Returning a Town’s Perennial Border to Lawn? by Susan Harris

Buttresses and bas-relief sculptures seen behind Knockout roses

Of all the historic buildings in my town, my favorite is what’s now the Community Center, so it’s full of artists, dancers, seniors and really everyone else, every day.

I love the Arc Deco buttresses on the front facade. And I wrote here about the bas-relief sculptures between them depicting the Preamble to the Constitution, with the excuse to write about it here that they illustrate “Promote the General Welfare” with someone gardening.

Speaking of gardening, a few years back the City Horticulturist was a real gardener, so of course he ripped up a prominent patch of turfgrass and installed in its place a large border of perennials and roses.

If you’ve started and maintained perennial beds yourself you won’t be surprised to learn that once the real gardener was gone and a regular maintenance crew took over, using power tools only, no hand-weeding or herbicides (after complaints), the garden changed for the worse. The photo above is how it looks after power-weeding and mulching.

More typically, it looks like this. In front of our most important and beautiful building, this drives me crazy.

So, a make-over is clearly needed to make this high-visibility spot look good without increasing the manpower allotted. What would that be?

Let’s start with previous landscaping there. Back in 1937 when the town and this building launched, an all-too-common mistake was made – using evergreens where they don’t have enough space, as they soon didn’t here on either side of the entrance.

Tulip magnolias, easily limbed up, are a much better choice, obvious in this current photo.

Across the front of the building below the fabulous artwork was a row of low (at least originally) junipers, a few flowering trees and lawn.  Someone must have recognized another mistaken plant choice – the trees would eventually block the building’s iconic features – because they were removed.

With that review of history in mind (and having consulted the experts at our museum), a group of us gardeners and city staff are meeting today to brainstorm design and plant ideas for this prominent spot to look good with less labor (including less use of power tools, if possible), and to complement architecture and the established plantings on the other sides of the building.

This shady side always looks good with just Abelias, Viburnums and Liriope, though the grounds crew chief tells me it’s a lot of work to keep the windows and sidewalks clear of branches.

The more public side is another story. More Liriope, but here the Abelias are sheared into gumballs and there’s a row of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ for late-season flowering. I wonder how often those gumballs need to be power-treated to stay looking good (if you like that style, which honestly I don’t).

Lawn-bashers should look away right now because one idea that’s been floated is to replace the original lawn panel there, leaving just enough room for a row of low-growing shrubs close to the building (but not too close; bas-reliefs need to be cleaned occasionally).

(Maintenance-wise, adding a bit more lawn to the large one between the building and the street would take just a minute or so longer to mow.)

A quick trip to my favorite independent garden center turned up several plants I could imagine along the front of the building and my favorite is the ‘Grey Owl’ Eastern Redcedar shown above. Known more commonly known as Juniper, it has these qualities going for it: maximum height 3 feet, blue foliage (it would be the blue in the whole landscape), no need to shear, and – drumroll, please –  it’s native! Meaning, everyone could be happy with it in this very public spot.

Also promising to me are two plants that would echo shrubs already growing elsewhere around the building: draft Abelia and draft Plum Yew.  I sure hope we can count on the mature size stated on these signs – just 2.5 feet – because at that height they wouldn’t need shearing. Yay!

Whatever’s decided, the city plans to have the make-over done in early September after our big Labor Day Festival. Report to follow.

Returning a Town’s Perennial Border to Lawn? originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 8, 2018.

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At A Glance: Green Schemes

We are better than halfway, doing our summer container installations. More on that later.

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If snake killing is wrong, then my dog Opal doesn’t want to do right by Carol Reese

Opal in her glory days

When I lived near the Luray TN bottoms, the dogs and I often walked the field road to the back of a farm tract known locally as “the island”. This was several hundred acres surrounded by water – swamp, stream and man-made ditches and canals. More accurately, I walked, and the dogs trotted, tumbled, trailed or ran. From a bird’s eye view, I imagine a wildly moving circle of four legged beasts with one slow moving two-legged beast toward the rear.

My squatty brown dog Opal was a snake killer. She so enjoyed it, that if I yelled “SNAKE!” to warn any unsuspecting dogs, she leapt into action, surging forward and scanning eagerly for action. I learned instead to shout “RABBIT”! and point the safest direction.

One day I experimented with shouting “SNAKE!” as she napped on the porch. She peeled up from deep sleep at full roar, thrilled at the prospect of doing combat with her hated foe. Opal had a face that looked like a caricature of a benevolent snapping turtle, and she made me laugh every day.

The field road to the tract known as “the island”, a place where these rescued dogs could run freely.

I did not like her lust for snake killing, though I grudgingly admired her ability and dedication to the task. I hold the snake clan in high esteem. Imagine getting around in the world without legs or arms, as well as being mostly despised and feared. They deserve admiration.

I find many friends that agree with me on non-venomous snakes, but feel they can make a case for killing the venomous. I honor even the venomous snakes, and feel gratitude for the many times they have chosen to spare me in my barefooted or sandal-footed wanderings. Water moccasins in particular have had plenty of opportunities to bite me and did not.

Opal could have cared less what kind of snake it might be. Venomous snakes had bitten her several times on her legs or face as she charged in, snatching the snake in a violent blur of shaking that was over in seconds. It was terrible and terrifying, especially at the end of the thrashing, when she flung the snake aside with no clue as to direction. Flying venomous snakes with fangs still extended are bad news, dead or not.

When Opal was bitten, her limb, or face, or neck swelled to frightening proportions. My veterinarian had become so accustomed to her habits, that he equipped me with antihistamine, anti-inflammatory and antibiotic medicines so I could give them to her immediately. Usually within forty-eight hours, the swelling was gone.

Opal’s excitement was contagious, and some of the other dogs thought they’d like to have a go at snake killing. Jolene, the big coonhound, could handle it, but her shaking style was slower, more of a head slinging, causing the snake to whip her on one side and then the other. It might have been funny, except it wasn’t.

Whippoorwill Hill is an upland setting, and home to copperheads before it was home to us. I did my best to prevent anyone from grabbing the snake, racing into the confrontation screaming in an attempt to protect snake from dogs and dogs from snake. I imagine you could hear me from outer space, giving my all to convince the dogs that any disobedience at that moment might end in blood and guts.

My instinctive fury was inexcusably unfair to Opal on this particular walk. I was in shorts and sandals, looking at clouds, when Opal knocked me aside, lunging against the side of my knee, her big head just at the point where my foot should have descended. No doubt I would have stepped directly on the water moccasin she now shook ferociously just in front of my legs. Adrenalin made my screamed “NO’S” sound so full of rage, that once she’d flung the snake into the soybeans, she hung her head and crouched in submission, afraid she was to be punished.

She probably did save me from a painful bite this time. In relief, I fell to my knees and hugged her blocky body, apologizing and kissing her broad scarred head. She butted it against me, shoved close and wagged her ugly rear end, full of doggy clemency. Sweet, brave, good dog Opal.

Opal has since “crossed the bridge” or she might have saved me from the snake that was not aware of my pact with the clan of snakes. The painful encounter took place my first spring on Whippoorwill Hill, and cost me. It was not just the insurance deductibles, or the three days in the hospital watching my leg swell into something unrecognizable. It took my naivete. I have trekked woods and fields and creeks and swamps all my life with no thought of peril. Now I find myself looking before I put my hands or my feet into places a snake might be concealed. I refuse to call it fear, but it has replaced my heedlessness. I miss being oblivious.

Where I once tread fearlessly, I now cautiously probe.

Fear was not really the emotion present even when I looked down to see that the sting was not a wasp as I first thought. It was beautiful copperhead, gracefully poised to give me another pop of venom if I needed more encouragement to step aside. Some people exclaim they would have died from on the spot from sheer terror, but in that millisecond I had three sensations, and none were related to fear.

I was incredulous. I’d been bitten, and it was definitely a copperhead! I was immediately resigned to the truth of it. I’d been bitten by a copperhead and it could not be undone. Thirdly, I was curious, because now I would know what it was like to be bitten by a venomous snake. It did turn out to be a rougher experience than I expected overall, but obviously, I didn’t die, and it had unexpected rewards. I suddenly became the cool great aunt to my several great nieces and nephews.

…and no, I did not kill the copperhead that bit me, nor did I even consider it. That handsome snake deserved to be there as much or more than I. If there was one good thing about Opal not being with me on that walk, it is that I can imagine the fiesty snake still slips through the woods on Whippoorwill Hill, and you know what ? I hope it is oblivious to any fear.

If snake killing is wrong, then my dog Opal doesn’t want to do right originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 7, 2018.

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Embracing an invasive native by Elizabeth Licata

Like many beginning gardeners, I was initially attracted by easy, “do it all” solutions. I soon learned that there are no such things, but that was after I bought a can of “wildflowers for shade.” I sprinkled the seeds into an impossible spot between a big maple, our back wall, and the neighbor’s boundary fence. (The great thing about these seed cans is that there is no indoor-starting, soaking, stratification or any of that geeky seed stuff. They are just assumed to work if directly sown, no matter what they are.)

(with the gallium, hellebore, and a few other things)

Eventually a few plants came up, but I only remember the hesperis matronalis (Dame’s Rocket), a known thug around here that did not survive for long. The sole plant that remains, eighteen years after I sprinkled those seeds, is anemone canadensis, which, at first, I took for some kind of geranium (cranesbill), but eventually looked up and found its true identity. For a while, it stayed where it was sown, putting up a discreet clump every year. It got sick of its admittedly cruddy, northeast-facing position though, and, over the last five years, has sidled around the tree trunk and is now westward bound. The anemone is duking it out with a huge hellebore clump and rampant gallium odoratum (sweet woodruff) that has long held this space. And it’s more than holding its own—even against the gallium!

This is a native plant that is found in a pretty wide distribution throughout the Northeast and Midwest, in spite of having Canada in its name. (They have it there too.) It laughs at shade and doesn’t requite nearly as much moisture as its descriptions suggest.

I know that Canada is looking pretty good to many of us these days. I wouldn’t go so far as to consider emigration, but I do welcome this indigenous product to my garden.

Embracing an invasive native originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 6, 2018.

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Turning an Invasive Species into a Resource by Thomas Christopher

The black locust, insists its harvester Blue Sky, “is a much maligned tree.”  A native of the central Appalachians and Ozark Mountains, it has extended its range into New England, where it is considered to be invasive. In particular, it has become abundant in north-central Massachusetts where Blue Sky lives and logs.  He, however, has turned this ecological malefactor into a resource.  As proprietor of “A Black Locust Connection”, he supplies black locust fence posts, trellises, and lumber to a varied and numerous clientele throughout New England and New York.

It was my friend Brian who first took me to Blue Sky’s lumber yard in Colrain, Massachusetts. The Douglas fir frames that enclosed the beds in Brian’s vegetable garden have rotted away, and although he wants to replace them with something more durable, he wants to avoid the use of toxic pressure-treated lumber.  Black locust boards are the perfect solution to this dilemma:  this extremely rot resistant wood will survive in contact with the ground for decades.  Indeed, Blue Sky has a black locust fence post he collected that is still sound, even though, the owner said, the fence had been erected by her grandfather a century ago.   With his custom-built rail-splitter, Blue Sky is currently turning out the materials for new enclosures of this sort.

While Brian selected the boards for his raised beds, I prowled the lumber yard, inspecting the piles of logs, the Wood-Mizer band saw mill, and the stacks of fresh cut and air-drying boards.  I also listened to Blue Sky’s stories about his products.

His lumber business began as a byproduct of his work as an arborist: he began to bring home logs from the trees he felled, logs that were too valuable as a source of lumber to be consigned to use as firewood.  Although, he points out, the dense black locust logs will burn even when green and yield more heat per cord than any othe common firewood besides shagbark hickory. But even now, when processing black locust is his main business, it remains a relatively low volume affair, for Blue Sky says that he has to mill each of these idiosyncratic logs differently, so as to get the most lumber out of it.

“This stuff,” he explains, “is far too valuable a resource to waste.”

The crafts-people who turn his lumber into outdoor furniture, decks, deer fencing, even wooden boats and musical instruments, clearly agree.

 

Turning an Invasive Species into a Resource originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 4, 2018.

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Bold Or Bashful?

Designing great container plantings asks for thoughtful decisions about lots of visual issues. A container is a landscape in miniature. Every design issue that manages to get addressed in such a confined space means that container will satisfy the viewer on multiple levels. Superb container plantings are layered, organized, and deliberate. I greatly admire container [...]

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Wollam Gardens, a Cut-Flower Success Story by Susan Harris

My connection to Wollam Gardens, the cut-flower farm in the Virginia exurbs of D.C., starts with this ridiculously cute couple – Hillary Gottemoeller and Joe Harris. I got to know them at my local cafe/music venue, where they perform their own songs and where Joe organizes events showcasing talented musicians from the region. (Here’s my blog post about their very public wedding in 2015.)

Hillary’s career took a sharp turn from publishing to flower-farming after she was accepted into the 10-week internship program at Wollam Gardens, after which time she knew she didn’t want to leave. Since then she’s been full-time business manager and floral designer there for two seasons.

Last week I visited the farm, which attendees at the upcoming Slow Flowers Summit in D.C. will also have the chance to visit.

The story of Wollam Gardens starts with Bob Wollam, of course, who’s so photogenic I couldn’t choose just one photo of him (from their Instagram account).

Retired from the business world, Bob moved in 1987 from Texas to D.C. because of our four seasons plus mildish winters where he could pursue his dream of growing ornamental plants. (His mother and grandmother were big gardeners in New York and Ohio, and he grew to love flowers.)

By 1988 he’d bought 11 acres and rented 9 more within a 1.5-hour drive of D.C. and had begun selling perennial plants. After visiting a “cut-your-own-flowers” farm he switched to cut flowers.

Wollam Gardens is primarily run by interns. Happy-looking ones.

I learned a lot about Bob by listening to Debra Prinzing’s podcast with him, recorded while driving from DC to the farm. He explained that he learned to run a cut-flower business by joining and getting advice from the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, of which he’s a big fan. The association has grown quickly to over 1,000  members, and Bob is happy to help it “grow more flower farmers,” even competitors.

What flowers does he grow? Bob describes the farm’s specialty as “flowers that are difficult to grow and difficult to ship.” I wonder if that includes woodies, because flowering shrubs are a big part of the business, from the looks of it. Bob says his favorite woody is Quince, but Hydrangeas and Viburnums must be high on his list because there are fields of them.

Viburnum macrocephalum at its peak.

I was told that Bob brags about there being more Viburnum macrocephalum at Wollam than anywhere else, plus several other viburnums. It’s all the mature shrubs, with their flowers, foliage, berries and branches, that give the farm a nice advantage over newer flower farms. Currently, the farm grows 80 varieties of plants.

Large stand of mature Viburnums.

 

Dahlias emerging, having survived another winter.

Wollam is big on dahlias, too, which for several years now have overwintered successfully in the ground.

The farm’s 2,000 mature peonies still looked good despite recent storms, and on the day I visited customers were arriving for a Pick-a-Peony event.

Because it’s too expensive to heat hoop houses with propane, their only heating fuel, the farm shuts down operations from mid-December to the end of February.

Wollam Gardens has a nice diversity of income streams:

• Selling at six farmers markets, including the Dupont Circle Market that Bob co-founded and is now the largest in the area.
• Delivering to florists in the DC and Baltimore markets and to “select” Whole Foods in the area.  (Bob said he’s “the local flower child to Whole Foods.”)
• Weddings! Brides are finding the garden through The Knot and from flyers distributed at farmers markets.
• And since their lovely pavilion was built two years ago, Wollam Garden has become an event venue, hosting 13 weddings the very first year (including Bob’s own!) and 20 this year.

The pavilion house has spawned a variety of other events, including weekly yoga classes and a Fall Festival with music, food, workshops, a farm tour, and flower-crown-making (very popular).

Finally, I visited the farmhouse on the property, plenty old enough for an “old house nut” like Bob, having begun in 1747 as a log cabin that was added onto in 1819. The six seasonal interns live there, as room and board are part of their pay (plus $30/day). There are also two guest rooms rented out through Airbnb, so you can stay there!

The living room is the interns’ favorite hang-out.

Wollam Gardens, a Cut-Flower Success Story originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 1, 2018.

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