. No adhesive needed. I advise drilling test holes in scrap wood to help you get the right sized holes made. You made need to purchase a special sized bit.

Then go to town. Create a meandering pattern of holes on your fence. Think constellations of stars for inspiration. A gate is a great place to begin, but anywhere you can drill will benefit from the little glimmers of colorful light.

I lose a marble or two over the winter from the wood contracting and expanding and maybe a couple over the summer, but a little vigilance, popping them back in is all that’s needed.

Beware though, once you get going on this one, you will want to be be-dazzling your entire fence. Have fun!

Plant clippings in 10 cent cup on piano.

I spent last weekend with my sister in Gaylord, Minn., prepping and tending the rummage sale to prepare for selling my mom’s house.

Selling off family possessions, whether in a sale or auction, is not for the faint of heart. We were lucky. The three day crowd was a friendly lot. Considerate, and in awe of my mom’s decades-long collection of cookie jars, candy dishes, chicken this-n-that (her maiden name is Klucking) and the hundreds of church cookbooks amassed over the years. The countless yards of fabric (she who dies with the most, wins) and trash bags full of skeins of yarn went to crafters who I know appreciate every thread.

I took a few plants from the yard in June: some astilbe that bloomed fuschia plumes, some hosta that I had divided and planted, so they were actually returning to where they came from, some lilies and bellflower, a rose, and a clematis. All are doing well. I am transplanting bee balm, globe thistle, and some sedum to my sister’s house this fall.

The front garden at my mom’ s house was a southern Minnesota phenom. With a southern exposure and that Sibley County peat like devil’s food cake, it grew plants like wildfire. Nothing I grow in Minneapolis compares. I prod and clip and water and do okay, but the plants flourished with nary a supplemental watering in her front yard. They were in growing heaven there.

At the rummage sale, of course I connected with a fellow gardening wacka-doo. He drove a pick-up stuffed full of finds from the city-wide sales that were happening, and gobbled up anything horticulture, including a couple scary pieces of my pottery from the early days.

He called me over to his truck where he gave me a tiny vinca from a four-pack, a pot with a slip of “pregnant onion”, and took out a trailing geranium and gave me permisson to clip off a cutting, which I did. He asked me if I believed in God, and I stretched my arms up to the cloudless sky and said “How can you not on a day like this.”

I write this as I look out at my own garden in the backyard that I have planted and tended and toiled in and sworn at for 18 years and I think, “Wow, I will be leaving you one day.” And I get a little sad.

The next person may let the Japanese Maple grow taller than the six feet I keep it at or decide the ponds are too much fuss and fill them in. They may see my prairie-in-the city garden as too messy and (hopefully) give the grasses, sneezeweed, coneflowers, sage, and rudbeckia to someone who will love them. They may want some grass and seed in where lilies and salvia and penstemon bloom.  But for a while, the plants were here and loved it.

I guess that is all any of us can hope for.

Oh, by the way, mom is doing well in her apartment in Gaylord.

Red Bee Balm or Monarda double-decker. A lovely little freak of nature.

Now is the prefect time to look for those holes in your garden beds and fill them in with a fabulous Monarda or lily.

The nurseries and garden centers (and fronts of many local grocery stores) are popping with varieties from which to choose.

The plants are in bloom at the centers and it’s fun to add  a little instant color to a space that needs s jolt.

Keep them watered well to preserve the blooms.

This cute little fellow was simply marked 'Melon.' Very refreshing.

The humble daylily is a workhorse in the July border. It works well to smatter them throughout for dots of color. When the bloom time is past, the leaves recede into the landscape.

The lovely 'Comtesse de Bouchaud' flowers in nearly full shade.

We shade gardening fools know  that flowering vines that tolerate shade are few and far between. Well, I have numerous buds on a newly planted ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’ Clematis, in two separate shady spots, and I am “to the moon!”

‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’ is the variety of clematis that likes a hard pruning to the ground in the spring and like all clematis, appreciate a nice organic planting medium, such as compost, when planting, and plenty of water (good drainage) especially during its first season of growth.

This clematis is hardy to zone 3. Find a place for it in your garden!

In addition to the gentle reminder that gardens can affect one on a physical level, I noted a few garden design tenets to bring back to my own space:

Hostas punctuate the landscape in a lovely way. Personally, I have come to think of hostas as only living in waves in the garden. Hosta glades, so to speak. At the Anderson garden, they erupt here and there, drawing your eye through the space.

No sharp edges or right angles exist in the garden. Lovingly placed hosta, stones and boulders soften edges and break up expansive lines. The meandering lines lull you into a meditative state as you stroll.

Red, in all its varying shades, is a powerful, pizzazzy presence in the garden. On a large or small scale, a swath of red will create a strong focal point and add depth to a garden space. It's bold, but its subtler shades will always work. The bright hues have their place too. This Japanese maple holds court in this space.

Petunias always have their place, in grandma's garden and living among Japanse maples and koi fish. A sweep of a single color is a soothing presence.

Let the garden volunteers grow where they will. Happenstance could create a wonderful garden moment. Nature's art.

Wood deck pathways create a wonderfully elevated sense in the garden. Try them even if you are not travelling over water.

Unexpected, hidden elements, like this Japanese fountain, are treat to happen upon. Create secret moments, hidden vignettes in your garden, even if you are the only one to know it's there.

Gardens attract wildlife. Even if you can't pull in the big guys, like this duck, the butterflies and the bees will love you.

A sense of humor goes hand-in-hand with gardening. Three grand garden fairies greet you as you enter the garden and as you exit you meet their butts. The laugh you get is as relaxing as the garden is as a whole.

A colorful, crazy-quilt container planting.

Every Memorial Day, my mom, bless her soul, buys a ready-mixed container from the fun This Old House in Arlington, Minnesota, to put on my dad’s headstone. Every year she then gives me the planter, bless her again, to incorporate into my garden. A dear gardening gesture.

Whoa, was this year’s container a kicky combo of colors jumping back and forth across the color wheel. Lobelia, celosia, zinnia, pansy, petunia,  ageratum, alyssum, a dahlia, dianthus and dusty miller were all wedged into a small window box planter. Usually this is a bit too much plant prowess for me, in one container. I disassembled and repotted in a bit larger container and I love it.

A crazy combo planter is a fiesta for the eyes and may not go in all garden settings. I am usually a fan of single splashes of color dotting the garden, but I am also fond of trying new things and incorporating memories into your space. I am loving my mixed container. It’s happy, doesn’t take itself too seriously and makes me think of my days as a baby gardener on the farm, when we planted flowers any way that we liked, just because and we loved them.

Gardeners that try new things and gardens that are alive with fresh ideas and sweet memories are always in style.