Garden Rant

Lawns and unmetered water in the arid West? On the way out

The city council of Fresno, California is considering two water-saving moves that make lots of sense - paying homeowners to remove lawns and banning water-consuming landscaping in new construction.

Fresno has already changed its silly practice of charging residents a flat rate for water no matter how much they use, though the switch won't be made til 2013.  The Fresno Bee notes that "Fresno residents use an average of 60 gallons of water a day more than their neighbors in Clovis, where homes are metered."  Now there's an example of market forces working.

Source: Fresno Bee.  Photo by Gapplewagen via Flickr.

The great wood chip debate goes on

My local gardening Yahoo group is debating the often-repeated warning that "wood chips will tie up all the nitrogen in the soil and will lead to an irreversible manganese build-up," with two professional gardeners agreeing and declaring they use it on paths only.  A third then added, "If used near plants, you have to add nitrogen to compensate...Heard this years ago from Dr. Gouin, U. of Maryland."

Now locally, this Dr. Gouin is considered quite the horticultural sage, but from across the continent comes advice from another Ph.D.-packing expert with an entirely different take on this subject.  Linda Chalker-Scott, a professor at Washington State University, writes in "Arborist wood chips mulches - landscape boon or bane?" that the notion that wood chips will lead to soil nitrogen depletion is wrong.  She notes that a thin zone of nitrogen loss exists where the chips touch the soil, but that for woody plants with subsurface roots, there is no nutrient loss. 

Now this IS confusing because I'm a big fan of Linda Chalker-Scott myself, as is sustainable gardening author and frequent Rant commenter Ginny Stibolt.  But then Washington Gardener editor Kathy Jentz wrote:

I've just returned from garden touring in Portland OR and speaking with nurseries there about their cultivation techniques.  The mulch in the Pacific Northwest is all pine bark -- that is what they have in abundant supply -- whereas our cheap/free mulches here are hardwood mulches.  So the real question is what "mulch" Linda Chalker-Scott at Washington State University was testing and working with.  I'm guessing she was using the pinebark one that is a staple of the Pacific Northwest and very probably did not consider that we in the Mid-Atlantic (the OTHER Washington :-) might not be using the same one.

Thanks, Kathy, for offering what might just be the explanation for these conflicting positions.  Now let's throw it open to GardenRant readers to weigh in and either clinch the question once and for all - or muddy it up even more. 

Oh, and how about that "irreversible manganese build-up"?  Do wood chips really do that and if they do, is it as dire as it sounds?

Photo by Tale Kinker via Flickr - because we just don't have enough cats on this here gardening blog.

Garden Coaching 101 with Sue Goetz

A highlight of the Garden Writers Shinding in Portland was the thorough and inspiring talk by Sue Goetz about garden coaching.  My fast notes, embellished with Sue's follow-up help via email, are compiled over on our Garden Coaching Blog.  Sue also kindly loaned me the cool before-and-after photos of one client's garden.

The Garden Writers Discussion Board

In one week, we signed up 100 members.  If you're a garden writer and you want to talk shop, go here to find out how.

Nothing Can Kill a Show Like Too Much Exposition

Little Sally learned about exposition in Urinetown, and I wonder if garden writers need to learn about it, too.

And in case you're wondering--I got going on this rant before I saw Elizabeth's posts about newspaper writing. But great minds think alike, and here I go, taking on the writing in big, hardcover, coffee-table garden books.

I have far too many of these big, pretty books about gardening.  Stacks of them. Loads of them.  All sent to me for free by publishers who want a blurb or a review.

Most of them have titles that suggest a new philosophy of gardening.  "The New Philosophy of Gardening," they might be called.  Or, "Gardening:  A New Philosophy for a New Century."   
Or, "Gardening in Gardens With Plants:  A New Approach." Something like that.

And these books are, for the most part, filled with gorgeous photographs of lovely gardens.  I keep them around because they are so pretty.  I love to look at pretty pictures of gardens, and I actually do learn a lot from those photos.

But the titles of these books imply that there are some ideas in the text too, and that I should actually read all those little black squiggles on the white background in between the photos in order to learn about those ideas.  So the other day I decided that I would try.  The results were not good.  Here are some examples of what I found, selected at random from three different books from three different authors & publishers:

Caring for a mixed garden is a bit more complex than maintaining an unmixed planting of annuals.  That's because the mixed bed or border isn't planted all at once and the individual plants that it contains will require different sorts of care.

and:

Centaurea pulcherrima is good for the border edge.  Above finely cut grey-green leaves stand stems 18-24 in carrying wide cornflower-shaped flowers.  From silvery-buff buds clothed in feather-like bracts they finally open very beautiful flowers 3-4 in across; a rim of soft mauve tubular flowers with deeply cut petals surround the white central boss containing stigmas and stamens.

and:

Planting possibilities need to be explored simultaneously with other requirements of the garden.  In this way plants inform and resolve the goals of the design; at the same time they are ensured fair treatment and consideration for their individual needs and potential.

So what's wrong with this text?  Nothing, in small doses like this.  But how long is this sort of thing really going to hold your attention?  More after the jump.

(photo--Lim Jerry - Fotolia.com)

Pragmatism or idealism: a debate from across the Atlantic

Here’s an interesting if minor controversy going on in the world of U.K. gardening show Gardener’s World. While the previous presenter Monty Don was a resolute advocate of organic practices (assuming a definition of “organic” most of us can go along with), new host Toby Buckland, who has a more traditional background in horticulture than Don, has mentioned using both pesticides and peat as acceptable strategies, commenting that it’s better to be an “inorganic success than an organic failure.”

Buckland has frankly said he wants to help the industry that brought him success, going so far as to state, “There is a theory in gardening that you should only visit small nurseries and grow as much as you can from seed,'' as he urges gardeners to buy plants and learn to embrace garden centers.

Well, I’ve got no dog in this fight, as I can’t watch the program, but I can understand both sides of it. I don’t have much success with seeds, usually buy plants, and shop at both family-owned nurseries and—less often—big boxes. (I think there may be a starker divide between local nurseries and the big centers here than there is there.) If I have a really bad problem with a houseplant that I don’t want to throw away, I’ll spray something on it (very rarely).

But if I garden pragmatically, I admire the type of idealistic, romantic view of gardening advocated by Don and others. When I read about gardening or watch something about gardening, I’d prefer to be inspired. The matter-of-fact stuff I can get from other sources, or look up as needed.

Interestingly, GW has gone from 4 million viewers to 2 million in recent years, and it’s noted that in advocating smarter use of chemicals and easier methods than seed-starting, Buckland is trying to cast a wider net.

And the winners are ...

Check out the Blotanical awards results. Congratulations to Susan, whose Sustainable Gardening Blog won for best organic. Garden Rant won for best design, and some friends have won multiple awards, including Carol/May Dreams, Pam/Digging, and Frances/Faire Gardens.

We all know managing these award projects is a lot of work, so MAJOR kudos to Stuart, the creator of Blotanical, for pulling it off.

Inner city farming, Buffalo-style

No, this is not some rural outskirt in the Midwest. This picture was taken in the heart of urban Buffalo, about 6 blocks or so from my house, on a street of densely-packed Victorian structures.

My friend and writing colleague Joe George has kindly allowed me to use a photo he took of his son Isaac standing amid his front yard corn crop, just before remnants of the coincidentally-named Ike blew it all down. Joe is a chef and writer whose blog City Simplicity talks about sustainable urban living as well as a lot of other stuff (why Gordon Ramsay is a dangerous jerk, how to make kim chi, Buffalo architecture, among other topics). He writes for magazines as well, including mine, and describes his experiences with vegetable gardening in typical self-deprecating fashion here. I will be checking in on his blog regularly, though I wish he’d post more.

Amazingly, no one on his block has complained about this 9-foot high growth in front of the small house, though I suppose there’s no way you could cite him for “high weeds,” which is the common verbiage. It’s obviously a useful crop. Joe did mention that he knows a few people in Buffalo who have gotten in trouble for front yard vegetable growing; he is a fan of the food not lawns movement. You don’t see a lot of front yards like this in Buffalo—front yard vegetables are of course never discussed by any of our garden columnists—but at least it seems to be catching on in a small way.

We have a pretty cool website for our neighborhood, and I looked up Joe’s house on it. I was delighted to see there were pictures of the house in 1885 and 2007 (thought you’d like to see it without corn). The style is called Worker’s Cottage.

The 2007 image was taken by Michael Mulley. I don't know who took the 1885 image; hope he doesn't sue me.

The Portland Garden of Lucy Hardiman

Of all the eye-popping private gardens I saw in Portland, Lucy Hardiman's was my fave.  No surprise, what with her being a nationally known garden designer, writer and lecturer (according to her bio - scroll down).  More photos below the fold.

The Unofficial GWA Meet-up Awards

The official awards, handed out on the last night of the Garden Writers Symposium in Portland, proved quite the crowd-pleasers and honored lots of good work over the past year in both writing and photography.  But how about outstanding performances AT the conference itself?  Time for the (Unofficial) GWA Meet-up Awards:

• Best Swag.  Lots of good stuff in this category, including a Tete-a-Tete t-shirt, lots of CDs of, we can only assume, terrific photographs of plants, and the colorful boas that got us all vamping and swigging and ready to party.  But what got the most buzz and childlike excitement were the Fiskars tools with our names individually engraved.  See, they're super-useful, worth a few bucks, and personalized.  Great appeal to the gardener AND the ego in us all.
• Weirdest Swag.  We expect brochures and photo CDs, but custom-printed microwave popcorn bags and Frisbees?  No lie.
• Most Lovable Vendors.  You don't even have to be an old family friend of the Heaths (Nags Head, NC, circa 1965) to be a fan of Brent & Becky' and their bulbs.  But the inspiration for this award was seeing them strolling around a rose garden in Portland all by themselves for a few precious moments - hand in hand.  All together now - awwwww. 

YOUR NOMINEES AND CATEGORIES?
Please chime in with your own nominees in these categories or even better, more categories and winners.  Tell us in a comment or via a link to your own blog post about the Unofficial GWA Awards.  How about Most Fun (or Outrageous) Attendee? Plenty of competition there.

Okay, more photos of a certain off-tour garden in Portland

We interrupt this Chicken Blog for a post or two about... gardening.

Since you asked for more photos of Ketzel Levine's garden, here they are.  You guys are SO demanding!  But it's a tiny urban garden, ya know, so below the jump you'll find just 3 more.  Then stay tuned coz LOTS of other Portland garden photos are on their way. 

Hen FAQ

If you've read the post below, it should be clear that I am far from a chicken expert. But I can answer some of the concerns of potential chicken-people.

Q: Do I have to build a chicken run?

A: In my experience, chickens are much happier roaming free. Clearly, they eat a much more natural diet that way, so I'd imagine that ranging is good for their health and the nutrient contents of the eggs, too. Of course, if you live in a city or suburb, it's nice if the yard is fenced so they don't wander into the neighbor's place and poop on their chic outdoor fabrics. However, if I lived in the country, I wouldn't even worry about it. They're domestic birds. They want to be near their coop and near the people who toss them treats.

I have friends who've had great luck with chicken tractors, which are portable, bottomless cages that you move to a different patch of yard every day, allowing the chickens to sup on grass and grubs while remaining contained. I haven't done this because it amuses me to have chickens running around--and because we go away on the weekends a lot and I don't want to leave my chickens trapped in something so low to the ground.

Q: If I get chickens, will I never be able to go out to dinner again? Do I have to be home every night to shut them in?

A: Chickens are amazingly predictable. Right at sundown, they will head towards their coop and bed down for the night. Since my friend Rick, the genius, made me a fly-in coop with an opening three feet off the ground, I don't worry about predators getting in. In fact, I've left my chickens overnight without a qualm. Of course, time will tell whether this is truly smart of me or just foolhardy.

Q: Is it a lot of work to take care of them?

A: In a word, no. They are the easiest pets we have, and I'm including the goldfish. I have a hanging feeder that holds a week's worth of food high and dry in the coop and a galvanized waterer that refills itself automatically. I just toss out the dirty water in the bottom of the pan every day and let it fill itself up with clean water. I only take the waterer apart for a good hosing out twice a week or so. I rake out the coop every two weeks and compost the straw or wood shavings I use as bedding. I think you could get away with doing this much less frequently, but in the dead of winter, I'm glad to have an excuse to dig.

Q: Do they really lay eggs?

A: Pick a good laying breed according to Henderson's Chicken Chart, and you will get an egg a day per hen, with that tapering off during the low-light months. Hens have to be the most efficient, most cost-effective source of high-quality protein in the world.

Q: What about winter?

A: If you live in a cold climate, as I do, you'll have to get one of the breeds described as hardy in Henderson's chart. When I first had chickens, I worried that they would freeze to death on winter nights and screwed heat-generating bulbs into the roof of their coop. This freaked the chickens out so completely that I soon abandoned the idea. I just make sure that they have lots of straw for insulation and let them huddle together on their perch for warmth. Think March of the Penguins. The most important thing is keeping their water from turning into a block of undrinkable ice, something I accomplish with a low-tech stand for their waterer that holds a single light bulb.

Return of the Hens

Amy's chicken-themed posts yesterday prodded me to fess up concerning certain events of late. Two weeks ago, I got three five month old hens from my friend Rick and installed them in my city backyard. I let Rick raise them to this point because while adult chickens are amazingly self-sufficient, little chicks thrust into a yard with three cats are not.

Everything seems to be working well. These hens are already huge, they are scaring the living daylights out of the cats and being mostly ignored by the dog and the neighbors, except for the ones with little kids, who bring them over for chicken-petting parties.

If I you detect something not entirely madly enthusiastic in my tone, it's only that I'm feeling a little measured about chicken-rearing since my previous experiment with it was so disastrous. Prepare yourself for a long and shaggy story.

Three years ago, I got 12 hens at a similar age and at the same time of year, half Red Sexlinks and half Black Australorps. Rick built me a nice fly-in coop in my garage and a 10 foot by 10 foot chicken run outside.

I soon discovered that British animator Nick Park was right about chickens. His movie Chicken Run, a parody of the 1963 Steve McQueen prison break classic The Great Escape, describes them perfectly: Chickens just want to be free. In confinement, the Red Sexlinks began attacking the Black Australorps viciously, not only pulling out their feathers, but ripping slices of sashimi from their backs.

So I gave away the Black Australorps and allowed the six Red Sexlinks to range my city backyard.

The Last Chicken News of the Day

And finally--the news item that inspired it all.  I live in such a small town that when a guy starts hanging out downtown with his pet chicken, the local paper sends a reporter over to cover it.  You can read the story here.  I've met the chicken in question, and she's a sweet, sociable thing, as most Ameracaunas (or Americanas) seem to be.  She's really taken to life in Old Town--she hangs out at the coffee shop with him, picking up crumbs and globs of yogurt.  And she's a great conversation-starter.  Her owner says:  “It’s completely changed my life. Now I’m a social person and it’s all because of the chicken. It’s the strangest thing.”

The bird is only a few months old, so we'll see what happens when she starts laying eggs.  Most hens like routine when it comes to egg-laying; she's not likely to hop up on his lap and do the deed wherever they happen to be.  Then again, stranger things have happened.

Check this local blog for some charming photos of man and hen strolling around Eureka.

A Business Every Community Needs: Rentachook

What new businesses will spring up now that we're all planting vegetable gardens and raising backyard chickens?  We've already seen garden services that will plant, maintain, and harvest your vegetable garden for you--so how about a backyard chicken service?

Rentachook is based in Sydney, Australia, but the idea is so good that I hope it spreads to the US. They will sell you a ready-made chicken coop and chickens, but they will also let you RENT some hens for six weeks to see how you like it.  If it doesn't work out for you, just send the whole thing back. They'll even send them over to a school for a little educational time with the kids.

Another useful service any city-chicken company should offer:  a home for aged or unwanted hens.  Sometimes, for whatever reason, people just can't keep their chickens. Maybe they move and the new place doesn't have a chicken-friendly backyard.  Maybe their flock has dwindled to one elderly hen who is constantly tormented by the family dog.  For whatever reason, sometimes people have to part with a hen.  And taking it to the animal shelter's no good--who's going to adopt an old hen? 

But sending it off to a bucolic, free-range, happy little farm where it can scratch in the dirt with other hens?  Awesome.  I once knew a guy who offered this service:  if you bought a chicken from him, you forever had the option of bringing it back and turning it loose in his own flock.  Chickens can live a long time--ten years or more--and having this option takes the pressure off.

Any chicken coaches, backyard chicken suppliers, or other poultry-friendly businesses springing up out there in response to the interest in backyard hens?  Post a comment and let us know about it.

Ft. Collins Says Yes to Chickens, and Other Chicken News

first, this, in case you didn't see it:  a flock of free-range chickens in Harlem. Lends credence to the idea that I could, actually, live in Manhattan and have a garden and chickens. Just need somebody to pay for it, that's all.

And now:

A big thumbs-up to Ft. Collins, CO, for deciding to allow backyard hens.  The rules:  Six hens max, no roosters, and you can't slaughter them.  Fair enough. 

Salt Lake City is still thinking about it.

A Vermont couple actually found the police at their door about their illegal chickens, but they're all legit now.

Ann Arbor will let you have four hens, but you've got to do some paperwork first, including getting a consent form from the neighbors. 

And in Oregon, a woman fights to keep her chickens in spite of zoning laws that make it hard to have backyard hens and still comply with the required buffer zones. You can see pictures of her very charming coop on her blog here.

Chicken Day: Ira Glass Is Won Over

Here for your entertainment today are a variety of chicken-themed posts.  We begin with one of my favorites, an interview on Letterman with Ira Glass about his new-found love of poultry.

Blotanists, we'd love your support!

Stuart, the hard-working Aussie wizard behind Blotanical.com, has done it again with his exhaustive Blotanical Awards.  Of course we like them even more because of 3 finalist nods in particular:

• For Best Blog Name, Elizabeth's Gardening While Intoxicated.  Honestly, how could that name NOT win?
• For Best Organic Gardening Blog, my own Sustainable Gardening Blog.
• And for Best Design, this very blog, GardenRant.  We thank you and are happy to plug the folks who created our header, House of Tears Design in Kansas City.  Found via Craig's List and eLance and worth every penny of their reasonable fee.

Click here to vote - and note there are only THREE DAYS LEFT til voting is closed.  If you're not already signed up, it's easy enough to do.  You might then just stick around and join the fun.

Ok. I was wrong. And here's a free book to make up for it.

What was I thinking, picking on dumb, generic gardening advice for the colder zones only? There’s plenty of boring, meaningless fall gardening advice across all the zones, heck, even across oceans.

A few choice bits:

From North Carolina— Clean out your vegetable garden of overgrown and harvested plants; clean out the weeds while you're at it.
I hate to think of all the weeds and leftover tomato vines that would be choking the gardens of NC if that hadn’t been printed.

From Australia: Yates has just released its new Dynamic Lifter Advanced for Fruit and Citrus, and this excellent product will ensure your trees produce both healthy growth and abundant crops.
I agree. Why make them buy an ad? Push commercial products whenever you can, and don’t bother to include any evidence for the claims.

From Nevada: Petunias are very showy annuals and so simple to grow.
That’s right. And in Nevada, they know showy.

From Kentucky [about Knock Out roses]: These roses grow well anywhere in the country—from the wintry landscape of Minnesota to the sultry shores of Florida—and come in seven colors and bloom styles to suit every garden and landscaping need.
Why write when you can just copy and paste the press release? Works for me.

There. I know I feel better.

Now, what's the silliest or most unnecessary garden advice you've ever read or heard? Let me know in comments and the winner will receive a copy of The Truth About Organic Gardening, by a writer whose advice I always heed: Jeff Gillman.

OK, Craig wins the book: "annuals—not just for pots anymore" indeed. I am also sending Ginny a special surprise gift for alerting us to that harmful Florida practice.

And I further assure you all that I will continue to (occasionally) call out bad writing, boring content, or advertising masquerading as editorial when I see it in the garden writing world. It's not about withholding knowledge at all. It is about giving that information in an entertaining manner, inspiring gardeners, and not being afraid of controversy. It's about passion. What I see in food writing all the time, I'd also like to see in garden writing.

How I’ve forgotten everything I learned about bulbs

These images from last spring provide motivation for spending vast sums.

Over the past ten years of gardening with spring-blooming bulbs, I now realize that I buy completely differently and plant completely differently than when I started.

Once I used “bulb-planting tools.” After a couple seasons of struggling with big plugs of dirt stuck in metal tubes, I realized that a small spade for groups of small bulbs and a big spade for groups of large bulbs would do the job faster and better.

Once I bought Darwin hybrid tulips and hoped they would come back for a few years. Now I buy a different gorgeous combination of two single lates each year, treating them as annuals, and planting them in tightly packed clumps of 50.

Once I skipped over the species tulips in the catalogs, thinking them too insignificant to make much of an impact. Now I plant different species every year; they provide charming groups of small blooms and as for their foliage, insignificance turns out to be a good thing. I’ve also learned to value other dainty cultivars, like erythronium and galanthus.

Once I planted big groups of showy daffodil hybrids; after a season or so of dealing with never-ending foliage that looked awful well into summer (with spotty return), I got rid of most, left a few here and there, and went back to admiring roadside daffodils planted by county volunteers.

Finally, I’ve learned that one of the best ways for a zone 5 gardener to get through the winter is to force lots and lots of hyacinths (which don’t work that well in the garden anyway).

I love bulbs because, unlike most other plants, their promise is almost always fulfilled by the results—at least once. But there is much more to bulbs than the instructions on the bags or the generic advice in the garden columns. In ten years I’ve figured out some of it, but I'm hoping to unlearn much more. Unlearning is more fun.