Garden Rant

Not Such Hot Stuff

 

Guest Post by Sandra Knauf of Greenwoman Zine

I realize it's not a nice thing to complain about, with the prurient overtones and all, but I'm disappointed. 

My peter peppers don't look like they are supposed to!

 

Go ahead and be disgusted. Judge me. I can't help who I am. A naughty, curious gardener. One who is into the weird stuff. 

 

But I grew these peppers, it took a lot of work, and I had expectations.

 

It all started last summer when a friend forwarded me an e-mail about "Peter Peppers" -- peppers that looked like . . . you know. I LOL'd back to the sender. Then I scoffed. These aren't real. What a scam.

 

I looked them up. They were real. Capsicum annuum var. 'Peter.' Native to Louisiana and Texas. Mildly hot, 100-plus days to maturity. Some red, some yellow. Good yields of 3-4" long x 1-1½ " wide fruits (the forward claimed they grew up to 18"!)

 

Native, kinky, spicy . . . I had to have these peppers! Since my garden budget is almost nil I thought I'd check eBay for these rare seeds--and I found some! The seller was Organzmopeppers (the name referring to the fact that the seeds are organic, for those of us with dirty minds) and the seller had an excellent rating. Thirty seeds, fresh, grown in the U.S.A., organic, under three bucks. What a deal.

 

Seeds can be frustrating. You order them in early spring, wait for them to arrive, and then you wait some more. When it's time to finally start them indoors (I live in Colorado), you fret to see if they'll germinate (peppers can take weeks). When they do, you worry that you'll miss a watering or they'll get some terrible disease and die as babies. More long, anxious weeks go by before they're big enough to plant in the garden. And then, more waiting to see what you have. Almost a year of waiting! It's worse than being a kid at Christmas.

 

Simultaneously, I'm thinking, is what I'm doing . . . wrong?  Now that I'm in my 40s, I am sorry to say the illicit excitement of many things has been largely replaced by responsible, boring, grown-up guilt. This was my first year at the neighborhood community garden. Maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Of course I imagine blatant, huge, fire-engine red peppers springing up and jutting out for all the gardeners to see. However, growing older also brings wisdom.  I had given seedlings to some girlfriends gardening there, so I wouldn't be seen as the only perv.

 

All summer, the endless build up . . . and then . . . the harvest.  Small, wrinkly, weird.  Interesting for sure, but not the showstopper I hoped for.  I secretly wanted excitement. A hot garden scandal. I imagined a fellow gardener bringing a small child to the garden and I would have to dash, throw a blanket over my produce, yell, "Oh no! Keep away!"

 

Instead, these. The size was about right. Good flavor, like a milder jalapeno. Useful, but . . .  I ponder. Those pictures on the Internet, and I saw a few, were those mutants, and mine the norm? Was this a hoax after all? Or were mine the mutants, the progeny of a genetic dud? Or, could it have been something else, say, a metaphysical element, too much female energy in the community garden?  

 

Finally, a thought that soothes.  Since mine are not obscene, maybe they're more marketable, more acceptable.  Maybe my peppers are better!

 

Capsicum annuum 'Wrinkled Wonders' anyone?

Guest Rant: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

It's never easy to promote a new book, but it's especially challenging when you're battling the very long-term illness that is the subject of the book.  To make things easier on Elisabeth Tova Bailey, we invited her to send us the opening pages of her new book to run as an excerpt. We're giving a copy away, so commenters, fire up your comments for a chance to win.

This charming memoir, written by a gardener who finds herself bedridden with a snail to keep her company, has already been selected as an Indie Next pick by independent booksellers and as a Discover Great New Writers pick by Barnes & Noble.  Find out more at her website, or at Algonquin's site.  There are some nice bits about it on Algonquin's blog as well.

Here's Elisabeth:

 

In early spring, a friend went for a walk in the woods and, glancing down at the path, saw a snail. Picking it up, she held it gingerly in the palm of her hand and carried it back toward the studio where I was convalescing. She noticed some field violets on the edge of the lawn. Finding a trowel, she dug a few up, then planted them in a terra-cotta pot and placed the snail beneath their leaves. She brought the pot into the studio and put it by my bedside.

“I found a snail in the woods. I brought it back and it’s right here beneath the violets.”

“You did? Why did you bring it in?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might enjoy it.”

“Is it alive?”

She picked up the brown acorn-sized shell and looked at it. “I think it is.”

Why, I wondered, would I enjoy a snail? What on earth would I do with it? I couldn’t get out of bed to return it to the woods. It was not of much interest, and if it was alive, the responsibility — especially for a snail, something so uncalled for — was overwhelming.

Clint, Home Depot, and Re-thinking Local

by Guest Susan Tomlinson of The Bike Garden

This is Clint. As you can see, he works in the paint department of Home Depot. What you can't see is that he’s also the bass man in a beloved local band, The Thriftstore Cowboys. I met Clint a few years ago when he was dating a woman in the office where I worked, and I've been to a few of the band's gigs when they are playing in town, but other than that, I can't say I know him very well. But I see him from time to time when I go to Home Depot. And I go there a lot, since I am a do-it-yourselfer of every sort of stripe and it is just down the road from me. I'm not sure Clint really remembers how he knows me, but I do, and since the band and our mutual friend are both good associations, it always makes me smile to see him.

As a gardener and someone generally interested in sustainability, I’ve been thinking lately about what we mean when we say the word “local.” And when I saw Clint this morning at Home Depot, it suddenly occurred to me that I think of it, through associations like this and others, as a neighborhood store.

I know, I know.

I know.

But consider this: Clint said, when I asked him, that he appreciates working there because they let him take off—sometimes for weeks at a time and several times a year—to tour with the band. When he comes back, he still has a job. He said that though he’d rather not mix paint for the rest of his life, the people he works for are “pretty laid back,” and it’s nice that they support him touring.

Doesn’t that sound like the kind of values-based thinking you’d want from a neighborhood store?

Sure, it competes with my favorite mom and pop nursery, but I shop there, too. I just can’t afford to shop there all the time, because they are very expensive.

It also competes with my favorite wood purveyor, though not really, since both sell different qualities and types of wood for different projects. Also, the wood purveyor is way the yell and back across town; I burn a lot of fuel driving there, whereas HD is, as I’ve said, just down the street. Sometimes I even bike there.

And yes, HD has materials shipped in from all over, thereby committing crimes against resources, but so do the mom and pop places.

There is also this: The mom and pop stores could never employ as many people who are looking for a job to help them through school, or bring home extra money, or that will let them have time off to tour with a band. Much has been made about the way Big Box stores put people out of business only to hire them, but really, would Clint and the many others working there have been those people?

This is not meant to be an apology for Home Depot. Instead, my point is to re-visit the idea of “local” and where individual businesses and practices fit into the concept of the common good.

There are very few things in life that are entirely good or entirely bad. This is probably true of Big Box stores and mom and pops, non-organic and organic pesticides, bluegrass lawns and no lawn at all, native plantings and tulips, farmers markets and chain supermarkets, Democrats and Republicans, Face Book and face-to-face, Kindle and good old fashioned books. So maybe we need to stop categorizing them that way.

Just throwin’ that out there to chew on.

The Health Care Plan Promotes A Modern Garden Health Initiative

Here's a guest rant from Shawna Coronado that was originally intended for our guest rant period, but wasn't controversial enough.

Stop whining about Obama’s Health Care Plan. Seriously. Even after the plan has been passed, I hear nothing but complaints about how no one believes in changing what we have. However, I see very little people actually going out and reading the plan directly to understand what it means (go here to see more about it—PLAN).

My point? There’s an obvious connection between the new national health care plan and gardening. While the new plan is not a quick solution, the new plan initiative is encouraging the practice of preventative care instead of spending more to address health issues after they've occurred. We could introduce gardening as an amazing cure; we could be solving a lot of our health problems on our own instead of expecting a pill to solve our personal health concerns.

Gardening is good for you and here’s how it works for your health:

Garden more, get higher brain chemical and endorphin generation, get less depressed.

Garden more, get chemical-free vegetables, get a healthier body with less chemical exposures.

Garden more, get more aerobic exercise, reduce diabetes and heart disease factors.

While some pharmaceutical solutions are necessary, the U.S. consumes more anti-depressants than any other nation in the world. What a clear statement on where our society is right now. We must change our habits, take responsibility and maintain our health ourselves. If we Americans more actively gardened, the above three garden-health-action-items items would be the beginning of a health transition which would rock the world with its impact.

Many in corporate America are against the new health plan. Why? In my opinion, because people who learn how to maintain their health understand that using less chemicals on our foods, being more physically active, and having our own locally grown garden network is a lifestyle choice that can change our lives and corporate America’s bottom line. Imagine if everyone in America felt that way? We would spend less money on what megabusiness is making big money on—corn syrup and chemicals in our foods. I mean, c’mon—do we REALLY need freakin’ sorbitol in our chewing gum?

In a world that promotes and rewards a healthier lifestyle, there would be more home gardening. With more home-grown organic gardens there would be less need for as many pesticides or chemical fertilizers because we gardeners could make a choice to use these things only when it was absolutely necessary thereby reducing chemical exposure and improving health.

I want to know why this plan has received such resistance when it is introducing more affordable health care for the average American and also introduces the idea of preventative care as a major part of how all we Americans should live. Gardens and community support are part of the answer, but could we be incorporating even more into our local initiatives and the national health plan to encourage gardening? For example, farmers are getting major government incentives for following positive practices. We gardening Americans should too as part of this new health program—like rewards and tax rebates for growing our own organic food.

See the photo above? That is only one of the many gardens I tend which help me stay healthier. I am a gardener. I am ripping up grass and planting gardens for my health and the health of the community, and I wish everyone would get out there and make a difference to help humanity stay healthy.

Garden-Oriented Events Not Popular? I Beg to Differ.

Here's today's second guest post from Ginny Stibolt.

A recent NY Times article (covered here on The Rant) reported on how public gardens are expanding their offerings and canceling their traditional flower events. I'd like to offer additional ideas for organizing events that can attract a large numbers of gardeners. My observations are based on my participation in 11 garden fests and other garden-oriented or environmental get-togethers this past year here in Florida. Some took place in public gardens, but others took over downtown streets or city parks. They drew from several hundred to more than 20,000 attendees.

There are plenty of ideas that could be applied anywhere.

Some general organization ideas:
· Events organized by multiple regional organizations— garden clubs, master gardeners, and agriculture agents—seemed to gain more attention and satisfy a larger audience. Also, events run with the participation of the city or town and local businesses seemed to have more to offer.
· Two-day events drew more interest. This means that there is more time to have a variety of speakers and to have more sub-events within the festival.
· Making it easy for people to buy plants and get them to their cars is important. Some of these events had youth group members towing wagons or garden carts around the grounds.

 

Some of the best ideas to make the event work better or garner more interest:
· As a fundraiser, the scarecrow contest at Fairchild Tropical Gardens was fun. Organizations, adults, or children paid a fee to enter their scarecrows into the competition. Then the attendees paid a dollar to vote for their favorite. The money raised last year was used to buy fish for their lakes to attract more water birds (I love the irony).
· Many festivals had entertainment including musical groups, story telling, and strolling entertainers; others went further and created scavenger hunts and other educational activities. One thing to avoid is loud sound systems.
· Scheduled guided walks through the gardens, along trails worked well at appropriate venues.
· Attendees seemed to pay closer attention to all the booths (commercial, non-profit, and informational) when they were all mixed together rather than segregated by category.
· Good ideas for service booths include tool sharpening, plant diagnostics, and plant IDs. At some festivals there were scheduled presentations at "Ask the Expert" booths; in others it was freeform.
· Expert speakers often draw a lot of attendees. Unless it's a really large event, it's probably a good idea not to have too many speakers at the same time.
· Food vendors should offer a wide variety of foods and prices.
· Themed events work best if totally unrelated vendors are not allowed. If it's a flower festival, having teens shoot baskets to raise money for Haiti or private school recruiting booths might be too far off topic.
· At the St. Petersburg festival, the city offered 500 free butterfly plants each day, which were gone in half an hour, and 2000 native trees for $3 each.
· A number of events had birds and animals to see up close. Some also had butterfly experience tents and/or releases. At the Jacksonville Arboretum, a gopher tortoise made an appearance behind my booth.
· A wide variety of plant vendors with plants from seedlings to well-established seemed to offer the right mix, but fests need to screen for invasive exotics.

In sum, Garden Fests are fun! If you have a great idea that your local event has implemented, leave a comment. Maybe those public gardens will be able to add more gardening-oriented events back into their mix.

I've also created an online garden fest photo album with more details on the various festivals. 

The Top 5 Lies People Like Telling About Gardening with Less

If you didn’t get a chance to guest rant, remember that we continue to offer guest rants on Thursday. Here’s one by Lisa Ueda. Lisa offers home gardening tips at The Frugal Garden. 

 

The bubble really has burst. The economy isn’t recovering any faster, and Obama continues to be blamed for what he has or hasn’t done. While we’re learning to live without, gardeners are looking for different ways to garden on a budget. To save everyone years of misery, I’m compelled to uncover the top five lies people like telling about gardening with less. (4 of them are lies anyway.)

1. You shouldn’t spend money on plants.
If you fall prey to this lie, you’re dooming yourself to an endless procession of ditch lilies, irises, and cast offs prevalent in most plant swaps, or the ratty half dead things on discount at Wal-Mart. You might score big time, but you also might just get stuck with the exact same stuff you’d love to get rid of. You can judge me for the Japanese maple I dropped $50 on that didn’t make it thru its first winter. Only the top graft died off. Where it suckers at the base, I think it’s cute and looks more charming than a bunch of boring freebies.

2. You should compost everything, and you’re not a dedicated gardener if you don’t.
Compost is good; compost with dog poo is bad. If you’re a militant composter and this is your M.O., that’s great, fine, you’re right, they’re wrong. Just don’t include it on your list of facebook likes.

3. You should only garden with native or “heirloom” plants.
They can be cheaper, but why the heck should you be stuck with someone else’s garden vision? Hybrids can be more disease resistant, or may tout a unique fragrance or leaf form. Just do your homework first. See if you can find it in a friend’s garden to get an idea of how it will do in your own. Hybrid does not equal evil so say goodbye to your grandma’s flowers if they really don’t work for you.

4. Never, ever, EVER garden with invasives.
Well, OK, you may regret the day you plunked that “slightly aggressive” plant your friend palmed off on you into your own garden. Just say no, or make sure your barricade method can withstand its insinuating ways. I plan on digging out my Gooseneck Loosestrife until the day I die, or sell my house.

5. If it isn’t broke don’t fix it.
So what if the boring bed you inherited with your house does so well—if it’s boring why settle? Dig it up, lug that stuff to your nearest swap, see if you can score any great finds and start over. Pretend you’re purging your closet. If you just really hate it, get rid of it; it won’t look any better next year.

Stay tuned today for one more from Ginny Stibolt.

 

Thank you guest ranters—and guest commenters!

 Well, we thought we were outspoken, but over the past two weeks, we have been put to shame by guest posts against flagpoles, Girl Scout cookies, city hall, IGCs, plant hybridizers, daffodils, and—most provocatively—garden whimsy (70-plus comments on that one).

The posts have been great, but it is really the comments that make the conversation, so thank you all so much for joining in. Just to reiterate, we used every post that was submitted in time, as long as it was not irrelevant to gardening, obscene, or spam/advertising. (Just so you know, we did not receive any obscene, irrelevant, or spam posts.) There was little or no editing.

Now to return to the regular staff of four ranters. Guest rants will continue on Thursdays when we have them.

To hell with cookies

A guest rant from Sandra Knauf.

 

I was a real jerk last February 13th. Maybe it was inevitable—after weeks doing financial aid paperwork for our daughter’s college applications and our taxes, I’d had no time to even think about doing anything fun, like gardening. But I was not planning to be mean when I saw the Girl Scouts on the steps of our neighborhood library. In fact, I was cheery as I chirped to my teen daughters Zora and Lily, “We should buy your dad a box of Mint Thin Girl Scout cookies for Valentine’s Day!” 

Once I got to the table, though, suddenly the desire to support this American ritual was colored by something else. These cookies were bad for you and the temptation, the pressure, to buy them was everywhere. A friend had just said something the week before—how families who sell these cookies almost always over-indulge, both parents and children gaining empty calories and reinforcing the sugar habit. These damn cookies, I thought, out there for weeks, tempting all to buy, buy, BUY!

That’s when I made the first snarky remark. “Same price as last year, but smaller boxes.”  Everyone politely ignored that rudeness, but then, looking at the back of the box, I added, “Artificial ingredients, hydrogenated oil. Yuk.”

Truly, I do not usually behave like this. I think there was a full moon too. My daughters  cringed, the father of the girls glared like he could kill me. I ignored them. And then I bought a box!

As we walked away, Lily said, “Mom, you were such an asshole.” The evil spell lifted. OMG, I was! A huge one!  We got in the car. “Maybe I should go apologize.” “Don’t you dare go back!” both daughters cried, fearing more embarrassment.

Although Lily pointed out the cookies also used palm oil (palm oil!), my conscience ached for days. How could I diss the Girl Scouts? They do good work! They set good examples! The amazing women who have been in Girl Scouts include Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gloria Steinem, and Martha Stewart. Girls are taught useful skills; self-esteem is bolstered. This group is respectful of different religions and beliefs. They fully accept people with different sexual orientations . . . what was wrong with me?!?

After thinking it over I realized the roots of my ill will went deep. I’d been channeling all those kids—mine included—coming to our doors over the years, selling things we didn’t need or want. Paraffin candles, candy, cookies, stuffed animals made in China, discount cards for buying junk food at fast food franchises. This is what we, in America, make our kids peddle. For their schools.

But then I remembered a school fundraiser from my elementary school days.  It was small town Missouri in the mid 1970s and I was going door to door, at exactly this time of year selling . . .  seeds! I remember it clearly, the long list of seeds to choose from: vegetables, flowers, and herbs in beautiful packages with colorful art. And you know what? When I came to the door many were even damn glad to see me! I remember little old ladies (who probably weren’t much older than I am now) saying, “I’ve been wondering when you’d be by. I want to get the garden going.”

Imagine—trading four dollar boxes of cookies made with palm oil, hydrogenated oil, and artificial flavorings, for something that we can USE. That’s healthy in every way. Imagine Girl Scouts selling organic non-GMO seeds, unusual seeds, maybe seeds in partnerships with other Girl Scouts around the world, seeds that can grow beautiful bouquets of flowers, vegetables to eat. Seeds that can urge people to get off their couches, drop those cookies, grab a shovel and create something fabulous! Fundraising that can be positive for everyone and every living thing.

I can see it now, and it can happen! After all, these girls can do anything—they’re Girl Scouts.

I am the Girl Who Could Not Grow a Zucchini.

Here is a guest rant from Rebecca/The Potato Queen

I am a sloppy amateur gardener. 

My vegetable garden is a mad tangle of poorly supported pole beans battling for supremacy against cucumbers in the same condition and tomatoes that long ago overgrew their cages.  A visitor viewing my vegetable garden sees not tidy rows of orderly produce, but a jungle of poorly thinned, weed-infested vines and stems, apparently trying to strangle each other.

My flower beds are currently overrun with weeds.  When I DO remember to weed, I leave behind me piles of little green corpses I forget to pick up later.  I may be losing two new little shrubs I planted this spring due to ignorant placement and lax watering during this oppressive summer.  There’s a giant branch in the middle of the backyard from last week’s storms: it will probably still be lying there this weekend.

But.

Where others see this:

 I see this:

When I first began to garden in my little townhouse, I envied the professionally landscaped yards of some of my neighbors. Everything was just so, the right plants for the environment, perfectly balanced arrangements, like something from a magazine.

A year into my first efforts, that envy disappeared. Since then my favorite landscape has always been my own. I’ve had many failures with flowers and edibles, but after that first year, the successes began to outnumber the failures. And because I planted it, every bloom and leaf is special to me. The most special: the ones given to me by friends and especially by my dad.

Six years later when I left that little townhouse for a little blue house with my now-husband, I left behind a proud legacy of flowers where once there was nothing but English ivy and honeysuckle.  The new owners knew nothing of that transformation, and tore out most of my lovingly tended shrubs and flowers.  But some remain, including my dad’s beautiful white peonies.  (In evil moments, I consider digging them up under cover of darkness and bringing them home.)

The new house offered a much bigger canvas: a quarter acre of weedy, patchy yard, some random plantings apparently made to dress up the yard for sale, and a oddball planting of ten miniature arborvitae-like trees spanning the front yard along the curb. Six years earlier, I would have probably left all as-is.  Instead, I saw a big playground in which I could continue to dig and grow (and yes, kill--sigh) on an even larger scale.

The secret?  It’s not that I’ve become a master gardener.  While my successes do outnumber my failures these days, I still have a lot of failures (zucchini, anyone?).  I still am lazy and often don’t follow the rules, resulting in mess and death in the garden. 

The secret is I have ceased to fear failure. No matter how many failures I continue to have, I believe that anything is possible.  I’m looking at you, zucchini.

Humanure?

Here's a guest rant from Farmer Jade.

Eliz's photo of a Duchamp multiple at Ravello.

I have a confession to make. I have a soft spot in my heart for those crazy people who compost their own poop. They seem to be everywhere, nowadays, at least in the "alternative gardener" circles I run in in Portland, Oregon. It's like the new cult in town. They even have their own Bible, called the Humanure Handbook. I call them the "humanure-farians", with apologies to Rastafarians. Terrible, aren't I?

The term reminds me of a stinky outhouse but I have a soft spot for these people. Not enough that I wouldn't think a neighbor was weird if they were doing it. But I understand where they are coming from, and I can respect the decision. After all, we're all crazy about our plants—that's why we're gardeners. They're just willing to cross a line than many of us are too squeamish about crossing.

And who knows, they're probably right. It is wasteful to throw all those nutrients down the drain. But it violates so many of our taboos, I can't help but finding it a wee bit distasteful, even if it will save the world.

We all do crazy things in our garden. I have a good friend who even considered installing a urinal in his garden—in order to collect urine to spread around the yard. After all, urea is often the top ingredient in most commercial fertilizers, so it's pretty hypocritical to criticize the practice. But I haven't gotten to the point where I want to a urinal to be the sculptural centerpiece of my garden. Although a toilet could make a great birdbath.

When this topic comes up, my friend often tells me about ancient Japan. There is a long practice of using "night soil" in farms in Japan. Apparently, the farmers kept well-maintained facilities all along the ancient highways in Japan. Can you imagine that happening here in the U.S.—in each McDonald's?

My wife thinks this whole topic is gross. I'm with her on humanure, but maybe there is a gender difference in attitudes towards "liquid gold"? Men seem to like the practice, and engage in it whenever nobody is looking, whether they are gardeners or not. 

So I have a suggestion for the Humanure-farians: work on your marketing. Here are some ideas to get you started: Bring back some old terms, like nightsoil. Now that's a decent term, something you can stick your hand into!

Get some fancy advertisements—maybe if you can get someone famous to do it, the lemmings will follow in their wake?

Call it something else. How about Moreganic gardening? Everyone likes organic.

Jade Rubick is the founder of Plantworking.com, a social networking site for gardeners. He writes a blog called Farmer Jade, where he writes about topics ranging from converting a lawn to garden to pruning and trellising tomatoes. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

1,001 Whatsitsname Plants

Here is a guest post from Raffi, who runs the Gardenology plant encyclopedia.

Puya alpestris

I love going to botanical gardens at home and in my travels, always hoping to discover new plant gems that I might potentially add to my garden.  No garden center can match the diversity of plants that most botanical gardens have, nor can they usually have full grown specimens available to show what the plant would look like in your garden.  So when I see a new plant that knocks my socks off, and leaves me wondering why they're not grown all over the place, it kills me when the plant is not labelled, and I have no idea what it's called!

Dombeya wallichii

Not surprisingly, some of the most impressive plants I've ever discovered I first saw in botanic gardens. Most of these plants I have rarely or in some cases never seen anywhere else.  When I first discovered the incredible shade of blue flowers on the Puya alpestris, or the seemingly 20 foot tall tree covered in big puffs of Dombeya wallichii, my first question was of course, what is this plant!?!?  Unfortunately, too often in botanic gardens, the answer is not to be found.  You look around for a label, and frustratingly find labels for some of the surrounding plants, but not the one you're dying to learn more about.

Botanical gardens are great places to learn about plants and discover new ones.  I just wish they'd make sure that every single plant was very clearly labeled, so that we'd never be left wondering just what the name of the plant is that we are looking at in amazement...

Oh Say Can You See

Here's more on garden objects from guest ranter Benjamin Yogt/The Deep Middle

Your house is your home. You can, of course, do whatever you want to the inside or outside. Unfortunately, in regards to the outside, the rest of us have to look at it and wonder what you were thinking.

A home is not a school, neither is it a post office, industrial park, nor the White House. Therefore—and this is just a suggestion—one should not have a flagpole in front of it.

Ok, maybe, just maybe if you live on a couple acres and want the compound effect, you can get away with a flagpole. But on a suburban ¼ acre lot, or an urban lot that’s even smaller? Come on.

Last night I had a nightmare where one of my many flagpole neighbors bugled revelry at 5am. The whole neighborhood marched out of their homes, kids and dogs in tow, and stood at attention for morning inspection.

Look, nothing against being proud of your country, or any professional or college sports team (except the Yankees, Lakers, Ohio State…). I suppose besides a pole that’s as tall as the house, the plantings around the base are what really push me over the edge.

Oh, look, mums! Orange ones! Daylilies! Orange ones! You know what would look good around that 20 foot pole? Rocks. Antlers on rocks. Maybe a bald eagle statue. Oh, and spotlights.

I had another dream, a good dream, where Jennifer Aniston was admiring my neighbor’s flagpole and calling me over. If you want, insert any proper noun for Jennifer Aniston: Robin Williams. Lady Gaga. Bert and Ernie. Your favorite garden blogger (ahem).

If you have flagpoles in your neighborhood, I hope you will recite the pledge below as you drive by them, gritting your teeth and “accepting” freedom of expression, bearing the cross that all of us with taste must endure.

I pledge allegiance to the crap you put in your lawn, one neighborhood, under siege, in design chaos, with no sane covenants at all.

Whimsy must die

And here's a guest rant by Susan Hampshire/Ink and Penstemons

When whimsy goes horribly wrong

If you visit an average suburban American garden you're likely to find lots of stuff: gazing balls, pinwheels, critters made of cast-concrete—maybe even some plants. If the gardeners are well-heeled, you may also spot a cast stone Buddha or an oversized ceramic urn turned into a fountain, er, I mean “water feature.” These gardens are easy to spot at a distance since their owners usually advertise with those metal signs on sticks that say "peace" or "grow." 

At the local nursery, you’ll notice that this garden bric-a-brac is always out in front, all shiny and sparkly surrounded by bright floral displays. By themselves, these items come off as twee or gaudy, but in the middle of the bright border of annuals at the store, they take on a decorous patina. If it's a small object, it's got "whimsy;" if it's large or expensive then it earns the august title of "focal point." And every garden needs an accent, right? So even though you went in to replace the Echinacea that died over the winter, somehow, you've walked out with a psychedelic metal whirlygig, a glass Dale Chihuly knock-off hecho en Mèxico, and several glazed terracotta mushrooms to stick in your border...somewhere.

It's all a bit precious, isn't it?

What is it about garden ornaments that make people go all bourgeois? If you are going to fork out a few hundred dollars for a “focal point,” why get the same thing that every other person has in their garden? Why not commission a local artist to create something unique for your space? Or, get creative—try to make something yourself! Custom-made garden ornaments may cost more, but one thoughtful, well chosen object in your garden will do much more as a point of interest than dozens of cement bunnies scattered around in your groundcover. And whatever happened to using plants as decoration? If you’re looking for a beautiful object that will add scent and color and sound to your garden all year long and will never be déclassé, you can’t go wrong with a well-placed plant. 

People don’t create a garden as a stage for their burgeoning gnome collection. People want to make gardens because they love plants. But plants are finicky creatures, as any experienced gardener can attest, and sometimes it's hard to get plants to go along with our grand vision. So we use objects as space-fillers for when our plantsmanship is lacking, and that’s okay. When it isn’t okay is when the plants suddenly become secondary. In a garden, plants should always be trump; the objects should be nothing more than a foil to what’s growing.

So, the next time you go to the garden center, take a deep breath and quickly walk past all the garish and flashy baubles and immediately go find some gorgeous plant and take it home and put it in a beautiful pot. The gnomes will have to fend for themselves.

When a Garden Needs a Lawyer

Here's a guest rant from Michelle Clay/The Clueless Gardeners. 

In July, against their wishes, the city of Bartlett, Illinois mowed down Donald and Benia Zouras’s garden.  And Don and Benia have to pay for it.

I’ve sifted through their record of what happened, and I’ve read the relevant parts of their town’s laws.  The research has left me confused.  The fact that I’m not a lawyer doesn’t help.

Some background: Don and Benia have worked for years to make their suburban yard into a wildlife habitat.  Their yard was one of three that I profiled back in March here at Garden Rant as risky but noble gardening causes.   At the time, Don seemed confident that his two brushes with disapproving neighbors and heavy-handed local laws were the end of his troubles. 

The Zouras’s made an effort through signs to let their neighbors know what was up with the yard.  But despite having their website posted on a sign by the sidewalk, they received almost no feedback until after the mowing took place.  Anonymous neighbors then called his yard an eyesore, an overgrown mess.  “At least with a forclosed home someone is mowing the lawn.” said one person.”  Said another, “You need to realize there is other houses around you and it just doesn't blend in; it's simply ugly and unorganized. Keep that stuff in your backyard.”

These comments were, thankfully, outnumbered by sympathetic feedback.

To be clear, it wasn’t their entire yard that got mowed; it was the strip between sidewalk and road where the utilities are buried.  But here is the odd part: the town cited a part of the law that applies to creating obstructions (visual or otherwise) to pedestrian or vehicular traffic.  The Zouras’s hell-strip garden may not have been the aesthetic ideal of suburbia, but they live on a straight road, away from intersections.  Their plants could hardly be blocking the view of drivers.  Furthermore, judging by the photos, the plants did not flop significantly into the sidewalk.  Was the bureaucrat who cited that part of the law just inept?  Or was that particular snippet of the town code drawn out of a hat as an excuse to enforce the aesthetics of some neighbor who had his panties in a bunch?

The letter they received from the town also mentions that it is unlawful to plant anything “in any public street or parkway” without approval of the Public Works Director.   This, I think, is the only part of the town’s complaint that holds water.   The Zouras’s did not apply for a permit to plant where the street’s power lines are buried, and therefore the town trumps.  Never mind that Don attempted to get some clarity from town on the letter’s strange wording, and was answered with one-line variants of “we already sent you a letter that says you violated the town’s code.”

Oddly, there was another part of the law which the town didn’t use against the Zouras’s yard, but could have: the Nuisance Laws.   These laws state that “Any such weeds as jimson, burdock, ragweed, thistle. . .” (perhaps the authors of this law were unaware that Pitcher’s thistle, Cirsium pitcher, is listed as a federally threatened plant)  “. . .cockleburr, or other weeds of like kind. . .”  (Mead’s milkweed, Asclepias meadi, is likewise endangered)  “. . .found growing in any lot or tract of land. . .”  (even parkland?)  “. . . in the village are hereby declared to be a nuisance, and it shall be unlawful to permit any such weeds to grow or remain. . .”   (This is a joke, right?  I can understand making weed illegal, but weeds?)

This bit is somewhat of a tangent, but I can‘t resist repeating it here: “It shall be unlawful for anyone to permit weeds, grass or plants, other than trees, bushes, flowers or other ornamental plants to grow to a height exceeding eight inches. . .” 

Just let that one sink in a bit.  A Bartlett resident could be fined for growing tomatoes.  Or for owning an ugly shade tree.  Perhaps the town didn’t cite this section of the law because the law is too ridiculous to hold up in court.

For the safety of workers, and to protect the underground cables and pipes from damage, it is reasonable for a town to demand permits for what gardeners plant on their utility strips.  But would the town have turned a blind eye on Don’s yard for a few more years if the neighbors had found it to be visually appealing?  Did the town go clumsily looking for an excuse to mow his yard in order to appease the offended sensibilities of a few suburban conformists?

If there's a lawyer in the house, I would love to hear an opinion.

Photo used with permission from Don Zouras.

What’s in a name?

A guest rant by Dee/Red Dirt Rambling

Lagerstroemia indica 

Writing about gardening isn’t rocket science or even brain surgery, but it isn’t easy either.  It’s not enough anymore to correctly identify a plant by its botanical, cultivar and common name. In the last decade, plant hybridizers and propagators began to patent their new creations with gusto and then trademark them. To say this causes garden writers and editors a lot of headaches is an understatement.

In journalism school, I was taught to write clearly and concisely about my subject. I’m essentially providing information to the reader, but when writing about my great passion, I also want to capture the romance of fauna, flower and vegetable while encouraging other gardeners.

In the past, if I wrote about a modern rose, it was fairly simple. I identified it botanically and by class and then listed the cultivar in single quotes.  Now, with plant patents and trademarks, it takes more than a correct botanical i.d., and don’t get me started on the taxonomists—coleus recently changed to the nearly unpronounceable Solenostemon scutellarioides which perplexed everyone.  I must also determine if the plant’s name is a cultivar or a trademark (or if they are one and the same). If a cultivar, it should be surrounded by single quotation marks. If a trademark, hybridizers would like an ® or a ™ behind the name depending on where it is within the process. Add to this that editors and writers can’t agree whether the trademark symbol should even be listed, and you’ll begin to understand the complexity.

It’s been my experience editors usually want cultivar names listed, and with some of the newer plants, these are becoming more difficult to find because hybridizers want us to promote their trademark.

According to one magazine’s guidelines, the crapemyrtle Tightwad Red®, would be Lagerstroemia indica 'Whit V' Tightwad Red® (crapemyrtle). If I include all of this information in the article every time I list the plant, even while shortening Lagerstroemia to L., it makes for some clumsy writing.

To be fair, I wondered why patenting and trademarks became de rigueur, so I called Dr. Carl Whitcomb, who is a crapemyrtle breeder, and asked him.

 “A plant doesn’t leave the farm until it is distinctly different from one in the trade, and it takes numerous tests and trials to make sure you’re satisfied this plant is unique and will make enough royalties to justify the expense,” he said.

In the twenty-six years of his business, Dr. Whitcomb grew over half a million plants and yet, as of now, he’s patented only eight. He feels patents and trademarks protect his property rights. If a company wants to grow L. indica ‘Whit II’ Dynamite® for example, it signs a license agreement and pays a royalty fee for each plant sold. Plant patents only last twenty years. So, Dr. Whitcomb also trademarks a name he hopes will resonate with the public. The trademark application requires a unique cultivar name, and Dr. Whitcomb chooses one which is less desirable. As long as he continues to renew the trademark, even when the patent expires, he hopes Dynamite® becomes the standard, and companies will continue to sell the plant as such.

After my talk with Dr. Whitcomb, I understand his reasoning. However, it doesn’t make my job any easier, and sometimes, I think the use of so many names puzzles the public especially when writers make mistakes. How many times have you seen trademark names incorrectly identified with single quotes?

By the way, Dr. Whitcomb wants you know that the common name for L. indica should be written as one word, not as crepe myrtle or crape myrtle because it isn’t a myrtle tree, and the USDA database agrees with him.

Yet, if you search the common name, you’ll find it written as two words almost everywhere.

See what I mean? 

Community Gardens: Where "Garden" Becomes the Verb

Here's a guest rant from Chris/Flatbush Gardener 

Community garden supporters on the steps of City Hall

In New York City, every square inch of space is scrutinized, and land use discussions often devolve into war games. Community gardens, unique uses of open and green space, are not spared such critical examination.

NYC’s current generation of community gardens emerged during the 1960s through the 1980s, as residents reclaimed abandoned properties—many of them city-owned—from trash and crime. They were “defiant gardens;” Kenneth Helphand devoted a chapter to them in his book of that title. Gardens became centers of activism, bringing neighbors together to heal their communities.

While property values were low, the City didn’t much care.  During the 1990s, property values rose, and the City began bulldozing gardens in earnest. In 1999, then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani put 113 community gardens up for auction as “vacant” lots for “development.” The City had tens of thousands of other vacant lots and empty or underutilized properties.  In response to protests against the sale, Giuliani declared “the era of communism is over.” More than a sale of public property for private profit, this was an assault on the gardens’ communities.

Garden activists succeeded in blocking the auction, leading to a 2002 Settlement Agreement preserving some of the gardens for eight years. Even with the settlement, hundreds of gardens have been lost. The settlement protected only 391 gardens of the 838 gardens. A recent census lists only 483 gardens.

The newly-formed New York Restoration Project (NYRP) purchased 51 of the gardens put up for auction in 1999. But NYRP, in partnership with Target, has converted nearly all of its community gardens into parks, razing vegetable beds for lawns and ornamental borders, replacing community stewardship with corporate sponsorship. Now that Target is closing its garden centers, what will become of NYRP’s gardens?

 Target Park in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn

The 2002 settlement agreement expires this September. For nearly two years, the New York City Community Gardens Coalition has been negotiating with NYC’s Department of Parks and Recreation (Parks) and Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to ensure protection continues. However, nowhere do Park’s and HPD’s proposed new rules mention “preservation.” However, “development” features prominently, reflecting the interests of billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his supporters. Once again, NYC’s community gardens are threatened for the sake of private profit.

 

NYC’s community gardens occupy a scant 120 acres, in contrast to more than 27,000 acres of parks. NYC’s green space per capita is lower than any other major U.S. city. A community garden should be win-win for a neighborhood, right? Who could hate a community garden? “There is not a universal love of gardens,” according to Parks Commissioner. 52% of today’s gardens are under Parks jurisdiction, and all community gardens must register with Parks’ GreenThumb program. Anyone else feel like this is the fox watching the henhouse?

New Yorkers for Parks Open Space Index classifies community gardens as “passive” open space, in contrast to active spaces such as sports fields and playgrounds which “offer places for recreational sports, exercise and play.” I argue that community gardens are active uses of open, green spaces. They are participatory, offering opportunities to engage in activities—planting, weeding, harvesting—for which one would be arrested for performing them in a public park. They provide unique benefits that are not available from other types of open space. This is where “garden” no longer need be just a noun: a place, static, passive. Community gardens are where “garden” becomes the verb. Let’s make sure they stay that way.

Photos by Chris/Flatbush Gardener.

Dig Deeper: Community garden resources

Some links from Chris:

My Community Gardens page

New York City Community Garden Coalition

Open Space Index Report, New Yorkers for Parks,

American Community Gardening Association, 

Histories of NYC Community Gardens

New York’s Community Gardens (1970s-2002): TreeBranch Network, Neighborhood Open Space Coalition

Community Gardens in New York City: the Lower East Side of Manhattan (1960s-2002), Not Bored

Contemporary reports from the 2002 Settlement Agreement

Bringing Peace to the Garden of Tranquility, Richard Stapleton, Land&People, Fall 1999, Trust for Public Land

Community Gardens Endangered Still, Anne Schwartz, Gotham Gazette, May 2001

Community Garden Negotiations, Anne Schwartz, Gotham Gazette, May 2002,

The 2010 Settlement Expiration and Proposed New Rules

Keeping the Gardens Green, NY Times editorial, 8/2/10

Green groups fear new community garden rules, Heather Haddon, AM New York, 8/4/10

Coalition Seeks More Protection For Community Gardens, Raanan Geberer, Brooklyn Eagle, 8/6/10

Time's Up Response To Benepe's Embarrassing NY Post Community Garden Op-Ed, A Walk in the Park, 8/12/10

Show Off

Here’s a guest rant from Kathleen McCoy.

When I joined the Garden Club of Montclair, I got the official Handbook for Flower Shows and a toolbox. I was not excited about the requirement for new members to make two flower arrangements. It was the floral equivalent of eating a bland chicken breast.

Then I met Brenda, the reigning queen in a long line of our club’s flower design royalty. In her workshop I learned about the elements and principles of design. To see it well done was to have my eye led on a fun little trip, to be delighted, drawn in. My first attempts felt wooden. Then Brenda would stop by, and with deft and sure movements make one or two changes, and voila, there was rhythm.

We learned about mechanics, which is how to construct the arrangement so that it will survive the trip in the car to the flower show. The legend before Brenda was Julia Berrall, a published author on flower arrangement. Brenda said Mrs. Berrall used no oasis (the green foam) in her designs. She was that good. You could turn her design upside down and it wouldn’t move.

Someone once suggested our meeting room needed painting. She was informed that the walls were a specific shade of green to enhance flower design exhibition. Which brings me to the scary people in the world of flower shows who take the rules seriously. That Handbook is 356 pages. One exhibitor at our club’s monthly flower show (a humble affair) was upset when points had not been deducted from the score of the winner for not filling out the entry card correctly. The prevailing attitude, however, is let’s have fun and eat those terrific desserts on the tea table.

On days we’re staging a flower show, I bring in my design, see those of my fellow competitors, snort in contempt and come home with third place. Do I care? Yes. I am one of four women who regularly exhibit in the Intermediate class. I usually lose to one woman who is frugal, buying her flowers at Shop-Rite. I spend gads of money at the local florist. The other one who regularly places ahead of me designs like she plays tennis: to win. I take solace in the words of Brenda: winning blue ribbons gets boring; taking chances is much more fun.

Here are some of my designs:

Y=ax2+bx+c

 

For this scholastic-themed design I submitted a Hogarth or S curve. The judge said it looked like it would fall apart. It received third place.

Save Room for Dessert

 A functional tray design

It needs a pewter charger under the dessert plate to add weight. The judge thought the fork was plastic and made no sense with the other elements, when in fact that fork is from France. Third place.

Chili After the Game

 A small design, not to exceed 8”

The theme was Montclair traditions. Judge’s comment: Choice of material and background is exciting. First place

Golden interlopers along the Gorge

Here’s a guest rant from Bob Baxter/co-contributor, Fading Into Myth

Every April in the Greater Niagara area over 2 million daffodils bloom. This is known as the Festival of Gold because the daffodils are yellow. The origin of the festival is fading into the mists of antiquity (20 years ago?) which undoubtedly pleases those who dreamed it up.

They promoted it as a contemporary magic, desperate but hopeful: our failing post-industrial region could reclaim its economic prosperity by planting Gold—people would then flock here to see all the daffodils and spend their money. "Wow, honey! Look at all the daffodils! Where's my wallet?"  Guess what? The magic didn't work.

But daffodils are still everywhere, along parkways, randomly popping up in April long before the crush of tourists begin to arrive, in State Parks, along routes through the countryside, beyond the mowed area at crossroads. The silliest location for daffodils is at DeVeaux Woods State Park, where clumps of these alien blooms dot the border of the old growth forest there along the rim of the Niagara gorge.

Can you imagine a more incongruous or sillier way to mark the existence of an old growth forest which for hundreds of years has nourished its flora atop a gorge thousands of years old? Who sanctioned this daffy daffodil planting?

The daffodil originated in Europe, North Africa, and Asia. How appropriate. Why not plant Giant Russian Hogweed? They are much more dramatic, sometimes over ten feet tall, with blooms nearly two feet in diameter. And they are self-propagating, and toxic, too. We are, after all, home to Love Canal. And early pioneers raised pigs here. The Hogweed Festival! I can hear the hog-calling contests now, and imagine the great smells from pork chop BBQ stands that will pop up as numerous as daffodils.

Though I would never do such a thing, nor recommend it to anyone else, a few quarts of waste oil poured judiciously around those old growth daffodils would solve that problem. That would be nothing compared to the oil in the Gulf. It would be nothing compared to the 231,769 tons of carbon emissions from vehicles using the gorge parkway, nothing to the tons of winter salt spread there. These pollutants routinely wash into our unique gorge landscapes now, where cedars hundreds of years old cling to life on the cliffs. This doesn't seem to bother too many people, certainly not those early daffodil visionaries.

Learn more about these issues by visiting Niagara Heritage Partnership ; contact Bob Baxter at erbaxter(at)aol.com. Photo courtesy Niagara County Parks.

A Letter to Independent Garden Center Owners

Here's a rant from Barbara Pintozzii/Mr. McGregor's Daughter. UPDATE: I have moved this post up because the discussion is great and I hope more will join in. Also, please see Trey/Blogging Nurseryman's recent posts for more great talk about IGCs.

Dear Independent Garden Center (IGC) Owner:

I want to make it clear right away, I love IGCs.  They're among my favorite places to visit on earth. I get a bit of a high while wandering through a great garden center. I have just one complaint, and it's a deal-breaker.  At the IGC show a couple weeks ago, Raymond Evison ignored the title of his "Five Trends from Chelsea" presentation to assert that there was only one trend: quality.  I couldn't agree more.

 

 

It doesn't matter if you provide free snacks and coffee, have the most stunning displays, are up on the latest trends, or have the biggest selection of plants, if the plants you have lack quality, you're not going to make it.  I don't care if you have plants normally available only in England, I am not going to buy them if they won't survive the planting.

Consumers will pay for quality, even in a down market, because quality saves money in the long run.  For example, it costs more to buy cheap annuals, have them die, and replace them than it does to pay a little more for the same plants that have received better care. I lost a zucchini in July because it was pot-bound when I purchased it, and the roots never expanded into the soil in the container.

There's no excuse to offer for sale plants with weeds in the pots.  I'm not talking about a little ground sorrel here.  I'm talking weeds that rival the plant itself.

 

There's also no excuse for offering stressed plants for sale at full price.

While the failure to pot up perennials and woody plants is understandable, the extra cost should be expended.  A pot-bound plant may take years to recover.

I talked with representatives from companies that require their plant product to be sold in distinctive containers.  One had no answer to my question of what an IGC should do if one of their plants needed to be moved to a larger container.  The other, Proven Winners, informed me that the IGC should send the plant back to the wholesaler for potting up.

Evison suggested that IGCs could avoid this problem by buying smaller amounts of plant material more frequently.  I've talked with gardeners who buy from the big box stores. They buy only when "the truck" has just come in.  IGCs need to follow the gardeners' lead and Evison's advice on this. Yes, you'll pay more in transportation costs, but you'll have less leftover inventory and happier customers.

An IGC near me is closing.  Some people say it's because of the big Menard's that went in next door. I disagree.  I did not patronize this IGC because it didn't have quality plants.  Every year I visited, hoping to see a change, and every day I was disappointed. There were still big weeds in the pots, some of the plants near the back of the bench clearly hadn't been watered, and others looked stressed.  I did not recommend this IGC, nor mention it on my blog.

I love IGCs, and I will happily name them and recommend them if they carry quality plants.  Heck, I'll even list them on my local resources page.  If you sell quality plants, and offer a good selection, including some unusual plants, I'll be more than happy to drop big bucks at your business, rather than get plants through mail order or buy from a big box.  

 

Take heed—don't let this (above) happen to your business!