healthy in high summer
In my first contribution to Joene’s Gardeners Oops Day, I will tell you something you’ll likely hear again:
I procrastinated!
This time, it probably cost me some nice plants.
Late last spring we acquired a nice old stock tank, figured out some filler, and got it planted. Margaret at A Way to Garden made putting Hostas in pots seem like a great idea, and so a divided Sum & Substance helped fill out the largish planter. Along with primroses, Lobelia, sweet potato vine, Lamium, and a couple mini Hostas, it and gave us beauty at the edge of the porch all summer long. Trick to hostas in a pot is you must remember to move them into real earth before winter hits.
Winter hit.
I kept saying “I need to move that stuff,” but days got short, one thing got in front of the other, and suddenly nights were in the 20s.
On the first night it was predicted to snow diligently, I went out to dig them out of there, hoping it wasn’t too late. The ground was sluggish but friable, and digging some graves trenches in the empty veg plot was easy. Hope! The soil in the tank? Well, the man came home to find me jumping up and down on a shovel, bouncing off the icy surface. (If only there were video of this snowy, desperate sight.) Pouring warmish water around the drip line softened things up enough to pry out a few chunks to move into the veg plot.
And that’s not all. There were seedlings I never potted up, babies I neglected. Lots of them. They, too, now share a grave trench, and everything is piled with 6 inches of chopped leaves and a little February snow. If they come out alive, I’ll swear an oath to never let winter catch me lazy again.
As Joene says in her recent GOOPS, “Caring for plants, just like caring for any other aspect of life, requires vigilance … sometimes more and sometimes less.”
For the lovely “less” of summer, they deserved more vigilance before the mercury fell. More an “oh crap” than a Goops, but hey, I’m owning up.
Postscript. Goops Day is the first of each month. I’m 3 days late with my post. Typical.
via the potting shed on Flickr
My darlin’ Annie’s a DJ in the making at KOOP radio Austin! Listen to her pilot show, Roses & Thorns, right here, starting at the 2-minute mark.
Annie was my neighbor and partner in a small act of guerrilla gardening (ripping out a weedy bed in front of our building’s porch and planting jasmine, herbs, and loads of zinnias). I think you’ll find her style just as colorful.
(Slow to load? Download here.)
Campanula alpina somewhere in the Alps
During hours & days in the mountains of the west, and now back east, I’ve spent almost as much time wishing i knew the names of the plants around me as thinking about a climbing or hiking destination. I’ve apologized to unknown trees as I gripped them for dear life while scrambling down a slope, and apologized to my companions for holding things up while I stopped to gaze at tiny flowers creeping along paths or spilling sideways from cracks high on a wall.
Serendipity and a climbing trip once took me through Death Valley during the “100-Year Bloom,” but I didn’t know the name of a blooming thing. I never carried a wildflower guide, content with the mystery since I had no more than a patio to grow things on, and it was full of potted cactus.
Then I came here, and trips to the mountains became trips rather than something to do after work. But I finally got to garden on a real piece of land. And the paradox is that gardening brought the mountain plants to me, told me their names, and showed me a world of extraordinarily knowledgeable people dedicated to growing them in the most un-mountainous places, the garden.
Actually, that last part was Craig at Ellis Hollow. He’s a generous gardener, neighbor, and excellent blogger, and on the board of the local chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society. I joined up on the strength of his recommendation and entered the world of rock gardening like a child walking alone into a nanotech lab–ignorant, babbling, and dangerous around the sensitive equipment.
In case you’re wondering about the enthusiasm of NARGS members for alpine, saxatile, and low-growing perennials, explore the wiki or the 4,000+ different species of seeds available in this year’s member seed exchange, most of them garden-collected. Trying to pick my 35 has been fun and tiring, since I know so little that it takes Google to tell me if a pick is 1) hardy 2) going to germinate in under a year 3) likable and 4) not going to kill the Beagle. But picked I have! If it isn’t too late when they arrive, I will winter sow any that need cold stratifying and do my best with the rest.
We don’t have a scree slope or rock outcroppings or even a hypertufa trough, and I despair of ever seeing or growing any alpine plant in a garden that will strike me the way it does in the quiet mountain air, unlooked-for and in the oddest, barest, least garden-like places. But now there’s a chance I’ll know it, and call it by its name.
UPDATE: A discussion is beginning on how to even start a real rock garden, how to settle on what it will be, since the choices really can be overwhelming. Anyone like to share their path to alpine bliss in the comments?
The Ithaca Agway is the Sak’s of Seeds. Witness.
There is a rack just as big out of frame left, and they are not finished putting them out yet! What does look complete is the rack of Botanical Interests seeds. I have a gift cert to buy from them directly, but couldn’t resist getting a few I don’t want to miss: the ‘Alaska’ Nasturtiums we loved last year, black and orange Pansies, fragrant Sweet Peas (1st of a few kinds I think), Nigella (which never sprouted last year), good ole Zinnias in pastel, and some Little Bluestem grass I hope will fill in the bare hillock where new shrubs are small. Now to stare at them until at least the end of March.
This reminds me, NARGS seed exchange orders are due by 10 Feb., and I have not finished picking mine, though I swore I’d do it early so I could enjoy carefree outdoor cold stratification (and friends, it’s cold outside).
One of winter’s lonely ingredients is the dearth of birdsong. June’s predawn mayhem can make you crazy, but the January stillness is maddening, too. Two mornings ago, I thought I heard the screeching of our resident hawk, but didn’t see her and haven’t in a while. I miss her presence over the hills we walk every day. Even the bird feeder on the apple tree has been left half-full for almost a week. Usually a mix of little blue-gray birds & cardinals empty it in a few short days. Fortunately the crows (a bloody murder of them, I like to say) has not found it, preferring to dig in the cornfields and keep their caw-cawwing across the road. Polite crows, but they don’t sing.
So I’m going to Sapsucker Woods on Saturday to see where they’ve gone, or learn better how to find them. They give guided birdwatching walks for beginners every Saturday & Sunday at 10 a.m. for the rest of the winter. Don’t forget your mittens!
Exploring this, I stumbled on an exhibit at the Lab of O that’s part of the Light in Winter Festival, starting this weekend: The Sweet Voiced Bird Has Flown–Portraits of Common Birds in Decline. Maybe I’ll find some of the missing there.
Another show shouldn’t be missed by native plant lovers:
Living Light; a Celebration of the Finger Lakes Native Flora, at Tompkins County Public Library at 101 E Green St.
“A juried exhibit organized by the Finger Lakes Native Plant Society and featuring the work of 50 artists working in all media, will be on display throughout the library. The exhibit will also include educational exhibits in the Avenue of the Friends and material relating to four workshops being held in conjunction with the exhibit.”
The word is out about Ithaca’s 2nd Annual Designing with Native Plants Symposium. Since the 2009 event sold out fast, they’ve split it into two days, with Friday topics geared for landscape and green industry professionals, and Saturday “focused on the residential landscape more accessible to homeowners and gardeners.” Both days are open for anyone to register, and eligible landscape professionals can receive up to 11 CEUs (6 on Friday, 5 on Saturday).
Dan Segal, one of the organizers, is a champion of locally-sourced plants and sustainably-managed gardens, which he promotes as owner of The Plantsmen Nursery, one of my favorite places to browse, dream about, and buy great plants for this area.
It’s $100 for Saturday alone, but benefits the Cayuga Watefront Trail, and promises to promote interesting discussion.
We believe many issues of overall sustainability find an elegant intersection in native horticulture, ecology and the use of native plants. Many discussions of sustainability, including those locally here in Ithaca, often overlook the very relevant role of horticulture and landscaping, and the fundamental use of native plants in clean, green practices. Our goal is to connect local horticulture, and the local use of native plants, to a larger movement.
Held at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology.
Friday, March 5, 2010: 8:30 am to 4:45 pm
Saturday, March 6, 2010: 9:00 am to 3:30 pm
Click for the full brochure and registration info.
The first 50 people to register will get a free copy of “Native Plants for Native Birds” book, written by speaker Joel Baines.
Who’s Speaking This Year:
FRIDAY, MARCH 5
Peter Marks: Professor Emeritus, Cornell University, Dep’t. of Ecology and Evolutionary Systematics
Larry Weaner: Principal of Larry Weaner Landscape Associates
Don Knezick: Owner, Pinelands Nursery,Certified Professional in Erosion and Sediment Control
Don Ferlow: Stormwater Engineer
Marguerite Wells: Owner, Motherplants Nursery, Green Roof Guru
Mark Whitmore: Ecologist and Forest Entomologist
SATURDAY, MARCH 6
Joy Kuebler: CEO, Joy Kuebler Landscape Architects
Joel Baines: Cayuga Bird Club, Author of Native Plants for Native Birds
Krissy Faust: Native Plant Gardener, Cornell Plantations Natural Areas
David Weinstein: Forest Ecologist and Founder of Project Budbreak
Dan Segal: Owner, The Plantsmen Nursery
Conference Organizers:
Rick Manning and Dan Segal will include some comments and brief presentations on current issues or projects in the field of sustainable landscapes, beyond what is listed above.
I was asked back this year to give a couple of beginning photography workshops to a group on campus. I’m not a natural at it, but today was fun. It’s a thrill to give newcomers some of the basics and get them fired up and (I hope) ready to experiment with a few rules & tools. Here’s the presentation (no audio, so imagine the cheerleading), using a nifty new-to-me site, Slideshare. Happy picture taking!
Landscapes IV © Levi van Veluw
Reading over at The Sister Project, I came across something I knew the practice of, but never the name: commonplace book, a place to collect poems, quotes, lists, anything you don’t want to forget. Wikipedia calls them “scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: medical recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas. Commonplaces were used by readers, writers, students, and humanists as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they had learned. Each commonplace book was unique to its creator’s particular interests.”
The Polish called their version, in Latin, Silva rerum, a forest of things. Since we’re big tree fans around here, this name suits me better. There is not much gardening going on in these northern latitudes but there is a plenty to look at, think over, talk about, and remember. To help make sense of the 40-odd tabs open in 4 different Firefox windows on this laptop, here’s my December forest of things.
Sibley has written a guide to trees! I’m hoping to find it and that it will help finally reveal the identity of the mystery tree, among so many others in the hills I’d like proper introductions to.
Thanks to Dry Stone Garden for letting us know about it.
I’ll also be reading two new tree blogs I found,Exploring the World of Trees, and Trees & Forests.
It’s time to order my choices from the NARGS seed exchange!
Go on a “romp through the kingdom of fungi” in video with Cornell’s very funny and wise Kathie Hodge. Then check out her excellent Cornell Mushroom Blog. Never was mycology so fun.
Nan at Gardening Gone Wild is building an omnibus of ideas for how to get more fun out of your garden blog in the GWW Garden Blogger’s Idea Gallery. And there I think I’ve found the meme for me: Gardening Oops Day–GOOPS for short. Who doesn’t need to come clean once in a while?
Next to last, a very funny Roy Blount, Jr. article over at Garden & Gun on lawn ornaments (and dogs). Don’t know Garden & Gun yet? You haven’t lived. Seen while taking in Christmas lawn decor over at Grow Where You’re Planted.
Coming full circle, last weekend at Ithaca’s artist’s market, I got to see my friend Jenny Pope, and her print of the hummingbird migration myth reminded me of a poem that stuck with me from the Sister Project story.
© Jenny Pope
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
© Mary Oliver
I find this fascinating.
And apparently the Game Farm Logger takes a lunch break ;)
The season of weather watching has begun.
Update: Click the link or image to go to the weather page to see the soil temp columns the commenters refer to.
or do things with needles,
I would knit shawls for stones,
winter homes for spiders.
The artist blogs at Resurrection Fern.
