Who Makes the Bridge of Flowers Bloom? Carol DeLorenzo

The Bridge of Flowers in May

For the past 12 years Carol DeLorenzo has been the guiding vision behind the changing bloom seasons on the Bridge of Flowers. However, she didn’t start her professional life thinking about flowers.

“After I graduated from the College of the Atlantic, I got a fellowship that allowed me to spend a year traveling around the world, focusing on agricultural issues. When I returned to the United States I got a job as co-manager of a community based farm. I was all about turnips and rutabagas, “ she said. But the farm included a pick-your-own flowers operation. “It was there I learned the value of flowers in people’s lives. I also saw that a flower garden draws people’s attention to the plants.”

After five years she left the farm and worked for landscapers in the Boston suburbs and eventually began her own landscaping company. When she was pregnant with her first child they moved to Shelburne Falls where friends rented them a house. “We never looked back after we got to the Falls,” she said. “It seemed like a natural progression that led me to a town with a Bridge of Flowers.”

Of course DeLorenzo was busy for a while with that new baby, and settling into a new town. Then, after about two years, she saw a notice that the Bridge of Flowers was looking for a new head gardener and applied for the 20 hour a week position. Soon she saw there was too much work for 20 hours and asked for an assistant. With an assistant hired the schedule was altered so that they both work 15 hours a week, more or less, depending  on the season. “It is a great way to be in the community and very satisfying to garden for thousands of people,” she said. She also stressed that it takes the work of the volunteers of the Flower Brigade to keep the Bridge looking so fine.

What impresses me about the Bridge of Flowers is the number of plants that come into bloom between April and through October. First there are bulbs, blooming trees, and bunches of pansies and Johnny jump ups. There are also native wildflowers like bloodroot, and trillium. Flowering shrubs like azaleas, fothergilla and viburnam take their turn. By the end of May the Bridge is a miracle of bloom with dozens of perennials and roses, right through to dahlia and chrysanthemum season.

Carol DeLorenzo

“Keeping the garden in full bloom is an ongoing journey and puzzle,” DeLorenzo said. “That’s where I get my satisfaction. I get to make art with plants. I’m out on the Bridge, looking at the plants, and wonder what it would be like to do this or that. And then I try it. When it works it is very satisfying.  Nothing is permanent. If a particular vignette isn’t working I change it.”

I asked DeLorenzo how she managed to fit all those plants in such a limited space. “Bulbs are planted usually 2–4 inches down all through the length of the borders, into the roots of other plants. I am always root pruning shrubs so I have soil space for bulbs and other plants, but root pruning also controls the size of the shrub,” she said.

She added that “Possibly as much of 40 percent of the flowers are annuals. That is the only way to have constant bloom. The annuals provide insurance, in case some  of the perennials have a bad year.  But not every inch has to be in bloom every minute. If there is a short green section the eye moves on to the next colorful feature.,” she said.

DeLorenzo said her interest is in organic gardening, but the Bridge is not totally organic. She spreads an organic fertilizer in the spring and top dresses with compost. Annuals are very heavy feeders. I fertilize annuals about twice over the course of the season and use seaweed, fish emulsion and water soluble fertilizers like Peter’s.

“This garden doesn’t feed anyone, the emphasis is on bloom so I  do use slug bait and neem soil and Pyola, a pyrethrum oil. We have lots of bugs that want to eat our plants, including rose chafers, but not too many Japanese beetles.  We’ve put out praying mantis cases, but that is mostly for the fun,” she said.

Visitors to the Bridge this year will notice the absence of the four big crabapples. They have been replaced with new trees, a Cherokee Princess dogwood, Prairie Fire crabapple, golden chain tree, Seven Sons tree and a Chinese fringe tree, joining the many other blooming trees and shrubs.

When I asked for advice for the new gardener she was quick to say, “Start small. Let your garden grow naturally. Start at your doorstep and have fun. Too big a garden can be overwhelming and discouraging. Remember, gardening is just one way of interacting with nature.”

Between the Rows   May 12,2013

Awesome Annuals for the Garden

Angelonia Serenita Mix courtesy of National Garden Bureau

If you have a flower garden, chances are you grow a few annuals. For a while perennials were the fashionable family and annuals were almost forgotten. At least they were forgotten in conversation and garden articles, but to keep a garden in bloom from spring into fall annuals are essential. Each perennial will bloom for its three or four week period, but an annual will bloom all summer.

It is no wonder that some of our favorite plants are annuals: marigolds, zinnias, nasturtiums, cosmos, lobelia, lantana and verbena and calendula as well as vining plants like sweet peas and morning glories. These plants are all familiar, and yet there are new forms and colors almost every year.

Recently I visited LaSalle’s Florist in Whately and saw that the beautiful bright blue lobelia that I love is also available in a raspberry pink, white, and a pale, delicate blue.  How to choose?

Renee’s Garden Seeds are sold locally and this company is especially known for its sweet peas. ‘April in Paris’ is a modern sweet pea but old fashioned fragrance has been wed to the large creamy yellow flowers, while ‘Color Palette Cupid’ is a mixture of pale pastel flowers borne on short vining stems that make it perfect for a container. Among the 27 varieties are “Royal Wedding’ an antique white sweet pea, and the pink and red ‘Painted Lady’ which was the first named sweet pea cultivar.

I love zinnias. There are short Tom Thumb zinnias with neat little blossoms, and tall shaggy ‘Raggedy Ann’ zinnias, both in a paintbox full of colors. There are also two unique zinnias ‘Green Envy’ which provides the pale green flower that flower arrangers love, and “Polar Bear’ a white zinnia. White is a very unusual color for zinnias and marigolds.

Three of the newer annuals, at least new to me, are the calibrachoa or million bells, angelonias and gomphrenas. Most familiar may be the calibrachoas which have been very popular for hanging baskets and containers because of the interesting colors of the flowers and their graceful habit. Proven Winners has a whole garden full of color in their Superbells series. Among others there is a trailing white, trailing deep blue and a trailing rose. I particularly like ‘Blackberry Punch’ with rich purple/magenta petals around a golden heart.  You will find a large array of Superbells, and millions bells plants in local garden centers and they are great container plants.

Last year I grew angelonia for the first time, but it will not be the last time. I grew a fragrant purple variety, but it also comes in pink and white. It is sometimes called a summer snapdragon, but the flowers are smaller on a one to two foot spire and the bloom period is much longer. No deadheading required. It looks delicate, but loves hot sunny locations, attracts butterflies and is drought tolerant.

I also grew gomphrena or globe amaranth last year. This is another easy annual with clover-like flowers, actually bracts surrounding insignificant flowers , that attracts butterflies and is also drought tolerant once it is established. It can grow to 24 inches and is available in pink, purple and a bright red. It blooms all summer and then dries well for autumnal flower arrangements.

Petunias are a standard summer annual that have been hybridized in wonderful new ways. There are double flowers, and stripey flowers and flowers that are ‘self-cleaning; which means they don’t have to be deadheaded to remain in bloom. ‘Wave’ and ‘Supertunia’ are petunias that are self-cleaning which makes them especially useful for locations where they can’t easily be deadheaded, or for gardeners who really don’t understand deadheading

All blooming annuals need full sun. I find I am paying attention to whether a plant is drought tolerant because I cannot water my ornamental gardens. Since I have a well, the water is too precious during a dry period to spend it on flowers, although I water my vegetables as well as I can.

If you use containers for your annual plantings, as many do, you must remember to water them regularly. Containers dry out very quickly. Terra cotta pots dry out most quickly, but even plastic and resin containers dry out because the plants are always breathing and lose moisture through their respiration, not to mention hot summer breezes blowing across the container. Don’t forget a regular fertilizing schedule to keep them nourished.

As suitable as they are for containers, alone or in combination with other plants, annuals also have an important place in the flower border. They can even be used as a border. Low growing zinnias, marigolds, gomphrena or petunias can provide a wonderfully floriferous edging.

Annuals can also be used among perennials and shrubs for color. Tall cosmos are really wonderful in the garden, and have plenty of blossoms to spare for cutting.

Some people have room to plant a couple of rows of annuals to be used specifically for cutting and bouquet making. This way they don’t have to worry about denuding the garden in order to have flowers for the house, or to for gifts.

As many of you know, impatiens plants have been struck by a persistent downy mildew fungus, and will be hard to find at garden centers. Other annuals that can take their place in the shade include New Guinea impatiens, Sunpatiens, torenia, angelonia, and ivy geraniums,

Between the Rows  May 4, 2012

Daffodils, Daffodils, Daffodils

A daffodil assortment under the lilac

All of a sudden this year I realize I have lots of daffodils, and lots of kind of daffodils.  I thought I could try to identify some using the Brent and Becky’s Bulbs catalog, where I bought many of the daffodils, but that system is not working. Some of my daffodils will not bloom until later in the month.

Daffodils

Do I know all the variety names? No.

Daffodils

Tiny Daffodils

Miniature daffodils

I can’t identify the ‘weed’ in my flowery mead of a lawn either.

Van Sion Daffodil

I can tell you that the Van Sion heritage daffodils were growing here at the end of the road when we moved here.

For more Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.

Spring Chores in the Garden

It is time to begin spring chores. But exactly how do we know when spring is beginning? A tough question. The only sure answer is that it did not begin on March 20 this year when the temperature was 16 degrees at 7 in the morning and remained cold and cloudy all day.

It was a very different story last year when the snowdrops were in full bloom and my first temperature record was 54 degrees with sun. The first day of spring 2012 led us into several warm days that had me planting lettuce, radishes and beets in the Early Garden in front of the house. I also started working in the main fenced garden, but this year I hadn’t even tried trudging through the snow to the main garden until April 7^th..

As far as I can tell from my records the last frost last year was April 6. Amazing. There were cold and chilly days after that, to be sure, but my temperature readings, usually taken around 7 a.m., do not go below 30 and I do not note frost. Actually all of us can remember what an early spring we had with a fair amount of rain.

So how do we try to figure out a planting schedule based on estimated number of weeks from last frost?  Memorial Day weekend seems too timid, but this year I am starting to feel timid again.

What spring chores can we do? I finally got out and did some clean-up raking, because the snow had melted on the south slope in front of the house. However, I know spring raking and clean up is well begun in the lower elevations.

The calendar says seeds can be started in Heath, and I do have a few seedlings sprouted. I bought more peat pots, and more seeds are being planted, parsley, basil, and broccolini.  At the same time, I am hoping that I can plant peas in the ground within a week or two. Last year at this time I was planting seeds and seedlings in the Front Garden, and in the main garden. I did not trust the warm weather and covered all plantings with floating row covers. They protected tender seedling from the cold and from the rabbits that have been such a problem.

A walk in the main garden on Wednesday showed me that the melting snow is sending little streams of water here and there, occasionally making a little waterfall into a mole hole. There will be no planting here for a while.

It’s time to get out the pruners to thin out red and black raspberry canes.  My husband just took the loppers and a saw to do a major pruning of the Sargent crabapple. It is now much more horizontal and architectural. I still have to do some of the finer pruning. Sargent crabs love to be pruned.

Any perennials that were left to provide winter interest or food for the birds can be cut back in preparation for the new growth. I am always surprised at how early and how quickly perennials grow in the spring. This is a time when I can also start thinking about which perennials can be divided  and shared with the Bridge of Flowers plant sale in May.

To make sure I am not forgetting some of the obvious garden tasks that can be done in this early season I have been reviewing  the Week by Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook written by Ron Kujawski and Jennifer Kujawski.  Ron was an Extension Educator at the University of Massachusetts for 25 years and I know I can always look to him for good advice and information.

The Kujawski’s Handbook is useful not only because it gives you practical information about every aspect of vegetable gardening from soil building, starting seedlings, container plantings and controlling insects, and on through the harvest, the book is arranged like a three year garden journal so you can put in your own weather and planting records that will help you with your own garden planning.

Father and daughter Kujawski give tips about “petting” vegetable seedlings to help them be sturdier, the value of vinegar and clove oil to kill weeds, how to handle squash borers,  and a whole list of trouble-shooting to handle plant symptoms.

They also describe a slightly different technique of sheet composting. In the fall they dig a foot deep trench, fill it with six inches of kitchen waste (vegetable matter only) and then top it with soil. It will rot over the winter and in the spring you will have a rich fertile planting bed.

This is a technique that I have also heard referred to as ‘trench’ composting. One friend told me she essentially used this method, but she dug large round holes, and filled them halfway with kitchen waste, then soil. She marked each hole with a stake and planted her squash and pumpkins there in the spring.

Please let me know how far have you gotten with your spring chores. Once spring takes hold, the race is on.

Between the Rows  April 6,2013

Plant Hunters – John Bartram and Chinese Wilson

Photo courtesy of Arnold Arboretum © President and Fellows of Harvard College. Arnold Arboretum Archives.

Where do the plants in our garden come from? How did plants get from the heights of the Himalayan mountains, or the Appalachian mountains, to our gardens?

It would be hard to count the number of plants in our gardens that were first seen by the intrepid explorers of the last three centuries. John Bartram (1699-1777) of Philadelphia was possibly the first American botanist and plant hunter.

Bartram was a farmer with little formal education, but he was always interested in medicine and medicinal plants. In addition to his regular farm crops he began keeping a garden of plants that he found interesting. From that modest beginning he created a nursery and went on plant hunting trips first in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, later he went on to Virginia and the uncharted Appalachian mountains. Later still he traveled in Florida. Everywhere he went he collected seeds, nuts and cones that he could send to Peter Collinson, a wealthy British merchant, the man who introduced beautiful American plants to the nobility who were in the process of improving their estates. Our American natives were England’s desired exotics.

The business Bartram and Collinson embarked upon was amazingly successful in part because with Collinson’s advice Bartram devised a way of shipping seeds across the ocean so that they would still be viable when they arrived. One of the problems Bartram had was that he did not know the names of the interesting plants he was passing along, because he had no botanical education. The two men worked out a system so that Collinson could identify the seeds and thus request more of specific varieties from Bartram.

It is amazing to me that while his botanical education was limited at first, he ultimately became expert in shipping seeds and even plants, and learned Carl Linnaeus’ new binomial naming system, becoming a great proponent of that system.

The British fell in love with native plants like magnolias, azaleas, mountain laurel, and rhododendrons as well as sugar maples, viburnums and sumacs which gave them beautiful autumn color. They planted these on a mammoth scale, sometimes creating whole forests.

In 1765 Bartram sent King George III a box of his most special seeds. It was received with such pleasure that Bartram was named the King’s Botanist, a title he treasured.

Of course, this was a time when relations between the colonies and England were becoming strained by events like the passing of the Stamp Act which put a tax on paper, used for everything from newspapers, and legal documents to playing cards. It was fortunate for Bartram that Americans were becoming wealthy enough to think about their own gardens, giving Bartram a new market.

Bartram’s two sons, William and John Jr., continued to maintain the garden their father had created, and the business, sending plants and seeds around the world. Some of the plants named in the family’s honor include Amelanchier bartramiana and Commersonia bartramia. Amelanchier is our familiar shadblow or serviceberry tree, while the Commersonia is an Australian tree.

Bartram’s Garden remains a fascinating public garden to this day.

Ernest Henry Wilson (1876-1930) later known as Chinese Wilson, was British and as a young man he worked in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. In 1898 James Vetch of the Vetch and Sons nursery asked Kew for a likely young man to send to China to find and bring back plants for the nursery. Wilson was recommend and chosen. For his first trip to China his assignment was to find and bring home seeds of the dove tree, Davidia involucrata. On his way to China he stopped at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston with a letter of introduction to Director Charles Sprague Sargent to learn the best ways to ship plants and seeds safely.

That meeting was the beginning of a long relationship with Sargent and the Arnold Arboretum. Sargent insisted that Wilson carry with him a large format field camera. The Arboretum now owns thousands of the photographs Wilson took in China.

On that first trip he did acquire seeds of the dove tree first, but continued on for two years collecting hundreds of species of plants, as well as hundreds of herbarium samples which he brought back to England in 1902.

He continued to work for Vetch and made a second trip to China under their auspices. In 1906 he made his third trip to China under the auspices of the Arnold Arboretum. It was on this trip that there was a landslide that crushed his leg. He made a splint out of his camera tripod and was carried for three days to a hospital. He recovered, but ever after had a limp that he called his lily limp because the Lilium regale, the Easter lily, was his great find on that trip.

By his own count Wilson brought back 25 rose species from China. This is particular interest to rose gardeners today because native Chinese roses have the ever blooming. gene.

He made a fourth trip for the Arboretum and later, in 1914 he began a study of Japanese plants including conifers, Kurume azaleas and Japanese cherries.

Wilson went on other travels, but in 1927, after Sargent’s death, he became Keeper of the Arnold Arboretum. His career was cut short when he and his wife were killed in an automobile accident in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Without plant hunters like these over the centuries, and continuing today, the flowers and plants available to us would be greatly limited. We are fortunate to be able to reap the benefits of their adventure and their passion.

Between the Rows  February 23, 2013

Spring Symposium at Frontier High School

Strawbery BAnke Museum garden

Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in our Gardens, one of the best books ever written on how the food web works in our gardens, is coming to our part of the world. He will be the keynote speaker at the Annual Western Massachusetts Master Gardeners Association Spring Symposium scheduled for Saturday, March 16 at Frontier Regional High School in South Deerfield.

In his book Tallamy powerfully and engagingly explains how important our small personal gardens are to maintaining the necessary biodiversity of plants, insects, butterflies and birds that make our gardens beautiful and healthful. In his talk, and in his book he makes it clear that we gardeners have an important responsibility to help maintain the ecological balance in our world.

One of the most surprising ideas I found in Tallamy’s book is that to have a healthy garden, and a healthy world, we need more insects. In his book he says, “I cannot overemphasize how important insect herbivores are to the health of all terrestrial ecosystems. (Insect) species are very good at converting plant tissue of all types to insect tissue, and as a consequence they also excel at providing food – in the form of themselves – for other species. . . . And no wonder! Insects are unusually nutritious. Pound for pound most insect species contain more protein than beef and their bodies are extremely high in valuable energy.”

While we often talk about including plants that birds can eat in our gardens, we don’t stop to consider that 96% of our North American bird species feed insects to their young. Therefore in order to attract and feed the birds, we need to have a garden that includes the native plants that attract insects.

Several of the other presentations on the program will give additional information that will inspire us and help us to make sure our gardens attract pollinators, and provide food for the birds and butterflies that are such welcome adornments to our garden. Ellen Sousa, author of The Green Garden: A New England Guide to Planning, Planting and Maintaining the Eco-Friendly Habitat Garden,  will talk about Habitat Landscaping that will cover not only the food needs of birds, but the shelter and housing that birds, butterflies and other wildlife need to be welcomed into our gardens.

Both Tallamy and Sousa will be selling and signing their books.

Master Gardener John Kingston will giving a presentation specifically on attracting birds, butterflies and other beneficial insects to your garden. We have to remember that not all insects are pests and that birds need insects to eat and thrive.

Bridghe McCracken of Helia Land Design in Great Barrington will explain how to design the garden that will bring nature home in ways that are “personal,ecologically intact and that speak to the surroundings, history and  the culture of our region.”

John Forti of the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire will give an illustrated talk about Heirloom and Native Plants and their importance. The plants and gardens at Strawbery Bank capture a part of our history, but Forti explains that heirloom and native plants are also vital to our future and to our food security.

This Spring Symposium has become an important annual marker in the local gardening year. Attendees will have a hard time choosing between the eight morning and eight afternoon sessions which range from basics like making compost, to making hypertufa containers or bentwood trellises, to designing a garden for a health care setting, to the eternal favorites Denise Lemay and Mary Ellen Warchol who will be cooking up an herbal brunch in the morning and cooking with honey in the afternoon.

The Western Massachusetts Master Gardeners Association is a volunteer group of trained enthusiastic gardeners who  put this event on every year as part of its mission to help educate gardeners so they can have successful, healthy gardens. They offer a number of services from the telephone and email hotlines, soil testing clinics, providing speakers, and creating the Spring Symposium with programs in South Deerfield, Holyoke (April 6) and Lenox (April 13). Each Symposium has its own set of programs and speakers. For full information about the services offered go to their website www.wmassmastergardeners.org.

The website also includes registration forms for each Symposium. In addition to the programs there will be vendors and book sales, as well as delicious food served. I do recommend that you register early if you want to get your first choices of workshops.

Between the Rows   February 16, 2013

Hydrangea in Winter

Limelight hydrangea blossom 1-7-13

Very pretty hydrangea blossom. But I don’t think it will count on Bloom Day.

Stone Harvest at Goshen Stone Company

Gary Warner of Goshen Stone Quary

New England is famous for being a stony place. The stone walls that line our roads are a testament to the stones that farmers have been pulling out of their fields for centuries. We gardeners complain about constantly hitting stone as we dig in our gardens.

Stairway at Goshen Stone Quarry

On the other hand, most of us admire the beauty of stone patios and walkways, and dry laid stone walls built by stone masons. Gary Warner, of Goshen Stone Quarry, has been quarrying mica schist for 25 years on land that belonged to his family since the 1770s. Schist is a metamorphic stone that was created by heat and pressure acting on the mud and clay at the bottom of what was ocean over 400 million years ago, It can easily (relatively speaking) be split into leaves or layers.

Warner’s forbears were farmers, but they could pull slabs of stone from the outcroppings without too much trouble when there was a desire or need for stone. The farm closed down in 1962.

Though the stone was always a presence in his life it was not until 1985 when he was in his late 30s and operating the Warner Tree Service that he asked for ten acres of farmland to quarry. This past fall he invited me for a tour of the quarry and explained some of the history. “I didn’t know what I was doing. Gerry Platt of Ashfield Stone and Rick Lafontaine at Sugarledge  also started quarries about the same time. We were all friends and we taught each other as we went along,” he said.

He told me about a photo of himself standing in front of the little house he built at the edge of the quarry when he began. “It was a time when I still had some sass. I look like I’m going someplace – but don’t know where,” he said with a laugh.

Goshen Stone workers

He said that when he began  the quarry a chisel was his important tool, but now there is plenty of heavy machinery to get the stone out of the ground and make it saleable for stone walls or patios. “We try to work efficiently, digging, cutting, splitting, and categorizing. People think we just dig it up but that is not accurate. I’m lucky. I’ve got people who are really on the ball. The work is dangerous and we all get 8 hours of OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) training every year,” he said.

As I toured the quarry I could see workers splitting the stone with power tools. Some would be relatively thin for patios and walkways, while thicker pieces were prepared to be used for dry stone walls. After the stone is cut and split it is organized so that the landscapers who visit the quarry can easily find the particular stone they want and need. The stone comes in shades of silver or blue-gray, but there is also some that is bronze or gold. Sometimes homeowners go to the Goshen Stone quarry to choose stone for a patio they are building themelves. Smaller pieces of patio stone are set aside for homeowners because they usually don’t have the equipment to move large, heavy pieces.

A walk through the Goshen Stone quarry is a walk through a geology lesson, and while the terms and explanations don’t necessarily hold firm in the mind, there is no escaping the sense of time and the power of the earth that created this stone.

In 1999 Warner began quarrying another ten acres of land up beyond his grandmother’s house because he could see that the life of the quarry on the original ten acres would come to an end.

Goshen Stone revealed

He showed me spots where the geology of the stone was fully exposed, but he was quick with a reminder. “The stone is not sitting on the surface. You have to dig down through the soil to get to the stone. When I get into the rock I get really excited,” he said.

In 2000 he finally sold the tree service business he had been operating for 23 years, even during the early years of the quarry.

Gary Warner’s family history goes as deep into this area as the stone goes into the earth. Goshen Stone has joined his family history with local history as it has been used in public spaces like the Three Sisters Sanctuary, which is only a couple of miles from the quarry, and even more locally at the Bridge of Flowers where stonemason Paul Forth carefully chose large slabs that were artfully sculptured to surround what I call the Stone Spring on the Shelburne side of the Bridge.

I was amazed to learn that Goshen Stone is so special that it has been shipped as far as Texas for a project. It has also been shipped to the Hudson River Valley in New York State to be used at Alexander Hamilton’s estate when this historic site was recently renovated.

When we think of a garden we think of plants, but stone can give a garden a defining structure, provide comfortable social space, and even remind us of the ancient history of our planet and the mighty forces still at work beneath our feet.

Between the Rows   December 29, 2012

Square Foot Gardening Answer Book

Mel Bartholomew came bursting on the garden scene over 30 years ago with his technique of Square Foot Gardening. I have visited many gardens that use his raised bed, grid organized system out here in the country, and I have seen it in front yards when we have visited our son in Cambridge. This year Bartholomew has come out with the Square Foot Gardening Answer Book (Cool Springs Press $16.99)  that he says was inspired by the questions that some dubious gardeners ask, and that others ask because they feel the need for more information.

Mel Bartholomew has an easy conversational style and he explains his technique with all the detail a gardener will need. His system is based on contained raised beds. The bed structure can be made of naturally rot resistant wood, cinder blocks or composite materials, but he does advise against using treated lumber. In fact he embraces all organic principles including avoiding pesticides and herbicides.

His technique does not require tilling. His boxes are laid on the ground, possibly the lawn, and after laying down high grade landscape cloth to kill grass and weeds, he fills the box with Mel’s Mix: 1 part blended compost, 1 part peat moss, and 1 part coarse vermiculite. Those who believe we should not be harvesting and using peat moss because of environmental concerns will not like this mix, but he is quite adamant about how well it  supports vegetable and flower growth.

Bartholomew advises using strips of wood or vinyl that will permanently divide the box into square foot sections that can each be planted efficiently with a single crop. Organic gardeners sing the praises of mixed plantings like this because an infestation of a harmful insect, or a disease is less like to take hold. Those squares also encourage replanting after a crop is harvested, thus increasing your annual harvest.

He doesn’t recommend watering with any kind of hose, preferring to water by hand with a bucket and cup. He acknowledges this might seem time consuming but feels it is part of keeping a close eye on your plantings.

Obviously, in any book that focuses on technique you may find elements that you question. In the Answer Book Bartholomew explains his rationales. His technique has been so successful that the state of Utah now has a square foot garden at most of its elementary schools, and square foot gardens are being planted around the world. Teaching about home gardening and producing more fresh food locally has got to be a good thing.

This is an a good book for the inexperienced gardener who will feel comfortable with firm rules, but there is plenty of food for thought for the experienced gardener as well.

Between the Rows  December 15, 2012

December Sale – The Roses at the End of the Road

The Roses at the End of the Road

For the month of December I am selling my book, The Roses at the End of the Road for $12 with no shipping costs. All ordering information is here.  The book is filled with characters and our adventures here at the end of the road. To give you a taste, the Rachel’s Rose chapter follows below.

There is a rose in my garden named Rachel.

One summer Rachel Burrington Sumner, one of Heath’s grand dames, who knew of my interest in old roses invited me to come to her house and dig up two of the roses growing there. She didn’t know their names but thought I would love them as she did.

As I arrived I passed her two adult grandsons who were dashing off to a wedding leaving Rachel and me in the big old farmhouse that had seen so much of life, so many weddings and births – and grieving, too. She gave me a tour of the farmhouse that she had come to as a bride. She explained all the work that her husband had done over the years before he died in 1988, and proudly pointed out the photographs of her children and grandchildren.

Then she took me outside to show me the roses which were no longer in bloom because it was so late in the season. Armed with my tough leather rose gloves and a shovel I set to work while Rachel returned to her chair in the kitchen.

It took me a while to dig up those roses. They were thorny and their roots went as deep and wide into the Heath soil as Rachel’s did.

The rose growing in the front yard had spread into a large thicket and proved its indomitable hardiness. Rachel said during the excavation for a garage and workshop it had been buried under about three feet of soil. Rachel assumed the rose was lost forever, but in time it once again reached for the sun to spread and bloom.

I didn’t know Rachel well. I didn’t know her when she was a strong young woman taking her place in the community, working on the farm, raising a family and working down at the high school office. When I met her she was already becoming frail, yet still involved in the community. Whenever I had to arrange to use the church Rachel was the one I had to speak to.

Usually we only met at the Heath Fair. She’d ask about my garden and tell me about her pleasure in the season, in the new minister, in the latest town event.

After thanking Rachel I went home and planted both roses carefully. The summer and fall were very dry and even though I kept them watered as well as I could the roses took a beating. By the time winter was in sight I wondered whether those roses would survive.

Early in the spring I went out into my pasture collecting ‘meadow muffins’ and put the manure around Rachel’s roses to they would get a good start on the season. Soon I could see there was new growth. They took hold.

It strikes me that the roses Rachel gave me are very like her – beautiful and strong. They have endured crushing blows and bloomed again. They’ll flower and perfume the air no matter what, but they’ll give pleasure to the people around them, as long as those people stop long enough, and are wise enough to notice.

My rose garden started with antique roses, often named after nobility, the Queen of Denmark, the Comtesse de Murinais and the Duchesse d’Angouleme.

I’ve been fortunate to have friends give me roses as a token of friendship. Most of these were unnamed so I tend to think of them in terms of the giver. Alli’s Pink, Susan’s Rose all grow in a row. Mrs. Herzig jumped the row and now grows by the roadside.

I think of these roses as my Farm Girls, but most of us women know that whether we are royalty or farm girls, we’d better be sturdy, tenacious and determined as we face the years of summer heat and winter storms or there will be nothing left of us to name a rose after.

I watched the new growth develop on Rachel’s rose and hoped it would come along fast enough so that I could invite Rachel to see how well it had settled in and how happily it was blooming.

Rachel passed away before I had that opportunity, but I didn’t admire the roses alone. Our youngest daughter, Kate, was married in the garden at the height of rose season. Family and friends joined us for this joyous celebration. We admired the bride and groom – and looked to the rose named Rachel for inspiration as they began their new life.

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When it came time to build the Cottage Ornee we carefully sited it to nestle under the branches of the old apple tree at the edge of the lawn. We moved the four large boulders, salvaged from the barn fire, into position to hold the four main cottage supports. One of those boulders need to be on the spot where we had planted Rachel’s Rose.

There was no choice. We dug up Rachel’s Rose and transplanted it to the top of the Rose Walk next to a low stone wall that grew out of what was left of the barn foundation.

Because I still wanted a rose in that spot when the Cottage was finished we planted the double pink alba Celestial next to the boulder. It thrived, and continues to bloom heavily every year. But after a couple of years I noticed deeper pink roses among the more delicate Celestial blossoms. It was clear that we must have left a bit of Rachel’s root in the soil when we moved her. Once again, as it had in Rachel Sumner’s garden, this rose persevered until it reached through all obstacles to reach for and bloom in the sun once again.

Just to let you know – Other chapters include  Kate’s Wedding,  The Cottage Ornee,  St. Fiacre Was Here, Lightning Strikes! – and others.