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Greetings!
Here's hoping this week's newsletter finds you relaxing in the garden! By now, graduations are over, the kids are out of school, the pace of our activities slows down a bit and we can finally enjoy the garden we've worked on so hard this spring.
 | | Sangria Saturday! |
To celebrate, join us sometime on Saturday for another Sangria Saturday! Anytime after 12:00 noon, we'll have our famous sangria available in addition to the usual famous lemonade.
Feel like adding an eclectic kick to your garden? On Sunday June 10, the PaperCup Biermeister Tom Barrow leads a Bottle Tree workshop. Come learn how to create one of your very own!
 | | I want this one! |
Congratulations to Teri Goodhart Haeckler, who suggested the winning names for our little red-shouldered hawk chicks, Sunny & Share! No sooner did she name them than the parents moved them about 300 yards to the southwest, along our back treeline. Next time you're at Papershell, look toward the building in the back of the property and listen! You can often hear them before you see them.
This week, I'd like to offer a few landscape design tips on Proportion & Scale. People seem to have an intuitive grasp of color but proportion can be trickier. I hope you enjoy the article below.
Keep scrolling too, because there's a coupon at the end for summer succulents!
 | | Buy me! Buy me! |
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What do plants do at night?
We all learned in school that plants make their "food"during the daylight hours, using photosynthesis to create sugars from carbon dioxide and water. Some of these sugars are converted into starches and stored temporarily in the leaves. But what to plants do at night, when it's too dark to photosynthesize?
 | | The Carbon Cycle |
At night, plants use the food temporarily stored in the leaves to power cell operations, even in the dark. Converting carbohydrates to energy is called oxidation, rather like burning fuel in your fireplace, and releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, just like burning does. Although plants give off oxygen during the day, while they are creating sugars during photosynthesis, converting these sugars to energy reverses the process.
 | | As temps approach 96°, this plant's growth will be limited. |
One interesting fact: during the day, plants both create energy and use energy to live and grow. But at night, since there is no sunlight to power photosynthesis, plants only consume energy. When daytime temperatures are very high, photosynthesis actually slows way down, so plants don't create enough food. That's why sometimes plant growth slows in the middle of summer and resumes when temperatures moderate a bit.
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 Landscape Design: Scale & Proportion
Good landscape design, like good design anywhere, has a great deal to do with understanding proportion & scale. Think about it -- we've all been in a situation where we felt the proportions of a room were wrong. Those long, narrow hotel rooms? Drafty cavernous auditoriums? Big horizontal stripes on a tiny pair of capri pants? All examples of potential problems with scale & proportion.
Relative proportion is the size of an object in relation to other objects and in a garden, the most important relative scale is that of the human figure. Most gardens are designed for people and most adult people are between 5-6 feet tall. Other elements in your garden that relate to each other in terms of scale are the height of your roofline, the peak of a tall tree, a fence, the width of a driveway and so on.
 | | Shrub too close, too big |
It is a good idea not to have all your plants & structures the same height, but not too tall or too short either. Planting a very tall tree right up against a house obscures the house -- all a human-scale viewer sees of the tree is the trunk. Likewise, plants that are too small look awkward and insignificant beside weighty objects like brick walls or stately trees. You've probably seen a tiny ring of low flowers around the base of a huge live oak tree -- the scale is wrong and a larger sweep of color would be more appropriate.
For gardeners who like a tiered garden bed, the tallest plants should be about 2/3 the width of the bed so that there is room for shorter plants. For island beds that are planted on all sides, the tall plants should be no taller than about half the width of the bed. For most 1-story houses, a 6-foot bed looks well-proportioned. Two-story houses can support a much wider bed, perhaps as deep as 12 feet. These beds would require a footpath or stepping stones in the center for the gardener!
 | | Bed too narrow, plants too short |
Tall shrubs planted against the front of the house should be about 2/3 the height of the wall or 2/3 the height of the most notable feature. For most of our homes, this means about a 6-foot tall shrub. Shrubs planted in a back garden to screen a a view need to be tall enough to do the job -- at least 6' on level ground, more if the garden slopes down away from the house.
Do you have questions about the size and shape of your flowerbeds? Come by and see us! And please, bring a sketch or simple drawing. It's hard for us to see your photos on your phone when we're outside in the sun!
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Sun-Dried Tomatoes
I don't know about you but we are swimming in tomatoes! We planted Juliet and Red Rocket this spring, both small, oval-shaped tomatoes that are great eaten out of hand or in salads. But there's a limit -- you can only eat so much salad. Here's what we're doing with our "extra" tomatoes.
 | | Sun-Dried Tomatoes |
4 lbs. tomatoes, washed and sliced
(Slice the small ones in half lengthwise, and the larger ones in about 1/2" pieces.)
Salt
Nonstick cooking spray
Preheat the oven to 200°. Squeeze out as many of the tomato seeds as you can. Coat a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Arrange the tomato slices on the cookie sheet in a single layer. Sprinkle liberally with salt.
Bake until tomatoes are dry and leathery, which could take all day, especially if your slices are thicker. Sometimes we let the tomatoes cook at night.
When the tomatoes are done, you can freeze them in ziplock bags for 6 months or keep in an airtight container in the frig for 2 weeks. Enjoy!
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Please stop by and visit! Have a glass of world-famous lemonade (or a beer!) -- we'd love to meet you!
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Barrow
Papershell: A Garden Gallery
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Acrylic Painting For Kids Wednesday, June 6 2:00-3:00pm Artist Cecilia Campos Merino leads this weekly workshop for kids ages 4-10 years. Each week, student artists will complete a new 11x17 acrylic painting on canvas. This workshop is $35 per week and refreshments are provided. Call (281) 232-4485 or email us to sign up.
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Art Lessons for Adults Thursday, June 7 1:30-4:00pm Artist Suzanne Stevens offers art instruction for adults, including oil painting, acrylic painting and drawing. Classes are appropriate for all skill levels. Download the Supply List here. Lessons are $150 per month (4 lessons). Call (281) 232-4485 or email us to sign up.
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Build a Bottle Tree Sunday, June 10 2:00-3:30pm Papershell Biermeister and Bottle-Tree Maker Tom Barrow leads this workshop ! A bottle tree can be made out of just about anything. In this workshop, we'll show you how to make one from a 4x4 post and reinforcing bar. This class is $10 and includes a 15% off coupon for today's purchases. Call (281) 232-4485 or email us to sign up.
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Home Canning: Dehydration Saturday, June 16 3:00-4:30pm Preserve the bounty of the spring and summer garden! This is the third in a four-part series on food preservation, led by Master Gardener and Cook Extraordinaire Anne Ondrusek. In this class, we'll go over preserving food by drying it in the home in the home kitchen. Topics may include fruit leathers, dried herbs, jerky, peanuts, seeds, and dried vegetables. The class is $10 and participants receive a coupon good for 15% off that day's purchases. Class size is limited and reservations are suggested. Call (281) 232-4485 or email us to sign up.
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