What me worry?
It wasn’t the soil. It was stress that killed the hedge.
At least that’s what I was told by the consulting arborist I brought in to explain the sudden death of a boxwood planting installed a few years ago. Though I suspected a soil-borne fungus or bacteria would be the culprit, according to my Expert, the plants had been pushed to their biological limit, and simply died of thirst.
You might say, “What in the world does a plant have to be stressed about?” Do they wake up in the middle of the night worrying if they locked the front door, or whether or not the water bill was paid? And, their progeny almost never fall far from them, so the ‘waiting-up-until-they-get-home’ thing isn’t a source of concern, either. Theirs is a different—potentially more dire—form of pressure than humans deal with.
Harsh and extreme weather can change a plant’s health status in an instant. Heavy rains jeopardize the holding power of root systems, leaving large trees susceptible to being felled during heavy wind or ice storms. Smaller shrubs can be affected the same way, but are typically more threatened by falling limbs of their faltering overhanging neighbors. In my hedge’s case, fierce winds kept the specimen’s root system from replenishing enough of its water to keep the leaves in homeostasis.
Most plants have built-in physical defenses and chemical reactions to counteract serious negative forces. Conversely, however, occasional lack of water, reduced daily sunlight or temperatures, can trigger chemicals that begin the all-important reproductive process. Flowers turning to fruit which produce the seeds of a new generation, all miraculously within the crucial timeframe of a single growing season.
A little stress is healthy for all living on the planet. A reality check of sorts of how our life and well-being are progressing at any given moment. Too much can be a killer.
And, while anxiety, tension and physical strain seem to be important for successful functioning of plants’ reproductive organs, I’ve always found that external distractions make the same goal for humans much more difficult.
Progeny (December 2012)
A plant will do just about anything to get noticed. Especially when the survival of its species is at stake.
Their ‘need to seed’ begins in late Spring and Summer, while seeking the affections of animals and insects for the purpose of procreation. Preferred suitors should be capable of pollinating the flowers and thereby cycling through one of the great mysteries of life.
Attracting the right crowd requires serious effort and cunning on a plants’ part. If you think the rich, vibrant colors of the flowers we buy at the Florist are for our benefit, think again. It’s bugs they want, not us.
Inter-species competition is fierce, especially in luring bees, birds and flies. To gain an advantage, each species can develop flowers in unique shapes, colors and blooming times. Morning Glory flowers open in the morning and close at night, appealing to a very select variety of insects. .
Blossoms of the Night-Blooming Cereus, a member of the Cactus family, open only at night. Avoiding the congestion of daylight flutter, these plants seek a more intimate relationship with bats, moths and other denizens of the dark. Their flowers last only a single night—a reverse-case of playing hard to get?
Perhaps a plant’s most inventive and recognizable tactic is that of smell. Lilac blossoms, the classic perfume of roses, honeysuckle—being in their vicinity can elicit intense feelings of attraction. Enough perhaps for us to jump on the stamens ourselves, and hand deliver the pollen to the pistils.
Other plants have taken to the stinky side of scents—Skunk Cabbage, Lilies, Bradford Pears. Some with the biggest stench are often the most beautiful. .
While boarding a recent international flight for home, the fellow sitting next to me stuffed his shoulder bag in the compartment overhead. There was an acrid smell coming from the bag that made me queasy.
I confronted him on what it could possibly be that was so brutally offensive.
With a quiet smile he confided, that, though he knew of the ban on international transport of living things, he was bringing his girlfriend a special plant from one of the countries he had visited. He knew it smelled bad, but he was in love …
By the time he finished his explanation, other passengers had apparently complained to the flight attendants—who were equally assaulted.
One member of the crew walked up to my seat mate and asked him pointedly, “Excuse me sir, is that your carrion?”
Dreamers (September 2013)
She was walking through the aisles of flowering perennials, lost in thoughts and dreams.
He, in the tool shop, was eyeing a dangerous-looking metal thing and wondering how it worked and what he could accomplish with it.
This was their Sunday ritual. Up and out early, grabbing coffee and pastries on the way to the adventure for that weekend. Today it was a plant nursery, of which they hoped would hold great opportunity.
Long veterans of home-improvement shows and design magazines, they sought a closer encounter to the world of gardening they had mostly viewed from their living room.
Upon arrival, they stopped to look at brightly colored annuals strategically stationed at the entrance, then unconsciously went in separate directions seeking the personal discoveries that would satisfy their expectations of the day.
Though landing with enthusiasm and wish lists, they departed with nothing more than a bag of freshly made apple-cider doughnuts.
I was behind them on line, buying a few new plants for my gardens and doughnuts of my own. My observation from watching a few minutes of this young couple’s life was that their outing seemed somewhat bittersweet. The experience left me curious.
On the way out they held hands, heads bent caringly toward the other’s. Cinnamon sugar dust marked their path.
As we reached our cars together I couldn’t help striking up a conversation.
“Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you a question?”
Nudged out of their own world, she offered in a very welcoming tone. “Sure, how can we help you?”
“Well”, I began, “I couldn’t help watch you both move through the aisles choosing the most beautiful plants and perfect tools for yourselves, yet you left empty-handed.”
They both laughed ironically, as if having been discovered in a place they didn’t belong: a situation they had obviously found themselves in before.
“You see”, she eagerly shared, “We live in a tiny apartment in Manhattan with barely room for growing windowsill herbs.”
He joined the conversation, “And we have dreams of buying a house in the country.”
In unison they blurted, “We can’t wait to have a lawn of our own.”
Fore! (December 2013)
Whenever possible, I play golf.
Prior to hitting my first-ever tee shot, I openly scoffed at the sport and the artificial environment on which it was played. Any desire I had to play must have been buried deep within, but now that I've played more than a few times, my interest level has risen quickly. To my surprise I have also gained a new appreciation for the courses themselves.
Though mostly manicured and pampered, golf courses are also a blend of vast expanses of relatively unspoiled woodlands. A spectacular oak tree left in a fairway not only adds an extra element of play; it reminds golfers they are navigating their ball through the natural world around them.
This dichotomy of two worlds is designed to challenge mind and body and wasn't something I fully understood prior to spending time within them. As a landscape designer, I usually want my projects to mimic a natural environment. Golf seemed to be the antithesis of all the design paradigms I held dear.
Golf course turf has long been divisive: envied by homeowners as the ultimate in lawn care yet ridiculed by those contemptuous of the use of artificial chemicals. Though I will not use chemicals on my own property, I have come to be amazed at what is possible when a lawn is put on a steady diet of drugs and fertilizers.
My long-held biases with the game also included disdain for the land occupied by a course – seemingly wasted space set-aside for the retired or elite. Now, with a new understanding of the game, I can see that if a parcel of land is to be developed, I’d be glad for a hundred acres of greenery instead of the added population density and resource grabbing a new housing development would create.
As a relatively new ‘duffer’, my appreciation of a courses’ wild fringe comes from frequent errant shots into the woods. On occasion while rummaging for balls, I have seen some beautiful mushrooms and impressive snakes.
Mis-hitting a shot in New York frequently results in a game of pinball between trees. While embarrassing and irritating, I don’t give much thought to damaging trees I have accidentally brought into my round. A golf ball doesn't seem like much of a threat to a giant Oak or Maple.
It struck me differently though when, during a recent golf outing on a desert course, my typical wayward tee shot blasted away from the carpet grass and ricocheted off the arm of an ancient Saguaro cactus. Somehow, hitting the cactus seemed ecologically and spiritually damaging in a way I’d not experienced back home. And, though I apologized to the desert giant for the disturbance, its needle-spines would not release my ball.
With my current skill-set, I am simply enjoying the exhilaration and frustrations of the game and the time spent outdoors. I do have confidence that, as my game improves, I’ll have more opportunity to observe the grass species in the fairways.
Tiptoe through the tulips (July 2011)
Much of my childhood was spent in my parent's gardens. On any given weekend, I could be seen practicing the arts of digging holes, weeding, cutting grass and raking leaves – usually under some form of duress.
Learning about gardening, however, accounted for less than half of my garden time.
I lived in a neighborhood with dozens of kids, and like most boys and girls, we played outside constantly. Whatever the season, there were always ball games going on in the street and around the neighborhood. Errant throws and hits were indiscriminate in where they landed. Balls were lost to storm drains, overly enthusiastic dogs and into the ‘scary’ woods that surrounding our block. Occasionally a ball got trapped in the groundcover and shrubbery of ‘The Feldman Gardens’. Big mistake, especially on weekends when my dad was home. We all knew this was scarier than the woods could ever be.
Though my buddies Ricky, Danny and Jimmy were by no means immune, I took the brunt of the wrath for our wayward Wiffle balls and missed football touchdown passes.
My father's booming voice, "Jonathan!! – get out of the garden!" still rings in my ears, albeit now more fondly than in fear.
Finally, the Springtime weather has brought my son and I out of doors. He keeps busy with toys and games while I am puttering about. We throw a ball together and have fun chasing after them down the hill, under the deck, or…in the gardens!
The first time I watched him retrieve a tennis ball that lodged itself in the newly opened daffodils, I was immediately struck by a new, yet somehow eerily-familiar, sensation.
In our generation of father and son, my footsteps have been followed with his keen love of sport and a corresponding lack of accuracy. Though no windows have yet been broken, way too many airborne launches have found their resting places in my gardens. I've endured decapitation of cherished flowers, trampling of coddled perennials and an overall disregard for all of which I work so hard.
The echo of my father's siren guides me to be more understanding with Richard, but I couldn't hold back the time a football trashed a favorite Hydrangea. "Richard!! – "
May the circle be unbroken.
Plants eternal (September 2012)
If we're lucky, from time to time, something touches our life that transforms a moment into a lifelong memory.
Whether a person, place or pet, such happenings become a part of the story of our lives. For me, it occurs more often with plants than anything else. Many of my firsts were while visiting a botanical garden, plant nursery, or in the gardens of friends. Some meetings were clearly love at first sight. Others took a bit more time for the attraction to be fully realized.
Curiously, it is often the circumstances of the discovery that hold more long-lasting appeal than the object itself. I’ve met some extraordinary gardeners in my work and am frequently awed by the broad knowledge and love of plants they share. One such person, a gardener for most of her considerable lifetime, tends a plot that her parents started at the end of the KoreanWar. During each visit, I am shown new plants and learn more about her fascinating life as we walk through the array of plants and layers of history.
I have a few transplants of her groundcovers now, and look forward to pointing them out during tours of my own gardens. My first true infatuation, at about age 12, was with a genus of plants known as Rhododendrons. My parents were crazy about them, and this acorn didn’t fall far from their tree. The folks were long-standing members of the American Rhododendron Society, and I accompanied them to its meetings and annual plant sales. It wasn’t long before I joined the ranks and shared the passion of the faithful.
One particular species that captured my parents’ hearts, and became a part of family lore, was a yellow-flowering variety known as “Mary Fleming”. Like another family favorite, Angel Wing seashells from Sanibel Island, Florida, sightings of a ‘Mary’ were as rare as finding an intact wing among scattered shards along a sandy beach. Either one would be announced with great pride and satisfaction—accompanied by exact locations, dimensions and comparisons to previous finds.
Our curiosity about the woman blessed with such an unusual plant as her namesake reached its peak in the pre-Google world of the 1970s, yielding only snippets of undocumented information. The ensuing decades since the lapse of my Society membership did not reduce the desire for more information on this now-mythical woman ingrained into my family’s history.
Years later, in a fortunate stroke of serendipity, I was called to an interesting older property, in Upper Nyack, for a landscape consultation. While walking the grounds, enjoying its unusual and mature plantings, I was listening to my client explain the history of the place and found it especially interesting that a well-known horticulturist had owned and planted the property in the late 1950s and ‘60s.
Her name was Mary Fleming,
Solar system (October 2013)
On Halloween, the sun will rise nearly 117 minutes later and set 140 minutes earlier than it did on Memorial Day. We’ll lose forty-five minutes of daily light during the month of October alone.
Pretty much no one likes this. Perhaps none less so than plants.
These are the days plants begin the process of shutting down for the season, sacrificing their above-ground selves in favor of storing food in roots for the coming unproductive winter months. As daylight lessens, the dominant photosynthesis-creating powerhouse, Chlorophyll, gives way to normally subordinate orange, yellow and red pigments that flourish in its absence. Though present year round, their short-lived dominance in autumn create the much anticipated Fall Foliage displays.
Plant’s raging competition for space and pollinating insects that began early Spring quickly winds down. Killing frosts distinguish fleeting, cold intolerant annuals from hardy perennials. Though their withering leaves should make them left for dead, Hosta, Astilbe and Salvia are merely lying in wait for the thaw of the coming Spring.
Evergreen perennials Lavender, Sage and Alyssum stand fully-clothed and alone in the perennial border having outlasted all their contemporaries. The exuberance of life for which I looked to these flowers daily has faded into dull stalks and brown seed heads pushed around by the autumn wind.
My garden shrubs are also affected by the seasonal change. Hybrid Tea and Knock- Out roses flourish in the cooler temperatures, as do the porcelain-colored berries on the Callicarpa. Orange-red Bittersweet
vines come alive in the Fall as well. Lingering Japanese Anemones still flower, continuing to compete with the day-lilies they’ve been rubbing up against all year. Neither one is prepared to give up the battle for dominance.
Clear warm days come less frequently but are perhaps more appreciated. Morning frosts and progressively colder nights claim new tender victims regularly. The begrudged march toward dormancy is well underway and the end of diversity is inevitable.
Still, amidst the losses, new ecosystems are forming. Succulent pears fall to the ground after months ripening on the tree. The spoiling fruit is munched on by squirrels and groundhogs, pierced by insects and attacked
by large nasty-looking wasps. Deer come by to graze. Except for the loud cawing of crows, the gathering is silent. Each player in this temporary microcosm learning to interact symbiotically with the other.
I enjoy observing the arrival of each and their techniques to gain access to the fruit. As I watch the interplay, the door to the house is suddenly nosed open. Bolting and barking at full tilt toward the scene is Taz, our protective, playful dog. Body arriving before brain, he doesn’t know which pear poacher to chase first in order to maximize
his odds of having fun.
Overrunning the pears entirely and tumbling in the grass, he gets up to find all animals and bugs gone. He gives out a few snorting sneezes then starts what can only be described as a maniacal pursuit of the source of scents left behind. His search forms a trail around the yard, wearing away lawn and pushing aside mulch. It's funny at first but soon becomes a source for concern. Quickly realizing how normal it is, I sit back and enjoy thise latest entry of my day's entertainment.
Fauna voyeur (February 2014)
With little inspiration coming from the plants in my gardens this winter month, a day is spent watching the movements of the fauna within.
The scene opens atop a majestic tree, focused on a perched Red-tail Hawk surveying the landscape in search of a meal. A quick pan of the ground in front of my window reveals a mouse, the unsuspecting, soon-to-be victim of the bird of prey. The rodent is chewing an acorn, the pasty nut from a Pin Oak I planted when the property was first developed. Seemingly safe in its surroundings, it is about to experience first-hand, the reality of its place on our food chain.
In an effortless and frightening swoop from on high, the hungry hunter snatches its meal and boomerangs back to perch, completing its attack without a talon touching the ground. Nearly instantly killed, no struggle was involved. No plants were harmed during the assault.
***
Prowling through my and neighbor’s gardens, a lone hungry coyote sniffs for its lunch. A discernable bouquet of scents include a wood rat, squirrels, and a snake hiding somewhere within the groundcover. At top speed, the canine can catch any of its chosen prey. This day belonged to the rat.
Without the Hawk’s precision, a clear, audible struggle takes place before the rodent succumbs. Not much, but enough to perk the ears of a red Cardinal picking seeds from an ornamental grass in the perennial bed.
***
A rabbit emerges at the edge of the Hydrangea bed, cautiously sniffing the air for potential danger. Constantly aware of its vulnerability, it negotiates a quick path toward a favorite and reliable food source; our vegetable garden. It deftly negotiates a gap in the wire fence and quickly enters in our manicured land of plenty. Though not as robust an offering as in July, the garden still has root vegetables and hardy herbs from which to choose.
Turnip appetizer, parsley and sage intermezzo and a leek main satisfy its hunger. A successful day’s excursion for the bunny, but its movements were noted by both the coyote and hawk and stored for future reference.
***
At the end of this day, I needed to get to the local market for ingredients to cook my family’s evening meal.
Passing bins of overflowing vegetables and cheeses, I stop at the butcher counter, which offered nothing as exotic as Hawk or interesting as Rabbit. Only the long-ago mundane choices of cow, pig and fowl.
Identifying a piece of meat only by way of label, I choose a piece of chicken, waiting for me on a Styrofoam tray, wrapped in plastic.
Recalling the required and cunning abilities of the predators I watched earlier, I realized that all I needed to bring home the bacon was a single hand, to grab my wallet out of my jeans pocket.
The trickiest part of my hunt was the getaway back to the nest. It absolutely rivaled the others’ in skill. A death defying, adrenaline-pumping, white-knuckled flight across three lanes of rush hour traffic.
Down and dirty (March 2014)
Some friends and I took a late-February hike through snow-covered trails in our local woods. After a long sedentary winter, this was a welcomed and spirited outing.
Our senses came alive when we realized the first vibrations of spring had already begun. Deep within the forest canopy, a faint green mist hovered above and around us. Though we knew it was the reflecting light of the newly greening forest, to us it could have been the exhaled breaths of leaf buds and branch tips. Melting snow exposed spongy, moist soil, thickening the air with a pungent, earthy, somewhat moldy quality.
We tromped through wet and mushy paths of mixed leaves and snow. The leaves recognizable only by the remaining network of veins that had held the fleshy parts together before last Autumn’s leaf drop. These botanic skeletons, too, will turn completely to dust as the woods dry out over the next few months. Hikers will again see the bare soil of the trails. The leaf dust pushed aside, merely a part of the forest floor.
Each of us on that trail had our own personal markers, harbingers of spring. Our searches for them became ‘make or break’ decisions on whether the seasons were truly changing.
One friend felt it so, after discovering unfurling fronds of Cinnamon Ferns popping through the snow. Another, while watching newly-greened watercress getting washed in the icy, fast-moving stream of Winter's thaw. The third, after lifting a rock to uncover a slumbering, squiggly mass of newts that immediately scrambled for a new hiding place.
We were suburban naturalists seeking connections to an increasingly distant natural world, squishing along, reveling that our boots got sucked into the muck.
The sightings my friends and I anticipate each year and the sensory awakening we shared, can be found along any path, in any wood. My enduring amazement of spring’s energy is fueled with the knowledge that regardless of any previous devastating natural or human event, the Earth abides and celebrates life again each year.
As we headed back to our cars, people we passed on their way in seemed anxious to start their own pilgrimage. We smiled at them knowingly, wordlessly assuring them that many clues lie ahead.
They, in turn, looked at our mud-soaked pants and boots with a bit of envy.
Camelot (April 2014)
Camelot.
Camelot. The perfection of the mythical kingdom, as a gardener, doesn’t sound at all bizarre, especially after the winter we are just emerging from.
Think of it: The climate must be perfect all year. We’d know exactly when winter will begin and ends. Plus, there is a legal limit to the amount of snow that can fall.
In Camelot, July and August can’t be too hot. Summer has to stick around until September. That’s just the way things are.
Because the rain cannot begin until after sundown, and by daybreak the fog must disappear, outdoor work could be done everyday.
That’s in Camelot.
But this is Nyack.
Nyack.
Where those things do sound quite bizarre. Planning for outdoor activities is tenuous at best. Back up plans and rain dates are essential.
Winters can be snowy, cold or dry. Summers parched or full of rain and hail. Mid-afternoon downpours can hamper plans for everything from outdoor parties to delivering the mail.
In Nyack.
We thrive on the unpredictable. We anticipate and prognosticate the weather. It’s the random appearances of the early spring flowers, the last leaves of autumn and the first flurries of winter. Romantic surprises that the world real for Nyackians.
The thunder and lightning shows at midnight, the snow absolutely slushing upon the curbs.
The love of place, imperfections, warts and weeds. It’s a little bit of everything. That’s just how our conditions are.
In short, there’s simply not, I place I’d rather live than here in Nyack.
That's cold
“I feel the earth move under my feet.” I see the snow tumbling down, tumbling down.
Unlike the romantic cause of this turmoil in Carol King’s song, my imbalance comes from a heaving of the ground around me.
This unevenness is a result of fluctuations to the ‘frost line’, the subterranean point below which soil does not freeze. This winter’s barrage of wet snow and ridiculously cold temperatures pushed this freezing point deeper than I can remember.
As water below the surface freezes and expands upward, everything is lifted out of the ground, fracturing existing stability. These actions are known as ‘frost heaves’.
The most common affect of frost heaves are roadway potholes. Resulting conditions this year also see concrete paver walkways buckle like roller-coasters, brick and stone patios bulge as if pregnant, and mortar joints in stone walls and steps pop as if crowbars were used to forcibly separate them.
Houses and other buildings are not affected by a deepening frost line. These permanent structures are built on solid concrete footings at least three feel below ground – beyond any possible disturbance of a lifting frost. Landscape elements are more susceptible because they are not built atop concrete, only requiring a base of dry-laid compacted material one foot or so deep.
As a garden designer and builder, my livelihood depends on observations of the weather. My company’s installations must stand the test of time, and as more frequent and forceful rain and snowfalls challenge historic projections for ‘hundred year floods’, our construction techniques are being adapted to withstand the seeming ‘new norm’. Because of the accumulated precipitation this year, even well-established garden elements, some over fifteen years ago, were upset for the first time.
What to do?
The remedy depends on the surface material involved. Streets are patched with new blacktop, although once a spot is weakened it seems to become a perennial problem.
Disturbed brick and precast pavers must be re-laid. The affected areas must be re-graded, leveled and compacted before the surface material is righted.
Concrete patios and walkways set on slabs at least four inches thick usually aren’t affected by frost. If they are, repairs are minimal and generally limited to cleaning out and reapplying the mortar joints between stones. These joints are the outdoor equivalents to the grout between ceramic tiles inside your home.
The winter of 2014 - 2015 penetrated the earth to new depths and left a wake of damage to our environment.
Writing this on one of the first mild days of late winter, I do feel hope on the horizon. True to lore, March came in like a lion. Hopefully it will go out “mellow as the month of May”.
A Lifetime Garden (May 2002)
The beginnings of a lifetime garden
I've just started designing and laying out the gardens on a property my wife Carolyn and I recently purchased in South Nyack. Over the course of the next few months, I'd like to share with you some of the thinking, debating, experimenting and learning that will accompany each of our projects.
Most people I know love the idea of gardening but lack the time or knowledge to tackle most projects. I'm hoping that some of these stories might help you through some limitations so you can enjoy creating your own gardens.
Our gently undulating half-acre contains near-perfectly placed mature evergreen trees, fruit trees and rambling shrub borders. The property also has one of the largest Exbury-type Azaleas I've ever seen (this shrub sold me on the property even before I saw the house). Despite these and other botanical treasures scattered around the grounds, there are no real 'gardens' to speak of.
As a garden designer and builder, the challenges and obstacles of the property flowed as freely as the ideas and wish lists for display gardens and recreational space. The main challenge clearly was going to be how to make this property a showplace of horticultural sophistication -- a virtual wellspring of taste and understated elegance deserving of our highly evolved sense of style -- without ruining the place or destroying the history and grace we first fell in love with. It was clear to both of us that these gardens must reflect a series of exercises in restraint.
In these articles I hope to chronicle the current and future chapters in the life of our property as we build gardens and personalize the grounds to suit our tastes and accommodate our lives. It is an interesting project for me because unlike my work with clients, this project will be done on my time. This will also be much more a collaborative effort than I'm used as I share the creative (and hopefully some of the building) process with my wife. Wish us luck.
Thirsty? (April 2002)
Improving Your Lot Without A Lot of Water
As the owner of a garden design/construction business I find myself at odds with the general populations views on some basic things. Like rain. While most people look forward to sunny weekends, I would selfishly trade most of them for rainy days if I could have dry weather during the week for my crews to work. Many people lament rainy days as uninspiring and bleak but as a gardener I know that life is a balance and into each garden a little rain must fall. If April doesn't bring showers we might not have many May flowers.
We are heading into spring with water-use restrictions as severe as any in recent memory. While new garden plants may not be an option for a while, there is no reason you still can't make wonderful changes to the appearance of your property.
If you're looking to make improvements to your property during this dry season, I suggest beginning with structural changes such as a new patio, paths, or stone walls. Much like redecorating a room inside your home, these garden elements, referred to as 'hardscaping' set moods that can change one's perception of a piece of property and greatly enhance your enjoyment of time spent outside. Once our water supplies have been replenished these new garden spaces can be planted to complete the make over. Ornamental mulches covering bare soil can dress up and reduce erosion until plantings are installed.
Another way to change the way you see your property is by installing landscape lighting. Effective lighting plans can create depth, excitement and surprises around your house by highlighting a special tree or rock, casting shadows of wispy branches on a wall, and leading visitors along a path around gardens or sculptures. Security and safety are also improved when outdoor lighting is added. Typical landscape lighting uses low-voltage fixtures that are energy efficient and modest in installation costs.
Finally, just because you can't water doesn't mean you can't create a new water feature on your property (providing of course, restrictions don't limit this, too). Installing a modest-sized pond with a waterfall or stream can bring tremendous enjoyment and entertainment to your gardens without using up more than a few dozen gallons of water. The water is recycled by a pump which means once filled you barely have to add to it. Birds will come to drink and bathe and if you add a nearby bird feeder you'll have as many colors flying in and around your backyard as any flower bed could provide.
Winter (January 2014)
January 2014
Dismembered limbs, trunks in oddly leaning postures, some painfully prostrate and unable to right themselves. Others still breathing but gasping to absorb replenishing carbon dioxide, their ether of life. Susceptible to insects and wood rot through broken branches and wounds, they are in a race to beat back these aggressors. Desperate to thwart the inevitable, at least for a while, for they know deep in their phloem only the strongest survive in the wild.
Those that succumb will decay quickly in the moist atmosphere of our woods. Marked disturbingly with mushrooms protruding from cavities in the body, these trees are on the way to becoming compost on the forest floor.
These scenarios are most poignant in a trek through winter’s landscape, when misshapen and mangled trees are most easily seen. A walk through a local wood can unveil a full spectrum of the life stages of the trees growing within them.
Such visits prompt many emotions. Some elicit deep sympathy –for majestic crowns snapped off in a major storm.
Some, sadness — for those unable to support themselves in soils saturated by relentless heavy rains.
Compassion — for the innocents crushed or twisted in the fall of a neighbor.
And further, reverence — for the largest and strongest in the Stand of whose branches cushioned a lucky few that fell into into their arms. Their lives now forever entwined, growing over and around each other until death do them part.
In another realm, city trees are left to fend for themselves. Planted in hostile environments, they must also deal with restricted root growth, noxious pollutants, and the general indignities of dogs. Those planted within a planned community or park might be treated a bit better but are still subjected to the ever-present environmental stresses that will age them prematurely.
Conversely, prized and pampered suburban trees suffer less than their wild and urban cousins. A damaged tree on a residential property is likely to receive aid through fertilizing, chemical sprays and regular pruning. Compared to the other two locales, their lives are generally less stressful and long-lived.
Winter hikes are more than just macabre visits into a bleak wasteland. They are a seque for the anticipation of Spring’s renewal and hope. Successive walks in February and March will reveal a forest floor coming alive with saplings of a new generation, finding their way through the unmistakable physical history of their neighborhood.
Surrounded by their fallen elders, most will manage to become upstanding citizens of the wild.
Hey there, you with there stars in your eyes (February 2013)
Since my earliest days as a botanist, I’ve felt a profound connection between earthly plants and the heavens.
While in college, I held the position of caretaker for the University’s small greenhouse. Within its glass walls, I kept busy mixing soils, re-potting outsized plants and maintaining its prized permanent collection of tropicals.
But amidst the peat moss and Pepperomia, I dreamed of the stars.
Late nights, under the spell of overly oxygenated air—the by-product of plant transpiration—I’d drift off into Space, imagining a life where I could exercise both of these strong passions as one occupation.
One night it came to me…I’d become an astro-botanist!
I was sure that, should such a field actually exist, NASA would be keeping it a secret and surreptitiously seek me out for the job.
I imagined being the true life Lowell, as played by Bruce Dern, in the classic movie Silent Running. At the helm of a space-traveling farm, working with a cadre of droids, I would maintain and harvest the crops that would sustain me through a lifelong journey, propelled by the power of the solar winds. It seemed the perfect career move for the self-sufficient direction I wanted my life to take.
Deep in my heart I knew it was merely schoolboy’s folly, but I did get close once.
It was a time when my best friend ran the school’s observatory, located in the same building as the greenhouse. On clear nights, I would lock the plants in their beds and climb the stairs that opened to the heavens, anxious to see in which direction he would aim the telescope for that evening’s adventure.
We saw the Orion Nebula, red dwarf and blue giant stars, planetary moons and the distant spirals of neighboring galaxies.
During these current times in my life, seemingly light years after having nearly touched the magnified sky of my college days, I’m satisfied to casually observe the rise of a planet as it enters the night’s sky, joining a star-studded cast for a revolution-ary performance.
Less adventurous than my erstwhile dream, the ability to recognize a few commonly known star clusters like Cassiopeia, Sirius and Pleiades serves as a reasonable ‘constellation’ prize.
Unpredictable November (November 2011)
Lifetime Gardener – November 2011
I’m not crazy about the month of November.
It drags us out of the last crisp days of autumn and shoves us into the clutching grip of early winter. Though, aside from manhandling us into December’s bleakness, it does offer opportunities to experience nature in strikingly different weather conditions – often within days of each other.
I enjoy walking the gravelly footpath of Nyack Beach, along the shore of the Hudson River and under the imposing rock face of Hook Mountain. A rewarding activity any time of the year, it can be especially challenging during the unpredictable weather this month.
Monday, walking the path along the bank of the Hudson River, a perfectly clear November day, I slip unnoticed into a world so peaceful and uncluttered. Motionless ducks, gulls, driftwood and me. The river’s current moves slowly along, joining the calm by not adding any waves of its own. Turning to the mountain side of the path, shrubs and groundcovers exhibit the last of their fall color. Having been disguised by leaves all summer, Bittersweet vines are revealed sprawled over boulders and climbing in trees. The first sighting of their neon-bright yellow and orange fruit clusters always seems to catch me by surprise, as if I forget they exist - until they do. My pace is slow, not wanting to rush through what will certainly be one of the last great walking days of the year.
Later that week, I walk along the bank of the Hudson River on an overcast and drizzly day, with no visual distinction between water and sky. The sound of trains across the river echo against the Hook’s rock face while waves slap against the boulders that retain the path above the water. Driftwood is in motion, bobbing slowly downstream. A fine mist coats me but doesn’t get me wet. I brace somewhat against the elements, though very much enjoying the mild temperature and desolation.
Toward the end of the month, walking along the bank of the Hudson River, I become part of the season’s first true wintry day. Wet snow sticks to my beard and begins to obscure the vines and weeds covering the edges of the path. Looking up the mountain at the gray silhouettes of leafless trees, my eyes are stung by fast-falling snowflakes taking aim at my face. The air temperature is below freezing but October’s lingering ground heat keeps the snow from completely covering the path or freezing its larger puddles. Feet cold, eyes tearing, my pace quickens on the path leading back to the parking lot.
Seasonal change is inevitable. Though November might be a little too abrupt for my sensibilities, it does give us time to store warm memories and take the surprise out of the coming chill.
A call to the wild (December 2011)
A Call To The Wild
Where do you go when you want to ‘leave it all behind’?
We live in a manufactured world, designed and built for our needs and desires. We have effortless access to shelter, food, entertainment – whatever we might need. For most of us, there are no day-to-day concerns for survival other than, perhaps, those desperate times when it is impossible to find a ripe avocado within walking distance.
The ease in which we move through our lives creates a dangerous possibility that we’ll lose touch with the natural world, and as such, the ability to clear our minds from day to day stresses. In fact, I know people who go through their daily lives - working, shopping, being entertained - without the nurturing breaths of fresh air.
While it certainly is Human Nature to take Mother Nature for granted, we must work to sustain a healthy relationship that feeds our body and mind. Not necessarily white-water rafting, camping on the edge of a glacier, or repelling off a sheer cliff, interaction can be as simple as a short walk in the woods to disengage from that which sidetracks us.
From my office window, I get a clear view of the Ramapo Mountains, in western Rockland County. One favorite hiking trail leads to the top of Kakiat Park. Though these days I rarely get to hike there, just seeing those hills triggers memories of past hikes, such as discovering yet-to-unfurl Fiddlehead Ferns and stumbling across a rabbit hole, over-flowing with babies. Simply recalling the sights and sounds of leaf-covered trails warms me.
Such fruitful remembrances usually satisfy me until I get back there. If impatience for a return grabs me before I can, I try to console myself with sour grapes, by conjuring itchy thoughts of mosquito bites and crawling spiders which makes the absence more tolerable.
We each fuse with nature in our own ways. Perhaps a drive in the country, taking in the spectacle of autumn leaf color change, or watching clouds while lying face-up under a canopy of trees. Even star-gazing.
With all the demands on our time, getting ‘out there’ can be challenging. Personally, and with friends, some prodding is often necessary to make it happen. A magnificent weekend day, or the promise of a muffin upon return, have sufficiently motivated me in the past. The one bit of advice I hear most often from people, though, is simply telling me to “Take a hike”.
Out of this world (February 2013)
February 2013
“Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes …”
Since my earliest days as a botanist, I’ve felt a profound connection between earthly plants and the heavens.
While in college, I held the position of caretaker for the University’s small greenhouse. Within its glass walls, I kept busy mixing soils, re-potting outsized plants and maintaining its prized permanent collection of tropicals.
But amidst the peat moss and Pepperomia, I dreamed of the stars.
Late nights, under the spell of overly oxygenated air—the by-product of plant transpiration—I’d drift off into Space, imagining a life where I could exercise both of these strong passions as one occupation.
One night it came to me…I’d become an astro-botanist!
I was sure that, should such a field actually exist, NASA would be keeping it a secret and surreptitiously seek me out for the job.
I imagined being the true life Lowell, as played by Bruce Dern, in the classic movie Silent Running. At the helm of a space-traveling farm, working with a cadre of droids, I would maintain and harvest the crops that would sustain me through a lifelong journey, propelled by the power of the solar winds. It seemed the perfect career move for the self-sufficient direction I wanted my life to take.
Deep in my heart I knew it was merely schoolboy’s folly, but I did get close once.
It was a time when my best friend ran the school’s observatory, located in the same building as the greenhouse. On clear nights, I would lock the plants in their beds and climb the stairs that opened to the heavens, anxious to see in which direction he would aim the telescope for that evening’s adventure.
We saw the Orion Nebula, red dwarf and blue giant stars, planetary moons and the distant spirals of neighboring galaxies.
These days, light years after having nearly touched the sky, I’m satisfied to casually observe the rise of a planet as it enters the night’s sky, joining a star-studded cast for a revolution-ary performance.
Less adventurous than my erstwhile dream, the ability to recognize a few commonly known star clusters like Cassiopeia, Sirius and Pleiades serves as a reasonable constellation prize.