Photo by White House photographer Chuck Kennedy
Readers: Thanks so much for reading what I've had to say this past year and I promise – well, more of the same but with lots of video. Toward that end, I've been struggling to learn Adobe Premiere Elements 8 all day – and mostly watching it crash my computer. Yes, it seems that there are no video editing programs that work easily for everyone, yet. All this crap had better at least keep my brain cells too busy to waste away.
I'm signing off in deep frustration but not to worry – there's something happy chilling in the fridge. Be safe tonight, and in the new year be healthy and happy.
Soon to be included in LEED certification for buildings and developments of all types, the Sustainable Sites Initiative Draft Guidelines are back for more public comment and better than ever. I’ve already sung the praises of this joint effort of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the U.S. Botanic Gardens, based on its first draft.
Highlights?
Its 5 "Areas of Focus" are:
- Hydrology
- Soiils
- Vegetation
- Materials
- And get this – Human Health and Well-Being
And on the subject of vegetation, it calls for the right plant in the right place, whether the plant is native or "appropriate" nonnative, but also for supporting biodiversity, reducing pesticide use and conserving water. They all encourage the protection and use of existing vegetation – because disturbance has its cost – and the use of trees to lower energy consumption.
This is JUST the kind of holistic approach that we need.
Anne Raver gave Sustainable Sites a very nice mention this week in the New York Times, quoting the good folk at the U.S. Botanic Garden.
Click here to see the report. The deadline for comments is Inauguration Day, so you won’t forget.
Know a gardening project that’s doing something cool for the community? Whether the project is increasing community involvement, beautifying the neighborhood, making sustainable agriculture happen or educating the public about growing, send them this link about the Fiskars Project Orange Thumb Awards. Encouraged to apply are community garden groups, as well as schools, youth groups, community centers, camps, clubs, treatment facilities, etc.
The deadline is February 17.
For your reading pleasure, the Project Orange recipients blog about their projects. There’s a sampling here and all of them listed in the right-hand column.
Full Disclosure: Fiskars is the newest sponsor of "the works" – this blog, the website and the monthly newsletter.
So a big welcome to the folks who’ve been making tools since forever (would you believe 1649?) in a little town in Norway.
Note the absence of "Christmas" colors because really, isn’t there enough red in our lives right now? So I present one of the many lovely sights at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden around the holidays. Sights designed to wow everyone and alienate no one. Light shows at public gardens are great that way.
Here’s wishing all your winters are bright and holidays even brighter.
I went visiting this week, to the garden of Robin at Bumblebee Blog and Examiner.com (about an hour east of me near the Chesapeake Bay) and discovered not one but two blog-post-worthy gardens. On GardenRant I wrote about her stylish kitchen garden, and here I’m hoping to inspire my coaching clients with photos of her four-season foundation garden.
The best thing about this garden – to my eyes – is all the evergreens, plants that are basi
cally forgotten most of the year and certainly when people are excited about gardening, driving to the garden center, and buying what looks good – whatever’s in bloom! You know what that means? Those evergreens don’t get bought, unless the gardener’s been at it a while O
R gotten advice from a professional.
So, what’s here? Framing the front door are two ‘Green Giant’ arborvitaes and some ‘Gulftide’ osmanthus, a nonberrying ‘Harbor Dwarf’ nandina, and , with ‘Encore’ azalea – all evergreen – and some impatiens in front of them.
And in the close-up below, the simple planting along the front of the house farther from the front door, thus not wanting to call attention to itself, are good-old Ilex crenata ‘Compacta’ and ‘Dragon Lady’. Like boxwoods and ‘Otto Luyken’ cherry laurels, also good choices for this northern exposure, they look good every day of the year. Summer brings out the easy-care hostas and ferns in front of them.
Now how hard is that?
Also known as Gardenblogger Bloom Day .jpg)
Here’s a very deliberate combination of beauties that bloom at the same time: 2 lacecap hydrangeas, spirea ‘Anthony Waterer,’ and an assortment of astilbes. There’s also closer-up photo of the hydrangea/astilbe combo over on GardenRant.
My other favorite scene right now has this oakleaf hydrangea as the centerpiece. It’s also gorgeous in the winter, thanks to exfoliating bark.
Sustainability Report
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed the garden porn as much as I have – and looking through dozens of photos was pretty trippy, I must say. But we’re trying to be informative here, so it’s time to talk turkey.
These lacecap hydrangeas gets nothing from me all year except supplemental water during periods of drought, and the removal of dead flowers – only. Other than that I spare them the Felcos because their spent flowers look good for months and I’d rather keep it around.
The spirea gets a lot less water – it’s a tough, adaptable plant. Pruning-wise, I’ll shear and shape in a week or two after these blooms are done, and be rewarded with a very nice rebloom.
Astilbes are reportedly both thirsty and hungry, which would make them one of the higher-maintenance perennials. But I grow a large variety that bloom just fine with no fertilizer except leafmold mulch every spring. I leave their spent flowers alone unless and until their foliage goes crispy later in the summer, at which point I shear them to the ground. That results in new foliage that looks fine for the season, but no reblooms. I do give astilbes some supplemental water, though not a lot.
In full shade, oakleaf hydrangeas are as close to literally sustainable as any plant in my garden, including the large oaks. It gets nada! It’s indigenous from the Carolinas southward, I believe.
Tomorrow is Gardenblogger Bloom Day and this month there’s plenty to show, but let’s examine what these plants require to keep on blooming like this.
SALVIA X SUPERBA ‘MAY NIGHT’
On the left is a perennial that’s popular because it’s a DOER, blooming like crazy all summer with little or no help from the gardener. So yes, I’d call it pretty near sustainable, as perennials go. Its neighbors are lamb’s ears, creeping sedum groundcover, and on the right, the foliage of an ‘Oron’ spirea.
TRADESCANTIA VIRGINIANA (SPIDERWORT).jpg)
Next, on the right, is a wildflower around these parts, and recently the subject of much Yahoo group discussion – what’s this weed? And it appeared here as a weed, too, or to be kinder, a volunteer. Its foliage looks notoriously crapping after blooming, however, so I hack it back, which results in much better looking new growth and a bit of reblooming. So I’ve made my peace with spiderwort and it can stay where it is in my garden. Others are using the "I" word – invasive – and complaining that’s hard to get rid of, especially in gardens farther south than here.
RHODODENDRONS AND AZALEAS – WITH HEMLOCK
Okay, I live in the heart of Azalea Belt so I’ve gotta have a few, and I do. Just a few. NOT a whole garden of them, but that’s another post. And I can’t even tell you which one this is but I do know the name of the rhodie in the foreground – the English Roseum type. That’s all I know, plus the discouraging information that it’s sold as one that does especially well in this area and STILL they’re dying off in my garden, one by one. My 
guess is that, like mountain laurels, they’re happier at higher elevations. But whatever the reason, I routinely advice against them.
What I like most in this woodland tableau is the new foliage on my Canadian hemlock – one of my favorite trees. Yes, it’s under siege by a deadly invading insect but to me, hemlocks are worth a little coddling, if required, to keep them alive. I keep an eye out for the telltale tiny cotton ball signs of wooly adelgid and am ready to buy a product!
‘RAINBOW‘ KNOCKOUT ROSES
Now I know that Knockout roses are proliferating in gardens at such a rate that I may eventually be just as sick of them as I am of azaleas, but for now I’m promoting ‘em – big-time. That’s because unlike azaleas, they contribute to the garden for months. In this area from May through November – seriously. With perfect foliage, and no fertilizer required.
Shown here on the right are three Knockouts of the ‘Rainbow’ variety that I planted last June. I’ve never fed them and they bloomed very happily right up until the first hard frost. They’re on their way to becoming 4 or 5 feet tall and wide and making a nice big contribution to the garden. I say God love ‘em.
Also blooming are the snowball viburnum, Mexican evening primrose, all the weigelas, a glorious Renaissance spirea, and some Johnson’s geraniums.
I just learned that Gail of Clay and Limestone in Nashville, TN has chosen this humble blog as one of 10 Excellent Blogs – thanks! It’s just the encouragement I need. See, since teaming up with others at GardenRant, I haven’t known what the heck to DO with this one. I’ve changed the name – a couple of times. I’ve even (much to my regret) changed the blogging program – to the geeks-only Wordpress (long story there).
So what AM I doing here? Supplementing my Sustainable Gardening site with how-to-garden stories, stories of coachees transforming their gardens, stories of my own garden’s transformation, especially the lawn-to-alternative-groundcover and lawn-to-veggie-garden transitions. Oh, and occasionally veering off-topic whenever it suits.
Now to pass on the encouragement to 10 others: Okay, I pick:
Tweaking is still going on here at the new Sustainable Gardening Blog but domains are being forwarded and readers are finding me here, so welcome! H.jpg)
ere’s what’s going on.
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.
What’s new for you, loyal readers? (Okay, you slackers, too.) The domain www.Takoma Gardener.com is still good, though if you’re using www.takomagardener.typepad.com you’ll need to remove the "Typepad". The domain I’m passing around nowadays is www.SustainableGardeningBlog.com.
If you happen to have used any permalinks to specific posts, they’ll soon be dead, baby. Sorry about that. I’ll try to make it up to you.
No, I’m not going anywhere. Just the name. Time to take this blog and DO something with it, namely, use it to supplement Sustainable-Gardening.com. The "beyond" is my excuse to go off-topic occasionally, coz I just like to.
No need for readers to change their link to this blog; I’ll keep the Takoma Gardener domain name. Newcomers can use www.sustainablegardeningblog.com.
.jpg)
