CONFESSIONS OF A CITY GIRL WITH A BLACK THUMB--THE ONCE AND FUTURE ZUCCHINI

I’m a city girl exiled to the suburbs. I’m much more comfortable in a concrete environment with mass transit than the land of malls and minivans. Maybe that’s the reason I have two black thumbs. With few exceptions, plants see me coming and commit suicide rather than suffer a prolonged death at my hands.

Heaven knows, I’ve tried to develop a green thumb, but I swear there’s a conspiracy in the Garden State. Whatever I don’t kill, the squirrels devour. Along the squirrel grapevine the word is out; my address is passed from varmint to varmint. They hold conventions in my driveway and feast on whatever I dare to plant, leaving my neighbors’ gardens full of flowers and produce but mine bare.

One morning I looked out my kitchen window to find a squirrel perched on my gas grill, a green tomato between his thieving paws. I went outside to shoo the little bugger away and check my two tomato plants that the day before had been loaded with green tomatoes. Every single tomato had been yanked from the vine, chomped a few times, then discarded in the dirt.

But every year hope sprang eternal, and I headed to the garden center for the makings of a vegetable garden. Finally, after years of gardening frustration I discovered the one plant that both defied my black thumbs and the squirrels—zucchini. The first time I planted zucchini, I made the mistake of planting three, figuring that if the garden gods were smiling down on me, one plant might survive. All three not only survived but thrived. And that’s a heck of a lot of zucchini.

The strange thing about zucchini is its rate of growth. In the morning it’s the size of your pinkie finger, and by evening it’s big enough to feed your teenager’s football team. There are only so many ways you can disguise a zucchini and fool your family into believing they’re eating something other than those green things taking over the backyard. So that first year I wound up giving away a lot of zucchini.

The garden gods continued to smile down on me until a few years ago when all of a sudden they turned their backs on me. I was used to picking zucchini out of my backyard, not the produce aisle of the supermarket. A fluke, I decided. Wouldn’t happen next year. But it did. And the year after that. For the past three summers I’ve harvested next to nothing--one or two zucchini at most. Which makes for very expensive zucchini when you add up everything I spend at the garden center to grow those plants. I decided to give up.

Then this past fall the one remaining tree on my property that hadn’t succumbed to old age, blight, or Super Storm Sandy, departed for that great arboretum in the sky. While at the garden center, searching for an inexpensive replacement, the horticulturist asked, “How’s your zucchini this year?”

He nearly brought me to tears. I missed my zucchini—the one plant that used to thrive in spite of me. He told me to cheer up. The bees were back.

Bees? Well, it turns out the reason I hadn’t grown any zucchini the last three years was that the honeybees had flown the coop. My zucchini wasn’t being pollinated. The horticulturist said the honeybees were coming back, and I should definitely plant some zucchini this spring and dust off all my zucchini recipes.

So if spring ever arrives in New Jersey this year, I’ll give zucchini one more try, but I’m hedging my bets. Along with sending up prayers to the garden gods, I’m offering some to the honeybee gods as well. We’ll see if come harvest time, my prayers are answered.

DECORATING WITH JEANIE -- FLOWER POWER

I’m a city girl, born and bred.  There’s no denying it.  Plopped down in suburbia by the whims of fate, far more comfortable with concrete and high-rises than a quarter acre of {shudder} lawn and garden.  It’s no use.  There is just no way I will ever cultivate a green thumb. The only thing that flourishes in my garden is weeds.  (Except for zucchini. Trust me, ANYONE can grow zucchini, even me. More on that in a future blog.) 


Anyway, I plant bulbs, and the squirrels send me thank you notes for the feast they dig up and dine upon.  I plant flowers, and the rabbits set up housekeeping.  I can’t plant a tree that doesn’t die, but I’ve got maple saplings sprouting up throughout my azalea bushes.  I’ve seriously considered plowing the whole thing under and installing Astroturf, but I think my neighbors would tar and feather me!

So what’s a city girl to do?  Especially a city girl who happens to love flowers but can’t afford a weekly delivery from the local florist, thanks to her dire financial circumstances?  If she crafts, she can have the beauty of flowers in her home year round without dealing with the Garden Gremlin.  You know him -- he’s the guy who comes out at night and deposits aphids on your roses and fungus on your forsythia.

I’ve asked Jeanie Sims, American Woman’s decorating editor, to share with us some of her ideas for bringing the outdoors inside.  Here's one of her suggestions.  She’ll be sharing more in the weeks and months to come. -- AP

Jeanie here, and I happen to know that there are a few plants hardy enough that even Anastasia can’t kill them (see comment above on zucchini.)  However, besides zucchini, they’re boring houseplants such as ivy and philodendron.  Dull, dull, dull.  Besides, Anastasia wants flowers.  But since there’s no way she’d ever be able to keep an orchid alive, we have to go with what’s hardy enough to withstand a woman lacking in green thumbs. 

One suggestion I’ve given Anastasia is to add color and turn boring into fun by sticking a few floral picks in her ivy and philodendron.  This is an inexpensive trick for adding spots of interest and color to a room.  Just remember the old design maxim, less is more.  Go overboard, and fun turns to tacky very quickly.

Coordinate the picks with your decorating scheme or change them out every few months.  Most craft and floral shops have a variety of picks available throughout the year to correspond with the holidays and seasons.  I add picks with colorful autumn leaves and miniature gourds to my houseplants for Thanksgiving.  If you’re like Anastasia and can’t keep a poinsettia alive for more than three days, add a few poinsettia floral picks to your philodendron.  Swap out wintry picks for pansies come spring.  Got little kids?  Go for whimsical with miniature Easter eggs.  Show your patriotism with red, white, and blue stars for the 4 ^th of July.  No matter what your taste, there’s bound to be a floral pick for you.

How do you bring the outdoors inside?  Let us hear from you. -- AP