Author: Leslie Kimel

Add Sparkle with Spangle Grass

Add Sparkle with Spangle Grass

Chasmanthium latifolium is known by many common names—river oats, wood oats, Indian wood oats, wild oats, northern sea oats, upland sea oats, inland sea oats, flathead oats, upland oats, broadleaf uniola—but to me the most apt and evocative of all its names is spangle grass. 

The Imperial Piedmont Azalea

The Imperial Piedmont Azalea

When I was growing up, my parents had a piedmont azalea that was queen of the side yard. From my earliest memory, it was sprawling and spready—utterly enormous. A grand thing. In spring it would be dressed in pale and shining raiment and surrounded by 

Red Buckeye Rules in Spring

Red Buckeye Rules in Spring

Red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) is a plant so spectacular that it once inspired me to change my life, to change careers, to quit my job and study horticulture.

I was 33 and teaching English in Atlanta at a school I suspected was doing the kids more harm than good. It was springtime and, dedicated teacher that I was, I’d often spend my lunch break gazing out the window. I’d peer into the surrounding woods, which were full of red buckeyes in brilliant bloom. Trilliums nodded beneath them, beeches towered above, and ruby-throated hummingbirds zipped from flower to flower, their wings a silver blur. The scene was so lovely that it filled me with hope, and as I gazed out the window, I began to believe a better life was possible.

One day I came home and said to Rob, “I think what I’d really like to do is work with plants.”

And a few months later I was taking horticulture classes—learning to drive a tractor and graft camellias. The time I spent earning my certificate was one of the happiest, most exciting periods of my life..

All these years later, red buckeye is still one of my favorite plants. It’s highly ornamental and great for wildlife.

It’s one of the first plants in my yard to leaf out in spring. The leaves are red or bronze as they emerge, but they soon turn shiny bright green. The mature leaves are large and lush—star-like—each composed of five toothed leaflets that can measure up to 6 inches long.

The blooms come early too. In the first weeks of March they appear in showy 10-inch clusters that look like strings of Chinese firecrackers. But the flowers are full of nectar, not gunpowder, and they’re timed just right to meet the hungry ruby-throats as they return from their overwintering grounds in Mexico and Central America.

For these little birds, the red buckeye is a very important food source because it blooms at a time when many other plants are still dormant and nectar is tough to find. In fact, the ruby-throat is believed to be the red buckeye’s main pollinator, though the plant is also used by bees and some butterflies.

The fruit is ripe by the end of summer. It’s a light brown, leathery-skinned capsule containing one to three large, round, shiny brown seeds that are said to resemble deer eyes. (The seeds give the plant its name.) The seeds are beautiful and glisten like jewels, but, unfortunately, they’re poisonous and largely ignored by wildlife.

Red buckeye usually takes the form of a large shrub or small tree (8 to 10 feet is the typical height), but I’ve seen much larger specimens. On Easter my family and I went canoeing down the Chipola River, and up on the limestone banks stood venerable red buckeyes at least 30 feet tall. They had thick, sturdy trunks wrapped in pale, lichen-studded bark. Lipstick-red flowers bloomed high in the air, visited by tiger swallowtails.

Red buckeye is native from Central Florida up to North Carolina and west to Illinois and East Texas. It prefers neutral to alkaline soils, so you might want to add lime if your soil is acidic. Shade to part-shade is best, though plants can be grown in full sun with regular watering during the first year or two. Red buckeye loses its leaves early, often in July or August, which might be something to consider when you’re choosing a planting site. I grow my red buckeyes in a shady border on the south side of my backyard. The buckeyes are scattered among evergreen needle palms, so when they go dormant you don’t really notice; you’ve still got the green, fountain-like needle palms to enjoy.

In Pursuit of the Pawpaw

In Pursuit of the Pawpaw

I’ve never tasted a pawpaw, but I’ve often dreamed of it. I started to be aware of the existence of pawpaws and pawpaw trees about 15 years ago, when I worked at Georgia Wildlife Federation (GWF) near Atlanta. The organization did a lot to promote 

The Noble Beech

The Noble Beech

For beauty and wildlife benefits, American beech (Fagus grandifolia) is a tough tree to top. Sure, it’s slow growing and just a little bit finicky, but this is a tree so noble, stately, and giving that it’s well worth the trouble and the wait. It 

Friends

Friends

I’d like to tell you about a heartwarming friendship between two cats. It began six years ago when we adopted Carl, our little brown tabby.

Carl was a kitten, maybe three months old, at the end of 2008. He showed up one cold December day in the company of our neighbor DeVante, who was about 10 back then. They’d met up in the street somewhere and had spent the day together. Carl was the cutest kitten I’d ever seen—round-headed and upbeat and ridiculously cute. He had such sparkle, such star power, I kept saying he reminded me of Shirley Temple. We all thought he was a girl, and DeVante was calling him Daisy, which was a fine name, I thought, for such an innocent, sunny little being.

When DeVante went home that day, “Daisy” followed him. But when night fell, the kitten came back—alone—and cried at the door. Rob and I weren’t really in the market for a new pet in those days because our beloved cat Pittle was sick and dying and we were trying to nurse her. But we let the kitten in anyway, even though we were too sad to really enjoy any kitten antics.

About a year before that night, we had adopted another stray kitten, a temperamental tortie we named Buntin. Buntin was needy. Buntin was easily offended. She was lonely and had no cat friends because she growled and hissed and charged at everyone she ever met.

Enter Carl. (We soon discovered he was a boy and changed his name.) Carl didn’t care if Buntin growled and hissed. No, it was music to his ears. He was fascinated by her and followed her everywhere. Even though we had four other cats, he chose her for his attentions. He’d roll around and try to look extra cute for her, making bunny paws and puppy eyes. He persisted, until finally he began to get results.

Buntin and Carl became friends around the kitchen table. Buntin would sit on top of the table, and Carl would run around on the bench below and bat at her. Then Buntin would start running and batting too. It was the funnest game, and they would play it every day for hours. Next they started chasing each other around the house, and wrestling in the bathtub. But what Buntin—loving, insecure, lonely Buntin—really wanted to do was lick and groom Carl. She wanted to baby him and take care of him, and she’d feel very betrayed if she was licking him and he tried to start wrestling and having fun. She’d run off in a huff and pout.

But Carl didn’t mind. As Rob would say, “Carl understands that’s just Buntin being Buntin.”

Carl never took offense when Buntin was moody, when she got mad at him for no good reason. When she was jealous. Impatient. When she lashed out.

And so these two cats remain best friends to this day. It’s always the same between them. Buntin will sit and lick Carl and tend to him, shower him with affection, but then somehow she’ll get her feelings hurt and run away, hissing. And Carl will have to win her heart all over again. He’ll have to roll around and make his best bunny paws.

It’s always so mysterious—the beginning of things. Where did Carl come from? And how did he find us just when we needed him most?

Straw

Straw

This weekend we finally painted the front bedroom. It went from shabby white to a pleasant pale gold color called “Straw.” The hardest part of painting was getting ready to paint. It took us three hours just to empty out the bedroom, a project we 

Finally! Rugs!

Finally! Rugs!

Last weekend Rob and I bought three rugs—one for the back bedroom, one for the dining room, and one for the back hall. I was really excited. We’ve wanted rugs for a long time, but we’ve put off buying them because we have a lot 

Vegan Cherry Coconut Bars

Vegan Cherry Coconut Bars

A Cherry Coconut Bar on a china plate with a teacup behind it

On Saturday I did some extremely early Christmas baking. I was too excited to wait until a more normal date to do it. I made Vegan Cherry Coconut Bars.

When I was a child, Christmas baking was an important ritual, an activity my mom and sisters and I anticipated all year. It was a bright spot in our livesa beacon. See, our house was a spartan place with precious little in the way of sweets or treats or anything fun or pretty. It was my dad’s idea to live this way.

Poor Mom and us kids chafed under his rule. We’d spend our time (when Dad wasn’t around) gazing at Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book and dog-eared, hand-me-down copies of Southern Living, dreaming about cakes and cookies and “pretty things.” We were always full of longing.

Dad controlled the money (he controlled everything), but Mom was sneaky. She’d save up her birthday money from Grandma and change she found on Dad’s dresser, and in early December we’d sneak over to Pantry Pride and load up the buggy with powdered sugar and brown sugar, chocolate chips, candied cherries, coconut, marshmallow fluff, sweetened condensed milk, and other such marvelous luxuries. We’d hide our ingredients here and there about the houseunder the beds, in dresser drawers. And then one day when Dad wasn’t home, we’d do all our baking in a mad, giddy frenzy. We’d laugh and laugh and make a huge mess, but all evidence of our activity would be cleaned up and hidden before Dad returned. Mom would pack up the fudge and toffee and sugar cookies in old coffee cans and Cool Whip tubs and squirrel them away in ingenious spots where Dad would never find them, and as the days of Advent slipped by, we’d delight in our secret riches. My sister Kris and I would dine upon fudge in our closet.

Anyway, Christmas baking is still dear to me, though it’s no longer a clandestine activity.

I believe in celebrating. Sugar may be bad for the teeth, but it’s good for the soul.

Vegan Cherry Coconut Bars

Ingredients:

Crust:
2 cups flour
6 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 cup softened vegan butter

Topping:
3 teaspoons Ener-G egg replacer
4 tablespoons water
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped maraschino cherries
1/2 cup coconut
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Make the crust first. Add the flour, powdered sugar, and butter to a large bowl. Using your hands, mix until smooth. Press the dough into the bottom of an 8×8″ square baking pan. Bake for 25 minutes.

Next, make the topping. Prepare the “egg” by adding the egg replacer and water to a medium-sized bowl and whisking until frothy. Add the rest of the ingredients to the “egg” and mix.

When the crust is done baking, pour the topping over it and bake again for 25 minutes. Let cool and cut into bars.