Pam’s Pictorama Post: I recently wrote a post about how I was cooking a lot here in New Jersey during this long spring of my mom’s illness. (That post can be found here.) My mom never cooked in this kitchen and basic cooking implements needed to be purchased once I wanted to do more than make coffee. (I purchased a good coffee pot, a stovetop percolating coffee pot first thing.) So, a slow process of knives here, a colander there, a skillet. I cook for as many as four or five people at a time so there has also been food buying – with food buying I have needed to purchase basic spices and herbs. This New Jersey enclave is robustly supplied with a variety of discount stores – Dollar Tree, Home Goods, Job Lots, Marshalls. (There is a Shop Rite the size of several city blocks. Land of wonders.)
A too small blue for the front. Will hold herbs on the back deck instead.
The blue ceramic pots first caught my eye at a local farmer’s market turned gourmet store called Sickles. In a number of shapes and sizes the glowing blue glaze caught my eye, but endless expenses helping my mom out discouraged me from high end planters. Still, I started seeing them appear on front porches on my runs in the morning. There was no doubt, beautiful blue pots were following me.
Blue pots from a run – they were starting to follow me.
One day, while hunting down a cookie sheet in Home Goods for roasted vegetables, I was greeted by a pile of these wonderful blue pots and for a tiny fraction of the price. No two were alike so I chose two and brought them home only to realize that one is too small for that job. On my next trip I bought another larger one and placed it with the other, on each side of the front steps.
The one with bees!
Later I added a yellow one to contrast with the blues. The smaller blue pot and another yellow one (with bees on it) will go on the back porch. The woman at the register during the first purchase spontaneously offered, “Great deal! You’ll never get them for that price at Sickles!” Which made me laugh – small town indeed.
The other side of the front door sports a yellow pot too.
It is too early to plant in them, but I am already thinking red flowers like geraniums would be cheerful and a nice contrast. The ones for the back deck will likely be planted with herbs to further aide in cooking – although I am looking forward to a container or two of tomatoes too. All will have to be hardy to survive the times when I am not here during the hot summer and the nibbling bunnies, groundhogs, deer and the like.
Under the watchful eye of my mom from the house, the yard has gone from neglected and bereft to beautiful with the help of a long time gardener, a fellow named Mike. With his help I gave my mother a weeping cherry tree and a magnolia tree a few years ago as I saw so many lovely ones here in the spring. This is the first year they look like more than brave little sticks. Mom’s enjoyment of the yard is limited to photos and videos of it but not at all less for that and hopefully my few additions will make her happy too.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: My mother has always had a garden. Perhaps it speaks to her largely Italian roots where there was a grape arbor in the backyard, cherry and other fruit trees and a kitchen garden for vegetables. (Posts about my grandmother’s house and that yard can be found here, here and here.) It was fertile soil (Jersey is, after all, the Garden State) and responsive to care and planting.
The Cittadino family yard at the turn of the century.
Mom also majored in zoology and botany in college which was as close as she (she a mere woman at a girl’s college) could come to a pre-med course. Much of that work in botany would come out over time, making up the fascinating accumulation and source of information my mother is. (Although of course I suppose that’s what mother’s are!)
In the first house I have clear memories of residing at, there was an impressive rock garden planted by the previous owners. It climbed up the sloping backyard and in my child’s memory was enormous – probably much smaller than I remember. One of my earliest memories is being about 3 and sitting with my mom as she worked in that garden. I think she was weeding and I picked up a handful of tiny frog as I ‘helped’ her. He jumped, we all jumped and I screamed in terror as my mom tried to explain the nature of the frog to me.
I believe that this more formal sort of garden was not really mom’s taste which was clearly a bit more natural, wild even. However, presented with this beautiful garden she certainly did tend it lovingly.
In the cottage on the river where we lived until I was about 11 the soil was sandy and salty from the water. Betty dug her heels in and really did battle to make anything grow there. Through considerable grit she achieved a smattering of rose bushes and something that served as a lawn, although may have been largely well-trimmed weeds in reality. No matter, lawn was never a passion of hers.
Magnolia tree near mom’s which inspired the purchase of one for her yard.
In summer she coaxed a bay of giant sunflowers in a side yard that was otherwise a fairly no-nonsense vegetable garden. It was there that I learned the joy of bountiful homegrown tomatoes and a surfeit of zucchini, and the occasional eggplant. It was tough going though and I also remember the failure of corn and all the evergreen trees that died too. (She had had a plan to buy live trees for Christmas and plant them. As one after another died she realized that this plan would not work and bought an artificial tree instead. The practice of cutting trees for Christmas really bothers her.)
The yard was all mom’s. Dad traveled constantly for work and his schedule only allowed for occasional involvement where he worked under mom’s direction. His background as a city kid did not allow for much gardening expertise or interest.
We moved several blocks away when I was about 12 and there my parents stayed until a few years ago. Although still on the water it was less likely to flood and the soil, while not that of her youth, was definitely several notches better.
Here she planted numerous trees, which we had the pleasure of seeing mature over those decades. Because the water table was still very high, it was the willows that thrived, although there were nice oaks and maple trees too, a weeping cherry. There were some lovely old trees on the property, one outside my bedroom window housed a screech owl, foxes made a home of a dead one in the backyard. She had her tree failures – a beloved copper beech that never really thrived as I remember.
Irises in mom’s yard, but not the ones she brought from the other house.
She was serious about tree care and people came at least annually to examine, prune and make suggestions. Living in a hurricane zone it was necessary to know that your trees were fit to withstand those high winds. After the devastation of Hurricane Sandy the loss of trees in the yard and the neighborhood left it sad and denuded. These were old friends that were gone now.
In this yard mom combined flowers and vegetables. There was a grapevine and strawberries – the wildlife got far more of these than we ever did however. The tiny delicious strawberries seemed somewhat miraculous to me. Tomatoes still reigned, but herbs were what I remember most. She planted them in the ground, but also in containers. It was lovely to hop outside and snip some fresh herbs for whatever I was making for dinner.
Mom’s house when we first purchased it.
There were glorious rose bushes in a variety of colors and some stunning irises that a friend had made a gift of and which he had brought from his home in New Orleans. There were azaleas and a glorious butterfly bush. In later years, with no family to feed, mom focused her planting on flowers and plants that would attract and feed the birds, insects and wild life of the area. The result was a cacophony of birds, buzzing bees and often a half dozen bunnies in view at any time. Deer found their way there and fox. Hawks and even vultures stopped by looking for prey. The yard was a wild kingdom of sorts in later years.
Mom’s house earlier this spring.
When mom moved into her current house she had a blank slate as the previous owners had only done basic maintenance. Mom is housebound now, but has a trusted gardener known only as Mike to me. Between them they have transformed the small yard, front and back. Mom is entirely focused on flowers which she enjoys from a windowed room at the back of the house. The irises were rescued and transplanted here and she can tell you about other plants and bulbs shared by friends and acquaintances, some rescued from Mike’s other jobs when they no longer suited the owners.
I have contributed some peonies (which have come into their own this year), a hummingbird feeder and a weeping cherry and a magnolia tree are on their way to her presently as belated Mother’s Day gifts. I took a tour of the yard when I was there last weekend and it was nice to see how it has grown in. After this long year spent in our Manhattan studio apartment walking around her little paradise is better than ever.
One of the peonies I gave mom, blooming this month.
This multi-colored honey suckle reminded me of the masses of it we had growing wild in our yard growing up. Dad showed me how to extract a single drop of nectar from each – amazing! When I remarked on it mom told me it is one of her favorites and that she had asked for it. A fact I never knew.
Multi-color honeysuckle.
In order to better survey her kingdom mom has a friend who records mini tours on video. Larry does a great job and I am enjoying these too.
Having lived in a Manhattan apartment my whole adult life I don’t know if I inherited mom’s green thumb or not. Kim, with his green thumb, tends our mass of African violets and single aloe plant. I miss those fresh tomatoes each summer!
Pam's Pictorama 