by Marian Parsley, Behnkes’ Manager of Annuals

No kitchen should be without Oregano, as no Italian meal is complete without its wonderful flavor.  It’s known botanically as Origanum vulgare, which is Greek for ‘joy of the mountains’ – because in Greece it can be found growing along the mountainsides.

Most people think of pizza when they think of Oregano because it adds a warm balsamic and aromatic flavor to many dishes – not just pizza but much of Mediterranean cuisine. Whenever possible, you will want to use fresh Oregano over dried because fresh has a superior flavor.  Fresh Oregano may be stored in the fridge wrapped in a slightly damp towel for several days. It may also be frozen, chopped, or dried and kept whole, placed in air tight containers.

Behnke’s carries a wide assortment of Oregano varieties but my favorite is ‘Greek Mountain Oregano.’  With its bold pungent flavor, it’s the perfect addition to my favorite tomato sauce.  But why not try some for yourself?

Here’s the assortment of Oregano that Behnke’s carries, all of which can be used in Italian dishes, rice, various sauces, breads, and of course everyone’s favorite – pizza.  They’re all 20% off this week (May 23-29) for members of the Behnkes Garden Club*.  (That’s not all this week – Garden Club Members also get 25% off on Daylilies.)

Greek Mountain Oregano (also known as Wild Oregano) has a strong, spicy flavor.  It’s used in Italian dishes, especially pizza.  Prefers dry conditions.  Soil that’s too moist will cause root-rot.  In its preferred sunny location it grows to 10-12”.

Italian Oregano is a delicious culinary herb essential to Italian dishes.  It has a strong, spicy flavor and grows well in the garden or in containers.  It also likes sunny locations and grows to 12” in height and a 24” spread.

Oregano ‘Jim Best’ is a beautiful variegated oregano that’s wonderful as a ground cover or as a fragrant edging.   Tastes great in Italian dishes.  It likes a sunny location and grows to 6-12” tall.  Space them 6-8” apart.  Use in pasta dishes, breads, stuffing and of course – pizza.  It’s perennial in Zones 5-9 (here!).

Oregano ‘Hot and Spicy’, true to its name, is  especially pungent, so it’s a good choice for Mexican dishes.  Very fragrant, with white flowers that attract bees and butterflies.  Perennial in Zones 5-9 (here!).

Oregano ‘Golden’ is a robust golden creeper with white flowers.  Excellent flavor; great in tomato, rice, pasta, sauces, dressings and vinegar.  It’s beautiful flowing over a container or in garden beds.  It likes a sunny location.  Grows to 12” tall and spreads 8-12”.

* Join the Club!

If you’re not already a member, join the Behnkes Garden Club to get this discount on oregano!  It’s FREE to join. Sign up here.  Benefits include members-only specials like the one above, our weekly email newsletter, and, if we have your street address, coupons/offers in the mail.  You can use that same link to update or add to your information – we will need your name, email address, and a phone number. The last 4 digits of your phone number will be your membership number.

Note: If you were a member of our Gardener’s Advantage program, you have been automatically moved to Garden Club membership. As always, we will never share your information with anyone.

Photo credits:  Oregano, Pizza.

hey very excited, Old Line Fine Wine will be having a FREE wine tasting at the Garden Party.. Featuring Solomon Island Winery

http://solomonsislandwinery.com/

and its looking (I should know for sure this afternoon) that Einstein Bagles in College Park will be providing the food

“Less Lawn” is the shorthand for a new trend in gardening that started in the arid West and is coming East, fast.  (Lord knows the Lawn Reform Coalition is doing everything it can to spread the word.)

And one of the most promising groups of plants to create lawn-like sweeps of short plants that can replace turfgrass is the genus Carex.   Carexes are plants commonly thought to be grasses – because they look like ornamental grasses – but technically they’re sedges, not grasses.  (And don’t ask me the botanical difference between grasses and sedges.)

I’ve been growing Carexes for 25 or so years and made sure I thought some with me when I moved because they’re such a help in filling in a new garden.

Above, two of the larger Carexes help fill in a sunny border in my former garden.

But look how well they do (above) in the shade of a deck.  I also used them in my full-shade woodland garden.  They don’t spread, but establish larger and larger clumps that can be divided many times, as I’ve done over the years.

Most Carexes stay nice and low, like Liriope.  Above is Carex morrowii at the Scott Arboretum, where it’s being used as a groundcover on a shady slope in the fall.  It’s also happy in full sun and best of all,  it’s evergreen!  On the right is a variegated version of Carex morrowii that I’ve grown for years, also.

So for shady spots where turfgrass struggles to survive, try Carex.  Options include Carex pensylvanica (Pennsylvania Sedge) that’s native to our region.

One limiting factor to using Carexes instead of turfgrass is that they can’t take foot traffic, so put them where they won’t be walked on OR just create a foot path through them.

Below is are just two of the Carexes on offer in the Perennials Department of our Beltsville location.

“Less Lawn” Show and Tell

And to learn more about lawn reduction – great design ideas and alternative plants – come to Greenbelt tomorrow nite!  Details below.

Posted by Susan Harris.

Join us for a Wine Tasting at Old Line Fine Wine, Spirits and Bistro in Beltsville this Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m. Our Marian Parsley will be there with plenty of herbs and information on growing your own herbs plus coupons for your next visit to the garden center.  While you’re there, Old Line’s spirits experts will introduce you to a select group of liquors and ales made with different herbs, and the tasting is FREE. Good times!  Old Line is located at 11011 Baltimore Avenue in Beltsville, just south of Behnkes.

Or if you’d rather read about herbs and alcohol than taste them, Amy Stewart has a “hot off the press” book on the subject called, appropriately, The Drunken Botanist.  When not writing books, Stewart blogs on the popular blog Garden Rant with Susan Harris, who also blogs for Behnke’s.

Artemisia absinthum with B&B and Chartreuse

And all this has me thinking about Herbs and Alcohol…

Although it sounds like a boutique brewer’s latest experiment, herbal-flavored alcoholic beverages have a long history.  Of course hops offer the bitter flavor and characteristic aroma in beer, and craft beers and ales often distinguish themselves by the amount and types of hops they use.  May Wine, from Germany and Belgium, was traditionally flavored with Sweet Woodruff, Galium odoratum.  (Apparently no longer. Wikipedia says that it is now artificially flavored because the natural, organic wholesome, traditional ingredient is, well, poisonous.  Herbs often walk a fine line between whether they are edible, medicinal or deadly so you always want to do your research.  If an herb was dried and been placed in drawers to kill fleas, it might not be the best thing to sprinkle on your pasta. Just sayin’.))  Sweet woodruff is a popular shade ground cover in our perennial sales area.

Artemisia absinthum, a perennial related to sagebrush in the Western US and to ornamentals like Artemisia ‘Silver Mound’ and ‘Powis Castle’, is the flavoring ingredient of Absinthe, which is again legal after many years as a banned beverage.  My favorites are the herbal liqueurs that were originally developed in European monasteries “for medicinal purposes.”   Similar in spirit (no pun intended) to Coca-Cola, if not in flavor, they have secret recipes handed down over centuries, the exact components of which are known to only a few.  One of the formulations of Chartreuse is a lovely green color, and the color is named after the beverage, not vice-versa.  Chartreuse itself is named after the French Carthusian order of monks  who created it in the 1740’s .  Very strong, very expensive, very complex with 130 herbs in the mix.  I was going to say something similar about another favorite, Benedictine, except that Wikipedia (Killer of Dreams) has burst my bubble and says that the story that it was developed by Benedictine monks was a wee marketing ploy. Regardless: it’s good, if a bit sweet.  Benedictine and Brandy (B&B) may be more to your taste.

Posted by Larry Hurley.   Artemisia photo credit.

We read everywhere that now is the perfect time to plan changes to our gardens for the coming season, and I’m doing plenty of that.  But it’s not just sorting through seed catalogs, ya know.  I use the time to indulge myself in inspiration, and or just daydreaming about the garden.  It’s the dreams that lead to concrete plans for changes.

Front-yard patio and seating

Inspiration Galore

In my first year as a serious (some would say obsessive) gardener, I took out ALL the gardening magazines the poor local library had and when they wasn’t enough, ordered all the back issues of Fine Gardening Magazine and pored over them (definitely obsessively).  Books got some attention too, though the library’s garden book selection was pretty old, so  I raided the book shelves of my gardening friends.

Fine Gardening Garden Photo of the Day

Ah, but that was before the Internet.  Now new and experienced gardeners can find anything they want online.  There’s the wonderful Fine Gardening Garden Photo of the Day feature, which I’m told will soon include a search feature, so you could find “dry shade,” “patio,” whatever.  For inspiration that’s more local, try the Private Gardens and Public Gardens stories here on the Behnkes Blog, or the Behnkes Pinterest photos.

Best of all are chances to see gardens in person, so keep an eye out for garden tours, which start in April.

Checklist of Possible Improvements

While you’re glued to those photos of gorgeous gardens, here are some things about your own garden to think about:

• Are there more ways you could be using your yard?  Think big, like decks and gazebos, or small, like a play area – maybe a badminton set?  Anything that might get you and your family outdoors more.
• Is there enough seating, and places like patios to put all the chairs and benches? Because winter is not just the best time to think about those questions, but to implement the changes – or hire someone else to, before they get super-busy in the spring.
• How about more paths?  Gardens can usually use more of them -  to make the yard more usable and inviting. And patios don’t have to be created with expensive materials like flagstone; wood chips will suffice on flat surfaces and are often free.

• Water features can be as simple as plug-in fountains, which I highly recommend for low-maintenance gardeners, or ponds, which I do envy for the frogs and fish they hold or attract.
• Got enough shade?  Remember it can come from deciduous trees (Click here to see the array of popular shade trees and their gorgeous fall color) or even a market umbrella.
• And privacy; got enough?  Not just to screen unsightly views or nosy neighbors, but to create the feeling of an outdoor room that you’ll enjoy far more than the experience of sitting in an open field, which so many yards are like.  Screening can come from privacy fences, tall-enough plants, even containers filled with fake plants.  (In an earlier blog story I showed off my combination of privacy screen, evergreen trees and shrubs, and cut stalks of bamboo.)
• And could your yard or garden use more plants?  The easiest way to incorporate more plants that help local wildlife while filtering more stormwater is to rip up some lawn and replace it with new or larger borders or islands that hold shrubs, perennials and groundcovers.

Time for Not JUST Planning

Here in Maryland we’re lucky enough to have unfrozen ground through most of the winter, so there’s plenty of gardening we can get done now, before the spring rush.  Here’s my recent GardenRant story about winter gardening, where I agree with the Washington Post’s Adrian Higgins about how busy we can be this time of year.

Fine Gardening photo credit.  Post and all other photos by Susan Harris.