In The Land of Wind

Sunshine today after a shock of bad weather.

Driving to work this morning I marveled at the flooded nurseries and farms. Ice ponds covered the landscape, sealing crops of blueberries and rows of evergreens in several feet of dark blue ice.

The paradoxical thing about an early thaw is how emotionally tumultuous it is. One minute it's the picture-perfect Christmas/Holiday winter wonderland, tickling our senses, fulfilling our need for a dose of seasonal sentiment, and the next minute we are hoping the roof holds through the night.

In the last three days we have gone from snow globe perfection to flooding, freezing rain and 50 mph winds. In the country where I live there is open land, quite a lot of it, and little to mitigate those very strong gales. On my property we have been planting trees for 11 years. Not a single growing season has passed without adding trees to the landscape, and I intend to keep this up indefinitely.

Trees make the best sort of wind-breaks imaginable. Frequently you see rows of trees planted in farmer's fields in a straight line. In fact this is quite the opposite of how it should be laid out for the technique to be of value. Planted this way in single file, side by side, trees actually increase wind severity (picture an arrow hitting a brick wall and then moving up, over, and then slamming down directly on the other side of the wall, ouch).

When trees are planted in an alternate zig-zag fashion the gust of wind will shatter, thus weakening the force (picture the same arrow splitting apart into multiple, smaller arrows when it hits the wind break).

On a farmer's field, incorrect planting of windrows is detrimental to the soil, exacerbating soil erosion. On the home front it is darned irritating, not to mention destructive to anything in the garden that is fussy, tender, delicate, weak stemmed or top heavy.

Despite the inconveniences of strong winds we'd be lost without this force of nature. Plants depend on wind for seed dispersal and insects take advantage of gentle breezes to increase their distance, allowing them to visit more flowers, thus increasing genetic diversity. In the big scheme of things on planet earth, wind has a big hand in shaping all creation.

Hindu mythology describes a triad of gods - creation (Brahma), destruction (Shiva) and preservation (Vishnu). In order for the universe to work, all three of these deities must remain mutually inclusive.

In short - and the myriad Hindu gods are not easy to summarize - the eternal cycle of creation/destruction is kept in check by a very good governor who flies through the clouds on a giant eagle named Garuda. Incidentally, Garuda is thought to have taken nectar from the gods and given it humans!

Gardeners, are you paying attention?

Wind is a magnificent thing.

Gifts for Gardeners - No Fake Moss, Please!

Christmas admittedly is not the most exciting time for the gardener in the family.  We're difficult to shop for.  If we could have a day or two to get outside and do some digging, that would be a perfect gift, but pleasant weather conditions are not currently available from Amazon.com, alas.

Gardening became big business in the 80's, purportedly due to Baby Boomers' sudden need to carve out their own private pleasure gardens with their new-found wealth.  By the 1990's Smith & Hawken was a bona fide retail giant - their marketing plan was simple genius: sell Old English gardening mythology to a sentimentally starved but financially bloated demographic.  What garden is finished without faux stone orbs covered in faux moss? Perfect for the new gardener who hasn't the patience to wait for moss to actually, well, grow.

About ten years ago I did receive authentic green Wellington boots for Christmas.  I was ecstatic, believing that my new footwear would be the best, most durable mud boots I'd ever own.  Who could possibly make a better garden boot than the English!

My Wellies lasted about a season and half, only because I refused to admit that they were leaky by the end of season one.  So much for the English and their famous Wellies.  Perhaps they were only meant to look handsome on a Lady pretending to garden while on holiday at her country estate.  One can picture her smartly dressed in hounds tooth, strolling briskly along the gravel paths while delivering orders to her head gardener,  "Jimmy, be a good fellow and fix that yew, won't you?  It's drooping."  

When my friends find out I am a passionate gardener they give me nick-knacks.  So-called "garden art" is plentiful at summer-time craft shows, and that is unfortunate for gardeners with well-intentioned friends who frequent them.

As gardeners age we prefer a decent cookbook or an excellent bottle of port, but less and less do we desire garden goods on Christmas morning.  Unless the giver is a true gardener himself or herself, he or she will not fully appreciate the depth at which the receiver will cherish a fine plank of rot-resistant cedar wood or a big, handsome stone.  Neither of these gifts are conveniently wrap-able but never mind, just lead the gardener into the garage and rejoice in their enthusiasm.

Early (Early) Winter

Snow and ice has been piling since late November. The forecast has been for below average temperatures and above average precipitation. Both have panned out. I've noticed that meteorologists are remarkably accurate in the high-tech age, although they have a tendency to sensationalize every drop of rain and snowflake as if it's the end of all creation. Weather forecasters have become shameless drama queens for the sake of scoring a few rating points.

Winter, for the record, does not officially begin until the end of this week.

The first really big dump was surprise if only for its intensity. Wet and heavy, virtually everything left standing in the garden was crushed, including the tallest and toughest of the ornamental grasses. Flattened like wet paper, the long shoots and blades now lie limply in ruins upon the earth. Most years I am able to enjoy the shuddering dry canes and seedy plumes lingering into well into March.

Winter interest, that's what we gardeners call it, or leaving a few things to look at for when the gloom seems eternal. Some gardeners subscribe to the scorched earth approach - picking out every remaining stalk and seed head still remaining by late autumn- No Plant Left Behind, if you will - for the sake of efficiency.

Others, myself included, like to see powdery caps of snow atop the Echinacea on a winter's morning, or flitting goldfinches devouring the remnants of Rudbeckia seeds. We find the blank winter garden sterile and sad, nothing to contemplate except frozen, lonely soil.

The mantra for some is to "clean" the garden of pests and diseases by not allowing them to overwinter on decaying plant matter. In the home vegetable garden this makes some sense (crop rotation and soil amendments should always be primary) but in the flower garden, bah.

I've never on my property detected an overabundance of plant disease. I don't trouble myself with a few spots of powdery mildew, anyway, so perhaps I am simply more tolerant than some. One gardener's "problem" is another gardener's shrug of the shoulders.

This morning I took another look around. Some of the miscanthus looks as if it's been hit by a meteorite but in other places things are not so bad after all. Sunflower stalks are indestructible as always, and there are plenty of milkweed hanging around, their silvery-gray pods still stuffed with gossamer. The new waterfalls in my ponds make spectacular ice formations. It's not so bad after all.

With nature one must learn to put things in perspective or find a different past-time.

Do Plants Communicate?

During harvest time I was interviewed by a local writer on the subject of garden vegetable oddities. He shared with me that a citizen gardener whom had grown a Mickey Mouse-eared tomato had gotten him on the phone, and how terribly excited the caller was, believing in miracles. A tomato that looks exactly like Mickey Mouse!

The journalist emailed me the pictures taken by the breathless gardener of his curiosity. I replied that I thought the tomato resembled the shape of a simple molecule more than Disney's famed cartoon character: the fruit was composed of three, smooth, conjoined orbs; lacking eyes, a pointed nose, and whiskers, which I do believe are essential features on Mickey's head. Call me picky.

In my opinion I was being prompted to exclaim this tomato phenomenon as, well, phenomenal, but my pulse remained steady. I explained to the journalist that plants do all kinds of crazy stuff, especially in their tendency to mimic the sexual organs of humans (don't tell me you've never seen a phallic gourd). A three-pronged tomato was, to me, not as amusing or unusual as the yams I had judged at the county fair this summer, resembling bug-eyed chihuahuas or angry old men.

Scientists have known for years that our human brains require recognizable data in order to cognate, and so what we at first do not recognize as "normal" we match with what we already know, the same way we see whales and horses in cloud formations. Or, for some, the Virgin Mary on a french fry.

It's unquestionably fun to look for patterns in nature. The more patterns we learn to recognize the deeper our scientific appreciation and understanding of the natural world. Teaching children how to identify trees by their leaf shapes, for example, is something most of us can relate to. And what a pleasure it is when the child sees the face of a fox in a blob of mildew on the freshly picked leaf!

A grown-up gardener should pause to remind herself that in the age of industrial macro-farms we rarely have an opportunity to glimpse nature's creative whimsy because we no longer get our hands dirty. When all of our edible plants come from a grocery store; hybridized, cultivated and preselected for absolute uniformity, it should not be surprising that when a gardener really sees nature unfiltered, she will be taken aback. It is when a gardener expects to pull a few bizarre-looking carrots from the soil that she has re-established an honest dialogue with nature.

There is much exploration to be done on exactly how plants do communicate, - with one another, even with us if at all possible. But it is the quiet mysteries of plants I hold in the highest regard. Knowing that my tomatoes are not scheming to intentionally look like a billion-dollar trademark by way of Mickey Mouse, or trying to bring forth religious miracles, or even attempting to appeal to my narcissism in any way whatsoever is profoundly satisfying.

Writer Mark Germer stated it well:

"Recent work on information processing (even kin recognition) in plants suggests that there may be more going on there than we now understand; as for birds and mammals, it has long been appreciated that they are perfectly capable of deception and subversion. For my part, I don't find these things odd or disturbing, as it's the continuity of all life that intrigues me most. Humans are not alone in their baseness -- though a few may be alone in their desire to rise above it."

Despicable Daylilies

For anyone who is overly fond of daylilies (Hemerocallis), I am taking this opportunity to express my dislike. I know this may be downright immoral with many gardeners. Feel free to look away.

It's not that I am entirely blind to the the limited niceties of daylilies, a few varieties have the momentary worth to catch my eye, but even when I do rarely admire them my interest quickly wanes and I find myself seeking superior garden plants.

Trouble is, too many gardeners fail to surround their daylilies with more interesting companions, instead massing them by the dozens, hundreds, thousands. The result of this is anything but beguiling. A few well-selected daylilies tucked amongst fairer neighbors I may approve of but over and above, well, it becomes just another crop, like onions or potatoes.

When daylilies are finished, they are finished - yellowing, spotted foliage that hogs otherwise valuable garden space, their yucky brown flower stalks hanging around forever, offering nothing. The messy clumps seem to wither and decay endlessly. What for five minutes of garden glory was a bit of splashy color is now for the remaining 55 minutes of the garden hour an eyesore, a regretful decision, a dreary post-orgasm.

In the country, where I live, the daylily is frequently bedded at the end of a long private drive, visible to the homeowner with only a pair of high-powered binoculars.
The curiousness of this unfortunate habit is one I can scarcely fathom. Provincial daylilies are also also crowded around barns and outbuildings, almost always facing the road, where they cannot be seen by anyone but speeding passers-by. I have yet to understand why such a popular flower is planted where the gardener never visits. Perhaps it is to irritate people like me.

In the city, where I work, daylilies are planted in strict rows outside bank drive-throughs, around street lamp-posts and in medians. No-one pays much attention to them when they are blooming because it is inevitably ninety degrees outside. Don't try to convince me that a row of Stella d'Oro makes an urban heat island more attractive. I will be in my air-conditioned car thinking of my own garden, mostly unscathed by daylilies.

I, too, once succumbed to a momentary lapse of daylily planting (though not with any degree of fervor). I even installed an enormous bed of them...alongside my driveway! But I came to my senses - I observed them, I thought about them, and I formed an opinion from which I have not since strayed: daylilies are vastly overrated. Learning from my mistake, I dug up each clump and hauled them to the compost pile. Along the way, however, my wagon struck a small boulder and tipped, spilling them in a heap. I suppose I felt a twinge of guilt over tossing out "good" perennials, and so I salvaged a dozen, mixing them into other flower beds, wondering if I might appreciate them more if I could disguise all anatomy but the blooms.

The next year I resented them even more. When they showed up in their new locations I could only only hang my head in shame. What was I thinking? Before, when they were appropriately segregated, I could easily imagine eradicating them, efficiently, all at once. Now they were everywhere, spreading like a virus, and I had the same feverish, sinking that one has at the doctor's office when he authoritatively states that antibiotics do not cure a cold. Cover your mouth, wash your hands. You should know better than to spread this thing around.

What is your time worth?

"What is your time worth? Though it is often asked, I do not think this question answerable. It is the same as asking what your life is worth. And I can give it only the same nonanswer: it is worth whatever it means. the ideas that you cannot afford to raise a garden is based on the assumption that it means money, that if you are not receiving the top dollar for every minute of your life, you are suffering a "loss" - a doctrine that would not only put an end to gardens, but soon drive us all to theft or suicide."

Wendell Berry, from his essays The Gift of Good Land.

What's In a Hole?

Gardeners spend a great deal of time digging holes. So much so that we might consider ourselves experts in small-scale excavation. Ask any gardener how to dig a hole and he will exuberantly share his knowledge, for you have inquired into a subject matter most people would find droll at best; perhaps unsavory at worst, as though hole-digging best be left for the uneducated or the amusement of children.

Setting about making a hole requires a proper shovel, an implement that many people, sadly enough, do not possess. It is not uncommon for gardeners to have an abysmal collection of tools, and if there is one tool that reveals a gardener to be a sham it is his shovel. I admit to snobbery - I do judge a gardener by the quality and the care of his tools.

To be fair, a lousy shovel can sometimes be used to dig a half-way decent hole, although the amount of energy expended is criminal when compared to digging a hole with a well-constructed shovel. Gardeners who insist on digging their holes with a lousy shovel and then boasting of their accomplishments are awfully boorish. I find myself declining offers to visit their gardens.

When a hole is dug discoveries are made. First, and perhaps most surprisingly, a hole is never is big as it seems, and should never be judged from a bird's eye perspective. At the first inkling of having succeeded a gardener must plunge his head into the earth and have a good look around. Only then will he have an appropriate sense of the hole's size and he can ably adjust his mind to the amount of digging that lies ahead. I once met a gardener who could calculate to the exact shovelful how much excavation was required, which he would call out, his head still underground.

A freshly dug hole possesses the satisfying odor of minerals; iron, copper, zinc, calcium, carbon, volatile sulfur if you're lucky; a hint of decay, a whiff of the beginning and the end of life on earth. By tilting the head sideways one can hear grains of soil tumbling to the bottom. Cool air tickles the skin.

Sculptors think not of holes but instead of depressions and voids; a painter will name a hole as negative space; a builder excavates but a gardener does not refer to his digging efforts in euphemisms, because gardeners are not so much in the process of "creating" something as they are hoping to locate a nice home for a handsome tree to live out its life in comfort.

A hole in the ground may be an unkind expression for the dwellings of the unfortunate, but any good gardener will assure you that a well-dug hole is, in fact, excellent real estate.

Green Thumbs Don't Grow on Trees

People often tell me they aren't good gardeners, as if possessing a green thumb is a genetic trait, bestowed only to a lucky few. To this I reply, "If any of us were born with green thumbs we'd no doubt be spending a fortune on trying to correct the problem."

The metaphor of the green thumb is best suited to describe a hard-earned honor, a skill gained from routine practice, from many years of experience.

If there is a "secret" to becoming a good gardener, to turning one's thumb green as it were, it is not an inborn trait; it is passion, and everyone has passion.

The surprising thing about becoming a gardener is discovering your passion; rousing ancient senses within your mind and body that will lead you on a lifelong journey. Little did you know that new seedlings just up from the warm soil have their own unique odor, just as the sweet smell of babies can only be found on babies.

When hands touch a leaf or stem or petal one's nerves tingle. The brain, I am convinced, was long-ago wired to communicate intuitively with the botanical. This is not a magical phenomenon, it is evolutionary, for without a trait for the desire to care for plants the human race would undoubtedly perish; our earliest ancestors secured a place for homo sapien through the very act of gardening, through forming emotional connections with plants.