Garden Rant

Leaf Magazine Dazzles

If you're not one of the 80,000 people already reading Leaf Magazine (after just one issue) then why the hell not?  It's a free e-magazine, available right here.  The new Spring 2012 issue, at 142 pages, is gorgeous and inspiring, full of the kind of garden design photography and writing I've been pining for all my life.  Garden Design Magazine, at $22 per year and catering to the wealthy SoCal reader, can't hold a candle to Leaf, the work of East Coast garden designers Susan Cohan and Rochelle Greayer.  They recruit contributors from across the U.S., though, and internationally.

Honestly, I've only scrolled through the new issue for its eye candy, looking for familiar names (Ken Druse, Buffalo's Jim Charlier) but I'm going back for more.   Behind the scenes at the Philly Flower Show, for example.  And I'm in the midst of planning my new garden, so I might get ideas from the featured garden in London, a tiny but inspired one, or the artist's garden in Los Angeles.

A personal favorite bit I noticed right away is that in marked contrast to the aforementioned (and no longer subscribed to by yours truly) Garden Design, Leaf's round-up of garden benches includes the super-affordable $90 version at Ikea.  Now we're talking.

Kudos and congratulations to Susan, Rochelle and their team.  And thanks from this gardener (and design aspirant/appreciator) for the most exciting gardening publication she's ever laid eyes on.

One complaint, though - I don't have an iPad, which is clearly the device for reading Leaf while in the garden.  Gotta do something about that.

Kudos to GrowWrite! and Michael Nolan

Have you seen the first issue of GrowWrite!?  It's the online magazine for garden communicators that hit the web recently to much acclaim and kudos for its editor, Michael Nolan.  He'd previously served as editor of Garden Writers Today and when that was shuttered by its publisher (Cool Springs Press) a friend asked Michael, "You're not done with this, right?"  He agreed and proceeded to make GrowWrite! happen.

I was so impressed with the premiere issue, I had to find out more about it.  A phone call with Michael later, I can report that it's his first magazine project, will be published monthly, and that the goal is to pay all its contributors (actual pay, not the free ads the first contributors were paid with).  So, advertising is being pursued - with the lure of a highly targeted audience and a multiplying impact - so that this magazine can practice the professional treatment of garden communicators that it advocates.

I also learned that in future issues, GrowWrite! will cover food, too.  There's more and more cross-over between food and garden writing, so why not include that (huge) audience, too?

Another professional practice Michael is employing is including disclaimers that describe the exact nature of any financial connection the magazine may have with a product that's mentioned, including sales commissions on purchases readers make by clicking through (popular "affiliate agreements").  There's been some acrimony among gardenbloggers about money issues and I love Michael's approach - following the law by disclosing (something he sees plenty of blogs not doing) but DO make a buck where it's appropriate.  No shame in needing to make a living!  Again, I see this as a model for how other communicators might handle this sticky wicket.

Something else I particularly like about the first issue is this page honoring people in our world who died in the last year.  It'll be a regular feature.

What you may not know about Michael 

• When he calls himself an urban gardener, that's no stretch.  He's gardened in cities all over the U.S. (NYC, Atlanta, Philly, etc) first as a child in a constantly relocating family and later as a constantly relocated member of the Air Force.  (Who knew?)
• How can he look so young and claim to have been gardening for over 30 years?  Because he started gardening at the age of five and is now all of 39 (though complaints of arthritis and gray hair have already begun.  Really!)
• He's spent time in a Buddhist monastery and today calls himself a "sitting Buddhist".  What type?  Loosely Tibetan.  On Facebook he lists his religion as "compassion".  And on the garden writers Facebook group he started the popular meme of announcing good news every Friday.
• He's ghost-written about not just gardening but the environment more broadly, and also food.  And that's all he would tell me about that.
• His favorite T-shirt says 'Composters make shit grow' but I couldn't get him to send me a photo of him wearing it for this post.  Michael, it's not too late! Here it is!
• He's always been bothered by the stigma that gardening is just for women, until he moved not long ago to Alabama.  Turns out, gardening crosses the gender divide there in that agriculture-dominated region.  For men living in other parts of the country his message is "Chicks dig gardeners," and who among us can argue with that?

Message to Rant Readers

Contact Michael if you'd like to contribute, or have a topic you'd like the magazine to cover.  Also send along suggestions for the calendar of food- and garden-related events that will start in the next issue.  Here's the website for his writing, speaking and graphic design work, which includes contact info for him.

Beautiful No-Mow Yards is just what American gardeners need. And you can win it right here

In the last year or so, we're hearing that there are better uses for our land than turfgrass, that unless it's needed for sport or play, you can save on resources and probably your labor, too, by switching to an array of alternatives - meadows, vegetable gardens, native grasse, and so on. 

All good!  Well, mostly good - because that well-intentioned advice isn't easy to actually implement, without a LOT more information.  Which groundcovers? Which native grasses - and native to where, anyway?  How much do the alternatives cost, can they be walked on, and how much work does it really take to maintain them?

My mixed reviews of much of the lawn-free cheering has me wildly cheering the thoroughly researched and honestly reported definitive book about reducing or eliminating lawns by Evelyn Hadden.  Beautiful No-Mow Yards contains exactly the kind of info that's needed, and its gorgeous photographs (most by Evelyn and the wonderful Saxon Holt, too) are deeply inspirational to anyone looking to make their yards more interesting, more beautiful, and more wildlife-friendly.

Meet Evelyn

Readers of GardenRant are no strangers to this subject (see the many stories in our Lawn Reform category), but may not be familiar with the author.  Well, Evelyn is THE original lawn reformer, having written Shrink Your Lawn and created the Less Lawn website back in 2001.  She's a pioneer whose cause has caught on.

What's in Beautiful No-Mow Yards

• Photos and stories about gardens sunny and shady, flat and hilly, a "shockingly simple meadow garden", a "patio for pennies", rain gardens, edibles, ponds, terraces, hellstrips and more.
• "Smarter lawns" using fine fescue mixes, carexes, and other low-resource grass types, including where each type works best and what it takes to install and maintain them.
• Real gardeners and the truth about their attempts to replace their lawns, failures and all. 
• How-to chapters for killing the lawn, designing alternatives, and maintaining them.
• An illustrated guide to groundcovers by type.

Here's Evelyn's quick video introduction to the book.

Just one more photo from the book for now (more coming this afternoon, I hope), and a confession.  That's my garden on the cover!  And in the photo on the left, both by Saxon Holt.  (Though I suppose I should start saying "former garden," since I sold it three weeks ago. Sigh.)

Plus, I wrote the foreward, happy to help in any way I could because this book is soooo needed. 

So I feel like the proud aunt to Evelyn's baby. Her beautiful, superbly written baby.  Great job!

WIN THIS BOOK
Just leave a comment about lawns or alternatives thereto, and I'll choose one at random.  Entries close Friday at midnight Eastern.

Red carpet treatment

That’s what the National Trust for Historic Preservation will be getting in Buffalo this week when they roll in for their annual conference. That is, if the sight of thousands of red mums planted in selected Olmsted parks can be considered a luxurious welcome. I suspect most of these attendees will have their eyes trained on manmade wonders—about which I feel much more confident.

There were a few funny comments about this on one of the local blogs, like “Let's just hope we don't get another Madonna incident where it turns out somebody ‘loathes red mums.’” Another reader thought that the city should “be focused on pleasing the residents first and foremost,” not just when visitors arrive.

I wouldn’t say that I loathe red or any other color mums, but I do dislike these plants. The form and foliage of the common annual mums—such as those being planted in Buff—are stiff and unappealing. And let’s not forget their rather unpleasant scent.

This is not totally about aesthetics, though. I love zinnias and dahlias, which have similar flower forms to the superior mum varieties and don’t smell much better. What bothers me most about these plants is that they suddenly appear for sale everywhere in early September and by November they’re done—not that you’d want to linger outside to enjoy them anyway. It’s hard to think of any other plant that has such a short, depressing life cycle. I have plenty of annuals in my garden now that still look as good as—or better than—when I planted them in May. A geranium, for example, gives a far more enduring performance, with handsome foliage and a pleasant scent thrown in for free.

Still, anything en masse can look impressive—I’ll have to make a site visit to our new red carpet, and see if I can get a better shot than the one I’m using here (which I think is a stock photo). Before they’re all soggy and brown.

Gnomes!

Here is what I posted on the Kirkus Books blog last week and click here to read Susan's review of Tomorrow's Garden. —Eliz.

Are gnomes the new vampires and fairies the new witches? And where do zombies fit in? For the most part, I accept with resignation the abundant presence of supernatural creatures in the worlds of literature and pop culture. Personally, I’d rather be entertained by more-or-less real people doing more-or-less real things. But there is no question that the Harry Potter, Twilight, Wicked, and LOTR franchises are huge, and drag a flotilla of lesser-known fantastic inventions behind them.

The gnome phenomenon is part of a strange assortment of otherworldly creations that have intermittently caught the public’s fancy over the past few decades (remember troll dolls?). Normally, I wouldn’t think too much about them; that is, if not for their longstanding connection with the world of garden decor, and the recent release of several gnome-related books.

Although Chuck Sambuchino’s How to Survive a Gnome Attack (Ten Speed Press, 2010) has probably gotten the most attention, especially now that it is soon to be—yes—an R-rated movie, a classier option might be Gnomes, from Abrams. The artbook publishing house has just released this as the ultimate gnome coffee table tome. Packaged with 8 frameable prints, it is actually a re-release of a 1976 Dutch book with text by Wil Huygen and illustrations by Rein Poortvliet. 

Both Huygen and Poortvliet have since died, which adds to the heirloom quality of the gnome lore, legends, and tall tales here, pulled together nicely by Poortvliet’s drawings and paintings. The Dutch artist was a masterful wildlife painter, and the best illustrations in the book show gnomes interacting with other woodland creatures like foxes, birds, and rabbits. As for the text, the nine legends that close the book are probably the most rewarding reading, with the rest of Gnomes largely devoted to illustrated descriptive matter like the following:

The gnome’s life-span is around 400 years. They lead healthy lives. They don’t eat too much, have few emotional problems, and get plenty of exercise.

They do indulge in pipe-smoking and do not shun mildly alcoholic drinks!

If you know someone with a yen for gnomes—and I am sure you do—this would be the book to give them, especially with the prints as a bonus. It’s not nearly as silly as the gnome survival book, and would certainly take longer to read.  However, talk of the merits of gnome books sidesteps the real issue. A book can be shelved, a movie can be watched and forgotten, but the very real presence of plaster, resin, or plastic gnomes as semi-permanent features in gardens is another matter altogether.

For decades, gnomes have been a very common feature in British gardens, so much so that many should really be called gnome enclosures, as they contain very little in the way of plant life (see example above).  The more I hear about gnome books and movies Stateside, the more I wonder if scenes like this will become as common in the U.S. as they are in the U.K.  (There is already a gnome liberation movement—freethegnomes.com—which, ironically if unsurprisingly, has Google ads offering gnomes for sale on its front page.) While I appreciate that gnome lore has centuries behind it, its contemporary manifestation ultimately takes an all-too-common form—boatloads of mass-produced crap that can’t be composted and is seldom reused. Garden objects like gnomes are all too often offered by garden centers as “focal points” that take the place of real design.

It’s an interesting paradox: the most fanciful products of the human imagination are marketed to consumers as a way to replace imagination.

Do I dare to discuss fairies? Maybe next time.

More "Meet the Author" Nights, please!

As promised, I attended the recent "Meet the Author" event at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, PA, featuring three Rodale authors - Derek Fell, Stephen Orr, and our own Michele Owens.  In the photo left they're listening intently to event moderator Ethne Clarke, editor-in-chief of Organic Gardening Magazine.

Notice what's weird/different about the venue?  Everyone's sitting on bales of hay that are covered with burlap or kitschy tablecloths, and we're in a threshing barn from the 1800s.  Standing room only in a threshing barn - possibly a publishing world first?

Do it again!
My pitch to the Rodale folks that night wasn't to sign me up for a book deal (too much work!) but to have more of these events - in not just country barns but in cities and 'burbs, too.  Bringing several authors together makes the event a happening; it increases the turn-out and the fun, too.  And fun was had in this historic barn. 

News flash - magazine editors are very cool
That was a big take-away for both of us Ranters, based on these two delightful ones.  Stephen took over the gardening reigns at Martha Stewart Living last fall, and Ethne's revamping of Organic Gardening has been a roaring success.

The books
Last but not least, the books we gathered to hear more about were Michele's Grow the Good Life, Derek's Vertical Gardening (his 84th book!) and Stephen's Tomorrow's Garden, which I'll be reviewing here next week. 

Free issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine

Did you know that April is National Landscape Architecture Month?  Me, neither, but I know about it now because there's something in it for us gardeners - a free issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine.  Just click here to enjoy THE most interesting publication related to gardening, bar none.  (IMHO and all that.)

What's in it
You'll first notice the cover story about a park on a former dump site in Cairo and how it revived an impoverished neighborhood. 

The connection between bee problems and pesticides.

The new tree/shrub app from Michael Dirr.

What's hopefully a new regular feature about species by Constance Casey, whose garden writing for Slate I greatly admired and now greatly miss.

Linda McIntyre's regular feature about innovations, what she calls "the ugly stuff" and I call interesting.

Former editor Bill Marken on design.

Redesign ideas for the Minneapolis waterfront, admittedly the type of city planning feature that I rarely read.  Glad others do, though.

And a topic that's way too geeky for the average gardener - building better metrics.  Whatever.

About recent changes

Now as a long-time reader, I have to weigh in on the magazine's new design, about which I have some complaints.  The fonts are less readable, it's hard to tell where new articles start, and the section titles ("Foreground" and "The Back") are odd and unhelpful.

But content-wise, the magazine is as good as ever - maybe even better than ever - under new editor Bradford McKee.  Its articles combat one often-heard complaint about members of the profession - that they're not interested in plants - and inform the reader that landscape architects are at the forefront of innovative, environmentally progressive design and implementation.  They have to be - their clients are striving for LEED ratings, cost savings, and better outdoor spaces for millions of us.

"Plant Driven Design" Sides with Real Gardeners

Below is my first Kirkus review, and click here to see Amy's Q&A with Andrea Wulf, author of The Founding Gardeners.

At last, two garden writers who give voice to what real gardeners everywhere have been saying for  years. And it’s no surprise that the voice-givers are Scott and Lauren Ogden because they’re real gardeners, on top of being horticulturists, gardener designers and scholars of geology and paleontology.

So their Plant Driven Design isn’t another iteration of the Six Steps to Designing Your Garden. It’s not a design book at all. It’s writing with opinions, and as a reader who’s dog-tired of conventional gardening books—both the how-to and the coffee book variety—what a relief!

Ready for some ranting?

Design approaches they don’t like
The “outward-directed, shallow, overdesigned spaces” they see “idolized in the popular horticultural press.”  Also, high-concept or strictly formal designs, and landscape architects as a group, those “well-dressed professionals” who put buildings first and plants last. And, of course, the authors bash TV make-overs with their quick-fix designs created by “pillow pickers.” Love that term! And they’re no fans of the humongous outdoor kitchens and spas so popular in the garden-design press.

Instead, the Ogdens like gardens that arise from a passion for plants and gardening as a way to reconnect with the natural world.

Plant approaches they don’t like
The approach taken by collectors who, with “horticultural zealotry” and the “absence of common-sense design” create an “assemblage of curios.” Ouch! But coming in for even more bashing are native-plant purists, and their claims that native plants grow better than nonnatives, to which the Ogdens reply simply (and accurately) that “Nature is rarely so simple.” “Native plants cannot be declared inherently better, either practically or aesthetically.”

We’re seeing more pushback against the native plants-only approach these days from various quarters  (especially horticulture professors), and most gardeners agree with the Ogdens that plant purists  can be off-putting with their piety and self-righteousness (like purists of any kind, I suppose).  But these author-scholars enrich the conversation by invoking pre-history—before the last Ice Age and going forward—to put plant evolution into perspective for us, making a compelling case for the inclusive approach to plants that’s used by the vast majority of gardeners.     

Not shying away from the hottest topic of all—invasive plants—the authors note that invasiveness is highly local, and anyway, “Any plant, even an invading one, ought not to be damned simply because of its origins.” In highly disturbed sites, it’s these weeds that act fast to cover soil “thereby initiating the process of biological recovery.” 

After the ranting
Plant Driven Design won a prestigious horticulture society award and has ruffled a lot of feathers. Most of its photos and the plants presented are Colorado-centric so are less useful to gardeners in other regions.  But new and experienced gardeners will still be inspired by the Ogdens to garden without wasting water—something they’re experts in, with gardens of their own in Colorado and Texas and clients mainly in the West.  And Lauren’s wonderful photos will inspire, turning readers on to new plants and new visions of how their “yards” can look better and create closer connections to nature, too—right outside their door.

Photos by Lauren Springer Ogden.

What She Said.

Genevieve Schmidt and I took a road trip to San Francisco last week for the garden show.  She's done such a good job summing the whole thing up on her blog that I have little to add, except to say:

The lettuce hanging in tubes thing?  It was the subject of much debate during our post-show sangriafest at Cha Cha Cha Cuba (which, by the way, is definitely the place to go after the show). There were about 15-20 of us around the table, and opinions were split between those who thought that garden shows should offer practical demonstrations so as not to confuse the easily confused neophyte gardeners, and those who thought that lettuce growing in tubes and suspended in an interested geometric pattern was--well--interesting.  Besides, where else are you going to do a large-scale horticultural conceptual art project?

I fall into the second group.  I approve of the lettuce in tubes.

Here is what I most certainly do NOT approve of:

This hideous display garden was really just an excuse to show off the sort of hardscaping that suburban homeowners with more money than taste might regard as being Tuscany-like and therefore worth spending a great deal of money on.  But apparently, once they got it built,they realized that it needed some plants, too, what with it being a garden show!  So somebody must have run out to Home Depot and bought -- well, whatever.  It was the most absurd hodgepodge of incompatible and unrelated plants I've ever seen.  In the bed to the right was a Japanese maple with a planting of kalanchoes underneath it, gerbera daisies planted next to rhododendrons, lavender and chrysanthemum tucked in next to each other--really, it was ridiculous.  Absurd.  And not at all high concept, abstract plant art, just ignorant nonsense. 

Or wait.  Maybe it was high concept plant art!  Is it possible that the whole point of the project was to elicit scorn from gardeners? A way of commenting on the comments? Some sort of postmodern, meta display in which the real display was not the display, but the gardeners mocking the display?

Anyway, The Mockery of a Garden won a lot of medals, for reasons I'll never understand.

See more on Gen's blog (and thanks, Gen, for the photos) and also check out this video from Theresa Loe, who was hard at work documenting the show while I barely managed to snap a picture.

 

    

 

Bizarre? Maybe. Definitely dangerous for the obsessive gardener

What follows is Garden Rant's debut post on the Kirkus Reviews Book Bloggers Network. From now on, we will be reposting the Kirkus posts on Thursdays. We're taking turns—Kirkus posts from Susan, Amy, and Michele are coming up.—Elizabeth

Amaranthus are cool but around here they have to be grown from seed or purchased toward the end of the season. These (above) are slightly different than the Love Lies Bleeding type.

Beware. Be afraid. Not of the plants themselves, but of the exotic seduction they represent. The biggest danger with most of the plants listed in Bizarre Botanicals is not that they’ll eat you (though some would give it a college try), but that you’ll actually try to grow them. Eventually, you’ll get so obsessed with goofy plants that you’ll ruin any chance you ever had of a coherent garden.

Sometimes it’s not even the plants—it’s the names:

•Love lies bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus)
Amaranthus actually makes more sense in the garden as a foliage plant. While the tall stalks of rainbow-colored leaves can add life to any border, the lax, stringy red tails that give this plant its name are best cut off immediately for some kind of ghoulish arrangement indoors.

•Sensitive plant (Mimosa pudica)
After you’ve gotten over the thrill of the leaves folding up when you run your fingers over them, this tropical is a trap for the cold climate gardener. Indoors, it immediately becomes leggy, thorny, and—exposed to the rigors of central heat—dead.

•Mother-in-law’s tongue (Sansevieria cylindrica)
Despite its hilarious name, this spiky house plant—seemingly indestructible—is ubiquitous in office parks throughout the U.S. You’ve probably never noticed it blending in with all the pothos and philodendron hybrids that are equally able to survive in the inhospitable corporate environment. On its own though, sansevieria is unique—its striped, stately green columns deserve more respect.

Books like this are part of the reason my garden is what it is today. I am invariably sucked in by the promise of novelty, of having an annual, perennial, or shrub that is completely unlike anything growing in the less imaginative backyards of my neighbors. Books like this are also part of the reason I grow orchids, cactus, and rarities like night-blooming cereus indoors—with wildly erratic success.

The sad truth is that if you want to have a beautiful and successful outdoor garden, you’re probably best off growing some wisely selected shrubs and 3-5 hardy perennials with long blooming periods. A sea of daylilies, monarda or daisies can be more beautiful and maintenance-free than any gardener dared to dream. Unfortunately, few gardeners could ever be content with such a minimal selection. I never was—but I’m gradually learning that the best place for experimentation with weird plants is in containers or inside.

It’s no accident that most of the plants in Bizarre Botanicals thrive in warm weather. The majority can be grown outdoors in summer, but would need to be brought inside in any climate where temps can go below 60 degrees F—which includes most of the U.S. Plants like beehive ginger (Zingiber spectabile), black orchid (Fredclarkeara), or blue oil fern (Microsorum thailandicum) are rarified creatures, meant for terrariums, greenhouses, or simply to purchase as a short-lived gift plants—if you can find them. Plants like this make me long for a conservatory—the kind that used to be attached to almost every respectable English mansion. I could put up with a good deal of inconvenience to be an Edwardian lady with a live-in gardener, a greenhouse, and a conservatory full of exotic plants. Sigh.

Most of us will never be able or even want to grow blue oil fern or voodoo lily, but it’s a good idea to try at least one crazy plant each summer. This year, I’m thinking about the new black petunias. How about you?

Bizarre Botanicals, by Paula Gross, assistant director of the University of North Carolina Charlotte Botanical Gardens; and Larry Mellichamp, professor of botany and horticulture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; with a forward by Tony Avent, horticultural explorer and founder/proprietor of Plant Delights Nursery. Timber Press.

Garden Rant invades Kirkus Reviews

At some point—which I missed—the SXSW festival/conference, now going on in Austin, stopped being mainly a music event and started also being about movies, websites, blogs, books, and every kind of new media possible. And god knows what else. (I was just scanning the voluminous schedule and I could swear I saw the words “sex party” at least twice.)

So that’s why—perhaps at this very moment—book review magazine and website Kirkus Reviews (founded by Virginia Kirkus in 1933) is announcing their new Blogger Network at SXSW. The blog part of the Kirkus website is being expanded to include writers who blog about a variety of subjects, including mysteries, science fiction, children’s books, and (drum roll) gardening. We’re proud to announce that the Ranters will be contributing posts about gardening and garden books to Kirkus—probably once a week starting today.

These won’t be traditional book reviews. Well, you know us. We won’t be able to stop ourselves from being silly, irreverent, off-topic, and—always—opinionated, even if we’re not exactly opining on the book in question. We will also be doing author interviews and almost anything else we think we can get away with.

Check out the first post here.

From a favorite gardenblogger comes Sugar Snaps and Strawberries

Andrea Bellamy, author of the Vancouver blog Heavy Petal (tagline "from the West Coast Urban Organic Perspective") has a book out, which is reminding me of the early days of gardenblogging and how much I enjoyed reading hers (yes, there was a time when I was a loyal reader of gardenblogs; today, not so much). 

Heavy Petal launched in June of '05, so it was one of the few around that inspired me and unwittingly encouraged me to start my own, a month later.  I have fond memories of her wedding, the launch of her snazzy new blog design (by husband Ben, I believe), and of course, her pregnancy. 

Some of the more intriguing categories on Heavy Petal include "Raving and Whining", "Resistance is Fertile", and "WTF?", which she says is for the bitchy voyeur in us all.  (Thank you, Andrea, for daring to use a controversial acronym so prominently!  Gardenbloggers can be soooo well-behaved.)

To catch up with Andrea I perused her blog category "The Book" and learned that writing a book had long been one of her dreams, as evidenced by a "mortifying" video taken on the night of her high school graduation.

The videographer asked everyone to say where they were going to be in 10 years, and I said something about living in a VW van and creating world peace. I KNOW. And I was completely sober. But I also said I was going to write a book. And now, just a few years later (ha!) I can check that off my list. Done. 

Though not without trepidation: "What if there’s an error? What if someone doesn’t like it? It’s so much scarier than hitting 'publish' on a blog post. This thing is in print." 

That's exactly my reaction to the notion of writing a book, except for the part about doing it anyway, despite how scary it all is.  But thankfully Andrea forged ahead - while raising a baby, no less - and the result is this marvelous book that's   entertaining, extremely useful, and lovely.  I recommend it highly. 

There's a short (too short) bio of Andrea on the Timber Press website, but from the back cover of the book we learn that she's studied both garden design and permaculture, and has been gardening since childhood.  She's "an active guerrilla gardener and a proud steward of a plot in her local community garden."  She also gardens on the balcony of her family's third-floor apartment, so is well qualified to instruct us in the art of growing food in small spaces.

WIN A COPY
Just leave a comment and I'll choose one at random (so don't worry about being clever).  Suggested topics include growing food, why you need the book, or best of all, anything about Andrea and Heavy Petal.  Entries close 6 p.m. Eastern this Friday the 14th.

Rick Darke's updated The Wild Garden explains to me my own gardening philosophy and low-maintenance practices

I'm giving a big Thumb's Up to Rick Darke's updating of William Robinson's classic The Wild Garden (Timber), now in its robust Second Printing.  What Darke has added are 100 of his own fabulous photos (the 1870 book uses illustrations), and plenty of his usual smart observations - this time about how important Robinson's philosophy of wild gardening still is, today.  Some of us are finally catching up with him.

Darke sure speaks for me and a lot of GardenRant readers here in his introduction, recommending The Wild Garden "For all of us seeking creative, practical approaches to today's challenges and opportunities - balancing culture and environment, native and exotic, consumption and sustainability."  There's no formal doctrine here, just the simple notion of placing plants "where they will thrive without further care."  That, I totally get.  That, I totally do.

And how about Robinson's ripped-from-the-gardening-world-headlines criticisms of large mowed lawns, calling extensive mowing "ridiculous work" and a "costly mistake"!  From Darke's introduction we learn that Robinson "criticizes gardens comprised of mere collections, those organized dryly by plant classification, and those with excessive geometrical order." 

I hope your appetite for the book has been whetted already but just in case, enjoy Rick's video about the book and this type of gardening, then a couple of visuals from the book.

 

 Below, naturalized heaths bloom with Narcissus and Scilla in late March at Robinson's garden in England.

Finally, an illustration of "Anemones in the Riviera" from Robinson's 1870 original.

Here's a great review by Saxon Holt for the blog Gardeners Gone Wild.   My favorite quote:  "One of the finest books of the year was first published in 1870." 

Photos by Rick Darke, including cover photo of ostrich ferns at Winterthur Garden.  Illustration by Alfred Parsons.

Creasy's Edible Landscaping gets blockbuster treatment!

Good lord, what writer wouldn't give their first born for this kind of coverage in the Washington Post?  But I think it's proof that even a (probably) nongardening editor at the Post can be convinced that this book is important, and I agree.  Congrats to Ros and also to Adrian Higgins for doing the convincing - and for getting to see Ros's garden in person.  Click here for the online (and less impressive-looking) version of the story.

Ros Creasy's Edible Landscaping Update is a Winner

UPDATE:  Win a copy.  Just leave a comment here telling us why you need the book - by Sunday night 9 EST.

Rosalind Creasy is the undisputed high priestess of growing food - beautifully.  Her publisher calls her 1982 Edible Landscaping a "groundbreaking classic" and that's no exaggeration. 

But it's high time for an update, and let's start with Ros herself.  She's taken it upon herself to create and document photographically as many beautiful ways to grow food as she could cram into her front yard after ripping up the lawn.  It's her only sunny spot and she was determinerd to put that soil to its  "highest and noblest use" - growing food.  To that end, she redesigned that spot 50 times since '84, with trial gardens and later, theme gardens, one of which you see on the book cover.  (No doubt all of her designs have flown in the face of the contempt toward growing edibles summed up by one of her design professors: "It's tacky.")

As a designer she's changed over the years, and now includes more structure, bolder colors, more heirlooms (she's passionate about saving them) and more spaces for kids. 

But designing great gardens isn't all Ros did to prepare for the long-awaited update to Edible Landscaping.  She consulted with or photographed gardens of scores of experts across North America.  And she's pulled together the latest, most vetted advice about the basics of gardening itself - how to garden and with what (not peat moss).  So I was surprised to discover in this edition the likes of: organic lawn care, the need to reduce light pollution, and the real deal about recycled plastics (they eventually end up in the landfill, anyway), fertilizers even vegans will love, and wildlife, in addition to permaculture, Slow Food, great design, and an exhaustive encyclopedia of edible plants.

The result is more than the modest "update" conveys.  It's a stunning and inspiring book that's also how-to writing at its best.  I can't recommend it highly enough - and with no reservations at all.  No nits to pick or suggestions from me this time.  It's that good.

 
Some Details of Interest

• The photos don't just show fancy-pants designs like the one above, but also plenty of more do-able gardens for regular people, like the two below.
• There's plenty of help for beginners, including a difficulty score for each plant.
• Eighteen years ago she had to make the case for growing organically, but no longer - her readers already know that.  Progress.
• When Ros wrote her original proposal to Sierra Books she included a jar of homemade organic applesauce with a label reading "This does NOT contain..." followed by dozens of chemicals.  Aspiring authors, take note.
• One of her pet peeves is the "county fair, blue ribbon syndrome - the relentless search for huge, flawless flowers, vegetables, and fruits...No one ever tastes these prizewinners."

Above, great use of an unused driveway.

 
Above, in the no-man's-land between Ros's driveway and her neighbor's, she grows assorted fruits, nuts and berries.

 
Above, a mixed front-yard garden that fits in anywhere.

Materials from Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy, published in 2010 by Sierra Club Books.  Photographs copyright © Rosalind Creasy, except for my photograph of her, taken over lunch at Fordhook Farm.

The EasyBloom Report, Part 3: Fake Comments

Dear Companies Whose Products We Discuss on GardenRant,

If you're going to post a comment in which you pretend to be an ordinary gardener who likes the product your company manufactures, thereby defending the product against the scorn or derision that has been heaped upon it by GardenRant and its readers, be sure to hide your IP address first.  Otherwise, you could find yourself in an embarassing situation such as the one faced by "Ben," who posted this comment from a computer registered to PlantSense,the company that invented and licensed this gadget to Black & Decker.

Here's "Ben's" comment:

"To each his own I guess. I have one and found it very useful. I'm also a really inexperienced gardener and had lawn care as a priority below my son, my job and our new house that needed a ton of remodel work. Just the reminder to water my roses was useful, and the monitoring of when to fertilize them was really great. Id love to be more naturally in touch with what our plants need, but as someone who had never been responsible for a garden before this year is was great."

I'm going to guess that Ben is senior software engineer Ben Newman, given that he posted a link to his personal website, which says that it's owned by Ben Newman. But anyone could have done that,right? What we do know is that he posted the comment from a PlantSense computer, as shown by this IP lookup:

Ah, what joy this gives me.  So often, when we get fake-sounding comments that seem to have been posted by someone inside the company, they put just enough effort into concealing their IP address that we can't be bothered to get to the bottom of it.  But PlantSense has given us the gift of an obviously fake comment and an easy to look up IP address.

So here's the thing.  We're happy to see posts from people who actually work at the company and have something to say about their products or services or ideas or whatever. Tell us what other customers have said.  Tell us about experiments you've conducted with the product. Or something.  That's a real conversation.  But don't post a "gee whiz, I've got one of these gadgets and I kind of like mine" comments as a way of pretending to counteract actually feedback from real gardeners.  Who benefits from that?

Now, it may well be that "Ben" actually does appreciate EasyBloom's reminder about when to water his roses, but "Ben" probably also appreciates the paycheck EasyBloom provides, so that belongs in the comment, too. I'm sure he was just trying to do the right thing and, having never been forced to sit through one of those dreary social media PR class, didn't know that he was committing a breach of blogging etiquette.

We've seen tool manufacturers go back and redesign a tool after our readers said it didn't fit in their hands or caused fatigue or pain after extended use. We have also, of course, heaped praise and adoration upon tools, plants, bulbs, and seeds we love.  I mean,there is some benefit to getting real feedback from real gardeners.

Thanks for playing, EasyBloom.  Our series of posts on this product have gone from snarky to reluctantly willing to give it a try to a reasonably fair-handed discussion on our Cocktail Hour to begrudging interest in at least one of its features--and right back to snarky. Nice try, folks!

Do Pros Understand Amateurs?

Check out this fantastic New York Times Magazine piece by Pete Wells about the nonsense professional chefs dish out to home cooks--namely, the idea that all the prep work must be accomplished before cooking can begin. The concept even has a French name, mise en place.  The problem is, what home cook has time for that?  Not to chop the peppers while the onions are frying, but to chop them ahead of time?  Only one who is unemployed and has a staff, that's who. 

This piece interested me because it reminded me of all the nonsense advice pros try to push off onto amateur gardeners, too, particularly in the vegetable garden.  The advice that drives me most crazy revolves around soil preparation: till every spring and add some carefully calibrated mix of bagged soil amendments.  Wrong.  In any vegetable plot small enough to be mulched by wheelbarrow, mulch is the easy answer to all questions: fertility, soil conditioning, weed control, water conservation. 

How about you?  Is there any advice designed for commercial applications--but not domestic life--that makes you crazy?  I'm asking the landscape professionals, too.  What's the worst advice you've ever heard a peer give an amateur?

Review and Give-away: Energy-Wise Landscape Design

UPDATE:  Ramble-On Rose wins the book - congratulations!  The random number generator said "16" and her comment is the 16th.  Thanks to everyone for playing, and for your great comments.

A furniture and harpsicord maker in rural Massachusetts takes up the study of landscape design, establishes a residential practice, then gets herself a publisher to spread the gospel of eco-friendly landscaping.  Meet Sue Reed and her excellent book Energy-Wise Landscape Design. 

Don't be misled by the title - it's not just about where to plant shade trees.  It covers the whole eco-waterfront. Buying locally grown plants, avoiding peatmoss, conserving water, improving the soil, filling our gardens with as many large, healthy plants as possible. 

On Lawns
About my pet issue Reed has lots to say and it's a nice chunk of unusually helpful garden writing.  After she stopped mowing 10 years ago, she still has to weed-wack to remove the 6-foot-tall Goldenrods and the woodies, and it's "not a beautiful wildflower meadow,"  but it sure beats lawn.  Love the honesty.  Also, "Taking care of this new landscape might require a bit more attention than you're used to giving your lawn."  She suggests a "tidiness strip" to keep the neighbors happy, and recommends no-mow grass mixes. 

About lawn removal, she raises a problem we'd rather ignore: "The process of eliminating lawn grass can consume quite a lot of energy - either in the equipment that mechanically removes lawn or in the herbicides that chemically remove it."  

Her message isn't anti-lawn but simply: Why have more than you need?  And if you DO have lawn, read her "Five Problems with Conventional Lawn Treatment" and her on-target guide to caring for it responsibly. 

On Native Plants - a Nit-Pick
Reed is a graduate of the Conway School of Landscape Design, which she describes as "very idealistic", and that idealism shows up in her discussion of native plants. "There's no question that using native plants in our landscapes is a way to save energy."  How?" By providing essential services that save on energy (resources, time, money).  But her strict nativism bans even well adapted nonnatives that provide the same services (I'm looking at you, Sedums!) Also not okay are cultivars of native plants - species only.  Her designs use only native plants and clients seek her out for that, so "It's all to the good," she told me on the phone.  Also, "conventional garden beauty" is not her "main focus."

That's fine for the converted but what about the vast majority of potential readers?  Why alienate them by declaring that nonnatives either do nothing for wildlife, or actually harm wildlife by becoming invasive?  We need help choosing from among the thousands of (mostly nonnative) plants on offer - which ones are most self-sustaining, stormwater-retentive, and yes, useful for wildlife.  But to recommend against clover, Hostas, daffodils, Sedums??  (Yes, I'm on a tear for Sedums - more about that coming soon.)

But with that small caveat about a small part of the book, I wholeheartedly recommend Reed's book for covering the eco-landscape in such a readable and (mostly) practical way.

The Give-Away

Leave a comment to win a copy before close of business Wednesday and I'll choose one at random.  Your comment can say anything at all - except please, none of those short and nonsensical spammy ones.  (We've been inundated with spam comments lately, the somewhat smarter kind that responds slightly to the text or photos in the post.  But we're onto you - and we're deleting your spammy URLs!)

I guess I had another mini-rant in me there - sorry about that!

Shop talk

That’s what a bloggers’ meet-up is good for. Not too many people here in Buffalo really want to hear my pet plant peeves—for very long anyway—but during last weekend’s Buffa10 meet-up, I was able to freely vent with such equally outspoken gardeners/garden writers as Susan Cohen, Michele Owens, and many others about interesting topics like:

Hydrangeas that can't make up their minds

I like these to pick a color and stick with it. Two things make me crazy: 1., the sickly bluish-pinky-gray hydrangeas that I see everywhere; and 2., the people who look at my unfashionably strong pink ones and say “Oh, you must add x or y to get that color.”  I don’t add anything to my acidic soil except compost, but I do buy varieties such as “Alpenglow” and “Forever Pink” (not “Forever and Ever”) that are supposed to be the color they stay. The problem is that hydrangea fads dictate that you can never find certain varieties in nurseries from year to year. These days I simply recommend that people buy arborescens or the cool paniculata and quercifolia varieties. You can find macrophyllas with good color via mail order, but the small ones take a long time to mature in a climate like this—or never make it at all.

Architectural context

This came up a lot over the weekend. Susan C. wondered if the aggressive color choices that you see—not only on typical painted lady clapboard houses, but also the painted brick Italianates—helped provide relief from winter grayness. Now, that is an interesting question. I’m not sure. Winter interest here tends to be built around sports, cultural pursuits, and staying inside by the fire. 

No, I think the creativity with the houses comes from the sheer chutzpah of many of the resolute urbanites who live and garden here. We do it because we can and because it’s fun. When warm weather comes, the streets explode with color from flowers and the structures they surround. But without the gardens, I don’t think I’d care about the houses as much.

Speaking of explosions

An on-going discussion is structure and formality in the garden. We have magazines in and out of here all summer long and expect some big names to be featuring Bflo gardens this year. But many of the gardens they gravitate to—all of them are cool, of course—focus more on hardscaping than others. I totally see why this happens—it is more interesting to explain how these structures interact and why they work so well. Plants are not the important thing. I still like lush though, and my favorite gardens are ones like Ellie’s in the Cottage District, where I am surrounded by texture and color. 

It’s all good because it’s fun to talk about. And disagreement only adds spice.

Photos borrowed from fellow attendees Chris C., Gail, and Barbara. Check out their posts and dozens of others on Buffa10.

The power of critical blogging

 
Freebies and samples come with rules in the blogging world. We must disclose that the products we are sent by companies came free of charge. More important, we have to review those products honestly. I’m not much of a tool person, so I tend to  give it to someone else to test. But other, more tool-savvy bloggers have written very candid reviews of various pieces of equipment, including, last year, Troy-Bilt’s lithium battery string trimmer.

Kathy/Cold Climate Gardening needed a trimmer to get rid of “eyelash edges,” but she didn’t like the TB’s power button:

I found I quickly tired of holding down the trigger, so that I had to take frequent pauses to rest my hand. … The fact that I had to be told to press the button down harder indicates that I had to use more finger strength than I normally do to achieve efficient operation. 

Carol/May Dreams Gardens had the same problem:

I had trouble holding down the on/off trigger and if you let up on it a bit, the trimmer doesn’t stop, like with a corded electric trimmer, it just slows down.

It should not surprise you that the people at Troy-Bilt and other such companies actually read these reviews. In response to the complaints about the trigger/power button on the cordless trimmer, they reduced the tension on the button, also adding 4” to the overall length. (It is adjustable.) I haven’t tried the new one, and probably won’t, as the old one is fine for our purposes of getting rid of what grows between the flagstones once a year. But I have been offered one to give away here, so one of you can assess the improvements for yourself.

Just describe in comments the improvement or invention you’d like to see in the world of gardening supplies. Here’s mine—I’d like a portable watering device that you can use to water hanging baskets too high to reach. Something smaller and easier than those water buffaloes. And I’d like a really good plant ID app for my iPhone or (soon) iPad.

I’ll announce the winner Sunday.