I’m happy to report that anti-war demonstrations are as much fun today as they were in the ’60s and ’70s, and great theater. There were lots of people in costume, like the Bush and Cheney faces here and the popular Billionaires for Bush troup. And there were a few famous faces, like Jesse Jackson here with the "Justice for People of the Gulf Coast" sign and a rush of photographers around him.
And finally here’s a shot of me chatting with one of my heroes, the ever-handsome John Conyers (D-MI).
If you saw "Fahrenheit 9/11," he was the interviewee who revealed that Congress had voted for the "Patriot Act" without reading it. Formerly chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and now its ranking Dem, Conyers has been more vocal than anyone in Washington about abuses in the last two elections.
One photo I’ve spared you all is of the bare-breasted women and I was probably the only person nearby who didn’t photograph them. Bare-breasted women have been a staple at women’s and gay rights marches for a long time and for the life of me I just don’t get it. I’ve been told they do it because: A, why not, and B, it demystifies women’s breasts. Well yeah, seeing regular unPlayboyesque breasts sure does that, especially the triple-D-cup examples on display today. But I still doubt that it accomplishes anything except giving guys something to tell their friends about, or these days maybe blog about.
Well, I promised a shot of my sedum collection blooming and here it is. As much as I love the way they look, the best part is how seldom I have to water these guys, even in the extended drought we’re experiencing right now. I give the taller ones a haircut by about half in June to prevent flopping and it seems to work, in addition to making them a bit bushier.
Next is a shot of mainly low, creeping-type sedums in homemade hypertufa planters. Hypertufa is a combination of Portland cement, perlite and peatmoss, which makes it resemble stone but weigh and cost considerably less. Hypertufa planters are sometimes called "troughs" because the formula can be used to replicate the old stone water troughs so valued today in England as planters. Planters are formed either inside a mold of some kind – in this photos a bucket and an ice chest were used – or on top of an upside-down form, like the wok top used to make the planter on the far left.
These guys were made at several Hort Club workshops and they’ve survived outdoors for two winters now. They’re great for plants that need good drainage.
Daylily-lovers should just click off to another site because their love object is about to get dumped on. After years of devotion to these guys and the gradual winnowing down of 30 kinds to the best six, it’s still a dud in my garden. Why is that, you ask? Because with blooms lasting only a day each, there are never enough blooms to really have an impact. And just as importantly, because the foliage is ugly. The large ones looks like corn stalks and the small ones, though better, look like ratty liriope. This photo shows a couple of blooms but basically the area between the red-twig dogwood and the spirea looks empty of anything but slovenly old foliage.
With this photo in mind, I was a tad surprised to read today in a book I won’t name that "The foliage of all daylilies is extremely graceful" and again "When massed, it looks particularly graceful." Here’s my reaction: Proof positive that we can’t believe everything we read about plants. Fortunately, when we’ve grown them ourselves and observed them over time, we don’t need to. Seeing is believing.
But back to daylilies, there’s one more thing I’m going to try before I dump them all at next fall’s plant exchange. This summer I visited Fenwick Island, Delaware while they were blooming and saw them used perfectly, to my eyes. Most of the homeowners had used professional landscapers and from the looks of it, excellent ones. What they did was to mass daylilies so tightly they looked like, or actually were, a few very large ones. So they had punch, which is what mine had better have next year after they’re rearranged in bunches, or they’re out of here.
I’ve been coaching gardening newbies for a year now and I’m learning lots of lessons about people. Like the realization that nobody wants to weed. They want to fix things so that somehow the weeds won’t appear. Now as any long-time gardener knows, the answer is concrete, right? Or maybe a deck covering the whole yard. Black plastic covered with mulch? All reasonable options for the weed-averse, but not exactly gardening. With coachees I give what I consider very doable estimates of weeding time required, like a half-hour a week during the fast-growing months, and I see the grim faces of despair. I honestly don’t know what the answer is for people who A, want a yard that looks nice, B, don’t want to spend any time caring for it and C, can’t afford to pay someone else to do it. I still say hardscape the whole thing.
If only I could turn people on to the practice of weeding, excite them with the notion of weeding as a meditative practice, as lovingly tending to a garden, as the beautification of their creation. Sounds great to me but maybe I’m weird about weeding and I think I know why. My mother used to beg me to let her weed my garden after she moved into a condo, just like I do weeding around B&Bs when I’m on vacation. The very definition of addiction.
So I have a new tack and I call it selective weeding or designing with weeds. It’s about rejecting labels and looking at volunteer plants as freebies, not as weeds. I love the weeds in this photo – the tapestry of smartweed, creeping sedum, clover, violets and something else I haven’t identified yet. Sure, I’ll always eject the odd plaintain, crabgrass or dandelion because they’re butt ugly. But allowing these guys to stay in my garden just makes sense – more biodiversity, less maintenance, and a move toward that worthy goal – sustainable landscaping.
Check out this beauty, the Lespedeza "Gilbralter," finally blooming. I first eyed it at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a whole hedge of them between a large home and the beach road. There being no one around, I took down the address and wrote them a letter asking what it was and enclosing a SASE. Months went by and I’d concluded these gardeners were atypically unhelpful when finally I got a reply from their landscaper. I should have known.
Anyway, I was happy to get my answer and I’ve been enjoying it and getting beaucoup compliments ever since. You can see its lovely cascading form but what’s particularly interesting is that it’s a nonwoody shrub. In other words, it dies completely to the ground every winter, only to grow five feet tall again the next season. But as a local landscaper once warned me, don’t even think about ever moving one after it’s full grown.
We learned a lot at the club’s plant exchange yesterday, a twice-yearly and always popular event. We discovered that there are plants no one will take, like this nicely potted-up tulip poplar. Got plenty of them, thanks.
But people went home with masses of stuff they did want and it was a terrific event. I won’t forget the 10-year-old boy who approached me during the plant-grabbing mayhem to ask how he could participate in the next exchange and when it was, showing serious interest. His family happened to be in another part of the park, so he dragged his mother over to get her involved and she was given all the necessary information. She remarked that "He really loves nature." I think it’ll be fun to feed that passion at the next exchange in April, if not earlier at one of our winter events.
If you saw "Fahrenheit 9/11," he was the interviewee who revealed that Congress had voted for the "Patriot Act" without reading it. Formerly chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and now its ranking Dem, Conyers has been more vocal than anyone in Washington about abuses in the last two elections. 
