LET THERE BE LIGHT

            I’m a light person. The more light, the better, as far as I’m concerned. Tim’s and my little house is painted oyster white throughout, with bright white woodwork. Makes it airy and spacious-feeling. My mom liked to paint her walls different colors, changing one room or another every other year or so. As adults, most of my sisters followed suit, doing their parts to keep Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore in business. I took the road less traveled. I like white. I like light.

            Much good news for light-lovers this weekend. The moon went full on Saturday at 2:10 p.m. and the vernal equinox occurred at 7:18 p.m. this evening.

Every month’s full moon carries a descriptive name derived from various folklores. March’s is known as the Worm, Sap or Crow Moon. (I understand “Sap,” but Sky-Guy didn’t explain where “Worm” and “Crow” come from.) The March moon traditionally decides the date of the primo Christian holiday, Easter, based on a third-century formula called the Computus. Like many carved-in-stone rules, it has been modified over the years. Most recently—in 1583—Pope Gregory XIII decreed that henceforth Easter would fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. That’s not at all arbitrary, is it? Unlike Christmas, whose date was fixed to coincide with pagan solstice celebrations even though biblical scholars have long held that Jesus was most likely born in early spring.

            Be all that as it may, this year the March moon falls the day before the equinox, moving the so-called Pascal Moon forward 28 days. Accordingly, Easter occurs about as late in the year as possible, on April 24.

The weekend’s full moon also coincided with a perigee of the lunar cycle, which means the full moon rose within an hour of it being the closest to Earth it’s going to get this year, or a mere 356,577 kilometers. (The most distant apogee happens only 16 days later, on April 2, when the moon will recede to 406,655 klicks away from Earth. That’s a difference of 50,078 kilometers, or about 31,048 miles. Isn’t this astronomy stuff fascinating?) Apparently, the full-moon-at-perigee phenomenon isn’t all that common: the last time it happened was March 8, 1993. Sky-Guy says the perceived diameter of the moon varies by 15% or so, smaller at apogee, larger at perigee. Tim and I decided to check it out.



Saturday night's
"Super" moon



After dinner, we drove to a local beach for the show. Although the thermometer hit 80° during the afternoon, by 7 p.m. the northeasterly breeze freshened: down on the strand, it was cold. (In retrospect, I probably should have worn shoes. Or at least socks.) Nonetheless, we stuck it out. A small crowd congregated on the highest point of the boardwalk to the beach, cameras at the ready to capture what Sky-Guy calls “Moon illusion.” At 7:45, a red disc edged over the roofs of the houses.

Well, she was pretty, all right, but I wouldn’t call her a “super” moon. As she cleared the last roof-ridge, T and I opted to go home and make a pot of coffee. I planned to pour mine on my feet.



Here is a diagram of the
celestial coordinate system.
Note the ecliptic circle,
which is at a 23-&-a-half-degree
angle to the galactic equator.
Or something like that.



The astronomical beginning of spring, the vernal equinox, means more to me. Equinox occurs at the moment the sun reaches an ecliptic longitude of zero degrees, which has more to do with the celestial sphere than that old saw about the sun crossing the geographical equator so everywhere on the planet experiences 12 hours of daylight. That’s piffle, of course. Oak Island’s 12-hour day occurred on March 17^th. Today we enjoyed 12 hours and eight minutes between sun rise and set. I don’t really understand the concept of the ecliptic and other celestial coordinates, so I snipped a diagram of the system. You can puzzle it out for yourselves.

I’m just glad it’s officially spring.

*****

Light affects all life on earth in various ways. We’re all subject to circadian rhythms, for instance. Webster defines circadian—from the Latin “circa” (around) and “diem” (day)—as “designating or of behavioral or physiological rhythms associated with the 24-hour cycles of the earth’s rotation, as, in man, the regular metabolic, glandular and sleep rhythms which may persist through dislocations of day and night…” I understand the concept viscerally, as I have just acclimated to the advent of Daylight Savings Time. Every year, I experience springing forward and falling back as jet-lag.

 But there are other light effects, most clearly demonstrated by plants.

First there is phototropism, or the hormone-induced bending of plant structures toward a source of light, either natural or artificial. Sunflowers are the best-known example of flowers that orient themselves in relation to the sun, a related phenomenon called heliotropism.



The tomato seedlings on my piano
lean toward the light source.
This is called phototropism.



The biological mechanisms behind photo- and heliotropism are amazing. Motion is accomplished by specialized potassium-pumping cells in a flexible segment, called the pulvinus, just below a flowerhead or in a plant’s stem. In the presence of blue light rays, potassium ions change the turgor pressure in nearby tissues. On the shady side of the stem or flower, increased rigidity causes elongation of the pulvinus cells, causing the plant to “follow” the light.  

Little miracles happen around us all the time, don’t they?

*****

One can have too much of a good thing, however.

I belong to the generation of sun worshippers who saw nothing odd in slathering ourselves with iodine mixed in baby oil before taking off as much clothing as our mothers would allow and settling ourselves in the backyard or on the beach to broil. Why I don’t resemble a raisin today, 40 years on, is another of those quotidian miracles.

Tim’s dermatologist, a transplant from Rochester, New York, once remarked that he saw more cases of skin cancer in his first two years working in Brunswick County, North Carolina, than in the 25-plus years he practiced up north. This is an important observation, and one worth giving some thought to. “Full sun” on the southeastern coast is an entirely different animal from “full sun” in Connecticut or Ohio, and the difference affects both plants and people. Pot geraniums (Pelargonium spp. cvv.), for instance, welcome summertime southern and western exposures up north; but down here, don’t even think about it past, say, mid-June. Your skin has a lot in common with geraniums that way, so take proper precautions when you go out at all times of the year, even if you’ve got “good” skin.

Sunflowers provide the best-known
example of heliotropism

            Interestingly enough, Tim and I represent opposite ends of the skin continuum. He characterizes himself as “Irish iridescent blue.” He’s had several skin cancers removed—basal cell, squamous cell and one very scary pre-Stage I melanoma—since we moved to North Carolina in 1997. He now anoints all exposed skin daily with sunscreen containing titanium dioxide to thwart both UVA and UVB rays, never ventures out shirtless or barefoot, rarely wears shorts, and always keeps his head covered.

            I, on the other hand, have marvelous skin. Naturally a kind of honey color, I tan readily and hardly ever burn. (I’m not bragging. The Good-Skin Fairy smiled upon me at birth, so it’s not a circumstance I had any control over. And, because there is balance in the cosmos, the Good-Fingernail Fairy loathed me at first sight.) Nonetheless, my Southern-Belle upbringing—most of which didn't take—makes me sensitive to the responsibility of maintaining my good fortune. My face has not left the house without sunscreen (or mascara) since the 1970s, not counting the two ill-thought-out two-a.m. trips to the hospital forced on me by childbirth. Since the ’90s, I’ve extended coverage to all exposed skin. Here are links to the skin-saving products depicted nearby: Rocky Mountain Sunscreen; Oil of Olay Complete Facial Moisturizer and Lubriderm Daily Moisture Lotion (both SPF 15); and Burt’s Bee’s Lip Protection. I also rarely wear shorts when we’re working, but that’s mostly because I like to give the deer ticks and chiggers as small a target as possible.



Protect your skin, every day



            I also wear a hat, at my doctor’s behest and not because I look good in one. He advises me that everyone, particularly light-eyed folks, need to protect their eyes from glare. He also recommends sunglasses to go with the hat, but I don’t do sunglasses. It’s up to the visor of my Fitzgeralds Gardening ball-cap to defend my baby-blues against incipient retinal harm. If you are not sunglasses-phobic like me (I have my reasons), so much the better.

            One other quick note on sun protection—and I’m deadly serious about this topic despite my jocular tone: Rit, the washing-machine fabric-dye people, makes a laundry additive called Sun Guard that increases the SPF of most of your clothing from about 6, in the case of cotton, to 30. (It won’t work on polyester, but no one wears polyester anymore. Do they?) I treat all Tim’s work shirts with it. It allegedly holds up to 20 washings, and Tim has enough shirts so, if kept in proper rotation, once in late March and once in July helps shield his back and stomach through high spring and summer. Did you know you can burn through your clothes?

*****

It’s spring now, the days are getting longer. We spend more time outside, the sun’s rays are stronger. It’s okay to love the light, but don’t be stupid about it, please.

Thanks for dropping by. See you next time.

                                                                     Kathy

THINKING AHEAD

                    The editor of Carolina Gardener magazine, like all periodical editors, lives in multiple time dimensions. I sent her copy for an April-issue article a week after Christmas, and for a June piece the end of February. She’s editing the May issue while putting April to bed, and simultaneously compiling the calendar of articles to assign for 2012. She says her kindergartener keeps her sort of cognizant of what day it is today: they ceremoniously turn the page of the little girl’s calendar the first of every month.

           

            In my business, dates don’t matter so much. I consider myself well-grounded if I know whether today is a Tuesday or a Friday, and, if asked, frequently have to stop to think before answering. This happens often, because Tim is more date-challenged than I am. (A case in point: we got married on St. Patrick’s Day—a Thursday—in 1998: T insisted on St. Pat’s so Hallmark would remind him of our subsequent anniversaries. Reverend Ken expressed some concern, as the day fell during Lent, when big celebrations can appear unseemly. “How many people are you planning to ask?” he queried. We retired to a huddle, then announced, “Including you? Five.” Problem solved. I never subscribed to the myth of the big white wedding. Over the years, anecdotal evidence I’ve accumulated indicates that the bigger the wedding, the shorter the marriage.)



Anemone blanda,
not a summer-blooming bulb
(see note at end of post)



            Where was I? I’m sure there was a point I meant to make when I started.

            Oh, yes: thinking ahead. When it comes to the garden, this time of year is when you plan for your summer show. That show should include oodles of summer-blooming bulbs.

            Summer-blooming bulbs? you echo. That means lilies, right?

            The category includes lilies, but goes ’way beyond those lovely, fragrant, colorful deer favorites. After studying Brent and Becky’s “Summer-Flowering Bulbs Catalogue 2011,” I picked nine lesser-known and generally pest-resistant genera to bring to your attention. All have performed solidly in my cold-hardiness zone 7-8-9 garden. In alphabetical order, they are:

1.      Crinum species and hybrids. This tough Southern standard is one of those plants found blooming around abandoned homesteads. Clusters of long-lasting, lily-like blossoms in shades of pink and white on 18-24” high stems perfume the air over arching, bright green strappy foliage. All this and deer resistance too makes Crinum a gotta-have. They resent being moved, so put them where you want them the first time.



Scadoxis multiflorus,
summer-blooming bulb # 8



2.      Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora, better known in some circles as montbretia. Twelve-to-24-inch spikes of hot-colored tubular flowers with sword-like foliage add pest-resistant vertical accents to mid- to late summer gardens. I wouldn’t be without gladiolus-like (only better because they don’t need staking) beauties in my orange garden. Smoldering scarlet ‘Lucifer’ and orange-peel-orange ‘Embers’ glow in my back border during July and August.   

3.      Gladiolus species. It seems you either like glads or you don’t. You either have the space to grow them, or you don’t. You either don’t mind staking them, or you do. As a notorious non-staker, I give the usual hybrids a pass, but have tried a few of the species, like heirloom (introduced in 1896) G. callicanthus var. murielae (also known as Acidanthera). They proved an interesting experiment, producing pretty, if smallish, white-and-purple flowers the first year then nothing but foliage in subsequent seasons. Just when I had decided living without glads wasn't so awful (Tim considers them funeral flowers anyway),  I popped ten G. ‘Flevo Junior’ in as a last-ditch effort. Boy, oh, boy!  Beautiful, long-lasting spikes of dark red flowers began in mid-June and kept going for almost a month. They did require staking, but I blamed the straight-species Liatris spicata that leaned against them. Inspired by this happy circumstance, I put ten G. nanus in a client’s pink garden that bloomed just as spectacularly, no staking required. I’ve gone off going off on glads.

4.      The glorious Gloriosa superba. These finger-like tubers produce scandent (hort-speak for “lax”) stems that require support. Cultivar ‘Rothschildiana’ blooms with eye-catching yellow-and-red flowers with recurved petals starting in July. In my garden, they continue to multiply in their mostly shady spot. The straight species has orange flowers: I added a dozen or so of them to my sunny orange garden, where they twine themselves into the eleagnus hedge behind them for a special late-summer show.



Narcissus 'Katie Heath,'
not a summer-blooming bulb
(see note at end of post)



5.      Hymenocallis festalis, a.k.a. spider lily or ismene, along with hybrid ‘Advance,’ are most common in the trade. Night-blooming, white, fragrant, lily-esque flowers resemble daffodils from Bizarro World, very striking. The strappy foliage is a glossy dark green and forms impressive clumps. In Garden Bulbs for the South, Scott Ogden mentions 40 species in just 13 pages, which is pretty impressive, too. (See Good Reads, in the sidebar.)

6.      Lilium species. I love lilies. One or another is in bloom from late spring to summer, depending on species and cultivar. I’ve planted Formosas (L. formosanum), Orientals, Asiatics, Trumpets, Orienpets (all hybrids, differing in bloom times and orientation of the flower), Turk’s-caps (L. martagon), Easter (L. longiflorum), regal (L. regale), tiny-flowered, chandelier-like species L. pumilum, and tangerine-orange, long-lived L. henryi. Many have wonderful fragrance, especially the Oriental hybrids. If you can keep the deer off them, you can’t go too wrong planting lilies.

Lycoris radiata,
One of two correctly placed
summer-blooming bulb photos
in this post

7.      Lycoris radiata, sprengeri and squamigera, also called spider lily, hurricane lily and naked ladies, respectively. It took a while for Lycoris to establish in my garden, probably because I kept moving them around the first few years. Now they’ve beaten me at my own game and the red trumpets of L. radiata pop up charmingly in unexpected places all over the garden in late summer to early fall, which is fine with me. Reclusive Brunswick County plant guru Frank Galloway tells me they often take two or three seasons to settle in before blooming even if you don’t yank them out of the ground every ten minutes. Just so you’ll know, the flowers appear at their appointed time as if by magic on leafless stalks; the grass-like foliage produced in winter to early spring has disappeared long since. While I’ve never planted that pink-flowering Southern standard L. squamigera, Frank gave me an L. sprengeri (a.k.a. tie-dye lily) to trial. And now I have a new favorite Lycoris.

8.      Scadoxis multiflorus, or blood lily. This one, another of those other-worldly-looking flowers I gravitate toward, you have to see to believe! Four-to-six-inch-wide spiky red spheres bloom in early summer, and are monster cool. The bright-green, lance-shaped foliage emerges after flowering finishes. The ones we planted on a client’s roadside bank have stopped traffic. Fortunately, it's not a very busy street.



Sprekelia formosissima,
the other correctly placed
summer-blooming bulb
in this post



9.      Sprekelia formosissima, the elegant Aztec lily. Really red, really big (to 5”) orchid-like flowers bloom in June atop foliage that persists all summer as a broadly bladed grassy clump after the flowers fade. A deer-resistant Mexican native.

It has occurred to me that most of the above selections bear a family resemblance to Lilium lilies, but that’s not a bad thing. Another thing they have in common is that they all need to be planted now for bloom this summer. (Lycoris maybe not until next year. For blooming, I mean, not planting.) So go to Brent and Becky’s website (link above) sooner rather than later for the best selection.

*****

Not surprisingly, Tim fixed the “Most Recent Post” problem detailed in “Taking Time.” Turns out it was a Feed-Burner problem. He just chewed over it for days until he cut the Gordian knot. Everything is as it should be now. In case you were worried.

Thanks for dropping by.

                                                             Kathy

 P.S.--A note about the pictures: apparently I'm not as assiduous as I might be about photographing the non-red summer bulbs in my yard when they're flowering, so I included three snaps of what's blooming today instead.



Tulipa sylvestris and Muscari aucheri,
not summer-blooming bulbs,
but a lovely vignette nonetheless,
photographed this afternoon in Fitzgeralds' garden



TAKING TIME

            I am not a religious person, but let’s take a minute to send a little positive spiritual energy in Japan’s direction. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Hokusai's "The Wave"
seems eerily prophetic



            Tim read me Google’s headlines Friday morning. The 8.9 earthquake that moved the entire island of Honshu eight feet to the east led… followed by Charlie Sheen’s latest Facebook rantings and Lindsay Lohan’s most recent court appearance. Gaddafi’s (or Gadhafi, or Qaddafi, depending on which wire service you favor) killing his own people—you know, the ones who love him unconditionally—came in fourth. The front page of my local newspaper revealed the momentous news that this year’s Azalea Queen has been chosen. Are we the most shallow nation on Earth, or what?

            Meanwhile, across the Pacific, skyscrapers swayed like the masts of tall ships. There were more than a dozen aftershocks registering 6.0 or higher on the Richter scale. Most frightening of all, the cooling systems and their back-ups of five nuclear reactors at two power plants failed.

            Predictably, Wall Street fretted about the effects of this devastation on their profit margins. Americans everywhere—myself included—watched the horrifying pictures on the evening news of tsunamis over-washing cities and newly plowed fields with sludge and debris, then tuned in to reruns of “Family Guy” and “Two and a Half Men.” (I didn’t do that. We turned the tube off, as “Jeopardy!” was pre-empted by a stupid college basketball matchup.)

            The final lines of Robert Frost’s poem, “‘Out, Out—‘” sprang to mind:

                                    No more to build on there. And they, since they

                                    Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

            Arrogance and ignorance are dangerous bedfellows. Humans are poster children for both.

*****



Salvadore Dali's melting clocks,
a.k.a. "The Persistence of Memory" 



Attention, oh ye clock-obsessed multitudes! Daylight Savings Time rears its ugly head early Sunday morning, “delaying” sunrise from 6:26 to 7:26. Why? True believers say that it’s not just about energy conservation, which hasn’t ever been proven anyway. They claim that, somehow, magically, darker mornings increase highway safety and decrease crime. Proponents positively glow incandescent about burgeoning economic benefits and increased productivity afforded by more daylight after the ol’ nine-to-five workday. Have you ever heard such bullpucky in your life? What possible difference can shifting the putative hour darkness falls 60 minutes one way or the other make? Do inattentive, intoxicated, or plain stupid drivers suddenly remember they’re not sitting on the couch at home and become alert and aware?  Do criminals opt for the moral high road because Congress messes with the clock? I don’t know about you, but I’ve haven’t noticed much in the way of enhanced economic benefits falling my way for several years now, despite increased productivity (read: longer hours), regardless of what time it is.

Clock time is an artificial construct, like money: all (or most) members of a society agree to accept as sacred these standardizing fictions to make business easier to conduct and regulate. There was quite the flap back in the 18^th century when Europe switched from the (arbitrary) Julian calendar to the (equally arbitrary) Georgian one. A universal howl went up that the governments had shortened everyone’s life by 15 days. Jeezey-peezey. China, the world's next superpower, doesn't even believe in time zones. Clocks the entire breadth of the country—all 60-plus degrees of longitude from east to west—are officially set to Beijing time. It’s like Los Angeles accepting the sun rises in the middle of the night because Washington, D.C. says so. Parts of Indiana and all of Arizona thumb their noses at the very notion. It takes the guy in charge of timepieces at Windsor Castle a full 24 hours to change all the clocks there, and even longer when he's required to "fall back."

Sky-Guy (see next section) wonders, now that Daylight Savings takes up two-thirds of the year, if it shouldn't be called the new Standard Time. We could think of other third as Daylight Wasted Time.

Gardeners and others close to the earth know the only time that matters is measured by the cycles of the sun, the moon and the seasons. Period.

(If you read the November 10, 2010 post, “Bringing in the Plants,” I did warn you springing forward makes for a cranky Kathy for a week or so.)

*****



The constellation Orion
and friends



            The Naval Observatory’s “The Sky This Week’s” guy (I just know he’s a guy, all right? I can tell by the way he writes) congratulated all of us who participated in the GLOBE at Night star check that ended March 6. I logged in as Observer number 7,549, and reported sixth magnitude stars from my dark-ish little corner of the world. It is amazing how many tiny pinpricks of celestial brilliance twinkle around ol’ Orion when your eyes get fully accustomed to low light. Billions and billions, as Carl Sagan used to say. Probably could have made seventh magnitude if my neighbor, a sweet elderly lady who lives on her own, didn’t have electric candles blazing from every window all night.

            Next time I’ll take Tim with me and head to the beach. When’s that? At the end of the month, during the dark of the next moon. I’ll pass on details in a week or so when Sky-Guy reveals them. Or you could check out the website linked above for yourself.

*****

And now a public service announcement.

            Apparently, Google’s Blogger site has developed a glitch. It no longer displays the titles of my most recent posts in the “Most Recent Posts” box. This situation is driving Tim up a wall. He’s tried multiple solutions, like having me sign up to follow my own blog. Didn’t work. He ran through all the recommended troubleshooting protocols. No dice. He posted questions to Google forum and Blogger Help. No one home. Google won’t admit there’s a problem. Fellow victims say they’ve gone months without update notices and then, miraculously, they resume. T thinks it may have something to do with Feed-Burner. But then again, maybe not. When he Pings me (sounds painful), though, I’m there.



Where to click to find
posts you may have missed



The most recent “update” Blogger recognizes is “Quiet Please,” from February 16^th. We all know there’ve been six posts since then, including this one. What I shall do is edit a note into the end of “Quiet Please” about clicking on “Older Posts,” “Home,” and/or “Newer Posts” at the bottom of each post (below the “Comments” section, which remains as lonely as the Maytag repairman), including a screen shot of the relevant area. For good measure, I’ll stick a copy of the screen shot—see how technologically advanced I’m getting?—here, too.

            Not to belabor the point (too much), clicking on “Older” takes you to posts made before the one you’re looking at; “Newer” gets you to the one made immediately after the post you’re looking at, which Tim recommends as the best option; and “Home” sends you to the most recent posting.



Serenity and Love



            Be that as it may. I am serenely Zen and above the whole foofarah. I would just like you to know I’ll keep writing as long as you keep reading… even though I have to rely on checking the Stats tab about readership, since the vast majority of you insist on refusing to type in comments.

            Sorry. Slipped out of Zen mode there for a second. Ommmmmmm.

            Thanks for dropping by. Ommmmmmm.

                                                                      Kathy

MINIMIZING MAINTENANCE, PART 2

           Most time spent in one’s garden involves maintaining. Oh, we design, and plant, and dig new beds; we rip out, redesign, replant. But mostly we take care of what we’ve got. It’s not glamorous, or exciting, but tending the things of the earth is what gardening is really all about.

           Whenever I get jangled, too busy, too multi-tasked, nothing soothes like a little quality time with my nose to the soil in a weedy patch. Most people I talk to in the course of my work consider weeds the biggest bugaboo in garden-land. Well, yes and no. Yes, if you’ve let them establish. No, if you keep them in bounds.

            I admit I enjoy weeding. I actually think it’s fun (go figure) to pull a plant out of the ground and look at its roots and branching patterns, flowers and seeds, its colors and smells. Over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying most common local weeds by all those criteria. This course of study has also resulted in smaller populations in the places I practice. Even if you leave some roots, vigilance in keeping top-growth removed will eventually starve even tenacious survivors like pennywort and cat briar.    

A sort-of low-maintenance garden,
but it still gets covered
with leaf litter and acorns

Of course, new challenges arise. For instance, weeds of cultivation replace the wild-area ones—vetch and wild briar edge out sand spurs and plantains. But if you’re a gardener in your soul, no time spent outside feels onerous.

Weed seeds come up whenever the ground is disturbed. If you don’t expend a lot of effort tilling the soil, your weed population naturally decreases, as their seeds stay too far away from light to germinate. Toss out that silly Mantis, and invest in Lee Reich’s Weedless Gardening and/or Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza (see "Good Reads" in the sidebar). 

Intensive tillage causes other maintenance headaches. In addition to raising weed seeds, digging disrupts microbiota in the soil. For instance, Tim and I double-dug our first Oak Island garden, thrilled by the at-the-time novel experience of moving sand as opposed to the heavy, rock-laden, Adirondack-foothills dirt in my Glens Falls back yard. Double-digging is a labor-intensive European invention, intended to improve tilth—a.k.a. workability—of the soil. Unfortunately, what double-digging actually accomplishes is to shift upper-level aerobic organisms to anaerobic depths while exposing lower-level anaerobic microbes to fatal amounts of oxygen. Oh, dear.

You don’t even have to go to the extreme of double-digging to damage soil structure. Our tiny dirt friends go about their business in little colonies. Any time you thrust a shovel into the ground, you’re wreaking havoc, including any earthworms you bisect. (No, earthworms do not regenerate from severed bits. Cutting them in two kills them. Dead.) Of course, some of this ruction is necessary, for planting and so forth. But it can be, and often is, overdone by the misinformed. I get riled by well-meant instructions by so-called “experts” to “work organic matter into the top six to 12 inches of the soil.” Digging in compost is counterproductive: the activity decimates the very populations you’re trying to feed.

Another strategy for minimizing maintenance is to never go out to the garden without your pruners. It’s far easier to whack off that odd-angled or annoying little branch right now than to wait until its removal requires major surgery and a protracted recovery time. Cut out all dead wood and crossing branches as soon as you spot them. Limb up your shrubs to increase air circulation in their interiors before the suck-bugs and fungi arrive. Deadheading perennials can result in a longer season of bloom.

Don’t think I don’t know that a healthy percentage of you are scared of pruning your plants. Well, get over it. Remember two things—it’s hard to kill something by pruning it; and if pruning it kills it, you’ve done both of you a favor.

To recap: Three of the four pillars of minimizing maintenance are: 1) do keep up with weeding; 2) don’t disturb the soil more than is absolutely necessary; and 3) do prune as you go.

We now interrupt this post to take a small side trip.

The Irish Cathy Fitzgerald’s most recent EcoArtNotebook introduced me to 11-year-old Felix Elstner. At the launch of the U.N.’s International Year of Forests, “Felix… stole the limelight with his passionate speech and ambitious project to get the world to plant a Trillion Trees this year… with his pleas for us all to remember that he and his companions will be living in the future of a largely and dangerously un-forested world,” Cathy writes. His international poster campaign, “Stop Talking, Start Planting,” sends a powerful message to all us grown-ups who like to discuss issues ad nauseum in lieu of actually doing anything. Check out the Plant for the Planet website for a video of Felix’s speech.

Planting trees should be a no-brainer for gardeners. You needn’t plant a million of them, but one or two would be nice. I’m hoping to get my red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) and sweetheart tree (Euscaphis japonicus) into the new bed this coming weekend. Early spring’s a really good time to get woodies into the ground, to get a start on establishing before summer sets in. For the sake of Felix, and Felix’s kids, stop talking and just do it.



This young man from Mongolia
wants Mary Robinson,
former head of the
U.N. High Commission
for Human Rights,
to can the discussion about
reforestation already



What kind of tree should you plant?  Choose a genus suited to your soil, to your climate, and to the space you have in mind for it. That’s because the fourth pillar of minimizing maintenance is putting the right plant in the right place.

The concept “right plant, right place” seems so obvious, it’s amazing how often it gets overlooked. In my neck of the woods, within a mile of the Atlantic Ocean, the soil is sandy, neutral to alkaline in pH. Newcomers wanting all the acid-loving landscape staples Southern Living magazine promised them go ahead and plant azaleas, gardenias, camellias and Chinese hollies anyway, setting themselves up for disappointment. High pH soils stress azaleas, gardenias, camellias and Chinese hollies, increasing the likelihood of openings for pests and pathogens. It’s a rare azalea that doesn’t have lacebugs, a rare gardenia with no whiteflies, rare camellias and hollies without tea and/or wax scales.

Pests and diseases mean treatments. Treatments mean expense, worry, exposure to some nasty chemicals, and plants that look awful and then die. Avoid this disheartening cycle by getting a soil test and doing some homework before replacing your dead darlings.



Someone should have told
these homeowners that
Leyland cypress doesn't make
a good foundation plant
(click to make larger)



Listen, this is important: work with what you have instead of pretending really hard that it’s something—or somewhere—else. Deluding yourself will only lead to frustration and heartbreak. Gardening is supposed to be fun, right?



An important corollary to “right plant, right place” is to always look up. Don’t put that Leyland cypress on your foundation—it’s going to mildew your siding and lift your eaves when it grows up. Don’t plant a red maple that wants to be 60 feet tall under 25-foot-high power lines. Don’t plant that maple in a grove of pines either, unless you like the crammed-together, interspecific look.

What all this comes down to is knowing the characteristics of your patch and your own limitations and making appropriate choices based on what you know. You may not achieve the holy grail of the low-maintenance garden, but you can get pretty darned close.

I spent the afternoon pruning one side of my dwarf yaupon hedge, a chore I’ve put off for two years. Blistered index finger aside, I feel pretty good about that. But the damned Poa annua is burgeoning, a sure sign of spring. I gotta get on to them next.

Thanks for dropping by. You’re keeping me honest.

                                                                Kathy  

MINIMIZING MAINTENANCE

            Today we start a new series on everyone’s favorite topic, garden maintenance.

           

            When Tim and I went to Ireland 10 years ago, money from the EU was pouring into the country, and many of the fine old walled estate gardens were coming back from years of neglect. Connemara’s Kylemore Abbey; Woodstock Arboretum in Inistoge, County Kilkenny; Ballinlough in County Meath; Westmeath’s Belvedere House, in Mullingar; were all the in early stages of restoration. We came home so uplifted and enthusiastic. We hope go back someday to see how they’re getting on.



...in beautiful Co. Connemara.
The walled garden is a short walk
away at the left side of the postcard



            Every garden in the world is an artificial construct, the product of someone’s imagination and will. Nothing artificial runs well off on its own. Believe me, I’ve been trying for decades to have vacuumed. Anything ever constructed needs taking care of. It needs maintenance.

           

I wish I had a dollar for every potential client Tim and I have talked to over the years who, at some point or other in the interview, said, “…and I want it to be very low-maintenance.”



             A low-maintenance garden—what a concept. I’m reminded of the story Anne Lamott tells in her book, Bird by Bird, of the students in her writing classes who want to have written. They don’t want to take the time to learn the craft or put in the necessary hours and days and years confronting the blank page, but they would like to publish a runaway bestseller, rake in advances and royalty checks, preside over triumphant book signings, be reviewed by David Sedaris in the New York Times Sunday magazine, and land interviews with Oprah, the morning chat shows, and NPR.

            Just like the low-maintenance garden, it ain’t gonna happen.

            I’ve had a lot of time to ponder this subject during the course of the week: Tim and I spent 16 hours pulling several years’ accumulation of oak leaves and pine straw out of a favorite client’s azaleas, gardenias, loropetalum, hydrangeas and hollies. It’s not arduous work, just monotonous. I’m the detail man of our team, head stuck under the shrubs and hands acting as tiny rakes in those hard-to-reach places between trunks. Because this part of the exercise requires no sharp implements, my brain needn’t be fully focused on the task, so it can wander at will.

            Initial cogitations revolved around how much more difficult procrastination makes routine things. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a dyed-in-the-wool putter-offer. The final page of every term paper I wrote while at university rolled off the platen of my trusty Smith-Corona just 15 minutes before I turned it in, panting, disheveled, unshowered and still buzzing from all the No-Doz. Even now, as a professional writer, I’m only marginally better. Mostly I lie to myself about deadline dates, marking them on the calendar a few days earlier than the piece is really due. (It’s stupid, but it works.)

           



Newly planted boxwood walk
at Woodstock Arboretum,
Inistoge, Co. Kilkenny
(May 2000)



            When Tim and I troubleshoot overgrown landscapes, I understand completely how overwhelmed homeowners often feel. One lady told us, “We know it needs to be done. We come outside with wonderful intentions. But then we look around us at this mess, and have no idea where to start. So we go back inside, or remember some shopping we have to do, or anything else at all, really.” Or we’ll hear, “Well, we went out one Saturday morning last spring. We started at the back of the back yard and worked our asses off all day. By four o’clock, we could hardly haul ourselves into the house. When we dragged ourselves out of bed Sunday morning and looked outside, it was like we had barely made a dent. So I planted some annuals to hide the mess, and we haven’t been out again. We hired somebody, but they didn’t do a very good job.”   

            If the foregoing scenarios sound uncomfortably like déjà vu all over again, the place to start is with Tim’s “be an ant” mantra. (Unfamiliar with Tim’s “be an ant” mantra? Check out December 27^th’s “Tis the Season for Excuses.”) Pick one small spot—your herb garden, or the right side of the bed in front of the porch. Make it someplace you see all the time that particularly aggravates you. Spend a few hours there on a balmy afternoon weeding, pruning, raking, and generally cleaning up. After a couple of hours, you’re done for the day. Treat yourself to something nice. You deserve it.

            Next week, finish the first spot or start clearing out the next little area you’ve selected. Only work two or three hours before moving on to something—and somewhere—else.



One of the connecting walled gardens
at Ballinlough Castle
in Co. Meath



            The idea is to not to make a single do-or-die, one-day, superhuman effort, wearing yourself out to the point that the merest thought of tackling the yard makes your stomach seize up. Be an ant, one grain at a time.

            Once you get the place whipped into shape, the next task is to keep up with it so it never gets as bad as it was ever again.



            Whenever we finish a garden installation, Tim (”Little Merry Sunshine,” we sometimes call him) gives the clients The Speech. “See this garden?” he asks. “This is the nicest it is ever going to look UNLESS you come out here tomorrow and pull that first weed, and sweep the pine straw and leaves off the path/dry streambed/patio/whatever. If you don’t do those things tomorrow, in a month, the garden will start looking shabby. In a year, it’ll be a disaster. So go out tomorrow and every day after and pull that weed.”



            It must be said at this juncture that Tim gives a similar speech during the planning phase as well. He’s brutal with clients about the maintenance chore they’re considering taking on—especially the ones who want to have gardened. (He can spot them with uncanny accuracy, too.)



Newly planted borders at
Belvedere House
in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath



            As usual, he’s right. Every gardener knows that if you turn your back on a garden for 10 minutes, it’s already inching back to what it was before you came along with your big ideas and shovel and rake and plants from China and the Alps and the Atacama Desert. He talks us out of a lot of paychecks, but it’s the right thing to do. There’s nothing sadder than a garden you put some of yourself into sinking into wildness through neglect.

            I’m not being melodramatic here. Once there was a beautiful, intricate, pond-side garden we made for a lovely couple who didn’t mind paying us to maintain it as it should be cared for. When they moved away, the new owners let us—and the garden—go. I can’t bear even to drive past the house any more. Breaks my heart.

            Okay, maybe I’m being an itty-bitty bit melodramatic. It’s still sad.

Thanks for dropping by. See you next time, when I’ll make suggestions for making maintenance more manageable.

                                                         Kathy

P.S.—For Miss Patti of Trailwood Drive and Ellicott City, here are the pictures of hayracks I promised you. (You can click on them to make them larger.)



Winter planting



Summer planting