Monday’s Muse

A very few of my garden books

“Now, thank God, everything is finished; perhaps there are still things to be done; there at the back the soil is like lead, and I rather wanted to transplant this centaurea, but peace be with you; the snow has already fallen. . . . Well then make a fire in my room; let the garden sleep under its iderdown of snow. It is good to think of other things as well; the table is full of books which we have not read, let’s do that; . . .”

Karel Capek in The Gardener’s Year: The Gardener’s December.

I am so late with my Monday Report that I have decided to be a little early for my Muse Day post.  On the actual December 1 you can visit Sweet Home and Garden Chicago where Carolyn gail hosts Muse Day and see which of the other muses are abroad.

I’ve shown only a few of my garden books in my husband’s and my shared office. Needless to say there are many others, in the Great Room and piled next to my bed. I am ready for this reading season. Now that I am ‘retired’ I don’t have to rush out in the morning and I treasure my early morning reading, especially when I have lit the fire, and the wind cannot chill me.

Helping me celebrate my second blogoversary on December 6, Storey Publishing and Liquid Fence are offering gifts to the winner of my lottery.  Leave a comment about a favorite book, or seed starting tip, and I might choose your name to win Nan Ondra’s book, The Perennial Care Manual which will become a favorite read, as well as two packages of CowPots, made of composted cow manure. 24 in all. The lottery will close at midnight on December 5, and I hope I will have many names entered.  Good luck to all.

The Brother Gardeners

The Brother Gardeners

Much has been written about the “Columbian Exchange,” which refers to the plants and animals (and diseases) that were exchanged between the Old World and the New once Columbus started ships regularly traveling across the Atlantic. The Old World owes a lot to the New, especially in an agricultural sense. Potatoes, corn, tomatoes, cocoa, pineapples and pumpkins and a dozen other crops traveled from the New World to the Old so successfully that everyone’s diet changed radically.

However, in addition to the food crops that traveled across the ocean, countless ornamental plants were also shipped from the colonies, as we were then, to London for dispersal to various beautiful estates. The men responsible for beginning this exchange were John Bartram, a Quaker farmer, amateur botanist and friend of Benjamin Franklin, in Pennsylvania and Peter Collinson, a successful Quaker businessman and a passionate gardener living in London, who was also an agent for Benjamin Franklin’s new subscription library.

The first book Collinson sent Franklin was about horticulture, because he hoped this hint would bring him some exotic Pennsylvania plants in exchange as a thank you. That didn’t happen and he finally had to ask for plants. Franklin was no plant hunter, but he eventually sent him the name of John Bartram. In 1734 Collinson collected the first two seed boxes that Bartram sent across the Atlantic; all the seeds were in good shape. Thus a four decade friendship began, resulting in a business for Bartram, and the planting of beautiful American forests and shrubberies on British estates.

The story of this friendship is told in The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obessession by Andrea Wulf (Knopf $35).

It is easy to understand how difficult it must have been to ship seeds and plants from Pennsylvania to London when the trip was so long and perilous. Finding a way to pack the seeds and cuttings so they would arrive in good shape and ready to be planted after a long sea journey was just one problem. Over the years, as war between France and England was declared in 1756, ships carrying Bartram’s boxes were lost to battles as well as to storms that might sink a ship.

Trees like the balsam fir and sugar maple had already made their way to Britain, but they remained very rare. Trees, shrubs and flowers that Bartram introduced to England included the river birch, Franklin tree (Franklinia alatamaha), witch hazel, sourwood tree, white pine, fringe tree, Hydrangea arborescens, mountain laurel, great laurel, sassafras, scarlet oak, goldenrod, Eastern hemlock, Phlox divaricata, as well as seeds and cuttings of plants that were already known in England, but not easily propagated.

Through Collinson and his contacts, Bartram and his boxes became well known in England. In 1765 King George III named him the King’s Botanist for North America and paid him a stipend until Bartram died in 1777. At the same time Bartram’s own garden continued to grow and became the first Botanic Garden in this country.

Wulf also describes the scientific and horticultural world of the time. One controversy of the day was plant taxonomy and nomenclature. There was little agreement about how to name plants, although botantists had tried to replace names like “welcome home husband though never so drunk” with Latin names. One of the horticultural experts, Philip Miller, preferred to call Magnolia grandiflora Magnolia foliis lanceolatis persistentibus, caule erecto arboreo, trying to include a description of every aspect of the tree.

The ultimate winner of this debate, although not without considerable reluctance on the part of many, was Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) of Sweden. He did not like long plant names because it became so difficult to communicate with other botanists, especially as so many new plants were being discovered. He wanted a single system and came up with a two word name for every plant. First would be the genus, like Magnolia, and a second word like grandiflora would denote the individual species. This binomial system was controversial because Linnaeus paid so much attention to the sexual parts of each plant, and discussing sex in this way offended many scientists.

The history of plant hunting, and plant politics, can be told through the naming of certain plants. Linnaeus named the Rudbekia for his teacher Olof Rudbeck, and the Kalmia or laurel for Pehr Kalm, who made an important plant hunting trip to North America. The Magnolia is named for Pierre Magnol “who invented the concept of plant families’ and Gardenia for the Scottish botanist, Alexander Garden.

Enmities played out in names as well. Linnaeus named a stinky weed Siegesbeckia for Johann Siegesbeck who criticized Linnaeus’ sexual classification system for many years. Since there was more than one such case, Linnaeus often found himself beleaguered with requests to have plants names changed.

Linnaeus himself chose a small pink woodland flower to bear his name, Linnaea, not because he was modest, but because he felt “forgotten and ignored.”

John Bartram did not achieve the fame of Johnny Appleseed, but his plant hunting and propagating changed the domestic landscape for gardeners here in what was soon to be the United States, and in the great botanic gardens and estates of England.

As Thanksgiving arrives I am remembering John Bartram and Peter Collinson and giving thanks for all the friendships that have grown in the garden throughout the years, and for the beautiful changes that have been wrought in our gardens because of those friendships.

Between the Rows  November 21, 2009

DON’T FORGET THE GIVEAWAY !  Leave a comment about a book you found especially useful and engaging, or your own seed starting tip and on December 6th I’ll choose one commenter at random to win Nan Ondra’s new book, The Perennial Care Manual and 2 boxes of CowPots.

Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden

Peggy Rockefeller hybrid tea rose

All those who think roses are finicky plants that require fussing and lots of chemical sprays for disease and bugs will be surprised when they visit the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) in the Bronx with its more than 3000 healthy roses.

Curator Peter Kukielski

            I visited the garden last week and spent an afternoon with the Curator, Peter Kukielski, the man who has supervised the renovation of the garden over the past three years, more than doubling the number of roses in the garden and choosing hardy, disease resistant roses making this is one of the most environmentally friendly rose gardens in the world.

            The rose garden, designed by Beatrix Farrand in 1916, but not completed until 1988 after decades of varying interest, is laid out in a sunny hollow. It is now enclosed by new metal trellising with three entries, intersecting paths and a graceful gazebo in the center. There were still large beds of turf so my first question was to ask Kukielski  how he fit so many more roses into the defined space.

            “I just made better use of the space, starting with planting the roses more closely together,” he said matter of factly. He also explained that he used the full depth of the beds which had not been done before. Even though a bed might be 14 feet deep, the roses were planted in a single row. Now the depth of the bed is filled with climbers along the trellis, generous shrubs in the middle of the bed and low growers in front along the path.

            We walked through the main entry where David Austin roses still bloomed on either side of us. “I wanted people to feel embraced by the roses and the garden when they entered,” Kukielski said smiling, and watching me to see if I felt the effect he had worked to create.

            “When I came, there were heritage roses growing by this entry, but they only bloom once a year. The rest of the time it was only green. Now the deep beds on either side of the main entrance are filled with David Austin hybrids which give a long season of bloom,” he said happily as he saw my own pleasure at the loveliness of the roses, even in early November.

            As we made our way to the North Entrance we came to a planting that included EarthKind roses. I have seen this label in nurseries, but had little idea of what it meant, thinking it was some marketing ploy. Kukielski explained that researchers at the Texas A&M University wanted to identify already existing roses with good flowers that were hardy and disease resistant, suitable for planting in sustainably managed gardens. “They chose roses they thought might have strong genes, planted them and watered them for one year. After that they gave them no care for nine years. In the tenth year they chose the first roses to get an EarthKind designation. More have been added since then,: Kukielski said.

            I was familiar with some of the EarthKind roses including KnockOut, The Fairy, New Dawn and Carefree Beauty which grow in my garden. Now I am thinking about which other EarthKind roses I can add.  The directions for EarthKind roses call only for compost and mulching.

            Kukielski said he was particularly interested in the EarthKind roses as well as the relatively new varieties introduced by the German hybridizer Kordes. This old company has been hybridizing for a century, but the newest generation to take over realized that sustainability was going to be important for success in the future. Their hybridizing efforts were to concentrate on disease resistant roses. One of the results is the Fairy Tale series including Kosmos, Cinderella and Brothers Grimm.

            Because New York state has new rules that make many of the chemicals previously used in growing roses illegal Kukuielski has a need, as well as a desire, to grow these new hybrids.

            No matter what variety he plants he said “we take careful strides now to be pro-active with our soils. . . .We do have a fertilization program that is tweaked again and again each and every year.  Primarily we use ‘Rose Tone’ 3 times a year.  I like this product because it is all organic and supplies all 16 essential nutrients.  We also supplement this with some foliar feeding using seaweed extracts, fish emulsions, Monty’s Joy Juice, and/or potassium silicate.  Next year we will be adding a product called Uncle Tom’s Rose Tonic from England.”

            Kukielski explained that the NYBG does have a compost pile and he uses “compost, manure, chopped leaves, and a product called ‘roots’” whenever a new plant is put in.  He also mulches with chopped leaves twice a year.

            Evaluation of each rose bush goes on all year. During my tour we met one of the many volunteers who help keep the garden in good condition. This volunteer was clutching a handful of evaluation forms and he was giving all aspects of the rose careful consideration. Was the foliage healthy? Was there leaf drop or insect damage? What was the condition of the flowers? Was there fragrance?

            I asked if he would give this small white rose a B- or B+ and he said he wished it were that easy.   After some discussion, and with a look at Kukielski, we agreed that a ‘high 7’ was a good mark. The rose will stay in the garden.

            That rose only got a 7, but my day with Peter Kukielski definitely rated a 10!

Between the Rows    November 14, 2009

My Blogaversary Giveaway

Now that Thanksgiving has been celebrated in riotous style (23 for dinner!) it is time to move on to the next celebration.

On December 6, 2007 I asked myself the question, as posed by another blog, whether I was too old to blog. The only way to find out was to begin the commonweeder.com, and I guess the answer is no, because I am still standing. Or kneeling, bending, stretching, digging, weeding, in the garden and sitting at the computer.

To help me celebrate this blogoversary two companies are giving YOU a present.  My very premiere post, coming during a very wintery season, was about a book, Green Thoughts by Eleanor Perenyi. The particular section was about the approach of two very different gardeners, E.F. Benson and Henry James to the same garden. I have written about many books since then including excellent volumes by Storey Publications who has given me The Perennial Care Manual, the newest book by our sister blogger Nan Ondra to Giveaway. I challenge you to come up with a question that Nan doesn’t answer in this useful and beautiful book with photos by Rob Cardillo.

CowPots

IN ADDITION! Liquid Fence is giving away two sets of CowPots. There is a box of 3 inch CowPots, and a box of 4 inch Cowpots that will give an extra boost to seed starting in the spring.  You see the number two is key in all these gifts. CowPots are a way to get our plants off to a good start, and avoid transplant shock because the seedling in its CowPot goes right into the garden where it will continue to nourish the seedling with its composted cow manure. Unlike peat pots, CowPots are made from an ever renewable resource!

Just leave a comment here and tell me what garden book you have most enjoyed or found especially useful OR the best seed starting tip you ever got.  On my blogoversary, December 6, I will draw the winning name. Once I have the winner’s home address I will put the book and CowPots in the mail. Then I will also announce a second Giveaway for the following week. A different book, and more CowPots.

Will She or Won’t She?

My Thanksgiving cactus has been budded for weeks and I thought she would be blooming right on time. But right on time is tomorrow!  I’m inviting her into the warm room of the house today.  I should have thought of that earlier.

There is no question that this calendar will prompt me to get everything done on time. This beautiful calendar prepared by the University of Massachusetts Extension Service has 12 gorgeous photos of plants, exotic, common and useful and tips about the timing of garden chores. There is room to write in some of your own reminders.

I like the first page of the calendar which lists attractive plants for pollinators at every season. Sometimes we forget that bees and other pollinators need shrubs and trees as well as the perennials that put in our gardens.

The calendar makes a great gift. To order go to www.umassgardencalendar.org or send $12 payable to UMass and mail to: Garden Calendar, c/o Mailrite, 78 River Road South, Putney, VT 05346.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Wildlife – There and Here

It was wild on the field in Ashburnam when our grandson, Ryan, and his team, the undefeated North Middlesex Wranglers, played for the state Pop Warner championship title.

And they won! The Wranglers are State Champs. Next weekend they go to the regional playoffs. Ryan has a pretty good grip on that amazing trophy. Great team and a great game. Ryan’s mom went wild cheering – and can barely speak today!  Yay Wranglers!  Good luck next weekend.

This porcupine has been lurking around the End of the Road for some time now. Our neighbor is careful when she walks her dog, and the UPS man stopped his truck to watch the porcupine, while the porcupine sat on a tree stump by the side of the road and watched him.

Porcupines are the second largest North American rodent. They can have 30,000 or more 3 inch quills which detach easily from their body, and easily into any attacker, or curious dog. Though they go in easily, porcupine quills are difficult and painful to remove because they are barbed. They cannot throw their quills, but Don’t Touch! Even if you should get that close to this slow moving animal.

 Fall is prime breeding season, but we have only seen this solitary porcupine. They are supposed to spend a lot of time in trees, but we have only seen porcupines on the ground, in the field, in the Sunken Garden, and this morning, underneath the Cottage Ornee. This has me nervous because porcupines like to eat green branches, twigs, and bark – and they just like to chew wood.  The Cottage is made of wood! They like canoe paddles, too.

Blossoms of the Fall

During the spring and summer most of look at the trees surrounding us and see a generally undifferentiated green. The tree foliage grows full and heavy; for the most part we don’t see the individual hues, or shapes.  That changes in the autumn.

            During the past few weeks I have been particularly aware of the changes in the trees, partly because of the color changes each hour with the fluctuation of sunlight and shadow. Then, each day the color and hue change as chlorophyll slowly drains away leaving unsuspected color that was there all the time.

            As the wind begins stripping trees of their foliage, the shape of each individual leaf becomes clear. There are those with lobed edges, others are serrated. Some are   round or heart shaped, others are oval or elongated, some grow in clusters and other are quite separate. So many individualities.

This year I am newly aware of the drama and beauty in the progression of the autumn, that isn’t appreciated fully when the TV weatherman reports on ‘peak’ foliage season, alerting watchers to the best and most brilliant panoramas that are waiting to be viewed, preferably in glowing sunlight.

            I have turned to an old book, Autumnal Leaves published in London in 1881, that I bought at a book sale years ago.  I could not resist the author’s name, Frances George Heath, but I  found a man so taken with the transience of foliage color:

            “The rich luxuriance . . . of every view,

            The mild and modest tint, the splendid hue,

            The temper’d harmony of various shades,

            Alas! Whose beauty at once and fades,”

that he filled his book with detailed descriptions of every type of leaf, and suggested the best places in England to take an autumnal ramble and admire the blossoming of fall.

Grove of Beech

            Here in New England so much attention is paid to the flaming maples that other trees get short shrift, yet this year it is the beech that has attracted my attention. The wooded road leading to my house is lined with many small beech trees. I have been amazed to watch the leaves of summer green metamorphose and gain sunny yellow stripings, shifting again until the golden leaves are only slightly marked with green, before the gold turns tawny and finally a dull dry brown. Heath noticed this characteristic detail, with “the veins being the last to give up the normal green hue.”

            When I moved to Greenfield in  1971 I was occasionally treated to dinner at the Copper Beech Inn. Henry (not yet my husband) and I would look out and admire the magnificent ancient beech tree with its dark leaves, more burgundy than copper. There is a housing development there now. I don’t know if the tree survives.

            Beech trees are noticeable and identifiable in the winter because they retain so many of their leaves. They are dry and brown, rustling in the winter squalls, but are not abscissed, or torn from the branch.  In the spring, new leaves push the old leaves off.

The term for this process is marcescense.

            While I am talking about new vocabulary words, I must mention that the ancients considered beech trees a symbol of the written word, and thus of learning and wisdom. In fact, before there was paper, thin beech boards were used to make books. Books allowed  knowledge to be passed from generation to generation. The Old English word boc and Old Norse word bok meant both beech and book. As a former librarian and reader I am happy to know about this connection between the trees in my landscape, and the books lining my shelves.

            The pagans considered the beech to be the Mother of the Woods and felt that she brought prosperity and wisdom. Part of that wisdom was the ability to keep an open mind and not be rigid in thought.

            Beech wood has other practical uses. Though without a decorative grain, it is used in furniture construction, flooring and plywood manufacture. As a hardwood it is as good a  firewood as the sugar maple and oak.

            Beech trees do produce small nuts, called beechnuts or beechmast. They are bitter, but edible and very nutritious. In Europe in the days when pig farming was a very different proposition from what it is today, pigs were allowed into the forests to eat the beechmast. Foraging pigs must have made quite a noise because one of the characteristics of beech leaves is their dryness. Of course lower levels of leaves in a beech grove will decay, but the upper leaves will remain dry and rustling.

            According to Heath, the dry leaves retain such resiliency that common people in Switzerland and France used to stuff their mattresses with beech leaves. In colonial times here in the United States we often used corn husks for mattresses, and I have to say that beech leaves sound less rough and more comfortable.

            As I drive along our roads in Heath I am amazed at the differing rate among the beeches and their changes in color, even when they are growing right next to each other. But no matter what phase of autumnal color they are showing off they are worth our attention and admiration. 

Between the Rows  November 7, 2009 

Christmastime is Wreathtime

The Greenfield Garden Club held its wreath-making workshop last evening at Chapley’s Garden in Deerfield. Linda Tyler knew what she was doing and helped all the rest of us who didn’t.

Chapleys provided all manner of greenery from blue spruce to euonymus, rose hips, pine cones and I don’t know what all – except that a lot of different and unique wreaths were being created all around me.

Karen Helbig and I were working side by side. She was a novice, like me, but somehow her result was more impressive than mine.

Karen was a good sport and took this photo of me, trying not to laugh or look too embarrassed.

I did get some good tips for improving my second wreath which I will form on a wire coathanger.

* Make a generous ‘hand’ of greenery, the handfuls of green branches that will be wired tightly, hand by hand around the wire form – or coathanger.  The ‘hands’ don’t have to be long, but they should include several small branches.

* Different types of greenery can be used in a single ‘hand’. The differing textures can make the wreath more interesting and attractive.

* You can use the greenery right side up, or occasionally turn a branch over for a contrast in color.

* Pine cones can have a wire twisted around the base of the cone, as low as possible, and these can be wired onto the wreath for decoration.

* Essential note: make sure you tie a colored string or ribbon around your finishing loop, or you will never find it again!

I’m so happy to be a member of the Greeenfield Garden Club, where I find friendship and information, and a way to provide service to the community. For more information about the club logon on to the website which includes beautiful photos from last year’s garden tour.

Truffle?!

Ted Watt has worked with the children of the Heath Elementary School for years, teaching them about the land and the world they live in. One of the blessings of the school landscape is a woodland where the childrren have studied the seasons and phases of life of many woodland creatures and plants.

On their most recent exploration of the woods they  found – drumroll please – a truffle. I know nothing about truffles, except that they are a kind of underground fungi, but I usually think of them being found by truffle digging pigs in the Perigord region of France.

Heath is no Perigord, and Ted is no pig, but somehow, he found a truffle, ‘the diamond of the kitchen’, so prized for haute cuisine.  I haven’t talked to him, but I wonder who takes possession of this rare culinary delight. Ted? The school cafeteria? Will the kids soon be lunching on risotto with leeks, shiitake mushrooms and truffles?

Firewood in Hawley

Firewood

For more wordlessness, logon to Wordless Wednesday.