Home and Garden 2015

Home & Garden2015

Local herbalist taps into

area plants ‑ Page 3

New watering technique uses diapers ‑ Page 5

Decorating for spring ‑ Page 7A publication of

The Livingston Enterprise & The Big Timber Pioneer

Spring Home & garden Thursday, april 23, 2015 • page 2

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Local herbalist taps into area plant lifeBy Jasmine Hall Enterprise Staff Writer

With modern medicine, it is easy to forget about the many plants that can serve as remedies. Not only are these plants located all over the world, but they can also be found in Park County.

Local resident and community herbalist Bev Axelsen, 64, has been working with plants for 20 years. She is secretary and herb and native plants con-sultant for Livingston’s Paradise Permaculture Insti-tute. In May and June she will teach classes about growing and identifying wild medicinal plants.

For wild medicinal plants in Park County, Axelsen said she spends a lot of time at Deep Creek Trail with medicinal plant walk classes because it’s close to town and has a great variety of plant life.

“It’s like a massive class room,” she said. “… We will be watching the plants throughout the whole season.”

Plants that can be found at Deep Creek are air leaf balsam root (immune booster), yarrow (hemostatic or stopping bleeding), arnica (muscle aches and bruises) and st. john’s wort (antidepressant/lotions/variety of other uses).

St. john’s wort is used for a wide variety of things and Axelsen’s favorite way to use the medicinal herb in her lotions.

“Its a wonderful plant,” she said. “You can take in the healing characteristics though your skin. If I have a message I take along a bottle of lotion.”

She also enjoys the taste of the herb in tea.“It tastes really good,” Axelsen said. “Tea is usually

my favorite way to do it. It actually tastes like lipton tea.”

St. john’s wort is one of the few herbs that can both be grown domestically and in the wild. Axelsen said this is a rare trait in wild herbs.

“They really cant be domesticated,” she said. “And that’s the way it is with a lot of medicinal plants that I show people out in the woods. You just can’t grow them domestically.”

Although medicinal plants can be found everywhere in the wild, Axelsen also teaches her classes how to grow medicinal gardens at home. She teaches with more than 30 different types of medicinal plants. She usually only grows unusual plants that are difficult to find and cannot be purchased anywhere else, but teaches about a variety of herbs.

“I teach about rosemary and basil and all of those because they’ve got really strong healing powers,” she said. “But I don’t grow those because you can get those anywhere. I only grow those that

you can’t get anywhere else.”Axelsen usually purchases seeds from an organic

seed company in Oregon. Axelsen also teaches stu-dents how to grow herbs in their own gardens. Herbs include camomile (sleeping and relaxation), skullcap (used as a sedative), gotu kola (brain function/memo-ry), California and Flanders poppies (nerves/relax-ation) and mother’s wort (heart tonic/menopause).

Her favorite domesticated medicinal plants are her medicinal marigolds — Mexican, desert, French and African types.

“They’re not the normal species we (usually) see,” she said.

She enjoys using her marigolds in teas as they add smells and aromas.

“They’re not like echinacea or arnic or things like that, that are really well known,” she said. “They’re sort of mild — a nice addition.”

She also has enjoyed great results with mother’s wort. Unlike the marigold tea, she uses mother’s wort in a tincture — a alcoholic extract of the herb.

“I had hot flashes and it would bring it to a stop,” she said of using mother’s wort.

The type of medicinal herb administration depends on the herb. Medicinal herbs are usually drank in teas but this isn’t always the best method.

While these herbs can be found at our local super-markets in a pill form, Axelsen cautions buyers about their effectiveness compared to freshly prepared medicinal herbs.

“They really lose their potency quickly once they

are ground-up and put into capsules,” She said. “Fresh ones are the best, dried is good.”

In addition, purchasing herbs from other sources doesn’t guarantee the herb’s effectiveness. One exam-ple is echinacea, which has a variety of different types.

Axelsen said the best type of echinacea for immune system boosting is angustifolia echinacea — a wildly grown type.

“You can buy echinacea at the nursery, which is the domestic kind,” she said. “But it has very little medici-nal quality and people try it and it doesn’t work.”

To learn more about medicinal herbs you can sign up for Axelson’s courses at www.paradisepermacul-ture.org.

Large jars of arnica tincture are illuminated in the sunshine Friday afternoon. Arnica is commonly applied topically to relieve pain from bruises and muscle aches.

Enterprise photos by Hunter D’Antuono

Herbalist Bev Axelsen smells her pots of motherwort Friday afternoon. Motherwort is medicinal herb often used for heart conditions.

An old spade and rake rest in Bev Axelsen’s back-yard Friday afternoon.

COVER PHOTO: Community herbalist Bev Axelsen is pictured in her backyard Friday afternoon with a cart-full of motherwort, a plant valued for its medicinal properties.


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New plant watering technique uses diapersBy Amelia Murphy

Enterprise Staff Writer

Have you ever wanted to cut your plants watering schedule in half? Have you ever wished your

fresh cut flowers would last longer? Have you ever looked at your water bill and wished you could have a greener lawn at half the cost? Do you hope the neighbors will water your plants while you are away from home? A l l t h e s e q u e s t i o n s c a n b e answered by one product, Huggies Snug and Dry Diapers. I know what you’re thinking: how can diapers help my plants or my lawn? Easy. The Huggies have a crystal that looks like salt that is super absor-bent. You can easily create an amaz-ing, rich fiber hydro gel that is non-toxic and environmentally friendly. You never have to be afraid of over watering your plants ever again. The beads will automatically suck up the extra water and prevent rot in your plants. These water crystals are absorbent and hold five hundred times their own weight in water. These crystals will leave your soil light and fluffy, making the soil able to aureate.

You will need 32 Huggies Snug &

Dry Diapers. Take one diaper and open it up in a bowl.

Take six cups of cool water and pour it into the diaper. Let it sit for about 10 minutes.

You will notice that the diaper can hold a lot of liquid and can be quiete heavy.

Next, rip open the diaper and dump the wet contents into a bowl. Dispose of the plastic liner and the cotton top. If you have a little bit of the cotton in the hydro gel, don’t worry, as the cotton will not harm your plants. Add two more cups of cool water. This should make about 12 cups of hydro gel.

For small houseplants, consider adding a quarter cup of hydro gel to the potting soil. Mix equal parts of hydro gel and potting soil with larg-

er plants. Remove your plant from its original pot and break off old dirt without disturbing the roots of your plant. Fill your pot about a fourth of the way full with new mixed potting soil and hydro gel. Place your plant back into the pot and continue to fill the pot with your new mixture. Don’t be afraid to really pack this light soil into the pot. Make sure the plant is firmly packed in the pot with the soil. Water your plants after you are done and repeat watering again in two weeks.

If you are using the hydro gel pot soil for trees, do not remove the tree from its pot. Take tow spoons and dig a hole between the roots of the tree and just add the hydro gel without any potting soil. Cover the

hydro gel with the old dirt from the trees pot. Dig 4 to 5 holes into the tree pot to get the full advantage of the hydro gel. Water the tree after you have completed placing the hydro gel into the tree’s pot.

You may also use the hydro gel in a vase to keep your fresh cut flow-ers watered longer. Fill your vase half way full with the hydro gel and the rest with cool water. Then add your flowers.

If you are looking for a lazy way to start your seeds, just throw your seeds into a batch of hydro gel and potting soil. Give the seeds and dirt a good mix, or you can just place the seeds on top. Use a container of your choice and water. Find a place out of the way where you can leave it and forget it for a week. The seeds should sprout without any strain or stress for you. Using the hydro gel for your lawn will take 30 diapers exactly. Hydrate two dia-pers at a time. You will not want your hydro gel too wet, however. Four cups of water per diaper for the lawn mixture should be enough. Once you have two batches ready in a bowl, go outside and sprinkle it on your lawn as thinly as possible. If you have cats, dogs, or children, you may want to plan a trip to a local park for an hour or two just to let the beads set properly. Run your sprinkler system, while you and your family are enjoying a beautiful day out in the park.

Enterprise photos by Amelia Murphy

A bucket of prepared hydro gel is pictured. The material can be used for a wide range of gardening and lawn projects and will help keep your plants watered.

Hydro gel is pictured in a vase with fresh cut flowers. Fill your vase half full with the hydro gel and the rest with cool water before adding flow-ers.

A full vase of flowers is pictured recently. A rich fiber gel made with diapers will help keep the flowers watered.


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By Melissa Rayworth The Associated Press

After a long winter, the pastel colors of spring look pretty appealing right now. Cheerful pastel pinks, yellows, greens and blues can seriously brighten up a room.

Decorating with these potentially too-sweet shades can be tricky, but worth it.

“Pastels get a bad rap for being super-girly, sometimes being kind of ‘80s, and for even skewing babyish. But they don’t have to be any of those things if you apply them in fresh ways,” says designer Brian Patrick Flynn, founder of Flynnside Out Productions.

“Pastels are like Sandra Bullock or a little black dress. They are always going to be in fashion and will remain classic for the masses. I say, use pastels however, whenever, and just be sure to put your own spin on them.”

Here, Flynn and two other interior designers — Betsy Burnham of Burn-ham Design in Los Angeles and Toron-to-based designer Meredith Heron — offer advice on making spring pastels work in your home.

Consider your lightThe natural light in a room impacts

how a pastel color actually appears,

says Heron. East-facing windows bring a cool, blue light during the day, while west-facing windows bring in a redder light in the afternoon and at sunset.

Heron says south-facing windows tend to offer a yellower light.

“My rule of thumb is to avoid the pas-tels that correspond to the direction of

the light,” she says. “So no pinks in a western-facing room or they will look like something out of an antacid com-mercial.” Likewise, avoid pastel yellow in a south-facing room and blue in an east-facing one.

Shop cautiouslyThe names of paint swatches can tell

you a lot. “If something has ‘baby’ in front of it — baby blue, baby pink — be careful,” says Burnham. You’re safer “if you see ‘pale blue.’ The interpreta-tion can be all kinds of things, from periwinkle to a gray-blue.”

If you’re drawn to a true baby pink or baby blue on a swatch, consider going with a slight variation on it. Often, on one paint-swatch card you’ll find four or five variations on the same color, some very saturated and others with more gray mixed in. Consider picking one of the grayer, less saturated shades.

It’s useful to look through design magazines for inspiration, but Burnham notes that what looks great in a photo might not in real life. That’s especially true if the photo depicts a “show house” designed to highlight a designer’s tal-ent, rather than a home that people actually live in.

Ask a Designer: decorating with spring pastels

AP photo

This undated photo provided by designer Brian Patrick Flynn and HGTV.com shows how Flynn used high-end performance fabrics in pastel tones to create the lounge the designer describes as “rock and roll pastels,” due to the mix of light colors with edgy accents and retro elements.

See Ask a Designer, Page 10


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Right at Home: tricks, tools for organizing the kitchen By Kim Cook Associated Press

If you’ve lived with your kitchen for awhile, chances are you’ve got draw-ers full of stuff you rarely use and cupboards you just hate. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a well-organized kitchen that makes food preparation a plea-sure?

Some of the latest ideas and prod-ucts for whipping a kitchen into shape:

DIVIDE AND CONQUERKitchens function best when divided

into work zones, says Josee Berlin, an interior designer for Ikea USA. She cites three: storage (fridge/freezer/pantry), washing (sink/dishwasher) and cooking (oven/cooktop/micro-wave).

“Work zones give your kitchen a practical structure. Placing them well is crucial to achieving an ergonomic work triangle, with a natural workflow and everything within reach,” Berlin says.

If you’re planning a new kitchen, place your oven and stove near sinks and worktops so you aren’t walking too far with hot pots and pans, she says. A worktop near pantry cabinets and fridge makes unpacking groceries easy.

If space is tight, consider a stain-less-steel cart with lockable wheels for portable storage and extra prep space.

CABINETS AND DRAWERSExperts suggest taking an inventory

of your kitchen tools, and then outfit-ting cabinets and drawers so they work for you.

Use adjustable drawer dividers and shelf inserts at different depths.

The drawers in Ikea’s new Sektion kitchen system open fully, eliminating that awkward nowheresville at the back of many drawers. A new horizon-tal hinge design allows for additional slim storage in what was once dead space above the drawer — good for tools, towels and spices (the last of which should be kept in a cool dark space and not on or above the stove).

A quiet-close mechanism and optional LED lights make the system handy for middle-of-the-night cookie raids. (www.ikea.com)

TOOLS AND GADGETSYou don’t need a lot of stuff, says

Craig Norton, director of operations at the Prince George Hotel in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

“Buying a pot and pan for every dish is a mistake. One good large Dutch oven, one sauté pan, one 4-quart saucepan, one omelet/crepe pan, one cast-iron pan and that’s it,” he advises. He stores lids on the door to free up shelf space.

If you’re a baker, consider consoli-dating those components. “I put all baking ingredients in one bin — flour, sugar, baking soda, etc. — and just haul it out when making something,” Norton says. Invest in a slab of cool marble to make pastry rolling easy.

“Gadgets are the biggest waste of space — egg slicers, green bean cut-ters, all that stuff. Just use a knife,” laughs Norton.

However, if you’re a proud collector

of small tools, consider a rolling mechanic’s tool cart with shallow drawers that can be tucked in a closet when not in use.

To hold knives, BASE4’s KnifeDock is a slim-profile slab of magnetized walnut, bamboo or acacia wood. (www.ebase4.com )

SPACE SAVERSHouse Beautiful’s editor in chief,

Sophie Donelson, likes OXO’s stack-able Greensaver containers, which have carbon filters in the lid to reduce spoilage. But her favorite small space storage solutions are from Joseph Joseph. Measuring cups, a whisk and nesting utensils are part of the color-ful collection. (www.josephjoseph.com ) Some experts suggest checking out restaurant supply houses for high-quality, affordable items. Commercial-kitchen-grade, stainless-steel pans come in a variety of squares and rect-angles that you can stack to save space. If your kitchen’s a workhorse, don’t worry about keeping it “show-room ready.” Your food processor, scale, utensils and blender should be right out where you need them.

Norton likes to keep a lazy Susan next to the stove with olive oil, a dish of salt and a pepper grinder.

Hanging rails with “S’’ shaped hooks provide extra storage without taking up real estate. Sturdy racks can hold pots and pans, plates, utensils, sieves and even a small herb garden.

Ikea’s Rimforsa wall system com-bines steel rails and hooks with bam-boo containers. Elfa’s bonded-steel no-tools wall and rack system turns a door into a handy pantry. (www.con-tainerstore.com )

AP photo

This photo provided by Ikea shows a steel rolling cart like these Flytta carts from Ikea that can work as mobile prep surface as well as moving storage.

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A little goes a long way“One pastel is really great,” Burnham

says. “It stands out and shines on its own.” But the effect is lost when you bring in additional pastels; you don’t want the room to feel like a basket of Easter eggs.

If you’re having trouble choosing just one shade, Flynn suggests blue: “Rob-in’s egg blue is probably the most icon-ic pastel used for interiors,” he says. “Believe it or not, robin’s egg is almost like a neutral. It works with almost any color in the spectrum. I like putting a transitional spin on it by layering it upon itself in different shades and tints. It creates a classic, timeless look that’s applicable to all ages, styles and both genders.”

Once you’ve chosen your pastel, it’s safest to bring the color in gently through an accent piece, such as a lampshade or artwork. Or paint your walls a white or gray shade that has just a dash of your favorite pastel mixed in.

“I always warn clients that pastel shades can get about 20 percent bright-er when you paint them on a wall, so opting for something that appears to be a white with a hint of color is often your best bet,” says Heron. “I think people often choose colors that are too literal — too bright, too saturated, when just a dash will do you. If you want to dabble in pastels, start with a grayed series and then ease your way

into something a bit brighter. Layers are always the key.”

The safest way to layer a pastel is by mixing in neutral colors like taupe, Burnham says, and organic materials like natural wood.

Don’t forget the edgeIn spaces where Flynn uses pastels,

he says, “I’m all about adding a ton of edgy elements to make the overall look fresh and anything but sweet. My big-gest tip is to balance the Easter tones

with street art or modern furnishings, which create excellent tension between the soft sweetness and whatever ele-ments are used to give it more of a masculine, urban or fresh edge.”

Heron often does the same, using ani-mal prints, say, or art deco furniture to “include some bold statement.”

Her goal: “to inject a little bit of ‘ugly’ into a room, to keep it from being overly saccharine. ... Ugly makes a room look and feel lived in, like it has evolved over time.”

AP photos

This undated photo was provided by designer Brian Patrick Flynn and HGTV.com. Flynn suggests light blue-grey tones for homeowners apprehensive about using springtime pastels, which can make rooms feel feminine. Flynn claims that blue-greys and robin’s egg blues work almost as new neutrals and gel with a wide array of accent colors, plus these hues are also gender neutral.

This photo provided by Meredith Her-on Design shows a kitchen in pastel pink shades designed by Meredith Heron. The Brushed Bronze of the faucet adds a rich contrast to the soft pastels and grounds the space, pre-venting the pastels from becoming too sweet.


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Feel like planting tomatoes? How to time them just right

By Lee Reich Associated Press

Occasional warm, spring-like breez-es and longer hours of sunlight kindle an urge in me to plant tomatoes, start-ing them indoors, of course.

After all, the sooner the seeds are up and growing, the sooner I’ll sink my teeth into a garden-ripe tomato, right?

Not necessarily.Earlier planting leads to better har-

vests only when tomato seedlings have consistent, near-perfect growing condi-tions. Even with a greenhouse, such conditions are not easily created. And the earlier tomatoes are planted, the harder it is to give them what they need.

SLOW AND STEADYThe ideal tomato seedling (also called

a “transplant” or “start”) plods along, growing steadily, making a seamless transition to the outdoors when trans-plant time finally comes. Consistently moist soil and regular feeding, both easily provided, are part of this pre-scription. Keep tabs on your watering by periodically poking your finger or an electronic water meter down into the potting soil, or by lifting the con-tainer to check its weight.

There are a couple of ways to feed your seedlings. One is to add soluble fertilizer to the water; use a fertilizer formulated for this purpose and follow the instructions, because too much fer-tilizer can be as harmful as too little. Fish emulsion is a good, soluble organic fertilizer.

An even easier way to feed is to mix into the potting soil some insoluble fer-tilizer that slowly but steadily releases nutrients. No need for high-tech, “slow release” fertilizers here, although they will do the trick. My potting mix includes one-quarter, by volume, com-post, and this, along with a smidgen of soybean meal, steadily feeds my potted plants in sync with their needs. Cotton-seed meal, alfalfa meal and feather meal are other organic, slow-release fertilizers that can be added to a pot-ting mix.

POT ONTo avoid any hesitation in the plants’

growth, they need to be shifted to larg-er pots as they grow. Don’t start those tiny seedlings in large pots, because they’ll just sulk in a large volume of wet soil. Ideally, repot whenever plants grow taller than one-half to two-thirds the height of their container. Like watering and feeding, repotting is not difficult, but does demand attention. The only problem is all the window space that lots of large pots eventually gobble up, even moreso the earlier seeds are sown.

So much for the easy part of keeping tomato seedlings that were planted ear-

ly growing happily. The plants also need abundant light and relatively cool temperatures — ideally around 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and this is a combi-nation not easy to provide on a window-sill or, without care, in a greenhouse. A sunny window in a cool room is ideal.

Artificial light is another option. Use a fluorescent light and keep adjusting its height so it’s within inches of the plant. Many seedlings can bask under a double fixture of two 4-foot-long fluo-rescent bulbs. The light from an incan-descent bulb isn’t the right spectrum, and the heat the bulbs give off if hang-ing close above the plant will scorch the leaves.

A LITTLE STRESS IS GOODOne more thing a tomato seedling

needs for good growth is stress. It sounds harsh, but a bit of stress indoors prepares the plants for buffeting wind, pelting rain, bright sunlight and cooler temperatures (early in the season, at least) outdoors. What’s more, stress can, to some degree, make up for insuffi-cient light and too much heat. Brush your hands over the leaves or shake the plants one or two times a day and they’ll develop into stocky, dark green young-sters.

Then, a gradual introduction to out-door conditions is beneficial. “Harden” the plants for a week by setting them outdoors in a spot protected from the full brunt of wind and sun before plant-ing them in the garden. Bring them indoors if frost threatens.

Don’t let anxiety over “perfect grow-ing conditions” keep you from growing your own tomato seedlings. Doing so gives you the choice of the tastiest vari-eties. (I suggest Sungold, Belgian Giant, Rose, Brandywine, Amish Paste and Carmello.) Also, tomatoes are forgiving plants. The worst-case scenarios for early sown plants given less than ideal growing conditions is an early crop that peters out, or a delayed first crop fol-lowed by tomatoes right up until frost.

AP photo

In this undated photo, a tomato plant is planted in a garden in New Paltz, N.Y.


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Home and Garden 2015

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