Garden Rant

A Fantastic Forest of Plastic Flowers: Art, Garden, or Nuisance?

We've been meaning for some time to rant about this New York Times story  about 88 year-old Elizabeth Sheridan, who has planted--make that arranged--a number of fake Christmas trees in her yard and filled them with fake flowers.  There is also, according to the story, "an inflatable dinosaur, with figurines of animals and various wind chimes."

Now, any woman who puts an inflatable dinosaur in her garden is all right with us, but would you believe it--the neighbors don't agree.  One man, a lawyer who lives alongside her on--wait for it--Puritan Avenue--said,

"It's like a punch in the face every time I look out the window," he said. "Look, they put the brightest colors on the side facing me, just to bug me. I can't go to my death knowing I didn't do something about this."

Anyone who has ever been punched in the face might point out that looking at some fake flowers is not anywhere close to having your nose knocked out of joint, but Mrs. Sheridan, and her 53 year-old son, who lives with her and helps her tend this weird little garden, are not intimidated.  It is this kind of detail that keeps us coming back to the NYT:

Mr. Sheridan wears a tweed blazer, a traditional British flat cap and longish sideburns. He smokes a pipe and calls his mother "Mother." He is rarely seen without her.

"He has been harassing Mother, who is 88, just for displaying colorful flowers in her own yard," Mr. Sheridan said of Mr. Vairo.

We've heard nothing new about Mrs. Sheridan, her angry lawyer neighbor, or her garden of punch-in-the-face plastic flowers, but we hope that she's still out there, shaking things up on Puritan Avenue.

We also hope that there's a 50-someting Peter Sellers type out there somewhere to play the part of  Mr. Sheridan in the movie adaptation of this little drama. Kevin Klein, perhaps?  Of course we'll need Judi Dench for the lead. 

And can Wes Anderson direct?

Where's our GardenRant agent when we need her?  We have a film deal to put together!

Rant on the Road: Sissinghurst

A garden blog, Vita Sackville-West style.

Municipal Weed Inspectors: Lawn and Order

by Guest Blogger Hanna Rhoades at This Garden is Illegal

These days, some people take lawn care WAY too seriously. As in the case of Lance Wamley, who this week, in a fit of lawn care rage, took a baseball bat to Eric Torres, an employee on his landscaping crew. All because Mr. Torres was apparently doing a really crappy job cutting the grass. Don't worry too much about Mr. Torres. He defended himself nobly with the help of a nearby weed whacker and managed to sustain only minor injury during the attack. Mr. Wamley is now charged with felony assault. Which is unfortunate, because I think that Mr. Wamley has a very promising future as the integral part of any municipal government known as a Weed Inspector. Maybe they could make it part of his work release program.

Rant on the Road: Roma!

I just got back from Rome, where we spent a couple of days celebrating my husband's birthday.  (yeah, it was one of those big birthdays, one of those Rome-worthy birthdays.  And by the way, his blog made TypePad's Blog of the Day--check it out.)

I found Rome to be a surprisingly un-garden-ish place.  OK, yes, they have some sort of garden over at the Vatican, but I'm not talking about elaborate public gardens.  I'm talking about greenery around the city and in people's homes.  Most of Rome looked a lot like this picture--heartbreakingly beautiful, but all carved out of stone and softened with plaster, not flowers.

Every now and then, you'll see a windowbox.  And those small bursts of color are so glorious, so joyful, that it seemed like you'd hardly miss not having a garden in this city, as long as you could fill a window like this.

And sometimes there were roof gardens, which also seemed like they'd be a complete delight.  Rome is wonderfully warm in the summer, something I appreciate coming from chilly London and, before that, chilly northern California.  Also, the Italians are very good at lighting their ancient buildings up at night, so the skyline at almost any angle would be perfectly gorgeous at night.  Sitting up on a roof at night, surrounded by roses and lemon trees and scented geraniums--does it get any better than that?  (I did it two nights in a row, and I can tell you that no, it does not.)

But why not more gardens in this perfect climate, this beautiful city?  Is it possible that when the Italians go on vacation, as they all do in August,  closing down almost all their shops for the month, that their gardens go on vacation, too? 

Uppity Gardeners Ostracized, Stolen From

(Editor's Note:  A longer version of this letter ran in the syndicated 'Annie's Mailbox' column on July 17, 2006.  We present it here in condensed form for further discussion and enlightenment.  The response is entirely that of our own lovely and talented Dr. Bleedingheart.)

Dear Dr. Bleedingheart,

For the past two years, my husband and I have been renovating a house in a transitional neighborhood...but small things keep happening to make me feel very discouraged about living here.

My tulips are picked from the stem, and my marigolds have blatantly been dug up from my flowerbeds...We threw a barbeque and no one came. One of my neighbors ventured over to tell me people thought we were 'uppity.'  We know we are the only college graduates on our block, but what is so uppity about mowing your lawn?  Why take your resentment out on my flowers?

Signed,

Michigan Rehabber

No-Mow Grass?

by Guest Blogger Carol of May Dreams Gardens

Does this have all the right ingredients for the next horror movie, “Revenge of the Weeds” or is it just an interesting little piece about a grass that showed up where it wasn’t supposed to be?  I read an item in the morning paper about how a genetically engineered creeping bentgrass has been found growing out in the wild. According to the article, this is the first time this has happened but they don’t believe this will cause an environmental threat.  This particular bentgrass was engineered to be resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, which is the primary ingredient in products like Roundup.

 There is also work being done on a type of grass that never grows but always stays green so that it requires almost no care. What might that do to the lawn care industry?  According to Science Daily, “they have deciphered the signaling pathway for a key class of steroid hormones that regulates growth and development in plants.” The Science Daily article further states:

Manipulation of plant stature has been a longstanding goal in horticulture, agronomy, and forestry. The ability to precisely control plant size would have broad implications for everything from urban forestry to crop and garden plant development. Beyond perpetually short grass, trees could be made more compact for better growth in crowded cities, and berry bushes could be made taller for ease of harvesting.

Genetic engineering is not the plant breeding of Gregor Mendel and other famous geneticists, who crossed species to develop hybrid plants using the normal reproductive capabilities of the plants. Instead, genetic engineering uses processes to manipulate the genes of the plant. When scientists can manipulate genes, they can create plants that have better scent, better disease resistance, higher vitamin content and longer-lasting flowers. It would seem the possibilities are nearly endless, but should they be?

Pioneers in Gardenblogging

It was through Kathy Purdy's Directory of Blogs that I found my way in the online gardening world and became part of it.  And following her debut here as a guest blogger, let's see what's happening over at her place - Cold Climate Gardening - where she's celebrating its 4th anniversary.   In her usual community-building way, she's not just reminiscing about the creation of her own blog; she's interviewing all the other garden bloggers who've been around that long.  And here's what I've learned so far from just day one of an 8-part series.

• M. Sinclair Stevens has a husband!  Which is a little disconcerting when you've assumed M to be male all along.  So unless it's M+boyfriend just back from their Massachusetts wedding, I have to assume she's a she.
• Pam at Rivermantic's first blog, soon after 9/11, was about Alternate Patriotism.  I'd love to have read it back then; I needed it.
• The HTML Writers Guild was once friendly to amateurs and hobbyists.  Today?  Not so much.
• Kathy Purdy's grandmother was a computer programmer.  As amazing as that is, it's right in line with all the interviewees' early connections to geeks, leading to their own geekiness.  And before there was a Blogger or Typepad, you had to be pretty geeky to just get on line.
• When these folks started their blogs in 2002 and earlier, there was a "coolness factor" in being an early adopter, though friends often greeted the news with "blank stares."  Today the reaction (by the blogistically ignorant) is usually "I don't have time to read blogs" with a sneer. What they're thinking is "Ooh, you're like all those self-absorbed preteens writing about their cats".

Now I'll pretend I'm one of Kathy's pioneers and tell you how I got into blogging, and it's not because I'm the least bit geeky (or live with a geek).  I became addicted to political blogs, especially DailyKos and AmericaBlog, during the exciting and ultimately soul-crushing 2004 presidential election.  So when I discovered that I knew a real person with a blog and she told me it was easy, I was inspired and emboldened.  Okay, Kathy, I'm ready for my next question.

Yeah, I'll be checking Cold Climate Gardening all week, not missing a single installment.  This is the Story of Our People. Link.  So thanks again, Kathy.

Newbie Organic Farmer or Strawman?

By Guest Blogger Kathy Purdy of Cold Climate Gardening

The Wall Street Journal is notoriously stingy with its online content, so I'll have to quote you the paragraph in question:

When Ernie Costamagna, a third-generation California farmer, first tried growing organic tomatoes, his weeding bill rose tenfold, to $500 an acre. Shunning his usual chemical fertilizers, he stockpiled smelly chicken manure and bat guano. But when the curly-top virus attacked some of his plants last month, there was little more he could do than watch them succumb.

I'll confess I'm not up on the best methods of commercial organic production, but several questions immediately spring to mind. His weeding bill went up? Well, did he mulch, or did the increased cost go to mulch? A virus attacked his tomato plants? Um, did he ever hear about the problems with monoculture? How many varieties did he plant? What else did he plant besides tomatoes? Anything?

"Beauty Food" - Beautiful and Inspiring

Roger Doinon and his Kitchen Gardeners International are doing some amazing things and why haven't I heard about it before?  I just learned about his work via the garden writers listserv, almost hidden among all the preconference chatter.  His video "Beauty Food" BLEW ME AWAY.  And folks, I'm no pushover for YouTube offerings and I'm not even a foodie! Well, that may finally change coz Roger's very persuasive.

Kitchen Gardeners were recently featured on Maine TV.  Roger tells us "the reporter got one of the stats wrong: the 1% home-grown figure she mentions refers to the situation in the US, not the world, fortunately." 

To watch, go to the Kitchen Gardeners site. Shown first is the Maine TV report and just below it, click the carrot to see "Beauty Food." (Readers, I'll learn how to embed videos directly from YouTube as soon as Amy tells me how.)

And here's another view-worthy item Roger offers: "Eat Real Food," a "one-minute animated short co-produced by an award-winning youth animator and myself that follows 8-year-old Polly as she navigates her way past junk food temptations on her way to something truly satisfying."  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMd53OOaah4

Lastly, did you know that tomorrow is Kitchen Garden Day?

Don't Try This At Home

Spotted at London's Holland Park:  Your basic boxed-in boxwood garden, filled with bedding annuals.  The sort of thing that makes you say, "Oh.  Look at those flowers."

In the background:  large red moundy things that are actually giant planters, probably 8 feet tall and about 4 feet around, filled with begonias.  Talk about high-maintenance.

And here's a funny thing that happened at this park:  I walked all over looking for the gift shop--you know, being a tourist, and a garden-minded one at that, a gift shop seemed in order.  There were maps pointing out the many other features of this park (the orangery, the Japanese garden), but the gift shop was not marked.  Instead, there was a very cryptic sign telling visitors to go past the "old greenhouse" and that the gift shop would be just past a giant plane tree.

I don't know what the hell a plane tree is, and I never did find the gift shop.  I guess if you don't know your trees, they don't want your money.  That's all right; I'm spending it  quickly enough as it is.

Mayor takes on Water-Guzzling Lawn Law

This article in the New York Times is right on topic for us Ranters - the amazing situation that in 2006 the powers that be in Salt Lake City still require that front yards be completely covered with short, green grass.  But no less a challenger than its current mayor has switched to drought-tolerant plants - it's the DESERT, for Chrissakes - and seen a 65 percent drop in his water bill.  He's also learned something we could have told him - that it "takes a lot of work to keep it healthy and attractive."  So that sound you hear is the bubble of no-maintenance gardening being popped, once again. Some cities have adopted reality-based policies, I was glad to read, and so in Phoenix cactus has become the "decoration of choice."

 

John Woo's Gardening Tips

What if John Woo, director of Mission Impossible II, had a gardening show?

A Horticultural Don't-Miss: The Chelsea Physic Garden

Paid a visit to the Chelsea Physic Garden, a London garden dating back to 1673.  It was founded by apothecaries who needed access to medicinal plants for research and to create medicines.  Plant explorers like Joseph Banks were known to drop by when they were in town and plunk a few of their discoveries in the ground.  Today it continues its mission as an educational and research facility. 

This is a photo of what they call the "order beds"--beds in which plants are grouped according to the taxonomic order to which they belong.  It is here, for instance,that you'll see salvia, lavender,mint, and phlomis in one bed together, and reseda, cabbages, and papayas in another.  You can't learn taxonomy from a chart, and you can't learn botany from a book.  But you can learn both in this fascinating garden.

I was also surprised by how seedy the garden looked in late summer.  It was fine by me; a garden's supposed to be a little past its prime this time of year.  But they deliberately don't tidy up:  they let every plant go to seed so they can save seed for their collection.  (Oh, and in addition to the order beds, the garden features plants that are useful to humans in every way:  as food, as medicine, as dyes, and so  on, all arranged by function rather than aesthetics.)

The free tours are well worth it:  no matter which tour guide you get, he or she is likely to be very funny in a very dry, British, horticulturalish sort of way.  Our guide, pointing out an indigo bush in the order beds, said, "We had another one in the dye bed, but it died.  But that's gardening, isn't it?"

Indeed.  Also spotted:  Massive compost bins with holes in them like this:

and  if you put your hands inside, they'd be in heavy rubber gloves, like this:   Now, what is this about?  Any ideas? Really, I'd like to know.  It couldn't possibly be for turning the compost, because you'd only be able to reach a foot or two of the stuff.  I'm mystified, and by the time I noticed it, there was no one around to ask.

Swiss Family Corbusier

Check out this amazing interview with an artist named Richard Reames whose materials are living trees.  Apparently, there are a small group of such "arborsculptors" around the world, one of whose major goals is to create a living house.  Listen to what Reames has to say about it...

I believe that if enough people put their minds to using living trees, we can learn to grow houses. I believe that if we put our minds to it, like going to the moon, there's no reason we couldn't all be living in houses where the walls and ceilings are composed of living tree material and there are leaves coming out of the roof. We could accomplish this in one generation. We'd build doorways and windows that the trees would grow around, and also plumbing and electrical conduits. The trees would just swallow all the pipes. We're going to call this "arbortecture."

Can you imagine anything lovelier than arbortecture?  Sign me up, and I don't care if caterpillars rain down on me in my bed.

Coreopsis Bondage

So here I am in London, where, thanks to the miracles of the Internet and a pretty darn good wi-fi connection, I'll be able to blog from time to time.  Anyway, I was walking through Kensington Garden today and admiring these very upright and not-at-all-floppy coreopsis.

I look closer and see that, in fact, these coreopsis are tied and trussed to  within an inch of their life.  Little bamboo stakes, bits of twine..can this possibly be worth the effort?

Tenets of Garden Photography

I bet you think I'm going to recite the tenets of garden photography for you.  No such luck.  What I'm offering instead is this intriguing article about travel photography - and here I'm veering perilously close to off-topic - but let's see how they translate to our world.

The first advice is to not cut off people's feet, which makes me wonder: is there a plant part that, if cut off, spoils the photo?  And the admonition to avoid telephone poles coming out of your subject applies equally well to plant subjects as to human.  But really, there's lots more useful stuff here, like the fact that we usually see the subject, not the whole frame, and we should always "check the borders."  And my favorite - a discussion of qualities of light that goes beyond the avoid-harsh-sun advice we see everywhere to describe "sweet light" and suggest that flash be only during the day, never at night.  I just love that counterintuitive stuff!!

Specific to travel, photographers are reminded to catch these elements: people, scenics, details, food, movement, action, and nightlife.  So what do you suppose the must-shoot elements would be in gardening photography?  Maybe entrances, whole borders, close-ups, small plant combinations, animals, and such hardscape as seating, stone, wood, and statuary.  Sandy and Judith, I want to hear from you guys especially.

[Photo of "begging boobies" taken in the Galapagos Islands by my friend Julie Miller.  The trip was a digital photography adventure led by photographer/teacher Eliot Cohen.  Check out the "Personal" part of his portfolio, especially the totally cool panos.  Oh, hell, while I'm handing out links here's one to the magazine Julie edits - Science News.  Its coverage of the hot-button issue of invasive plants has been excellent.]

Garden Provocatuer Tony Avent Weighs In

Just to show we're not the only ones following the Heronswood closing, the newest Plant Delights catalogue has just come out and its cover - always a showcase for outrageous horticultural commentary - highlights the event with this cartoon entitled "The Day the Gardeners Cried." Click this one to enlarge.

Immediately someone alerted the Garden Writers Listserv to the cartoon and started quite a little dust-up with this thought: "About Plant Delights catalog cover, I do think the previous owners should be right up there riding the rig with George Ball. I suspect that there are many stories of hort-greed in our circumscribed worlds with more than enough guilt to go around."  Whoa, blaming Dan Hinkley?

A lively discussion followed, with most contributors defending Heronswood's owners and others criticizing the mischievous Tony Avent of Plant Delights, asserting that with this cover he'd "gone too far." Most commenters defended his right to be outrageous - Lord knows we here at the Rant agree - and here's my favorite retort to the would-be Tony-muzzler:

Isn't it healthy and entertaining when people shake things up now and then?  We loved the Heronswood catalog because instead of dry plant descriptions Dan included his opinions, side remarks, and snippets of his life.  Avent can be counted on to deliver his never-to-be-humble opinions along with the flora... I say it's all for the better, and makes for a richer world.  C.L. Fornari of www.gardenlady.com

Sticker Shock at Heronswood

We begin with this nice announcement on Heronswood's website from George Ball of Burpee, the company that bought and subsequently shut down the Pacific Northwest specialty nursery.  Ball describes his plans to devote a horticulturalist to developing new, hardier strains from Heronswood's collection, and to host about five open house events at its Pennsylvania location (where he reports that  "The Happiness Garden" is already underway.  We hope "The Moody and Out-of-Sorts Garden" is soon to follow, along with the "Can't Turn On the News Without Wanting To Throw Something Garden" and the "God, I Need a Drink Garden."  Please post your nominations for future Burpee theme gardens based on familiar emotions.)

Now we move on to a report in the Seattle P-I about attempts by local groups to buy Heronswood's Pacific Northwest garden.  In light of Mr. Ball's comments as reported in the New York Times (and re-reported here), when he said "I would like to find some kind of buyer who would keep it open to the public," you'd expect a reasonable price, right?  Well, er....the P-I reports that the business and property was sold to Burpee for $4 mil six years ago, and now they're looking to get $11 mil for it.  Hardly a price a community group could raise, especially given that local botanical gardens are already struggling to keep their own doors open.

Society for the Abolition of Donuts

Walking around a certain (unnamed) neighborhood got me thinking about one of my favorite on-line garden writers, Don Engebretson, the Renegade Gardener of Minnesota.  That's because on more than one occasion he's ranted about what he calls donuts - shown in these examples from his site - and now he's got me noticing them everywhere. So if Don wants to start a society against 'em, I'm signing up.

When I first went to his site Don got my attention right away with his "10 Tenets of Renegade Gardening," which is mix of sentiments that I find, let's say, interesting.  He first declares that "Gardening  should be challenging, relaxing and fun," which made me tired just reading. Then he supports buying local, knowing Latin, and being irreverent, all terrific ideas.  So I'm pretty much on board until almost the end, when he opines that there's "nothing wrong with cutting down a tree on your property." Boy, I'd love to hear him go at it with the treehugger forces here in the treehugging capital of the Eastern U.S. on that one.  Me, I'm conflicted - it's the old environmental protection/libertarian dilemma (with the libertarian sphere of my brain shriveling in defeat at the worsening news for the planet.)

Kaboodling Tomatoes

Kaboodle is a website that lets you catalog and display your collections.   They've partnered with eBay, which allows users to buy and sell their stuff AND display it on Kaboodle.  So you can see how this might be useful for someone who has a collection of coins, stamps, books, or--tomatoes?

Yeah, tomatoes.  This is too cool.  There's also a mint collection, both posted by a "gardenless gardener" in the UK.

We're seriously considering posting our worm collection.