Garden Rant

Triolife Planter--We Have a Winner!

2012-05-23T19:31:35-07:00

The winner of the Triolife planter, chosen at random, was Nell Jean at Seedscatterer. Congrats, and thanks as always for playing along, everybody!

Aunt Tilly Needed a Drink

2012-05-23T04:50:00-07:00

This just in from Jay and Ken at Atlock Farm, a most intriguing place in Somerset, NJ:

After some 20 years, perched high above the succulents,in a green houses at Atlock Farm, (in Somerset, New Jersey), much beloved Aunt Tilly, cut loose and unceremoniously plopped to the ground.

Owner Ken Selody felt it only fitting to give the girl a chair and a cheer, by having her join us for cocktails. She had a Cosmo. A double.

This report was followed quickly by the following:

Okay...Ken said I must be honest here... Tillandsia had suicidal tendencies, and unbeknownst to me, she'd tried this before. We'll never know for sure, but she might well have purposely thrown herself from the top of the greenhouse....plunging to... her, well.... nearest cocktail? She liked to drink...albiet sparingly, considering her genus.

That is all.

Crimes Against Horticulture, Pruning Division

2012-05-22T03:48:34-07:00

I can't help but steal my post title from Billy Goodnick - the term is just too apt, in the case of these two juicy examples of bad pruning.

On the left, the power company seems like the obvious culprit but once homeowners plant trees too close to the power lines, what's a company to do? I shot this from my car last winter but I bet it looks just as ridiculous now, with leaves on that poor tree.

And on the right is the foundation planting in front of a gorgeous Capitol HIll townhouse, where two Euonymuses (Euonymi?) aren't just horribly shaped, but pruned to completely block the windows. This is the garden of a new client of mine, who impressively hired me to give her landscape suggestions even before she and her fiance had moved in! I happily reinforced their intention to get rid of these hideous blobs, as soon as possible. It's a south exposure, so the choice of better alternatives is huge.

Shovel ready

2012-05-21T04:49:53-07:00

I don't mind stealing a phrase many others have used concerning the Asheville garden of Christopher Mello, visited by garden bloggers (our annual get-together) this past weekend.

The space is dominated by a central circular space filled with Tonka trucks and surrounded by upright shovels. There are also perennial borders—amazing blue (ish) poppies and campanula among other plants—and many other found object constructions. Spectacular bottle trees are another prominent feature.

Some members of our group suggested there might be a gender divide when it comes to truly appreciating such a garden. Others disagree. What do you think?

(Hotel wi-fi is not working, so had to resort to an iPhone post.)

Dear Pennington,

2012-05-18T05:13:25-07:00

Thanks so much for having your publicist suggest that we partner with you to help promote Pennington Smart 1 Feed. He was smart enough to notice that our blog has "gone mostly grassless" and we probably wouldn't be the likeliest people to trumpet your lawn seed. So he probably figured that trying to manage all of the pesky viburnums and tulips and tomatoes we plant instead of grass, we'd be a natural for your specialized fertilizer products.

And the fact that Pennington Smart 1 Feed plant fertilizer contains a slow-release formula that keeps working for up to eight months, giving plants what they need when they need it with no help from us is certainly appealing.

But I'm afraid we're too Smart for Smart Feed. Because there is another organization already on the job, fertilizing our plants and giving them just what they need when they need it with no help from us. They're called the soil microbes. They evolved to fertilize our plants, so we don't need to. All we have to do is provide the raw materials for them. A nice mulch will do the trick. Once a year and we're done. Mulch is also a multi-faceted product that eliminates weeds and helps us water less. I don't think your Smart fertilizers do that yet.

The problems with outsourcing the soil creatures' job to Pennington are myriad.

The Haber-Bosch synthesis that allows you to manufacture artificial nitrogen from the air requires intense heat and wastes colossal amounts of energy.
Plants often can't use these megadoses of nitrogen all in one go.
The excess nitrogen turns into nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.
The runoff from excess nitrogen is causing giant dead zones in our oceans.
Artificial nitrogen sets up a vicious cycle that depletes to the soil's ability to store carbon and nitrogen.
Edible plants raised on artificial nitrogen taste like complete crap.

It's hard to think of another product that is more useless yet wreaks more havoc, other than possibly credit default swaps. Yes, yes, I am well aware of the argument that without synthetic nitrogen, nearly half of humanity would go hungry. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Let me tell you how I think of my garden: It's an ecosystem. I don't shake anything out of a bag or jug--not even organic fertilizer--because I don't want to disrupt the life in the soil. Instead, I shrewdly use it to grow beautiful food with very little sweat on my end.

My Complete Lack of a Gardening Lifestyle, and How That Means More Free Stuff For You

2012-05-16T04:14:00-07:00

You may have noticed that GardenRant has been a total swagfest lately, what with all the giveaways of tools and books and other such freebies. Well, there's a reason for that: I'm living in Portland for two months, having temporarily joined the faculty of Portland State University as a visiting professor in their MFA in Creative Writing program. Thanks to the nice people at the literary journal and book publisher Tin House, I have a totally swell apartment, too.

What I don't have is a garden, or really any interest in one. I mean, Portland is in full bloom right now, and that's lovely. Last month the air was perfumed with daphne blossoms, and this month the azaleas are doing their insane technicolor thing, and I'm sure something else very pretty is about to happen right now. But I came here to think about writing, to talk about writing, and to do some writing. The rest of you can go garden. I'm doing this other thing. (and writing about it a little on my own blog.)

What does this mean to you? Before I left for Portland, I lined up a whole series of posts in which I do little more than give free stuff to you. Mostly this happened in partnership with my good friend Gen at North Coast Gardening.

So. She and I spent a very confusing afternoon putting together the deceptively simple Triolife Plant Pyramid sent to us by the nice people at EarthEasy. Please note that it does not take an entire afternoon to put it together--it takes about a minute and a half--but because we were too lazy to go inside and look at a photo of the thing, and because the instructions were nearly incomprehensible, it took us forever.

But you will have no trouble at all, because once you watch our video, you will totally get it! The light bulb will go off.

And you can have one! Tell us what you will plant in it and where you will put it (on a table, on a patio, on your roof, etc) and we'll choose a winner. Gen is giving one away too, so get over there to check out her thing.

Where Laundry is Garden Art

2012-05-15T04:50:15-07:00

As reported here a few years back, a group called Project Laundry List is hard at work defending our Right to Dry. And since most of us grew up with indoor drying, they have to start with some public education - like their Top Ten Reasons to Line-Dry.

Project Laundry List would surely love my newly adopted town, a planned community built by the federal government in the '30s. Clothes lines were installed here before the first buyers ever moved in, and from what I can tell, most residents take advantage of them. Proudly.

I've discovered a couple of interesting limitations on line-drying in the town's history, though. Originally, line-drying wasn't alowed on Sundays. (Remember blue laws? Reading up on them, I'm shocked to discover how many are still in effect. Wikipedia contributors also can't agree on the origin of the term.)

Another local law that's long gone is that laundry had to be taken in before dinnertime, which long-time residents tell me had to do with making the home look nice for the return of the breadwinner. We can imagine the little woman putting on her nicest housedress around that time, too, a la June Cleaver.

Today, with those silly restrictions gone and energy conservation a big concern, my neighbors proudly adorn their gardens with laundry and some have even asked - where's MINE? I guiltily confess to removing the poles to make room for more plants.

My plant-stuffed but laundry-free garden seems a bit out of step in a town where the Sun-Drying Garmenture Society Drill Team struts its stuff every year in the Labor Day Parade.

So I'm curious. Readers, do YOU line-dry? Do your neighbors? Or has line-drying gone the way of party lines and black and white TVs?

A gardener’s insouciance

2012-05-14T05:35:59-07:00

I have a habit of planting lilies everywhere, often where I should have left well enough alone. Here, they are interfering with a perfectly nice dicentra.

Do we become more tolerant of the multiple problems and imperfections in our gardens, or less so? It is certainly the former with me. These days, as long as the ground is more or less covered and something smells nice, I’m happy. These days, just sitting on the steps next to the jasmine (whose winter defoliation I am tolerating) can be enough. I can see the weeds, the various perennials that seem to be faltering, and the inexplicable/unfortunate planting decisions I’ve made over the years, but it just doesn’t bother me that much.

The list of issues I’ve become willing to overlook has grown gradually. There's more than I can remember to include here.

•Weeds. These are generally allowed to flourish unseen until I happen to notice them and pull enough out so that they become less noticeable. I don’t go nuts trying to get every little piece of root.

•Pruning. I don’t like it. I do cut away the dead branches of my roses.

•Insects and diseases. Oh the joy of embracing the no-spray movement. When I first started out I really thought you had to buy the treatments sold at the garden center. I know better now.

•Plant dividing. I have actually never done this, except inadvertently when moving a plant.

•Cutting back and deadheading. I have a hard time remembering what’s supposed to be cut back, but I do cut back spent blooms if they’re unsightly.

•Hoeing. I don’t have one. I am not sure what I’d do with it if I did.

•Planning and design. This never really happened, as I was fortunate enough to inherit a courtyard space where the beds were already laid out.

There are some things that even I can’t avoid. The pond has to be cleaned, the roses do benefit from at least a springtime fertilization, and I throw compost and mulch down when I can get to it. New things have to be planted when old things die or don’t work anymore, and I love anything to do with bulbs—and that’s work.

Otherwise, I’m beginning to forget there was a time when I spent most of my time in the garden working on the garden. It helps of course that I am not a food grower. What’s your experience? Do you find that you relax your vigilance with time, or increase it?