Sustainable Gardening Blog

Over on GardenRant I’ve been - well, ranting about design websites that are visually boring, hard to navigate, or fail to provide the necessary info in a readable way.  So my buddy Erik Anderson tells me to check out the site he and his company launched like two days ago; I did and I say WOW.  Now it wasn’t cheap ($6,000 for the site itself, $4,000 for the photos) but for an architectural firm or any other design-related or visual business, isn’t it worth it?  My only suggestion was that he add some info about their staff, including himself, coz if you’ve got great credentials, I say flaunt ‘em.  [His would include a degree in restoration from Columbia’s School of Architecture, a bunch of experience, and his recent election to the board of Historic Takoma - lucky them!]

So congrats to local restoration leader Worcester Eisenbrandt, Inc. on their wowzer of a site, designed by Single Chair.   Landscape architects, listen up!

I get pretty excited on the subject of Venus, especially Peter O’Toole’s mind-blowing performance.  And there’s lots more in this amazing movie from the writer of My Beautiful Launderette and a bunch of indie filmmakers doing terrific work across the pond.  I reviewed it for Ronni Bennett over on Time Goes By and here’s the link.

There’s this tree, the wye oak, that’s the only tree to be named a state park.  And the park, Wye Oak Park, still exists in Talbot County, Maryland.  Trouble is, the tree came down in 2002.  But hey kids, the whole family can still visit the "tree site" from sunrise to sunset.  Plan to stay the whole day to see the whole "tree site." 

Now it does deserve credit for living to be 460 years old.  Yeah, I respect longevity.  As it declined, the vultures swarmed, taking clones from the tree, one of which is now growing, presumably happily, at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate in Virginia. 

The Wye Oak had been cabled since 1953, when evidence of rot in its core was first found.  Then as late as 1977 it was appraised at $35,000 and an expert report stated that it "can probably be preserved another 200 years."   Oops.

When Joel Lerner mentioned Wye Oak Park in his recent Washington Post column I had plenty of snickering thoughts like these - right up until I read the whole sad story here.   Hey, I should be the last person to ridicule people for having an emotional response to a magnificent tree.  Here’s my own fave, which I never tire of seeing, though readers may have already crossed that threshold. (Yes, it’s the one now sporting a bat-house.)

And while I’m at it, thanks to Lerner for this great quote:

Ants
are so much like humans as to be an embarrassment.  They farm fungi,
raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays
to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labor,
exchange information ceaselessly.  They do everything but watch
television. — Lewis Thomas, scientist and writer

Okay, there’s nothing new happening in my garden this time of year and I need diversions.  Netflix is a big help but what I miss most on frigid days is connecting with nature, so I recently purchased a bat-house.  It holds up to 100 bats and cost $45 (part of which goes toward conservation efforts, I’m told.)

But buying the house brought so much more than this lovely tree ornament; it revealed to me a whole world of bat conservation.  There’s the Organization for Bat Conservation out of Michigan, from which I ordered my bat-house.   Their site holds a wealth of great info, including how to arrange an in-person program for school kids - too bad it’s only available in Michigan (not to mention only for kids).  The site has a bat-house-owner forum, too, where I found tales of owners counting the bats return to the house in early morning, using their binoculars to identify the species, and more wildlife excitement.  See, I’m such a lousy birder that I’ve experienced only failure at identifying birds, but there are so few bat species in my area, I have a fighting a chance.

Another amazing site is produced by Bat Conservation International, based in Austin (there it is again, one of the coolest city in the U.S.)  On their site you can join their Adopt a Bat program and receive an "endearing letter from your bat."  Okay, that’s not my favorite part, but how about learning about their backward-facing knees and locking claws make hanging upside down easy?  And then there’s the Latin American bat that eats only blood, the legendary vampire.  So legendary, in fact, that the Wikipedia entry for vampires is about the legends, not the actual animal.  Hey, bat conservation people, how about amending the entry?

Best of all, I learn that a small insect-eating bat can eat up to 2,000 mosquito-size insects in one night - GO TEAM!

I’ve committed to writing a bunch of columns about wildlife as part of my town’s campaign to become certified as a Wildlife Habitat Community, so you’ll be reading more soon about bats, pollinating bees, and good old butterfly gardens.

ADDENDUM, in response to a commenter, about WHERE TO PUT THE BAT-HOUSE.  From the Organization for Bat Conservation site:

In the Northeast: Where you mount your bat house plays a major role in the internal temperature.  Houses can be mounted on such structures as poles, sides of buildings and tall trees without obstructions. Houses placed on poles and structures tend to become occupied quicker than houses placed on trees. Bat houses should face south to southeast to take advantage of the morning sun. In northern states and Canada, bat houses need to receive at least 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight. It is also advantageous to paint the house black to absorb plenty of heat (when baby bats are born, they need it very warm). Use non-toxic, latex paint to paint your bat house and only paint the outside.  Your bat house should be mounted at least 15 feet above the ground, the higher the house the greater the chance of attracting bats.   

Bats return from migration and awaken from hibernation as early as March in most of the U.S., but stay active year-round in the extreme southern U.S. They will be abundant through out the summer and into late fall. Most houses used by bats are occupied in the first 1 to 6 months (during the first summer the bat house was erected). If bats do not roost in your house by the end of the second summer, move the house to another location.

MORE ON WHETHER THEY WORK:  I once heard a wildlife gardening expert say that it may take a while for the bats to discover the house, but once they find it, it works well.

Meet Dan.  He’s a tireless activist in the town of Takoma, most recently for sustainable city management. Yes, a liberal do-gooder and I say thank god someone will sit through all those meetings so the rest of us don’t have to.  Seriously.

But to get right to my point, Dan’s recently done some hands-on redevelopment in the rundown part of town by having built a most excellent commercial building - Voila the building.

Readers, here’s your job if you choose to accept it:  Pick some plants that would go with these colors.  Beyond your basic green, what?  I’m thinking conifers and ornamental grasses but what about something flowering?  These look like Western colors to me and I’m a true-blue easterner.  I’ve thought of exactly one so far - sedum ‘Autumn Joy’  - which I think would look good and be easy.  But what about the easy-care shrub roses I was thinking about for Dan, or the equally easy spireas?  I’m stuck.

(God, you should see the "dirt" that our chosen plants would be subjected to.  It’s typical construction site clay&rubble and they usually just leave it there, with sod on top, but not this time. I suggested 6 inches of real topsoil - what do you think?)

The site consists of three smallish areas (sorry - I’ll try to get some dimensions), all of which get afternoon sun, or will for the first 10 years or so until the new street trees he’ll be planting really produce some shade.  So yes it’ll be a slowly evolving garden, like all real ones.  The colors were chosen by local colorist Zoe Kyriacos, who’s enlivening our little town one building at a time.  Here’s a shot of Zoe and me on site.

And why are we helping Dan?  Well, you’re helping him because he’s such a good guy and you’re all nice people.  Me, I’m helping Dan because he and I have a barter thing going and he’s a computer expert.  YES!  Oh, and that part about him being a good guy. 

That’s the error message I just received when trying to save this photograph.  It came with a large yellow warning triangle and a red exclamation point, of course.  Now don’t even try telling me what the hell it means because I DON’T CARE.  Have I mentioned that I hate Photoshop? 

[Photo:  I know it’s more paperwhites and these stink, too, right in my living room.]

Well, since Marv asked about my "technique," here’s one more shot (clickable to enlarge) and some details.

I used the Canon PowerShot SD550 on a tripod, with the flash turned off.  That’s it.  And that’s really all I know about how to use the damn camera that I bought a full year ago now.  Oh, I suppose I know how to adjust it for macro and for what they call "portrait," in order to make the background blur, but that’s really all. 

Back home on the computer I used PhotoShop Elements to lighten the shadows.  Again I know almost nothing about PhotoShop but lightening shadows is the one feature that’s a huge improvement over the Photo Deluxe Home Edition I used for many years, which only enabled overall lightening of the whole shot.  And in the case of night photos of Christmas lights, lightening the shadows made the shot look like what I saw through my own eyes that night.  Cool.

Now what other feature should I be using for night photography?  Someone suggested I prefocus on something completely black but honestly, that involved more finesse with the camera and tripod - in the dark - than I could muster.

Another part of the winter experience at the Ginter Botanical Garden is closing the conservatory door behind you, breathing in the moist air, and smelling paperwhites.

Another photo taken last week at the Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, VA, this one showing not just an amazing December sunset but their snappy new conservatory.  Inside shots to follow.