No Stump Speech, Just Stump Me

One of the on-going discussion groups at the Talking Plant Flickr site has focused on that age-old gardening question, "What the hell is that plant?". Thanks to the page's moderator and TP's best friend Andy Carvin, we've had some interesting species pop up for identification now and again.

TP flickr member Live Now posted this to the stumped page to see what might turn up. The answer, with help from Mike in Oregon: the fluffy seedheads from our native western pasqueflower, Anemone occidentalis. Isn't it a hoot? The mountain in the background is the ever-spectacular Mt. Rainier, which I will go to my grave never being able to pronounce.

photo credit: Live Now

 

I expect you'll be seeing a lot more peculiar seed heads, fruits and unusual late-blooming flowers -- or perhaps you've got a file of stuff you're still wondering about -- in which case, consider this an invitation to post your unidenfied flora and if I can't figure it out, no doubt one of our community can.

You can either post your pix here (with a few useful hints, please!, like location and season pix was taken) or send me an e-mail with jpg attached and again, as much info as you can recall.

OFFER IS LIMITED, PLANT GEEKS STANDING BY...

11:26 AM ET | 08-27-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

Your Views On Plants

As summer marches on, our legions of Talking Plants Flickr Pix members continue to document moments in both their own and in other peoples' gardens. Most folks are enamoured with macro shots so we've got a lot of sexy plant porn, but I've also noticed some nice one-word captions that help transform a pix into a story. And I do like stories.

Once TP regular Blathanna called this, "Hanging On", her photograph took on a poignancy that reminded me of a much-loved piece of art on my own wall. It's a charcoal drawing of an elephant in a fanciful kind of harnass, hanging mid-air; I wasn't sure why it spoke to me till I saw the title, "Reluctant Departure". Then, I cried. Turned out the artist Christine Bourdette created it during the last days in the life of her beloved dog. Does "Hanging On" speak to you?

photo credit: Blathanna

 

Another recent post by a TP photographer I'm less familiar with, djFargo, gained a little something with the addition of a title. It's a good picture of a moment in time that takes place every year, every place, coast to coast -- but with little fanfare.

"Awakening" may not be a new take on emerging buds, but the title did make me take a second look. With a little imagination -- and whatever else gets you through the night -- you can see the slow-mo unfolding and awakening sepals yawning on a brand new day.

photo credit: djFargo

 

OK, enough with the corny stuff. Thanks to the more than 400 of you! who are playing in our Flickr pool. I would enjoy getting a wider perspective on your growing, ageing, drying or dying garden. As always, all stages of beauty and decay are welcome here.

11:04 AM ET | 08-26-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

Major American Nursery Headed For Obits

Flappers were all the rage when Hines Nursery first opened its doors. That was a whole lot of management decisions ago. Looks like the octogenarian brand may not weather its last one; Hines Nurseries has filed for bankruptcy.

Though no one likes to see good people lose jobs, I did get some perspective on the bright side of the huge wholesale nursery's failure from The Blogging Nurseryman, the blog of California nursery owner, Trey Pitsenberger.

Evidentally, over the last year, Hines employees have been leaving comments on his blog about what's going on in their company. The bottom line? In turning its back on local nurseries and selling out to big box stores, the nursery got what it deserved.

"I know that at Home Depot," Pitsenberger wrote, "vendors like Hines don't get paid until the product is sold at the retail level. If the plants remain unsold for any reason, Home Depot does not pay. Considering the care plants receive at my local Home Depot I am not surprised that there are many unsold plants."

Perusing the comments on his site, Roger Dodger - who clearly works in the field - wrote this:

"Wake Up Call here people, STAY AWAY from the BOX stores if you want to stay in the business. Make those one-on-one relationships with the Indy folks, grow what they want and sell it at a price that they can also make a profit".

I haven't gotten into the nursery business much in this blog, but being a long supporter of both independent and niche nurseries, I ain't shedding tears.

11:01 AM ET | 08-25-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Fear of Pruning

Pruning. It strikes a certain terror in those of us who love our plants and can't face doing anything that might harm, disfigure or discourage them. You know who you are. Funny, though, I never thought I was one of you until I hit a brick wall concerning my sorely overgrown manzanita.

Behold the glorious manzanita in question, a selection of Arctostaphylos pajaroensis with armies of pink flowers in early spring, wondrous year-round foliage and rich mahogany-colored bark. Of course you can't see the bark here, nor can you safely walk down the sidewalk, both reasons why I had to admit powerlessness and submit to the higher power of talented friends. (That's Geof Beasley, I took you to his garden party a few weeks ago.)

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

With a big party of my own coming up this Labor Day Wkend, I knew it was time to tackle my exuberantly happy plant. Note that I didn't obsess over whether it was the right time of year to prune it; I've long gotten over that. Instead, I was taught years ago that the best time to prune a plant is when you're standing in front of it with clippers in your hand. Otherwise, the seasons roll by and the years roll by and before you know it the plant's so out of scale that all you're left with is the most drastic option. File under do what I say, etc....

Meet the team: Geof, Kate Bryant and Len Porter. All three are plant nerds with excellent senses of humor which also enable them to survive clients as professional gardeners and garden designers.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

The crew assembled two days ago during an uncharacteristically rainy summer day (I am not being facetious). The four of us discussed our options, everyone voting for their approach of choice. Ultimately, all our opinions came into play and we let loose on this wonderful specimen that -- none could deny -- had to be lassoed, even if the result (gulp) might be loss of life. Not immediately, but I'm aware it could happen, which is exactly the kind of trouble you can get into when you put off regular pruning.

Talk about a makeover team. We've got three very different approaches going on here which you'd think would be a recipe for disaster. But every couple of minutes -- particularly when I screamed, Wait! Stop! -- the team stepped back, observed, walked around the shrub, reassessed and again had at it. Kate did take a picture of me but the very obvious word coming out of my mouth is not for prime time.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine

 

Now don't expect to be wowed by the "After" shot; truth is, after two hours of four people pruning both this and several other shrubs, my garden actually looks relatively untouched. That gives you some idea of how exuberant it's become this summer, and as readers of this blog know, there's a good reason: the call of the wildflowers. No regrets here.

Hard to believe, but a lot of wood came out of this shrub. The inside has been considered opened up (the bark is now visible), the sidewalk is safer, and the long-term plan is for it to grow up and over, not straight out. More pruning will be needed next year. photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Now for an invitation you do NOT want to turn down: if you're concerned about what/what not to prune right now, operators with answers are standing by...

1:17 PM ET | 08-22-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post

Xeriscaping Still Gets Bad Rap

Yet again, the art of landscaping with minimal watering takes a hit. In a lushly photographed New York Times article with the yummy title, A Sustainability That Aims To Seduce, author Stephen Orr paraphrases (note emphasis) a few landscape architects as suggesting that xeriscaping can result in "dusty summer yards full of scrappy native species".

I'm not bashing the landscape architects or Orr, per se. The article's thesis is that even people who can afford hiring landscape architects are increasingly environmentally sensitive, and even landscape architects (long-maligned for their lack of expertise/imagination in using plants) are integrating xeric principles and celebration of place into their designs.

What gets me is the lack of acknowledgement that the days of "scrappy native species" are also over. These days, people who love plants and live in hot, dry areas now have unbelievable choices. It's a revolution in gardenworthy species that began in New Mexico with David Salman's High Country Gardeners, and continues around the country and the world.

It's a solid-enough article for the NYT, but if you're not among the privileged and the monied -- who often seem to lack the great, good sense that they have to share the planet -- this last quote may stick in your throat.

... the message of conservation and environmental responsibility cannot be couched in punitive terms if it is to succeed. "People shouldn't have to make a choice between beauty and sustainability," Ms. Cochran said. "Our work is designed so that I am able to say to our clients during a presentation, 'Oh, and by the way, its also sustainable.' "

11:25 AM ET | 08-21-2008 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post

Cold Water, Happy Salmon and Hungry Deer

Lying in a mountain river on a 100 degree day turns out to an excellent reason to live. Who knew? The secret is long underwear, fleece and a well-fitted dry suit. The ability to think or swim are optional.

Meet my guide into the glories of mountain rivers, Mary Edwards, who is executing a difficult maneuver known as letting it all go. Mary had indeed put in an arduous day, photographing often elusive salmon in eastern Oregon's Lostine River.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I don't have much to say about the aquatic plants in the Lostine River. Didn't see anything that turned my head. Admittedly, the competition was stiff: sunlit pools, bright orange stones, bubbles of clear blue water. Oh, and the reason we went to the Lostine River: spawning salmon.

No, those are not big dogs, those are little does who are standard issue in the front yards of the botanically-challenged residents of Joseph, OR.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine

I have lots of great tape and a few darn good pix from my recent visit with fish biologist Mary Edwards, gathered for a Morning Edition story you'll get to hear in the next few weeks. But I've little to feed your appetite for tales of chlorophyllic glory, since it was just too hot to hike.

However, I did snap this wee pix outside Mary's house in Joseph, OR., where she does her best to grow flora despite the fauna.

Dare I even invite response on the subject of gardening with deer? You game?

8:25 PM ET | 08-19-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

Chasing A Story In The Wallowa Mountains

I'm about 300 miles east of where I was when last we met. I have left the gardenesque Pacific Northwest behind. I'm now in the Wallowa Mountains of eastern Oregon, where the rolling hills and valleys are the color of parchment (unless under cultivation) and the chocolate brown mountains are naked of snow.

I am crazy for this landscape. The sky is huge. Sitting in a restaurant chilling out earlier this evening, I came across a description of this sky in the book I'm reading, The Prairie Keepers by Marcy Houle. (More about the book, and the Zumwalt Prairie it describes, another time).

"The blue sky, with a clarity found only in alpine regions, arched like a blanket thrown over the tops of the mountains and held taut at the horizon of the grassland."

When I was last here in June, it was to hike and see wildflowers (they were admittedly ho hum but in a setting like this, a handful of lupines and a paintbrush is almost over the top). While here, I met a fish biologist and photographer named Mary Edwards.

Turns out, come August, Mary dons a dry suit, packs up her underwater equipment and spends the day suspended in the shallows of the Lostine River shooting salmon.

A juvenile salmon, either steelhead or chinook, photographed this time last year by Mary Edwards in eastern Oregon's Lostine River. We're hoping to see big, I mean BIG, 3' long salmon tomorrow, spotted and golden brown, in river pools anywhere from from 2' to 10' deep.

Mary Edwards

 

So August's here and I'm back, this time to do a Morning Edition story about Mary and her work. We'll be spending tomorrow together in 50 to 60-degree Wallowa Mountain river water dressed in the insulated equivalent of a plastic bag, underneath which we'll both be wearing layers and layers of warm clothes (not to worry, Mom).

I live for stories like this.

And if all goes well, I'll be heading up into the mountains over the weekend, for another look at what might be blooming in this ruggedly beautiful back-of-beyond.

Stay tuned! and have a wet hot summer weekend.

10:31 AM ET | 08-15-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

Eat Your Words

It all started with this quote:

Let my words, like vegetables, be tender and sweet, for tomorrow I may have to eat them.

Looking for some attribution a bit more satisfying than "Anonymous," I started wandering far and near, until I ended up visiting the Yorkshire, England, home of the online-only World Carrot Museum.

I offer this destination to all you gardeners who are finding the weather joyless and the summer garden desolate (Hello, Austin!) hoping you will find some joy in the exhibit Carrots in Literature (from Shakespeare to Shel Silverstein) or if not there, perhaps in the idiosyncratic gallery featuring Carrots in Works of Art.

Carrots are the new biscuits in our house, a recent if not entirely welcome switch after I got fed up feeding the beagle ludicrously expensive treats she invariably inhaled without so much of a thanks.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

For further pseudo-gardening inspiration, check out the recently unveiled Urban Trees 5 exhibit now standing fanciful and bizarre along the San Diego North Embarcadaro (click on the first thumbnail and scroll on through). Here's some background on this on-going Port of San Diego public arts project.

9:00 PM ET | 08-13-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Mr. American Horticulture Redux

Before I overwhelm you with the deep purple and mandarin orange of the promised bromeliad in Dan Hinkley's garden, let me show you how he uses more accessible plants in show-stopping ways.

To pull off a composition like this, you do need to be in a temperate zone where phormium (New Zealand flax) and hardy fuschia winter over most of the time. Sorry to tease if that's not the case. But look how DJH uses the two different phormium species to electrify thess fans of foliage, then picks up the pink-edged swords with a jewel-encrusted fuschia. In the background, right, you can see the feathers of that nasty California invasive, pampas grass (Dan is unapologetic about using it in his colder climate). As for that dash of baby blue in the background, well, you're going to need to garden on a bluff with a limitless expanse of sky.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

While we're looking at spikey foliage, get a gander of this seemingly simple moment, which in fact is a complex combo of color, size and shape. And genera, of course, but in any DJH garden, that is the name of the game. His plants are far from merely decorative; each tells a story from his incredibly rich and adventurous life (despite the fact that he claims he'd rather be home with Robert and the dogs. Ha!).

From left to right, you're looking at Trachycarpus takil, the Kumaon fan palm; Butia capitata, the pindo palm; and a young specimen of the Texas native, Yucca thompsoniana. That's just what's jumping out at us, who knows what lies beneath, above and beyond.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

ALRIGHT! No more dawdling. Here is the plant that stole my heart during my unreasonably brief visit to the maestro's garden in Indianola, Wash.: Dyckia 'Cherry Coke'.

You're going to have to ignore the succulent and the moss not to mention the boulder they're growing on in order to focus on this "hardy" bromeliad (that is, to 20 degrees Fahrenheit). Look down at its feet and behold blades of deep dark black/burgundy foliage; almost like black mondo grass in this pix. Dan acquired his seed from Yucca Do Nursery but who knows if they've still got this particular hybrid. To learn more about the genus dyckia, check out the Bromeliad Society of Houston.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I better get this thing posted so all I've left to say is thank you, Mr. Hinkley, for setting the bar so ridiculously high, that I need never worry about being worthy. I am but a humble worm.

It took me about twenty shots to get "Cherry Coke" in focus, but I do believe this photograph does her justice. I just may risk growing her -- or one of the other dark-foliage dyckia hybrids -- in my new hotspot of a courtyard, if only to experience one season's pleasure of seeing her bloom against my orange house. I'd be obliged if any of you could tell me how to keep her happy.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

2:19 PM ET | 08-12-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

Mr. American Horticulture

No doubt there are a whole lot of crowns he'd rather wear -- a whole lot of sequined costumes, too -- but once you've won most of the awards in your field plus won over all the people, not one of whom (damn it all) has an unadoring thing to say about you, it's time to ascend the throne and wave to all the little people.

Meet Dan Hinkley, as he's never been seen before.

Lest you think I jest, be assured, I most certainly do. Not about the man's talents or achievements, just about his fame. Dan himself is easily the most uncomfortable about it -- he is, after all, just a gardener in ugly pajamas who stoops to weed -- yet it's his very modesty that is an enormous part of his charm. In the foreground, flowers from the infinitely more graceful South African bulb, Dierama.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I have no intention of being "fair and balanced" about DJH. Not after a dozen years of seriously irreverent friendship. It's hard enough having a friend who is absurdly talented and internationally feted; imagine how it pains me to have to share him with Martha.

Anyway, the reason for this post (the same reason as hers, alas) is that I'm just back from a 12-hour overnight stay at Dan and partner Bob's home in Indianola, Wash. (From Portland, figure a round trip drive of 10 hours.) Why a 12-hour stay, you ask? Why not 18 or 24? Well, you see, being such a good friend, I am simply grateful for the few waking hours we had together, before I was bodily removed from the house and chauffeured to the ferry before the arrival of the higher-ranking, European, 48-hour guests.

But hey, look what I saw:

Dan's full sun, windswept garden has a lot of DJH signature moments, such as this "blueaceous" combination of the South African genus, Agapanthus (left; no idea which cultivar) and a selection of the so-called Chilean potato tree, Solanum crispum 'Glesnevin' .

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

There's just no end to the list of different species Dan's introduced to horticulture in his nearly two decades as a force in the plant world (not counting his years before that teaching). Thousands have been grown from the seeds he's collected on plant-hunting expeditions in the temperate world; thousands more were existing but little-known plants he popularized during his years as a nurseryman. I still have notebooks filled with the Latin names of plants I first encountered and fell in love with at his previous home with its vast, magical woodland garden.

Now he's worshipping the sun.

Mid-summer in the garden is total exuberance. In the foreground is a species gladiolus (that means it's unimproved, looking just as it does in its South African home). The upright red panicles behind it belong to the perennial, Lobelia tupa. More blue agapanthus in the background and behind that, well, I forgot to ask.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I'm looking forward to blowing your mind with tomorrow's entry about Dan's purple-leaved, tangerine-flowered HARDY bromeliad ... and I've got the pictures to prove it.

11:00 PM ET | 08-11-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post