Shop News and Shopping Now

Have I mentioned yet that we will be opening a shop in 2010? I don't think so, but I am so excited! It will be on Capitol Hill, at 1531 Melrose Avenue, between Pike and Pine. My new neighbors include Sonic Boom, Velouria, Sitka & Spruce, a butcher, and a cheese shop. Watch here for updates.

In the meantime, these dark days (as in the winter solstice is just around the corner) find me working through the design of the shop, ordering seeds to plant in the spring, and hunting down special things to carry at 1531 Melrose -- in addition, of course, to blooms and branches and produce from the farm. I've acquired all kinds of vintage glass jars, mid-century Scandinavian ceramic vases, and antique garden tools.

Two things that I'm selling now are treasures from a recent trip to San Francisco. First, I discovered Cocoa Absolute, rare single origin chocolates handmade in San Francisco. For the holidays, I am carrying their natural, bergamot and brulee boxes. Sometime before Valentine's Day I will provide in-depth descriptions of these, but in the meantime, their website has wonderful information about how special these boxes of chocolates are. If you are interested in a box, please contact me (info@marigoldandmint.com). $40 per box.

While in San Francisco, I drove down to Palo Alto and visited my friend Gretl. She has been collecting rare and out-of-print garden books since at least the early 1070s, buying them on her travels to Europe and elsewhere in the world. Below you'll see photos of the covers of some of these amazing books. Please contact me if you would like to know more about a title and its price.

And of course I am always happy to deliver a winter arrangement for you. The hellebores are just starting to poke out of the ground.

Happy Holidays!

Katherine

The Secret Garden. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Illustrated by Colin Twinn.

London.

and

Gardening for Children. Joan Gwyn.

With wood engravings and plans. London.

and

Lucy and Arthur, and Willie Merrill. A Book for Children.

About their little black pony, the little gardens, etc.

Colored Frontispiece. 1900s. London.

Grey and Silver Plants. Mrs. Desmond Underwood.

Signed copy. London.

and

Midsummer Silver. Lys de Bray.

1980. First Edition. UK. Hardcover. With illustrations.

Garden Design. A Quarterly Journal of Horticulture and Garden Architecture.

No. 23 Autumn 1935 and No. 24 Winter 1935

A Book of Roses With Sixteen Color Plates after the Originals in Redoute’s ‘Roses’.

J. Ramsbottom. 1939. UK.

and

Compliments of the Season. L.D. Ettlinger and R.G. Holloway.

and

Tulipomania. Wilfrid Blunt. With sixteen plates from 17th-century water colors by Alexander Marshall.

1950. UK.

The Glory of the Garden. An Exhibition Catalog in Association with the Royal Horticultural Society. Sothebys.

1987. London.

and

Handmade Houses. A Guide to the Woodbutcher’s Art. Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro.

San Francisco.

Flowers of the Field. Rev. C.A. Johns.

With coloured plates and text illustrations.

1949 edition.

A New Orchard and Fruit Garden: or, The Best Way for Plalnting, Grafting, and to Make any Ground good for a Rich Orchard. WIth the Country House-wifes Garden for Herbs of Common Use and Also The Husbandry of Bees, with their several Uses and Annoyances. William Lawson. Limited Edition. #584/600 copies. London.

Market Gardening. Ronald Webber.

The History of Commercial Flower, Fruit and Vegetable Growing.

1972. U.K.

and

The Scented Garden. By Eleanour Sinclair Rohde.

1948. Revised and Enlarged Edition. With black and white photographs and garden plans.

London.

American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century. For Use or Delight. Ann Leighton.

1976. Boston.

and

Who Loves A Garden. Louise Seymour Jones.

1934. London.

Pleasant Talk about Fruit, Flowers and Farming. H.W. Beecher.

1859. 2nd Edition.

and

According to Seasons. Mrs. William Starr Dana.

Talks about the flowers in the order of their appearance, in the woods and fields.

1894. First Edition. New York.

A Treasury of Flowers. Frank J. Anderson.

Rare Illustrations from the Collection of the New York Botanical Garden.

First Edition. 1990. Out of print.

The Strawberry. History, Breeding, and Physiology. George Darrow.

Still the definitive monograph. Beautiful color plates and color photographs.

New York. 1966.

and

The Book of the Peach. H.M. Ward, F.R.H.S.

Being a Practical Handbook on the Cultivation of the Peach Under Glass and Out-of-Doors.

British Herbs and Vegetables. George M. Taylor.

1957. First Edition. Color Plates.

and

Wild Flowers in Britain. Geoffrey Grigson.

With color plates.

1947. London.

Solitude. A Poem. V. Sackville-West.

1939. 2nd Impression. The Hogarth Press.

and

Some Flowers. V. Sackville-West.

First Edition. London.

The Legends of Flowers: Or, ‘Tis Love that Makes the World Go Round. Translated from the Italian of Paolo Mantegazza by Mrs. J. Alexander Kennedy. With colored frontispiece. 1908.

and

The Amateur’s Flower Garden. Shirley Hibberd. A Handy Guide to the Formation and Management of the Flower Garden and the Cultivation of Garden Flowers. Preface by Anthony Huxley.

Illustrated with color plates and wood engravings.

First published 1871. London. Reprint 1986.

The Vegetable World: Being a History of Plants, with their Structure and Peculiar Properties. Louis Figuier.

With 473 illustrations.

1982. Paris.

and

Uncommon Vegetables. How to Grow and How to Cook. Eleanor Sinclair Rohde.

First Edition. London.

December

I've been waiting all year to post this lovely poem by Gail Mazur. Along with an apple tree in December from our farm.

Young Apple Tree, December

What you want for it you’d want
for a child: that she take hold;
that her roots find home in stony

winter soil; that she take seasons
in stride, seasons that shape and
reshape her; that like a dancer’s,
her limbs grow pliant, graceful
and surprising; that she know,
in her branchings, to seek balance;

that she know when to flower; when
to wait for the returns; that she turn
to a giving sun; that she know

fruit as it ripens; that what’s lost
to her will be replaced; that early
summer afternoons, a full blossoming

tree, she cast lacy shadows, that change
not frighten her. rather that change
meet her embrace; that remembering

her small history, she find her place
in an orchard; that she be her own
orchard; that she outlast you;

that she prepare for the hungry world
(the fallen world, the loony world)
something shapely, useful, new, delicious.

Just in time

Last week, Shondell, David and I planted 7,000 bulbs. Of course we should have done it weeks earlier, but I kept waiting for the rain to stop. I've got a new plan for next year. In any case, the ground is now frozen solid and so I am breathing a big sigh of relief that we got them all in last week. Thank you David and Shondell. I never could have done it without out you.