The grumpy bulb forcer’s lament

It’s a bit sad when the lilies drop their final petals, the hosta leaves start to brown, and it’s time to deadhead the last double rudbeckia. One of the ways I cheer myself up is by firing up my bulb-related ventures: I do both outdoor bulb planting and indoor bulb forcing. The outdoor part is mainly species tulips and hybrid tulips, planted in the ground and in large pots. The indoor forcing involves hyacinths, tazettas, and hybrid tulips. It requires a short and simple list of supplies: bulbs, soil, and pots. Not a heavy lift, right? Wrong.

The pots sit in the root cellar for 8-12 weeks, depending on what’s in them.

Anyone looking for small pots at the end of the summer season is already swimming upstream, because most garden centers assume, reasonably, that the potting season is at an end. There were usually a few places, though, that would still have decent supplies of small to medium-sized ceramic pots. I like to force in these because they’re easy to move around and nice to give as gifts when the bulbs are ready to come out, conveniently near the holidays. But now there’s a new problem. Pot manufacturers and retailers have decided to go all-in for pots with no drainage. Instead of seeing, at most, a 50-50 split between the two types, the nondraining pots are creeping into the majority. Having seen how hyacinth roots work and having familiarity with rotten bulbs and roots, I’m sticking with traditional drainage holes at the bottom of any pot I use. (Nice little pots like the one at top are perfect for my needs.)

Wouldn’t the houseplant craze help with year-round small pot availability? After all, houseplants know no season. Not really. Either the pots sold at houseplant places are going for silly prices or these vendors, too, don’t find drainage necessary. Apparently, there’s now potting media that doesn’t need drainage. (I’ll let our houseplant ranter, Johanna address that one.) Looks like I’ll be driving all over Western New York pot-hunting. Ha. Much more difficult to get than the other kind.

An important heads-up: Due either to shortages mysteriously caused by the pandemic or the millions of new gardeners who are hopping on the bulb wagon, my favorite hyacinth supplier was sold out of every variety I usually get by mid-August. Larger companies also had a surprising amount of sold-out items, though these don’t even carry the unusual or heirloom types I look for. Buy your bulbs now!

And here’s another tip for those interested. I have found planting bulbs in large pots that get stored in an unheated garage or shed over the winter to be very rewarding and just may help with animal issues. This is a piece I wrote on it.

The grumpy bulb forcer’s lament originally appeared on GardenRant on August 25, 2021.

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Trashing trees. Why on earth?

 

Let me count the ways to trash trees.

I’ll start with careless butchery done every day by lawn mowers and string trimmers. I’ll add volcano mulch piled up around trees by jackleg landscapers. Then there are trees pruned like coat racks— unmercifully and unnecessarily. These treacherous pea-brained practices can be avoided.

Post mortem on dead, thornless honey locust at McDonald’s on South 3rd Street in Louisville, Kentucky: volcano mulch, planted too deeply, mechanical damage, poor soil and inadequate watering. 

Coat-racked silver maples, and volcano mulch, in front of Louisville’s Assumption High School, Louisville, Kentucky.

Stay three feet away from a tree’s trunk with mechanical equipment; don’t mulch trees to look like Vesuvian mole hills and allow a shade tree to grow naturally when there is ample space. Or plant smaller trees when there is not.

TreesLouisville photo

Tree decline and death are often careless consequences of the stubborn, misinformed, greedy and criminal.

Clear cutting the Amazon rainforest for another acre of soybeans is morally indefensible. Inside Climate News reports more carbon is spewing from the Amazon basin than is being absorbed. The public risk isn’t clear to everyone.

I can’t see the damage, but my mind aches if I dwell on a planet in downward spiral.

This past July was the hottest month, on earth, in recorded history.

I bear witness when I walk out the door.

I smell smoke from western USA wildfires and rub my burning eyes.

Farm monoculture and lone tree in the Amazon Basin. Wikimedia Commons, Bruno Kelly photo.

We are all local.

My tree-hugging friend, Tim Morton, shared a Facebook Post, earlier this month, from Louisville Councilwoman Nicole George that sadly informed her constituents: “The destruction of the newly planted trees on South 3^rd Street is hurtful. It isn’t about the trees, which can be replaced, it’s about what the trees symbolized to neighbors (i.e., investment, connection and sweat equity) that makes me sad. Fortunately, Louisville Grows shows up even when it is difficult.”

 

Guillotined

Slash-and-trash. Nicole George Photo.

Facebook readers agreed with Councilwoman George.

Others were dumbfounded and angry by the slash-and-trash prowler(s).

Why on earth would anyone do this?

Horrible

Terribleness

Someone needs a switch pulled from one of those trees applied rigorously to their hind ends.

Oh, that stinks! People can be ridiculously stupid.

What has our community come to?

We are surrounded by idiots.

So much ugly hatred in the world now

Mercifully, there are good—very good—community-wide tree lovers and planters in Louisville.

Louisville Grows shows up to replant. Nicole George photo.

Ked Stanfield, Executive Director of Louisville Grows, responded in an email: “We had about 12 trees damaged.  Some were uprooted, some were snapped in half.  We replanted and staked the ones that were uprooted and splinted a few of the ones that were snapped that seemed salvageable…We are going to wait until this fall to replace some and wait until the spring to see if some of the others continue to leaf out and replace the ones that didn’t make it.” 

Matt Spalding, Education and Volunteer Program Manager, of Louisville’s Olmsted Parks Conservancy, explained further: “The short answer is size—the larger the tree, the harder it is to damage. Usually, it appears that kids have done the damage. When we’re sourcing trees, especially specimen trees meant to be set out in the landscape, surrounded by turf grass, we try for balled and burlapped, or at least 1.5-2” trunk diameter. On occasion, if we find the right selection but it’s a smaller container, we’ll still go ahead and plant it. These small trees are the ones that get uprooted. When that happens, we note it, order a bigger one and replace the next fall. Don’t get me started on beech bark carvings!”

Planting more trees alone won’t curb global warming, but it is a potent counter offensive against a troubling view that the effects of climate could be irreversible. We need healthy, public green spaces that cool down tempers and neighborhoods—everywhere.

Is there a better, more innovative, way to teach one another how to plant, properly tend and dignify trees for the common good? 

TreesLouisville has offered a $1000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the maliciousness. I hope the angry perp(s) are exposed and sentenced to a long-stretch on a community tree-planting gang.

I would follow up by requiring the penitent to write Joyce Kilmer’s poem on the blackboard one-hundred times…

“I think that I shall never see

A poem as lovely as a tree…”

Trashing trees. Why on earth? originally appeared on GardenRant on August 23, 2021.

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Virtual GardenComm Conference was So Good, I have to Eat my Words

Conference-goers raise their glasses in a toast during the After Party. I’m in the center box wearing my GardenRant t-shirt and performing a weird thumbs-up with pen in hand.

For months I whined about the 2021 GardenComm symposium being online – again. I was SO looking forward to driving from Maryland to Williamsburg, VA and getting a big dose of in-person socializing, networking, and learning.  

But when the event came last week, the weather was SO hot and humid in Virginia, we were better off tuning in from our climate-controlled homes instead of touring gardens half the day. So my whining abated but I was still skeptical – I mean, who isn’t Zoomed-out by now, right? But the Covid variant has brought a sudden halt to the untethered socializing we were enjoying so recently, so by late August going virtual was best after all. (Those lucky Cultivate attendees in July!)

In the end, I’m humbled to admit that I was wrong! Because GardenComm 2021 was terrific. Here’s why:

The Talks!

Amy Stewart (GardenRant co-founder) covered writing, finding an agent, then a publisher, and how books REALLY get sold. On the right, the graphic she had made to find a publisher for her historical fiction.

One huge benefit of virtual is that presenters can be anywhere, so they can be the very best – in the world! Thus, the quality of the presentations was sky-high and I learned a bunch from the talks I “attended” (about Instagram, iPhone photography, and e-newsletters).  Even the subjects I have no interest in pursuing professionally – selling books or making a living from speaking – I watched and was inspired by the speakers’ smarts and by their entrepreneurial creativity and gumption.  

And I’m not alone. One commenter on Facebook wrote that “Amy Stewart shared her amazing visual document that she included with her book proposal to a publisher. It was creative and set her apart from everyone else’s proposals. It was genius.” 

More Cool Content

• The “pitch session” to publishers MC’d by C.L. Fornari was innovative and apparently a big success, with several reporting that that they were “invited to submit a book proposal!” 

• I enjoyed the “Meet the Authors” event, with its focus on publishing and books during the pandemic.
• I was amazed by the “Plant Story-Telling Slam,” which I assumed people would have little interest in – because *I* would have no interest in participating.  Wrong again! There was barely enough time to hear so many stories. At the end I wondered what’s wrong with me? Carol Michel tells me they hope to make this a regular feature and I find myself wanting to be a story-teller next time.

International garden tours!

• The world tour” of five gardens, MC’ed by Kirk Brown, was a total treat, thanks to the conference organizers somehow inducing members to make whole videos for the conference. We got to see gardens in Puerto Rico, Italy, Perth, Vancouver Island, and a very English-style garden in Pennsylvania. Loved them!

• The Trade Show gave us the chance to see vendors’ products and even chat with these valued sponsors one-on-one. One commenter on Facebook wrote “I’m especially impressed with how interactive the exhibitors’ area is. It’s lightyears ahead of last year’s virtual exhibitor hall.”  

• The very last event was the “After Party” (top photo in this post) hosted by my friend Kathy Jentz, who created just the right games for the event and induced representatives of each region to create toasts. Scroll down to watch Sally Cunningham’s charming song as her region’s contribution. 

Technical Glitches

Screen shot and text by C.L. Fornari.

Of course there was a technical glitch or two. One that I experienced was during a networking session, which for some reason didn’t use Zoom and boy, did we learn to appreciate how well Zoom works! That’s because first, no names were displayed and even worse, when new people entered the “room” their photos were blocked by our own images.  So in the screen shot above by C.L. Fornari, notice that she saw herself on the far right instead of new entrant Kirk Brown, who thankfully had created a sign so we knew who it was. It was frustrating but kinda fun, too, as we tackled the technical challenge together. 

How To Access

Good news! The events were all recorded and they’re now on the event website for participants to watch. (Whereas normally we’d have to choose one of three concurrent events to attend, this way we can see them all!) That link will work until August 29, after which GardenComm will create links to individual talks available for purchase ($20 for members, $30 for nonmembers) and those who were already registered for the conference will get a link that they can access through October 31.

Didn’t register? You can do it now and watch the whole conference, using this link. The cost is $199 for members and $269 for non-members. (Members can use the code: gcfinal at checkout.)

From the Organizers – Comments and Lessons Learned

C0nference co-chair C.L. Fornari wrote in an email:

Because our conference was virtual the past two years it allowed people who can’t normally attend because of health or finances to take part. I can see that even when GardenComm returns to in-person events, a virtual component might be included to make educational and networking available to a wider audience. It has also allowed us to have speakers that we couldn’t otherwise afford present to the group. 

When we have gathered in person, most of the talks haven’t been recorded because of the expense involved. But because of Zoom, our talks can be recorded with no additional costs. This allows anyone who registers to see all of the talks, not just one, and it allows those who want to go back to a particular information-packed presentation to do so again. 

Co-chair Carol Michel wrote: 

I thought it went great. Behind the scenes, there are more moving parts to a virtual conference than most people realize. We are grateful to our new President of GardenComm, Maria Zampini, for putting us in touch with OrderEase, which helped us make the conference more than just a bunch of Zoom links, though there were plenty of those. 

People seemed to enjoy The Lounge in the trade show, which gave us that “I met them in the lobby and we talked about… feeling” that we had hoped for.  

We had pitch sessions in person in Salt Lake City in 2019, but I believe being virtual helped us extend our reach to editors who don’t normally attend our in-person conferences.

This conference took months of behind-the-scenes work to choose educational sessions, find vendors who agreed to come along for this new experience, get international members to send in videos for garden tours, convince members it really was more than Zoom, set up everything in OrderEase, and more.  Many Kudos to the staff at Kellen, our management company, who pitched right in with the local committee to help put this all together. 

We will be surveying attendees so I can’t say for sure, but from where I sit as a member of the Virtual Conference Committee, I feel like we all enjoyed it!

A Song from Sally

On a final note, MUCH thanks to the organizers for their hard work and creativity, and to the sponsors for their continuing support of garden communicators!

I’ll give communicator par excellence Sally Cunningham the last word in her singing toast.

Virtual GardenComm Conference was So Good, I have to Eat my Words originally appeared on GardenRant on August 20, 2021.

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The greenhouse is up! End of journey, or beginning?

“You mean you grow all these plants without a greenhouse?!?” came the shocked question during a tour of my garden last weekend. 

 

“Yes,” was the answer.  A resounding yes.  A yes that has been a wry yes for all of the seed starting and propagating and make-doing that has characterized my gardening life to this point. And, over the last decade of working with subtropicals and tropicals, a self-satisfied, smug yes. A yes that I’ve earned through trial and error, and which leaves its mark not only in knowledge gained and two books written, but in a deeper understanding of what it means to long for something.

And now, also as of this weekend (coincidentally and chaotically), a greenhouse emerges in the middle of all that cold-framed foliage and basement-stored bloom.  What to think of it? 

 

It’s there and it’s beautiful – if a little dirty. Still have some cleaning to do after the flooding disaster.

Skills built without a greenhouse.

I stood in the garden yesterday morning contemplating that question – what to think of it? – and then realized ten minutes later that I wasn’t thinking about IT at all, but everything that existed before the greenhouse. 

That mental space is a very safe, very confident place. It’s a great place to hang out instead of musing over the hundreds of dollars of plants I may very well kill in the first three months of owning this thing.

As of this weekend, I’m in undiscovered country.  It’s as if you just handed me my first tomato seedling and a trowel.  The green part goes above the soil, right?  Yes. But sometimes no.  So much to learn.

 

It’s too easy to forget what you didn’t know.

Worrying. Instead I thought of the milk-jugs I used to save in order to start seeds outside in the winter, tired of giving over the top of my washing machine and refrigerator in a tiny house where every square inch was precious.

 

Humble little greenhouses, but incredibly useful.

Giving over the top of your washing machine for 8 weeks in the winter is trying, to say the least.

 

I thought of standing in front of a 50-foot roll of 6ml plastic at Home Depot – hemming and hawing over the $29.99 price tag as toddlers struggled to get out of the cart, sending 10 foot lengths of CPVC pipe rolling down the aisle.

I still have a few feet of plastic from my original roll stored away.

 

I thought of the first $39.99 temporary “greenhouse” that I splurged on with grocery funds at an Aldi’s in Pennsylvania. Nothing more than a cold frame, but a useful investment as it allowed me to harden off hundreds of seedlings without shuffling trays indoors on March evenings. I still use that rack as pot storage.

This felt pretty damned luxurious.

 

I thought of the wooden cold frame I constructed with the bits and pieces of a building project, and two old window sashes removed from our last house.  The glass panes made me feel as if I was getting closer to the dream of greenhouse ownership. Despite my pathetic-woodworking skills it had solidity. Even if it was only 2×4 feet of solidity. 

Proving that if you have a hammer, nails and a saw, you can do just about anything.

 

And I thought of the decision that I finally made to stop talking about it and commit to specifically saving for a greenhouse – no backtracking. For it had to be that kind of decision. I am ridiculously and often stupidly frugal. 

Cheapskate seed labels. I do stuff like this all the time.

Necessity vs. Desire

Shamefacedly I admit that almost everything substantial around here is calculated by the inflexible laws of ROI – Return on Investment. Creatives can immediately see the major flaw in this strategy.

Art is rarely about ROI unless you are collecting, not creating; and in my opinion, creating a garden is one of the highest forms of art.  Could there possibly be Greenhouse ROI for a gardener who did not sell her plants, or charge to have her garden toured, or even monetized her damn website?  

Poor man’s Chihuly

 

No. It had to be about something else.  A new skill to learn — a new adventure in gardening.  Fundamentals to study, new plants to try, a new phase in my gardening life.  A different kind of ROI – an investment in my growth as a gardener.

I made the decision from that confident place: Look at all I can do without a greenhouse! Imagine what I can do when I’ve actually got one! It never occurred to me that it would terrify the hell out of me.

I’ll get over it.  But it is a curious feeling nonetheless. – MW

The greenhouse is up! End of journey, or beginning? originally appeared on GardenRant on August 19, 2021.

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Getting Hosed in the August Garden; Another Letter from the Midwest

August 18, 2021

Cincinnati, Ohio 

Dear Marianne,

I apologize that I have again taken too long responding to your most recent letter. As you might recall, the main subject of your letter was how you managed to survive a great flood. The most harrowing part was about how your husband, Michael, using everything he learned about coming ashore on foreign beaches during his years with the Marine Corps, managed to ford raging waters to save two old vehicles, each of substantial sentimental value, from certain loss. I was especially moved by the part where he grabbed a pair of endangered otters with his free hand, threw them in the back, strapped them into car seats, and wound up saving their species by driving them to higher ground just as a barn that would have crushed them all floated by. Of course, I made up this last part but the loss of so much of your garden was just so heartbreaking that even a month later I feel a nervous need to lighten things up.

I did something kind of similar once. Twenty five years ago, maybe more. We were vacationing in Michigan–Michele, me, our kids, my sister, her then husband, and their kids. It was late afternoon and the kids were playing video games while the adults drank vodka and tonics on the porch and watched as a powerful storm crossed the lake. Next thing I know, huge waves are battering their motorboat and threatening to wash it off the lift, and, just as suddenly, my sister’s soon-to-be-ex and I are out there in the maelstrom trying to lash it down. This, as a thousand white-hot bolts of lightning laid waste to every tree in a three mile radius except for the two towering cottonwoods that whipped in the wind above us like inflatable tube men at a Kia dealership. True story. You might have heard, God looks out for children and drunken men.

I don’t think I’d do anything like that now. I mean, screw the boat. It was Phil’s and I hardly even liked him anyway. Besides, since then I have seen way too many drunken men swiftly dispatched, killed totally dead, to believe in that dumb expression anymore. 

It’s called life support.

Our problem here is the opposite of yours–three weeks without rain. And hot! Remember last August when we carried on and on about how awful August is? We were onto something there. Frankly, I’ve been overwhelmed. It took a while, but a lifestyle of trying to do too much all the time finally caught up with me. I got really, really stressed out, and, I’ve been told, a bit surly. I might need some time off. Off from work. Off from home. Off from writing. Off from dragging hoses. Time to do nothing but exist. Exist like a reptile exists. Just eat, drink, and, if I so choose, watch as the other reptiles come and go from the swim up bar. Maybe something like this would allow the tension to wind itself down from “Code Red: Catastrophic Failure Imminent” to simply “Code Yellow: Safe Working Load Exceeded.” 

Hell is real.

But, until I actually get around to planning a reptilian vacation, I’m dragging hoses. And hoses are the work of the devil! Evil, terrible products. Horrendous inventions from the very beginning. Inventions that, despite all our space exploration, computing prowess, 3D printing capacity, 24-hour cable news, live-streaming, smoke detectors, time shares, and a million other technological advancements, have never gotten any better! If you go back and read the primary sources, which I have done, early gardeners recorded complaint after complaint of hoses that kink, get caught on any protruding rock or stick or blade of grass, and beat up and bedraggle any young plants they get dragged over. In all my experience, and in all the experience of my friends, none of this has changed. You should see what people are writing on Reddit! I was shocked to learn that garden hoses are a leading cause of divorce. Over 100,000 just last year! 

Last week I had a bad day. A truly rotten day. And then I had one kink in my hose too many. Now, I’m not proud of this, but I found myself standing there in my yard, gazing back and forth between my garden hose and a properly positioned tree branch. And you know what I was thinking? I was wondering if anyone has ever hanged themselves with a garden hose. Marianne, on that day, in that heat, I might have tried it had I even the foggiest notion of how to tie a noose. But I didn’t, so I grabbed my string trimmer and became an Angel of Death for many weeds that really, really wanted to live. Besides, for such a protest to truly be effective, hanging myself in my backyard with a garden hose simply would not do. It would have to be done in the parking lot of the Acme Garden Hose, TV remote, and Instruction Manual Company. Right as the Board Meeting was breaking up and thereby making witnesses out of all the top brass, causing them to have to talk to the cops and miss things they were looking forward to. This is how you make change in America, but, unfortunately, it takes the kind of planning I never have time for. 

Hibiscus ‘Midnight Marvel’ and some low angle, August evening light.

A final word about your flood. It was pretty devastating to hear of the losses you suffered. So much of what drives us in gardening is the vision of what our investment in time, money, and passion will someday yield. To have that so suddenly taken away is tough. Of course, the only thing to do is double down and dig in. Determine to persevere. Be stubborn. Be more stubborn than the whole spiteful, powerful Universe, and all the deer, rabbits, floods, fires, late frosts, invasive exotic pests, and any other slings and arrows it contains. It gets to where things seem futile, but once in a while, despite the odds, sheer pigheaded stubbornness actually pays off. And, when that happens, there you are, bewildered, and looking at something that resembles your vision coming to fruition. Insane! And it is pure, life-affirming, joyful triumph. Which, of course, only just encourages more stubbornness. Which results in a great many episodes of crushing heartache. Then, just as you’re about to quit, another unexpected joyful triumph! It’s a lot like gambling addiction. 

But, that said, apart from the heat and lack of rain the last three weeks, this has been a good gardening year and it sure has been nice to get in a little social time during the intermission between the Pandemic’s first act and its second. 

The Cultivate21 Show in Columbus squeaked in after the spring COVID outbreak and before the Delta variant upsurge. It was a great show and wonderful to see so many old friends and new. 

One of those social occasions, of course, was when you and Louisa drove down to Cincinnati and stayed with us after the Cultivate Show in Columbus. That was great fun and I can’t remember so much laughter! Sure, I got a little testy and might have said some things later in the evening when it became apparent that you and Michele were well on your way to becoming better friends than we are. I had, of course, predicted this very thing early on in our friendship. I knew it would happen. I had just wanted it to take longer in hopes that maybe having the regular presence of a younger, attractive woman in my life might give me a little leverage. For a while, anyway. Maybe it would cause Michele to try a little harder or something. Like maybe be around when I’m trying assemble an Ikea product or something. Anyway, I think that’s what was eating at me. That and the fact that I didn’t understand half the stuff you guys were laughing about and became convinced that most of it was at my expense. 

But I got over it. I always do. And it was really exciting to receive a package in the mail from you a few weeks later. Of course, it included some wild mushrooms, which I almost threw away because I thought they were packing material. Thankfully Michele caught me just in the nick of time. I looked up how to cook “wood ears” and we will soon try them. Side note for our readers: If Michele and I should die in agony as a result of eating poisonous “wood ears,” someone, anyone, please call the authorities. Michele absolutely adored the cutesy little Jane Austen book you sent, which, of course, inspired her to reply with this effusive thank you note like some kind of anachronistic British lunatic. 

My dearest Mrs. Willburn,

 You can hardly imagine the excitement that sparkled through our household when the post brought your mysterious package! We were all astonishment. Such a bounty of treasure! What delights lay within! 

Oh, the mirth when Mr. Beuerlein beheld the fruits of the forest you bestowed upon us, no doubt plucked from their hidden bower by some loyal manservant! You simply MUST impart the secret of how best to prepare these woodland treats, and also how to store them until Cook can turn her attention to them.

And what a marvelous little book was inside the package sealed with your signet wax! Surely you don’t think I myself could POSSIBLY be in need of instruction in the womanly arts; yet how very thoughtful of you to provide such a useful handbook so that I might improve the domestic sensibilities of my daughter-in-law, and of any future grand-daughters who will need to be settled with husbands. Oh, what a rigorous grand-mamma I shall be!

 However, the finest gift of all was the unparalleled pleasure of having you and dear Mrs. Zimmerman-Roberts stop with us in our humble cottage. Taking a turn about the garden in your company was a splendid experience long anticipated. And what a diverting evening followed! I can hardly remember when I have enjoyed so much merriment. And such a refreshing wine you provided. It was my pleasure to reciprocate by sharing my favourite Bingley’s Tea with you the following morning. “Marianne’s Wild Abandon”–is that not the most amusing name for a tea? I can hardly contain my mirth at the memory of surprising you with it.

 I trust you and Louisa were conveyed safely home to the bosom of your families. Mr. Beuerlein and I are counting the days when we might gaze upon your famous country estate, Oldmeadow, which we understand is the talk of the district. In fact, Mr. Beuerlein has become quite tiresome in that he will not cease chattering about spending the Season in Virginia. “Marianne this” and “Marianne that”–it sends him into such transports of joy that he is quite driving me to distraction. There is nothing for it but to plan our journey, to give my poor nerves some rest. 

 Oh, but surely you have guessed that I am being cross merely in jest. I assure you that I long to visit you and the excellent Mr. Willburn every bit as much as Mr. Beuerlein, though without his gibbering excesses.

 Until that golden hour of reunion, I remain yours,

 Michele Beuerlein

I truly hope I don’t come to hate you both.

Marianne, Louisa, and Michele in my house having a great time. Probably making fun of me.

But, no, I’m not bitter. Of course not. And posting this somewhat unflattering image on the worldwide web isn’t me lashing out either.  

Anyway, it is August. The world is hot. The garden is tired. I’m tired. The hibiscus and rudbeckia and anemones are trying to lure me outside into the heat of day and sometimes they do. And, as long as I’m out there, might as well drag some hoses and keep some of the garden alive. Early morning and evening can sometimes be pleasant enough, and the lower angle of the sun this time of year makes for some dramatic and beautiful highlights in the garden.

The other day an idea came to me. I think this time of year, late summer, is like 1:00AM at the pub for bugs. And, yes, I said pub. As in that new Irish one they built at the mall where the KMart used to be. The one that has some giant, fake family crest facing the PF Chang’s. Where there are always soccer matches on half of the TVs. Where some of the bartenders wear kilts. And where, occasionally, late at night, the regulars break out into doleful tunes they learned from Pogues records. Anyway, yes, after all of that, this time of year is, for bugs, just like 1:00AM in a Midwestern, suburban, Irish/Scottish pseudo-pub. It’s late. The bugs are all tired. Drunk. Emotional. For no real reason, one of them launches into a raspy, rhythmic, late summer song and all the other bugs quickly join in. Suddenly, the trees and  weeds are filled with music. For me, those songs foreshadow fall’s beautiful and bittersweet melancholy. Which, in turn, foreshadows winter’s cold, dark need for spring. 

Late summer.

Time drives inevitably forward. Try as I might, I can’t seem to slow it down or claim a little more of it as mine. It’s frustrating. All I really want is to experience a little more of each day. Alas. 

Anyway, I promise I’ll reply sooner next time.

Until then, I am yours, standing in line behind Michele and slowly coming to the realization that she’s mouthing words because your facial expression can no longer contain your “mirth.” Ugh.   

Scott

Getting Hosed in the August Garden; Another Letter from the Midwest originally appeared on GardenRant on August 18, 2021.

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August 2021 FRSAN-NE Newsletter

This is a bilingual newsletter. Spanish content is below the English.** **Este es un boletín bilingüe. Para inglés busque abajo, para español continúe abajo.** Our newsletter this month is a double feature, combining both July and August updates! This FRSAN-NE newsletter focuses on language justice and the incredible Language Justice team working in our network. From cohort project proposals…

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from Gardening https://www.youngfarmers.org/2021/08/august-2021-frsan-ne-newsletter/

Stop torturing your houseplants: first in a series

Overheard recently in my plant shop: two ladies talking about the products. One picked up a pot and turned to her friend and said, “It’s very Instagram chic to have a pot like this.” Instagram-chic?

And herein lies the main issue with houseplant culture—people are more focused on the appearance of their plants and creating “chic” images than they are on owning and caring for the plants themselves. This is the first of a series of posts on how social media culture is driving many common houseplant abuses.

First up: Frequent—and unnecessary—repotting

Odds are any Plant Tuber (yes, that is a term now, too) you bring up on YouTube will have their channels flooded with repotting videos. Repotting has become the plant culture’s fireside chat. These videos are often more about personal anecdotes and drama rather than actual repotting and they’re full of inaccurate information.

There are many issues with these videos, but perhaps the most glaring is that they lead people to believe that repotting is necessary, when in fact it rarely is. The most common plant problem I see come through my doors is superfluous and inappropriate repotting. Plants are often potted up in pots several sizes too big, in inappropriate soil, and in pots without drainage.

Many of these Plant Tubers & Grammers flash photos and videos of what they call “root porn” which often shows, you guessed it, roots. What they insinuate with these images is that if one sees roots then it must need to be repotted. Or if there’s roots coming out of the bottom of the pot (image at top), then it must need to be repotted, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Roots seek moisture. Where’s moisture? At the bottom. Because: gravity.

Repotting houseplants often causes stress to the plant. One is changing an environment where they have been comfortably growing for some time to a new environment. Many houseplants have small root systems and don’t need a lot of room. People often think if they give their plants more space, they’ll grow bigger. Or they think if humans don’t like to be in crowded spaces, surely plants don’t either. But that’s exactly how plants live in jungles. They like to be crowded.

Most plants are perfectly happy living in the same pots for years on end. All they need is maybe a little topping of worm castings or some fertilizer to give them a little boost in the active growing season. Plants also tend to do better a little bit rootbound than otherwise, often producing flowers (spathiphyllum, anthurium, and hoya are good examples here) and better foliage Plants would much rather prefer to be left alone. More plants have been killed by helicopter-plant-parenting than they have by neglect.

Next topic: Leca and other “hip” potting mediums 

Stop torturing your houseplants: first in a series originally appeared on GardenRant on August 16, 2021.

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from Gardening https://gardenrant.com/2021/08/stop-torturing-your-houseplants-first-in-a-series.html

Black-eyed Susans and Morning Glories – the Worst Thugs I’ve Introduced to my Garden (Lately)

Here you see the swath of Black-eyed Susans that I once welcomed because they quickly filled in the longest sunny border in my front yard. So cheerful! Such long-lasting blooms!

But this year I noticed they had killed off a lot of my ground cover Sedum (S. takeseminse), threatening even taller perennials and closing in on the walkway. You know how it’s hard to rid your garden of good-looking plants? People pay good money for them, right? But more isn’t necessarily better, and in the case of thuggish plants – native or not – I steel myself to (gleefully) toss them.

It felt good to rescue shorter plants from the fast-moving threat and finally confine the still-cheerful, still long-blooming Susans (as I affectionately refer to them) to a manageable bunch, where I can keep an eye on them.

I removed about two-thirds of the Susans and in their place I planted a dry-garden mix of Russian sage, Agastache, Rose Campion and three full-grown Little Bluestem grasses. I did all this in early August – I know, I know! – but who among us hasn’t broken all the when-to-plant rules in the book? I had my reasons, as we always do.

Where to grow Black-eyed Susans where they won’t bully neighbors? In places like this raised bed filled with old Boxwoods and some Asiatic lilies that tower over the Susans. I adopted this little garden just a year ago and love that it was easy to improve simply by replacing weeds with the Susans, which block out new weeds pretty darn well with their height and good basal foliage. 

Back at my house, where I’m training vines to provide screening, the best-performers so far are the Morning Glories. Especially against the Wedgewood blue house, I can’t resist them! Every morning I inspect them, at first counting the blossoms, before they became too numerous to count. I love the gardening task of tying them up or just twisting them around other stems. No bending down, no lifting, no tools required. Playing with blooming plants that grow quickly is just fun. 

To my eyes, Morning Glories go well with everything in the garden, like the orange reblooms of the Crossvine, but also purple Petunias and pink chairs.

But look at the price I’m paying in weeding for all that glory in the morning! I bet a dozen people warned me about the awe-inspiring reseeding capacity of Morning Glories but I tossed off those warnings as overblown.  After all, I actually like a bit of weeding.

But this is not a bit of weeding! Look how easily the seedlings are poking up through the groundcover Sedum. The entire front garden seems to be covered in Morning Glory seeds, after being grown here just one season. 

So now what? Should I ever let them bloom again? I am so conflicted.

Black-eyed Susans and Morning Glories – the Worst Thugs I’ve Introduced to my Garden (Lately) originally appeared on GardenRant on August 13, 2021.

The post Black-eyed Susans and Morning Glories – the Worst Thugs I’ve Introduced to my Garden (Lately) appeared first on GardenRant.

from Gardening https://gardenrant.com/2021/08/black-eyed-susans-and-morning-glories-garden-thugs.html

Bringing zero-waste to the garden

One of the major cornerstones of the modern environmental movement is that all of us (individuals, businesses, governments) must reduce what we throw away. Natural historian David Attenborough, in his swan song documentary A Life on Our Planet, emphasizes as much when he was asked what we can do, as individuals, for the environment. “Don’t waste anything,” he intoned in that rich, deep English voice we all recognize from his 60-plus years of showing us our planet in all its glory and sadness. Unfortunately, we westerners create, on average, 4.5 pounds of trash per day. When held against the global average of 1.6 pounds, it is clear we have a veritable ton of work to do.

Here are some ways to start bringing a zero-waste game to the garden:

Start from seed: Start your vegetable and flower plants with seeds and reusable seed starting kits and try not to purchase seedlings from the garden center. In this way, you can reduce your use of un-recyclable plastic garden center pots as much as possible. Go a step further and save and reuse household plastic containers (yogurt and sour cream containers work great) for seed starting.

Reduce water usage: There is currently a water ban in my normally water-rich New England town; water woes are everywhere. We Americans are too accustomed to easy, cheap water and it is time for all of us—from west to east—to take water usage more seriously. Avoid sprinklers and hand-water your plants at the roots in the early morning. Drip irrigation systems are a close second to hand-watering. Plant xeriscape: choose plants for your landscape that require less water and maintenance. Take astilbes for example: who doesn’t love the alluring deep-green finely dissected leaves, the airy whites, pink, and red plumes that make you think of fairground cotton candy, and the way they reliably fill a shady spot with a dash of color? I am a fan! But as drought here in the Northeast has become less of the exception and more of the rule, I have found that I can’t keep astilbes alive during drought without turning the hose on them 24/7.  I am done with astilbes in my landscape. Pay attention to light requirements for annuals and perennials (a hosta planted in full sun is going to require more water than its shade-planted counterpart).

Take cuttings: You can take cuttings of many common annual ornamentals and store them in water (remember to change water regularly) or soil over the winter. In this way you save money and avoid creating more plastic waste by recycling plant material. Coleus, fuschia, begonias, mandevilla, oxalis, and ornamental sweet potato are some examples of plants to save and reuse. 

Try regrowing food (shown above): You can regrow store-bought green onions by leaving about an inch of plant at the base, placing ends in a small container of water until the bases sprout new growth and then transplanting into the garden in spring/summer or into a pot placed in a sunny location for the winter.

Turn down extra plastics and encourage your local garden center to do the same. It is always depressing to see what happens when people are asked whether they want some plastic to go with that; the power of suggestion is strong. I have lost count of the number of times I have been behind people in shopping queues who would not have left a store with single-use plastic unless they were asked whether they wanted it. Most recently, at my local garden center, a woman with two medium-size perennials was on her way out the door with just the plants when the checkout clerk asked whether she needed some plastic to protect the back of her vehicle. I could almost hear the wheels start spinning. She happily took the plastic and tucked the ream of it into her cart. Ask yourself: is preventing a small amount of dirt in your car worth the resultant disposal of plastic that will never decompose? Say no to the extra plastic and go one step further by suggesting to your local garden center to only hand it over when specifically asked by the customer!

Are there ways you’ve been reducing waste in your own landscape? Tell us about them in the comments section.

Bringing zero-waste to the garden originally appeared on GardenRant on August 11, 2021.

The post Bringing zero-waste to the garden appeared first on GardenRant.

from Gardening https://gardenrant.com/2021/08/bringing-zero-waste-to-the-garden.html

Is there a High Line(ish) in your town’s future?

There’s no replicating the beautiful Piet Oudolf-designed gardens and sophisticated ambiance of New York’s iconic elevated park, but municipalities throughout the world have been inspired by what such a scenic walkway can bring to the urban space. The short list of other cities that have completed their own elevated parks or are in the process of doing so includes Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Kansas City, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Manchester, England.

Let’s add Buffalo. The Riverline (rendering above), a project by the Western New York Land Conservancy, has been in the discussion and planning stages since early 2017. It intends to reimagine one of Buffalo’s many railway corridors: a mile-and-a half stretch of no-long-in-use DL&W tracks near downtown and the Buffalo River. The fact that it involves obsolete elevated railway tracks is about all that Riverline has in common with High Line. This is largely an industrial area whose industry has declined. It is dominated by the Buffalo River, with some residential neighborhoods, a lot of overgrown friends where nature look over, and, looming in the near distance, the enormous silos that witnessed Buffalo’s heyday as a grain processing and transferal center.

Riverline will provide respite and natural to those who walk it but it also helps conserve its own natural areas. Rather than overlooking adjacent highrises, it traverses back yards, waterside access points for paddling, former factories, funky old pubs, and fields of wildflowers. It will connect these areas by adding children’s playspaces, small plazas (above), viewing areas, gardens (below), lighting, and public art. Some areas will be dominated by nature; others will be more conducive to gathering. There will be soaring bridges and ground level parks. The design partners are W Architecture, Hood Design Studio, and Green Shield Ecology.

There is a lot to say about the Riverline, but I look at it as a tour of Buffalo’s history and a continuation of the embracing of the waterfront that we ignored until recent decades. I particularly love the end of it (shown above), a dramatic river overlook.

Is something like this coming to/in your town? How is it working?

Images courtesy of Western New York Land Conservancy.

Is there a High Line(ish) in your town’s future? originally appeared on GardenRant on August 10, 2021.

The post Is there a High Line(ish) in your town’s future? appeared first on GardenRant.

from Gardening https://gardenrant.com/2021/08/is-there-a-high-lineish-in-your-towns-future.html