9 Tips For Keeping Your Garden in Tip-Top Condition

The post 9 Tips For Keeping Your Garden in Tip-Top Condition appeared first on Miss Smarty Plants.

It seems like we can spend a long time working on our garden, and then, when it’s all finished, we only have a small amount of time to enjoy the fruits of our labor before things are beginning to look, well, a little less perfect than they did when everything was fresh and new. But good news: you don’t have to settle for a garden that you’re less than happy with. It’s all about taking those small steps and making sure it’s kept in tip-top condition. We take a look at nine useful tips below.

Do Your Homework

Everything will stay in excellent condition for longer if they were right for your garden in the first place. During the planning stages make sure you’re reading as much as you can about plants, fertilizers, and correct placement for the various aspects of your garden – it’ll serve you well in the long run. Like most things in life, knowledge is power! If you’re putting things in the ground that really shouldn’t be there, then you can’t have too many complaints if they later turn out to give you more problems than they were worth.

Make It Part Of Your Routine

Your garden isn’t going to look after itself. That’s your job! To prevent things from getting too out of hand, you just have to do one simple thing – make it part of your routine. It’s much easier to spend ten minutes each day making sure that your garden has everything it needs rather than waiting until things are too far gone before you do get up out of the hammock and do something about it. If it’s a dry season, that small amount of time you put into watering the plants will make all the difference.

Get Rid of Those Weeds

It’s not just about making sure that the things you’ve already got are thriving. It’s about keeping the things that you don’t want part of your garden out. Take weeds, for example. They’re harmless enough, and often begin so small that you don’t notice much of a difference. But after time, they’ll become all-consuming; your garden will look slightly off, but you won’t be able to tell exactly what’s wrong. It’s those pesky weeds! Get rid of them before they have much of a chance to grow – it’ll save you from having a big clean-up job later on down the line.

Review and Update Regularly

Your garden isn’t static. You’ve got living, growing things. So just through the course of its life, it’s going to change. But is it moving in a direction that’s beneficial to the overall health of your garden? You’ll only know if you’re keeping an eye on how things are progressing. Maintaining a garden is all about making subtle adjustments that’ll help the garden to flourish. Pay close attention, and update as and when you deem necessary.

Keep Out Unwanted Wildlife

You’re not the only living thing that has an interest in your garden. The wildlife that surrounds your house does, too. That wildlife doesn’t see an expertly curated garden; they see enough meals to last them for months on end, and you better believe they’re going to seize any opportunities that they’re given. You can help protect your vulnerable plants (plus any vegetables you may be growing) by adding deer fencing to your garden. It’s a subtle addition that could make all the difference when it comes to the health of your outdoor space.

An Eye on the Kids

And hey, you know as well as we do that your kids sometimes act more like animals than they do humans! As such, it might be worthwhile having a little chat with them about the need to be careful when they’re playing in the garden, lest they start stomping around everywhere and crush all of your plants. Of course, kids will be kids, so maybe think about having a designated play area in which they can play. Plus, it’s much easier to get away with spending long hours tending to your garden if you’re able to keep a watchful eye on your little ones at the same time.

Get Rid of Debris

A lot of debris can find its way into your garden, especially during the fall and winter months. There are all those leaves for starters, but they’re not the biggest concern – on windy days, you can end up with plenty of trash and other items that have no place in your beautiful garden. If you see something, pick it up (this is also useful advice for when you’re out in public, too!) – it’s much easier to tidy as you go rather than wait until the fine weather is back. That trash will only have nestled itself into a tight corner somewhere, out of sight.

Nip Any Problems in the Bud

There are some problems that can emerge from a garden. Perhaps the biggest threat to your garden – not to mention your home – are falling branches. These can crush whole beds of plants and vegetables, and also cause significant damage to the structure of your home. Every now and again, it’s good practice to survey the branches around your home and make sure that they’re alive and well, and not susceptible to breaking away, especially during a thunderstorm.

Keep Your Furniture Indoors

Don’t forget that you’re not just enjoying your garden from afar; you’re going to be spending time in it, too. As such, it’s a good idea to invest in high-quality outdoor furniture, and then take steps to protect and preserve that furniture. Bring it indoors completely during fall and winter, and make sure that you’ve got a proper cover for it during the summer.

Getting your garden to the standard you want it to be is not easy, but keeping it at that level is easy, if you follow the steps we’ve outlined above.

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The post 9 Tips For Keeping Your Garden in Tip-Top Condition appeared first on Miss Smarty Plants.

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green thumb

Gardeners look at things maybe morning AND  evening because that’s what gardeners do. I’ve grown impatient with those people that tell me they just don’t have a green thumb. I lay a steely eye on them and tell them to…

green thumb originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 29, 2018.

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Wish Me Luck

My good luck began this spring with a three-year-old thoroughbred named Justify. I was smitten the first moment I saw the beautiful chestnut-colored horse walk onto the Churchill Downs track for a short gallop. I knew right away, early in…

Wish Me Luck originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 27, 2018.

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Athletic Field Management

Athletic field management is a never ending job for many Athletic Directors.  Have you ever wondered what goes into managing your kid’s Little League or high school fields?  Here are some great athletic field management tips for the professionals out there looking for some help.

Increasing turf density in Northeast US athletic fields

Soil oxygen, moisture, basic fertility and seeding are all critical components for increasing turf density on athletic fields. If your soil test indicates that the pH, phosphorus, potassium, organic matter & CEC are within guidelines you are in good shape.  Should any of these items be off, adjust your program to amend the soil over time.  If the soil test indicates conditions are extremely poor, you may need to do things sooner.

You should take a soil test every 3-4 years.  Starting in Late August – early September start biweekly overseeding the high use areas.  We prefer straight, blue tag, turf type tall fescues (TTTF) with highly rated varieties for our area.  You can use 50 lbs. per field, per service and “feed the chickens.”  I have had field managers say they thought I was crazy before they saw the results.  Now they overseed all the time.

Now we need air!  After your fall sports schedule ends, we recommend double-pass aeration & slice seeding.  In Late May thru early September we also like to Vertiquake (decompact) to 6” to increase the oxygen level to the roots and increase drainage. This has very little impact on the playing surface so it will have little (if any) effect on playability of the field. Remember that if the soil oxygen level is less than 10% your turf will begin to suffer, and so will the high use areas of your fields.

Topdressing is an important part of increasing the soil biology and helps to smooth out the playing surface. We prefer to use a 50/50, screened soil/compost mix during the slice seeding.

Fall overseeding is critical in keeping your turf density high.  So, go out there and “feed the chickens!”

Building the soil profile in your athletic fields

As we move away from synthetic fertilizers and use less herbicides and pesticides it becomes more important to increase the soil biology.  Active soil biology is essential to sustain plant life.  Healthy soil is full of life where organic matter and nutrients are recycled.  The importance of keeping the organic matter and oxygen levels up in your soil can’t be overstated.  That’s why we topdress and aerate to increase the soil life that provides the nutrients to the turf.

We have finished our third year using our Soil Smart program on residential lawns and a few athletic fields.  The results are impressive considering we’re using 75% less pesticides.  The Soil Smart program adds biology in the form of bacteria & fungi to the soil profile.  This helps to break down organic material and produces nutrients in the root zone.  We expect to continue to expand our Soil Smart program into athletic fields as there is more pressure to become more sustainable while increasing the turf density by improving the soil profile.

Low spots must be a high priority

The goal of every sportsturf manager is to have smooth, safe surfaces for play.  Athletic fields are dynamic and constantly change due to activity pressure, weather, drainage, disease and damage.  It’s important to address deviations on the field, low or high, that will affect play and, more importantly, safety.

Ballfield lips should be addressed every fall.  Goal areas should be renovated by rototilling, adding soil, seed & fertilizer and covered with a grow tarp in November.  Worn areas should be topdressed with a soil/compost mix, seeded and strawed if necessary.

In early spring, try to get your fields mowed to even them out after the winter growth.  This is especially true for the ballfields.  Many times these spots get ignored until a player goes down and their parents are there.  Then the phone calls begin.  So, talk to the guys who mow to help identify these areas and get them repaired.

Irrigating athletic fields…it’s not all good

While there are many benefits of irrigating athletic fields, there are also caveats to understand.

The benefits are obvious in being able to water in fertilizers or before or after a pesticide or herbicide application. Reducing hardness and cooling the turf are important as well.  Irrigating areas after seeding can speed up germination.  Watering in infield mix prior to a game on a ballfield makes the infield more playable.

The amount of water and the timing are the foundation of most of the issues with irrigation. Watering too frequently can cause shallow root growth, leeching of nutrients, and can increase weeds and diseases. Overwatering can also cause micronutrients like calcium & magnesium to build up to levels that cause compaction and turf nutrient uptake issues.

So, when do I water, Mr. Wizard?  Start early in the morning (3-4 AM).  On northeast clay-based fields, if you can pull a 3-4” plug with a soil probe, chances are there’s enough moisture.  During hot & dry periods you can consider adding ¾” to 1” of water each service.  Maybe two times per week.  Be brave and resist watering every day using small amounts. Think deep and infrequent watering.

Managing multiple grass species on the same athletic field

Few athletic fields have only one species and most have many species and multiple cultivars within that species. Sometimes managing fields with many species and cultivars can be like herding cats.

Weather and fertility will affect species and cultivars differently making your field look like a mosaic. On fields like these my thinking involves establishing basic fertility.  Then you need to choose the best species and cultivars to slice seed and overseed on these fields.

In central PA it will involve turf type tall fescue (TTTF) or perennial ryegrass.  About 5 years ago I switched the fields I help to manage to slice seeding with TTTF and have never questioned that decision.  While perennial rye will germinate a few days faster and will mature a few weeks faster than TTTF, most all other characteristics favor TTTF. Darwinism may tell you that natural selection will take over and the stronger will survive.  While that may hold true for a home lawn it is less viable on an athletic field undergoing wear and stress.

So, it becomes inherent to the turf manager to reintroduce the species and cultivars that work on his fields.  This normally takes place starting in late August with over seeding and ends with aeration and slice seeding at the close of fall sports.  After 3-4 years of seeding the preferred species your field will become easier to manage and more playable for your teams.

 

If you’d like to learn more about how to care for an athletic field you manage, please Contact Us.

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Tin Chickens are the Right Garden Art for Us

In the end it came down to a pair of ornamental tin chickens, both of them, no doubt, created in a distant and dangerous land soon to be confronting more tariffs – or less.

So it goes in the modern yard-art department where, at some point, everything seems fair game or fowl.

My taste in such in our Hidden Hill Nursery & Sculpture Garden has been running more toward tin chickens of late. That’s partly because every botanical garden and arboretum in the world has now been overrun with Chihuly and such. I do often enjoy those gardens’ massive fountains and carved limestone behemoths, but I do not rob banks or cajole the rich for a living.

Some days you just have to settle for tin chickens.

I started collecting garden art with even more modest goals. The nearby Ohio River provided limestone fossils from the Devonian era; anything that had been around more than 400 million years seemed like a worthwhile investment in time and dirty tennis shoes.

Once there, driftwood also became fair game. It floated in from Pittsburg and beyond, its bark washed smooth, its stunted limbs offering a polished ballet with previous performances upriver in Cincinnati, Ohio and Madison, Indiana.

Yeah, sure, blocky, limestone fossils and well-worn dead trees lining a raised-bed garden. That old stuff. It could make a guy interested in tin chickens.

I went through the usual rustic, garden art phases. Church bells. Shovels shaped like angry birds. Cut class bottles. Wheelbarrows filled with rainbows of caladiums. An ox yoke. Plow shares. Old horse-drawn plows. Painted wooden signs that said, “Beets me.” And, yes, God help me, rubber tires painted pink and planted in purple petunias and hung from trees, but only to mock Chihuly and his ilk.

Promise.

Gradually my tastes changed, some might say even improved. My secret was to befriend local artists who had taste, talent, and, as with many artists, preferred to see their work in our meadow rather than stuffed behind the lawnmower in their garages.

I paid a lot more attention to genuine upper-case Folk Art and artists; people who can create stuff just because they can. You can’t teach it. You can’t imitate it. They just see something where others see nothing and do it.

The results include our Wizard of Oz-like “Watering Can Man” and our “Federal Offense” mailbox.

Certainly, our tin chickens do not roost in that territory. With them I envision about 500 workers sitting in unheated tin buildings cutting up pieces of salvaged metal and making chickens for about $12 a day. The man or woman painting them in their bright colors might get $14 – subject to tariffs.

My reason for the tin chickens was that we already had the empty chicken coop. Our earlier attempt at raising genuine, yellow-yoked farm-grown eggs had gone south. Our coop needed some low-maintenance presence.

We did have some chicken-raising experience. But this time around the original seven fully-formed chickens were quickly reduced to 14 unattached legs by some hungry varmint.

Our next attempt was 12 chickens reduced to zero chickens over about six months due to varmints, illness, bad karma and their refusal to lay eggs after a certain point – with the final three slackers ending up in an employee’s oven. We had warned them.

But our empty chicken coop remained. It had been a $1,000 investment, not counting another roughly $1.6 million spent on treated lumber, chicken wire, lights, heaters, feeders and bales of straw. A good MIT accountant would have estimated our costs per dozen useable eggs at about $15,000 a carton.

But here’s the deal. If part of your reason for living is to mock certain art, pretentiousness and Chihuly, what better way to do it then placing a couple of tin chickens next to your chicken coop.

The opportunity presented itself at a mammoth, corporate-looking glassed-in Northern Illinois nursery that offered at least one of every tree, shrub, flower, fertilizer type, porcelain pot, shovel, hose, watering can and green-lawn push mower in horticultural history.

Its knowledgeable employees sort of wandered the place in a rosy glow, surrounded by all that was good and holy, seemingly willing to die there in the back room potting up perennials if it came to that.

And there, near that back room and another quarter acre of garden stuff, were two tin chickens. What seemed to be a rooster about four-feet tall and a smaller guy with tinny pretensions. On sale. And us only about 400 miles from home and a pickup truck already full of trees, shrubs and flowers I couldn’t live without.

No problem. The chickens got safe harbor in a relative’s garage until we got back up to Northern Illinois. They got a ride home in the back of our beloved Honda Odyssey – our 146,000-mile baby – along with more much needed plants.

We cleaned out the chicken coop and its run of extraneous chicken bit, placed the two tin chickens near the end facing our nursery, and stood back in awe and full customer appreciation.

There is the distinct possibility that da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” or Rodin’s “The Thinker” might garner a little more praise, but I’m thinking we’ve got Chihuly worried.

Tin Chickens are the Right Garden Art for Us originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 25, 2018.

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Protect Your Commercial Property Against Summer Pests

Fight Off Summer Pests 

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A Few Thoughts On Turning 68

June 15th was my 68th birthday. I had never intended or planned to be 68, but there it was, and here it is. I will admit the idea and the reality of it stung some. Turns out I did not have to go that milestone alone. Rob and I have worked together 26 years, meaning [...]

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I Saved the Old Junipers Despite your Advice

In a post last fall I asked, “Can these Junipers be Saved?” about the old, overgrown ones used as foundation plants in front of my coop’s office building. Above, the very sad “before” look, showing a lot of dead parts due to shearing that was done to keep branches away from the sidewalks. It was the sadly common problem of using plants that become too large for their space.

So the staff yanked out the junipers nearest the sidewalk, which revealed large dead areas on the remaining ones, where they’d been crowded and shaded.

That’s when I asked GardenRant readers here and on Facebook to weigh in, which they sure did. The majority were in favor of removing ALL the old junipers:

• I would say just remove them and start fresh.
• Low growing evergreens like junipers tend to break or spread under a load of snow. So, when you remove the lower limbs, you’ve removed the support for the upper limbs making the juniper more prone to snow breakage. Besides, I personally am not a fan of the ornamental look. I’d remove your junipers. I’d place more open evergreens
• Sometimes, the better question is not “can they be saved,” but “should they be saved?” And I’m a vote for “not saved.” No more spraying for bagworms, no more (in my case) worrying about whether the pack rats are moving in for shelter, no more browning underneath, no more overgrown monstrosities harboring trash and potential muggers. Out! Out, I say!
• I am with many of the others. Remove the entire lot of juniper, start over and select plants that will be appropriately sized for what you want.
• No, they cannot and should not. My neighborhood was developed in the 60s and some of the lovely homes still maintain borders and slopes of juniper, which also harbor rats and skunks. A couple of the worst hold-outs paint the exposed brown a too-bright green annually, to compensate!
• They could be, but there are so many more attractive alternatives.
• Pull them out and plant more attractive shrubs. (To which I asked, “What shrubs would you suggest?” but there was no response.)

Just two voted for saving the remaining junipers:

• I had this problem at my property here in Provence. I have some landscape training, and decided to do a modified Japanese style, exposing the good parts of the structure and thinning and shaping the upper branches. Looks beautiful and I get many compliments. I even added a stone lantern.
• I really like the sculptural look and haven’t had or seen snow load problems (mind you we don’t get the lake affect snow upstate New York gets). The issue may be what to do in the area under the branches.

I guess I like a “sculptural look” because that’s what I’d call the result you see here, after I spent several hours over the winter removing all the dead juniper parts. I also like using that area already in place when possible (a principle of sustainable gardening that doesn’t get enough attention) and saving money for my coop. Replacing all these foundation evergreens would have been pricey and it would have taken years for them to look established.

But what about the problems the commenters warned me about?

• To my knowledge, these junipers have no bagworm problem and are never sprayed.
• Limbed-up like this, they don’t harbor rats, skunks, trash or potential muggers.
• The only concern that applies here (again to my knowledge) is that some of the remaining branches aren’t holding themselves up well now, without the support of the dead branches underneath. The drooping adds a bit of drama to the sculptural effect.

In April the effect of daffodils blooming with the limbed-up junipers was nice but awfully sparse-looking. I can’t wait to show you what the make-over looks like now, with 18 new shrubs and dozens of perennials, mostly donated and full-size.

Okay, that’s an understatement. I’m so excited about this garden I can hardly keep from checking on it every day.

I Saved the Old Junipers Despite your Advice originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 22, 2018.

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Too Cool For Color

Amazon comes for the garden centers?

It’s been happening for a while. I am guilty of using Amazon for garden hardware that’s kind of boring to shop for in person, like hoses, nozzles, timing systems, and the like. I have never shopped for plants there. But a recent article in the industry mag, Garden Center, reports on Amazon’s recent launch of the Amazon Plants Store, which invites consumers to shop for plants by brand, with the list including such well-known icons as Proven Winners.

Ordinarily, if you go to Amazon’s home and garden section, you’ll find a list on the left that includes plants, with items like trees, perennials, and shrubs. But click on trees and, most likely, the first item might be a book, with other choices including a bottle tree, solar lights, and fairy houses to hang on trees. It’s not much help and you’ll soon be headed to your local tree nursery.

The new Plants Store, however, focuses on live plants only. Except. After scrolling down past the grower logos, some plant images appeared, none of them plants I would ever think of for outdoor gardening purposes. They included a sago palm, a lucky bamboo, a bunch of orchids, and some other tropicals, all mixed in with Knockouts and azaleas. This is not the way I like to shop for plants. My favorite IGC has separate areas for these things and they are arranged in a way that makes sense, something that Amazon’s algorithms are incapable of, by definition. Amazon just doesn’t work that way, which can be fun when you’re looking for books or face cream.

I am a big online shopper for bulbs, and, occasionally, annuals or perennials I can’t find anywhere else. But, by far, the bulk of my shopping is done in person, at local IGCs and I do not see that changing.

Here’s my favorite quote from the Garden Center article, from a retailer who sells both ways: “We kind of like Amazon, and we kind of feel like we don’t like Amazon. It’s a really weird relationship.” That sounds about right.

Otherwise, I’m envisioning hordes of newbie gardeners filling their yards with orchids, sago palms, and lucky bamboo.

Amazon comes for the garden centers? originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 19, 2018.

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Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden

Benjamin Vogt and I began an email exchange last March after I read his very interesting A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future.

A few weeks ago, Benjamin had a sign posted on his property in Lincoln, Nebraska that warned him about the public nuisance he had created. He won the fight to keep his front and back yard prairie, but this got me thinking.

It seemed like a good time to share our exchange. Portions have been edited and expanded.

Onward Benjamin.

I wrote my book to make folks as uncomfortable as I felt. I wrote it to question horticulture, landscape design, and all environmental movements. I wrote it to invigorate the discussion and get us to grapple with humanity in ways we avoid in order to protect ourselves from the reality of our lost love. I wrote it in order to unearth aspects of environmentalism I thought weren’t explored enough. I wrote my book out of depression, fear, and anger in order to discover a strength we all possess — the ability to go against the force of history and culture and risk some aspect of ourselves we assumed was better for us. Gardens are places of activism in a time of mass extinction and we need to start using them as such. And if gardens are art, if that’s the primary viewpoint about them that we’re stuck with, then remember the long tradition of art based in activism and making folks uncomfortable for a purpose.

 

March 2018

Hi Benjamin,

I apologize for being slow to read your book, but I’m glad I brought it to the top of my book pile.

I thoroughly enjoyed A New Garden Ethic.

I worried at the outset that it might be full of redundancies, but when there were similar claims, “We proclaim ourselves right in a wrong world…” (p.56), each new argument augmented your case. Rarely did I feel like you were talking down to me. On occasion, there were annoying passages, such as, “Native plants are a threat to an entire Western culture…(p 59).

But here’s what I got out of your book.

1. A garden isn’t nature
2. Our values screw us up
3. A new garden ethic is needed

Surprisingly, I enjoyed your bits about “pretty” and “beauty.” It reminded me of an undergraduate course in Philosophy of the Mind. Your subject is complex but well written. However, I still like “pretty” and don’t agree that “pretty,” as a premise, need be “arrogant.”  I don’t think I’ve ever gardened for “human supremacy.” I was heartened, when you briefly backed off and said, “Of course a garden must be pretty.”

“Pretty” concerns me because that’s how we primarily judge the worth of a garden or landscape — I just want us to redefine gardens, especially in the context of mass extinction. What is pretty to the silent majority on this planet, to wildlife? I don’t think many of us garden for human supremacy in a conscious way, but when we go outside and say “I want this maple tree right here” we are practicing a form of supremacy since we are placing our desires over or onto the landscape, whether we’ve researched the tree and ecosystem or not. Now, I’m not explicitly saying such actions are good or bad, per se. I’m saying we must think more critically about our actions, and that if we don’t we are propagating an arrogance that has led us to the assumption we are at the top of the pecking order and can do no harm. This is what’s created a 6^thmass extinction — privileging ourselves over other species and landscapes. We do it every day in small, subtle ways and in massively overt ways.

I was glad to read the chapter: More than Native Plants. Your sentence on p. 52 is magnificent: “Every place we touch is a garden, no matter its size, and the economic, aesthetic, and emotional lessons we learn in one landscape are practiced in others.”

Good stuff on feelings: denial, grief and loss.

And, more good stuff: wisdom is evolutionary (p.66); “ethical amnesia” (p. 78) and “compassion fade” and “psychological numbing” (p.81)

This was my favorite chapter to write and research, chapter three; it’s the heart of the book, and I think out environmental crisis (and other crises, like race, gender, guns, etc). There’s a lot of psychology at play in how we view ourselves, one another, and the world around us. There’s a lot of guilt and shame. There’s a lot of self-defense that’s totally genetic and human and natural that we have to understand, identify, and process more thoughtfully. For example, when someone proposes native plants instead of hosta, it’s easy to feel defensive because we’re being exposed to new concepts that both feel constrictive and carry greater ramifications for the environment, and those ramifications influence how we perceive ourselves as acting or thinking ethically. Change is hard — learning new ideas is hard (especially when they go against the cultural / social default). Emotionally and psychologically evolving as fast or faster than the changes we are forcing on the plant is really hard, if not nearly impossible.

I wish you’d go easy on red cedars (p.79). I love red cedars!

But your red cedars aren’t aggressive thugs, right? I like them, too, but boy do they destroy our prairies. It’s all about regional context, and in the U.S. there’s lots of nuance. We burn trees in Nebraska, we don’t hug them.

And there are the useless plants… I don’t agree with your statement: “Gardens composed of both native and exotic plants constitute a precarious balance.” (p. 83) I am NOT grief stricken, although you might argue I’m in denial.

Yes, I would argue that. Denial is one of the five stages of grief, and processing grief is both an exercise in preserving the self and accepting the new self that is forming. It’s a conundrum we carry into our landscapes — our emotions dictate a lot of what we do behind our fences.

I love daffodils and peonies, among many other non-beneficial plants. I get your point and respect your radical approach. I know you don’t think there’s a perfect world as long as humankind is here on earth.

Oh I wouldn’t go that far. I firmly believe humans can be part of a thriving, balanced, biodiverse global ecosystem. But as is — given our extraction-based cultures that privilege humans — it’s not working. And the argument that nature will find a way is sort of bogus — I don’t want to live, and I don’t want my kids to live — in a world where nature is in the process of finding its way. Drought, famine, disease,  dirty water, no fish, plastic in every bite we take… We could still be in a relative Goldilocks era if we woke to the world right now.  

I’m glad you threw a bone to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)for promoting a planting spectrum that includes a large % of native plants.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to plant challenging exotics and natives that I am curious to grow. I will endeavor to try and be more attentive to what’s under foot and around me.

You’ve inspired me.

I’ve got tons of natives, even a faux prairie, but I’m a one-trick pony. I’m a plantsman, far from a naturalist. You’ve encouraged me to dig deeper. Microbes are in my future.

Go go go Allen! We’re all taking steps even if I wish (and other species wish) they were much larger and were at more of a brisk jog’s space, if not a hard sprint.

My favorite chapter was Urban Wildness and Social Justice.  You made me think of Thoreau leaving Walden Pond to take his laundry to his mom.

“(If we expect to be selfless”… p.120). Louisville needs to work harder (p. 125). My friend, Louisville tree activist, Mike Hayman is planting trees as fast as he can. Mike is the role model I suggested for you. Talk about selfless!

I hope you’ll keep pushing harder, even when you hit headwinds.

It is very hard because it seems that all I hit are headwinds; such is the role I’ve apparently chosen for myself.

I know you’re working your way toward your dream of your own prairie compound.

Paradise?

But don’t turn your back on the people, and the soulless suburban gardens, you might leave behind.

On the other hand, an ascetic life has some appeal.

 I still design urban and suburban meadow gardens for clients, some of whom are removing their front lawns. I am desperate to live on a prairie away from mowers, to create an oasis among the corn and soybeans. I don’t think I’d live ascetically, only as a way to restore and revive my soul so I could have the energy and focus to ramp up to get back into the fray. I am a massive, massive, massive introvert, and it’s still going take me a lifetime to discover how that’s a strength and not a liability.

While I was reading your book, I was also reading a book of essays by Wes Jackson, whom I admire tremendously. Your earnestness reminds me of Jackson.

As I have argued, I think your most convenient prey (prairie novitiates?) might be your neighbors. They can’t be more intransigent than the rest of built America. You could do prairie grass roots door-to-door?

Have you seen my yard? https://www.houzz.com/projects/1968383/front-yard-makeover 

I know you’re working your way, eventually, toward your own prairie farm. If you do, I worry you will be turning your back on the people and the wretched suburban gardens you leave behind. However, I understand. Life as an ascetic has always had some appeal for me.

Can you become both a missionary—hunker down and save souls in the suburbs—and escape, as Thomas Merton did, to a cloistered outpost and write down, as it was said about Merton, every thought you have. (You’re a very good writer!)

Merton could be as petulant as he was gifted. He remained a constant pain in the ass to his abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Maybe you will become the artist, activist, pain in the ass and save souls.

I hope so!  We all need to be bigger pains in the ass. Especially if those asses are the right ones (you know who I’m talking about).

You’ve got options and a bright future.

You’ve written an absorbing and provocative book that reminded me of the cultural unraveling that Wendell Berry described in Unsettling of America.

That’s high praise indeed! You know I’m a Berry Fan. Thank you, Allen, for an insightful and warm conversation. Let’s have more of these in the garden world.

 

Photos courtesy of Benjamin Vogt and Monarch Gardens. A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Futuremay be purchased at Monarch Gardens.

 

 

Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 13, 2018.

from Garden Rant https://ift.tt/2ygN9UB

What’s your corpse flower’s name? Ours is Morty.

Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden by Allen Bush

Benjamin Vogt and I began an email exchange last March after I read his very interesting A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future.

A few weeks ago, Benjamin had a sign posted on his property in Lincoln, Nebraska that warned him about the public nuisance he had created. He won the fight to keep his front and back yard prairie, but this got me thinking.

It seemed like a good time to share our exchange. Portions have been edited and expanded.

Onward Benjamin.

I wrote my book to make folks as uncomfortable as I felt. I wrote it to question horticulture, landscape design, and all environmental movements. I wrote it to invigorate the discussion and get us to grapple with humanity in ways we avoid in order to protect ourselves from the reality of our lost love. I wrote it in order to unearth aspects of environmentalism I thought weren’t explored enough. I wrote my book out of depression, fear, and anger in order to discover a strength we all possess — the ability to go against the force of history and culture and risk some aspect of ourselves we assumed was better for us. Gardens are places of activism in a time of mass extinction and we need to start using them as such. And if gardens are art, if that’s the primary viewpoint about them that we’re stuck with, then remember the long tradition of art based in activism and making folks uncomfortable for a purpose.

 

March 2018

Hi Benjamin,

I apologize for being slow to read your book, but I’m glad I brought it to the top of my book pile.

I thoroughly enjoyed A New Garden Ethic.

I worried at the outset that it might be full of redundancies, but when there were similar claims, “We proclaim ourselves right in a wrong world…” (p.56), each new argument augmented your case. Rarely did I feel like you were talking down to me. On occasion, there were annoying passages, such as, “Native plants are a threat to an entire Western culture…(p 59).

But here’s what I got out of your book.

1. A garden isn’t nature
2. Our values screw us up
3. A new garden ethic is needed

Surprisingly, I enjoyed your bits about “pretty” and “beauty.” It reminded me of an undergraduate course in Philosophy of the Mind. Your subject is complex but well written. However, I still like “pretty” and don’t agree that “pretty,” as a premise, need be “arrogant.”  I don’t think I’ve ever gardened for “human supremacy.” I was heartened, when you briefly backed off and said, “Of course a garden must be pretty.”

“Pretty” concerns me because that’s how we primarily judge the worth of a garden or landscape — I just want us to redefine gardens, especially in the context of mass extinction. What is pretty to the silent majority on this planet, to wildlife? I don’t think many of us garden for human supremacy in a conscious way, but when we go outside and say “I want this maple tree right here” we are practicing a form of supremacy since we are placing our desires over or onto the landscape, whether we’ve researched the tree and ecosystem or not. Now, I’m not explicitly saying such actions are good or bad, per se. I’m saying we must think more critically about our actions, and that if we don’t we are propagating an arrogance that has led us to the assumption we are at the top of the pecking order and can do no harm. This is what’s created a 6^thmass extinction — privileging ourselves over other species and landscapes. We do it every day in small, subtle ways and in massively overt ways.

I was glad to read the chapter: More than Native Plants. Your sentence on p. 52 is magnificent: “Every place we touch is a garden, no matter its size, and the economic, aesthetic, and emotional lessons we learn in one landscape are practiced in others.”

Good stuff on feelings: denial, grief and loss.

And, more good stuff: wisdom is evolutionary (p.66); “ethical amnesia” (p. 78) and “compassion fade” and “psychological numbing” (p.81)

This was my favorite chapter to write and research, chapter three; it’s the heart of the book, and I think out environmental crisis (and other crises, like race, gender, guns, etc). There’s a lot of psychology at play in how we view ourselves, one another, and the world around us. There’s a lot of guilt and shame. There’s a lot of self-defense that’s totally genetic and human and natural that we have to understand, identify, and process more thoughtfully. For example, when someone proposes native plants instead of hosta, it’s easy to feel defensive because we’re being exposed to new concepts that both feel constrictive and carry greater ramifications for the environment, and those ramifications influence how we perceive ourselves as acting or thinking ethically. Change is hard — learning new ideas is hard (especially when they go against the cultural / social default). Emotionally and psychologically evolving as fast or faster than the changes we are forcing on the plant is really hard, if not nearly impossible.

I wish you’d go easy on red cedars (p.79). I love red cedars!

But your red cedars aren’t aggressive thugs, right? I like them, too, but boy do they destroy our prairies. It’s all about regional context, and in the U.S. there’s lots of nuance. We burn trees in Nebraska, we don’t hug them.

And there are the useless plants… I don’t agree with your statement: “Gardens composed of both native and exotic plants constitute a precarious balance.” (p. 83) I am NOT grief stricken, although you might argue I’m in denial.

Yes, I would argue that. Denial is one of the five stages of grief, and processing grief is both an exercise in preserving the self and accepting the new self that is forming. It’s a conundrum we carry into our landscapes — our emotions dictate a lot of what we do behind our fences.

I love daffodils and peonies, among many other non-beneficial plants. I get your point and respect your radical approach. I know you don’t think there’s a perfect world as long as humankind is here on earth.

Oh I wouldn’t go that far. I firmly believe humans can be part of a thriving, balanced, biodiverse global ecosystem. But as is — given our extraction-based cultures that privilege humans — it’s not working. And the argument that nature will find a way is sort of bogus — I don’t want to live, and I don’t want my kids to live — in a world where nature is in the process of finding its way. Drought, famine, disease,  dirty water, no fish, plastic in every bite we take… We could still be in a relative Goldilocks era if we woke to the world right now.  

I’m glad you threw a bone to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)for promoting a planting spectrum that includes a large % of native plants.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to plant challenging exotics and natives that I am curious to grow. I will endeavor to try and be more attentive to what’s under foot and around me.

You’ve inspired me.

I’ve got tons of natives, even a faux prairie, but I’m a one-trick pony. I’m a plantsman, far from a naturalist. You’ve encouraged me to dig deeper. Microbes are in my future.

Go go go Allen! We’re all taking steps even if I wish (and other species wish) they were much larger and were at more of a brisk jog’s space, if not a hard sprint.

My favorite chapter was Urban Wildness and Social Justice.  You made me think of Thoreau leaving Walden Pond to take his laundry to his mom.

“(If we expect to be selfless”… p.120). Louisville needs to work harder (p. 125). My friend, Louisville tree activist, Mike Hayman is planting trees as fast as he can. Mike is the role model I suggested for you. Talk about selfless!

I hope you’ll keep pushing harder, even when you hit headwinds.

It is very hard because it seems that all I hit are headwinds; such is the role I’ve apparently chosen for myself.

I know you’re working your way toward your dream of your own prairie compound.

Paradise?

But don’t turn your back on the people, and the soulless suburban gardens, you might leave behind.

On the other hand, an ascetic life has some appeal.

 I still design urban and suburban meadow gardens for clients, some of whom are removing their front lawns. I am desperate to live on a prairie away from mowers, to create an oasis among the corn and soybeans. I don’t think I’d live ascetically, only as a way to restore and revive my soul so I could have the energy and focus to ramp up to get back into the fray. I am a massive, massive, massive introvert, and it’s still going take me a lifetime to discover how that’s a strength and not a liability.

While I was reading your book, I was also reading a book of essays by Wes Jackson, whom I admire tremendously. Your earnestness reminds me of Jackson.

As I have argued, I think your most convenient prey (prairie novitiates?) might be your neighbors. They can’t be more intransigent than the rest of built America. You could do prairie grass roots door-to-door?

Have you seen my yard? https://www.houzz.com/projects/1968383/front-yard-makeover 

I know you’re working your way, eventually, toward your own prairie farm. If you do, I worry you will be turning your back on the people and the wretched suburban gardens you leave behind. However, I understand. Life as an ascetic has always had some appeal for me.

Can you become both a missionary—hunker down and save souls in the suburbs—and escape, as Thomas Merton did, to a cloistered outpost and write down, as it was said about Merton, every thought you have. (You’re a very good writer!)

Merton could be as petulant as he was gifted. He remained a constant pain in the ass to his abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Maybe you will become the artist, activist, pain in the ass and save souls.

I hope so!  We all need to be bigger pains in the ass. Especially if those asses are the right ones (you know who I’m talking about).

You’ve got options and a bright future.

You’ve written an absorbing and provocative book that reminded me of the cultural unraveling that Wendell Berry described in Unsettling of America.

That’s high praise indeed! You know I’m a Berry Fan. Thank you, Allen, for an insightful and warm conversation. Let’s have more of these in the garden world.

 

Photos courtesy of Benjamin Vogt and Monarch Gardens. A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Futuremay be purchased at Monarch Gardens.

 

 

Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 13, 2018.

from Garden Rant https://ift.tt/2MkRh8S

What’s your corpse flower’s name? Ours is Morty. by Elizabeth Licata

It’s that time of year again. Our local botanical gardens has joined the ranks of other such sites across the US to introduce a titan arum (“corpse flower”) event, based on the bloom cycle of the plant. I have never seen one of these in bloom and am not sure I’ll get there in time for this one. Indeed, I have heard that the stench of the plant is already fading. But I’m fine with anything that helps the gardens, and this does provide some botanical education as well. I am sure many of you have corpse flower events in your areas.

That’s all I have to say, but here are the thoughts of columnist Bruce Adams, who writes a weekly post for the Buffalo Spree website:

They actually cut it open this time. Interesting!

Ahh, smell the aroma
If you’re fond of the odor of dead bodies, you’re in for a treat at Buffalo’s and Erie County Botanical Gardens.

The details:
Corpse flowers typically bloom every seven to ten years. They are the second biggest flower in the world (think Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors). The Botanical Gardens has one of the rare plants, and by the time you read this it might have bloomed.

Lots of fun meme opportunities. Images courtesy of the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens

About that name
The scientific Latin name for the plant is Amorphophallus titanium, and it’s indigenous to the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. It looks like a Hollywood prop from a Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie (Jane would get trapped in it and Tarzan would have to save her again). The plant (or specifically the flower) has been named Morty by the staff at the gardens. (Fun fact: humans love to anthropomorphize plants and animals.)

But the plant’s common name is corpse flower, which comes from the fact that it smells like rotting flesh when it blooms. It even raises its “body” temperature to ninety-eight degrees to mimic a freshly dead corpse. It does this to attract dung beetles, flesh flies, and other carnivorous insects, which are the plant’s primary pollinators.

Morty is about to bloom again, this time after only four years! The bud stands about four and a half feet tall, but it’s closer to the ground this time, so visitors will have a better look at the plant (not to mention a better sniff).

The takeaway:

BREAKING NEWS: Morty started blooming at 10 p.m., Sunday, June 10. The bloom only lasts a few days, so don’t wait. If you want to visit it (him?), expect to stand in line. Marty is a very popular dead-smelling dude.

What’s your corpse flower’s name? Ours is Morty. originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 12, 2018.

from Garden Rant https://ift.tt/2t8GSoj

Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden

Benjamin Vogt and I began an email exchange last March after I read his very interesting A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future.

A few weeks ago, Benjamin had a sign posted on his property in Lincoln, Nebraska that warned him about the public nuisance he had created. He won the fight to keep his front and back yard prairie, but this got me thinking.

It seemed like a good time to share our exchange. Portions have been edited and expanded.

Onward Benjamin.

I wrote my book to make folks as uncomfortable as I felt. I wrote it to question horticulture, landscape design, and all environmental movements. I wrote it to invigorate the discussion and get us to grapple with humanity in ways we avoid in order to protect ourselves from the reality of our lost love. I wrote it in order to unearth aspects of environmentalism I thought weren’t explored enough. I wrote my book out of depression, fear, and anger in order to discover a strength we all possess — the ability to go against the force of history and culture and risk some aspect of ourselves we assumed was better for us. Gardens are places of activism in a time of mass extinction and we need to start using them as such. And if gardens are art, if that’s the primary viewpoint about them that we’re stuck with, then remember the long tradition of art based in activism and making folks uncomfortable for a purpose.

 

March 2018

Hi Benjamin,

I apologize for being slow to read your book, but I’m glad I brought it to the top of my book pile.

I thoroughly enjoyed A New Garden Ethic.

I worried at the outset that it might be full of redundancies, but when there were similar claims, “We proclaim ourselves right in a wrong world…” (p.56), each new argument augmented your case. Rarely did I feel like you were talking down to me. On occasion, there were annoying passages, such as, “Native plants are a threat to an entire Western culture…(p 59).

But here’s what I got out of your book.

1. A garden isn’t nature
2. Our values screw us up
3. A new garden ethic is needed

Surprisingly, I enjoyed your bits about “pretty” and “beauty.” It reminded me of an undergraduate course in Philosophy of the Mind. Your subject is complex but well written. However, I still like “pretty” and don’t agree that “pretty,” as a premise, need be “arrogant.”  I don’t think I’ve ever gardened for “human supremacy.” I was heartened, when you briefly backed off and said, “Of course a garden must be pretty.”

“Pretty” concerns me because that’s how we primarily judge the worth of a garden or landscape — I just want us to redefine gardens, especially in the context of mass extinction. What is pretty to the silent majority on this planet, to wildlife? I don’t think many of us garden for human supremacy in a conscious way, but when we go outside and say “I want this maple tree right here” we are practicing a form of supremacy since we are placing our desires over or onto the landscape, whether we’ve researched the tree and ecosystem or not. Now, I’m not explicitly saying such actions are good or bad, per se. I’m saying we must think more critically about our actions, and that if we don’t we are propagating an arrogance that has led us to the assumption we are at the top of the pecking order and can do no harm. This is what’s created a 6^thmass extinction — privileging ourselves over other species and landscapes. We do it every day in small, subtle ways and in massively overt ways.

I was glad to read the chapter: More than Native Plants. Your sentence on p. 52 is magnificent: “Every place we touch is a garden, no matter its size, and the economic, aesthetic, and emotional lessons we learn in one landscape are practiced in others.”

Good stuff on feelings: denial, grief and loss.

And, more good stuff: wisdom is evolutionary (p.66); “ethical amnesia” (p. 78) and “compassion fade” and “psychological numbing” (p.81)

This was my favorite chapter to write and research, chapter three; it’s the heart of the book, and I think out environmental crisis (and other crises, like race, gender, guns, etc). There’s a lot of psychology at play in how we view ourselves, one another, and the world around us. There’s a lot of guilt and shame. There’s a lot of self-defense that’s totally genetic and human and natural that we have to understand, identify, and process more thoughtfully. For example, when someone proposes native plants instead of hosta, it’s easy to feel defensive because we’re being exposed to new concepts that both feel constrictive and carry greater ramifications for the environment, and those ramifications influence how we perceive ourselves as acting or thinking ethically. Change is hard — learning new ideas is hard (especially when they go against the cultural / social default). Emotionally and psychologically evolving as fast or faster than the changes we are forcing on the plant is really hard, if not nearly impossible.

I wish you’d go easy on red cedars (p.79). I love red cedars!

But your red cedars aren’t aggressive thugs, right? I like them, too, but boy do they destroy our prairies. It’s all about regional context, and in the U.S. there’s lots of nuance. We burn trees in Nebraska, we don’t hug them.

And there are the useless plants… I don’t agree with your statement: “Gardens composed of both native and exotic plants constitute a precarious balance.” (p. 83) I am NOT grief stricken, although you might argue I’m in denial.

Yes, I would argue that. Denial is one of the five stages of grief, and processing grief is both an exercise in preserving the self and accepting the new self that is forming. It’s a conundrum we carry into our landscapes — our emotions dictate a lot of what we do behind our fences.

I love daffodils and peonies, among many other non-beneficial plants. I get your point and respect your radical approach. I know you don’t think there’s a perfect world as long as humankind is here on earth.

Oh I wouldn’t go that far. I firmly believe humans can be part of a thriving, balanced, biodiverse global ecosystem. But as is — given our extraction-based cultures that privilege humans — it’s not working. And the argument that nature will find a way is sort of bogus — I don’t want to live, and I don’t want my kids to live — in a world where nature is in the process of finding its way. Drought, famine, disease,  dirty water, no fish, plastic in every bite we take… We could still be in a relative Goldilocks era if we woke to the world right now.  

I’m glad you threw a bone to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)for promoting a planting spectrum that includes a large % of native plants.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to plant challenging exotics and natives that I am curious to grow. I will endeavor to try and be more attentive to what’s under foot and around me.

You’ve inspired me.

I’ve got tons of natives, even a faux prairie, but I’m a one-trick pony. I’m a plantsman, far from a naturalist. You’ve encouraged me to dig deeper. Microbes are in my future.

Go go go Allen! We’re all taking steps even if I wish (and other species wish) they were much larger and were at more of a brisk jog’s space, if not a hard sprint.

My favorite chapter was Urban Wildness and Social Justice.  You made me think of Thoreau leaving Walden Pond to take his laundry to his mom.

“(If we expect to be selfless”… p.120). Louisville needs to work harder (p. 125). My friend, Louisville tree activist, Mike Hayman is planting trees as fast as he can. Mike is the role model I suggested for you. Talk about selfless!

I hope you’ll keep pushing harder, even when you hit headwinds.

It is very hard because it seems that all I hit are headwinds; such is the role I’ve apparently chosen for myself.

I know you’re working your way toward your dream of your own prairie compound.

Paradise?

But don’t turn your back on the people, and the soulless suburban gardens, you might leave behind.

On the other hand, an ascetic life has some appeal.

 I still design urban and suburban meadow gardens for clients, some of whom are removing their front lawns. I am desperate to live on a prairie away from mowers, to create an oasis among the corn and soybeans. I don’t think I’d live ascetically, only as a way to restore and revive my soul so I could have the energy and focus to ramp up to get back into the fray. I am a massive, massive, massive introvert, and it’s still going take me a lifetime to discover how that’s a strength and not a liability.

While I was reading your book, I was also reading a book of essays by Wes Jackson, whom I admire tremendously. Your earnestness reminds me of Jackson.

As I have argued, I think your most convenient prey (prairie novitiates?) might be your neighbors. They can’t be more intransigent than the rest of built America. You could do prairie grass roots door-to-door?

Have you seen my yard? https://www.houzz.com/projects/1968383/front-yard-makeover 

I know you’re working your way, eventually, toward your own prairie farm. If you do, I worry you will be turning your back on the people and the wretched suburban gardens you leave behind. However, I understand. Life as an ascetic has always had some appeal for me.

Can you become both a missionary—hunker down and save souls in the suburbs—and escape, as Thomas Merton did, to a cloistered outpost and write down, as it was said about Merton, every thought you have. (You’re a very good writer!)

Merton could be as petulant as he was gifted. He remained a constant pain in the ass to his abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Maybe you will become the artist, activist, pain in the ass and save souls.

I hope so!  We all need to be bigger pains in the ass. Especially if those asses are the right ones (you know who I’m talking about).

You’ve got options and a bright future.

You’ve written an absorbing and provocative book that reminded me of the cultural unraveling that Wendell Berry described in Unsettling of America.

That’s high praise indeed! You know I’m a Berry Fan. Thank you, Allen, for an insightful and warm conversation. Let’s have more of these in the garden world.

 

Photos courtesy of Benjamin Vogt and Monarch Gardens. A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Futuremay be purchased at Monarch Gardens.

 

 

Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 13, 2018.

from Garden Rant https://ift.tt/2ygN9UB

What’s your corpse flower’s name? Ours is Morty.

Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden by Allen Bush

Benjamin Vogt and I began an email exchange last March after I read his very interesting A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future.

A few weeks ago, Benjamin had a sign posted on his property in Lincoln, Nebraska that warned him about the public nuisance he had created. He won the fight to keep his front and back yard prairie, but this got me thinking.

It seemed like a good time to share our exchange. Portions have been edited and expanded.

Onward Benjamin.

I wrote my book to make folks as uncomfortable as I felt. I wrote it to question horticulture, landscape design, and all environmental movements. I wrote it to invigorate the discussion and get us to grapple with humanity in ways we avoid in order to protect ourselves from the reality of our lost love. I wrote it in order to unearth aspects of environmentalism I thought weren’t explored enough. I wrote my book out of depression, fear, and anger in order to discover a strength we all possess — the ability to go against the force of history and culture and risk some aspect of ourselves we assumed was better for us. Gardens are places of activism in a time of mass extinction and we need to start using them as such. And if gardens are art, if that’s the primary viewpoint about them that we’re stuck with, then remember the long tradition of art based in activism and making folks uncomfortable for a purpose.

 

March 2018

Hi Benjamin,

I apologize for being slow to read your book, but I’m glad I brought it to the top of my book pile.

I thoroughly enjoyed A New Garden Ethic.

I worried at the outset that it might be full of redundancies, but when there were similar claims, “We proclaim ourselves right in a wrong world…” (p.56), each new argument augmented your case. Rarely did I feel like you were talking down to me. On occasion, there were annoying passages, such as, “Native plants are a threat to an entire Western culture…(p 59).

But here’s what I got out of your book.

1. A garden isn’t nature
2. Our values screw us up
3. A new garden ethic is needed

Surprisingly, I enjoyed your bits about “pretty” and “beauty.” It reminded me of an undergraduate course in Philosophy of the Mind. Your subject is complex but well written. However, I still like “pretty” and don’t agree that “pretty,” as a premise, need be “arrogant.”  I don’t think I’ve ever gardened for “human supremacy.” I was heartened, when you briefly backed off and said, “Of course a garden must be pretty.”

“Pretty” concerns me because that’s how we primarily judge the worth of a garden or landscape — I just want us to redefine gardens, especially in the context of mass extinction. What is pretty to the silent majority on this planet, to wildlife? I don’t think many of us garden for human supremacy in a conscious way, but when we go outside and say “I want this maple tree right here” we are practicing a form of supremacy since we are placing our desires over or onto the landscape, whether we’ve researched the tree and ecosystem or not. Now, I’m not explicitly saying such actions are good or bad, per se. I’m saying we must think more critically about our actions, and that if we don’t we are propagating an arrogance that has led us to the assumption we are at the top of the pecking order and can do no harm. This is what’s created a 6^thmass extinction — privileging ourselves over other species and landscapes. We do it every day in small, subtle ways and in massively overt ways.

I was glad to read the chapter: More than Native Plants. Your sentence on p. 52 is magnificent: “Every place we touch is a garden, no matter its size, and the economic, aesthetic, and emotional lessons we learn in one landscape are practiced in others.”

Good stuff on feelings: denial, grief and loss.

And, more good stuff: wisdom is evolutionary (p.66); “ethical amnesia” (p. 78) and “compassion fade” and “psychological numbing” (p.81)

This was my favorite chapter to write and research, chapter three; it’s the heart of the book, and I think out environmental crisis (and other crises, like race, gender, guns, etc). There’s a lot of psychology at play in how we view ourselves, one another, and the world around us. There’s a lot of guilt and shame. There’s a lot of self-defense that’s totally genetic and human and natural that we have to understand, identify, and process more thoughtfully. For example, when someone proposes native plants instead of hosta, it’s easy to feel defensive because we’re being exposed to new concepts that both feel constrictive and carry greater ramifications for the environment, and those ramifications influence how we perceive ourselves as acting or thinking ethically. Change is hard — learning new ideas is hard (especially when they go against the cultural / social default). Emotionally and psychologically evolving as fast or faster than the changes we are forcing on the plant is really hard, if not nearly impossible.

I wish you’d go easy on red cedars (p.79). I love red cedars!

But your red cedars aren’t aggressive thugs, right? I like them, too, but boy do they destroy our prairies. It’s all about regional context, and in the U.S. there’s lots of nuance. We burn trees in Nebraska, we don’t hug them.

And there are the useless plants… I don’t agree with your statement: “Gardens composed of both native and exotic plants constitute a precarious balance.” (p. 83) I am NOT grief stricken, although you might argue I’m in denial.

Yes, I would argue that. Denial is one of the five stages of grief, and processing grief is both an exercise in preserving the self and accepting the new self that is forming. It’s a conundrum we carry into our landscapes — our emotions dictate a lot of what we do behind our fences.

I love daffodils and peonies, among many other non-beneficial plants. I get your point and respect your radical approach. I know you don’t think there’s a perfect world as long as humankind is here on earth.

Oh I wouldn’t go that far. I firmly believe humans can be part of a thriving, balanced, biodiverse global ecosystem. But as is — given our extraction-based cultures that privilege humans — it’s not working. And the argument that nature will find a way is sort of bogus — I don’t want to live, and I don’t want my kids to live — in a world where nature is in the process of finding its way. Drought, famine, disease,  dirty water, no fish, plastic in every bite we take… We could still be in a relative Goldilocks era if we woke to the world right now.  

I’m glad you threw a bone to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)for promoting a planting spectrum that includes a large % of native plants.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to plant challenging exotics and natives that I am curious to grow. I will endeavor to try and be more attentive to what’s under foot and around me.

You’ve inspired me.

I’ve got tons of natives, even a faux prairie, but I’m a one-trick pony. I’m a plantsman, far from a naturalist. You’ve encouraged me to dig deeper. Microbes are in my future.

Go go go Allen! We’re all taking steps even if I wish (and other species wish) they were much larger and were at more of a brisk jog’s space, if not a hard sprint.

My favorite chapter was Urban Wildness and Social Justice.  You made me think of Thoreau leaving Walden Pond to take his laundry to his mom.

“(If we expect to be selfless”… p.120). Louisville needs to work harder (p. 125). My friend, Louisville tree activist, Mike Hayman is planting trees as fast as he can. Mike is the role model I suggested for you. Talk about selfless!

I hope you’ll keep pushing harder, even when you hit headwinds.

It is very hard because it seems that all I hit are headwinds; such is the role I’ve apparently chosen for myself.

I know you’re working your way toward your dream of your own prairie compound.

Paradise?

But don’t turn your back on the people, and the soulless suburban gardens, you might leave behind.

On the other hand, an ascetic life has some appeal.

 I still design urban and suburban meadow gardens for clients, some of whom are removing their front lawns. I am desperate to live on a prairie away from mowers, to create an oasis among the corn and soybeans. I don’t think I’d live ascetically, only as a way to restore and revive my soul so I could have the energy and focus to ramp up to get back into the fray. I am a massive, massive, massive introvert, and it’s still going take me a lifetime to discover how that’s a strength and not a liability.

While I was reading your book, I was also reading a book of essays by Wes Jackson, whom I admire tremendously. Your earnestness reminds me of Jackson.

As I have argued, I think your most convenient prey (prairie novitiates?) might be your neighbors. They can’t be more intransigent than the rest of built America. You could do prairie grass roots door-to-door?

Have you seen my yard? https://www.houzz.com/projects/1968383/front-yard-makeover 

I know you’re working your way, eventually, toward your own prairie farm. If you do, I worry you will be turning your back on the people and the wretched suburban gardens you leave behind. However, I understand. Life as an ascetic has always had some appeal for me.

Can you become both a missionary—hunker down and save souls in the suburbs—and escape, as Thomas Merton did, to a cloistered outpost and write down, as it was said about Merton, every thought you have. (You’re a very good writer!)

Merton could be as petulant as he was gifted. He remained a constant pain in the ass to his abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Maybe you will become the artist, activist, pain in the ass and save souls.

I hope so!  We all need to be bigger pains in the ass. Especially if those asses are the right ones (you know who I’m talking about).

You’ve got options and a bright future.

You’ve written an absorbing and provocative book that reminded me of the cultural unraveling that Wendell Berry described in Unsettling of America.

That’s high praise indeed! You know I’m a Berry Fan. Thank you, Allen, for an insightful and warm conversation. Let’s have more of these in the garden world.

 

Photos courtesy of Benjamin Vogt and Monarch Gardens. A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Futuremay be purchased at Monarch Gardens.

 

 

Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 13, 2018.

from Garden Rant https://ift.tt/2MkRh8S

What’s your corpse flower’s name? Ours is Morty. by Elizabeth Licata

It’s that time of year again. Our local botanical gardens has joined the ranks of other such sites across the US to introduce a titan arum (“corpse flower”) event, based on the bloom cycle of the plant. I have never seen one of these in bloom and am not sure I’ll get there in time for this one. Indeed, I have heard that the stench of the plant is already fading. But I’m fine with anything that helps the gardens, and this does provide some botanical education as well. I am sure many of you have corpse flower events in your areas.

That’s all I have to say, but here are the thoughts of columnist Bruce Adams, who writes a weekly post for the Buffalo Spree website:

They actually cut it open this time. Interesting!

Ahh, smell the aroma
If you’re fond of the odor of dead bodies, you’re in for a treat at Buffalo’s and Erie County Botanical Gardens.

The details:
Corpse flowers typically bloom every seven to ten years. They are the second biggest flower in the world (think Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors). The Botanical Gardens has one of the rare plants, and by the time you read this it might have bloomed.

Lots of fun meme opportunities. Images courtesy of the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens

About that name
The scientific Latin name for the plant is Amorphophallus titanium, and it’s indigenous to the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. It looks like a Hollywood prop from a Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie (Jane would get trapped in it and Tarzan would have to save her again). The plant (or specifically the flower) has been named Morty by the staff at the gardens. (Fun fact: humans love to anthropomorphize plants and animals.)

But the plant’s common name is corpse flower, which comes from the fact that it smells like rotting flesh when it blooms. It even raises its “body” temperature to ninety-eight degrees to mimic a freshly dead corpse. It does this to attract dung beetles, flesh flies, and other carnivorous insects, which are the plant’s primary pollinators.

Morty is about to bloom again, this time after only four years! The bud stands about four and a half feet tall, but it’s closer to the ground this time, so visitors will have a better look at the plant (not to mention a better sniff).

The takeaway:

BREAKING NEWS: Morty started blooming at 10 p.m., Sunday, June 10. The bloom only lasts a few days, so don’t wait. If you want to visit it (him?), expect to stand in line. Marty is a very popular dead-smelling dude.

What’s your corpse flower’s name? Ours is Morty. originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 12, 2018.

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Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden

Benjamin Vogt and I began an email exchange last March after I read his very interesting A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future.

A few weeks ago, Benjamin had a sign posted on his property in Lincoln, Nebraska that warned him about the public nuisance he had created. He won the fight to keep his front and back yard prairie, but this got me thinking.

It seemed like a good time to share our exchange. Portions have been edited and expanded.

Onward Benjamin.

I wrote my book to make folks as uncomfortable as I felt. I wrote it to question horticulture, landscape design, and all environmental movements. I wrote it to invigorate the discussion and get us to grapple with humanity in ways we avoid in order to protect ourselves from the reality of our lost love. I wrote it in order to unearth aspects of environmentalism I thought weren’t explored enough. I wrote my book out of depression, fear, and anger in order to discover a strength we all possess — the ability to go against the force of history and culture and risk some aspect of ourselves we assumed was better for us. Gardens are places of activism in a time of mass extinction and we need to start using them as such. And if gardens are art, if that’s the primary viewpoint about them that we’re stuck with, then remember the long tradition of art based in activism and making folks uncomfortable for a purpose.

 

March 2018

Hi Benjamin,

I apologize for being slow to read your book, but I’m glad I brought it to the top of my book pile.

I thoroughly enjoyed A New Garden Ethic.

I worried at the outset that it might be full of redundancies, but when there were similar claims, “We proclaim ourselves right in a wrong world…” (p.56), each new argument augmented your case. Rarely did I feel like you were talking down to me. On occasion, there were annoying passages, such as, “Native plants are a threat to an entire Western culture…(p 59).

But here’s what I got out of your book.

1. A garden isn’t nature
2. Our values screw us up
3. A new garden ethic is needed

Surprisingly, I enjoyed your bits about “pretty” and “beauty.” It reminded me of an undergraduate course in Philosophy of the Mind. Your subject is complex but well written. However, I still like “pretty” and don’t agree that “pretty,” as a premise, need be “arrogant.”  I don’t think I’ve ever gardened for “human supremacy.” I was heartened, when you briefly backed off and said, “Of course a garden must be pretty.”

“Pretty” concerns me because that’s how we primarily judge the worth of a garden or landscape — I just want us to redefine gardens, especially in the context of mass extinction. What is pretty to the silent majority on this planet, to wildlife? I don’t think many of us garden for human supremacy in a conscious way, but when we go outside and say “I want this maple tree right here” we are practicing a form of supremacy since we are placing our desires over or onto the landscape, whether we’ve researched the tree and ecosystem or not. Now, I’m not explicitly saying such actions are good or bad, per se. I’m saying we must think more critically about our actions, and that if we don’t we are propagating an arrogance that has led us to the assumption we are at the top of the pecking order and can do no harm. This is what’s created a 6^thmass extinction — privileging ourselves over other species and landscapes. We do it every day in small, subtle ways and in massively overt ways.

I was glad to read the chapter: More than Native Plants. Your sentence on p. 52 is magnificent: “Every place we touch is a garden, no matter its size, and the economic, aesthetic, and emotional lessons we learn in one landscape are practiced in others.”

Good stuff on feelings: denial, grief and loss.

And, more good stuff: wisdom is evolutionary (p.66); “ethical amnesia” (p. 78) and “compassion fade” and “psychological numbing” (p.81)

This was my favorite chapter to write and research, chapter three; it’s the heart of the book, and I think out environmental crisis (and other crises, like race, gender, guns, etc). There’s a lot of psychology at play in how we view ourselves, one another, and the world around us. There’s a lot of guilt and shame. There’s a lot of self-defense that’s totally genetic and human and natural that we have to understand, identify, and process more thoughtfully. For example, when someone proposes native plants instead of hosta, it’s easy to feel defensive because we’re being exposed to new concepts that both feel constrictive and carry greater ramifications for the environment, and those ramifications influence how we perceive ourselves as acting or thinking ethically. Change is hard — learning new ideas is hard (especially when they go against the cultural / social default). Emotionally and psychologically evolving as fast or faster than the changes we are forcing on the plant is really hard, if not nearly impossible.

I wish you’d go easy on red cedars (p.79). I love red cedars!

But your red cedars aren’t aggressive thugs, right? I like them, too, but boy do they destroy our prairies. It’s all about regional context, and in the U.S. there’s lots of nuance. We burn trees in Nebraska, we don’t hug them.

And there are the useless plants… I don’t agree with your statement: “Gardens composed of both native and exotic plants constitute a precarious balance.” (p. 83) I am NOT grief stricken, although you might argue I’m in denial.

Yes, I would argue that. Denial is one of the five stages of grief, and processing grief is both an exercise in preserving the self and accepting the new self that is forming. It’s a conundrum we carry into our landscapes — our emotions dictate a lot of what we do behind our fences.

I love daffodils and peonies, among many other non-beneficial plants. I get your point and respect your radical approach. I know you don’t think there’s a perfect world as long as humankind is here on earth.

Oh I wouldn’t go that far. I firmly believe humans can be part of a thriving, balanced, biodiverse global ecosystem. But as is — given our extraction-based cultures that privilege humans — it’s not working. And the argument that nature will find a way is sort of bogus — I don’t want to live, and I don’t want my kids to live — in a world where nature is in the process of finding its way. Drought, famine, disease,  dirty water, no fish, plastic in every bite we take… We could still be in a relative Goldilocks era if we woke to the world right now.  

I’m glad you threw a bone to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)for promoting a planting spectrum that includes a large % of native plants.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to plant challenging exotics and natives that I am curious to grow. I will endeavor to try and be more attentive to what’s under foot and around me.

You’ve inspired me.

I’ve got tons of natives, even a faux prairie, but I’m a one-trick pony. I’m a plantsman, far from a naturalist. You’ve encouraged me to dig deeper. Microbes are in my future.

Go go go Allen! We’re all taking steps even if I wish (and other species wish) they were much larger and were at more of a brisk jog’s space, if not a hard sprint.

My favorite chapter was Urban Wildness and Social Justice.  You made me think of Thoreau leaving Walden Pond to take his laundry to his mom.

“(If we expect to be selfless”… p.120). Louisville needs to work harder (p. 125). My friend, Louisville tree activist, Mike Hayman is planting trees as fast as he can. Mike is the role model I suggested for you. Talk about selfless!

I hope you’ll keep pushing harder, even when you hit headwinds.

It is very hard because it seems that all I hit are headwinds; such is the role I’ve apparently chosen for myself.

I know you’re working your way toward your dream of your own prairie compound.

Paradise?

But don’t turn your back on the people, and the soulless suburban gardens, you might leave behind.

On the other hand, an ascetic life has some appeal.

 I still design urban and suburban meadow gardens for clients, some of whom are removing their front lawns. I am desperate to live on a prairie away from mowers, to create an oasis among the corn and soybeans. I don’t think I’d live ascetically, only as a way to restore and revive my soul so I could have the energy and focus to ramp up to get back into the fray. I am a massive, massive, massive introvert, and it’s still going take me a lifetime to discover how that’s a strength and not a liability.

While I was reading your book, I was also reading a book of essays by Wes Jackson, whom I admire tremendously. Your earnestness reminds me of Jackson.

As I have argued, I think your most convenient prey (prairie novitiates?) might be your neighbors. They can’t be more intransigent than the rest of built America. You could do prairie grass roots door-to-door?

Have you seen my yard? https://www.houzz.com/projects/1968383/front-yard-makeover 

I know you’re working your way, eventually, toward your own prairie farm. If you do, I worry you will be turning your back on the people and the wretched suburban gardens you leave behind. However, I understand. Life as an ascetic has always had some appeal for me.

Can you become both a missionary—hunker down and save souls in the suburbs—and escape, as Thomas Merton did, to a cloistered outpost and write down, as it was said about Merton, every thought you have. (You’re a very good writer!)

Merton could be as petulant as he was gifted. He remained a constant pain in the ass to his abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Maybe you will become the artist, activist, pain in the ass and save souls.

I hope so!  We all need to be bigger pains in the ass. Especially if those asses are the right ones (you know who I’m talking about).

You’ve got options and a bright future.

You’ve written an absorbing and provocative book that reminded me of the cultural unraveling that Wendell Berry described in Unsettling of America.

That’s high praise indeed! You know I’m a Berry Fan. Thank you, Allen, for an insightful and warm conversation. Let’s have more of these in the garden world.

 

Photos courtesy of Benjamin Vogt and Monarch Gardens. A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Futuremay be purchased at Monarch Gardens.

 

 

Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 13, 2018.

from Garden Rant https://ift.tt/2ygN9UB