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Follow me to Wordpress

Change your link to either www.sustainablegardeningblog.com or www.takomagardener.com.  If you're here it means that "typepad" is in your URL, so remove it to find my new location.

But if you happen to have used any permalinks to specific posts, they’re dead, baby.  Sorry about that.  I’ll try to make it up to you.

WHAT'S UP?
This  blog’s been doing some moving lately, leaving its old home on Typepad and moving up to the world of Wordpress.  At least that’s how Wordpress is usually described.  Ultimate freedom, they tout.  Simple to use, some even claim.  And as much as I like (so far) posting here, setting this thing up was no job for amateurs. The GardenRanters discovered that two years ago and believe me, things haven’t gotten noticeably better.  Without the guidance of a web designer/graphic designer, my neighbor and new best friend AJ Campell, this wouldn’t be here at all.  She even managed to move everything - posts, categories, comments, the whole shebang - without the blog skipping a beat.  I found AJ through Craig'slist, of course.

January 23, 2008 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

My Standard Disclaimer about Lawn Removal

There's just too much lawn-bashing going on nowadays.  While I'm among the throngs calling for less lawnBorder_1 and encouraging homeowners to lighten up, add some clover, and grow it all organically and let it go dormant in the summer, I shop short of painting it as all bad, as though by definition it's a monoculture kept alive by toxic products and mowed with super-polluting gas machines.  And it's true that I've recently removed every last blade of turfgrass from my own garden, but I don't want my stories about the transformation to contribute to the demonizing of this garden feature that isn't going anywhere, ya know. So can we NOT just substitute the old conventional wisdom about lawns for a new and politically correct one?

I'll be linking to this article every time I mention removing my lawn so I can stop but-but-butting every time.  A standard disclaimer seems in order.

IN DEFENSE OF LAWNS

  • They CAN be grown and maintained in a healthy, environmentally friendly way.  Just ask the folks at SafeLawns.
  • Organically grown and maintained lawns are reasonably low-maintenance.  And after all, compared to what?  Ground has to be covered with something, and what else ya got?
  • They CAN contain a variety of species, even some that provide a little for wildlife in your garden.  I'm thinking particularly of clover, which not only is loved by the bees but is self-fertilizing because it "fixes" nitrogen.  That link explains how.
  • Functionally, they're absolutely essential for a variety of reasons.  Where else can your kids play if you don't have a lawn?
  • Designwise, they offer a place for the eye to rest, sometimes called a negative space.  The borders surrounding lawn can be busy as all get out but the overall effect isn't busy because of that nice calming lawn.
  • On my hilly site, lawn has held rainwater like a trooper, though I understand that if it's grown in highly compacted soil it doesn't perform that function as well.  But then it's the fault of the soil, isn't it?

So I didn't rip out my lawn because I thought I should, but because I got tired of it and wanted to grow something new.  And I always hated lawn care and I'm happy to be free of it, though I'll bet anything my new lawnfree gardens will be more work than the haphazard care I gave the lawn.  Results coming soon.

January 21, 2008 in Lawn | | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Sustainable Gardening Newsletter January 08

Here's the real thing, but below you'll find MOST of what's in it (missing the highly off-topic right sidebar, hinted at in these photos.)

WHAT'S NEW

  • The Seattle Times reports on what's HOT in 2008 and it's all green - organic practices,Brooklyn150 low-maintenance plants, rain barrels - everything that's here on the site!  And OUT are big lawns and hiring contractors to do everything for you, though to that last item I say "Oh, really?". 
  • Then the San Diego Union-Tribune weighs in with their hot trends for the new year and guess what leads the list - sustainable gardening!  (I'm not making this up.)   
  • Now the bad news - the Herald Tribune says that gardening (as in digging in actual dirt) is down as a national trend, though upgrading the garden as a living area is a hot trend. You know, those fancy outdoor kitchens.   

ON THE BLOGS  

  • Sure, we all love outdoor fires but gasp, squint, cough - that stuff's toxic, you know?  Smoke, that is. The American Right to Burn Stuff explores the issue and commenters weigh in.   
  • Paradise Lost? Thanks to global warming, there are more ticks and tick-borne diseases in our gardens.   

NEW PLANT PROFILES  More evergreens for "winter interest"

MORE NEW STUFF ON SUSTAINABLE-GARDENING.COM  

  • After this post solicited "real-life experiences with rain barrels" it was all compiled here on the site. This article about it being illegal to collect rainwater and from the comments it looks like it's not just in Bolivia. 
  • New combos are up and I'd LOVE to include photos of your favorites (with attribution, links, my first-born cat, whatever it takes).   
  • Check out this cool family project for attracting butterflies, found on The Mulch and added to my   Butterfly resources.  

"ON THE HOMEFRONT" are the stories here about transformation of my backyard from lawn to something else, yet to be determined.  Just scroll down to see them. 

 

Click here to subscribe to the monthly Sustainable Gardening News.

 

January 18, 2008 in Sustainable Gardening | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Tools for Pruning and Making Divisions

If you're not pruning your shrubs, they undoubtedly really, really need it.  And all you really need are hand pruners, loppers, and a folding saw, for a total investment of about $150.  I'll expound elsewhere on this site about the joys of pruning but right now let's just talk tools.  And readers, send me YOUR favorites in a comment or via email.

Hand Pruners

 

felco number 2

One thing to know in choosing hand pruners is that they're either of the "bypass" type or the "anvil" type and everyone in the world recommends the bypass, and so do I.  I even wonder why anyone even makes and sells the other, since they're in such disrepute.  The trouble is that they crush stems unless they're kept very sharp, and who does that?

Now the important thing about using hand pruners is that they should only be used for stems ½ inch thickness or smaller.  Do NOT strain to cut something larger with hand pruners because you might damage it in the process (and strain your hand while you're at it).!

My favorite and the fave of most gardeners I know is made by Felco, specifically their #2, shown above.  They're a bit pricey (in the $60 range) but can last forever, with parts being replaced as needed.  They have a huge selection - some for left-handed people, and even "ergonomically designed" ones for the weak-handed.  Now I put myself in that category and bought a #7 model with the rotating handle that's supposedly to be more natural, but never got used to it (to be fair). In other words, it goes unused unless I can't find my #2. 

Holsters and belts for hand pruners are also available and are used by all the professional gardeners I know.  I love the macho look myself.

Loppers

felco lopper

Loppers are used to cut larger stems, up to 2 inches thick.  Again, don't strain to cut anything larger than that or you risk damaging the tool.

A fairly new innovation in loppers is also intended to give the weaker set more strength by using a ratcheting motion that works in stages to give maximum leverage with minmal effort. Again I've tried one and never got the hang of it, honestly. (Is it just me?  I'm not sure I want to know.)  But don't let that scare you; try it in the store and see how it feels because I've seen them demonstrated and they sure look like they work like a dream. 

Fiskars is a good brand for loppers, priced from $17 to $30. Or buy their "Pro" version with its lifetime warranty for $31-37.   Fiskars ratcheting loppers go for $172 - pricey but possibly worth it if you're lacking in strength and you can figure out how to use them.

Also highly recommended are Corona brand loppers, another good name in garden tools.  Their longer-than-usual handles offer great leverage and reach.



Folding pruning saw

folding pruning saw

For stems and branches larger than 2 inches thick, it's time for the pruning saw.  These little things don't look like much, especially in their folded condition, and only cost about 15 bucks, so people are amazed at how easily and quickly they cut!  No kidding; they're amazing and last and last and last.  All the cheap ones I've used (purchased at chain hardware stores) have worked well for me.

pole pruner

Pole pruner

Pole pruners up to 12 feet in length let you reach for those limbs you'd otherwise have to hire a tree care company to remove for you, and that ain't cheap.  While they can be a bit awkward to use, it sure beats getting on a ladder, any day.

Hedge Clippers/Shearers

Now for my anti-shearing rant.  Shearing shrubs into perfect, unnatural shapes and sizes is the biggest pruning mistake there is (that and not pruning at all).  Why?  Here's a short course in the reasons.

  • Eventually shearing produces an almost inpenetrable exterior that prevents light, air and water from reaching the center of the shrub.  It also produces a perfect place for leaves and other debris to accumulate.  The interior of the shrub then becomes less and less vigorous, more susceptible to disease and insect infestation.
  • It's awfully high-maintenance to keep perfect shapes perfechedge clippers, shearerst!  What's much less work is a looser, more open and natural style. Details on how to achieve this are coming soon to this very site.

The ONLY time I use hedge clippers (aka shearers) is to remove large numbers of old flower all at once - the fast deadheading method for masses of perennials or flowering shrubs.  Oh, and some conifers benefit from a light shearing and I have been known to do it to a tall cylindrical juniper.  Very little is actually being cut off - just enough to remove errant stems and stimulate some new growth at the plant's center.

Steak knives - for making divisions

Nothing beats a cheap steak knife for slicing through the roots of perennials.  I usually buy 5 for $1 at the Dollar Store every spring and at that price I don't mind that they don't stay sharp forever.

Tool Choice and Care  Information on Line

And in Print

Shopping

Photo credits: Hand pruner by Felco, lopper by Corona, folding saw and hedge clippers from Bahco,  and pole pruner from HGPromotions.

 

January 18, 2008 in Equipment | | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

What's "blooming" in January?

Rosemaryjanuary200 Think of those quote marks as a wink to the quaint notion that blooms MATTER.  In fact, I have a little story about that.

When the Associated Press photo editor called me to set up a shoot of me in my garden earlier this month there was grave concern that this would even be possible.  Did I have ANYTHING blooming, even a HOUSEPLANT?  And that just got me started on my schtick about evergreens and rocks and ponds and garden furniture and all that good stuff and she fell for it!  No seriously, though a nongardener working and living in Manhattan, she could envision all that looking damned photogenic.

And the photographer herself immediately saw all the best shoot locations - standing under an arched doorway, against the backdrop of a waterfall, on a teak bench with evergreen foliage and red berries behind me and ON AND ON.  (Did I mention it was about 40 degrees and a bit windy, too?)
Winterberryarb300
But back to blooms because that's what gardenbloggers show off on the 15th of every month and I only have one really sad-looking and disappointing hellebore bloom (H. foetidus) that you don't want to see.  That's why I'm showing you my friend Pam's rosemary as it looked just last week, which she assures me will be its happy state right through the winter.  Gotta get me some of that.

And here's a favorite winter photo of mine, taken at the National Arboretum.  Don't winterberry hollies look awesome massed like that and paired with grasses?  For the Latin-inclined, that's Ilex verticulata.

January 14, 2008 in Plants | | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

"Will this groundcover work?"
The Trial of Creeping Sedum

Creepsedumjanuary300_2This is Part Umpteen in my series about Getting Rid of My Lawn in which I ponder the question of what plant(s) to grow instead.  As much as I enjoyed the book Covering Ground, it didn't - and couldn't - answer every question about every site, so experimentation is needed. 

Now there are lots of plants being tried (or "trialed," to use my new favorite hort term) as replacements for turfgrass and they have to meet these requirements:

  • Short enough to drag a garden hose across them
  • Drought-tolerant
  • Less labor-intensive than the lawn was, or at least more enjoyable tasks than lawn care, so you see I'm setting a low bar.
  • Happy in this sunny, sloping site with really nice soil.

Here's the plant I have the most of, since it grows as a weed here.  I call it creeping sedum but if you know the Latin name, please tell me.  I did notice that that groundcover book cautioned about this group of plants doing a poor job of preventing erosion on hillsides because their roots are so short.  It's always something, to quote the beloved Rosanne Rosannadanna.  But I ain't giving it up without a fight.

Then there's my own question/doubt about this plant:  Will it be evergreen enough to look decent all winter in the center of the whole backyard?  Here you see it photographed in January, so whadaya think?

January 14, 2008 in Plants | | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Where there once was lawn - a new fieldstone path

Stonepath350

I've confessed to having second thoughts about the whole lawn removal project, but maybe it's just impatience with the work in progress, construction site look of the garden at the moment.  Compared with my neighbors' lovely green lawn, ya know.  But I'm over it (for now) and moving on.

When I last reported on this project I'd removed only the lower half of the lawn, which I was replacing with a variety of groundcovers, complaining all the while about it not looking good.  Well, I decided I wasn't ever going to like it because it  looked exactly like half a lawn had been removed; the design just didn't make sense.  So out came the rest of the lawn and the next step was to complete the fieldstone path across the whole space.  That meant a trip to the stoneyard.

Now here's my beef about stoneyards: They're NO PLACE for homeowners.  Even if you're not run down by a frontloader, it's really hard to find just a few of something, like the 13 fieldstones I needed.  The good ones are bundled up in pallet sizes and for small orders ya have to comb through what they call the "Loose Wall".  And some guy was already there doing the same thing, hunting for the largest and flattest from what would more appropriately be called the "Wall of Slim Pickings".  So rather than duke it out with him, I went in the office and asked if a new pallet could be opened up for us and it worked!  So I found 13 (barely) large enough fieldstones and completed the path.  And gardeners, you all agree that paths are fabulous, right?  Even when they're much narrower than the two-person width that we're always being told is the absolute minimum.

SLOW GARDENING
And this is a good opportunity to expound (again) on the topic of slowing down and getting it right, one of the advantages of DIY garden design.  Whether I'm creating a new border line or a path like this one, I always do it slowly and gradually, tweaking as I go, stepping back again and again to see if I like the look.  So what you see here is just one tweaking, with more adjustments to follow before they're dug into place.

January 12, 2008 in Real Gardens | | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

Making it illegal to collect rainwater

This is fascinating.  I recently heard Charlie Rose interview Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.  Here's a snippet from the Village Voice about the book:

In The Shock Doctrine, journalist Klein trains her sharp investigator's eye upon the flaws of neoliberal economics. This meticulously researched alternative history, ranging from economist Milton Friedman's "University of Chicago Boys" to George W. Bush, brings Klein's argument into the present. Using stirring reportage, she shows the ways that disasters— unnatural ones like the war in Iraq, and natural ones like the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina—allow governments and multinationals to take advantage of citizen shock and implement corporate-friendly policies: Where once was a Sri Lankan fishing village now stands a luxury resort. The Shock Doctrine aims its 10-foot-long middle finger at the Bush administration and the generations of neocons who've chosen profits over people in war and disaster; the effect is to provide intellectual armor for the now-mainstream anticorporatist crowd.

But what's relevant to our discussion of rain barrels is her mention of what happened in Bolivia.  They privatized their water resources, with U.S. company Bechtel winning the contract, and subsequently outlawed collection of rainwater because it threatened Bechtel's profits.  Here's more on the story.  And here's a little video about it.

January 06, 2008 in Real Gardening | | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)

Rain Barrel Round-Up

Thanks to everyone who contributed their real-life stories to this Round-up about Rain Barrels.  Most of those comments can be found on this post at GardenRant.

Why all the interest in rain barrels?

  • They reduce the load on our municipal water supplies.Gs1
  • They save (a little) on our water bills, though not enough to justify using them on the basis of cost alone.  In one test a rain barrel saved about 1,300 gallons over the summer, and one user told me he'd saved $35 over the course of the summer.
  • If your roof is slate or metal, the collected water will be naturally soft, chlorine-free rainwater and excellent for plants of all types.  Water falling from asphalt roofs is too polluted to use on foodstuffs or TO DRINK.  (There's more below on the question of polluted water falling from our roofs.)
  • They reduce or eliminate runoff of stormwater into our watershed, which means less downstream pollution and sedimentation.  Even here in the East where we've been having prolonged droughts, global weirding has also brought more severe downpours, so the runoff problem is just getting worse.

Continue reading "Rain Barrel Round-Up" »

January 01, 2008 in Sustainable Gardening | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)