Sustainable Gardening Blog

Real gardening in middle age and later is a quite a challenge physically.  As in, how much back-breaking work can I do without actually hurting something, most especially the aforementioned back?  And that’s just added to the ordinary hazards to gardeners of all ages, like the accidental removal of digits.  So what’s a gardener to do?  Of course, there’s the boring advice we’ve all read about wearing gloves, and real gardeners resist that as a matter of honor, but the advice I do follow is to try to prevent back injuries.  You know how nothing makes you feel older than having back pain?  That’s the motivation right there.

It all started a few years ago when some now-forgotten injury led me to a physiologist, who referred me to a physical therapist who also does Pilates, and I became a convert.  Not one of those advanced, I’ve-devoted-my-life-to-it converts, just a believer who’s incorporated it into my regular workout.  I started with a class of five on the very expensive and very effective Pilates apparatus, which look exactly like Medieval torture devices but healed me of every ache I’d ever had.  Then, in an economizing move, I switched to a large class of Pilates done on mats, and learned a program of exercises I could do at home, which is the stage I’m at now - no expense at all.  Well, I did buy two things, both recommended by the excellent Roberta at Willow Street Yoga Center in "downtown" Takoma.  There’s The Pilates Body by Brook Siler, and a video I’ve misplaced, but here’s a bunch that are recommended.

So how does Pilates affect the gardener?  I think it’s the focus on core strength in the abs, glutes and quads, all the large muscles that we use doing any kind of "yardwork."  I’ve seen its benefits described as muscle strengthening and body toning, which sounds about right except that I have no idea what body toning is, although I know it when I feel it.

The first arena for Pilates is the program the gardener follows at the health club, the yoga studio or the bedroom, and the second arena is what’s unique among exercise programs I’ve tried.  It’s about carrying the Pilates muscle tension and breathing into the garden so that those large toned muscle are engaged during our manual labors.  It’s going beyond just bending with the legs to total Pilates consciousness.  I try to stay "in Pilates" when I’m doing my daily walk, too, a form of multi-tasking that feels damn good. 

To round out my ever-optimistic program of prevention, I do stretches and weight-lifting as prescribed by the same wise physical therapist who led me to Pilates.  Then, when it comes to the pre-gardening warm-up-and-stretch routine we’re always told to do, why do I suddenly act like a slacker?  Coz that’s what happens when I first hit the garden, with all my pent-up impatience to get to work.  So friends, help me out with your favorite stretches, or just join me in my slacker guilt.  And to you pre-middle-aged gardeners out there: This is your future.

For this review of Jim’s talk last night to the Takoma Horticulture Club, I Google-imaged his name to see if I could find him, cursing under my breath that I hadn’t brought my camera and done it myself.  This is one of the resulting photos and it’s so not Jim I had to laugh.  It’s some other Jim Gallion who hasn’t created, with his wife Teresa, the most beautiful replica of nature I’ve ever seen on their property near Frederick, if his PowerPoint show can be believed.

Yes, I’m happy to report that someone is achieving the ideal of combining the love of nature with a love of beauty.  And right up front he told us he wouldn’t be encouraging us to get rid of all our nonnative plants, meaning almost every plant in our gardens - he even grows them himself.  So we could relax and be seduced by his gorgeous photographs of the birds, bugs, rabbits, frogs and plants in his garden.

In his gentle way, Jim’s on a mission to spread the word.  He and Teresa work through their design/consult firm, Gardening Adventures, to help homeowners move toward harmony with nature and enhance the beauty of their surroundings.  And on top of what they get paid to do, they contribute 300 or so hours a year in community service, which is 275 more than what’s required to maintain their Master Gardener status.  And judging by Jim’s talk, he’s a great teacher for the cause because his love of nature is infectious.

More good news - their excellent articles on such topics as wildlife in the garden, native plants, and turf reduction can be found on line.  Here they’re listed with other Master Gardener articles, so scroll down alphabetically to Theresa and Jim Gallion.

Among Gallion’s words last night:
- "If you don’t have some nonnatives, you’re missing out on a lot of really cool plants," so he’s not a "native plant elitist."
- You can create a habitat even if you only have a balcony to work with.
- His winterberry has tons of berries and has become the guarded territory of a mockingbird couple.
- Hang your suet-holder upside down to discourage the "junk birds."
- Turtles love colonies of May apples.
- To attract the Zebra Swallowtail, grow Paw Paw, but only if you have room for them to spread.
- To attract Ruby-Throated Hummingbird (in photo), grow the native columbine. It’s a good groundcover in partial shade, reseeding freely.
- Neither toadhouses nor butterfly houses work.  Bat houses work once they’re discovered by the bats, which may take a while.
- Leaving dead wood to decay in place is great for the critters, and looks good, too.  A standing dead tree will attract even more woodpeckers if you drill some one-inch starter holes along it.
- Gardening with successions of petunias and zinnias isn’t gardening; it’s yard decorating.
- Butterfly bushes are like "McDonald’s drive-throughs."
- Recommends National Wildlife Federation’s Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation of Land, Chesapeake Bay Watershed Edison.
- Recommends The Wild Ones at www.for-wild.org.

Can you tell I was won over? Yeah, I want frogs and some more woodpeckers, just for starters.  I’ll try to remember that Jim also suggested going slow and not expecting overnight results.

Last but never least, thanks to Kathy Jentz for bringing Jim to the club.

This just in - a photo of the our Jim Gallion.  Ah, that’s better.

Here’s the glamorous Bette known and loved by millions, most especially Takoma Gardener.  Oh, yes, since a friend in Greenwich Village got me hooked on Bette in the early ’70s, the Divine Miss M has been a goddess to me.

But look at what Bette’s up to now. Turns out this hyper-talented native of Hawai is one of us, guys, and here she is in real life, helping remove garbage from neglected parkland in the Lower East Side of NYC.  And she’s no one-time, photo-op volunteer - no way, Jose.  Bette created the New York Restoration Project, which is called the "Conservancy of Forgotten Places" because it’s rescued over 400 underfunded public lands in the city. They’re also involved big-time in community gardens, and I love what their website has to say about them: "The roots of community gardens run deep in New York
City—gardens are oases of vegetables, fruits, flowers and tranquility
in neighborhoods where concrete otherwise rules. They are the site for
picnics, cookouts, birthday parties and other community gatherings, and
are special places for residents of all ages, with and without green
thumbs. Community gardens create a network of green spaces in the city
in an unprecedented way."

Okay, now that I’ve primed you with these nice words, you’re ready to be wowed by their site.  On this page you’ll see little slide shows of before-and-after pictures that’ll turn the most hardened souls into true believers.  Now I know how I’d keep my sanity if I ever had to live in New York City - by joining Bette’s crew.

Report from the Maymont Flower and Garden Show in Richmond, Virginia.  The theme this year was "Table for Two," which meant that most exhibits included small dining tables in their rather traditional designs.  But designer Jim Ford added a techie touch to the theme and took home the coveted "Best in Show" award.  His entry was split in two parts, one a Western garden and the other a garden in Japan, with tables set for instant-messaging between the two. The laptop screen in this photo announces the blooming of daffodils.

Truthfully, my very first reaction was okay, cute idea, but SO 20th Century, and  wouldn’t it have been cooler to show gardening blogs on these laptops!?  But on second thought, I love the image of a pair sitting in gardens on opposite sides of the world in the same moment and communicating in real time.  The designer even thought to make one of the gardens dark, which I have to admit is pretty cool.

So the Maymont Show was fun to visit and well worth the 100-mile drive from D.C. on a winter day.  I could have stayed home and visited Washington’s Home and Garden Show but it’s mostly vinyl siding and gutter systems, and we gardeners don’t want to see that crap, do we?  So give me a real garden show anytime, with its amazing fake landscapes, its cute miniature gardens, its big-name lecturers, and its hoards of vendors selling stuff that’s really interesting to me because it’s gardening stuff. Just don’t go expecting to find nature, not in a convention center.

More photos.  First, the WINDOWS.

Then the GARDENS.

It’s a winter wonderland out there, so there’s absolutely nothing you can do in your garden, right?  Wrong, amigos.  It’s the perfect time to design your new borders and paths.  That’s because you won’t be distracted by the existing lines in your garden, since they’re helpfully covered up by the snow.  And all it takes to mark your new lines is walking, or in the case of deep snow, stomping.  My aforementioned dry streambed was designed in the snow three winters ago now, and my slowly shrinking lawn got a new shape just last winter.  So I’m telling you, it works.

Or, what the hell, just build a snowman.  Me, I’ll be "borrowing" a sled from some unsuspecting kid in the neighborhood and reliving my childhood, if only for a run or two into the woods.  A picnic on the deck, however, is unlikely.

[Photo: D.C.Tourists Cool Off Here.]

Washington’s Master Gardener Program is the best thing in the world and my teacher is a genius - gorgeous, too.  And the fact that I’ve discovered she reads this blog will have no influence on my report. 

But seriously, what’s not to love about hanging out with other gardeners and learning about plants?  And what a bunch of gardeners they are.  People who work at the National Arboretum, at local nurseries, at a senior center.  A woman who keep bees and horses.  Lots of folks wanting to change careers.  Several writers.  A demographically diverse group who have in common their love of nature.

Last night’s class was about Botany, which in our textbook was deadly dull but in the capable hands of our guest lecturer was really interesting and easy to grasp.  PowerPoint - gotta love it. And you wait; I bet I’ll be saying the same thing about the classes on Soils and Fertilizers, Entomology and Plant Diseases, all of which could be snoozers if not presented well.  Then after all that hard science comes the fun stuff - landscape design, woody ornamentals, bulbs, and pruning.  And unlike the degree programs that my harder-working friends are enrolled in, this one doesn’t require us to memorize anything, especially Latin names.  Master Gardeners are taught the basics and are expected to research any specifics they might need to know.  Yeah, it’s my kind of night school.

Have you noticed the sudden appearance of dry streambeds in the gardening media?  And don’t the photos of them always look great?  Ya can’t beat that plant-stone combination, if you ask me.  And isn’t it a dandy way to manage the run-off on your property?

NO, unfortunately it’s exactly the wrong thing to do with run-off.  The streambed just quickens its journey into your watershed and we’re starting to learn that slowing the water down should be the goal.  That way, the water saturates into the soil, which filters out the chemical pollutants.  So after this streambed turns the corner behind a large tree, it branches out and disappears and becomes a series of rain-garden-type catchbasins, and it seems to work.  See how complicated it is to be an environmentalist-gardener in 21st Century America?  You bet I’m whining.

THIS SCENE - ONLY 6 WEEKS AWAY
That’s the point of this photograph, really.  A printed and framed version of it caught my eye this morning and it made my sad winter gardener’s heart go pitty-pat.  Buck up, friends, it won’t be long.

Admire, if you will, the newest addition to my tool collection, the amazing Whatchamacallit.  Lately it’s been the perfect tool for removing two of the worst invaders in the wooded valley in back of my house - multiflora rose and greenbriar.  Boyoboy it’s gratifying to dig out crappy plants like these, roots and all, knowing they’ll finally be gone, at least for a while.   

If these horrible plants are new to you, I’ll just say that multiflora rose isn’t as nice as it sounds.  It’s truly one of those "alien invaders" we’re always hearing about.  Greenbriar, on the other hand, is something we almost never hear about - the native invader.  In fact, many native plant advocates, especially the newly converted, will tell you that by definition, native plants can do no wrong.  Well, somebody forgot to tell that to the greenbriar because, in the words of an astonished neighbor of mine, it "behaves really badly."  To wit:  smothering our beloved native woodland azaleas and any other desireable plants struggling to out-compete the junk plants that dominate this ecological mishmash.  The explanation may have to do with all the other factors that have changed in the last 500 years since European invasion (and aren’t we the worst invaders of all?) Maybe its competitors or the animals that eat it have become extinct, though it’s hard to imagine an animal eating this prickly, disgusting plant.  Here it is, though you’ll have to imagine it even uglier and totally covering large shrubs and small trees.

Whatever their origin or the cause of their misbehavior, winter’s a great time to get rid of them and did I mention how satisfying it is?

Kudos and thanks for everyone involved, beginning with Amy Stewart, who sent me the link.  Next, to Garden Web for having the good sense to include on their site a "best-of-gardening-blogs" feature called Garden Voices.  And most especially I say three cheers to Old Roses, the "editor" of Garden Voices.  She’s doing a fabulous job of reviewing daily posts to English language gardening blogs worldwide and highlighting the ones that catch her eye for busy readers. I think it’s safe to predict that garden blogging will grow exponentially in 2006, thanks in large part to Garden Voices.  And be on the look-out for Amy’s piece on blogging in Gardening How-To Magazine sometime soon.  So I’m excited about all the new gardening "voices" we’ll be seeing on line any day now.

Just one question.  Old Roses, is there a way we can email you directly?  I want to pick your brain.

[Photo:  Sculpture and caster bean plant in the garden of Sculptor Sam Noto, Silver Spring, Maryland.]