Design – Page 8 – Ellis Hollow

NIMG (Not In My Garden)

statue in filipendula

Here’s my contribution to blackswampgirl’s (aka Kim) Not In My Garden meme over at A Study in Contrasts. Long-time visitors (both of you) might recognize that the above image is a PhotoShopped combo from two earlier posts, Pink Filipendula and Honey, does this peplos make my butt look fat? The image came to mind as I thought about Kim’s meme. And I realized that I could make it even with my modest imaging skills. Hopefully it will relate to the text.

What you won’t find in my garden:

Formal design. No straight lines here, or proper spacing between plants. I love visiting a great formal garden because I can’t do it myself without a team of OCD hired help. It would drive me mad because I’d notice every plant out of line and every weed between the plants.

tacky statues Real garden statuary. Not that I don’t like it. Just my taste exceeds my means. I would love to put real, classic garden statuary in wilder spots of the garden. Such ornament would give it that kind of ‘nature taking over’ look. Just can’t afford it. If anyone wants to donate a real Venus Kallipygos or the southeast Asian statues that Nicole shot at Chiang Mai (and more Budha park) or any of the Laotian art she shot, I’ll give them a proper home. You donate, I’ll pay the shipping. Hurry, or I may resort to tacky modern imitations (right).

Stylish garden wear. Sloggers make great hanging planters. But when I garden, I don’t want to look good or worry about getting something dirty or ripped. That includes footwear.

Deer candy. Well actually I’ve got quite a few tulips and hostas. But I either moved them from our old place or came by them for free. With our deer pressure, I won’t spend any more money on ornamentals deer like. The more poisonous the plant, the more I like it.

Weed-free lawn. I would love a putting green or croquet court. I love the look of athletic turf. But don’t have the time or the energy. I’ve invited our turf guy to bring his class to my place to do turf weed identification, because I’ve got them all. I just run the rotary mulch harvester through it every week or so and put a little nitrogen on it most falls.

Enuf for now. I’m sure I’ll think of more this weekend. Stop back.

Update for Kim. Better?

Plants in motion

Some people are drawn to birding over gardening because â€˜birds move, plants donâ€™t.â€™ Au contraire. I am acutely aware of motion in the garden, and enjoy many plants for the mere fact that they start quivering in the slightest breeze.

For example, Iâ€™ve heard folks disparage Calamagrostis because most of the time it just looks like dead grass. But itâ€™s the first plant that starts in motion when there’s not even enough wind to get the wind chimes playing. Here it is with a white-flowered artemisia in the foreground:

Ornamental grasses are generally the best for turning wind into motion. There are several here, with Calamagrostis (left) wavering again, Miscanthis (several, center) flying its flag, and Panicum (right) reacting en masse.

[A technical note: Iâ€™m very unhappy about the loss of quality when video files are uploaded and compressed by both GoogleVideo and YouTube. It helped to cut back to 15 fps when filming, but still the raw avi files or edited wmv files look much better viewed locally. If you squint viewing these, you’ll probably get the idea. Anyone have tips for maintaining quality when uploading to either of these sites?]

Floppers â€” those top-heavy plants that most people stake (I sure donâ€™t have the time) â€” are fascinating in a light breeze. (All of these videos were shot on days when there were only intermittent breezes topping out at about 10 mph.) Here is Rudbeckia laciniata â€˜Hortensisâ€™ (the outhouse plant I blogged about recently) bobbing and weaving in a slight breeze.

Hereâ€™s Sanguisorba tenuifolia (also the subject of a recent post) which really gets going with just a whisper of a wind. And if you squint, you can see another great top-heavy flopper bobbing around, Joy-pye weed (Eupatorium spp) left background.

Hereâ€™s a close-up of the same Sanguisorba, which will give you a good idea of just how much this plant moves in just a very light breeze.

Big leaves are also good at catching a breeze. Tropical plants like elephant ears (left) and bananas (right) start quivering with the slightest breeze.

Mixed plantings give interesting effects. (Hey, you choose plant combinations based on color. Why not on how they move?) There are tall, top-heavy ironweed (Vernonia) in the center of this planting and goldenrod to the left. More Calamagrostis waving down low, left-center with a bluish Panicum behind it. Various shrubs, trees and weeds add to the effects.

Dappled shade can heighten the effects of motion as the overstory moves along with (or counter to) the plants below, which move in and out of light and shade, like these coneflowers.

Motherplants: Where green roofs are born

The mother plants at Motherplants (above) and demo dog house (right).

This morning, I stopped by Motherplants — a woman-owned nursery specializing in plants for green roofs. Marguerite, a friend and co-worker, is one of the operation’s principals, and I’ve been having her save up some ‘seconds’ for me for my Mudman project. (More on that later.)

The business is thriving. Marguerite is propagating and growing for projects small (the dog houses are for demo purposes) and large (one order for 18,000 square feet is keeping her hopping) from Alabama to Manhattan. But the nice thing about growing plants for living roofs is that they thrive on neglect. If being a little late to ventilate the greenhouse is going to kill your plants, you probably aren’t growing the right plants for the stressful conditions they’re going to encounter later in life.

Motherplants’ plant list includes nearly 50 sedums and a couple dozen other species, including Armeria, Delosperma, Dianthus, Festuca, Opuntia, Sempervivum, Thymus and more.

Motherplants’ primary product has been flats of plugs. But more and more they’re custom planting modules that are installed directly on the roof, eliminating transplanting on-site. Another twist along these lines is the living wall unit Marguerite is holding (right). The planting cells are angled slightly to help retain the media.

Plant ’em. Grow ’em. Hang ’em. Nothing to it.

Mother plant pad

Demo dog houses

Pub preview: Site Assessment for Gardeners

Most good gardeners have a well-developed sense of place. They are observant. They know their soils. They know their weather and climate. And they’re good at matching plants to the conditions theyÂ find where they garden.

We may takeÂ all that for granted. But there are many folk out there who want to garden (or want to be better gardeners) but really don’t have a clue. They need help understanding where to start when it comes to assessing their site.

If you know someone like that, here’s a publication that might help them out: Site Assessment for Gardeners. (Full disclosure: I work for Cornell and am a friend and co-worker of the author.) It the 56-page manual won’t be available in hard copy until fall, but there’s a pre-publication version online.

It’s been field-tested and is undergoing revision. Charlie Mazza, the author, has been working with Master Gardeners in 5 New York counties. The MGs have held workshops to introduce ‘regular’ gardeners to the site assessment process and the publication. He told me today that a good sign is that most of the gardeners who took the workshop intend to follow-up and do a thorough site assessment of their own yards this season.

That’s no small commitment on their part. The 11-step,Â how-to process includes:

Garden or landscape area
Obstructions above and below
Sun and shade
Hardiness and microclimates
Wind
Compaction
Drainage
Soil characteristics
Wildlife interference
Existing plants
Putting it all together

When you complete the process, you’ll have:

A sketch of your yard with information youâ€™ll need to make important planting decisions for years to come.
A list of existing plants and how they fit into your future plans.
A checklist of other physical factors that you have discovered during your site assessment.

Final revisions will take place in June. If you have a chance to look it over in the next few weeks and have suggestions for making it better, you can leave comments here or email Charlie Mazza directly: cpm6@cornell.edu

I’dÂ beÂ especiallyÂ interestedÂ toÂ hearÂ ifÂ youÂ thinkÂ theÂ publicationÂ wouldÂ be valuable for gardeners near you. It was written with Northeast gardeners in mind. But I think the process itself is widely adaptable.

Piet Oudolf pix

No secret. I’m a big fan of Piet Oudolf.

Tonight, I stumbled into Yolanda’s Dutch gardening blog, Bliss (lots of great images), where she posted about her October 2005 visit to Piet and Anna’s nursery.

About the only pictures I’ve seen of the nursery have been from books — real professional shots that make the place look too good. I like Yolanda’s better. It looks like a real working garden/nursery.

In the comments, Gloria from Chicago (visit her Pollinators Welcome blog) pointed to her album of pictures from Oudolf’s installation at the Lurie Gardens. As luck would have it, I had a two-day meeting about 10 blocks away just months after that garden was planted. It still looked a little rough. Great to see that it’s filling in nicely.

Here’s a one shot from Gloria’s album:

Oudolf, Lurie Garden, Chicago

Gloria wrote about Lurie Garden in Garden Rant in December, where she points to this slide show illustrating Oudolf’s idea of birth, life, and death in a garden. Lots of great dead plants.