Sustainable Gardening Blog

"McMansions" are a hot topic these days, whether the huge homes are part of new developments or the result of tear-downs amongst much smaller homes.  And this letter to the Washington Post editor caught my eye the other day.  The quote follows an account of visiting a new mansion in her modest neighborhood.

"The thing is, I really believe that as a community, we need to make do with less.  We don’t need to heat massive living rooms with cathedral ceilings in the winter.  We don’t need to dig granite from the earth to make our kitchens fancier.  Most of us don’t need his-and-hers walk-in closets, home offices or designer appliances.

"The bigger the house, the bigger the waste.  We waste our time maintaining the house and grounds.  We waste our money on upkeep and updates.  We waste precious natural resources on cooling and heating.  We permanently alter the landscape around us, usually for the worse.  And in most cases we keep filling our space with more stuff. Who needs that?  Not me.  But what I wouldn’t give for a mudroom…"

Which raises some interesting questions.  Like is the writer a gardener?  (Why else want a mudroom?) What about her assertion that maintaining the grounds is a waste of our time?   Okay, on second thought she’s definitely not a gardener.  But I have to say that her opinion that "we permanently alter the landscape around us, usually for the worse" is probably correct.  Certainly that’s true of new developments - you know the ones that look like Monopoly boards with houses on otherwise empty lots?  Even in older neighborhoods, tear-downs often require the destruction of large trees, though the new homeowner may end up installing more plants than were there before.

On a personal note, I faced a tiny, poorly made house for many years until it was torn down and replaced with a large but beautiful and well made home by its architect-owner, so I have mixed feelings on the subject.  I mean that little house was butt-ugly.  Maybe the moderate position is that it’s okay to replace bad housing with better housing, but let’s question how big the replacement really has to be because her thoughts about our excessive lifestyles are definitely on target.  I await your thoughts.

His name is Peter and he grows peppers by the bushel and peck, so naturally he’s called "Pepper Pete". These beauties cooked up nicely and were eaten in one sitting, something I won’t be doing with any of the flame-throwing types he also loves and grows.  My haul of giveaways also included a large bag of mustard greens and a gourd that I hope to transform into a birdhouse next spring.  All this abundance gives me pause because what can I bring in from my own garden for dinner?  That would be a big zip.  And people like Pete and some of my fellow gardening bloggers are inspiring me to wonder why that is.

Now comes the other reason, the bigger one: it’s all so healthy and it requires so much cooking. Really, I’d love to be an earth mother type, growing and cooking delicious healthful meals, but I still hate to cook, despite years of half-hearted attempts to change that sad fact.  So I support my local organic co-op by buying fruit, some baked goods (starch being my favorite food group) and their frozen dinners.  And I’ll cook the homegrown vegetables my friends grow and send me home with, but it better not happen too often.

Talk about impact.  If I ever win the lottery I’m buying myself a gorgeous boulder.  I know; my chances would sure improve if I started buying tickets.

These beauties are at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond, Virginia.

Every single person who visits my garden drools over this plant.  This is how it looks right now.

And to be consistent in my preachiness I’ll underline an invaluable trait this shrub-like perennial has - it’s evergreen.  As late as March it’ll look almost this good.   

My friend Pam recently asked me why I dislike marigolds and zinnias, two of her favorites, and it gave me an opportunity to ponder the wider implications of her question (who knew there were any?) Could it be just the tip of an iceberg of snobbery that should be exposed in the name of inclusivity? Hmm.

I’m guessing that most plant likes and dislikes are simpy a matter of personal taste, like my dislike for peonies and hollyhocks.  No particular reason.  But other plants I dislike because of unpleasant associations with them - like gladiolas and funerals.  And some I like because of a positive association - like the mophead hydrangeas I first saw in the funky old beach town my family went to when I was a kid (Buckroe Beach, Virginia.)

But then we come to those blasted zinnias and marigolds. Partly it’s simply a dislike for the colors, especially orange, which I’ve banished from my entire property.  I’m sorry, but they clash with everything I grow. And partly it’s the use of them as what we derivisvely call "bedding plants," meaning large monocultures of them, often along streets and especially at gas stations.  We’ve had to look at this tired old design scheme for, oh, 50 years now?  And I think we’d appreciate seeing in commercial plantings something more naturalistic, more drought-tolerant, and more varied.

But to make my case that I’m really not a snob (entirely), I offer my favorite decorated toilet from the Montgomery County Fair, which I shared with you way back in my first week of blogging. High class it’s not, but some real design thought went into this and what’s more, it’s totally fun. Which reminds me, I’ll have to show you some of the great found plumbing in my friend Carole’s garden.  Carole, got any shots I can use?

Now I hope I’ve managed to agree with both Kathy Jentz’s thoughtful comment on my "Must-Miss Garden Shows" post and Amy Stewart’s interesting post on gardening as decorating. Inclusivity at work.

No, this isn’t my garden.  But I can yank it off the Web and lust after it - and maybe learn from it.

We Takoma Hort Clubbers offer a nifty little service to all our members - a free in-garden consultation by up to four knowledgeable yet highly opinionated gardeners.  I’m one of the lucky four consultants and I say lucky because we have such fun doing  it, especially when we’re all together, and we learn a lot from each other. We disagree plenty, but one thing we usually agree on is that everybody’s plants need to be grouped into masses.  That’s because we see so many "onesies" or several of the same item spread too far apart.  We keep saying "masses" and "drifts" and "groupings" ’til we’re sick of hearing it.

So when it comes to tweaking my own 20-year-old garden, guess what I’m doing this fall?  Massing and grouping in drifts, of course.  I posted earlier about my crummy-looking daylilies and I’m happy to report they’re now massed up the wazoo and, I hope, hidden after they bloom by the lovely foliage of hardy begonia.  The lamb’s ears, some of which you can see in this photo, are all massed at the front of this border (though sure as hell not in a straight line).  Let’s see what else.  My newly expanded border has six new pieris and seven new nandina - how’s that for massing?  And now when I plant bulbs, they’re grouped in 3s and 5s, rather than carefully spaced a foot apart across an entire border - my first pitiful attempt at bulb design.  Even some items I’ve bought recently are telling me they need some pals to have enough impact, so the ‘Ogon’ spirea toward the back of this photo will soon be three and ditto a ‘Purple Smoke’ baptisia.  Don’t want to get yelled at by those three Hort Club nags, ya know.

Do you know this woman?  Her name is Susie Coelho and apparently she’s an authority on "styling," whatever that is, and she’s probably really good at it.  Just don’t expect her to know anything about gardening, which you just might if you knew that she hosts HGTV’s backyard make-over show, "Outer Spaces."  On it, Susie and her design team set tables and arrange lots of throw pillows and really just furnish and decorate a backyard, specifically a Southern California backyard.  That must be an important distinction because these outer spaces are treated exactly like they’re indoors.   

And did I mention it’s a reality show?  Yep, complete with the grand unveiling of the results to the lucky homeowners, who have to keep their eyes shut until Susie, barely able to contain her excitement, gives the signal.  Having fast-forwarded through more episodes than I care to remember, I can definitively give this show a pass. 

Next up is "Curb Appeal."  This photo comes from the show’s website and I’m not sure if it illustrates a before or an after, which pretty much sums up my objection to the show.  Because while the changes to the houses are definitely for the better, the "after" landscapes are sometimes actually worse.  I’m serious.  For instance, in a recent episode involving a cute older house with established plantings, the eager design team ripped out all the full-grown shrubs along the foundation and replaced them with - I’m not making this up - snapdragons.  I’m at a loss to understand, much less explain, why the landscapes on this show are so terrible.  Seems to me a lost opportunity.

And while I’m cataloguing my complaints about HGTV, let me add how much I miss Erica Glasener’s erstwhile show "Gardener’s Diary".  An actual horticulturist, Erica conducted half-hour tours of the most interesting gardens and interviewed their equally interesting gardeners and the show was a delight - both eye candy and inspiration.  With no garden tour show in their current lin-up, maybe HGTV is looking for a new tour guide.  Boy, what a dream gig that would be. 

This time of year many of us are admiring our ornamental grasses, now at their best, but some of us are also hearing warnings about their invasiveness.  Just that - "Don’t you know they’re invasive?"  Well, I hate it when that happens.  In fact, my number one gardening rant is about too little information, or even misinformation, about plants, usually with the words "native" or "invasive" being used rather loosely.

Still, being the nature-lover and dutiful student that I am, I hit the old keyboard and read all the websites I could find about badly behaved plants in Maryland.  Sure enough my favorite, Miscanthus sinensis, is listed as a "plant of concern."  Which might steer me toward buying a different one but what about the ones already in my garden? 

I’m happy to report finally finding the answers I was looking for - on HGTV’s website, of all places.  An article there on this very subject quotes from the Timber Press Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses to explain that invasiveness is a matter of genes, region, and culture, and then goes on to list exactly which grasses are problems and which aren’t.  Bless you, Timber Press.  Turns out Miscanthus sinensis, the bad boy of ornamental grasses, isn’t a problem in cold or dry areas, and there are some cultivars that aren’t problems anywhere because they’re sterile, don’t self-seed, or simply bloom too late in the season.  And even if I had an early bloomer, I could prevent its spread by simply removing the seedheads.

The specific cultivars recommended for the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic are ‘Morning Light’ (YES!), ‘Zebrinus,’ ‘Gracillimus,’ ‘Purpurascens,’ ‘Hinjo,’ and ‘Little Zebra.’  And it’s recommended that we limit the number of cultivars in our gardens to one or two, because cross-pollination can result in reversion to species - the worst offender of all.  See, we gardeners want to do the right thing and with enough information, we can (and without ripping out our gardens.)

Yes, it’s THAT GOOD.  Believe the rave reviews and go.  I wish it were required viewing for everyone in the Mainstream Media.

And for once it’s nice that a pretty face is also so smart and talented and politically on target.  George, if I were only young enough I’d offer to have your child.