August 2006

First, there’s this exposed site in the front yard of this corner lot (formerly side yard, before the house’s entrance was moved).  But when this lovely pergola was constructed around a new patio and the only screening plants I saw going in the ground were grasses and perennials, I doubted there’d ever be enough privacy.  How could they make such a mistake, I wondered.  Now in its second year I’ve started loving this garden, even concluding that there’s enough privacy for the homeowners to actually enjoy the patio.  But still, with all their other great plant choices, why not some evergreen screening?

Well, more is usually revealed by talking to the actual homeowner in question and in this case, turns out they were thinking evergreen all along and the grasses along the road are temporary.  Not bad for temporary, I say.  Looking great, I add, and can I photograph it?  Now who can say no to that?

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Readers, many thanks for telling me how to fix my computer monitor.  I shouldn’t have surprised me that on-line gardeners would be so geeky, though it did.  SO well-rounded.  The cute little control-alt-arrow key move got my rotated screen back where it’s supposed to be and left me wondering why my own Googling of the problem failed me while yours succeeded.  Well, I’ll live to Google another day and get better at it, or at least more persistent.  Though remember I was Googling while rotated on my side for a while, until I got smart and put the damn monitor on its side instead.

So head on over to Garden Rant for a technie subject near and dear to on-line gardeners - photography.  There’s lots to be learned from the comments.

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The garden in this picture doesn’t look like much but it’s saved my butt more times than I can count.  It’s just a humble holding or nursery garden, and here’s what it’s done for me lately.

Check out the photo on the right - the newly created seating area for my adirondack chairs, shown two posts ago.  The project involved first creating and then leveling space for the chairs and the new umbrella, and before it could even be started I had to move all the plants that were in the way -  a large old azalea, about 10 large astilbe and several clumps of periwinkle.  Knowing I wouldn’t be giving them a new home anytime soon, I stuck them here in my holding garden - fully shaded and easy to dig after years of digging and mulching over.  Well watered, they can stay there happily forever, or wait till their new home is ready.  We’re in the midst of a killer drought, you know.  And last spring the holding garden held 6 shrubs and small trees while I was rearranging a large common border.

In this case most of the plants found their new homes 3 weeks later, an interval that allowed me to slow down and do the project right, goddammit.  Otherwise I’d have rushed and surely been unhappy with the results.  Regrading was involved and it takes time to let the grade settle by getting rained on or at least watered in.  It takes time to sit in the chairs at different times of the day and make sure their placement is correct in relation to the umbrella.  It takes time just to look at something new over a few days to decide if I really like it the way it is or if more fiddling is needed.

But it’s also clear that especially here in this large, stressed-out urban area, slowing down is a good thing, as our Martha would say.  Slow gardening is what we gardeners do and it’s way more more enjoyable than the fast gardening performed by professionals, of necessity.  Sometimes the results even look better.

If you don’t have a shady area that could be used as a holding or nursery garden, maybe a neighbor does.  And couldn’t even a container that’s placed in the shade and watched carefully work in most cases?  I’m trying to take away your excuses.

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This is how my computer screen displays everything right now, since I heard an unfamiliar beep and looked up at the screen to find everything ROTATED.  And when I called my regular IT problem-fixer he said the two things I dreaded hearing the most - "Boy, never heard of that before!" with a little chuckle, and "I’m leaving for a long vacation tomorrow morning."  He did suggest another IT person and offered that it might be my video card.  Googling the phenonemon turned up a nifty virus you can buy - an "April Fool’s Joke" - that will cause your friends’ computer screens to rotate, too.  I’m sure  your friends will think it’s just as funny as I do.  The fixes they recommended didn’t work, so I doubt that a virus is responsible in my case.

Anyhoo, not much blogging for me until this damn thing is fixed.  I just hope my physical therapist isn’t on vacation because my neck’s killing me already.

Meanwhile, over on Garden Rant I managed to published an already-written piece about sustainable gardening, so check it out and tell me what you think.

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Readers who’ve followed changes in my garden this season (and have I given you any choice?) know that last spring I removed my hated Bradford pear (yay!!), which left my garden chairs in full sun most of the day and thus unusable most of the season.  No problem, I say to myself.  I’ll just rearrange and level the area to create space for a new umbrella.  Six weeks later it arrives and well, it does create a bit of shade, maybe enough for one of these chairs, but only if you tilt it, a feature that seemed like such a fine idea in the catalogue.  Turns out the tilt’s actually damn hard to maneuver and that’s because the umbrella’s made of solid wood, another feature that’s better on paper than in the field.

How did I make this mistake, choosing an umbrella that’s both too small and too heavy?  My first line of defense is to blame catalogue shopping.  If I’d seen the damn thing in person I like to think I’d have noticed it was rather small and heavy and chosen aluminum poles, lightweight fabric, and 9′ in diameter instead of 6.  But I can’t blame mail order shopping entirely and at the risk of wandering into Dr. Phil’s territory, here’s something I hate about myself.  In the process of ordering it I automatically and instinctively chose the cheapest one.  (I’d blame my tightwad parents but Phil would never let me get away with it.)  For another $50 I could have shaded both seats, and probably without the annoying tilt thingie.

If only I’d bought in person I might be sitting in the fine shade of an umbrella like this one on the deck of my smarter and wealthier neighbors.  It’s nice and big and made of aluminum and a lightweight fabric.  Some too-late research tells me these umbrellas cost about $800 at Smith and Hawken (ouch!) or waaay less (about $100 for a 9′ aluminum) from some fine Internet sources.

Now the last thing I ever want to do is discourage you all from buying outdoor umbrellas to shade your Adirondack chairs (okay, other types of chairs work just as well).  So now that I’ve done the research - and made the mistakes - go forth and buy.  There must be some end-of-season deals out there for bargain-hunters.   If you dare to go the cyber route, searching "outdoor umbrellas" should do the trick.

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Not often, mind you, but it happens.  I’m really not the yelling type but my garden apparently has the power to transform me.  Here’s my version of the latest incident.

I’m relaxing in my Adirondack chair when suddenly a good-sized black dog appears, terribly agitated and crashing through my garden in hot pursuit of a squirrel.  I leap into action to shoo the intruder away but he’s way too engrossed in his task to listen to me.  Some guy I’ve never seen in my life comes crashing through my neighbor’s meticulously landscaped garden to say - not "oh, sorry about that; I’ll come get my dog immediately"  - simply "Hi, there" with a friendly smile.  Well, I was in no mood for a "Hi, there" and what he got in return was "Get your dog out of my garden!" and "There’s a leash law, ya know." All in defense of my garden - it was being invaded, you could say ravaged!  At the very least and following the thought in my previous post, my children were about to be trampled on.

From the dog-owner’s point of view, he’d just moved into his and his family’s new dream home on a famously neighborly street and was taking his dog for a stroll.  Some mishap with the leash resulted in the dog taking off to explore and the dog-owning neighbor ended up getting chewed out by the decidedly unfriendly woman who lives - oops - two houses away.  Gee, the realtor never said anything about that.

How was I to know he’s my newest very close neighbor, with whom it’s so important to have good relations???  Damn, and I’ve noticed a humorous anti-Bush bumper sticker on one of their cars, so I’ll most assuredly like them.  Looks like I have some ’splaining to do.

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What I’m pushing today are double wide borders with paths down the middle or winding through them.  The ones here are just mulch, flat rocks, or the 6" concrete pavers with leaf impressions, but there are lots more good-looking options for more money.

So my testimonial is that these simple, demure paths let me really see all my plants and they let me mother them.  They let me get close enough to hand-water and to stay on top of the weeding.  Close enough to prune away branches that are crowding other plants.  Close enough to keep order, in order words.  And as naturalistic as we get in our design and plant choices, gardening is all about being in control.

For me, tending to plants is so much like tending to my pets.  In taking care of these other species I live with, both flora and fauna, I worry about their drinking enough water and not getting trampled on.  And I could just look at them all day.

Is it the Live Simply Movement or am I just using the old smell-the-roses bit as an excuse to slow down?  I can go either way on this one.

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A passion was born in Dylan Dukes when, at the age of 3, he was shown a
watermelon seed and told it would turn into a watermelon.  So he grew a
few and when that wasn’t enough, his smart mom started a
real veggie garden with him at the Youth Garden of the National Arboretum in the heart of D.C.  Now 6 and nuts about gardening, Dylan may be the
gardening world’s youngest blogger; he’s already
documenting his garden and will soon be uploading his photos. 
Dylan, send us the link!

This community garden for kids and their parents is just one of the amazing places I’ve been visiting in my job chronicling the work of D.C. Master Gardeners.  I got to meet Dylan’s mom, who told me her favorite thing about gardening there is
meeting and exchanging vegetable recommendations and recipes
with gardeners from different cultures - Asian, Caribbean, African
American, white and biracial families all have plots.  It’s part of a program called Seed to Supper that guides families through that whole process, ending in a glorious meal in celebration of their own harvest.  And even a hopeless noncook like myself can tell that’s way cool.

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