Creating a Butterfly Garden

It is easy and fun to attract butterflies, the “flowers of the air” to your garden. Planning especially for these beautiful, ephemeral creatures enables you to see their intricate wing patterns up close as well as play an active role in the important work of pollinator conservation. In home gardens, the presence of butterflies flitting and frolicking in carefree flight indicates a healthy and well-integrated habitat.

Butterflies seek flower nectar for nourishment and fuel for flying. With each sip from the heart of a flower blossom, grains of pollen also gather on the butterfly’s body, and it then helps pollinate the garden as it flutters from blossom to blossom. Flowers advertise their unique personal attributes of color, scent, and shape to lure butterflies to land upon them, thus ensuring the spreading of their seeds.

A successfully designed habitat that sustains butterflies includes food, shelter, water and warmth.

Since butterflies are attracted to both flower colors and shapes, plan large groups of plants that provide big splashes of brilliant color to draw them, instead of isolating a single flower plant here and there throughout the garden. Sunny days in the garden are synonymous with a busy freeway of flying butterflies. The hot sun warms their wing muscles, enabling them to soar and fly while going about their job of pollinating, so situate the butterfly garden in the warmest, sunniest area.

On gusty summer days, they need protection from the wind, which is easily provided by arranging tall flowering plants at the back of the border to make it comfortable for the butterflies while they are “nectaring.”

As children are attracted to puddles of water, so are butterflies. A shallow water element in the form of a bird bath, decorative stone water container, or small water garden situated in the ground will serve their needs and add interest to the garden.

Be sure to include a mix of different flowering plants. Here are a few of my favorites:

For the back of a border, the shiny, fern-like, coppery foliage of “SMOKEY” BRONZE FENNEL with its golden umbrella-like flowers is a stunning backdrop for lower growing plants. A long dramatic row of “TORCH” TITHONIA planted at the back of the border makes a blazing hedge of brilliant orange-red landing pad blossoms, and provides both a convenient perch and windscreen for winged visitors. “CINNAMON SUN” or CHOCOLATE CHERRY” SUNFLOWERS glow in deep and deeper red colors and “SUN SAMBA” dances in a full range of bright colors: from cream yellow and deep gold to bicolors in shades of bronze and mahogany over gold.

For the mid-border, air-waltzing butterflies will be attracted to the searing scarlet and orange colors of “PERSIAN CARPET” or “LITTLE LION” ZINNIAS. Charming semi-dwarf “MUSIC BOX” SUNFLOWER offers a range of pretty, golden yellow shades and bicolors that add visual interest or choose “LITTLE LADYBIRDS” or “WHITE SEASHELLS” COSMOS. “BERGAMO” MONARDA is another midrange butterfly magnet.

Line the front of the border with fluffy apricot pillows of “SUMMER PEACHES” ALYSSUM, or “SUMMER SPLASH” or “SIGNET STARFIRE” MARIGOLDS to create a welcoming effect. Or, plant FRENCH or CREEPING THYME, MARJORAM or OREGANO, as the blossoms of these perennial herbs also attract butterflies big-time.

All of these flower selections are excellent choices not only for butterflies, but for gardeners as well as they are beautiful and long blooming garden flowers through the season.


Browse our complete list of Renee’s Garden Butterfly Flowers and Herbs, or choose our Seeds For A Butterfly Garden Bonus Pack, which includes 3 individual packets of easy to grow heirloom butterfly flower varieties to bring butterflies all summer long. It includes complete planting and growing instructions and garden design information.

Seed of the Month: Smokey Bronze Fennel

Striking Bronze Fennel has 4 to 5 foot plumes of filigreed coppery leaves and lacy golden flower
umbels that ripen mellow anise-flavored seeds. These plants are stunning additions to herb or
flower beds and are major nectar hosts for many butterfly species (especially swallowtails).

Season seafood, salads or cooked vegetables with sprigs of the feathery copper-bronze leaves.
Tea made from the aromatic leaves or sweet seeds soothes upset stomachs and calms the nerves.

June Recipe: Classic Fresh Pesto Sauce

One of the best ways to enjoy an abundant basil harvest. Visit our online catalog to see the 11 varieties of basil we carry.

3 1/2 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 large cloves garlic (more if you love it)
1 1/2 tsp. fresh oregano or 3/4 tsp. dried
1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper (or to taste)
1/2 to 2/3 cup fruity extra virgin olive oil
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese
1/2 cup pine nuts or pecan meats
Salt to taste

Combine all the ingredients except the cheese and nuts in a food processor or blender, adding enough olive oil to make a thick, smooth sauce. Add the nuts and cheese and combine, then add salt to taste.

Serve immediately over any kind of pasta, rice, hot baked potatoes, cooked spaghetti squash, baked chicken pieces, baked or BBQ salmon.

Makes about 2 cups (enough to combine with 4 servings of pasta).

If you are planning to freeze excess sauce, leave out the garlic and add when you are ready to use.

For more great recipes check out
 Renee's Cookbooks:

Recipes from a Kitchen Garden
More Recipes from a Kitchen Garden

Pinching Basil to Promote Lush Plants & Long Harvests

Mrs. Burn's Lemon Basil

Everyone loves basil (we carry 11 varieties) for its wonderful flavor and fragrance. Each season we look forward to growing an abundance of basil in our trial garden to use in everyday cooking, delicious fresh pesto sauce and aromatic herbal vinegars for salads and deglazing sautés.
 

Here are a few good basil recipes from Renee's cookbooks:
Basil Vinegar Chicken, Green Bean Pate with Basil, Pickled Basil Beans, Herbal Jellies

Basil grows quickly and easily from seed sown directly into well prepared garden beds – but only if it is planted after both day and night temperatures have risen above 50°F (10°C). Seedlings thrive in warm summer temperatures planted in full sun in soil that has been well amended with plenty of compost or other good organic material.

To keep plants productive for the longest period of time, it is important to start harvesting by pinching the stems back to encourage branching growth and discourage plants from flowering. Once basil plants initiate flowering, it is nearly impossible to stop the process and the leaves of flowering plants are smaller and less flavorful.

These basil plants are the perfect size for initial harvesting
and shaping. Pinching the central stem of each plant back
by half encourages branching and abundant leafy growth

Basil plants initially grow one central stem. Once they are reach 6-8 inches tall, pinch the central stem back by half and about ¼ inch above the leaf axils. This will force the plants to branch and grow more leaves. As the plants keep sending out new branching stems, continue to pinch them back in the same manner.

Pinch the stems back half way down
the plant just above the leaf axil.

Leave no more than ¼ inch of stem
above the leaf axil after pinching.

Fish emulsion is an inexpensive and
effective high nitrogen fertilizer that
organic gardeners rely on. Apply at
the dilution rate on the label.

Along with pinching the plant’s stems, it is important to give your actively growing basil plants supplemental feeding with a high nitrogen fertilizer like fish emulsion every few weeks. Nitrogen promotes vegetative growth and will help to grow abundant large, flavorful leaves and helps inhibit flowering.

Seed of the Month: Double Cosmos 'Rose Bon Bon'

From the very best French breeders, florist–quality Rose Bon Bon has extra fancy,
uniformly double blossoms densely packed with frilled petals in a rich romantic rose.
This exceptionally beautiful and care-free cosmos produces 3-inch flowers that bloom non-
stop on long stems, making them perfect for cutting abundant bouquets all summer long.
Butterflies love to visit these lovely blossoms as they sway above finely cut foliage.

May Recipe: Radishes in Creamy Dressing

This appetizing salad is crunchy and creamy all at once. Visit our online catalog to see the many kinds and colors of radishes we carry.

Ingredients:
1 bunch radishes, thinly sliced
(about 10 to 12)

Dressing:
1/4 cup thinly sliced scallions
1/4 cup low fat sour cream
1/4 cup fresh plain yogurt
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp. prepared horseradish
1 T. chopped parsley

Garnish:
Lettuce leaves
1 T. minced chives

Thoroughly combine dressing ingredients, add radishes, and mix together well. Serve on lettuce leaves, garnished with chives.

For more great recipes check out
 Renee's Cookbooks:

Recipes from a Kitchen Garden
More Recipes from a Kitchen Garden

Gardening with Kids -- Resources

By Beth Benjamin, Horticultural Advisor at Renee’s Garden



 As the Renee’s Garden Horticultural Advisor, I get letters from grandparents asking for recommendations for children’s gardening books. In my experience, a love for books and for plants are the two best gifts you can give a child – gifts that will last a lifetime. Even if circumstances don’t always allow for actual gardening, being rooted early in the principles and practice of growing things will instill a lifelong appreciation for food, flowers, farmers, cooking and wild nature too.

I do think introducing kids to gardening activities works best when parents are also gardening, for a child to have a corner of a parent’s garden so there is always something thriving that isn’t dependent on the child’s attention (just in case) to ensure success, and because working outside with another person nearby feels so good.

There are several books I’d love to recommend. Life Lab is a non-profit organization based in Santa Cruz, California that is a national leader in farm and garden based education.  They have many charming and useful publications that bring learning to life in the garden. I bought their Kid’s Garden Activity Cards and The Book of Garden Projects for Kids for my daughter who was working with her school’s garden as well as with her own children at home.

Author and garden educator Sharon Lovejoy has written several great books on children’s gardening that definitely work well to encourage family gardening. My favorite is Sunflower Houses: Inspiration from the Garden - A Book for Children and Their Grown-Ups.

Some lifestyle stores are also great resources. For example, Susanna James is one of our new California customers who has created a lively store called Dandelions that has been voted Style Magazine’s #1 Reader’s Choice in her El Dorado foothills region for both toy and children’s stores. In the store, Susanna has created a cozy gardening corner with tools, books and Renee’s Garden seed selections chosen especially for kids’ gardening. Her mission of raising children naturally and celebrating childhood with art and imagination ties into making gardening part of the growing up experience.

To that end, Renee’s Garden now offers a Children's Collection with specially chosen seeds. My own grandkids’ first choices year after year are Sugar Snap peas, Baby Green Fingers cucumbers, Sungold tomatoes and Musica beans. We plant them in the bed along the fence on the way through the back yard from my front door to their porch. There is something thrilling about picking a sweet crunchy pod or a golden tomato nugget off a tall vine, and they quickly learn how not to pull the plants’ tendrils off their supports. But the girls’ newest favorite is Mikado, the baby Japanese turnip coming to Renee’s Garden in 2014!

Seed of the Month: Climbing Italian Summer Squash 'Trombetta di Albenga'

This wonderful Italian heirloom summer squash is a vigorous climbing vine,
producing many 12 to 15-inch, lime-green fruits with a curvaceous trumpet
shape and a delicate mild taste with a hint of nutty artichoke flavor.

Trombetta's flesh is seedless and firm and doesn't get watery or mushy like
regular zucchini. The rambling plants will soon cover a trellis, fence or stakes
with graceful fruits that hang like jade ornaments cloaked in a lush canopy of
big, heart-shaped leaves.

April Recipe: Edible Blossom Tea Sandwiches

Flowers are a universal symbol of beauty. We offer them as gifts on special occasions or simply to show appreciation, but flowers can also play a delicious role in the kitchen in both savory and sweet recipes.

Ingredients:
One large cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely chopped
8 ounces cream cheese (“light” style OK) at room temperature
3/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup finely chopped chives or scallions
Thinly sliced cracked wheat or white bread, crusts removed
Lots of edible blossoms: nasturtiums, chives, borage, calendula, bean flowers or herb blossoms, rinsed and patted dry

Squeeze chopped cucumber in a kitchen towel to remove as much moisture as possible; set aside. Blend the cream cheese, seasonings and chives or scallions. Add cucumber and combine well but do not overmix. Spread on bread and cut into finger-sized open sandwiches.

To serve: Decorate the tops of the sandwiches with petals of various edible flowers.

For more great recipes check out
 Renee's Cookbooks:

Recipes from a Kitchen Garden
More Recipes from a Kitchen Garden

A Taste of the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show

By Laura Schaub, Graphic Designer at Renee’s Garden 

Laura was our emissary to the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show this year and shares tasty photos of her favorite program there.

Every spring I take a break from my work at Renee’s Garden to help out at the SF Flower and Garden Show. This year I had the fun assignment of photographing the demonstrations on the Chef’s Stage. I loved seeing the stage covered with fresh, local, in-season produce, and tasting the delicious dishes the chefs prepared.

It was particularly nice to see some favorite Renee’s Garden varieties used in the demonstrations, like lacinato kale, watermelon radishes, baby beets, Asian greens, seasonal herbs and edible flowers.

Garden-to-table and conscious, sustainable living is an important part of the Renee’s Garden culture. I have learned so much about incorporating seasonal foods into my own cooking, and this was a great opportunity to expand my repertoire!

Here are some highlights:

Wendy Johnson of Green Gulch Farm and Annie Somerville of Greens Restaurant
served up a delicious spring greens, butter bean and watermelon radish salad.

Thy Tran of the Asian Culinary demonstrated dan dan noodles
with mustard greens, superior stock, and pickled mustard.

Anthony Strong from Locanda restaurant served up some delicious
hand-made pasta with garden-fresh greens, fava beans and pecorino cheese.

Gonzalo Guzman from Nopalito and Laurence Jossel from
Nopa fed us delicious chicken and bean tostadas with crema.

Willi Galloway of Diggin Food made delicious herb butters, and lemon verbena tea.

Elianna Friedman of the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable
Agriculture talked about making cooking and eating healthy foods fun for kids.

April Recipe: Sweet Lemon and Onion Relish

Meltingly delicious with baked ham, lamb or chicken. Even tastier with your own home-grown onions from Renee's Garden.

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, cut into thin 1/4 in. strips
2 medium lemons
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup water
5 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

Heat oil in a medium skillet, add onions. Cover and cook on very low heat, stirring occasionally, until soft but not brown, for about 15 minutes.

While onions are cooking prepare lemons: Squeeze the juice from the lemons and reserve. Scrape out membranes and cut the rinds into 1/4 inch strips. Put in a small pan and cover with cold water; bring to a boil, then pour out the water. Repeat twice, boiling up the rind for  a total of 3 times.

When the onions are tender, add the drained lemon strips, lemon juice, water, sugar, salt and thyme. Cook uncovered over low heat, stirring occasionally, for about  20 minutes, until most of the liquid is reduced and onions and lemons are glazed. Put up in a glass jar. Store in refrigerator for up to a month.

Makes 1 3/4 cups.

For more great recipes check out
 Renee's Cookbooks:

 

Recipes from a Kitchen Garden
More Recipes from a Kitchen Garden

Rethinking Metro Detroit

by Joy Albright-Souza



I’m so pleased to have another great post from Joy Albright-Souza, part of the earliest Renee’s Garden management team, who left us to start her own landscape design business. Her company specializes in edible landscaping and her designs grace many fine local gardens, including one she did for our business manager Sarah Renfro, who has posted about its first and third year. 
Find Joy at www.albrightsouza.com

Detroit has been in the news a lot lately and because Renee’s blog has focused so strongly on school gardens and building communities through gardening, I felt this recap of my recent trip to the Motor City would be a timely addition.

I hate to admit it but it was probably the Super Bowl commercial that did it. It was the one for Chrysler, with the rapper Eminem cruising in the black car through the darkened streets, the gospel choir, the persistent beat and the voiceover with the message “imported from Detroit.” I’d already been curious about the stories I’d heard of the urban decay and vacant lots. I was interested in what happens to a great city when its fortunes turn and the population exits.

Because I’m a gardener and a designer, I’m always interested in what people are growing wherever I go. I like to explore how people use their public garden spaces and what plants they are growing in their private pockets of land. So, in addition to the classic landmarks, taking the time to see what was growing in Detroit was definitely the plan.

Our first impression of the city did not disappoint. There was the GM Renaissance Center glinting in the sun, looking over the Detroit River, winking at the Canadians on the other side. The classic buildings, from Detroit’s golden age, are amazing in their various stages of past and present glory. The Motown museum was a delight and it anchors just one of the many interesting neighborhoods fanning out from the downtown area. Yes, the beautiful places are often alongside gap-toothed empty buildings, but I think that juxtaposition is part of what makes “The D” such a fascinating place.

Wildflowers along the Detroit RiverWalk

I’d read that the city had recently re-vamped part of their waterfront, the area known as the RiverWalk, but hadn’t expected how well-designed the space would be. A long stretch of riverfront is thriving with great swaths of native plants and eco-educational signage. The RiverWalk is a useable, interactive space with fountains, a carousel and plenty of places to rest in the shade or soak up the sun.

You can’t really go to the Detroit area without experiencing the history of the auto industry. But we were impressed to see the largest green roof in the world, on top of the Ford Rouge Factory. The greenery stretches out in every direction, from the observation tower, turning the roof into a 10.4 acre garden.

Ten acres of Green Roof on the Ford Factory

But with my limited time, I was actually more interested in what was currently happening in the inner city. I know that Detroit has struggled with population loss for decades now, but it was so surprising to learn that Detroit has lost almost 60% of its population since 1960. I knew that houses, in certain parts of the city, as the population exits, have been falling into disrepair, sometimes becoming a magnet for graffiti, crime and arson and that there has been ambitious city programs to remove many of the abandoned houses.

What I had expected, from my experience in the West, was to see empty city lots filled with dry weeds, old cars and trash. But what I found was what looked like a small, slightly down-on-its-luck country town. Part of the effect was because of the large street trees, planted when the neighborhoods were first built up, they are majestic and numerous and add a very different feel from what I was expecting.

What we found was often 2-3 houses remaining per block, with no trace of the houses that had been removed and the rest of the block usually covered in cornflowers and Queen Anne’s lace and all the same wild flowers that you see along any pretty country lane. The effect was eerily bucolic in places. I just couldn’t get it out of my head that I was deep within a major US city and not on a rural road in a small town somewhere.

To learn as much as possible in the short time we had, I arranged for a bicycle tour, through Wheelhouse Detroit. It turns out that Detroit is a great place to ride, because of its flat, wide boulevards, built for big American cars of course, and its general lack of traffic. Wheelhouse connected us with a volunteer from The Greening of Detroit, for taking a closer look at urban agriculture. This wonderful organization, runs The Detroit Garden Resource Program, provides services to more than 1,000 community gardens, ranging from a typical household plot to schoolyards and multiple vacant lots.

Joy cycles around the city with Nate from The Greening of Detroit

We rode around the northeast part of town, past houses both vacant and cared-for, checking out small personal gardens, neighborhood gardens and small-scale commercial plots whose produce was to be sold at the wonderful Eastern Market, which we had a great time exploring as well.

One of the most compelling people we met was the Rev Barry Randolph, the unorthodox pastor of the Church of the Messiah. He gave us a personal tour of the church garden that he and his congregation tend, in the parking lot of the brick, gothic church on the corner of East Grand and East Lafayette. When I say in the parking lot, I literally mean, in some cases, on top of the asphalt of the parking lot.

This garden is a wonder of up-cycling and re-purposing materials to create raised garden beds for the production of food. The congregation makes good use of concrete blocks and recycled wood and there were some lovely onion sets maturing nicely in their own beds made out of tires.

The Rev. Barry Randolph checks on the garden at Church of the Messiah

The produce from the garden is available for anyone from the neighborhood that needs it or that contributes their time to the garden. This church, which offers subsidized housing, youth-mentoring and a small-business incubator, is doing some amazing things to revitalize their corner of the city. We were impressed with the enthusiasm of Rev Randolph and his catch phrase “Get up off your asset – and do something to help your community and to help yourself.”

All in all, we got so much more than we ever expected. We were impressed by the determination of long-time residents who refuse to give up on their city. We were intrigued by the urban “homesteaders,” moving in to the inner city, attempting to forge an old way of life in a new era, often bolstered by not much more than inexpensive real estate and youthful energy. 

One of the many community gardens in urban Detroit

The city offers lessons, for any corner of the world, as to what can happen when fortunes change and your industry pivots. There’s no doubt that Detroit is re-making itself and will rise again. After all, Rome and Istanbul have had their historical ups and downs, over the centuries, and are certainly vibrant cities today. For Detroit, the challenge and the opportunity of so much vacant land will be interesting to follow. But it’s clear that the frontier spirit that built America is strong in the Motor City and it will be an honor to witness the journey back.

Seed of the Month: CA Poppies 'Tropical Sunset'

We've crafted our own custom mix of long-blooming California Poppies in glowing sunset colors of rich, deep red, warm carmine- rose, ruffled flame and tangerine bicolors and an occasional vanilla. These easy-to-grow flowers have satiny single and semi-double blossoms, many with pleated petals. Their silky blossoms glow from amongst feathery gray-green foliage. California poppies have a carefree natural ambiance, perfect
for flowerbeds or for covering bare or neglected garden areas.

February Recipe: Roasted Potatoes with Garlic and Herbs

The aromas of roasting potatoes, herbs and garlic make this an irresistible dish, and it is even better with your own home-grown potatoes from Renee's Garden.

Ingredients:
3 T olive oil
1 dozen small or 6 medium potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch slices and patted dry
1/2 to 1 head garlic (or to taste) separated into cloves and peeled
4 to 5 sprigs, 4 to 6 inches long, rosemary, thyme or basil
 
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Spread olive oil in bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Toss potato slices and garlic cloves in baking dish to coat with oil, then arrange in a single layer. Lay the sprigs of herbs on top of the potatoes. Cover the pan with foil or a cookie sheet and bake 20 minutes. Uncover and bake 15 to 20 minutes more or until potatoes are tender and begin to brown. Carefully remove herbs and discard. Serve immediately.
 
Serves 4

For more great recipes check out
 Renee's Cookbooks:

 

Recipes from a Kitchen Garden
More Recipes from a Kitchen Garden