Monthly Archives: July 2008

gardening, quotes, rambles

garden color

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Color of course needs to be an important consideration in planning the garden. You may be familiar with Gertrude Jekyll’s important book devoted just to the subject, Colour Scheme in the Flower Garden. If you don’t know it—or if you your copy is falling apart—you can read it for free online via Google Books. Her selections of plants won’t apply to many locations since she lived in England, but her thought processes about choosing colors and staging processions of colors throughout the year colors are instructive and worth the read.

You can find plenty of other garden books online through Google books. If they’re out of copyright you can see the entire text. Even if they’re still under copyright control, you can skim through many others–usually enough to let you decide if you want to buy the book, and often enough to answer a specific question that might be your only reason for wanting to look at the book.

When Google started their massive project to digitize items in many of the world’s major libraries they raised more than a few eyebrows. What were they up to? What were they doing scanning all these books and potentially releasing for free the hard work of the world’s authors?

I’ve just finished The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr. It’s definitely a work of journalism and not poetry, but a paragraph on page 223 made my jaw drop and just by itself made reading the book worthwhile:

George Dyson, a historian of technology…was invited to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, in October 2005 to give a speech… After his talk, Dyson found himself chatting with a Google engineer about the company’s controversial plant to scan the contents of the world’s libraries into its database. “We are not scanning all those books to be read by people,” the engineer told him. “We are scanning them to be read by an AI [Artificial Intelligence].”

Creepy. But at least in the end, when Google’s computers take over the world, they’ll at least be able to put together a color-coordinated English cottage garden.

gardening, quotes, rambles

more thoughts about gardens

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I quoted recently from Robert Pogue Harrison’s recent Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition. Here are a couple more passages that I liked.

…[I]n the final analysis we must always remember that nature has its own order and that human gardens do not, as one hears so often, bring order to nature; rather, they give order to our relation to nature.

…[T]here is in the Versailles gardens an aesthetic drive to tame, and even humiliate, nature into submission…

While we long ago ceased to credit doctrines regarding the divine right of kings, and while few among us believe we are living in an age of enlightenment, we still have not sufficiently dismantled the doctrine of humanity’s divine right, which in many ways still reigns supreme in contemporary Western societies, in practice if not in theory. For all its perverse beauty and wondrous transfiguration of pride, Versailles will not be of much help to us when it comes to finding a less presumptuous relationship to nature than the one bestowed upon us by that era.

In the interest of full self-disclosure I’ve never visited the massive formal gardens of Louis XIV at Versailles, but I think I’d feel awestruck and spiritually injured at the same time. The author captures my squeamishness perfectly.

my garden

plush lush

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I have a number of plants in the garden that reseed one year to the next, things like alyssum, violas, California poppies, some ornamental grasses, as well as the lettuces that I’ve written about. Another of these hardy reseeders is catnip.

A member of the mint family, it can get rambunctious in moister climates where it spreads easily by seed. Fortunately, unlike many other plants in the mint family, for me it doesn’t spread by underground runners. Each year I can count on two to a half-dozen new seedlings each year in seemingly random locations throughout the yard. Anything that comes up where it’s not welcome is an easy tug to remove.

catnippingThis year I’ve identified two catnip plants in the garden so far. Both were starting to gain stature until Scooter got into one of them last weekend. Fortunately they have that mint gene that helps them bounce back after a thorough chewing. Now I’m wondering whether catnip needs to be a federally controlled substance…

catnipping

catnipping

 

landscape, landscape design, my garden, plant profiles

my newest sage

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The number of examples that I have in the garden of the sage genus, Salvia, is growing. The latest addition is a tiny little plant of white sage, Salvia apiana, that I put into a hole in the front yard where a few other plants have failed. The plant is native to this area and doesn’t require additional water so I’m confident that it should have no problem with with the dry soil and the hot sun exposure. Time will tell whether it can compete with the roots of nearby established plantings.

Local examples of the white sage show it to be fairly low, mounding plant of strongly-scented greenish white leaves. Robin Middleton’s amazing salvia site says that “people find the fragrance of the foliage unpleasant…I don’t particularly like it,” and the description at Las Pilitas Nursery calls the perfume a mixture of “sage, pine needles, burning rubber, skunk.” To my nose, that mixture of sage and pine needles and burning rubber and skunk smells like the local chaparral and long hikes on a sunny afternoon, so I actually enjoy it. In the late spring the low plant puts up informal head-high spires of white flowers, sometimes with a lavender tint, but for me the plant is most valuable for its attractive foliage.

Photo from the Wikimedia Commons, contributed by Eugene van der Pijll [ source ]

In addition to having a number of uses for the local Native Americans as a food, flavoring and medicine, the white sage was considered sacred, figured in sweat lodge ceremonies and was used remove evil spirits.

After the conclusion of 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego one of the more creative post-convention protests involved an action to exorcise the evil that some thought the convention brought to town. In an act of purification, in an ceremony that involved drumming and chanting, protesters burned sticks of white sage to cleanse the Convention Center site of the residual evil.

places

a june garden wedding–mine!

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I had no idea planning a wedding required making so many decisions. Like, do you go down to the County Building and do the paperwork and ceremony before going to the watch repair shop? And how do you fit grocery shopping into the wedding day?

After 25 years together John and I finally tied the knot a couple weeks ago. I think we went into the whole wedding process thinking that it’d be pretty routine and anticlimactic. Because of that we opted to go downtown and have the county staff do the officiating, all without telling people we knew. (After a quarter century together can you still call it eloping?)

We went through the steps leading up to the ceremony, filling out the paperwork, enduring the unavoidable waiting, making the mound of decisions (Did we want an indoor or outdoor ceremony? Did we want to exchange rings? Did we want a video? Photos? Did we want to purchase a “Just Married” bumpersticker?). And as we were doing that, the seriousness and power of the what was about to happen started to hit us. We started to get nervous.

In line before us were two casually dressed women and their son who disappeared into a conference room for their ceremony. We’d opted for an outdoor wedding, and were soon escorted downstairs and out onto the county building’s sunny south lawn. Two men in tuxedos were finishing up their vows, and in a few minutes it would be our turn. After 25 years of making do, after 25 years of not being able to think that getting married was even an option, it would finally be happening.

The wedding location

The woman who would be officiating came over and introduced herself, and then we were introduced to our designated witness. We walked over to a sheltered spot that was shaded by leafy palm trees and backed by a lushly subtropical green backdrop of cannas, giant birds of paradise and large-leaved philodendrons that were taller than my head.

The rhythms of a marriage ceremony are usually predictable. The ceremony begins. The official sets the stage with words about how this is both a joyous and serious occasion, and then the official asks the couple about their commitment to each other. As we began to repeat the official’s words, were were saying words that we never thought we’d ever be permitted to utter except in parody. It all seemed at least a little unreal.

As in most other weddings, after the “I do’s,” all the good lines pass back to the official. The official comments on the situation and then intones the ones that signal that the ceremony is about to conclude: “by the powers granted me…” So there in the public garden, we were pronounced married. “You may now seal your vows with a kiss.” Spouse A and Spouse B.

People often badmouth government for what it doesn’t do, while at the same time they take for granted the many things it does and does well, competently, with compassion, grace, and utmost respect. That morning was one of those unsung, unremarked occurrences.

Looking across the south lawn

So, you might be wondering, what does an inexpensive walk-in wedding ceremony buy you in the county? For one, if you opt for having it done outdoors, you get a waterfront location, just across the street from the bay and the ships that make up the Maritime Museum. You get a nice garden setting with lush tropical plantings. You get a competent person who will conduct a brief but respectful ceremony. And you might even get as we did, a witness who, when handed your camera, turns out to be an accomplished and seriously underpaid wedding photographer. If you require an official minister or someone dressed as Elvis or Spock to officiate you’ll be out of luck. But we did just fine.

everything, gardening, quotes, rambles

humility 101

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Most of [Czech author Karel] Čapek’s commentators consider The Gardener’s Year a minor work, but as Verlyn Klinkenborg remarks in the introduction to the Modern Library English edition of 2002, “most students of Čapek believe gardening is a subset of life, whereas gardeners, including Čapek, understand that life is a subset of gardening.”
–Robert Pogue Harrison

My first meaningful exposure to the work of Čapek came through Leoš Janáček’s amazing 1925 opera, The Makropulos Affair, which is based on Čapek’s play of the same name. I suppose you could call it a science fiction opera: a young woman becomes the laboratory rat of her alchemist father, who is tasked by Emporer Rudolf II to devise a formula that will extend his life by three centuries. When given the potion, the daughter at first drops into a coma. However, when she wakes up, she truly has been transformed into being able to live another 300 years. In living through those extra years she becomes increasingly detached from her original humanity as she is forced to leave one mortal husband after another and loved ones fade around her. At the end of the opera, even though she is in possession of her father’s formula for the elixir that would allow her to keep extending her life, she refuses to concoct the drink and chooses humanity–and death.

It’s a powerful tale with echoes all the way back to the Odyssey, where Odysseus declines eternal life in favor of his known, mortal one, back in Ithaca with the family and friends he knows and loves. Also, Čapek, ever rooted in the earth and distrustful of the quick, shallow pleasures of “progress,” uses the play to express his dis-ease with where unthinking application of the technologies that were exploding around him would lead the human race.

I bring all this up because I’ve been reading Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition, by Robert Pogue Harrison. One of the chapters is devoted to Čapek and his work, The Gardener’s Year. The quote at the beginning of this post comes from that chapter, as does this second by Čapek himself, in an extended quote:

I tell you, to tame a couple of rods of soil is a great victory… And if you have no appreciation for this strange beauty, let fate bestow upon you a couple of rods of clay–clay like lead, squelching and primeval clay out of which coldness oozes; which yields under the spade like chewing-gum, which bakes in the sun and gets sour in the shade; ill-tempered, unmalleable, greasy, and sticky like plasters of Paris, slippery like a snake, and dry like a brick, impermeable like tin, and heavy like lead. And now smash it with a pick-axe, cut it with a spade, break it with a hammer, turn it over and labour, cursing aloud and lamenting.

Then you will understand the animosity and callousness of dead and sterile matter which ever did defend itself, and still does, against becoming a soil of life; and you will realize what a terrible fight life must have undergone, inch by inch, to root in the soil of the earth, whether that life be called vegetation or man.

All this may sound a little dense and difficult going, but others of Harrison’s quotes from Čapek’s work show it to be incredibly funny at the same time. I have plenty of books lined up that I need to read, but this one is moving to the front of the queue.

gardening, my garden, rambles

barbie's excellent garden adventure

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Realtors have their location, location, location mantra that they recite as the factor that contributes most to a property’s value. A similar thing could be said for predicting how well a plant will do in the garden. Even if you follow the basic instructions on a plant’s requirements–basic information about its preferences for sun or shade, for instance, or its preferences for more or less water–lots of other variables can figure in the equation for how well the plant will do for you.

Here are a couple pairs of pictures of Barbie posing by plants in the garden so you can get a sense of scale. In each pairing, the plants next to Barbie went into the ground on the same day. But you can see how much difference the location of the transplants made in how much they liked their new homes.

First is Barbie next to plants of Rudbeckia hirta ‘Green Eyes’ that were planted last Fall:

Barbie and Rudbeckia #1 Barbie and Rudbeckia #2

In the first location, in the front yard, the plant is hanging on but not happy. It gets sun virtually all day and gets watered infrequently. The soil is fairly dense clay with minimal amendments, and the location has no mulch. With multi-year-old plantings nearby, much of the water is sucked up by roots of the more established plants.

In the second location, the plants are doing much better. The exposure is East-Northeast, meaning the plants get sun in the morning, with some additional boost reflected off the house. Watering is generally about once a week. The soil is clay, similar to the first location, but it received a few amendments at the time of planting. A layer of dark pebbles serves as mulch. Though the plants are next to a shrub, the shrub was planted at the same time and the rudbeckis, meaning the roots from the shrub weren’t running through the area and didn’t interfere with these plants getting established.

My conclusion? Though frequently considered a fairly drought-tolerant plant, rudbeckias do appreciate some moisture. Competition from nearby plantings can have a dramatic effect on how well a newly-introduced will do. Increasing the watering of the little front-yard plant could give it a better chance, and doing a little root-pruning with a shovel about a foot away from the base of the plant would help reduce competition from its thirsty neighbors. Some sort of mulch could help preserve soil moisture in this very exposed location.

Next we see Barbie posed next to plants of the tomato, Cherokee Purple:

Barbie and Cherokee Purple #1 Barbie and Cherokee Purple #2

Both locations face West-Southwest, assuring strong sun from before noon into late afternoon. Both locations receive light-to-moderate watering. The soil in the first spot is moderately heavy garden soil amended with organics. The location is part of a retired fishpond where the concrete on the bottom had holes drilled into for drainage, making this in essence a large container set into the ground. The soil is probably less than one foot deep, and the spot isn’t mulched.

The second plant is in a raised bed with deep, sandy soil that wasn’t amended before the plant went in. The plant benefits from a light layer of wood-chip mulch.

The tomato appears to appreciate a deep soil that would encourage a strong root system. Since I can’t do anything now to increase the depth of the soil in the first situation or to improve its makeup, some mulching could help keep the moisture level more uniform. Also, since the plant is essentially containerized, applications of low-nitrogen fertilizer would help equalize its chances for success with the plant that can set its roots deep and wider in search of nutrients. For next year’s plantings, replacing the current soil with a mix more appropriate for containers could also let the plantings fare better.

After this photo shoot in the garden Barbie had to come back inside for a rest. It’s tough being a supermodel.

landscape design, rambles

a cool idea for garden shade

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Maybe a year ago I was reading about a parking lot in town, at the local Kyocera corporate headquarters, where they’d installed what they were calling “Solar Trees.” (They actually trademarked the name, but really aren’t all trees solar?) The Kyocera species of trees were steel poles that supported big canopies made up of solar panels. They provided shade to the cars below, and at the same time they generated power. By the corporation’s estimate, one 30 by 40 foot solar tree would reduce as much greenhouse gases as a small grove of real trees.

Solar trees in parking lot

Installations like this are starting to appear in various places, including a couple of parking structures at UCSD where they’re installing rooftop arrays over this summer.

I’ve thought about doing more with active solar devices, but where to put the panels was always an issue since the house has some pretty wacked roof angles, most of which don’t face south. Some sort of solar structure in the garden might be an interesting solution, maybe something combining a patio cover function with power generation.

The Kyocera trees seem to be slanted more to corporate environments, and besides I find them more than a little monolithic and overwhelming. Would you want these in your garden? But something along these lines could be practical, good for the environment and attractive. Sounds like a job for an artist or designer instead of an engineer…

That these trees sprouted here in town left me wondering if there was any sort of link between them and Jim Bell, a local self-proclaimed “environmental designer” who, among other things, has run for mayor (unsuccessfully) twice, and once for City Council (also unsuccessfully). I met him at a book signing circa 2003, and he was hot on the idea of covering all the roofs and parking lots with solar panels. His web site has an interesting statistic:

In the San Diego/Tijuana region, where I live, 20 percent coverage of our buildings and parking lots with solar photovoltaic (PV) cells, coupled with efficiency improvements, would generate enough electricity to replace all forms of energy (electricity, natural gas, gasoline, and diesel) currently used in the region.

That idea was probably not his originally, either. But it speaks to a movement that’s in the air. Maybe the movement could begin right at home, in our back yards…

gardening

home depot patriotism

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Happy [American] Independence Day, everyone.

Here’s a souvenir of my last trip to Home Depot, a tribute to the good old red, white and…um, purple?

Big flag

And what could be more American than commerce? This was taken a couple days ago. I wonder if there’s any flag left…

Flag for sale

gardening, my garden

organic, kinda sorta

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I suppose saying that your gardening methods are mostly organic is like saying you’re slightly pregnant. If you’re a total purist this is a yes/no sort of thing. I try to keep away from most chemicals, but every now and then something pushes me off the wagon.

Mealybugs ugh ugh ughA few days ago I discovered that there was a sudden and massive infestation of mealybugs on one of my plantings of green-eyed gloriosa daisies, Rudbeckia hirta. In addition to the mealybugs, there was a major trail of ants going into the bed.

I’ve posted before about the symbiotic relationship some fungi and critters have with ants. Since then I’ve read how another critter–bumblebees–have been increasing their dependence on the honeydew produced by sucking insects, in this case, aphids. Apparently the bumblee population has crashed in Scotland, likely because of habitat loss that has destroyed many of the plants they depend on. To compensate, the bumblebees have been visiting plants infested by aphids and feeding off the sweet goo the smaller critters produce. The aphid goo, however, lacks the essential proteins that plant nectar provides the bees, and the bees are suffering even more.

In dealing with my ant-mealybug problem I didn’t want to use a bunch of poisons, partly out of principle, partly out of the fact that the affected plants sit right outside the kitchen window–not a place I wanted a pile of toxics.

My solution to this problem was two-pronged: try to control the ants that were cultivating the mealybugs, and reduce the number of mealybugs on the plants to give them a fighting chance.

I’ll start with the mealybug control steps because that was the organic part. You can knock down mealybug populations to a certain extent using a strong blast of water. You can also use a non-toxic substance like insecticidal soap. With people heading over to the house this holiday weekend, I opted for the latter approach, hoping the control would be quicker and more thorough. A thorough squirt to cover stems and leaves–top and bottom–has reduced their number considerably. I’ll repeat in a couple of days to try to drop the population further.

The ant control part was more difficult. Some species can be controlled by a mixture of borax and sugar left near their trails, but unfortunately my ants didn’t care for my cooking. Dishwashing detergent mixed up with water can sometimes be poured onto their nests to control many of the ants that come in contact with it, but effects don’t last long. Ants dislike cucumbers, so you can sometimes keep them away by spreading cucumber peelings. But once again, that can have limited effects.

So out came the barrier spray that I used once this year to keep them out of the house after everything else failed. The hardscape around the plants got a quick perimeter line of the stuff, as did a couple spots where the ant line crossed some bricks. A quick touchup a couple days later and so far they seem under control.

So, yes, I did let a few squirts of chemicals into the garden, but compared to spraying the plants all over with something poisonous, this seemed like a reasonable compromise.

So is this organic? Not really. But it’s a good way to reduce dependence on chemicals by taking a more systematic approach to pest control.