The Joy of Dirt

The Joy of Dirt^TM

      The builder of the house in the swamp was focused on creating a small, single level abode. The area around it was destined for fill dirt. After moving into that house years later, I would find broken crockery, coke bottles and cap pistols mixed through the expanse of almost impervious dirt, all of which was inimical to life as we know it.

      My wife purchased some plants and my pick chipped away at the cement-like crust, creating small holes. The holes were refilled with the dusty clay, watered and the plants left to their own devices. Mission accomplished.

      Would you be shocked to discover that few of those survived?

      Decades after those initial gardening attempts, still uninterested in plants, I got the idea that if I watered the remnant population of scraggly azaleas, they might do better. With that deep insight, I launched into a multi-decade interest in watering. And a few other landscaping concepts. I learned that digging those holes was just creating an impervious pot which holds rain water as well as an aquarium. Few plants survive with their roots drowned in a tub. I began a continuing set of experiments designed to create dirt that the bushes would be happy in.

      Reading books and talking to a variety of people gave me conflicting answers. These replies provided fodder for a couple of articles in the Azalean magazine under the tongue-in-cheek title “And That's The Truth!”. I stole that title from Lily Tomlin's famous line in the old TV show “Laugh In”.

One of the reviewers objected to my use of the word “dirt”. The proper word was “soil”! Hmmm … the next time I come into the house, sweating from yard work, I'll wash my soily hands, take off my soily clothes and throw them into the soily clothes hamper. I may even have some soily words for the mosquitoes or cold winds, depending on the season.

      Subsequently, I read about “soil” and, while the variations were interesting, what I was trying to do was closer to the idea of hydroponics. As in hydroponics, the only ingredients for my dirt were items that I consciously added. The point was to create a substance that the azaleas would think was just perfect. Not sand. Not silt. Not clay. Not loam. Something else. For my own internal usage it was named “Dirt”. Should I trademark that name? After many modifications the two mixes I am currently using I call “Good Dirt” and “Quick Dirt”.

      Lurching toward an understanding of what azaleas needed to caress their roots, I read various books and magazines while mixing ingredients in mad-scientist concoctions. Few of those experiments actually led to deaths, however there were many stunted, irregular and unhappy plants.

I learned that having a lot of organic matter is very important, but experts left out how much “a lot” is. And does the source of that organic matter matter? Cow manure, pine bark nuggets, sphagnum moss, yesterday's newspaper? Soil tests gave me a sense of how much I actually had in the mix, but I was still flying blind.

 

The start of my soil mix: Oak leaf compost, perlite, commercial humus and powdered clay.  Chemicals will be added before mixing.

      Also, chloride compounds are bad, but are there any safe levels?

      The plant needs a lot of chemicals in the soil, but which are soluble and need to be replaced regularly as they wash away? Which are stable, but if added continuously will lead to toxic levels?

The final composition of “Dirt”, suitable for framing, will never be realized as the formula will be constantly modified to achieve better results. In some future spring when many plants in “Dirt”'s latest iteration are thriving, there will still be the question of what changes would be necessary to make all the azalea variations happy. Evergreen and deciduous. Early blooming and late. Kurume as well as Southern Indian. The list of possible tweaks to the formula is almost endless.

      An interesting side note about this dirt problem: it is a rare problem, the result of self-selection. People do what comes easily for them. How many 5' tall adults practice basketball enough to dream of getting into the NBA? We have the same situation in the azalea society. People who can stick any plant into their dirt (sorry, soil) and have it grow well will likely buy more plants. People who stick them in and see the plants die in a year are convinced that they have a brown thumb and stop paying attention to greenery. Garden societies are filled with people who can stick a pencil in the ground and see a large pine there the next year. Self-selection. No one there wants to talk to me about the relative solubilities of calcium and magnesium. I'll just have to talk to myself (quietly, when no one's around ...)

      For years I've been trying to get my flower beds to look as good as those of other gardeners. An uncountable number of experiments, producing poorly growing plants and puzzling results, have finally lead to a satisfying collection that puts on a great display.

Stepping into the back yard on a nice spring morning I won't be hefting the cup of coffee that others will enjoy. I'll have a pickax on my shoulder, a bag of humus at my feet and stand tall as would Paul Bunyan. This “Dirt” is mine!

Fashion

Fashion

      As my shovel sinks into the resisting dirt, I glance down at my attire and smile, knowing that the famous designer Giorgio Armani is somewhere, looking down on me approvingly. Actually, as he isn't dead as of this writing, he could be up in one of the tall oaks, but it is hard to see among all of the leaves. [Random thought: if he died in Australia, would he be looking up at me?]

      OK, if reading the opening paragraph didn't make you believe that you had entered an alternate universe, then you haven't seen me sweating, digging, pushing a wheelbarrow and swatting biting insects.

      In this universe the first consideration is that I not get arrested due to my clothing. The second is that I not get eaten by bugs. The third is that I'm not too hot or cold. And the fourth is … uh … I don't know. I guess I don't give much consideration to garden fashion after all.

      For the first consideration, most of my body is usually covered due to the second and third considerations. My wife does get upset if she notices that my underpants start to ride high as my sweat-soaked long pants drift south, obedient to the law of gravity. But that's pretty rare (her noticing, that is).

       The second point, keeping the bugs from getting fat on me, involves several things:

a) Insect repellent, which I spray on liberally

b) Long white pants and a white long-sleeved shirt which makes it easier to see ticks attaching themselves. Also, the clothes reflect less long-waved radiation, making me less visible to mosquitoes.

c) A dense hat. Someone took away the hair on top of my head and I haven't been able to find it (my hair, not my head).

     On a side note, the only person to comment on my white-out appearance was a young girl who lives across the street. I gave her the answer in b) above and she seemed satisfied, though maybe anything I said would have ended the questioning.

Rumor has it that I am NOT getting one of these plaques.

 (c)Wikimedia Commons

      Due to the third point, maintaining a blissful temperature is almost impossible. During the summer my bug-armor keeps me dripping, but luckily I don't care. I clean up when I'm finished. Also, I'm rich enough to afford a washer/dryer and a shower. The winter is another story as gloves that keep me warm are usually too thick to work with, so sometimes the sessions have to be cut short when I can't feel my hands.

      There are some days in the spring and fall, though, when I don't need a long-sleeved shirt, or sweatshirt, or coat, or deep-sea diver's suit. Just an undershirt showing its age. When a new family moved in next door a few years ago they would look askance at this poorly dressed, sweat-soaked laborer digging holes, mixing dirt and hauling his wheelbarrow back and forth. My wife and I had considered putting up a fence along that property line but the sight of me convinced them to put one up. Now their backyard parties would not be ruined by the sight of a laborer, shuffling back and forth for hours in sweat soaked old clothes. So, what has my fashion done for me? It's saved me thousands of dollars in fence costs! Take that Giorgio Armani!

Companion Plants II – Heucheras

Companion Plants II – Heucheras

      You don't see companion plants at first. The trees and bushes are noticed when you turn a corner or look over your shoulder. It's when you walk to the edge of a bed that you point and say “Hey, look at that!”

      Your first thought when “companion plants” are mentioned is Hosta. Your second thought: Ferns. If there is a third thought let me suggest it be: Heucheras. Heucheras can scurry around between their larger neighbors, filling in gaps with different colors and forms. It must be considered a foliage plant as its flowers are so inconspicuous that you have to be a true heuchera fanatic to care.

      The above are companion plants for azaleas and rhododendrons because they enjoy the same acid soil/dappled shade conditions and are unlikely to damage the dominant plants when sharing a bed. I would keep them outside the dripline of each azalea, but if they snuggle closer then a problem is unlikely.

      I'll mention some I grow and let you chase down their pictures on the net as there is limited space here for their formal portraits. They don't all love my garden conditions and some struggle, smiling weakly like a fat guy shuffling through a marathon, saying they're fine when they're not.

      While heucheras grow worldwide, the US has two distinct regions which support different types. In the southeast, acidic clay-loam soils easily support the native Villosa type. The rockier alkaline soils of the west are home to smaller leafed plants. I've only managed to kill a few heucheras in my Northern Virginia garden, but they've all been among the small leafed, less aggressive varieties. They had put on a brave face for a short time but couldn't fake it forever.

Citronelle

 

      Growing well and outlining borders is the light green 'Citronelle' and the darker, tan-purple-green 'Caramel'. 'Citronelle' provides a bright contrast to the darker green surroundings of azaleas, trees and grass. 'Caramel' comes up a light tan in the spring with a purple underleaf which, like Marilyn Monroe's legs, displays in a wind gust. 'Caramel' turns greenish as the summer kicks into its hot gear. 'Obsidian' covers the other end of the dynamic range of light, a purple so dark it often looks black. A lighter purple is 'Palace Purple', a strong grower needing to be planted with space to stretch before elbowing into its neighbors. New to me is 'Dark Secret', a very dark purple with strongly ruffled edges. It might turn into a focal point in its bed. 'Southern Comfort' is a large leafed plant that seems really happy to be here, emerging reddish in the spring, changing to green with hints of tan.

Midnight Rose

      New to my garden last year was 'Midnight Rose' which has an unusual leaf. One of those plants that needs to be looked at closely: the dark purple leaf is streaked everywhere with light purple veining. An unusual combination. 'Tiramisu' was also new, coming up a bright tan and later turning green. Both of these plants were growing strongly by the end of the year.

Tiramisu

      Struggling ones I believe would be happier out west: 'Silver Scrolls' and 'Snow Angel', though if I had a sunnier location for them and a more neutral soil they might consent to thrive. Several very reddish heucheras have gone on to plant heaven, also known as the compost pile. 'Georgia Peach' comes to mind. Maybe it also needed more sun.

      Related to heucheras are Tiarellas. Advertised as “Foam Flowers”, the floral display briefly looks good, but their foliage is inferior to that of heucheras. 'Running Tapestry' does exactly that, running around the garden and invading other's space. I haven't torn it out but I might put it in prison.

      Heucheras have been bred with Tiarellas to create Heucherellas, recently given the name “Foamy Bells.” Unnecessarily confusing, but I don't sell plants. Maybe the confusion is commercial genius. Two that are doing well for me are 'Sweet Tea' and 'Alabama Sunrise'. 'Sweet Tea' has that familiar tan cast to its green base and 'Alabama Sunrise' is more greenish-yellow than anything else, but they both grow well.

Kassandra

      I am looking forward to the emergence of 'Kassandra', which I planted late last year and now shows tan leaves with excessively ruffled reddish-purple edges. Sometimes “excessive” is just enough.

      While you don't want a full bed of these uncommon plants, heucheras are great for contrast against the more pedestrian and dominant elements of your garden. Both for their coloring and leaf forms, they will draw you in for a closer look where you'll point and say “Hey, look at that!”

[ I bought and learned a lot from 'Heuchera, Tiarella and Heucherella, A gardener's guide, by Charles and Martha Oliver, B T Batsford Ltd., London, 2006 ]

Companion Plants

Companion Plants

      My mono-culture of azaleas looks great for a short time in the spring, but then appears as the definition of ordinary. Gardens need something else to carry them through, season by season. The dense shade of an oak-covered yard dictates a summer palette of subtle foliage, not blazing flowers.

      There were a few remnant hosta in the yard when I came up with the idea of watering the plants to keep them alive through the summer. An original idea of my own and described in painful detail elsewhere. So, the first thing I thought of when moving beyond azaleas were hosta. Initially the ones I bought kept trying to fool me. They changed color throughout the season. They grew larger than they were when I bought them. They flowered. They died. Just to be clear, not all the plants I bought died but there was a range of behaviors that made planning difficult (especially the dying part). Pictures in books, magazines and the net portrayed them at just one point in time (usually with flowers). And no holes. Mine had holes. Slugs? Insects? Falling sticks? Check, check and check. Over time I found some that were fine: 'Sum and Substance', 'Fire and Ice', 'Goodness Gracious' and 'City Lights' formed a backbone. Visiting other gardens gave me more ideas.

      Coming along with some gift azaleas, unbidden, were Lady Ferns. Maybe ferns would like the beds. 'Leather Wood Fern' and 'Autumn Fern' were large and held their presence. 'Christmas Fern' was too coarse as I decided that ferns should be feathery, but since I had a 'Christmas Fern' I kept it. The Lady Fern group, such as 'Lady In Red' and the original 'Lady Fern', couldn't stand Washington summers and so gave up, collapsing in a heap of disorganized stalks every time the season got droughty. They reappeared the next spring, though. 'Hay-scented Fern' looked feathery but was a bully, invading everyone else's space and requiring constant weeding.

      Somewhat less well known, and shorter, were Heucheras. They came in a variety of leaf shapes and colors (as long as you liked green, tan and purple). A few were red(...ish), with some imagination. Some had variegated leaves of silver and purple. The flowers were really insignificant, but they were going into a foliage bed with the hosta and ferns, so that didn't matter.

      Critters rarely took bites out of the heucheras, which made me curious. What did they taste like to be avoided by bugs and rabbits? OK, are the children out of the room? Yes? Then I'll tell you that I tasted them. Fibrous and bitter. Then I tasted the plantain in the lawn that rabbits considered candy. Still fibrous, though not as much, and with a strange aftertaste. Interesting. You can let the children back in the room now. “Children, don't eat the plants in the yard!”

Astilbe flowers L to R: 'Montgomery', 'Fanal', Chinensis

Background: Japanese Forest Grass, Heuchera 'Southern Comfort', Autumn Fern 'Brilliance'

      Gardeners suggested, and offered, a wide variety of other shade plants. Some are still sitting in their pots and getting antsy, frowning at me as I pass. Ones that have joined the party are hellebores (great in early spring), variegated Solomon's Seal (invasive), Bleeding Heart, Brunnera ('Jack Frost' would be a first choice), Poppy, Geranium (good in flower but may be crushing its neighbors), Astilbe (fine stalks of flowers for a short time), Anemone, Begonia (invasive), Japanese Forest Grass (only weakly invasive despite being a grass), Tiarella ('Foam Flower', nice in bloom but nothing special otherwise), Wood Aster (wildly invasive), Pulmonaria, Ligularia (like Pulmonaria, its spotted foliage is loved by some, hated by those who think it looks diseased), Bloodwort (dies back quickly after early spring) and Crosoganum (can't stand up well to competition; I may not have any left that haven't turned to compost).

      Now I've got to find space for the different species still on the outside looking in. Pots are like motel rooms, a terrible way to spend a life. More holes to dig, dirt to mix.

      The beds of herbaceous plants are now looking pretty good. Maybe they need some companion plants. How about azaleas?

Photography

Photography

      Through a hazy lens I remember how I started in photography: pulling a Radio Flyer wagon through suburban streets, looking for my prey: “little old ladies”. The advertisement in the back of the comic book said that if I sold enough “All Occasion Greeting Cards” I could win a kit which would allow me to develop the film from my Kodak Hawkeye and make prints at home. The wagon full of greeting card samples would come in handy when a “little old lady” answered the door, as they were more likely to give me an order than would men or younger women. It was a great bargain at $3. The fact that they were probably 20 years younger than I am now doesn't affect my memory of them or their designation. Surprisingly, I sold enough and got the kit, using it for several years. The beginning of a life-long enjoyment of photography. I still have the pictures.

      After getting married I wanted a “good” camera and a friend who was a professional photographer steered me to a want ad in the Washington Post. He checked out the camera with me and I bought it: a Pentax Spotmatic with an f/1.4 lens. After giving the seller a check for $100 I was urged to run for the car as the camera was a steal at that price! It was a fine camera giving me many good pictures. Until film died. Now the camera is a paper weight.

      Moving into the world of digital I joined a camera club and learned the rules of good photography: thirds, leading lines, curves, contrast, background and bokeh. Many people who know little about photography are able to casually quote those rules to me though I didn't know them before listening to lectures at the club.

      The last one, bokeh, is the rule that the background, and maybe the foreground, should be somewhat out of focus so that the subject in between would stand out sharply. All of the rules can be violated, of course, though bokeh only seems to be irrelevant when you show an expansive mountain range of dangerous peaks, or a city at night with multi-colored lights.

      And that's where I get into trouble. I try to create photos reflecting my garden's appearance to a viewer: some things seen close, some in the middle distance and some far away. No bokeh. I believe the plants should be viewed as part of a nice garden landscape, and that is the way all humans see it. Everything near and far is in focus to our eyes (due to the physics of a narrow pupil creating a high f-stop number).

      Photo contest judges want a single subject to look at, not a lot of items in the picture. No prize for me.

Me.  In the Garden.  I'm smiling.

      I take a lot of shots in April and May. While it is instructive to look back and see the year-to-year growth in the plants, the real reason for all the pictures is to view them in January and February. Suffering through the barren winter, it always seems impossible that the spring was so lush and colorful. It's almost as if it couldn't have happened!

      When you can't exactly remember how something, or someone, looked, the picture you took becomes the “truth”. Years later that picture is how your child looked, is how the garden looked and is how you looked (OMG!!)

      And maybe some people, including those “little old ladies”, will look at my pictures when posted on the net* by this man, once small and pulling a wagon but now 20 years older than those ladies were, and be happy that their $3 bought a lifetime of pleasure in photography.

- - - - - - - -

* Who knows what the future net will do to links, but you might be able to view my azalea garden as it appeared in 2015 by going to:

Azalea Garden 2015

Colors II

Colors II

      If flowers were black and white while grass stayed green, gardeners would spend their time clipping the blades of putting surfaces. Luckily, flowers look better.

      I often point out a bed to my visitors: “That's the Red Hill!” This raised bed is about 4” above my flat property. Varieties of red azaleas fill the space. Some lighter, some darker, some with a slight purplish cast. But red.

      Purple flowers are elsewhere, as are whites. The job of the latter is to keep clashing colors apart.

The light red blooms I call “pink”. The light purple ones I call “light purple”. A simple set of other colors completes my vocabulary.

Some colors I can identify from my garden yesterday: red, white, purple, pink.  That's enough.

      However, I've discovered a list of named colors on Wikipedia that goes a full spectrum beyond my personal list.

      So that we may all inflate our vocabulary, I am presenting to the gardeners of the world colors that will bring our descriptions to raging life. The late color expert Don Voss used the RHS color charts when he was registering hybrids but I don't think he ever chose any of the below.

     The list of names will not have any “translation” next to them. Sharpen your pencils and note the color that you think is close to the given ones. After this list will be my approximation of each.

1) Alien Armpit 2) Anti-flash White 3) Arsenic 4) Big Foot Feet 5) Booger Buster 6) Brown Nose 7) Caput Mortuum 8) Cool Black 9) Coquelicot 10) Dark Liver 11) Deep Koamau 12) Ecru 13) Feldgrau 14) Fuzzy Wuzzy

15) Hooker's Green 16) Mummy's Tomb 17) Ogre Odor 18) Sasquatch Socks 19) Zomp

      OK, put your pencils down and let's see how you did. The colors below are my vocabulary-limited opinion of the above:

1) Green 2) White 3) Black 4) Brown 5) Yellow 6) Brown 7) Brown 8) Blue 9) Red 10) Gray

11. Blue 12) Tan 13) Green 14) I have no idea 15) Green 16) Gray 17) Red 18) Purple 19) Green

      These colors are DRM free, lonely, lovable, desperate for a home and immediately available to any nursery whose previous advertising was written by the girl who comes in on Tuesdays.

      If you wish to have more precise definitions, including RGB values, begin at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colors:_A-F

      And for those of you who have followed my earlier essays: I still like red, though I'm looking for Big Foot Feet flowers that fit into a bed of Sasquatch Socks and have an Ogre Odor!

Critters IV

Critters IV

      I trod my yard as the master, deciding what goes where and who should be allowed. When a cat or fox is spotted I run after it, shrieking like a young girl and the trespasser retreats (more in confusion than fear). Rocks are saved to discourage the deer, but I can't say that I've ever actually hit one. And if I did, would the impact be noticed?

      Animals avoid being eaten by fleeing. While almost all experience suggests that wild animals will flee at the sight of a human, when they don't it is disconcerting, frightening, irritating, and a lot of other words that end in “ing”.

Will it charge, stand its ground or flee?

      An unnerving experience happened while birding in a nearby park. I came across a small herd of deer blocking my way. It was spring and there were fawns among them. Some bucks stood nearest me, staring and not moving. Backing away was suddenly the obvious next move. If they weren't going to flee then I was.

     Another time I gave up on a path in the woods that was being claimed by a fox. Maybe her baby was nearby.

     I remember a time when retreating was difficult. My wife and I were hiking on Chincoteague Island, moving along a narrow path of tall, very dense bushes when the path opened to a marsh full of ponies. The famous Chincoteague ponies! We were quiet, trying not to spook them. Then they started moving toward the end of the path. Then they started trotting up the path. Maybe 20 of them. These little ponies were each several hundred pounds of charging hoofs. They weren't going to eat us but they certainly weren't fleeing! Turning away we saw no immediate refuge. At the last minute we flung ourselves into the dense bushes as they galloped past in a cloud of dust (OK, “a cloud of dust” is a cliché, but that is what they were in). I think I still have some scratches from that decades old encounter with the bushes.

      Snorkeling in the Virgin Islands we came upon some scaly creatures with big eyes which found us worthy of investigation. I think I was nibbled by a Parrot Fish. Unexpected and unnerving.

      Which reminds me of that coyote that came trotting toward my wife and me in Yellowstone … but it veered off before making a lunch of us … clearly not interested in a confrontation … or even making us its midday snack.

      That brings me back to being the master of my yard. I may spend an hour or two puttering around, but who owns it for the other 22 hours of the day? And, why do my 2 hours count as being more relevant? And, as far as being the master, why do I retreat quickly when being dive bombed by mosquitoes and gnats, hungry for my blood and looking at me as simply meat on the hoof? Forget the horror story nonsense. Vampires do lurk in the midday sun! We all eat something. Why must I be the prey?

      So, maybe I'm not the master of my domain. I'll settle for “participant”, and that's good enough.

Critters III

Critters III

      We all eat something.

      What do azaleas eat? People often talk of fertilizing their plants but I never hear of plants “eating”. Your plant's breakfast is crucial to their happiness for the soil is their restaurant. 
 

      People won't talk about the end result of eating, excrement. At least not in mixed company. At least not in the US. But people extol the virtues of compost and humus, much of it the excrement from tiny creatures eating organic matter. Oxygen is another vital endproduct, produced by plants and required by animal life.

      { Major digression from the theme: I believe that talking to your house plants is good for them. Bend low so that you're staring the white flies and aphids in the face and tell your plants how they have the power to be whatever they wish! Oh, wait, that's for encouraging children. No, tell them that they have the power within themselves to grow as if they were in a rain-forest. Or, explain to them, kindly that they'd better start growing or you'll get violent! Either way carbon dioxide is pouring from your mouth, an ingredient that the plants slurp up in exchange for the release of oxygen. Win-win. And, while you're there, spray for the white flies. }

      People are squeamish about tiny bugs and bacteria, but a gardener will happily show you his compost pile, produced by those bugs and bacteria. And their dead bodies merge with the digested constituents of the fallen leaves creating black gold. If left alone for a while that compost becomes even more valuable as humus, a dense, slightly gelatinous pile of lignins (the tissue making woody plants “woody”), complex sugars and proteins. I've heard people described as “happy as pigs in slop” but if I then said they were as “happy as rhododendron tsutsutsi in humus” I would be banned from the bar.

      The fine nature writer Annie Dillard described leaning over a rocky ledge and seeing a snake below, sunning itself. With a mosquito perched on its nose, ready to dive into its midday snack. We all eat something.

      The plantain and dandelions in my lawn, loved by rabbits, eat the materials in the soil, much of which is naturally composted from whatever falls there.

      Caterpillars eat the leaves of almost everything, from spring to fall. Birds rely on those caterpillars through much of the year, though especially for their nestlings. 
 

      The stray cats, which I chase around the yard, look for the birds, squirrels and those rabbits.

      The foxes dig large holes in the compost pile and are delighted when they run into the cats, birds, squirrels and rabbits.

      The Red-tailed and Red-shouldered hawks that cruise through the trees would happily take any from that menu, though an adult fox would give them pause.

      The raccoons and possums hunt mice in the leaf litter. Those raccoons and possums are, in turn, hunted by cars, at least in my experience.

      The mice are themselves looking for worms, bugs and beetles. And the worms, bugs and beetles believe my compost is heaven. I thought it was really cool, once, to dig through the pile and come up with a Unicorn Beetle. Two inches long, including scary looking horns, but harmless to a huge, top of the food-chain being such as myself.

      Everything in the yard is eating something. What do I eat there? I snag a few wild blackberries, though I'm always late to the banquet. The squirrels and birds fill up first. Crab apples, wild cherries and a pear tree produce fruit in the late summer, but these volunteers are not among the commercial varieties and have very little flesh. Still, the taste is there.

      In the end, as most of you, I don't really want to kill and then gut my dinner, disposing of the bloody carcass in the back 40. I don't even have a back 40. I drive down the highway to the supermarket.

      My garden is a restaurant, currently enjoyed by millions of other life forms, and that's just fine!

Critters II

Critters II

      Less entertaining than the wildlife mentioned in the previous essay, “Critters”, are the deer, better known as “azalea parasites”. Repellents such as aluminum pie plates and motion sensor controlled noises have all been suggested by some and rejected by others. I haven't tried those myself.

    {{ I took this picture of an elk in Yellowstone NP on 7/7/14.  I don't have a picture of the Virginia Whitetails in my backyard that looks as good as this, so I'll display this one.}}

      The intruders force me to spend a ridiculous amount of money on “guaranteed” repellents. Strangely, unlike the snake oils of old, they sort of work. However …

      The local big-box stores have some spray-on repellents. Being water soluble, a significant rain requires that I reapply it. A decently long dry period must follow this reapplication. A continuing hassle.

      I did find a spray that worked for 3 months or more: dried blood. This entailed mixing in buckets of water and stirring until I was tired as the blood was flaky and tended to clot. The result was strained through cloth to prevent the sprayer from becoming clogged by the pieces that weren't well mixed in. Then something had to be done with the cloth which was covered with blood. Throwing it away was the only option. And always in the back of my mind was the chance that I could pick up some bovine disease and become mad as a cow.

      My friend Don Hyatt has taken rotten eggs and blended them with cayenne pepper before adding them to the water in the sprayer. He says that this works, but again is a real bother. The downside to anything linked to the word “bother” is that you will find all kinds of excuses to put it off. The deer herds in his suburban neighborhood have continually devastated what would have been a mature garden worthy of a public arboretum. You'll enjoy his website commentary:

www.donaldhyatt.com/garden.html

      For many years we never had any deer in our neighborhood, even after my interest in gardening provided them with a new food source. Then they appeared and began to prove themselves the dark destroyers. The first ones were eagerly photographed, while I was cautious not to scare them away. Now I run outside, screaming like a little child and waving my arms. If that is not sufficient I'll pick up some rocks, saved for their excellent throwing size, and pitch them. That usually provokes the monsters to move over to the next yard, slowly and proudly so that I wouldn't think that I was actually intimidating them. An 8 foot fence would shelter the garden. The 4 foot chain link that I have might as well be 1 foot high as their leaps over it are effortless. They should tryout for the NBA, or the ballet. And, no, I can't afford to surround the ½ acre with 8 foot fencing. Maybe I need to open a Kickstarter!

      Currently I'm trying two things to prevent the yard from being the marauder's fast food restaurant:

1. Cinnamon: My friend Norma recommended sprinkling it around and on the plants. Cinnamon seems to be somewhat rain-resistant and a reapplication every 2^nd or 3^rd shower may be sufficient. The spice is cheap enough when I go to a generic brand grocery where $1 will buy 5 oz.
2. A version of cattle guards: Rolls of wire fencing are sold in the big-box stores relatively inexpensively. I took the fencing featuring 2” x 3” holes, cut the rolls into 3' x 4' pieces (the exact size didn't matter) and laid them flat on the ground around the herbaceous plants favored by deer. Also, they are strategically scattered on some paths into the property. My theory, which is untested, is that their hoofs will get caught in the holes and the deer will become really irritated, do some deer-swearing and retreat.

      In the 3 summers and 2 winters of the test period with those 2 items I've had no damage to the daylilys or hosta. Also, the azaleas, which the deer go to in late winter when nothing better is available, have been unharmed. But, I've haven't seen many deer during this period so the cinnamon-cattle guard theory may be useless and I was just lucky. Haven't seen any elephants around here, either ...

      Unfortunately, my view on these large mammals is not shared by all. A friend 2 doors down puts out a salt lick so his family can watch the herds through the back picture window. Now, do you have some incisive advice I could give to him to prevent such awful behavior? No, I didn't think so.

Crittrers

Critters

      Most come by night, whereas I'm diurnal. We sometimes meet in that middle ground of dusk, as the Martians and the humans did in Ray Bradbury's “Martian Chronicles”.

      The back third of my suburban half-acre is kept as a small, wild woodland, to grow as it pleases. Except when it displeases me (think Poison Ivy). Mainly it belongs to the wild. Except for the giant mulch pile. Otherwise it's wild. Except for the pile of old pots. Of course, the woodland's really for the seedlings growing there by chance. Except for a small dumping ground of mixed and unmixed dirt. Otherwise the critters have the place to themselves.

      My son and I used to lie on the windshield of our car and watch the bats at dusk. Now, with white-nose fungus they've become rare, and my son is grown and living in another state.

      Once a Barred Owl flew in through the dusk and perched a little above me. But I was too big to eat and wouldn't have been tasty, so he flew off. As big as they are they're absolutely silent. It's lucky that I was looking in the direction he came from.

      Turning over a part of my mulch pile one afternoon, I glanced sideways and noticed a raccoon lying on top of a chain link fence about 10 yards away, head on its paws, watching me intently. I imagined him quoting the common joke: “Work fascinates me. I can sit and watch it for hours.” I might have been making it easier for him to dig into the pile and find a mouse nest, but that would be later when I would retreat for dinner.

      Possums wander through, but I don't see them as often as the raccoons. The possums scurry through the leaf litter and always seem to wish that they were somewhere else.

      Foxes run through, quickly and intently, always appearing to be late for something. Once, however, a mother and her 2 kits enjoyed a sunny morning chasing each other around the lawn near the picture window. I got a few quick photos, but they refused to pose. Also, despite my desires, sometimes an azalea would be in their way, so it simply had to be bowled over. I think that I once had that kind of energy but it's getting harder to remember.

      Years ago rabbits munched some Satsuki azaleas and I was irritated. But the rabbits which have come by the lawn in the last 2 summers have become the perfect guests. They eat only the weeds: plantain and clover, ignoring the hosta and heuchera. I sampled those items myself and can see why they made those choices. Maybe some other gardener trained them. A bunny-whisperer?

      The field mice in the leaf litter don't seem interested in munching the azaleas so we rarely interact; until they get into the shed in the winter. But that's a story for another time.

      Squirrels are the children of the yard. Diurnal. Hated and loved. They dig up small plants and leave them for dead (looking for the acorns buried the previous fall). One small plant lost its left half to a deranged squirrel that insisted on repeatedly doing back flips off its low branch until it broke (the branch unfortunately, not the squirrel). One never thinks of animals as being psycho, just people. Animals are supposed to be noble and do natural things. The French writer Rousseau celebrated naturalism in people and animals, but he didn't live to meet my squirrels. However, when their faint echoes of humanity have me focused at the window, time isn't passing.

      The garden is so much more than the azaleas that bloom in the spring. It is alive with bees, butterflies, ants, katydids, praying mantis' and dragonflies. I can spend the whole day there! Oh, and did I tell you about all the birds? Well, there's this irritating Red-bellied Woodpecker ...

                                                                                                       

The Senses

The Senses

      Everyone who creates a garden does so to achieve a certain look. Even if it's just a couple of azaleas by the steps of a townhouse, gardeners have something in mind and hope the plants grow into a hedge to be proud of.

      I seem to be slightly color blind so I'll never see the world exactly as others do. Building the palette of the landscape will match my view of the world. It always surprises me when someone walks through the yard and points out a flower they really like when it looks ordinary to me. I suspect that no one has perfect color vision and our preferences are dependent on what filters through to our brain.

      How about the other senses? We all like different foods, so we taste differently. Vegetable gardeners are trying to get better taste than they can get from the stores where “traveling well” and “storing for a long time” are more important than simple taste. Does a Kurume azalea flower taste better than a Southern Indian? Have you checked?

      For the last couple of years, rabbits have invaded my back lawn but left the ornamentals, including the herbaceous ones, alone. Why? I decided to do a taste test and found that the plantain the marauders were eating actually was better than the hosta and heuchera they weren't. Don't duplicate this test. The heucheras were really bitter. And the leaves need to be spit out after that enlightenment.

      Hearing? I once went on a nature walk along the north rim of the Grand Canyon and the Park Ranger asked us to be silent for a while, listening to the stillness. Then, beyond the serenity, to listen to the sound of the wind. And beyond the wind, to listen to it in different trees and bushes. They each had their own quality of sound: hissing, sighing and a lot of sounds we haven't created words for. Quite an experience which went beyond what I had done before. Surprising, in a satisfying way. Listen to the wind in your trees and bushes. Listen to the wind in the pines; it's different than through the oaks. Do the azaleas discuss the wind among themselves? With your eyes closed, focus on the aural effect of different parts of your garden. If your garden is simply the small front yard of a townhouse, local parks can give you that variety: Green Spring, Meadowlark, Brookside and the National Arboretum come to mind in the DC area.

      Touch? A branch snapping back and hitting me in the face is no fun. We'll skip that form of touch here. When I touch evergreen azaleas, they each are distinctive. Magnifica leaves are tacky. Hard to clean off my hands. Others, such as Delaware Valley White, have large, dull leaves, a little hairy and not sticky. The Kurume group show off small, waxy leaves. If you were dropped into your garden in an unknown place and put your hand on a plant, would you be able to make a good guess at which it is? OK, the thorny roses and hollies would announce themselves. But the others? I can't do that yet but I'd like to be able to sometime in the future. Beyond azaleas, run your hands over the bark of different varieties of oaks. The Red Oak group feels differently than the White Oak group. Maple trees? Red Maple trunks will not remind you of Snakebark Japanese Maples.

      Gardeners will look for scents in their ornamentals, unless the space is filled with evergreen azaleas which have almost no fragrance. Fragrance is a highlight of the deciduous azaleas. So many flowers have a distinctive odor that they are often bought for that alone. Consider a new experience: have you knelt in a patch of snow and mud, sniffing a tiny crocus? The fall crocuses have a slightly sweet smell and will be different than the spring versions. Remember to try that next March.

      I had a fantastic sense of smell when I was young. The world almost spoke to me in odors as much as hearing and touch. I remember walking down a crowded hallway in 8^th grade and knowing a lot of students and teachers by their “fragrance” as they passed. The lack of air conditioning back then made this easier. Nowadays, I guess you could know people by the smell of their brand of antiperspirant. Unfortunately, I had no real use for such a super-power (no one stuck an article of clothing against my nose, asking me to go running through the woods looking for a lost child) and that ability has now declined to the point where no one will make a comic book about my amazing gift. What it has done is to give me a different perspective on smells in the garden. Things that people like are usually overpowering and unpleasant, such as Paperwhites, Lilies and deciduous azaleas. The reverse is also true: evergreen azaleas are thought of as having no scent, but when I put my nose up to a flower (being careful not to get stung!) there is an odor and it is different than that of the neighboring variety. And the vegetation has an odor, even before a leaf is crushed and then sniffed. Our yards are full of scents.

      As noted with my ability to smell, our senses change over time. Some of us have worked so much with our hands that they are calloused and more insensitive to what we touch than the hands of others. Some of us can hear the high-pitched hiss of the wind in the trees or the top notes of some warblers. Others (often older, or into heavy metal) have lost the upper registers.

      The point of all the above? When we walk side-by-side into a garden, we aren't seeing, tasting hearing, touching or smelling the same world. I wonder what your world is like?

Curves

Curves

      Who could be upset by a flower bed with a straight edge?

      A long bed that was in the back yard when I bought my house had a straight edge, bordered in vertically placed granite stepping stones.

      When I needed more space for a few small plants I built a square extension on it, about 2' x 2'. This was greeted with horror by my wife who pointed out that the edges of beds had to be curves. OK, I bent to some more digging, as directed. And beds I built later were curved to avoid further unpleasantness.

      Formal gardens from the 18^th and 19^th centuries in the US and Britain seem to have an abundance of Euclidean Geometry: lots of straight lines and circles. Views through rectangular gates with semi-circular tops. Round fountains surrounded by round flower beds, surrounded by grass, all bordered by rectangular beds.

      The antithesis of formality is “naturalism”. A naturalistic garden climbs upward with almost no human geometry visible and it looks like nature “could” have made the garden that way, if it felt like making it attractive to humans. Of course, an attractive naturalistic garden takes as much planning as a formal one, but the design seems casual and almost accidental. I think of a formal garden with its boxwoods sheared into gumball shapes, a naturalistic garden almost unpruned but planted in interesting combinations and a professional landscaper's garden with lots of hardscape patios and paths.

      So, starting in 1995 with an almost-clean slate, what did I decide to do? I wanted the high-shade of the large oaks to dictate the plantings, so azaleas and hostas were the first thoughts (and 20 years later they still are a backbone). But which of the two themes should I follow (assuming that I would want the front, side and back yards to all follow the same plan)? I had enjoyed birding for many years, hiking through the wilds and my choice was easy.

     Strangely, there were still some ambiguities. I liked bordering some of the beds with granite stones. I think that they help maintain the moisture during the hot droughts which are our annual punishment. And granite looks natural. Except when it doesn't. The smooth curve of a “natural” looking bed, bordered smoothly with smooth granite stepping stones of similar size starts to look a little … umm … smooth. Formal?

      Part of the problem is that I, and maybe others, don't really have a plan when we start out. At the beginning we haven't read much or seen many gardens so the idea of a plan hasn't occurred. If I had a plan then it was to have a lot of large bushes completely covered in flowers (OK, over 20 years later that's STILL my plan, but maybe with some nuances …).

      After a couple of years of gardening we have read some articles (maybe books), visited gardener's gardens (as opposed to neighbor's gardens) and thought about what was possible with our combination of size, shade, soil and the view beyond. (View? Whenever I take a picture of my backyard I have to aim the camera so it doesn't encompass the toxic waste dump on one side or the oil refinery on the other.)

      So, after seeing some gardens that make you want to create a copy, there's a powerful urge to create a formal or naturalistic garden. Would you consider a hybrid? How about formal around the house and driveway and naturalistic around the edges. Could you have edges that don't look messy  when both sections are viewed? Would that be a grating juxtaposition or nice contrast?

      What would make you want to drift away from the house and check out the farther reaches of the yard? Some bright colors or unusual shapes can be inviting. And some companion plants for variety? Hostas, heucheras, hellebores, hydrangeas? And maybe some plants that DON'T begin with an 'H'? All just around the curve in the path …