Visiting Daybreak, UT, a Planned Community

This is my third and last post about Salt Lake City, which I visited for the garden communicators annual conference in September.

I live in a town that’s famous in planning circles – the “garden city” of Greenbelt, Maryland. It was a New Deal-era Utopian experiment, with the involvement of both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. We’re proud of that, though not all its features work well. So in search of solutions, I sometimes visit other planned towns.

Which is exactly what Salt Lake City is – a planned community of small farms, originally. I’d seen it listed as one of the “10 Towns that Changed America,” along with Greenbelt. But on my visit I realized that the small farms had turned into regular city blocks, at least on the ground. (Views from the air might still reveal its original lay-out.)

Happily I learned that a new planned community was on the conference agenda as an option to visit, which I did. It’s the town of Daybreak, 23 miles southwest of SLC.

According to the Daybreak story, construction began in 2004 on the site of the former Kennecott Copper Mine. When completed, it could contain more than 20,000 residential units, and 25% of the land will be preserved as open space. The commercial buildings are all LEED-certified and the homes are all Energy Star-certified. All good.

Homes

Though the population of Daybreak isn’t diverse, its home styles are – in price, density and style – with condos and townhouses selling for about $250K and single family homes in the $580K to $1 million range. (See the Daybreak homes for sale.)

Townhouse condos in Daybreak

So unlike the dull uniformity of homes in my town (including the one I live in), “Architectural variety is the cornerstone of Daybreak’s design philosophy. It makes the simple act of walking down the street a joy. And it lets each home fulfill its most important role: to reflect the personality of the family who lives there.

“Exterior styles include Colonial Revival, Craftsman and Victorian. The homes along each street also have brighter colors than are found in most suburban neighborhoods. Recently, homes with a more modern style have been added.”

Hear, hear! Overplanning and conformity make my neighborhood a lot less interesting to walk around, especially compared to the famously colorful housing in my former town.

Almost every Daybreak home has “a big front porch that stimulates conversation, inspires neighborliness and looks way better than a garage.”

Garages are approached from alleyways, not the street. A great feature!

Life

Something else Daybreak does right is funding its events and amenities adequately through a 1 percent surcharge on all home sales. The funds go to Live Daybreak for all sorts of amenities and activities for residents.

So in addition to a community center, with a full gym and exercise area and pools, Daybreak has 22 miles of trails and “over a dozen community parks,” and a man-made lake for non-motorized boating, fishing, and more.

Perhaps the most important feature of the whole plan is Daybreak’s walkability, following the “5-minute rule.”

Studies have shown that most people are willing to leave the car in the garage if the place they want to go to is within a 5-minute walk. We based the plan for Daybreak on this simple rule, placing parks, restaurants, shopping, schools, offices and light rail within easy walking or biking distance from your home. And tying the entire community together with trails, sidewalks and bicycle highways.

So all homes are within a five-minute walk or bike ride of a major amenity such as a park, the lake, or a shopping area, reducing dependence on automobile travel.

Walkability was also the central planning feature for Greenbelt, thankfully. I illustrated its success in a blog post called “Destinations on my 7-Minute Walk.” (Close enough.)

Gardens, and Reactions of Garden Writers

Of course we saw some terrific gardens in Daybreak – ones with lots of outdoor living spaces, where desert-dwelling residents can apparently sit and not be eaten by insects.

But as our bus left Daybreak I asked everyone around me what they thought of it and they all expressed criticism for the restrictions imposed on residents. Welcome to my world! Planned communities and homeowner association rules aren’t for everyone.

I found the restrictions listed on the Daybreak Community Association website and yeah, they’re pretty daunting.

The following shall be prohibited at Daybreak:
(a) Plants, animals, devices or other things of any sort whose activities or existence in any way is noxious, dangerous, unsightly, unpleasant or of a nature as may diminish or destroy the enjoyment of Daybreak;

Pursuit of hobbies or other activities that tend to cause an unclean, unhealthy or untidy condition to exist outside of enclosed structures on the Unit;

So vague! I imagine they could be used to deny almost anything.

As for gardens, lawns are restricted in size to no more than 50 percent of the yard, which makes sense there in the desert. Required also are 3-5-foot foundation plants, and there must be plants (not lawn) for 2 feet on either side of fences. That’s done nicely in the garden above.

Fencing choices are the most restrictive I’ve ever seen – one style, one material, all stained the same gray color.

Sure enough, the one resident I was able to chat with complained about the mandatory grey, suggesting that a subtle green would be more appropriate around her particular home. I agreed that a choice of a few colors wouldn’t kill them – all very tasteful, of course.

Finally, I think we all noticed these marvels of pruning creativity, which to my eyes demonstrate that some rules – like good pruning practices – are best followed.

Visiting Daybreak, UT, a Planned Community originally appeared on GardenRant on November 22, 2019.

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Fear, Loathing, Capitulation, Relapses, A Cry for Help, and Another Empty Promise to Do Better; In a world of unfairness and charlatans, these are the real things!

Déjà vu all over again. In what is apparently becoming an abusive relationship, I again find myself the victim of Marianne Willburn’s poison pen, which, I now believe she nightly wields in her dreams, inflicting dagger-sized wounds on a field of retreating lesser writers in Play Station-like battles. For again, right here on Garden Rant, my home turf, another rebuttal. Actually, a rebuttal to my rebuttal of her rebuttal to my happy, harmless, and humorous little column, “Time for A Grexit,” which appeared in the July/August 2019 Horticulture Magazine. Just a 500-word bit of sophomoric snark I dashed off last summer when I was still sweet and hopeful. It was cute. It was funny. And, despite itself, it did manage to make a surprisingly cohesive case for American gardeners taking all their English gardening books and dumping them into Boston Harbor. I was innocent back then, and my life was so much simpler. Appallingly, it turns out that having a stalker is nowhere near as much fun as you might imagine.

The end of life as I knew it.

The most recent blog site equivalent to being repeatedly chased down the street by your neighbor’s dog.

This most recent rebuttal wasn’t unexpected.  Red flags were up after her first rebuttal, and my family and I worried that Marianne could possibly be a serial-rebuttaler. I could see her in her classy, tastefully appointed, mountain retreat, seething from my jovial retort to her first rebuttal, and working. Working! I cowered, knowing she would soon, on a day of her own choosing, emerge with another 15,000 word tirade. All of it letter perfect and grammatically correct, and crafted to turn all my loved ones against me and laying waste to all I am, all I ever was, all I’ll ever be, and everything I’ve ever loved. Including all my dead pets. And all my dead Stewartia. And, I’ve got to admit, I’ve been a nervous wreck. Pretty much, this has been the worst period of my life, which includes the bout with cancer I mentioned in a previous missive and, in fact, bring up in almost all my conversations.

The rebuttal that came out of the blue.

This is my jovial retort to her first rebuttal. Jovial, yet at the same time devastating.

Here’s the deal. After my last rebuttal, I was out of ammo. I’d used up everything I had. No quotes left in the stockpile. No more references back in the magazine. No last cache of jabs, nudges, innuendo, and implications. Not even a dull, rusty bayonet on the end of my empty rifle/poison pen with which to inflict dagger-sized wounds. So I hunkered down in my ramshackle, mismatched, patched together, horticulturist-class, Midwestern hovel, tried not to notice the leaks in the ceiling and the paint peeling from the walls, and prayed for a miracle.

And, whatya know, I actually got one. Apparently Marianne was out of ammo too. So when the inevitable time came and I looked over and saw the grenade roll into my bunker and blow up, I was pleasantly surprised that it did so with only a soft doink. No blast. No shrapnel. No carnage. What happened was more akin to an uncomfortably loud airing of the “We Are the World” video interrupting your conversation in a bar. Or maybe it’s better described as something like hearing the “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial playing on a scratchy transistor radio on a hot day by some kid in line ahead of you at the snack bar at the community pool who walks off with the last French Chew. Or maybe it was more like an overly-affectionate, dripping wet kiss from an older aunt with a weird accent right on the face of your much younger self. Whatever metaphor best describes my response to Marianne’s newest rebuttal–and you get to choose–the fact is that while indeed unpleasant and unwanted, I survived it.

But that doink? Came to find out it was pretty passive-aggressive. One that snuck back up on me after another day and a second look. “Garden Regionally, Get Inspired Globally” was Marianne’s banner, her battle cry and l’appel aux armes. Well, who the hell can argue with that?

Brian at work.

Marianne, you pulled a good one on me. Left me dangling and looking like a real jerk. Reminds me totally of a time when I introduced another friend/nemesis and co-worker named Brian to the audience at one of our symposiums at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. Our ongoing “feud” was pretty well-known to most of the audience, although not all of it, and I decided to deliver the most personally insulting introduction I could imagine, laying it on thick for an awkwardly long time, bringing up typically off-limits things like divorces, and, in my mind, generously setting him up for one of his patented hilarious ripostes. But he said nothing. Just went into his talk. With big sad eyes. Made me look like a complete asshole! A master stroke!

Yep, Marianne, you got me. You got to the reasonable position first and now here I am a rubber ball dangling from a string on your paddle. Well done.

As I’ve made plain, I am but a simple gardener from the heartland forever drawn by the magnetic pull of my next Big Gulp, teetering constantly on the cusp of diabetes, and free of an opioid addiction by reasons no one understands. As such, I too am not without need of nor appreciation for inspiration. So, for you Marianne, yes, if you get that from English writers who for some reason hope to cross how-to manuals with great literature, go for it. It’s kind of weird, but whatever. Just don’t be tricked into trying Meconopsis. It’ll break your heart.

I, on the other hand, I turn to the bottle for inspiration. And, believe it or not, I only discovered that about myself while pondering this. Ironically, it also occurred to me that my method might be even more cosmopolitan than Marianne’s! While plenty of good Kentucky bourbons are close at hand, I sometimes find my inspiration from a single malt Scotch. Or a spicy Caribbean rum. Or a sexy French vodka. Or a hot-tempered Greek Ouzo. Sometimes a warm Japanese sake is just the ticket, but there are times when a smooth Canadian whisky will do just fine. Or a Mexican tequila. Or wines from almost every continent. Even, and I’m gritting my teeth a little as I admit it, an English gin. Fact is, turns out pretty much the whole planet is lousy with spirits ready to light up the masses with inspiration. This whole revelation humbles me. It fills me with wonder. Heck, I’m but a tiny speck in this big Universe. All of us are. And maybe, deep down inside, somehow, we’re all pretty much the same.

I took that idea to bed with me last night. I laid there thinking about people. And Marianne. I pictured her in her home, sitting by the fire with a cat on her lap and a Christopher Lloyd book in hand, sighing at the better passages and finding inspiration. At least between those times when she’s not shrieking abuse towards Ohio and pounding out another manifesto of a rebuttal on her keyboard. Nope. I suppose that when she settles in and watches Monty Don on Netflix that she really isn’t that much different from me when I find my inspiration by stumbling around in the garden at night, a half empty fifth of Jameson in hand, condemning myself to damnation for all the neighbors to hear by way of whatever blaspheme I bellow when I discover brittle, dead branches where my daphne used to be.

A daphne.

Daphnes. My God, how many have I loved? How many I have lost. I feel my mood changing. You know, it just isn’t fair. I just can’t get over the disparity. The disproportionate distribution of the wealth. I’m thinking here in terms of gardening. Those lucky bastards. Those haughty English, PNW, and Japanese gardeners who ply their passion where the soil is rich, the weather is benevolent, and every person who scratches a mountain laurel into the ground gets drunk on their overnight and over-sized success. And they say to themselves, “I’m bloody great. I can grow everything.” And they take a creative writing class on Tuesday nights at the community college and peck out some frilly, freakin’ best seller!  Books that we here in the nether regions see in the windows of the five and dime, which draw us inside just to get out of the cold for a minute. But we slobber all over the pictures and the manager comes and makes us buy it, accepting a chicken and a few eggs as partial payment. Figuring that since we now own it, we might as well read it, we do. And then get all “inspired.” Then on the one half of that one spring day that’s sort of nice, we go out, religiously follow all the advice, and then invariably, inevitably, unsurprisingly experience the kind of catastrophic disaster that can only come when you live here and are daft enough to follow gardening advice from those who live over there. In God’s green Eden. In freakin’ Eden!

Wait. Whoa. What happened? It seems I’ve gone back down that rabbit hole. I apologize.

But, you know, there’s another thing that isn’t fair. Here in the continental part of the country, hard-working, decent, good gardening folk who can write and who really need a break never get brought in from the bullpen. Good writers, people who have willed lush, magnificent oases out of hardpan in weather that kills the people whose central air breaks on all but three or four days a year, never get that call from Timber or any other publisher. Why? Because all of their editors are tied up ushering dozens and dozens of spoiled English and PNW writers through their “masterpieces.” So-called gardeners for whom a daphne could fall off a truck and roll into their ditch and still grow like a Callery pear.

Another daphne.

Dammit. Angry again. Wait. I’ve got an idea.

I’d like to buy the world a home, And furnish it with love, Grow apple trees and honey bees, And…

 Well, that got annoying really quick. Screw it. I’ve got issues. I’m off to the liquor store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fear, Loathing, Capitulation, Relapses, A Cry for Help, and Another Empty Promise to Do Better; In a world of unfairness and charlatans, these are the real things! originally appeared on GardenRant on November 20, 2019.

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Finally, a no-maintenance plant

But. Unsurprisingly, that is the opposite of what many gardeners want. After paying scant attention to this trend as talk of it reached me last year, I finally took the plunge and ordered 3 waxed amaryllis bulbs, with plans of buying more. Never fear, I already have 13 of the regular type: huge, beautiful specimens from John Scheepers.

I ignored the ones in our local supermarket, as these had overdone it with the wax, using 3 different colors, but I was able to find plain light green ones (as above) and a red one online. I love planting, forcing, and otherwise working with bulbs in the usual ways, but part of my fascination with them is that they really are as close to plug-and-play as it gets. Just throw them in the ground. This one, which just requires you to place it on a shelf—no watering, no soil—is an extension of that carefree magic. Amaryllises (actually hippeastrum) are already about as magical as plants can get, with their outrageously huge blooms and minimal requirements. The one problem is how to get them to rebloom year after year. One can, especially with the more basic red varieties, but the instructions often involve an outdoor period during the summer, then a basement period, before bringing them to a sunny window to bloom. Which they may or may not do. With the waxed types, there is no question of rebloom, or so I hear; they are one-use.

I am giving a few of these as gifts, to fellow gardeners and to friends/relatives who I know have no desire to take care of any plant. I think they’re fun. However, not everyone is a fan, according to comments on I got on Facebook and Instagram recently:

“Crime against Nature!
“Not normal.”
“No.”
“I confess it gives me the creeps. I like roots and soil and all that good stuff.”

On the other hand, some commenters were simply curious, and some love them:

“I don’t know what @#$%^&@ they are, but the 2 I bought bloomed beautifully and twice!”
“I’m all for low maintenance, easy with good returns.”
“I love them. And I’d love to know why y’all don’t.”
“They can be successfully be grown upside down, which makes for a stunning display.”

My only issue is that some vendors have gone too far with decorating the bulbs. Way too far. Otherwise, I say yea.

Finally, a no-maintenance plant originally appeared on GardenRant on November 19, 2019.

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Mosquito Control – Is There Really Such a Thing?

Guest Rant by Helen Yoest

Fall is back, and winter is near; thank goodness! This might sound odd coming from a rabid gardener and outdoor enthusiasts who would rather spend time outdoors than within my home, no matter how uncomfortable I might be. But wait, we are now finally mosquito-free, at least until their return of heat of summer next year.

In Raleigh, NC, where I garden year-round, having the mosquito season behind me is a blessing. But why should I have to wait to be mosquito-free? What can I do? Is there truly such a thing as mosquito control…without chemicals?

If you ask the barrier-spray mosquito control companies, they’ll tell you they have the answer. Indeed, their chemicals control mosquitoes, but what they don’t tell you is that they also kill everything else in the spray path and on the foliage.

Mosquitoes Can Kill

Mosquitoes are more than a nuisance; they can be deadly! If a female carrying disease goes for your blood, you could be in trouble. Mosquito-borne diseases in the U.S. are one of the deadliest in the world because of the many diseases they transmit. We have had reported cases of dengue, zika virus, West Nile virus, and Eastern and Western equine encephalitis, as well as a host of other diseases affecting you and your pets.

Thanks to the 2016 Zika outbreak, these broad-spray mosquito control companies have grown exponentially, and have set homeowners into panic mode to kill.

Trust me, I don’t like mosquitoes either, and I’d rather die of old age with a hand-cultivator in my grip than from the mosquito-borne Zika virus!

When I asked the closest Mosquito Joe location to me about their chemical toxicity, the reply was, “Our chemicals are organic, and with such a low concentration, it doesn’t affect anything else.” Hmm, maybe I just look like I was born yesterday.

When are we going to learn organic pesticides are still pesticides?

What About Our Safety?

Do we know enough about the chemical safety of these mosquito control companies? To find out more, I reached out to Dr. Michael Reiskind, associate professor of entomology (the study of insects) at NC State University. Reiskind explains, “Mosquito control companies spray an insecticide — almost always a pyrethroid — to vegetation outside your house. That vegetation is where mosquitoes like to rest, so it kills them when they go in there. But it will kill other insects that go in there to rest. We call that a non-target effect.”

These mosquito spray companies often minimize the risk of environmental impacts by saying, “The insecticides are similar to naturally-occurring substances found in chrysanthemums.” But according to Reiskind, “The synthetic pyrethroids used to control mosquitoes have been manufactured to be more toxic and to last longer in the environment.” It’s essential for all of us to understand the consequences of killing with chemicals.”

Generally, barrier spray treatments are applied where mosquitoes spend the daytime — under leaves and in shady areas. Conscientious appliers avoid spraying flowering plants, and by law, they should. But butterfly and moth caterpillars, and many other insects eat the foliage of sprayed plants. As for the birds, pyrethroids don’t directly harm birds, but birds eat caterpillars, so they are at risk as well.

These mosquito control companies also claim they have certified applicators and only spray in the shrubs and trees, never on blooms, and before 10 am, before pollinators start foraging.

Is that so? To find out more, I also contacted Sydney L. Ross, with the NC Department of Ag and Consumer Services, Structural Pest Control & Pesticides Division.

Her reply was troubling: “Within North Carolina, we allow for one licensed pesticide applicator to supervise as many individuals as he or she would like, as long as all individuals work out of the same storage location.”

So only one person in an office of 5, 10, 20, or more pesticide applicators needs to be certified; only one applicator needs to go through the arduous certification training, and be annually re-certified?

To summarize, only one person with the license needs to be available to train in the safe use of insecticide products and be reachable by phone to the unlicensed applicators on the job. That licensee is responsible/liable for any mistakes made by the person they are supervising. Please note, there is no requirement to verify in-house training. To me, that licensee is the designated felon! Would you want that responsibility?

Compliance

Around my neighborhood, I’ve seen and others have reported seeing mosquito control companies spraying after 10 am. So while Ross was only a question away, I asked: How strictly regulated are the mosquito spray companies in NC? Ross replied: “All mosquito spray companies are required to hold a public health category license with the Pesticides Section. Alternatively, some hold structural pest control licenses with our other section, Structural Pest Control, which covers their mosquito applications around a structure. All mosquito application companies are subject to random and routine inspections once a year, and they are also subject to random inspections while in the field.

“Inspections generally cover topics such as personal protective equipment, products used, application method/equipment, recordkeeping, pesticide storage, and environmental conditions during the time of application. Inspections can also lead to an investigation if there is pesticide misuse.” Ross also noted her office investigates and follow up on all complaints received in their office regarding mosquito applicators, so if you see spraying after 10 am, call your local authority. In NC, that number is (919) 218-7952.

Vegetables, Herbs and Fruit Trees

The chemicals should likewise never be sprayed on or close to edible plants, including fruit-bearing trees, and vegetable and herb gardens. Structures like houses and swing sets also should be avoided; however, rules are murky about structures such as fences.

Pyrethroid insecticides used to kill mosquitoes will kill any insect that encounters it, including bees, caterpillars, and butterflies. The reality is there’s no way to entirely avoid hurting pollinators if you’re spraying for mosquitoes. More studies are needed to quantify this damage, but from experience, I am a twice-failed beekeeper. The first time I failed, I assumed it was Colony Collapse disorder (CCD). The second time, my bees were throughout the garden. I later found out one of my neighbors used a mosquito spray service. Other beekeepers have lamented to me the same experiences.

I have since registered with Fieldwatch, a program that allows pesticide applicators to locate any nearby beehives or sensitive sites and contact the site’s owner to avoid pesticide contamination/drift. Although personal gardens aren’t yet allowed to register, I registered anyway because I have over 30 fruit trees and consider my pollinator a sensitive site. So sue me

Mosquito spraying is not the only reason insects like fireflies, butterflies, and bees are in trouble. But mosquito sprays can kill these species. Decreasing the amount of spraying is one thing we can do to help them.

Clean Your Garden

You diligently work to control mosquito breeding through Integrated Pest Management (IPM), right?

If this is you, be the one in the neighborhood who begins to take action!

The most important thing you can do to reduce mosquitoes in your yard is to take away their habitat through a tip and toss practice of ridding your garden of their breeding ground, which is standing water. In controlling pests with IPM, you do the least environmentally impactful things first, then progress to the point of using chemicals, or not. I don’t use them.

Reduce the number of sites available to females for egg-laying — clogged gutters, old tires, plant holders, birdbaths, and discarded containers. Use personal repellents that keep mosquitoes at bay. And when the mosquitoes get too bad, go inside! However, what your neighbor is doing may be overshadowing your efforts due to their mosquito control applications. Is keeping your yard clear of standing water enough? You need to get your neighbors on board. Mosquitoes are a neighborhood-scale problem!

Eliminating standing water isn’t always feasible; for instance if you have a pond. Bee Better Naturally recommends all-natural larvicides, which kill the mosquito larvae and truly doesn’t harm other wildlife. These Bt dunks can wipe out another chunk of a garden’s mosquito population.

On our back porch, where we often sit, we have a series of ceiling fans and another oscillating fan, which helps a lot. But still not enough of days after a good rain. So I wondered what would Doug do?

Doug Tallamy’s Recommendation

At a recent conference, I asked Doug Tallamy for his best recommendation for mosquito control.

“Simple,” he said. “In an out-of-the-way area, partially fill a bucket of water, add wheat straw or hay, let it ferment. The fermentation attracts female mosquitoes to lay her eggs. Then add a mosquito control dunk that’s specific to the mosquito larvae.” I tried it, and it works.

We all have lots of decisions to make as consumers. For some people, a mosquito-free yard is worth the cost of some “by-kill.” Not for me! At least if we decide to spray our yard we should be informed of the potential losses, as well as benefits of being mosquito-free.

Helen Yoest is Director of Bee Better Naturally, a 100% volunteer non-profit helping homeowners save the environment, one garden at a time.

Mosquito Control – Is There Really Such a Thing? originally appeared on GardenRant on November 15, 2019.

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Gardening Tips For When It Gets Cold

The post Gardening Tips For When It Gets Cold appeared first on Miss Smarty Plants.

Trying to do your gardening when it’s freezing cold outside is not everyone’s idea of fun. However, just because the sun has stopped shining, doesn’t mean your plants can survive and thrive on their own. Here are some helpful gardening tips for when it gets cold to help maintain your beautiful garden.

Keep On Top Of Any Weeds

Weeds can be a nuisance and can affect the growth of your garden and plants in general. If you’re not going out and pulling up these weeds, you might be harming your plants and flowers for the warmer months when it’s time for them to bloom. So try to keep on top of the weeds as often as you can. Try to do this during the daytime so that you have the available daylight to see all of the weeds in the ground visibly.

Protect Water Features

Any water feature that you have will need to be protected from frost. Be sure to keep the water running on these features in order for the pipes do not freeze up. You might benefit from getting a Sta-Rite booster pump to keep the water flow at a good constant pressure. Wrap your piping outside the home with insulation to keep them warm. There’s nothing worse than having burst pipes. Give any vulnerable features protection and look for a protective coating that you can apply to certain materials in order to protect them from going rusty in the rain.

Build Structures To Protect Sensitive Plants

Not every plant or flower is going to be able to last the winter weather, especially as frost can damage the plant and makes it go dormant. So you might want to think about building some protective structures that will take care of the more sensitive plants. There’s plenty of gardening accessories out there to choose from, so pick something that’s going to stop heavy rainfall and snow from weighing down the plants or causing damage. There’s plenty of inspiration online if you’re struggling with ideas.

Use Lighting To Add Warmth

There is not much you can really do to help keep your plants warm when they’re exposed to the open air. However, certain lights can produce a lot of heat, and so you may find that draping some fairy lights or installing warm lights around certain areas of the garden will be beneficial for keeping the frost off your plants. Lights can also provide your garden with a more inviting feel and so you might find yourself spending more time out there anyway.

Maintaining your garden over the winter can be difficult, but it’s certainly worth investing some time into your outdoor space in order to keep it looking presentable. Do what you can to keep your plants safe so that they can be ready to come alive again once the cold weather moves on and the warmer weather comes about.

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How to Make Gardening Projects Easier

The post How to Make Gardening Projects Easier appeared first on Miss Smarty Plants.

We all go through a phase when we want to get our yard into shape. It’s like the motivation we have for getting into shape. We can see the end result in our mind’s eye, but getting there? Oh, that’s the difficult part, an area where we usually fall short. Part of the problem is that we set our standards too high. We make the process too complicated, with too many components. It’s little wonder that things become too difficult, and projects are often abandoned before they’re realized. So it’s a good idea to make things easier for yourself. We take a look at a few ways how to do this below.

Don’t Be Too Ambitious

You might want to create the most magical yard space in the neighborhood, but you’ll need to keep in mind that things will be pretty complicated if you do! In general, it’s best to avoid being too ambitious. It’s easy to get lost in the ideas stage and try to come up with some big plans, but things won’t be quite as exciting when you actually get down to business. If things are simple and straightforward, then it’ll be easier to keep things stress-free. 

Easy to Care for Plants

There’s a whole world of plants out there, and some of them will look truly magical in your yard. But unless you want to keep yourself overly busy just to keep them alive, then it’s probably best that you leave them on the shelf at the gardening store. It’s much easier to care for plants that belong in the climate in which you live. Of course, that’s not to say that you can’t have one or two exotic species throw in there somewhere, but in general, it’s best to have plants that won’t stress you out or take up too much of your time.

The Usual Tasks

There are some tasks that require some skill and can be enjoyable, and then there are others that just need to be completed. When you think about enjoying a day of work in the garden, it’s unlikely that you imagine yourself mowing the grass, for example. So why not look at making these tasks more straightforward? Instead of cutting the grass yourself, you can hire a lawn mowing service, and let them take care of the job for you. It’ll allow you to concentrate on the more fun aspects of gardening life.

Getting Family Involved

It might be your gardening project, but do you need to do all of it yourself? If you have a family, then the answer is no. Remember: many hands make light work, so get them involved for some of the laborious parts of the job. As well as making the task easier for you, you’ll also be giving your children some experience of working in the outdoors, which will do them a lot of good. Plus, it’ll make it more fun, too, which is always helpful when you’re trying to power through with a job. 

The post How to Make Gardening Projects Easier appeared first on Miss Smarty Plants.

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Rudbeckia Revolution

Be realistic, demand the impossible.

Che Guevara

 

I am waging war against frustration, and impatience is an obstacle. My struggle may take two or three years before there is a measurable outcome. This year’s brutal heat and drought nearly ground to a halt any remaining enthusiasm for my garden. While the president fantasized in August about buying Greenland, I dreamed of a cooler global climate and a little rain. Nothing worked. Greenland’s ice sheets continued to melt, and central Kentucky had the hottest and driest September on record.

So, I’m done with our garden, at least, until the early-flowering, squirrel-resistant Crocus tomasinianus hits full stride next year. At the first sight of thousands of lavender-colored March bloomers, on the nearby Ursuline Campus in Louisville, I hope my gardening mojo returns. In the meantime, I needed an autumn pick me up. I decided to launch the Rudbeckia Revolution.

But let’s be honest.

Rudbeckia triloba

I am a little long in the tooth to start a revolution by myself, so I enlisted an alley-wise, 24-year-old who came highly recommended. He had previously aced the rigorous Seed Bomber segment of the Guerilla Gardening Aptitude Test. My accomplice’s love for his garden and his will for a little tomfoolery caught my attention.

He planted his first garden this spring in a community plot in Louisville’s Germantown, while continuing to teach English online to Chinese kids. During his inaugural season, he navigated the normal ups and downs encountered along gardening’s learning curve and never flinched. (I am protecting the young man’s identity so that any urban seed-bombing in the future can remain discreet and, perhaps, even beneficial and pretty.)

Chasmanthium latifolium

We deployed seeds in lieu of bullets in two Louisville alleys on November 1st. We were caught on one site, but I explained we were sowing flower seeds.  A quick reprieve, and an endorsement, was granted. My comrade’s seed-sower disguise might have appeared alarming but he’s a good-hearted Lone Ranger, not a bandit.

Our ammo was gifted by Jelitto Perennial Seeds. Jelitto offers the best selection and quality of perennial seeds in the world. (I’m a little biased. I worked with Jelitto for 22 years. When I retired two years ago, I was given a generous lifetime allowance for perennial seeds instead of a gold watch. Who needs a gold watch when you can have all the perennial seeds you want?)

Cleaned seed of Rudbeckia triloba.

The Rudbeckia Revolution has modest goals. We don’t envision elegant plantings resembling Piet Oudolf’s High Line design in New York. There will be no fussy alley coddling in Louisville. Imagine our small-time seed bombing as the scruffy Low Line.

The revolution’s goal is simple: We are crossing our fingers that seeds germinate and a few dozen plants of black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia triloba) and northern sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium) will establish in sun to semi-shade, in hard-packed, but well-drained clay soils.

You’re wondering: Why didn’t we seed more species? This is a skirmish, not an invasion.

Seed bombing tip: Sow perennials seeds on top of the surface in autumn. Cover with a mixed grade of fine and gritty sand. No need to scratch the soil’s surface. The sand will absorb moisture from the earth and germination will be enhanced by moist and cooler conditions in autumn and winter.

If our small battles succeed, and there is no guarantee they will, a few plants may eventually self-sow and compete with crab grass, wintercreeper, hackberry roots, poke weed, lambs quarters, foxtail, autumn clematis, paulownia and tree of heaven seedlings, and whatever worrisome uncertainties global warming throws at our hidden alleys.

I’m not sure, even if the seed-bombed alleys flourish, that anyone will notice these new pollinators and caterpillar hosts. One of our battlegrounds, in the Crescent Hill neighborhood, sprinkled with garbage cans, has a tree canopy of filtered light. Dog shit is ignored, a token of the bygone era when dogs wandered free and crapped everywhere. Deer and coyotes, Louisville’s recent arrivals, now roam with rats and cats. This alley is nothing like the closely monitored neighborhood front yard landscape, where deer feast on hostas and a security camera occasionally tags a naughty dog owner who won’t pick up pooch’s shit.

The second alley, downtown, has more sun, weeds and litter, plus a marvelous Catalpa and Osage orange, warehouses and an abandoned homeless camp.

Both alleys are passageways to a diverse and mongrel ecology.

Jean-Francois Millet’s The Sower. Walters Museum photo.

We are not overreaching. The Rudbeckia Revolution’s handbook states plainly: “A few survivors may self-sow or not.” This is not an ugly, in-your-face fight for hearts and minds.

My comrade and I don’t expect to save the world; we are only buying time until next spring.

¡Hasta la victoria siempre!

Rudbeckia Revolution originally appeared on GardenRant on November 13, 2019.

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The first step is admitting you have a problem

This is the initial pile (partial view).

At this moment, two things are true. I still have 4 boxes of bulbs—maybe 250 or so total—sitting in the back room. And when I when I opened the door of that room and stepped outside this morning, I walked into 10 inches of pre-Thanksgiving winter wonderland.

This is also true: There probably wouldn’t have been that many bulbs left over if I had ordered a few less than 1900. Even with selling some to a friend and planting and potting all I could, I still have to find a place for a whole mess of hybrid tulips.

Some of the tulips I don’t even remember choosing. Why did I get 100 Ballerina, lily-flowered? “Few can resist her,” says the Van Engelen copywriters. I should have. I don’t like the lily-flowered types that much, and I hate calling plants “her.” What’s with the 350 doubles? Doubles can be troublesome to grow in pots. (I force many tulips and hyacinths and grow hybrid tulips mainly in pots.) Why 100 Bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder?’ It’s a decent species type but 10–20 would have been fine to mix in with the other species I have.

I must have been in some kind of late summer frenzy. It wasn’t alcohol.

I don’t know too many gardeners that get as obsessed with bulbs. Bulbs are among my earliest plant purchases; I remember choosing from the Van Engelen catalog the summer after we moved into our house and had our first real garden. And regardless of how that garden has changed over the years, with many makeovers, bulbs go in every year. It must be because they’re a sure thing. Perennials don’t always perform as expected; I am positive I’ve planted dozens that have faltered and ultimately have vanished. For at least one season, bulbs are perfect, usually even better looking than their pictures. They’re great for an impatient gardener who doesn’t really want to wait through the sleeping and creeping. And who isn’t troubled by deer. Though I know many suburban gardeners who succeed with tulips in spite of deer. There are ways.

Perhaps I focus on bulbs because they distract from the real work my garden needs. Perhaps I throw bulbs in a hole in the beds to avoid thinking about how they should be reorganized. or at least weeded.

This year, I went too far. I admit it. I won’t go cold turkey. But maybe next time, I’ll have a designated reviewer of my order before I hit “proceed to checkout.”

The first step is admitting you have a problem originally appeared on GardenRant on November 12, 2019.

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Tackling A Huge Garden In Easy Steps

The post Tackling A Huge Garden In Easy Steps appeared first on Miss Smarty Plants.

When you’re lucky enough to have a large expanse in your back garden, it can be an absolute blessing, especially in the summer months. However, staying on top of the care and upkeep can see you spend a lot of money and time to keep it all in ship shape, and this can encourage you to give up on the venture and allow the place to grow wild. Luckily, there are a few generally unheard of top tips that can help you to look after your large garden throughout every month of the year without having to exert mass amounts of energy or having to empty your bank account. So, if your green space is getting a little out of hand and you’d like a few ideas to sort it all out in no time at all, then read on to uncover some of the handiest hacks to make use of today! 

Image Source – Pexels 

Think Big

If you have a big garden, then you have to think big. The largest space you can tackle should be your first port of call, and if this means seeking out landscaping services to lay the best possible foundations for you to work from, then so be it. When you look at your garden after a period of low quality care, there will be several bigger problems that initially jump out at you, whether this is over growing trees blocking out all light, or perhaps even weeds growing across your once lush green grass. Tackling these issues will give you the opportunity to identify any smaller improvements along the way, and speed up the process dramatically too. 

Adding A Splash Of Color 

Sticking exclusively with plain grass or even paving can make your garden seem like a huge mass of empty space. Putting no effort into the flora and fauna will create a garden that looks like nothing more than a field you might pass on a country drive, ultimately rendering part of the price you paid for your property to be somewhat pointless. Adding life and colour into the mix can change this completely, as planting different flowers not only adds aesthetic value but helps to attract and sustain wildlife too. A simple border of sweet smelling plants of all kinds will instantly improve the look and feel of your garden, and there’s no doubt about the appreciation you will get from all local bees! 

Create Defined Sections 

It can be tough to make proper use of all of the space that comes with a huge garden, and often this means sections get left behind and see no fun at all. Changing this can help you to stay on top of the upkeep more readily, as investing some time and money into making proper use of your garden with further encourage you to stay on top of its upkeep. You could have a BBQ area, a vegetable patch, a play area for children or a dining table and chairs for any summer meals outside!

The post Tackling A Huge Garden In Easy Steps appeared first on Miss Smarty Plants.

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Patrick Dougherty’s Stick House at the US Botanic Garden is OPEN for Fun

If you come to DC any time over the next two years, I recommend visiting this magical stickwork piece called “Oh Say Can You See” by Patrick Dougherty, that just opened at the U.S. Botanic Garden.

On the USBG website it’s described as 40 ft X 25 ft and 14 ft high, made of “locally harvested Norway maple, cherry, and elm, plus purchased willow from Fredonia, NY.”

Then on this page we learn that the “locally harvested” plants are “saplings of invasive plants from area locations – Norway maple from the American Horticultural Society’s River Farm and Siberian elm and hybrids of non-native cherry from the U.S. National Arboretum.”

Photo of Dougherty creating this work, by US Botanic Garden.

Dougherty commented that:

Trying to imagine a work for the city congestion of Washington DC, I produced a wild scribble and characterized it as “urban scrawl.”  I transferred this “chicken scratch” drawing to graph paper and plotted the sketch in the grassy lawn on the right side of the Garden’s glass conservatory.   From this footprint, I hoped to conjure a zany three-dimensional object that viewers could explore.

The Garden boasts more than a million visitors a year, and this sculpture sits in the middle of the hubbub as visitors stream from one national attraction to another.

Oh, it’s a “zany three-dimensional object that viewers could explore” all right, something I hope this short video conveys.

There’s a cool video of kids running in and out of the piece, here on the USBG’s Facebook page.

 

Above, a cool time-lapse from the social-media-savvy folks at the USBG shows how the stick house was built.

I love it up-close.

This piece of Dougherty’s is SO cool and SO much fun, it’s sure to be a win for the USBG, and for visitors of all ages.

Patrick Dougherty’s Stick House at the US Botanic Garden is OPEN for Fun originally appeared on GardenRant on November 8, 2019.

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Groundcovers: Grand to Aggressive

This black mondo brings attention to subtly variegated plants.

Groundcovers are often suggested as solutions for sites where turfgrass won’t grow, or for places that are difficult to mow. As useful as that suggestion is, I feel like it sells them a little short. They can absolutely sparkle as contributors to overall garden design, providing the theme that pulls together a disparate collection of plants, lead you through a landscape, or provide intriguing colorful or textural counterpoints to other plants.

This bank of mondo grass does a good job of covering soil in an enclosed bed where it cannot run into infinity.

I also have to quibble a bit on a commonly held belief that groundcovers are a low maintenance solution. Sometimes they are, and often not. Choosing those that don’t run rampant is paramount. When I am asked to recommend a fast-growing groundcover, I first spill my misgivings. “Fast” choices often turn out to be foe instead of friend. They don’t know to stop covering ground where the gardener’s mission ended.

I prefer low growing evergreen plants that stay in discreet clumps or spread very slowly. It is more expensive on the front end to get full coverage, but as I grow older the more important economy concerns how I use my time and my poor stiffening body.

 

The other problem is that often weeds are happy to cohabitate with groundcovers, and not just during establishment. A bed of Vinca major surrounds an ancient tulip poplar on our grounds, planted decades before I started this job. Birds, defecating the seeds of their favored fruits have “planted” Virginia creeper, poison ivy (yes birds eat poison ivy fruit), wild cherry, hackberry, honeysuckle and the horrid thug Chinese privet. The only solution is to hand weed, as any herbicide that will kill them will also kill the groundcover. (It is surrounded by lawn, so at least stays put.)

This dense bed of Vinca major was happy to host seedlings of poison ivy, hackberry, Virginia creeper, smilax, wild grape and privet.

Having a thick cover of plants does reduce the number of weeds, but this bed is evidence that establishing a vigorous groundcover does not provide a situation that requires no maintenance. If weeding is necessary, it is  more interesting to use a diversity of plants that don’t run, or at least spread at a manageable creep.

An exception is the bed surrounded on all sides by concrete or other inhospitable surface. An understory of mondo grass or the running form of monkey grass Liriope spicata  will fill these areas with evergreen grassy texture. Look Ma, no mulch!  I would still avoid fast spreading vining type groundcovers in these situations, as they are wont to climb on and overwhelm taller perennials, shrubs or even trees. English ivy is famous for this and the near-equally problematic wintercreeper euonymus.

Dwarf forms of mondo grass move so slowly, using it where it is not captured by hardscape is not a problem, and the black mondo is so slow in my climate, that I think sometimes it gradually vanishes rather than vanquishes. Maybe I have yet to find its happy spot in my landscape.

This gives a good opportunity to segue into more detailed design opportunities. I fell for black mondo years ago on my travels, but few use it so masterfully as fellow Tennessean Faye Beck. She stages it for intriguing contrast under bright or bold foliaged plants. It is the dark underscore she uses to call attention to some of her most glittering treasures.

Dwarf golden sweet flag’s furry cuteness belies its durability. The size 10 peasant feet belong to me and provide good scale.

Flip that concept and use the dwarf golden sweet flag under purple heuchera, big blue hostas, or dark ninebarks. The swirled, tufted “cowlick” habit of this diminutive plant pulls me into a crouch as I simply must stroke it, and it is as soft as it appears. Soft does not translate to delicate as it is quite durable (to Zone 5) if provided shade and moisture. A wet site is necessary to support it in full sun. Bless its tiny heart, it has to be sturdy to support its giant name Acorus gramineus ‘Minimus Aureus’!

This idea of using the brighter ground covers to call out to you can be used effectively on the larger scale as well. Broad brush strokes can pull you around curves in garden paths or simply pull your eye toward a destination that warrants exploration. Please though, reconsider using them to “outline” a sidewalk, driveway or bed. I admit this use pulls a snobbish sigh from me for its predictability.

This sweep of ‘Ogon’ sweet flag pulls you on to explore more of the landscape.

Another friend that shares his clever design tricks is Jimmy Williams in Paris TN, with his tongue-in-cheek garden “Tennessee Dixter”.  Jimmy will take single clump of a common groundcover and use it as a design element with other perennials to form charming vignettes.   The ordinary liriope ‘Silvery Sunproof’ strikes grassy grace when used this way, a beauty obscured when used en masse. Less common, but another fabulous plant used singly is the golden liriope ‘Peedee Ingot’. This plant has become one of my favorites in container combinations. Somehow I must get over the feeling that I need to defend falling in love with a “monkey grass”.

A single clump of ‘Peedee Ingot’ liriope golden monkey grass stars in this composition.

Maybe you are far ahead of me in skulking the groundcover areas of the garden centers with thoughts of thrilling design elements instead of pedestrian solutions. Show me! I’m a little slow, but I’m teachable…

Groundcovers: Grand to Aggressive originally appeared on GardenRant on November 6, 2019.

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Let Natives Be Natives

Throughout all of the preceding month, I’ve been mulling over a symposium I attended at the University of Connecticut on October 3^rd.  Titled the “UConn Native Plants and Pollinators Conference,” it unintentionally highlighted a fundamental disconnect at the heart of contemporary gardening.

In the morning, the conference featured as a speaker Annie White, a landscape architect from Vermont who researched for her doctoral thesis the relative value to pollinators of species-type native plants versus “nativars,” cultivated selections or hybrids of native plants.  White found that sometimes, though not always, the species type plants were far more attractive to the pollinators.  I found that interesting.

Even more interesting, though, was the reaction of an afternoon speaker, a representative of the University of Connecticut faculty.  Dr. Jessica Lubell of UConn’s Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture  began by attacking Annie White’s data, insisting that unnamed studies had found that there was no difference in the benefits to pollinators provided by wild-type native plants and their cultivars.  She then went on to stress the importance of moving to the cultivars so that the nursery industry could continue to grow the plants – the natives now genetically identical and reduced to neat, compact mounds – in the same industrial way it has been growing exotics.  She also stressed that eliminating the genetic variability from native plants and reducing their size would enable gardeners to adopt them without rethinking at all their landscape aesthetic.  To accompany this, Lubell showed dozens of slides of emasculated natives growing as cushions and balls amid the usual seas of bark mulch.

Hydrangea arborescens nativars ‘Invincibelle Ruby’ and ‘Invincibelle Wee White’

It seems to me, given the crashing populations of birds and insects and the tidy ugliness of so many of our suburbs, that a reboot of our gardens is long overdue.  Reducing the genetic variability of the plants we cultivate directly contradicts the kind of resilience we need during an age of climate change and introduced pests and diseases.

In short, we badly need to re-examine our contemporary style of landscaping.  We need to reconsider our desire for predictable uniformity in our plants.  We need, above all, to come to terms with natural growth and not view our plants as some species of green outdoor ‘design elements.’

Hydrangea arborescens species type (photo courtesy of Rick Webb, PA)

Let Natives Be Natives originally appeared on GardenRant on November 4, 2019.

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