Sustainable Gardening Blog

Remember all the cheerful articles I’ve written about becoming a D.C. Master Gardener?  I wrote excitedly about the classes, then missing everybody when the classes are over, about starting to create an organization of Master Gardeners, and then changing our name to DC Urban Gardeners, independent of the city’s Cooperative Extension Service at the Univ. of D.C.  But finally, we started working on Projects, including the news blog those stories are on, and our website.

Well, the time to be coy about what’s really going on is over.  (Only readers of our blog saw the clues.) Several of us, after trying to correct a really awful situation from within, have gone to the top.  We’ve written to the City Council, the Deputy Mayor for Education, and the acting president of the university.  The encouraging elements here are the new mayor and an evolving City Council who are focusing on the university, holding hearings, asking for input and apparently willing to see heads roll.  So at the urging of a staffer at the Council, we’ve submitted testimony for their oversight hearings.  I’ve copied my testimony below the "Continue reading" at the end of this article.

I’ve gotta say it’s weird, and not in a good way, for hands-in-dirt volunteer gardeners to find themselves in a role we basically hate - the whistleblower.  But because we’re just volunteers we have nothing to lose - at least we don’t THINK they can hurt us for speaking up.  Funds for good urban projects are limited, dammit, and we’re just trying to correct this total waste of taxpayer money.  Actually, it’s worse than that because in this case city employees are working against the mission they’re tasked to complete.

Now there’s nothing left to be done, except wait to see if anybody gives a damn - anybody who can do something about it.

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There’s nothing like grand architecture as a backdrop for just about any plant.  So even after living here 35 years, I have to stop and admire the view.  It helps to not think about what’s going on inside.
 

No matter that the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens are waaay off the beaten path in an unfamiliar part of D.C. and it’s easy to get lost on the ugly, fast-paced freeway that takes you there.  But this little oasis, maintained by the National Park Service, was having their very festive Annual Waterlily Festival and the weather was perfect.  For once the day of the festival was not hot and not even humid.  That never happens, so I had to go.

Notice in the bottom right the bad boy of wetlands - purple loosestrife?  Shocked to see it, I asked and was told that the biggest part of park clean-up is the removal of trash - lots of it - and these stray invasives get yanked every year during the volunteer event.  Well, I’m thinking that the job of removing trash from this large body of water could be a pretty yucky gig.  Yucky but rewarding, I’m sure.  Seriously.

Posted below is my GardenRant story about Takoma’s Big Art+Nature Event of the Week, worth a mention right here on Takoma Gardener.

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Notice the components of this large planting project at a subsidized housing project for people with disabilities, mainly AIDS.  Looks to me like a win-win for everyone involved.  And blogging about it, then distributing the link to all the participants, who then put it on their websites and send it to their listservs - well, that’s what bloggers do, but it also might light some more fires out there for greening our neighborhoods.

Here’s a couple more projects if you’re really interested:  landscaping a police station and a traffic triangle+median strip.

As part of Yoko Ono’s "Imagine Peace" project, she took part in a brief "Wish Tree" ceremony at the Jefferson Memorial,  one of several D.C. sites for her 10-day performance art installations.  The 74-year-old (!!) Ono invited people to write wishes on pieces of paper and tie them to the branches of potted cherry trees.  They evoke the wish trees she knew and loved in her native Japan, and she’s intalled them in cities around the world. 

The exhibition is now over but Ono has collected all the wishes (adding them to the 100,000 she already has) and will place them in her Imagine Peace Tower to be installed in Iceland.

Here’s a sampling of the wishes, courtesy of the Washington Post:

I wish I was retired.

I wish my Dad would stop smoking.

I wish for a family that loves me.

I wish I could be a Fashion Designer.

I wish my daddy would come home and be a changed man.

I wish I had a half million dollars.

I wish for my Cushings disease to be gone forever.

More guns in my house.

I wish Yoko would clean up this tree.

Over at the DC Urban Gardener blog I’ve posted the story behind this photo.

For D.C.-area locals who’d rather avoid the HOARDS of tourists around the Tidal Basin, the Maryland suburban neighborhood of Kenwood is THE place to go to see cherry trees in bloom, so after 30+ years living in this area, I checked it out.  (On a weekday, the only sane way to do it.) 

Gorgeous as this neighborhood is, I can’t help feeling sorry for the (admittedly well-off) residents.  According to the Washington Post, more than 30,000 people descend on these few blocks during two weekends each spring to oggle their cherry trees.  Neighbors have resorted to rent-a-cops just to protect their properties and parking spaces. Apparently that doesn’t protect them from the time-honored tradition of cherry blossom breakfasts among Japanese immigrants.  One resident told WaPo he’s found Japanese families enjoying the view from his front porch, and even settling in for breakfast in his front yard or in the back around his swimming pool.  According to Japanese tradition, the cherry blossoms’ short blooming period represents the transience of human life.  (Something I recently reflected upon in lieu of whooping it up on my birthday, getting more philosophical with every passing year.) 

In the grand old American tradition, local kids are raking in the bucks at their lemonade stands.  But just when cynicism starts to rear its ugly head, we learn of the daughters of one cardiothorasic surgeon donating their take ($86 in just three hours) to the Cancer Society.  Ah, there’s a breath of fresh air for ya.

Naturally, the Kenwood neighborhood has a garden club, who act as keepers of the cherry tree tradition and report that 1,200 trees were planted here in the 1920s, even before any of the homes were built.  And just like the majority of the trees around the Tidal Basin, they’re all Yoshinos. 

Speaking of the Tidal Basin, I couldn’t resist checking out the scene there, too, and even on a weekday it was CRAZY CROWDED.  Surely thousands of money shots, like this one with Jefferson in the background, were taken that day, the last warm day before this freakish cold spell, complete with an inch of snow, hit town.  Global warming?  More like global weirding.

Washington Gardener editor Kathy Jentz has done it again - another successful event, this one showcasing winners of the first-ever DC Garden Photography Contest.  Great turn-out, great photos, and lots of energy.  Yes, she’s doing it again next year and keep that in mind this season when you’re snapping photos anywhere near Washington, D.C.  (Kathy’s all about LOCAL.)  Categories will be Garden Views, Small Wonders and Garden Creatures.

Here’s a sampling.  This field of tulips by Iris Posner won an Honorable Mention, but I should add that Iris also won the Grand Prize for a photo I don’t have (I actually like this one better, anyway.)  She spotted these tulips at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD.

Next, on the right, won Second Place in the Garden Views Category.  Melissa Clark eyed these cool gloves at the Children’s Garden at Green Springs in Alexandria, VA.

This terrific tulip+funky old building shot was taken by my neighbor Rob Rudick.  He spotted it while on a ritzy garden tour in Upperville, VA.  So while most tour-goers were madly photographing every fuschia azalea in sight, Rob was looking for a bit of character, and found lots of it.

This snowy scene on the right reminds us of what we love about winter.  Patricia Deege of Vienna, VA calls it "Meadowlark Snow Bridge."

The last (amazing) shot is by my old Ethical Society friend, Evelyn Jacob.  So maybe for old time’s sake she’ll tell me how she did it because I’m dying to know.*  It’s no wonder it excelled in the Small Wonders category.

Kathy’s excellent judge was the terrific photography teacher/garden club speaker, Joshua Taylor.

[This just in from Evelyn: "The butterfly was resting on the salvia and was stationary
(they are more likely to do this early in the morning before their bodies warm
up). I used a tripod and a macro lens on my digital SLR camera; macro lenses
allow you to take closeup shots. I took the photo in the Brookside Gardens
Conservatory during their butterfly show last year. I had signed up (and paid)
for a program that allows a limited number of photographers to use tripods and
come in two hours before the conservatory opens to the public."  Thanks, Evelyn.]

It’s official, as of today - the incorporation of the DC Urban Gardeners.  And who might they (we) be?  The six DC Master Gardeners who’ve been meeting and scheming since last August to create an association in D.C. for volunteer gardeners, whether Master Gardeners or not, because there isn’t one. (And why not? Good question!)  As mentioned here before, we’ve put on a couple of functions already - a Plant Swap, and a Composting Talk and Demo - and we have a consulting team that’s already at work helping folks create school gardens.  Oh, yeah, school gardens are HOT with our group, and we hope there will be lots more. (Our new mayor has deemed education to be his top priority and we’re there!)

Along with boring old articles of incorporation, I’m happy to also announce the birth of:

The DC Urban Gardeners site, with a full calendar of gardening and environmental events; links to gardening and environmental groups, both local and national; resources - books, mags, sites and blogs; sources of plants, both local and mail order; volunteer "opportunities," with details galore; sources of in-person training, courses and workshops; plus gardens to visit, in town or within day-trip distance.  So tell us, readers: What else would you want on the site if you lived here?

The DC Urban Gardener News blog, a companion to the site, to carry news and features of interest to the local gardening and environmental community (and, we hope, residents.)  And guess what - I don’t have to write it all myself.  I’ll be contributing articles but newbie blogger Ed Bruskie, a former Washington Post food reporter, got the ball rolling and has lots of ideas and energy.  We’ll encourage other Urban Gardeners to contribute stories, as well. 

The Battle of the Blog
So does anybody remember the old DC Master Gardener News blog that’s been sitting in my sidebar since last summer?  Well, it’s been "deleted," the weblog equivalent of being put down.  That’s because when we decided we’d get waaay more accomplished if we were independent of DC’s Cooperative Extension Service, the bureaucrats got testy and started throwing around the L word - lawyers - so we changed our name, shut down our blog, and started all over again.  (Not that we had to legally; even quacks like Jerry Baker can use the term Master Gardener.) But besides creating a bunch of dead links out there on the web, no harm is done.  In fact, this way we can be much more inclusive AND completely free of the stranglehold of restrictions being imposed on us by UDC.  Freedom! (Honestly, we can’t understand why more Master Gardener groups haven’t gone independent, like our new friends on Long Island.)

[Editor’s note:  Here’s a later story about UDC’s campaign against its Master Gardeners.  And here’s an article about my testimony to the DC Council about it.