tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15505775011436359222024-03-12T19:40:59.924-04:00The Sunday GardenerCatherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-82550153166546447222023-04-30T13:08:00.000-04:002023-04-30T13:08:24.744-04:00Invasive Plants: Loved or Loathed<p><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Invasive plants come in two categories; they are either welcomes or met with rage. The loved ones first: Forget-me-nots, Celandine poppy, Creeping Charlie, Scilla siberica. </span><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">The loathed: Star of Bethlehem. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The loved ones are always well-received. No matter how much territory they overrun, no one complains. It’s impossible to forget a forget-me-not. It shows up in April in the most beautiful shade of blue. After blooming you can ignore them. No attention is required; they advance wherever they like. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOe0ja73blK1mhRHNF21GZQQUXFwC_hINpNugYy0mYuI3uBdSCuSePlay21xp-r_6a9asNj5HrT9XTcTAIIxgP50eOu_5ZNNOrOBtULka6ANLps1nJ_oM4LpiA_KgTQOmLk7Fb_sCYI0Ls7LipPaOnxKWbRKd-eJsokH7-Lx0CuyymsY2URTmbga3SsA/s640/FMN.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOe0ja73blK1mhRHNF21GZQQUXFwC_hINpNugYy0mYuI3uBdSCuSePlay21xp-r_6a9asNj5HrT9XTcTAIIxgP50eOu_5ZNNOrOBtULka6ANLps1nJ_oM4LpiA_KgTQOmLk7Fb_sCYI0Ls7LipPaOnxKWbRKd-eJsokH7-Lx0CuyymsY2URTmbga3SsA/w640-h480/FMN.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Forget-me-not</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Mine is a migrant from Marian Faux’s garden next door. There are several varieties; ours is <i>Myosotis scorpiodes</i>, the true forget-me-not. Our shared garden is awash with them, started by Marian against her house, and then marching over the years across property lines and into our shared garden. There is no happier sight this time of year than that perfect blue found nowhere else. We continue to ignore its’ official listing as an invasive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Celandine poppy (<i>Stylophorum diphyllum</i>), a brilliant yellow, is native here in the Northeast. I brought one with me from the Catskills garden and it has multiplied. Its’ natural habitat is moist forest over calcareous rock but it has agreeably spread out in a dark, well-watered corner of my garden. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimaB2PGkkWKJgXRVoll0lGLYVVQSLotw_0k-NIN-Qtp-3D9ztehoBQ_gfs9FwxpvAWYKDExYpTxeuBEbsEBXj3NRSMknV3eS3e5guFcpeS9xR_osYX-hZMUYzQNYufqaNLPwoYeqzYubB2UYEWxTMpfKRzKC8F8SuE9MImfdXO5WyQDELyUWOYd6TGow/s640/Poppy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimaB2PGkkWKJgXRVoll0lGLYVVQSLotw_0k-NIN-Qtp-3D9ztehoBQ_gfs9FwxpvAWYKDExYpTxeuBEbsEBXj3NRSMknV3eS3e5guFcpeS9xR_osYX-hZMUYzQNYufqaNLPwoYeqzYubB2UYEWxTMpfKRzKC8F8SuE9MImfdXO5WyQDELyUWOYd6TGow/w480-h640/Poppy.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Celandine poppy</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">As for Creeping Charlie, all you will find in the literature is directions for getting rid of it. Here it has colonized in the lawn where it is cut whenever the grass is cut. It flowers in spring along with the scillas, followed by tidy green rosettes at its’ base. Growing lower than the mower blades, it escapes all but the first cut. My so-called lawn is really a collection of small-leaf green plants, all treated equally. No water, no fertilizer, no weeding. Just a weekly mowing. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Which brings me to the scillas, growing through the grass. Scilla siberica was here when I moved in 11 years ago, at the very back of what was to become a garden. No matter how much disruption, digging, re-digging, planting, brick-laying … it keeps returning. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgySMPXruGz61mESGorUUEWmNl8KzhNQ9qr83sR7Y58AIZ7XxMip0QjMBZ59eHv6dMbFC3y_PeA_xpZvEjFD0bX_9I3YS6lhS4oLnhF8F7okahe3Jq5pWbM6D7VKk4jbCBAo7ht7Ns1LscD48EhKRZVBzlbbBkyk1CqsjUiZzVfkkGt_nJdfJKLk97A/s780/SS.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="780" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgySMPXruGz61mESGorUUEWmNl8KzhNQ9qr83sR7Y58AIZ7XxMip0QjMBZ59eHv6dMbFC3y_PeA_xpZvEjFD0bX_9I3YS6lhS4oLnhF8F7okahe3Jq5pWbM6D7VKk4jbCBAo7ht7Ns1LscD48EhKRZVBzlbbBkyk1CqsjUiZzVfkkGt_nJdfJKLk97A/w640-h426/SS.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Scilla siberica</i></td></tr></tbody></table></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Star of Bethlehem (SB) on the other hand is greeted with groans, followed by vengeance. It starts out as pretty tufts of green followed by beautifully starry white flowers. It dies back to nothingness, leaving gaps when it is too late to fill them. Anything you might plant nearby in the expectation it will beat out the invader disappears in its path. SB is relentless, spreading like wildfire, conquering everything in its way. My advice to you? As soon as the first clump appears remove it with ruthless efficiency, leaving no bulblet behind. Here on Livingston Street, at great expense, the plan to eradicate it is finally underway. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Unlike the persistent invasives, most herbaceous plants do not last forever. Periodically, when you are in the mood, they should be lifted, divided, and replanted. You will know the right time by observation; they just seem to dwindle. This season stachys, astilbe, shasta daisies, iris are among those needing attention. Some defy the odds, growing taller and wider each year -- hosta, cimicifuga, bleeding heart, peonies. A few will surprise you. My favorite and sole tulip Spring Green, supposedly only good for a year or so, keeps repeating. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdmxglJdje-7HuM8rcDSZi9LmXCwGP4l_2dQpmz4tZkf16MmACoOz9aT4OUk09EjwubbVZowIZpMa8it571XJ93B5GD0Henc_Se6rsv6wKJV58rhRK7WO2VhYeuCkdQXsp85PH9BbDt_Rc2TohTuSvGUQPtCW1MsPJ_ztXfQFxarCCuFWagvHla_HMtA/s640/Tulip.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdmxglJdje-7HuM8rcDSZi9LmXCwGP4l_2dQpmz4tZkf16MmACoOz9aT4OUk09EjwubbVZowIZpMa8it571XJ93B5GD0Henc_Se6rsv6wKJV58rhRK7WO2VhYeuCkdQXsp85PH9BbDt_Rc2TohTuSvGUQPtCW1MsPJ_ztXfQFxarCCuFWagvHla_HMtA/w480-h640/Tulip.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Spring green tulip</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">My neighbor, best garden friend and co-conspirator Marian Faux (first parent of the forget-me-nots) and I share a garden in which we plot to outwit partial shade and black walnut competition. This semi-sunny (often shady) border looks better each year, even though old favorites -- baptisia, peonies -- mysteriously disappear. We attribute all losses (fairly or not) to the presence of nearby black walnuts, but we press on regardless. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The pleasures of gardening with a like-minded friend are immeasurable. Marian is a much more meticulous planner than I, with a better sense of what is right, possible, and fitting. She pays close attention, while I am more of the crap-shoot school: roll the dice and there’s a chance you’ll win. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Up until last year I kept a detailed map of the all the beds and borders, updating it annually and marking the changes. I neglected this in 2022 and am faced now with the appearance of plants I don’t recognize and have clearly forgotten. This is when Apps become indispensable. I use a plant identifier and a weed identifier in tandem to jog my memory and to save me from eliminating something important. Satisfaction is guaranteed, but pointing your phone at something and receiving an instantaneous ID does nothing to train your memory or sharpen your observations. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Fair warning.</span></p><o:p></o:p><p></p>Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-42825600852522644522023-03-04T13:47:00.000-05:002023-03-04T13:47:25.479-05:00Getting Through March<p> </p><h1 style="break-after: avoid; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 32px;">By this time of year the gardener is usually able to report a noticeable change in the garden, but often the change is in the soul of the gardener and not the garden itself. </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 32px;">After a mild day or two we convince ourselves that it is the beginning of the new gardening year. In Manhattan, a few weeks earlier than in Rhinebeck, daffodils will soon be poking their noses through the soil of street-side tree pits, cozying up to the warmth coming from the pavement. </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 32px;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1><h1 style="break-after: avoid; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 32px;"> </span></h1><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">If you are dreaming of a cottage in the country with a garden and you wish to be disabused of the idea, now is the time to go house hunting.</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> After the snow melts a March walk through a garden can be sobering. Rhododendrons are still shrouded in burlap. Small piles of debris are everywhere. Anything cut and left on the ground can be cleared away, but most of the larger material is still frozen. Water has pooled and iced in low-lying areas. Pots the owner didn’t get around to emptying and storing in September are still there, likely frozen and cracked. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">April 1 is the real start of the gardening year, and March merely the wind-up. With all its climatic vagaries, March does manage to offer one definitive idea: Winter is over. If you walk in the woods you will soon hear the spring peepers. Farmers say that after they have been heard three nights in a row, spring is here to stay.</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">To help you through the winter, if you have an empty corner or a small wooded swath, consider the Snowdrop, <i>Galanthus nivalis</i>. Garden writers love them, because it provides material when there is nothing else to write about. Snowdrops give you something to look for when all else is still dormant</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">, and leaves you free of worry about late frosts. They are among the toughest of plants and if laid low by a late winter storm, will bounce right back. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">If you have been wise enough to plant snowdrops, and are on your muddy knees admiring your handiwork at eye level where they can best be seen, you will be happy to know that you can expand your crop by dividing as soon as the soil warms up enough to work, even though the snowdrops are in full bloom. The conventional wisdom is that bulbs can be transplanted only when dormant, but that is not the case here. If you wait until autumn there will be no trace of them above ground, and you will have forgotten where they were planted. </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The main danger to your flower borders in the winter months is the ground’s alternate freezing and thawing. This does not happen where there is a guaranteed blanket of snow all winter, but in our more temperate areas you will often see plants heaved out of the ground by alternate freezing and thawing. If you see this in your garden make notes to prevent it next year by heavy winter mulching. Almost any mulch will do – straw, salt hay, evergreen boughs, compost or buckwheat hulls are all fine. Just make sure to wait until the ground freezes before laying mulch.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">March is the month when I review my notes from the fall and remind myself of successes and failures. If a new plant has not performed to my expectations, I will give it another year or two to take hold. A poor freshman performance should not be a death sentence. I, however, find it difficult to follow my own advice, wavering between a plant that just needs a little more time, and one that never should have been acquired in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">If spring is not coming soon enough for you, and snowdrops fail to cheer you, visit the annual New York Botanical Garden Orchid Show, blooming in the Bronx at 2900 Southern Boulevard, until April 23rd. It will help you get through these weeks until spring really arrives.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-6098657500914485422022-11-08T10:50:00.000-05:002022-11-08T10:50:05.055-05:00The Late Garden<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Having left Rhinebeck for New York City in mid-September, I was unable to come back until early October. When I returned the house welcomed me as an old dog would have: “Hello. So glad you are back. It’s a beautiful sunny day. Come into the garden.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhk6yPoqdAcacaT7rYGx833xwbUmLdkjpf-H-prKzoTz3Ag8qIJrQSIa2PLND5-f3o1gOvDGKCBjchEfRcy5REH2xGoe_MjQV5x78YxfWlc3G-bMB4dPpa11166zyYF9LlAgEN4d0ZtaRulfHkbK9e5EYyebFxd5pKTpjS6s4JSZN7NgDKxOxxly7OcEA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhk6yPoqdAcacaT7rYGx833xwbUmLdkjpf-H-prKzoTz3Ag8qIJrQSIa2PLND5-f3o1gOvDGKCBjchEfRcy5REH2xGoe_MjQV5x78YxfWlc3G-bMB4dPpa11166zyYF9LlAgEN4d0ZtaRulfHkbK9e5EYyebFxd5pKTpjS6s4JSZN7NgDKxOxxly7OcEA=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div><i><span style="font-size: medium;">View Over The Garden Fence</span></i></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The garden did not miss me. The pots of herbs outside the kitchen door were still there, robust but hardly used. I tend to forget about them even when I’m cooking, the very reason they were placed so close to the kitchen door. The Sungold tomatoes, finally bearing a small crop, were not worth the real estate they occupied. It is a dreary plant, not to be repeated next year. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Our shared garden continues to look better every year, although the milkweed planted to entice the Monarchs to settle in with us, disappeared early. One peony finally bloomed this spring after years of doing nothing. The lespedeza, always a dependable late blue, barely showed itself. It has been a stalwart of the shared garden from the beginning but is sulking this year.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I dipped my toe in the aster family this fall, starting with Aster x Frikarti ‘Monch’. It was a lovely blue and will be perfect next year paired with Brown-eyed Susan and Goldenrod. This year it was on its own; on trial as it were. Robin Lane Fox in the Financial Times (October 29-30, 2022, Got the Autumn Blues) covered several column inches with a round-up of suggestions for blues in the late summer garden, so I anticipate having more blues next year.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: 16pt; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZyYGjvHZLSLXRv2VQhha4mWSDEteFmFzj7kXQiY-6R54_gVydtv2Y17aI_vC99pNXBmwnsl64q9ziwvUqvqRzD5ehNiBJ3_ieIxqC2Nd0v6sgEfgRwMxQxGXEQ6hPUQsu-TJe8UOXdrm-GRCO4cZK98ticxPtPFa2NL6d7b6u03vb3OkW6A7Vd9-5bQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZyYGjvHZLSLXRv2VQhha4mWSDEteFmFzj7kXQiY-6R54_gVydtv2Y17aI_vC99pNXBmwnsl64q9ziwvUqvqRzD5ehNiBJ3_ieIxqC2Nd0v6sgEfgRwMxQxGXEQ6hPUQsu-TJe8UOXdrm-GRCO4cZK98ticxPtPFa2NL6d7b6u03vb3OkW6A7Vd9-5bQ=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Cimicifuga</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Cimicifuga is the star of my late summer garden. The correct name these days is Actaea, but in my heart it will always be Cimicifuga. There are two varieties – one with upright candelabra flowers, and a droopy one. The upright (my favorite as you may have guessed) stretches out so slowly that if you sit nearby, you can almost watch it grow. This year ‘sports’ have popped up around the garden – same foliage, different bud and flower shapes, different bloom times. An interesting puzzle. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">By October, Anemone Honorine Jobert is in full bloom – luminous white flowers catching the last of the light, brilliant alongside Fothergilla coloring up for Fall. On the street, the Shantung Maples planted last year are earning their keep. They are still in full color, holding their leaves long after the other street trees have shed theirs. The Winged euonymus, buried in the back of the garden, is a vibrant red as is the Aronia along the driveway. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: 16pt; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAvImUytmhpREwKeO6NXtppkBzZYn4b0sfqmhzw7J0BG0rVRi1lXsB792d5NcCPt-bzqC7tJ6Gruckr5GDjuFQSna-lSLvi7F1IGFJbuoapX8_KG7a4Hhl_4yz8nOLfqlDQT5S-5f20cJ1RXoBz__qXf2QbP9SpxYOzKlPjIwCkkJ5JwbP3UcJZGKL2w" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAvImUytmhpREwKeO6NXtppkBzZYn4b0sfqmhzw7J0BG0rVRi1lXsB792d5NcCPt-bzqC7tJ6Gruckr5GDjuFQSna-lSLvi7F1IGFJbuoapX8_KG7a4Hhl_4yz8nOLfqlDQT5S-5f20cJ1RXoBz__qXf2QbP9SpxYOzKlPjIwCkkJ5JwbP3UcJZGKL2w=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Shantung Maple</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The lawn (a euphemism for Creeping Charlie and his cousins cut down as grass) is carpeted in yellow -- fallen leaves from the black walnuts first, then the maples. Leaf-raking doesn’t start here till all the leaves have fallen. Happily, what might appear messy to some is glorious to me. Delfino Martinez and his crew have taken over leaf-raking -- what would be the householder’s task if the householder was someone other than myself. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: 16pt; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhbnmMmIxOJ6IPaJybxsUil0b3W18eZ97Tt5GPXZ708HgoF-9HnyVdegeZ6vJLGiOOsPSPkUNW1mDQzUzxoXJBVH9TMlVHQVOgvj9tYt33vhjJSJzxc_re9JRDSuqwL6TU74_y7_LLU1zDQ9kWroilgtTYILhuKNU1TSFCvOWexiXCJ4M4N3j2v28byEw" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhbnmMmIxOJ6IPaJybxsUil0b3W18eZ97Tt5GPXZ708HgoF-9HnyVdegeZ6vJLGiOOsPSPkUNW1mDQzUzxoXJBVH9TMlVHQVOgvj9tYt33vhjJSJzxc_re9JRDSuqwL6TU74_y7_LLU1zDQ9kWroilgtTYILhuKNU1TSFCvOWexiXCJ4M4N3j2v28byEw=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">The Lawn Before Clearing</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">When the time approached to bring the potted tender plants indoor I balked; they had grown too large to winter-over in the house, and I turned the job over to Cheshire Nursery in Connecticut. A truck picked them up and drove them down to Connecticut. The nursery will store them over the winter and return them in the spring – I hope. One huge mandevilla, two sentimental plumbago, one tree fern, and one lemon tree.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Daylight Savings Time has ended and we are back to Standard. Holiday catalogs are arriving with the anticipated selection of potted amaryllis. If you are ambitious and have a space to store them, it is possible to coax amaryllis into a second flowering. After they have finished blooming remove the flower stalk and fertilize monthly with Miracle-Gro or equivalent. By mid-summer cut back on your watering schedule by one-half. Once the foliage has yellowed cut the leaves back to an inch above the bulb and store the pots in a dark, cool location for about six weeks. Then bring them into a sunny window and start all over again. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I should say that I don’t do any of this, but you might well want to. I buy one fresh amaryllis each year and devote the rest of the winter to paperwhite narcissus planted in pebbles. I always have a few bowls waiting in the wings, and one in a window with good light.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: 16pt; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgwjw2KtSH4vflb5MYzbchxhZWo9rwy3yPRlOTprPez5KjxBGKItVaUXEyi3SRrHqpRHB722bEWbeVST-SiLJrRyQKsLb6zYMgeZEWoFN8fl0SmvDim0JZSpWyhzBhso9Bov3xjZ3REfJg84r2FlUolFZnGP1x-Ax9NIKcTIx3LZKnIi4Q4ZaUqaEtLg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgwjw2KtSH4vflb5MYzbchxhZWo9rwy3yPRlOTprPez5KjxBGKItVaUXEyi3SRrHqpRHB722bEWbeVST-SiLJrRyQKsLb6zYMgeZEWoFN8fl0SmvDim0JZSpWyhzBhso9Bov3xjZ3REfJg84r2FlUolFZnGP1x-Ax9NIKcTIx3LZKnIi4Q4ZaUqaEtLg=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Paperwhite Narcissus</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">By the end of this month you should have completed putting the garden to bed for the winter, turned off and drained all outside water lines, coiled your hoses and brought them indoors. Make sure your garden equipment and tools are clean; you can oil them over the winter. When everything is cut down, put away, tidied up, mulched, wrapped and swept you can review your gardening year from a comfortable chair and plan for spring.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-65723634863354571382022-08-26T16:00:00.001-04:002022-08-26T16:08:10.644-04:00Covid In The Garden<p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In March of 2020, from my window in New York City, I watched families load up their SUVs and drive off not to return for months, if ever.<span> </span>On the 16</span><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">th, when rumors spread that Mayor DeBlasio would close the bridges and tunnels I too left, headed north, and remained in Rhinebeck till late Fall.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> I left, feeling like a deserter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The change was immediate.<span> </span>First it was the quality of light.<span> </span>In an apartment, even the best, there is usually only one good aspect and, maybe, a view. In a house there is light on all four sides. And I knew that within a few weeks, everything would start to grow again.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The garden was planned to begin in April, so I had a few quiet weeks ahead of me.<span> </span>I’d planted daffodils for March in the border I share with my neighbor.<span> </span>Thanks to her, our shared garden is blanketed early with the most beautiful forget-me-nots.<span> </span>Behind the house, the season starts with the earliest scillas planted long before I came here, surfacing every year no matter how disturbed the soil.<span> </span>The scilla is followed by Phlox divaricata, mounds of blue, succeeded by amelanchier, astilbe, and by June/July the glorious Hydrangea arborescens White Dome, the anchor of the early garden.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp7jo9rp_RMEeJ_4eHcSu6b0461BE8A9U7TceyuMWL-ISVQIlKLtN0IBNn3G2DYPip9sySRTLe3zQLapzg-VM7lMUdztG-szrdmiqMN27tKWVv2-oD-pvctbH3nE8RSYd2hqh_QnmftL7jtqvRG1-9dMQgkMPoLi564m1BGl1JeG7XoT7T2DpXgQcYHQ/s640/1%20-%20IMG_1447.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp7jo9rp_RMEeJ_4eHcSu6b0461BE8A9U7TceyuMWL-ISVQIlKLtN0IBNn3G2DYPip9sySRTLe3zQLapzg-VM7lMUdztG-szrdmiqMN27tKWVv2-oD-pvctbH3nE8RSYd2hqh_QnmftL7jtqvRG1-9dMQgkMPoLi564m1BGl1JeG7XoT7T2DpXgQcYHQ/w640-h480/1%20-%20IMG_1447.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Phlox divaricata</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">While the garden has been my joy, it is not my solace; it is too demanding for that. Something is always saying “prune me, feed me, weed me, mulch me” and I am increasingly unable to comply.<span> </span>I have helpers; gardening alone is a myth -- but that is a subject for another time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The garden is in its sixth season. We have had some losses, some surprises, and always something new.<span> </span>The last surviving Japanese maples (two out of the initial six) succumbed to verticillium wilt. They have been replaced with four Sweet Gums at the north end and two Amelanchiers at the south.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZE1IKb87UvEEZBoCe5Af3H-QKLt0QM3tBAoFT10C1FCQsHo-BD2S6YX6tS1Kd-F_fC_9_THMbnbjGS5Def1uTcXhcpdCNR-rlJ8DsPt_xZyO3Fy9rt7pet8yu-AMy_PdsLdcfdon7VvDLPSUP1zuSfgUJSMGo8M7qecNsdtW9gTBd_o1ZfME9EMnkIw/s640/2%20-%20IMG_0414.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZE1IKb87UvEEZBoCe5Af3H-QKLt0QM3tBAoFT10C1FCQsHo-BD2S6YX6tS1Kd-F_fC_9_THMbnbjGS5Def1uTcXhcpdCNR-rlJ8DsPt_xZyO3Fy9rt7pet8yu-AMy_PdsLdcfdon7VvDLPSUP1zuSfgUJSMGo8M7qecNsdtW9gTBd_o1ZfME9EMnkIw/w640-h640/2%20-%20IMG_0414.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Apple Tree's Final Bloom</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The apple tree at the end of the long view died in its third year and has been replaced with a dogwood, Cornus florida, the least temperamental in that family.<span> </span>Our losses are becoming worrisome.<span> </span>There will be nothing left to try after this, only a stone monument to our failures.<span> </span>We watch and wait. <span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">During 2020-21, I had visitors in the garden from earliest spring until winter set in.<span> </span>Furnishings have come and gone.<span> </span>I started out with six webbed folding chairs (first green and white, then a more sophisticated black), inexpensive, looking great, but too unstable for me.<span> </span>After falling over the side a third time I replaced them with steel Windsor chairs that are almost impossible to dislodge.<span> </span>A useful table will most likely be the next addition.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAVc5nGn3lq987RdMGIJazUEvCjgGzqRDbtM3ZbL-qsOHUHiMVXFCLnzwMbZJqsNFSuDhrUwzl489O6jem18fK0JJqyvrpmnNhZ4xaTEUgFxHqea6WQiBUl1FIgPdZKkNbzd77rKG9O-hH0r87A5k7jYaY67OyCTZLw8wOmyKQSnK3IQ_5jKdZwPc5KA/s640/3%20-%20IMG_2048.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAVc5nGn3lq987RdMGIJazUEvCjgGzqRDbtM3ZbL-qsOHUHiMVXFCLnzwMbZJqsNFSuDhrUwzl489O6jem18fK0JJqyvrpmnNhZ4xaTEUgFxHqea6WQiBUl1FIgPdZKkNbzd77rKG9O-hH0r87A5k7jYaY67OyCTZLw8wOmyKQSnK3IQ_5jKdZwPc5KA/w480-h640/3%20-%20IMG_2048.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>One of Four Sturdy Chairs</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I suspect we all have a Covid misstep or two in our recent past.<span> </span>My first was a longed-for equipment change. After not writing for months, I was convinced that I was held back solely by the size of my screen and that a 21” monitor would change my life.<span> </span>But what had been a merely languishing work ethic ground to a full stop in the face of a tangle of new equipment and cables. The brains of the operation resided in my faithful laptop, which was always connected to the new equipment and thus closed, relegated so to speak to a back burner.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">This has proved to be too many moving parts for me, and I seem to be resistant to change. I don’t know what this means:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin-right: .2in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Optima; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Optima; mso-fareast-font-family: Optima;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Do old habits die hard?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin-right: 0.2in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; margin-right: .2in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Optima; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Optima; mso-fareast-font-family: Optima;">-<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Do delusions of grandeur lead to diminishing returns?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I will not give up on this.<span> </span>And my technical advisor, with the patience of a saint, continues to stand by. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The second misstep was a true folly, and much more costly.<span> </span>It was the dream of a Front Porch.<span> </span>The huge maple street tree shading the house was so rotted it had to come down, providing the impetus for the porch.<span> </span>The dream was to tie a front porch to the Livingston Streetscape, where every house has one.<span> </span>The architect, much admired and deeply respectful of the historic district in which we live, drew up several possibilities.<span> </span>My family was consulted.<span> </span>All options were weighed, a selection made, working drawings finished.<span> </span>When we realized that due to setback requirements, we would have very little usable space built at a very high cost, and that a porch would block the light into the house from the south, we went into full retreat. Instead, I replaced a hazardous sidewalk with new/old bluestone, planted two street trees, and – once again – revised the planting against the house.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgX68IEo_zLUNHaBLy-ekYjAkxH18FsfOT7pzV5_PPoL1ECTQZKaytxABDlvnt5m8e182rNNLQtcvv_JCdXEDaG8caGzcVhlDRZObcaYbaW9YlimwcNeFqYC1cxKJ6kiDpaxAGDtn77yyS13xAw9QzG6lR-oFVkCSTFrb9okQTERLBnpvVGYx23HYzFkA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgX68IEo_zLUNHaBLy-ekYjAkxH18FsfOT7pzV5_PPoL1ECTQZKaytxABDlvnt5m8e182rNNLQtcvv_JCdXEDaG8caGzcVhlDRZObcaYbaW9YlimwcNeFqYC1cxKJ6kiDpaxAGDtn77yyS13xAw9QzG6lR-oFVkCSTFrb9okQTERLBnpvVGYx23HYzFkA=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>One of Two Shantung Maples</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Trish Pappendorf of The Valley Gardener transformed the bed with a silvery gray-blue palette new to me - lavender, calamintha, stachys, gaura, dwarf fothergilla - all keeping company with the existing Anemone Honorine Jobert.<span> </span>The butterflies and bees form a cloud along the walk bordering this bed, too busy all summer to even notice you passing by, no less attack.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></p><p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0.2in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">By late October it will be time to return to the city and answer the demands waiting there for me. When a very young woman was asked why she lived in New York City, she replied “my stuff is here.” I think it was her metaphorical stuff – her world, her dreams, who she is now and who she will become. While I would love to stay here in Rhinebeck, my stuff is still in New York City.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-34342198361257197892021-06-20T09:00:00.000-04:002021-06-20T09:43:01.527-04:00Lessons From Abroad<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> Although our gardens are green and lush again some of us still linger in the aftermath of the dark winter of 2021. The months were long and bleak. Cooped up indoors we faced unorganized boxes of old photographs, stacks of unread books, folders of letters going back to the earliest years away from home and continuing until email became the prevalent mode. The winter days were all the same – the morning paper, placing an order with Fresh Direct, too much television news, stabilizing daily FaceTime calls with absent friends and family. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw1ry9mcQopG1VZebnUpt66XySxLazDK4btKwzgjUxWla5WHZsTO3TevfX1rZjWXEO-bw3DKuHz6T-XGSmPr4ihum5kI1leh8bFm_6UftS0yi2XyTErnM46Pk1SustnjPUodIzq06VS3s3/s640/1-PileOfLetters.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw1ry9mcQopG1VZebnUpt66XySxLazDK4btKwzgjUxWla5WHZsTO3TevfX1rZjWXEO-bw3DKuHz6T-XGSmPr4ihum5kI1leh8bFm_6UftS0yi2XyTErnM46Pk1SustnjPUodIzq06VS3s3/w480-h640/1-PileOfLetters.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Pile Of Letters<br /></span><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">My days were salvaged by a daily drop-in to BBC’s Gardener’s World, now in its 52nd </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">season. It is a weekly hour-long immersion in Monty Don’s garden, plus excursions to others -- a bonanza of pots, seed trays, cloches, greenhouses, cold frames. The 2020 season was online in its entirety and each episode was redolent with the pain of last year, and how best to cope. The film crew vanished, leaving equipment behind for Monty Don to figure out how to film himself, his garden and his dogs. His on-camera regulars filmed themselves visiting an array of gardens tiny to grand, allotments to estates.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5d_6BOVrj0qGQENcQp9V5-iVwRdk3aDyI6u7gxPUB0pDuN36YYyjv3xSya7P51dm1QJnnJUOD29uq2ogFuzT0VaVKe5uuntxzOaMo-pq2Rq08B_NGqwDTSfpTlYMoetcYWhViz6Rmrh1B/s940/2-MonthlyDon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="626" data-original-width="940" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5d_6BOVrj0qGQENcQp9V5-iVwRdk3aDyI6u7gxPUB0pDuN36YYyjv3xSya7P51dm1QJnnJUOD29uq2ogFuzT0VaVKe5uuntxzOaMo-pq2Rq08B_NGqwDTSfpTlYMoetcYWhViz6Rmrh1B/w640-h426/2-MonthlyDon.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Monty Don In His Garden<br /></span><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Viewers were requested to film their own gardens and send them in. The children were the most endearing, “making do” with whatever was at hand as supplies in England were hard to come by.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In England, of course “making do” means gardening with whatever fertilizer you have even if it means tomato fertilizer for roses, gardening no matter how small the space, or how little access you may have to an actual garden. There were container gardens on tiny scraps of concrete, plants in paper cups, single species gardens of exclusively iris, the snowdrop collector; the peonies-only gardener, the citybound pavement gardener who grows only tulips between his front door and the street. This singular focus is virtually unknown in America, whose gardeners appear bloodless next to the British.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpwWiYRFEAVm00roxxp3rveMu_3cKU7VmgTtAhZlC5p4hgwTNITxn3QO4yBVH_kOYPLs_fd6PqbjYb6Z9hxz-KoFO29rLJgxrPofWa3WipOvhM8f4VaPabWSfah1u21GDRDlcFWZAyKPgq/s800/3-HouseboatGarden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpwWiYRFEAVm00roxxp3rveMu_3cKU7VmgTtAhZlC5p4hgwTNITxn3QO4yBVH_kOYPLs_fd6PqbjYb6Z9hxz-KoFO29rLJgxrPofWa3WipOvhM8f4VaPabWSfah1u21GDRDlcFWZAyKPgq/w640-h480/3-HouseboatGarden.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">A Houseboat Garden<br /></span><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Single-focus gardens in the United Kingdom are the backbone of the National Collections. The idea may appear elite to an outsider, but the process is more democratic than it seems, and anybody can start one. Collections of specific genera can be found in allotments, small gardens, and grand gardens both public and private. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The first step in the designation is the proposal form, followed by a full application. There are conservation teams and local coordinators to help an applicant with the process. It can be a full collection, or merely a statement of intent. A Plant Conservation Committee provides advice and guidance.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The Collections are part of the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens, started in 1978, and now renamed Plant Heritage. There are 95,000 plants available to see across 650 collections. The effort can be traced back to the National Trust’s wartime scheme to assess the 200 best country houses with the intent of saving them from neglect or disappearance. The Gardens Committee was an offshoot of this effort.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwglEr-wlZ_AiFjwJ7VUJmBZcMgTaJCp0D_xl4MX0DoPWiIRXDloYUZwwqenkMuM-Ck7yuMapcR66c2FNwjNuxY9CyqDqEIHiGXOQWbMn-yzmRyhqAtQXuHDrl_jCmjlUmfQNB8K0uRVYd/s590/4-Snowdrops.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="590" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwglEr-wlZ_AiFjwJ7VUJmBZcMgTaJCp0D_xl4MX0DoPWiIRXDloYUZwwqenkMuM-Ck7yuMapcR66c2FNwjNuxY9CyqDqEIHiGXOQWbMn-yzmRyhqAtQXuHDrl_jCmjlUmfQNB8K0uRVYd/w640-h380/4-Snowdrops.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Snowdrops in a National Collection<br /></span><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Several years ago I visited the national collections in the Cambridge University Botanical Garden. Opened in 1846, the idea behind the garden was shaped by John Henslow, widely remembered as the teacher of Charles Darwin. Henslow wanted a scientific garden to facilitate the teaching and research about plants as organisms worthy of study in their own right, rather than the Garden’s earlier incarnation for the sole study of medicinal plants. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Henslow’s early research on variation and hybridization in the nature of species can be seen today in the design of the garden. The collection of <i>Pinus nigra </i>(Black pine) variants and all their subspecies are grouped at one end of the garden so that distinctions may be clearly seen one against the other. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The plantings satisfy both science and aesthetics. The rock garden resembles an outcrop on a hillside, using 900 tons of limestone to achieve the desired effect. A dense planting of evergreen hedges in the garden gives the illusion of a continuing hillside slope, a triumph of design in the flat land of this garden. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">There are nine national collections in the Cambridge Botanical Garden. The <i>Alchemilla </i>collection is fascinating for those of us in America who have only seen the <i>mollis</i> (Ladies mantle). The <i>Geranium </i>collection is equally rich for those who know only the various <i>sanguineum </i>(Cranesbill). While several geranium varieties are now available in the marketplace, we still have only the sole <i>Alchemilla mollis</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv-di0XAGtcmKMTuCKNT_Mk3aJBY1H4yiiux2eDU0bvuN6xhvEmear0NoXbPb-_rqEYT6998h5ItKsXouigXCv8AVEMuRm32nz3IfKIz1r2HhMv0sWlC5n5XulclDay6psCGnk58wmY4q-/s640/5-Alchemillia.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv-di0XAGtcmKMTuCKNT_Mk3aJBY1H4yiiux2eDU0bvuN6xhvEmear0NoXbPb-_rqEYT6998h5ItKsXouigXCv8AVEMuRm32nz3IfKIz1r2HhMv0sWlC5n5XulclDay6psCGnk58wmY4q-/w640-h480/5-Alchemillia.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Alchemilla in the Cambridge Botanical Garden<br /></span></i><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;"> </span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The National Garden Scheme (NSG), started in 1927, lists 3,600 gardens open to the public with fees collected to benefit charities in England and Wales. The beneficiaries are NSG’s health and nursing charities, gardens in specialized hospitals and funds to support gardeners-in-training. As you can see by the numbers, the gardens are widely available and wildly democratic. If you plan to visit pick up a copy of the Yellow Book, more formally known as The Gardens Visitors Handbook. It will tell you what is open and when, how to get there, whether there are plant sales and/or food service. If you want to avoid driving on the wrong side of the road, travel by rail and pick up a cab at the station stop to take you to the garden. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> <o:p></o:p></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNEyOY_ju_DVBFnxzPmKcKLUkuR1VAqplnNxtOkjFlbgy0FyL081BK9X6a_XrV34LfWnROszhz-KLXc2wB8cu8Mry2Hkndp8DDIpnJwKtCPbzOi5sRzjbrl5oh0l4eskBTJjDfjtGhKjU_/s1280/6-GVH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="890" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNEyOY_ju_DVBFnxzPmKcKLUkuR1VAqplnNxtOkjFlbgy0FyL081BK9X6a_XrV34LfWnROszhz-KLXc2wB8cu8Mry2Hkndp8DDIpnJwKtCPbzOi5sRzjbrl5oh0l4eskBTJjDfjtGhKjU_/w444-h640/6-GVH.jpg" width="444" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Yellow Book<br /></span><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In theory, I could happily spend the entire season in the UK, traipsing from garden to garden. In practice, it is asking too much of me to miss a season at home in my own garden. I tend to visit gardens in the off-season seeing only the bare bones, which is the best indicator of the underlying design. If design and practice are not your great loves then by all means go early in the growing season – and often. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UIcr7zTEtEoC5ZO_FpmGX_HjtIOnIqeu1wFqWrm8QgIhIN2bAgwprQ6S_aHZJC-QEKwYw5TW8VIBvzKcsXKhKrtya7tlFipGmUJPCfUesiiAKZfdWh5DtQV6rjhFVqGoL6FDftc8M20h/s640/7-InMyGarden.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UIcr7zTEtEoC5ZO_FpmGX_HjtIOnIqeu1wFqWrm8QgIhIN2bAgwprQ6S_aHZJC-QEKwYw5TW8VIBvzKcsXKhKrtya7tlFipGmUJPCfUesiiAKZfdWh5DtQV6rjhFVqGoL6FDftc8M20h/w640-h480/7-InMyGarden.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Mid-May in my Garden</i><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans", sans-serif; text-align: left;"> </span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></p>Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-16468504048572316422021-05-09T17:00:00.001-04:002021-05-10T18:12:29.841-04:00The Season Opens<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In mid-April, as we look to the trees for leaf buds, it is the ground layer below that comes in first. Early each morning I pace the perimeter of the garden marking the minute daily changes. The trees and shrubs are halted, but the ground layer slowly advances day by day. The early daffodils were first, then the phlox, bleeding heart, the sole apple tree, the amelanchiers, all seemingly at once. Each week the hydrangeas are a little taller, the gillenia leafier, the iris and peonies beginning to stretch. Epimedium, seemingly devastated by the late frosts, bloomed as ever. Color returned on time, blue phlox, rosy bleeding heart and the pale white of the late daffodils.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnImk6uKYaZDigZ2K8dMVYdZfzUU7kB5o5gAhxCv3ZhskBl6ArQHA1ROi0nU6N15BHESWgSi7tITKpS4YCjsb5Cq7ktPMXaAwNMabBKjD0GJJEJbUNqYgbZlaL5NoO_CicwlrcB8cDQ4oH/s640/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnImk6uKYaZDigZ2K8dMVYdZfzUU7kB5o5gAhxCv3ZhskBl6ArQHA1ROi0nU6N15BHESWgSi7tITKpS4YCjsb5Cq7ktPMXaAwNMabBKjD0GJJEJbUNqYgbZlaL5NoO_CicwlrcB8cDQ4oH/w640-h480/1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Phlox subulata</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The kitchen table is filled with plants bought too early to set outdoors. The oxalis, all four pots wintering indoors, are flagging and desperate for division, new soil, a change of containers, fresh air. The beefsteak begonia, started from a single rooted cutting last summer, is bursting out of its pot.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">This year I didn’t bring the mandevilla indoors to winter over. It is (was) the hard-to-find Alice Dupont so each year I would struggle to have its huge pot dragged into the warm house for the winter. This year I left it outdoors, wrapped it in fleece, and hoped for the best. I tried to grow a new mandevilla from a leaf cutting of the old, and while the mandevilla did not comply a nasturtium seed traveling with it sprouted in the kitchen window, grew towards the ceiling, has flowered, and is now ready to move outdoors. Sometimes a kitchen table and a windowsill will be enough to get you through a long winter. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">As for the mandevilla left outdoors, its fleece covering did not work and there is not a sign of life. The colocasia bulbs stored in the basement were other failures of this winter’s experimentation and are shriveled beyond resuscitation. Now the hard work starts. Moving the big pots, filling them again with new plants to try out, planting morning glory and nasturtium seeds outdoors. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihiYNNz_0-rRN1hciz7_f32vIadmFo4Xug7R2L_7RPTtIYrmgSvXp44XHDaN8rl-B6Uzy1YSfOFvDCtEUc13ijTV6yEtCNsKLmuVahTUH1qhWqt0LoDL0hVFfwLy2ki8SZMCRJWlViqUfL/s640/2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihiYNNz_0-rRN1hciz7_f32vIadmFo4Xug7R2L_7RPTtIYrmgSvXp44XHDaN8rl-B6Uzy1YSfOFvDCtEUc13ijTV6yEtCNsKLmuVahTUH1qhWqt0LoDL0hVFfwLy2ki8SZMCRJWlViqUfL/w480-h640/2.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Mandevilla 2020</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I think about earlier gardens this time of year. I have stored up all of them, able to summon them at will and imagine myself in them again. Who was there with me? How old was I then? Will I be in this garden forever? I never thought to ask if the garden would be there forever. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I’ve often said that a garden dies with the death or departure of the owner, but occasionally it is a catastrophe that threatens it. A tornado, a great Northeastern storm, or a fire. The main house in my former Catskills garden caught fire last month. No one was there, no one was injured, only the history is gone. Although only one end of the house is charred, the rest is no longer structurally sound and must be demolished. Miraculously, the gardens remain relatively undisturbed. The porch garden planted in 2005, and the excavation of an old border across the way, all survived. The long porch itself with its sweeping view of the reservoir, its roof held up by birch trunks, will remain in use propped up like a stage set while the current owners decide on its replacement.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN48KuTGfVcoXW_LpBP2njzfr6Klq2jYMaBoupeGwnhtlxITYC-g7lw8czVbGrdn2yMbrcPLokL6EYZI_MJC1_vAwYwgBbY5nLC6Rtw0drURAuToGW20vWLRFNhg3fR1JGsa2P6J57nCrU/s611/3.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="611" height="502" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN48KuTGfVcoXW_LpBP2njzfr6Klq2jYMaBoupeGwnhtlxITYC-g7lw8czVbGrdn2yMbrcPLokL6EYZI_MJC1_vAwYwgBbY5nLC6Rtw0drURAuToGW20vWLRFNhg3fR1JGsa2P6J57nCrU/w640-h502/3.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">A Corner of the Porch</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The main house, 1918 shingle style, was the repository of stories and events of one extended family’s time there over the past 70 years. No longer the home of the Laissez-faire Gardener and myself, it has been passed on to cousins with children in their early thirties, who have the strength and the vision to build for their future families. The spirit of the place will be demanding for the new architect. Sited amidst a stone tower with a revolving observatory on the top, a bowling alley house and a huge stone pool long a habitat only for frogs, the new house will surely reflect the context of the old.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Lucida Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">My visit there was not the tragedy I expected it to be. No longer bound to serve as keepers of the shrine they inherited, the young stewards and their partners are looking towards the next chapter. Those who would have been devastated by the fire have long since passed. Only the strong remain, as it should be.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivXh9GBS-InpMBTBNwvHSFhRxsZFZXzBpgQ7mlQ7HeF_8jS2gtGrSCikFtqHC4x6k2dR-ZmzzV3gExLqtNSI9XwzsGnh3v49RYxetzg_Os1ldwrjGlU5SnIToK4eQUTB-_iBXA4Icbztqz/s640/4.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivXh9GBS-InpMBTBNwvHSFhRxsZFZXzBpgQ7mlQ7HeF_8jS2gtGrSCikFtqHC4x6k2dR-ZmzzV3gExLqtNSI9XwzsGnh3v49RYxetzg_Os1ldwrjGlU5SnIToK4eQUTB-_iBXA4Icbztqz/w640-h480/4.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Before The Fire</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><br /></p>Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-69873274575182441362020-08-06T15:30:00.000-04:002020-08-06T16:12:21.003-04:00Why Parks Matter<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><i>Parks, Public Spaces and Neighborhoods<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> Should I even have to make this declarative statement? Don’t we all know the reasons? Health and well-being data abound, economic benefits are not a secret. There is no shortage of information for this argument. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Infrequently made is the argument that parks are the great social equalizers. No one is turned away. There is no charge to get in. This cannot be said for the cultural institutions: museums, concert halls, theatres, opera houses. There is an admissions charge, often steep for a family, excluding many from the benefits of a great city. Only our libraries are equally free; you just have to be able to sign your name to a library card. Six is about the right age. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">But we have many more parks than cultural institutions in New York City. We have 2300 – more than our fair share. But the parks are not in the neighborhoods where the needs are greatest. The flagship parks – Central, Riverside, Flushing Meadows-Corona, Prospect, Van Cortlandt, are easily accessible only to those living close by. In these times subway and bus travel is hazardous at best.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">“If you are looking for a neighborhood in New York City with no parks,” says Adrian Benepe, former NYC Parks Commissioner and now Senior Vice President at the Trust for Public Land, “look for a neighborhood with the word ‘park’ in its name: Ozone, Rego, Borough.” These neighborhoods, built solely by developers, added the word ‘park’ to lure buyers into thinking they would be moving into a park-like setting. At the height of the pandemic, when the playgrounds were closed, 1.1 million New Yorkers did not have access to a park within a 10-minute walk from where they live, according to the Trust for Public Land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">To remedy the economic consequences there is a frantic scramble to transform commercial outdoor space. On-street parking has given way to outdoor dining or restaurant pick-up in a bid to help restaurants and coffee shops survive. The Center for New York City Affairs projects that 2020 could end with 500,000 to 600,000 fewer jobs than the beginning of the year with half of that jobs deficit stemming from face-to-face industries – restaurants, local retail, neighborhood services and entertainment. Many of these changes have been made with no civic engagement and while they are amenities in affluent neighborhoods it doesn’t play the same way in less-affluent neighborhoods. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The coronavirus and its disproportionate effect in low-income communities and on people of color has forced planners to change the way we look at public space. It has opened our eyes of the glaring inequities of access to parks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">A case in point: Governors Island. It reopened with a new ticketing system making it easier for visitors from underserved areas. Management already knew that most visitors came from Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope and the Upper West Side and was catering to that demographic until pushed into thinking more broadly when the pandemic hit. Now ferry tickets will be free to public housing residents and the ferry stop to the island from Brooklyn Bridge Park has been moved to Red Hook, the location one of the city’s largest public housing projects.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Parts of Queens are woefully underserved. In Rego Park a schoolyard behind PS139, one block wide and about as long, is mostly paved. The few places to sit are on the edges of raised planting beds. This schoolyard is only a block or so away from a heartbreaking missed opportunity, the proposed QueensWay. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">An elevated linear park on the old rail line, QueensWay would transform a long-abandoned rail line running from Rego Park south to Ozone Park. The project, around for nearly a decade. pitted parks proponents against commuters who wanted to reconstitute the rail system, discontinued in 1962. The debate awaited resolution in an MTA study, completed in 2018 but held back a year for release. The study revealed the cost of rail service would be between $8 and $10 billion, sticker shock for the transportation supporters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Outdoor Classroom in the Proposed QueensWay</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In addition to the expense, QueensWay remains politically sensitive. It is dead at the moment, but not yet buried. Parks proponents could not get city money to build it, nor private money (unlike the High Line) and it was sidelined due to bureaucratic inertia and lack of vision. Nonethless, the combination of the cost to rebuild the rail system, the coronavirus lockdown, the inequities of park distribution and the looming threat of school closures should be enough to raise the call to revive QueensWay.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Supporters received a boost when the Queens Chamber of Commerce, long a proponent of improved rail service, came out in support of the park project. Now it is up to the Mayor to provide preliminary funding. Notoriously unfriendly to parks, he has not initiated any new parks in his administration; it will take public pressure or the next administration to push this forward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">This is only a snippet of what city residents will face as schools try to figure out whether and/or how they plan to open. Hybrid arrangements of half-time in school, half-time at home are being discussed everywhere. Although there were frantic emergency measures to expand locations for health care at the height of the pandemic in New York City, the same sense of urgency is not evident regarding education. The bureaucracies have yet to look at the potential of moving classrooms out of doors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><i>Parks and Schools<u><o:p></o:p></u></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> While the Board of Education struggles with parceling out limited indoor space among 1 million students, the use of outdoor space for classrooms is beginning to garner attention. It started with the press, graduated to candidates for office, and is rumored to be a rumor in the Mayor’s office. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Ginia Bellafante in the New York Times (July 9th) and Adrian Benepe of the Trust for Public Land were among the first to see the possibilities of outdoor space for education. Ms. Bellafante reminded readers of the tuberculosis outbreaks in the early 20th century, when school attendance was out of the question. Open-air classrooms were run year-round on school rooftops and abandoned ferries. Within two years of the first opening, 65 open-air classrooms were mobilized. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">We know the risk of contracting the virus diminishes out of doors. But this fact hasn’t entered into the calculations of the city’s bureaucracy. Mark Levine, City Council member who has chaired both the Health and Parks Committees, makes the case that “there is an emerging public health consensus that minimal transmission occurs out-of-doors, making the idea of outdoor classrooms a logical step.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Currently, New York City has the nations’ largest school system with more than 1 million students. Children are not the only ones at risk. There are more than 75,000 teachers plus an army of support personnel and security staff. Empty office spaces and vacant buildings without windows that open are not the answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">At hand we have the network of city parks, ideal for mobilization as outdoor classrooms. The Parks Department response is expected. “Everyone asks the Parks Department to do more with less funding, the liabilities at stake are not considered, nor are the laws defining use.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">But we do have precedent in times of crisis. After the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco tent cities went up in Golden Gate Park. In the 1936 heatwave Mayor LaGuardia advised New Yorkers to sleep outdoors in the parks. Central Park provided space for a tented field hospital during the worst of the pandemic, using standards developed and perfected in World War II, for Covid tents. Why not do the same for schools? Linear parks like Riverside and Ft. Tryon transect an economic range of neighborhoods. Riverside Park, engaged in a capital campaign to rethink the North Park, stretches six miles along the Hudson. It would not be too difficult to identify sites for outdoor classrooms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">As with parks, public schools are also free but not necessarily equal. Schools in affluent neighborhoods have a relatively low density and are close to major parks. Those in the poorer parts of the city are not. We will probably see wealthy school districts (and private schools) able to raise new money to rent additional space and achieve social distancing, while poorer school districts will have to “make do” with what they already have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">And what about the neighborhoods with no parks of any consequence? The case for outdoor classrooms has been led in large part by Adrian Benepe of the Trust for Public Land, whose mental inventory is the repository of most of the available spaces in the city. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In the 1940’s and 50’s Robert Moses created 275 jointly operated playgrounds. Between 8am and 4pm the playgrounds were operated by the schools and after 4pm by the Parks Department. There are now close to 600. New York City and the Trust for Public Land, between 2007 and 2013, converted more than 250 schoolyards for student and community use. NYCHA has 700 playgrounds, and many have other open spaces and enclosed lawns. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="564" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qVMr7XhlvRj27CN5FwKRMWXQ6QzIQAzw6whhuAbQ8p8cVoEXqby1_BJpNlX7wI-lLxKnx3X6xsborTRQ3a1orJqVq26BB_siaw1B7a9-hMJNJtKFlOTome4Mn4GRh0JdVQUiqqDYCMkW/s640/1940%2527s+pLAYGROUND.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">1940s Jointly Operated Playground </span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The Parks Department has 35 Recreation Centers with gyms and bathrooms. There are 600 community gardens, some large enough to accommodate classrooms. The Natural Areas Conservancy manages 10,000 acres of natural areas within the New York City parks system, ideal sites for science classes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Every new schoolyard has learning gardens. Many schools have sports fields. There are scores of community centers, gyms, and outdoor recreation centers sitting vacant. There are west side cruise ship piers, and piers used for art fairs, if the sides can still be raised. The City University has campuses. So do Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. St. Catherine’s Park, adjacent to the old Julia Richman High School building (now home to four high schools and a middle school) has a two-acre asphalt field. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Maybe it’s time to look at Transportation Alternatives troubled but innovative Open Streets Program and apply its best ideas to schools. Adam Ganser, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Parks, said “It might be possible to close some streets adjacent to small schools during school hours” and hold classes outside instead of sending kids home. This could also work at the high school level. The almost block-long Julia Richman building on 67th Street has only the New York Blood Center across the street.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Other than the months in which the playgrounds were closed, 99% of New York City residents lived within a 10-minute walk of a park, according to the Trust for Public Land. But what is the density within that 10-minute walk? Single family houses, two-family houses, apartment towers? How many people are actually using that park?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Thus we arrive at New York’s baseline message: Everyone should be no more than a ten-minute walk to a park. I respectfully suggest amending that to a five-minute walk. Heresy to the ten-minute proponents, but ten minutes is a bit of a stretch to a person pushing a stroller, or a wheelchair, or managing your own wheelchair, or trying to hurry a curious toddler, or maneuvering a walker, or using a cane, or having trouble breathing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgGOtNWluHF27JEh_z3sj2O3fI5kTUEmucf_uygtGv2RZKSGbOpIly1a_ZL3AddYIJPF7_ZOwQZXm0TgJu2BP7sgaMRP8mUt36cvZU6ip5nKesvcfFRqA-KzGMrTaxTCgR_0f-JCmnK2HE/s1600/Paley+Park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgGOtNWluHF27JEh_z3sj2O3fI5kTUEmucf_uygtGv2RZKSGbOpIly1a_ZL3AddYIJPF7_ZOwQZXm0TgJu2BP7sgaMRP8mUt36cvZU6ip5nKesvcfFRqA-KzGMrTaxTCgR_0f-JCmnK2HE/s640/Paley+Park.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Or maybe it’s time to buy blocks of buildings to create new parks. We have done better and worse in the past. Paley Park was built on a sliver of land at 3 East 53rd Street, the site of the Stork Club. It opened in 1967, occupying 1/10th of an acre, and has been in constant use ever since. So has Greenacre Park on East 51st Street. And you only need one building site each for these. At the other end of the spectrum, an entire neighborhood was destroyed to build Lincoln Center. We won’t do that again, but maybe it’s time to look at many small parks instead of the mega-parks it has been so fashionable to build.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">We need creative and courageous solutions in these unprecedented times. We saw an exodus of the affluent, leaving behind under-served communities most impacted by the pandemic and without the escape valves of neighborhood parks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Unfortunately, you won’t see any new thinking in the present administration. No new parks have been started under Mayor DiBlasio, only continuation of the parks started during the Bloomberg Administration. And the Teacher’s Union is likely to stand in the way of moving classrooms outdoors, or any innovative idea. The work will fall to the next administration. Scott Stringer, City Comptroller, in an op-ed in the Daily News calls for an examination of outdoor education possibilities. I expect we will see more of this in the coming weeks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">All it takes is a few people of courage and vision. But the charge for innovation in dealing with classrooms needs leadership immediately and right now the group is small. Where are the levers of change here? I doubt the Mayor will entertain this. The City Council could force it through legislation, but that is unlikely. The strongest voices could come from parents speaking up in an organized fashion; elected officials cannot help but respond to the collective voice of the Community Boards and the Community Education Councils.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><a href="mailto:morrisoncatherine3@gmail.com"></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">A wave of resolutions could appear before the City Council in a matter of weeks, if mobilized by the Borough Presidents. Leadership, courage, and vision matters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I can be reached via E-Mail at: <a href="mailto:morrisoncatherine3@gmail.com">morrisoncatherine3@gmail.com</a></span></div>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-72857675557698918022020-08-04T15:00:00.000-04:002020-08-04T15:02:04.652-04:00Why Parks Matter, Part 2<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><i>Parks and Schools<u><o:p></o:p></u></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> While the Board of Education struggles with parceling out limited indoor space among 1 million students, the use of outdoor space for classrooms is beginning to garner attention. It started with the press, graduated to candidates for office, and is rumored to be a rumor in the Mayor’s office. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Ginia Bellafante in the New York Times (July 9th) and Adrian Benepe of the Trust for Public Land were among the first to see the possibilities of outdoor space for education. Ms. Bellafante reminded readers of the tuberculosis outbreaks in the early 20th century, when school attendance was out of the question. Open-air classrooms were run year-round on school rooftops and abandoned ferries. Within two years of the first opening, 65 open-air classrooms were mobilized. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Early Outdoor Class - circa 1915</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">We know the risk of contracting the virus diminishes out of doors. But this fact hasn’t entered into the calculations of the city’s bureaucracy. Mark Levine, City Council member who has chaired both the Health and Parks Committees, makes the case that “there is an emerging public health consensus that minimal transmission occurs out-of-doors, making the idea of outdoor classrooms a logical step.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Currently, New York City has the nations’ largest school system with more than 1 million students. Children are not the only ones at risk. There are more than 75,000 teachers plus an army of support personnel and security staff. Empty office spaces and vacant buildings without windows that open are not the answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">At hand we have the network of city parks, ideal for mobilization as outdoor classrooms. The Parks Department response is expected. “Everyone asks the Parks Department to do more with less funding, the liabilities at stake are not considered, nor are the laws defining use.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI04L8NI_q9VlJjWRK30_fpIODtV-EMTeJCIXtOvI7FR0xVWq_AGctNSkUcATtfuwpQg8yrcp8o6_H_afQ9jWc4TCOpRco6UN3TNI2vDK-7pNvJALu6XzGZXOjuiYiYqhOz74T8vBtlIop/s1600/covid+tents+in+central+park+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="630" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI04L8NI_q9VlJjWRK30_fpIODtV-EMTeJCIXtOvI7FR0xVWq_AGctNSkUcATtfuwpQg8yrcp8o6_H_afQ9jWc4TCOpRco6UN3TNI2vDK-7pNvJALu6XzGZXOjuiYiYqhOz74T8vBtlIop/s640/covid+tents+in+central+park+.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Covid Tents in Central Park</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">But we do have precedent in times of crisis. After the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco tent cities went up in Golden Gate Park. In the 1936 heatwave Mayor LaGuardia advised New Yorkers to sleep outdoors in the parks. Central Park provided space for a tented field hospital during the worst of the pandemic, using standards developed and perfected in World War II, for Covid tents. Why not do the same for schools? Linear parks like Riverside and Ft. Tryon transect an economic range of neighborhoods. Riverside Park, engaged in a capital campaign to rethink the North Park, stretches six miles along the Hudson. It would not be too difficult to identify sites for outdoor classrooms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">As with parks, public schools are also free but not necessarily equal. Schools in affluent neighborhoods have a relatively low density and are close to major parks. Those in the poorer parts of the city are not. We will probably see wealthy school districts (and private schools) able to raise new money to rent additional space and achieve social distancing, while poorer school districts will have to “make do” with what they already have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">And what about the neighborhoods with no parks of any consequence? The case for outdoor classrooms has been led in large part by Adrian Benepe of the Trust for Public Land, whose mental inventory is the repository of most of the available spaces in the city. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In the 1940’s and 50’s Robert Moses created 275 jointly operated playgrounds. Between 8am and 4pm the playgrounds were operated by the schools and after 4pm by the Parks Department. There are now close to 600. New York City and the Trust for Public Land, between 2007 and 2013, converted more than 250 schoolyards for student and community use. NYCHA has 700 playgrounds, and many have other open spaces and enclosed lawns. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">1940s Jointly Operated Playground </span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The Parks Department has 35 Recreation Centers with gyms and bathrooms. There are 600 community gardens, some large enough to accommodate classrooms. The Natural Areas Conservancy manages 10,000 acres of natural areas within the New York City parks system, ideal sites for science classes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Every new schoolyard has learning gardens. Many schools have sports fields. There are scores of community centers, gyms, and outdoor recreation centers sitting vacant. There are west side cruise ship piers, and piers used for art fairs, if the sides can still be raised. The City University has campuses. So do Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. St. Catherine’s Park, adjacent to the old Julia Richman High School building (now home to four high schools and a middle school) has a two-acre asphalt field. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">St. Catherine's Park</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Maybe it’s time to look at Transportation Alternatives troubled but innovative Open Streets Program and apply its best ideas to schools. Adam Ganser, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Parks, said “It might be possible to close some streets adjacent to small schools during school hours” and hold classes outside instead of sending kids home. This could also work at the high school level. The almost block-long Julia Richman building on 67th Street has only the New York Blood Center across the street.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Other than the months in which the playgrounds were closed, 99% of New York City residents lived within a 10-minute walk of a park, according to the Trust for Public Land. But what is the density within that 10-minute walk? Single family houses, two-family houses, apartment towers? How many people are actually using that park?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Thus we arrive at New York’s baseline message: Everyone should be no more than a ten-minute walk to a park. I respectfully suggest amending that to a five-minute walk. Heresy to the ten-minute proponents, but ten minutes is a bit of a stretch to a person pushing a stroller, or a wheelchair, or managing your own wheelchair, or trying to hurry a curious toddler, or maneuvering a walker, or using a cane, or having trouble breathing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Or maybe it’s time to buy blocks of buildings to create new parks. We have done better and worse in the past. Paley Park was built on a sliver of land at 3 East 53rd Street, the site of the Stork Club. It opened in 1967, occupying 1/10th of an acre, and has been in constant use ever since. So has Greenacre Park on East 51st Street. And you only need one building site each for these. At the other end of the spectrum, an entire neighborhood was destroyed to build Lincoln Center. We won’t do that again, but maybe it’s time to look at many small parks instead of the mega-parks it has been so fashionable to build.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">We need creative and courageous solutions in these unprecedented times. We saw an exodus of the affluent, leaving behind under-served communities most impacted by the pandemic and without the escape valves of neighborhood parks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Unfortunately, you won’t see any new thinking in the present administration. No new parks have been started under Mayor DiBlasio, only continuation of the parks started during the Bloomberg Administration. And the Teacher’s Union is likely to stand in the way of moving classrooms outdoors, or any innovative idea. The work will fall to the next administration. Scott Stringer, City Comptroller, in an op-ed in the Daily News calls for an examination of outdoor education possibilities. I expect we will see more of this in the coming weeks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">All it takes is a few people of courage and vision. But the charge for innovation in dealing with classrooms needs leadership immediately and right now the group is small. Where are the levers of change here? I doubt the Mayor will entertain this. The City Council could force it through legislation, but that is unlikely. The strongest voices could come from parents speaking up in an organized fashion; elected officials cannot help but respond to the collective voice of the Community Boards and the Community Education Councils.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">A wave of resolutions could appear before the City Council in a matter of weeks, if mobilized by the Borough Presidents. Leadership, courage, and vision matters.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I can be reached via E-Mail at: <a href="mailto:morrisoncatherine3@gmail.com">morrisoncatherine3@gmail.com</a></span></div>
Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-52247481318787353562020-08-03T17:25:00.000-04:002020-08-04T12:40:48.716-04:00Why Parks Matter, Part 1<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><i>Parks, Public Spaces and Neighborhoods<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> Should I even have to make this declarative statement? Don’t we all know the reasons? Health and well-being data abound, economic benefits are not a secret. There is no shortage of information for this argument. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Infrequently made is the argument that parks are the great social equalizers. No one is turned away. There is no charge to get in. This cannot be said for the cultural institutions: museums, concert halls, theatres, opera houses. There is an admissions charge, often steep for a family, excluding many from the benefits of a great city. Only our libraries are equally free; you just have to be able to sign your name to a library card. Six is about the right age. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">But we have many more parks than cultural institutions in New York City. We have 2300 – more than our fair share. But the parks are not in the neighborhoods where the needs are greatest. The flagship parks – Central, Riverside, Flushing Meadows-Corona, Prospect, Van Cortlandt, are easily accessible only to those living close by. In these times subway and bus travel is hazardous at best.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">“If you are looking for a neighborhood in New York City with no parks,” says Adrian Benepe, former NYC Parks Commissioner and now Senior Vice President at the Trust for Public Land, “look for a neighborhood with the word ‘park’ in its name: Ozone, Rego, Borough.” These neighborhoods, built solely by developers, added the word ‘park’ to lure buyers into thinking they would be moving into a park-like setting. At the height of the pandemic, when the playgrounds were closed, 1.1 million New Yorkers did not have access to a park within a 10-minute walk from where they live, according to the Trust for Public Land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">To remedy the economic consequences there is a frantic scramble to transform commercial outdoor space. On-street parking has given way to outdoor dining or restaurant pick-up in a bid to help restaurants and coffee shops survive. The Center for New York City Affairs projects that 2020 could end with 500,000 to 600,000 fewer jobs than the beginning of the year with half of that jobs deficit stemming from face-to-face industries – restaurants, local retail, neighborhood services and entertainment. Many of these changes have been made with no civic engagement and while they are amenities in affluent neighborhoods it doesn’t play the same way in less-affluent neighborhoods. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The coronavirus and its disproportionate effect in low-income communities and on people of color has forced planners to change the way we look at public space. It has opened our eyes of the glaring inequities of access to parks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">A case in point: Governors Island. It reopened with a new ticketing system making it easier for visitors from underserved areas. Management already knew that most visitors came from Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope and the Upper West Side and was catering to that demographic until pushed into thinking more broadly when the pandemic hit. Now ferry tickets will be free to public housing residents and the ferry stop to the island from Brooklyn Bridge Park has been moved to Red Hook, the location one of the city’s largest public housing projects.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Parts of Queens are woefully underserved. In Rego Park a schoolyard behind PS139, one block wide and about as long, is mostly paved. The few places to sit are on the edges of raised planting beds. This schoolyard is only a block or so away from a heartbreaking missed opportunity, the proposed QueensWay. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">An elevated linear park on the old rail line, QueensWay would transform a long-abandoned rail line running from Rego Park south to Ozone Park. The project, around for nearly a decade. pitted parks proponents against commuters who wanted to reconstitute the rail system, discontinued in 1962. The debate awaited resolution in an MTA study, completed in 2018 but held back a year for release. The study revealed the cost of rail service would be between $8 and $10 billion, sticker shock for the transportation supporters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In addition to the expense, QueensWay remains politically sensitive. It is dead at the moment, but not yet buried. Parks proponents could not get city money to build it, nor private money (unlike the High Line) and it was sidelined due to bureaucratic inertia and lack of vision. Nonethless, the combination of the cost to rebuild the rail system, the coronavirus lockdown, the inequities of park distribution and the looming threat of school closures should be enough to raise the call to revive QueensWay.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Supporters received a boost when the Queens Chamber of Commerce, long a proponent of improved rail service, came out in support of the park project. Now it is up to the Mayor to provide preliminary funding. Notoriously unfriendly to parks, he has not initiated any new parks in his administration; it will take public pressure or the next administration to push this forward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">This is only a snippet of what city residents will face as schools try to figure out whether and/or how they plan to open. Hybrid arrangements of half-time in school, half-time at home are being discussed everywhere. Although there were frantic emergency measures to expand locations for health care at the height of the pandemic in New York City, the same sense of urgency is not evident regarding education. The bureaucracies have yet to look at the potential of moving classrooms out of doors. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><i>"Why Parks Matter, Part 2" </i>takes this on. More to come...<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I can be reached via E-Mail at: <a href="mailto:morrisoncatherine3@gmail.com">morrisoncatherine3@gmail.com</a></span></div>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-24748709817400297502020-07-18T20:00:00.000-04:002020-07-18T20:11:16.784-04:00Wildife and Water<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Friends who live outside the village and further out in the country than I are busy trapping beavers and racoons (or hiring trappers to trap). I operate on a more domestic scale. If you were reading this newsletter in 2017 you will remember the Squirrel Wars. They are over, in large part because the squirrels won. My current enemy are ants, in assorted shapes and sizes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Ants have been around almost since the dawn of time, appearing in fossils around the world. They are a vigorous species with several nasty varieties in residence in the northeast. Several have been with us since the 18th century, brought to the US as so many other infestations, in the soil-based ballast used in ships and then deposited ashore to make room for goods bought for return to Europe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Pavement Ant</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The ants devasting my paving are, as you might expect, pavement ants <i>Tetramorum caespitum</i>. They can be identified by two nodes in front of their abdomen and fine grooves on their head and thorax. If I had small children in residence I would have put them to work trapping the ants, arranging for their deaths and then examining them under a microscope. But having no children to conscript I’ll stick to the evidence the ants leave behind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The tiny ones emerging from the joints between the brick and bluestone on the terrace behind the house bring large sandhills with them. At least I thought they were sandhills until my veterinarian daughter reported that what I see as sand is in fact ant poop. The day I noticed them I had at least 50 mounds to deal with and the number grew. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>An Ant Hill</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Consulting Google produced an assortment of home remedies from planting mint, to a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water, to lemon juice, to red pepper, to boric acid and then on to various commercial ant control products. I chose the boiling water technique, pouring directly into their homes either cooking them or drowning them. When the hills dried I swept them up only to find reconstruction underway 12 hours later in the same locations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Desperate, I called in an exterminator, Pestmaster, who informed me that the situation at the front of the house was even worse than the back, rife with members other ant families: black and carpenter. The treatment was applied (Demand CS) and after 3 weeks the paving joints can be sealed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Once you decide on this path you can’t turn back. Pavement ant colonies have multiple queens and many workers. They swarm in May and June sending winged ants that are twice as large as the workers out of the nest to mate and form new colonies. In this manner countless queen pavement ants have been fertilized by the tiny male pavement ants, one-third the size of the queens. You can only destroy an infestation by destroying the colony and killing the queen. If the queen survives the colony will break up and migrate elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">No matter how much of an irritation the enemy may be, first squirrels then ants, when you study their lives, habits and social structures, a grudging admiration sets in and you find yourself rooting for their side in the determination to multiply and survive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Now, believing the enemy to be vanquished, I can enjoy the rest of the wildlife. Jamie, my garden helper, had a palm warbler settle down next to his feet while he was weeding, and it has since paid a return visit. Wrens have taken up residence in the wren house – a small black box nailed to the old well house. A thoughtful gentleman in Connecticut I’ve never met made the house for me, after being asked by a friend of a friend. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aX4ikZ4jn9FKbGaHXQ293llbXyoZSgvHAlNU5pn7kjsdqLJWYz3AGQr7I20M5GgIsiHw5vvCg-6wErnk4Epoznm1Wdw8Kf8moJyJ7HjDzr2AmVLesjosS0bmf-MOr-aC6FlV89N7fhGO/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aX4ikZ4jn9FKbGaHXQ293llbXyoZSgvHAlNU5pn7kjsdqLJWYz3AGQr7I20M5GgIsiHw5vvCg-6wErnk4Epoznm1Wdw8Kf8moJyJ7HjDzr2AmVLesjosS0bmf-MOr-aC6FlV89N7fhGO/s640/3.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Wren House</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">There is a lot of in-and-out activity, what with nest building, feeding and visiting back and forth. I don’t go near the boxes for fear of disturbing the babies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The birds seem to hang around more since I have stepped up my watering practices. I have an efficient if primitive non-automated watering system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">When I first built this garden, a simple rectangle (114’ x 56’) now in its fourth season, I installed one water line along the length with hose bibs every 40 feet. I keep a 50’ hose permanently attached to the bib with a circular sprinkler head similarly attached at the other end so there is no annoying detaching and reattaching. The hoses are coiled at the bib and left hidden at the back of the shrub border. All it requires of me is that I pull a hose out, set it in place and turn it on. I move it hourly, each hour covering 8 to 10 running feet, depth variable. It takes about two days to cover all areas – that’s about 24 zones, give or take a few. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXO0HSLeYPdZ5ZIv9d6iC9Z9emlKJIpp2z-N5nX2Hc5muC6-HfkdaRNhhzMSIclal4kDti827A1PvJoLluttKyIfIUkS8SAsWcv6Q6IiBgk-xIbvrLVTLXD_rRyG-Y4a815iT01HCHOEPp/s1600/4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXO0HSLeYPdZ5ZIv9d6iC9Z9emlKJIpp2z-N5nX2Hc5muC6-HfkdaRNhhzMSIclal4kDti827A1PvJoLluttKyIfIUkS8SAsWcv6Q6IiBgk-xIbvrLVTLXD_rRyG-Y4a815iT01HCHOEPp/s640/4.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Watering Underway</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">This may sound formidable, but it is actually calming. First, the time it takes to move a hose is less than five minutes and the process keeps you from leaving the house for more than an hour at a time. This provides hours and hours to read, write, nap, return phone calls, bake cookies, think about dinner. Or if you just choose to sit and stare, the result of all this watering is a deep, cool, green garden that catches whatever breeze is passing by.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-76520322282993566782020-06-20T22:00:00.000-04:002020-06-20T23:17:34.384-04:00Reopening Rhinebeck<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">Rhinebeck is tiptoeing into Phase 2 of New York State’s plan to reopen the economy. Within a matter of hours on June 10th tents mushroomed over any parcel of restaurant-owned space -- parking lots, hotel lawns, slivers of sidewalks. At the same time the nation was convulsed in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and the extraordinary ongoing public outrage. It’s hard to imagine consumer confidence returning in the midst of the pandemic and such widespread social unrest, but shops and restaurants are opening nonetheless and, I hope, carefully. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0RVqTykHt7K8L5kU8ON95zO48zMfUj3w6jnD6IYkpG5IYjp5iXrc3EpaDOPoI17Y9HVt8YRBiDPnC0l7kIIoQkLUjuYHVYAXSWlbtCddxmzS6CQ5ZAfcH2USdnrtkzbIlObW4LFKzAZst/s640/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0RVqTykHt7K8L5kU8ON95zO48zMfUj3w6jnD6IYkpG5IYjp5iXrc3EpaDOPoI17Y9HVt8YRBiDPnC0l7kIIoQkLUjuYHVYAXSWlbtCddxmzS6CQ5ZAfcH2USdnrtkzbIlObW4LFKzAZst/w640-h480/1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><i><font size="5">Rhinebeck Reopens</font></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><font size="5"><o:p></o:p></font><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">I’m giving this phase of the experiment a pass. Instead, I have more visitors in the garden, socially distancing of course. I’m running out of chairs, and have a few folding chairs coming from <a href="https://www.lawnchairusa.com">LawnChairUSA</a> -- the Charleston Classic, pretty basic and unexciting but they settle comfortably into the garden. Available in a myriad of color combinations, more than you might want to scroll through, but if you stay with it till the very end, the last one is a cool minimalist black, perfect for the modernist gardener. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">When the visitors leave and conversation ends, I get back to work in the garden. I’m building the “conspicuous failures” category this spring. The peonies and Siberian iris did not bloom -- not a bud, not a sign. There is always the worry of the black walnut association, but Siberian iris are supposedly foolproof, while peonies are a matter of opinion among those who keep watch on walnut toxicity. On the other hand, across the street a neighbor has a single peony growing against a house wall and sheltered from any visible light source by a fence and trees. Her peony is blooming it’s heart out with giant blossoms lashed to the house for support.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">The mock orange, now in its 4th year is approaching giant size with not a sign of flowering. Otherwise everything else is behaving well. The black walnuts are in full leaf, providing beautiful dappled shade to make up for its punishing toxins. The single stand of Solomon Seal (11 according to my plant list) was so stately I’m adding two more groupings of 11 each in the same border.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOCSo0DyVTQypC035aaOSRMe47htQRDxcQ71wMI0iWuiBX_EsV2KxI09n41QuLLQrBlHNaOK4z_qUCM0Hir94sr6L26vYOoZZFAi8UNHdC9_YegOYAijYd9AxSO7Rhx0hoCWfgz1PjPbu/s640/2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOCSo0DyVTQypC035aaOSRMe47htQRDxcQ71wMI0iWuiBX_EsV2KxI09n41QuLLQrBlHNaOK4z_qUCM0Hir94sr6L26vYOoZZFAi8UNHdC9_YegOYAijYd9AxSO7Rhx0hoCWfgz1PjPbu/w480-h640/2.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="5"><span style="text-align: left;"><i>Solomon Seal</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: left;"> </span></font></td></tr></tbody></table><font size="5"><o:p></o:p></font><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">Star of Bethlehem (either a lovely bulb or your worst invasive weed nightmare, depending on your temperament) is taking up too much territory. Theoretically, it browns out about now and disappears, but so far it is just lying down on its side. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">The dyphilleia is sensational, but partially and unfortunately crowded by a new red-twigged dogwood. Dyphilleia’s palmate-shaped leaves are huge and dramatic, outshining its more modest neighbor, the mayapple. Scott Blair introduced it to me but I could never remember its name and was forever asking him to repeat it. Retaliating, he wrote it on a number of 3x5 cards, hiding them around the house – in the freezer, a stationery drawer, inside pots, tucked behind the coffee grinder. I’ve not forgotten the name since. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7GmF-4AzX-6-EgjdIzYUGnfRa06qB7KergE06q0B6ctPHILtvJ33EQSCNwpLoPtz3y659gDbfs6Jenlp8Ry-AlAMEtQFr771FHyGtc3iZNK5T6SumIOAECQyzhz97jjuvbvjgtydmc2OD/s640/3.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7GmF-4AzX-6-EgjdIzYUGnfRa06qB7KergE06q0B6ctPHILtvJ33EQSCNwpLoPtz3y659gDbfs6Jenlp8Ry-AlAMEtQFr771FHyGtc3iZNK5T6SumIOAECQyzhz97jjuvbvjgtydmc2OD/w480-h640/3.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="5"><span style="text-align: left;"><i>Diphylleia</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: left;"> </span></font></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">The blue phlox divaricata has finished blooming. Usually I cut it back as I used to ruthlessly cut everything when it finished blooming. But I’m more laissez-faire this year; since I’m letting myself go with no haircut or makeup and wearing only work clothes, I’m letting the plants loosen up as well. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">I’ve had a few small miracles. In the last newsletter I wrote about the white potentilla deemed dead by all, but which I continued to water. They are beginning to sprout, but you have to get awfully close to the ground to see it. Most miracles start out like this. A seedling from the devastated Japanese maples has surfaced. If I don’t lose sight of it, or if it’s not weeded out by mistake, I’ll pot it up and nurse it along for a few years and then keep it going in a large container. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifWVRZO62Y2eufRzwJYmaEIuVjoXQMWsNusNbn-seMSdhsrtPbrXEvixzq5kBxZu6lTK79Gh7SA-DV3GjWgjw1UofoKii71xsRAzqaKW4FbFIQaJQL-RHoenBYKT9b4vJPFOWqHkkJifRn/s640/4.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifWVRZO62Y2eufRzwJYmaEIuVjoXQMWsNusNbn-seMSdhsrtPbrXEvixzq5kBxZu6lTK79Gh7SA-DV3GjWgjw1UofoKii71xsRAzqaKW4FbFIQaJQL-RHoenBYKT9b4vJPFOWqHkkJifRn/w480-h640/4.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="5"><i>Potentilla</i><br /></font></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;">Several years ago I lost two very old climbing hydrangea brought over from the old garden in Olive Bridge. They were not happy, they expired, and were eventually cut down. Two years later, there are tiny shoots emerging from underground, where I can only imagine what the subterranean rest period must have been like. Small miracles, but they touch the heart in these trying times. If you want to catch them, keep your nose to the ground.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.5;"> </span></p>Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-25042943765347972222020-05-30T16:00:00.000-04:002020-05-30T16:24:27.571-04:00After Memorial Day<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> Memorial Day on the garden calendar marks the time for planting annuals, filling pots and baskets, setting up barbecues and lawn chairs, watching parades, visiting cemeteries, showing the flag. Alas, not much of that this year.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguaJ9-WlS3Eaqdy1lBIW9_sJ8p0Rb3XsXzuY2WJ71SL1-LvCVFzwTA_0AeCKS2Fnlne5Z6M7OjRgjKz-nCVo9fUKOXyuLDgv0_PWQh3C-_8VtUPzqMuYa3cv9XkWAP-7HRjiK8cZJ-Spui/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="1140" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguaJ9-WlS3Eaqdy1lBIW9_sJ8p0Rb3XsXzuY2WJ71SL1-LvCVFzwTA_0AeCKS2Fnlne5Z6M7OjRgjKz-nCVo9fUKOXyuLDgv0_PWQh3C-_8VtUPzqMuYa3cv9XkWAP-7HRjiK8cZJ-Spui/s640/1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Rhinebeck Memorial Day Parade 2019</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">We did not assemble as we had in the past. The corona virus death toll was reaching 100,000, falling heavily on communities of color, and we are still cautious. Reading the sobering front page of the New York Times, listing 1,000 of the dead with a single sentence about how they are remembered, occupied most of my Sunday. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">On Monday, missing the parade, I kept the radio on all morning, listening to the songs of the wars. As a child during World War II patriotism was universal; we were all on the same side. It doesn’t seem that way now. I had my first garden then, in 1942, a Victory Garden, vegetables grown in the backyard to aid the war effort. Yet in the midst of this great pandemic we are a divided nation with the wearing of masks a subset of the culture wars. We won’t have a parade today in Rhinebeck, but I will stop at the cemetery to pay my respects to the veterans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Curbside Garden In Rhinebeck</i></span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Gardens may be a small consolation, but we must continue to cultivate them. Our local actions may be on the smallest possible scale, but at least we are doing something for more than just ourselves. We can continue to divide, propagate, and plant knowing that we have unfinished business in our gardens and our communities. They will both need help with the work that lies ahead. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">As for my own garden, all the plants wintered over, struggling to survive indoors are now moved outside, re-potted, expected to leap forward. When I can get back to nurseries I plan to buy a few tropicals to add to the mix – cannas, bougainvillea, jacaranda – if I can find them. On an early venture I came across a stash of enkianthus, a favorite plant of mine, bought three out of greed and have no appropriate place for them. I’ll plant them out in big boxes against the back of the house and hope for the best. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW1VUyNlQOvO97v2IzeYqB9Rsr8_9bxgRIpPf9vi8_5hZdk2qsN_-t91DXhSCFaLuCarY7qOUAF5xub2oyk_SyD85rGLuYhC-osTSnLaM66SeQrp_TNiNdH3eIKWvXIPoQsw35Vsyrl3bP/s1600/3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW1VUyNlQOvO97v2IzeYqB9Rsr8_9bxgRIpPf9vi8_5hZdk2qsN_-t91DXhSCFaLuCarY7qOUAF5xub2oyk_SyD85rGLuYhC-osTSnLaM66SeQrp_TNiNdH3eIKWvXIPoQsw35Vsyrl3bP/s640/3.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Wintered-over Flowering Plants 2019</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I’ve heard the nurseries are packed, some operating safely and efficiently, while others are careless, crowded and unmasked. <i>Caveat emptor.</i> I’m not quite ready to join the experiment, but I’m working up to it. In the meantime I’m gardening vigorously, with much resting in between. More resting than working. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I circle the block every day in the early evening, nodding hello to the neighborhood gardens, their gardeners, and other walkers out and about at the same time. My plan for a curbside garden disappeared as the village finished paving Livingston Street, filled the remaining disruptions with soil and set out grass seed, obliterating my prospective garden for this season. I’ve added a few photographs of curbside gardens, so as you walk around the village keep your sightlines low.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJwlSyV-vpi13EpEugddVDX-H6oLcllZZLpSGTtbP0F4IiG97Yku_cyyggUpj_WybGpAeTbc-GzSLX_AyTtstCLZx0NXLX_eTPJ9Fg0Nzd9iq5mKEz4urrw_cgP87Mm4X61I9Ft5Le8rl4/s1600/4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJwlSyV-vpi13EpEugddVDX-H6oLcllZZLpSGTtbP0F4IiG97Yku_cyyggUpj_WybGpAeTbc-GzSLX_AyTtstCLZx0NXLX_eTPJ9Fg0Nzd9iq5mKEz4urrw_cgP87Mm4X61I9Ft5Le8rl4/s640/4.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Another Curbside Garden in Rhinebeck</i></span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Early this spring I ordered white cinquefoil which arrived bare-root while I was between gardeners. They were eventually planted and appear dead to everyone except me, who continues to water them, expectantly. Defeats are minor in the grand scheme of things. You will have noticed by now that gardens are impervious to everything except weather. Even neglect doesn’t matter in the long run; survival of the fittest prevails. An unfinished garden is one of the best guarantees of longevity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKkDJcrIjYXq9fBtdzUXEG-1W703-e_ebBS6h-S98THTp1TvMbU-wYisPQyjvIrLTiLcFzr0JM00X9eoxNa9c_EFFtTJi5lFELyfabqbBRr9r7Z9AQGOME9KvEN_t07VBhgJx-fhmCgSKT/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="575" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKkDJcrIjYXq9fBtdzUXEG-1W703-e_ebBS6h-S98THTp1TvMbU-wYisPQyjvIrLTiLcFzr0JM00X9eoxNa9c_EFFtTJi5lFELyfabqbBRr9r7Z9AQGOME9KvEN_t07VBhgJx-fhmCgSKT/s640/5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Curbside Garden in Jerusalem</span></i></td></tr>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-78403997666223851272020-05-13T09:35:00.001-04:002020-05-13T09:37:26.720-04:00Early May, 2020<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/2/null" name="OLE_LINK1"></a><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The garden takes no notice of the pandemic; it only registers light, temperature and moisture. The apple tree blooms on time, woodland phlox shows its colors, Celandine poppy opens unexpectedly in deep shade. I should take pleasure in this, but it feels out of tune with the world. I worry like a Russian during a bitter winter of war, but not yet cutting down the trees for firewood, or turning the garden into a potato patch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXdFJRMfzpjcgJXcT1-2qLF0C_i-SsYj9rD4tuBI00cDAXoH7trvWL8sV2KzXjivQk5cSnlYn_rsHgqYzeifJTl939r7C_4kKElj7h4sJhV-16TxQO3J60_Qg6QTj3H7tZd2upVhBfqlgn/s1600/1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXdFJRMfzpjcgJXcT1-2qLF0C_i-SsYj9rD4tuBI00cDAXoH7trvWL8sV2KzXjivQk5cSnlYn_rsHgqYzeifJTl939r7C_4kKElj7h4sJhV-16TxQO3J60_Qg6QTj3H7tZd2upVhBfqlgn/s640/1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">The Apple Tree</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I came back to Rhinebeck in mid-March, guiltily fleeing the city, barely closing up the apartment, grabbing what I needed, changing my mailing address with the post office, my delivery address with the New York Times. I have -- I had -- a choice: An apartment in the city with a few windows on the street, or a house in Rhinebeck with windows and light on all four sides, and a garden in which to watch and wait out the pandemic. Everyone who could decamped, but I feel more of a deserter each day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Through late March and early April it rained and rained, or so it seemed. My garden was hopelessly dreary, puzzling, until I remembered I was not supposed to be here so early or for so long; the garden was planned to emerge in late April, early May. And right on time the early scillas appeared in the back of the garden, a sea of deep blue. No matter how often their beds are disturbed and replanted the scillas return, advancing further into the lawn. Every year at this time I imagine a bulb meadow in the lawn, only the earliest, so that their foliage like that of the scillas, would be cut down with the first mowing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8mmXOmH22xuRmyfvAxyKw4jWFSki0dQYjAbAJ_w5Qtq2hLNoYZlWY2bbKP-zGHxLCbPNlZ4ty13olRTE16NWmUMiO9XGPoeyUB-DjbA3AYUGinfHnR0_7XX6djup3VAb-gC6nnhI9-wv/s1600/2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8mmXOmH22xuRmyfvAxyKw4jWFSki0dQYjAbAJ_w5Qtq2hLNoYZlWY2bbKP-zGHxLCbPNlZ4ty13olRTE16NWmUMiO9XGPoeyUB-DjbA3AYUGinfHnR0_7XX6djup3VAb-gC6nnhI9-wv/s640/2.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Scilla siberica</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The garden pattern, for better or worse, is beginning to emerge. Trees and shrubs provide the structure while the herbaceous materials are the fine-tuning. This is true in my garden, dominated by the dappled shade of Black walnuts and the deep shade of Norway maples.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In my mind’s eye I saw a tapestry of color weaving through a sea of green. The woody plants would bear white blossoms while blue would be the dominant color of the herbaceous material throughout the season… except when it is isn’t. The Bleeding heart, a lovely deep pink, is spectacular and deserves more room than I have given it. The earliest blue to work it’s way through the garden is Phlox divaricata. I mistakenly thought it was a creeping phlox but it mounds instead. Very beautiful, but the not the creeper I had expected. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">It is almost time to move the plants wintered-over indoors back outdoors. They do not look very promising this year, or maybe I’m viewing them through the lens of the general malaise of these days. Moving them outdoors is back-breaking work, so they have to earn their keep. I’ll add fresh soil to their pots, but I suspect the indoors/outdoors routine is only good for a few years and then the plants are spent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">During this cold Spring the length of Livingston Street has been repaved, encouraging renewed skateboarding among homebound teenagers. I finally removed the huge ailing street tree, leaving a gaping span that is waiting to be filled with new soil. The custom is to plant grass on these verges so that people stepping out of cars have a soft landing, but I doubt that there will be many cars parking out front this year. Instead I’m planting annuals for a flower garden on the verge, something for passersby on foot. Sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, cleome. There are a few of these curbside gardens in the village.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I rarely leave the house these days, and the same can be said for some of my scattered childen. My daughter Liz and her family are in lockdown in Jerusalem. My son Micah and his family in lockdown in Queens, the children attending school online. In Jerusalem, Liz’s Aquarium is closed to the public but she is permitted to drive across the city to care for the fish. My daughter-in-law Sibernie goes from their home in Queens to her job at the VA Hospital in Manhattan every day. My daughter Pam (formerly and formally my step-daughter but we have dropped all that), a retired physician, is renewing her credentials in Arizona to serve on the front lines in Tucson when needed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Around here, tempers are short. Profound differences emerge. Resolute mask-refuseniks remain resolute. Arguments that should not happen, happen. Among the Covid-19 obituaries, ever expanding in the New York Times, appears the not-unexpected death of an old friend in poor health who had lived a long and fruitful life. No funeral, no memorial service, but nonetheless, we stop for a moment, sit quietly, and remember.</span></div>
Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-65741211146663724472020-03-21T17:47:00.000-04:002020-03-21T17:47:57.077-04:00Weathering the Storm<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> When on the water and a storm comes up you take directions from the skipper: batten down the hatches, furl the sails, clip your safety belt to the rails, and keep non-essential deckhands down below where they will be safe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">It’s not a bad lesson to follow in these parlous times. Those of us living in New York City apartments see no one except the building staff (scrupulously sanitizing every surface, every package, every piece of mail). A friend in the same zip code as I, having abandoned restaurants, dinners with friends and almost all grocery stores, took a daily walk with me in Riverside Park. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In the city in earlier times of crisis to reassure ourselves that beauty and learning would endure, we went to the museums, libraries, and concert halls -- our secular churches. They are closed now, but we still have our parks. Open air, flowering trees, new growth on old plants – these will keep our spirits up until the world settles down again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The importance of a park in your neighborhood cannot be overstated. There you see life at its happiest, people strolling alone or with friend and families, kids playing ball, dog walkers. The Trust for Public Land thinks everyone should have no more than a 10-minute walk to a park. At New Yorkers for Parks (full disclosure; I am a board member) we believe city budgets for the maintenance for all our parks should be increasingly generous. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The city’s small parks and public spaces are as valuable as the flagship parks and serve a critical population with little or difficult access to the flagships. All the parks, large and small, will need support so pick your park and stick with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">As isolation increased, those who could left the city, with hope isolating themselves first so as not to carry risk. After a few weeks of mind-numbing isolation, I joined the exodus fleeing north and left for Rhinebeck, where I plan to stay for the duration. I am blessed to have a small house in a village with sidewalks, streetlights and neighbors. We meet in the street, my neighbors and I, six feet apart to exchange war stories and news of our families. There is so little traffic now we could probably bring our lawn chairs to the street. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">My grandfather did this during World War II. He dragged his Adirondack chair to the edge of the front walk, close to the sidewalk, so neighbors passing by could visit and bring the latest news of sons and nephews serving on the fronts. Every neighbor had, as we did, a flag in the window with one or more blue stars for each member of the family overseas so there was a lot of news to share.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Soon it will be warm enough for my neighbors to sit in each other’s backyards. I am pushing the days. Trees and shrubs are showing buds. Witchhazel is still blooming. Forsythia almost. Daffodils and iris are beginning to emerge. Birds are at the feeders and the ones who left for warmer climates are on their way back. Soon the farmers will bring vegetables to market along with the earliest strawberries. Till then we are being cautious in supermarkets and using up our foodstuffs carefully.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">For the moment we are making do, and there is some satisfaction in that. Growing up in the 40’s we all worked together for the war effort, for what we knew in our core was the common good. As children we understood rationing, that the black market was bad, that it was our job to sell defense stamps door to door, and to grow our own vegetables in our backyard Victory Gardens. So today take care of yourselves and your family and go about cultivating your own garden, whether it is real or only a metaphor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-41720971780548288002019-08-13T21:20:00.001-04:002019-08-13T21:21:23.313-04:00Historic District Streetscapes<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Rhinebeck’s historic district has always had a pleasing mix of small, modest houses and larger grand ones. The grandest of them often occupy only the corners, with the exception of one or two streets with stately houses and very deep setbacks. Buildings are about the same height. Sidewalk materials start out consistently bluestone until heaved out of place and replaced with concrete. Trees are spaced regularly down the length of the street and remain there until the end of their lifespan. On the best of streets there is a sense of regularity and order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">When you walk through the village, round a corner and turn down a street, it either feels good immediately, or it doesn’t. There ought to be a sense of “rightness” in the spaces between one house and the next, and if there isn’t the absence can leave you a bit unmoored. This has nothing to do with “taste;” it is about order and context. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">This was tested recently on a quiet day in June as cars slowed and walkers stopped in their tracks to watch the planting of a three-story tall Norway Spruce in a previously unadorned front yard. This was just the beginning of the wholesale transformation of a dignified 1900 house sitting squarely on its lot, always slightly unapproachable but still putting its best face forward to its neighbors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Deemed “an excellent example of the mature Colonial Revival style in Rhinebeck – the best example in this particular area” by the Rhinebeck Historical Society, it languished on the market for several years before being purchased by a man who had already transformed part of a grand estate on the river. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">As the planting continued, consternation in the village grew. Iron fences and gates were installed. A few village houses have gated front walks, more ornamental than forbidding, but a gated driveway with a coded entry is not exactly neighborly. Elaborate security systems are more often found on large properties set well away from the road and often unoccupied. One of the best reasons for living on a village street is that you don’t need any of this. Neighbors look out for one another. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Inside the gate to the front walk is a bench and an arbor festooned with what appears to be plastic roses. Live roses have been planted at the base and with hope will live to replace the plastic ones. A few bronze plaques hang from the iron fence, one with the address, two asking for “please no pee-pee,” and one announcing video surveillance, the last perhaps designed to capture dog owners not in compliance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">A large screen of artificial foliage provides privacy to one side of the front porch. That same side of the porch blocks out its neighbors with a screen of several more mature Norway spruce. The property is ringed with about 60 boxwoods, give or take a few, but I couldn’t stand there long enough to count before being told to leave. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">At some point this dark and sober house was painted white. The combination of the new brightness, the gated walkway and driveway, the security code, the notices on the fence, and the dense plantings closing the house off from its neighbors can be intimidating. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">The only other house on the street that has turned its back on the character and traditions of historic districts happens to be directly across the street, so one house has the company of the other. The rest of the street will probably continue along its quiet way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">In fairness to the homeowner, a planting plan was submitted to the Planning Board and approved. But even if he had chosen to plant in harmony with the street there is not much guidance available on historic district landscapes. There are a few photographs of the house on file in the Rhinebeck Historical Society and as much documentation on the house itself as was available at the time of the photographs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">In the absence of specific guidelines, a good rule to follow is to respect your neighbors and the neighborhood. You will not have to consider this if you own a very large property or are in the middle of a forest. But in a village with sidewalks and neighbors whatever you do should at least bear some relationship to whatever is going on next door and down the block. You may not like it, but deal with it kindly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Harmony should be the underlying effect of a fine streetscape; the parts should fit together as a whole. When historic districts are designated, the preservation and landmark ordinances tend to be entirely focused on the structures themselves and as a result bypass and do not curate the landscape of the front yards, trees, walks and streets that connect them. Memorable landscapes are made when multiple properties share basic guiding principles that are enhanced and inspired by the origins that created the historic district. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">This of course occurs only in the best of all possible worlds. To codify this risks a municipality becoming the Design Police, but without laying out guidelines it is easy to lose the very character of the streets that drew families and visitors and businesses to Rhinebeck in the first place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Village Board of Trustees is well aware of these concerns and is in the process of forming a Streetscape Issues Committee to address the multiplicity of concerns that factor into maintaining a memorable historic district. So please -- all of you to whom this matters, stay tuned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-89275715138773554892019-07-07T00:00:00.000-04:002019-07-07T02:07:32.219-04:00Woody Plants In My Garden<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In the historic district of Rhinebeck, the location of my garden, the property lines are often defined by large shade trees planted 100 years ago, limiting the amount of light coming into the garden. Mine is definitely a shade garden, penetrated by occasional shafts of light, loose in its design, softer in its effect than sunny borders, its plants spreading out and multiplying in a somewhat haphazard fashion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The first decision in planning a garden is the amount of privacy you need. I chose an open aspect so as to see a bit of the neighboring houses, the upper floors and rooflines, retaining the sense of a village. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>View to the West Before We Began</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">To the West, I kept open the pleasing view into my neighbor’s garden and beyond. But my neighbor to the East has a large raised deck, a trampoline and a tent, so each year I increase the density of that border while trying not to appear unfriendly. In the rear of the garden towards the North a large crabapple softens the mass of the house behind. The Southern border is the rear wall of my house, the terrace, arbor and garden gates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The second decision is coming to terms with your light limitations. Shade patterns vary, and plants respond to subtle differences. Partial shade is only two hours of mid-day sun; a few hours of early morning or late afternoon light constitutes light shade; horizontally branching trees provide filtered light while light coming through pinnate leaves of the Black walnut is best described as dappled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The third decision is whether you plan to fight the limitations of your site, or ride with them. My garden has significant restrictions on what survives. The West border is lined with Black walnuts, known for toxicity to a large range of plants. If you are faced with this problem, there are a number of postings from agricultural colleges and arboretums listing plants both susceptible and resistant to Black walnut toxicity. As limiting as it may seem to be, the beautiful dappled light cast by Black walnuts more than compensates for the toxicity limitations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The East border is under deep shade from both Silver and Norway maples. Their root systems are rambling and close to the surface creating a struggle for plants looking for room to expand. My solution was to use established plants of a decent size, so at least if they did not flourish they would grow slowly and steadily. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Across the East Border</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Most of the plants you are likely to buy will come from a nursery and be ready to plant. It’s another story if you are looking for mature or specimen plants. Then you should visit a large nursery, select your plants in the field and have them tagged for a future move. Since I planned my garden late in life and do not expect to be around to see the woody plants reach maturity, I tend to use large plants whenever possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Moving a large tree is a complicated process and may take place over several growing seasons. It is routinely root pruned to encourage the roots to grow to the center. The crown is pruned to encourage more compact growth, making the plant easier to move through several transport stages. If done at the right time of year (when the tree is dormant) and watered well for the first two years, the tree will hardly know it has been moved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Apple Tree: First Year After Installation</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">There were only three shrubs in my garden when I arrived in 2011 – two Forsythia and a glorious Winged euonymus. – and they are still with me. Otherwise the backyard was a dedicated dog run, bordered by hog-wire fencing to keep the dogs in and everyone else out. It was a blank slate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The plant palette was the result of the close working relationship with Gail Witter-Laird, the landscape architect who was the visionary for the best of this garden. Given the constraints of deep shade and Black walnut toxicity, this is our list for woody plants:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">6 Japanese maples (<i>Acer palmatum japonica</i>) that are (or were) cornerstones for the design<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">2 Shadblow (<i>Amelanchier canadensis</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">3 Bottlebrush buckeye (<i>Aesculus parviflora</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">3 Fringetree (<i>Chionanthus virginicus</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Various hydrangea (<i>arborescens, tardiva, petiolaris</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Black tupelo (<i>Nyssa sylvatica</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">3 Witchhazel (<i>Hamamelis Arnold’s Promise, Jelena, virginiana</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">17 Sumac (<i>Rhus aromatica low grow</i>), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">5 Privet (<i>Ligustrum</i>), languishing from lack of sun<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">2 Mockorange (<i>Philadelphus</i>), yet to bloom<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">1 Stewartia (<i>S. pseudocamellia</i>) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">1 Japanese lilac (<i>Syringa reticulata</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">1 Red-vein enkianthus (<i>Enkianthus campanulatis</i>) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">11 Red Chokeberry (<i>Aronia arbutifolia brlliantissima</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">7 American wintergreen (<i>Gaultheria procumbens</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">4 Siberian cypress (<i>Macrobiota decussata</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">1 Crabapple (<i>Malus floribunda</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">All the above were vetted carefully for Black walnut toxicity except a truckload of aronia that somehow slipped through the cracks. They did not survive, and I lost some of even the carefully vetted. The Siberian cypress did not make it through the winter. Neither did the wintergreen. <i>Nyssa sylvatica</i>, notoriously difficult to transplant, did not survive. The others behaved more or less as expected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Japanese Maple After Planting</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">And then we were hit with an unexpected disaster. One by one five of the 6 key Japanese maples succumbed to verticillium wilt, a soil-borne pathogen. The diagnosis is not difficult to make. The tree dies back in large segments within a very short time period. When a branch is removed and sent off to a lab for analysis the entire vascular system of the plant is observed to be clogged; no water or nutrients are able to pass up through the soil and into the plant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Death of the Japanese Maples</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">So now another constraint has been added to the plant palette. When you vet for Black walnut toxicity, and then add a screen for verticillium wilt, you are left with only a small handful of possible choices. Four of the Japanese maples have been replaced with Sweetgum (<i>Liquidambar styraciflua</i>), a totally different look. The Japanese maples were low and full, very gardenesque. The Sweetgums are tall and narrow, more park-like than garden. They produce prickly nuts that fall to the ground and are painful to tread on and collect, but I’m used to years of picking up after the Black walnuts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I’ve added a few oakleaf hydrangea, taking seriously an off-hand comment of Michael Dirr’s that the only plants you can depend on to bloom in deep shade are Bottlebrush buckeye and Oakleaf hydrangea. As to the buckeye, you could not find plants more ungainly and less interesting for much of the year, but when they bloom it is heart-stopping. For a plant bible you cannot do better than the delightfully opinionated Michael Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs, the gold standard of amateur and professional alike for plant identification and selection.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">Bottlebrush Buckeye in Bloom</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">While it may seem discouraging at first, recognize that if you begin with a blank slate your garden will take about 20 years to approach maturity. Give it a good start by testing your soil (a subject for a later newsletter). Whatever you choose to plant, remember to water, water, water. The soil must never dry out and should be slightly damp to the touch at all times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The best advice I can give is to read as much as you can. Garden books (and gardeners) can be divided into two categories. The plants collectors, those who hardly met a plant they didn’t like, and the aesthetes, those who focus on design and harmony. You can learn from both. And visit gardens, always carrying a camera and a notebook. You will want notes on not only the plants, but on structural details, paving patterns and gardening practices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">During these formative years, a reliable contractor will be your truest garden friend. All my initial plants came from Twin Farms in Millbrook and they did the installation as well. Watching the several days-long preparation of the beds was a lesson in itself. They have been utterly dependable, standing by all the fatalities and replacing plants when necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Allow enough time for your plants to establish themselves. When you think you’ve made a mistake, remember that plants don’t read the books, and they often settle down happily in locations where they were expected to sulk. Keep in mind that a garden is a process, and there is always next season. </span></div>
Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-83925528079411042032019-05-12T10:00:00.000-04:002019-05-12T10:45:23.204-04:00Garden Necessaries and Follies<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">I have the perfect garden shed. I did not design it myself so I can praise its perfection; I stole the design from Fletcher Steele who gets full credit. The design appears inside the front and back covers of the 2011 reprint of Fletcher Steele’s Design in the Little Garden (1924). A modular design, it is a mere 21” deep and can be a long as you need it to be. In the drawing it is beautifully planned with cunning little hooks and shelves to satisfy even the most compulsively organized among us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">Although I have a cellar for a cumbersome assortment of furniture, plant stands, pots and hoses I still need a handy place for tools. To assess my ground-level needs I moved all my tools to the trunk of the car, and then eliminated all the non-essentials. Once completed, you need much less than you had previously thought. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Fletcher Steele Drawings</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">My shed was built by Brian Tamm and Dan Frank, who build everything for me. It fits flush against the side of the house, the roofline of the shed following the roofline of the house. Its function is almost invisible. When I asked my son to store a pot in the garden shed he walked out the door, looked around, and asked me where it was. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Finished Shed</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">Before I came across the Fletcher Steele design, I </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">looked at shed kits in every conceivable style, from configurations for cozy cabins with window boxes, to Zen retreats, to cabanas with Palladian gables. There were hip-roofed styles recommended for California vineyards, austere slant-roofed sheds for tool minimalists, sheds with faux-Tudor rooflines, and five-sided numbers with French doors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">Although I was governed by the need for a shed, in my heart what I really wanted was a garden room. Historically, there have always been structures in the garden, from the simplest arbors to the most elaborate marble sleeping platform in hot climates. Tents with hangings, summerhouses, gazebos and trellised pavilions have all had their place in gardens. In some regions garden rooms are linked to a greenhouse, conservatory, or solarium. In other regions, it always means a screened porch as you couldn’t live outdoors without one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">A Perfect Garden House</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">I have visited winter gardens, lathe and glass additions used primarily for the cultivation of tropical plants but with plenty of space for chairs and tables, houses with old stone barns or outbuildings turned into garden rooms, painting studios or summer dining rooms that can only be called garden rooms because they looked out on the garden. I’ve rocked on long porches that are garden rooms because of the comfort from which you contemplate the garden. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">A passionate gardener’s garden room always has a point of view. It may be facing a fragrant evening garden rich in heliotrope, nicotiana, Casablanca lilies and daturas. It may be no more than a potting shed, with space for a table, pots, barrels of soil, and running water. Painters might arrange their studio to open on to the garden while writers may have a shed at the bottom of the garden (Virginia Wolfe here), all keeping clippers nearby for a few spare moments of deadheading. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">Some of the prettiest garden rooms may be found in garden-less apartments. The tenants are invariably displaced gardeners forcibly removed from their gardens or relocated by circumstance to a flower-less world. These rooms are often filled with wicker, flowered chintzes, airy curtains and potted plants. The effect of ease and charm is not appreciably different from what you would have found in their lost gardens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">At some unremembered moment I gave up the fantasy of a garden room and settled on a shed that would be no more than a repository for tools and bags of fertilizer. </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">All gardeners know that the accumulation of tools grows faster than the growth rate of plants, but I am practicing the moderation of which I know I am secretly capable. Just this year alone </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">I’ve cancelled orders for a fine left-handed knife, a hand rake, several pairs of heavy-duty gloves, an extra trowel or two, and new clippers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">But delusions of grandeur die hard. My perfect shed is located in the former trash yard, the home of rakes and shovels, garbage cans and trash bins. I decided to turn it into a <i>piazzetta</i>, a place for tropical and tender plants unsuited to my deeply-shaded Zone 5 backyard. Up went fences for screening the driveway. Up went an enclosure to obscure the trash cans, now reduced in size from the largest to "single occupancy household." Concrete was jack-hammered, removed, and replaced with pink crushed granite, located in only one quarry in Connecticut.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;">Last year on the <i>piazetta </i>I looked after only a few tender plants and annuals in small pots. This year I am looking for the alamanda and adenium I saw wintering over indoors in Arizona.</span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 42.66667175292969px;"> You can see where this is heading. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Piazetta 2018</span></i></td></tr>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-27473862915309968942019-04-21T10:00:00.000-04:002019-04-21T10:00:52.339-04:00Signs Of Spring<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> Although March seemed endless this year, April is here at last. There is nothing good to be said about March, other than it is over. Daylight Savings Time arrived early this year giving us more light at the end of the day, thus more time to consider the state of the garden. By mid-March some gardeners reported a noticeable change in their gardens, but I suspect the change was in the heart of the gardener and not the garden. After a mild day or two we convince ourselves it is the beginning of the gardening year. <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The gardener’s year does not synchronize with the calendar year. January, February and much of March is spent hibernating and dreaming. April 1 is the real start, and March merely the wind-up. With all its climatic vagaries, March does manage to offer one definitive idea: Winter is over. In my former Staten Island woodland garden I knew I would soon hear the spring peepers in the bog. The saying goes that after they have been heard three evenings, spring is here to stay. In my Rhinebeck garden the beds are cleared of mulch and debris. A major tree pruning has removed the dead branches of the Black walnuts and opened up the canopy of the Norway maples in the hope of bringing more light into a dark border<i>. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Snowdrops in a Woodland Garden</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The first sign of life in Rhinebeck is the appearance of snowdrops. They are beloved of gardeners who have nothing to do in March and garden writers who have nothing to write about. Snowdrops face downward, so to appreciate them you have to drop to your knees and peer under the blossom. It is the only way to distinguish one variety from another, but only the most devoted gardeners do this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The best way to enjoy them – and most other early bulbs and spring ephemerals – is to plant hundreds at a time. Few of us have that much space or strength, so a clump or two close to the house will have to do. Even better, a clump or two close to the street will lift the spirits of passersby.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">If you have a table outdoors pot up a handful of snowdrops and let them spend the winter there. Start watering the pots at the same time you see them start in the garden. This not a bad practice with other tiny bulbs and spring ephemerals. You can place them around a terrace, outside a door, on the front steps – any place where you can watch them grow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In Rhinebeck the daffodils are just beginning to show, while in the city they are already covering the hillsides of Riverside Park, a six-mile strip of land between Riverside Drive and the Hudson River. The land rises and falls with paths through the hills now covered in daffodils and the beginnings of flowering cherries and magnolias. The slopes of the park are tiered, and daffodils are best seen on hillsides like these where they can be left alone after blooming, needing no cutting back for maintenance. Every spring I visit Muriel Peters’ daffodil garden on Staten Island, if only through old photographs and notes. Muriel was – and I hope still is – the epitome of the single-focus gardener; daffodils are her passion and her specialty and each passing year sees the addition on new varieties. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Muriel Peters Daffodil Garden</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">If you are still indoors and desperate to get out of the basement where you have supposedly been cleaning tools, plan an early sowing of lawn grass seed. This presupposes that your soil is prepared and ready for planting. Seed scattered on old lawns will germinate in the first warm weather and thicken the lawn before the appearance of crab grass in the summer. A freak spring snow is particularly effective for sowing lawn seed. As the snow melts the seed settles into the moist earth and waits for the first mild days of spring to sprout.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Pay attention to your house plants; they will need more watering than they have all winter. The days are lengthening and the plants readying for a growth spurt. Last summer I invested heavily in pot plants: plumbago, mandevilla, alocacia, calocacia, a giant palm. We brought them indoors (“we” is a euphemism; it was really Dan alone) to sunny windows where they spent a warm and quiet winter. In early May we will bring them back outdoors, trim them back if needed, and wait impatiently for them be grateful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Last year, for the first time, I ordered a number of plants online from specialty nurseries. I’ve not yet seen a sign on life on those purchases, a group of plants I had only read about: darmera peltata, persicaria, patrinia, wasabi. I am trying to be patient; only time will tell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A Harbinger of Spring</i></span></td></tr>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-32390272801994382682019-02-03T10:05:00.000-05:002019-02-03T10:05:05.771-05:00The Ghost in the Garden<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The most that can be said for the month of February is that a few sunny days allow for some winter pruning. Otherwise all is quiet. Gardening friends have disappeared indoors or, if they can afford it, have escaped February altogether and left for warmer weather. During one particularly gloomy February when I had become tired of the sound of my own voice, Henry Mitchell appeared – or should I more correctly say the ghost of Henry Mitchell appeared. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Every garden has its ghost. It might be the critical specter of a previous owner, or a lost loved one who once stood at your shoulder commenting with enthusiasm or bewilderment. In my case the ghost is a writer I’d never met. Henry Mitchell. When he was alive I hoped he would visit my garden, the same way I hoped one evening I would walk into a wonderful party and Fred Astaire would ask me to dance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Henry Mitchell lived down the street a block or two from my house in Washington, DC’s Georgetown neighborhood. He wrote a weekly column for the Washington Post and was a master of the small garden. His “Earthman” columns appeared on Sundays, and those of us with tiny gardens tried to emulate him. Mine was the size of a postage stamp, paved in lumpy brick, with narrow borders surrounded by the fences, garages and garden walls of neighbors. I “assembled” rather than gardened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Pot plants were purchased anew each season with as many packed in as the tiny garden could hold. I didn’t have a car so I would taxi to the closest nursery, Johnson’s on Wisconsin Avenue, load up the cab and run home – all in under an hour. Diamond Cab was available by the hour, and it only took two runs to complete the garden for the season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Mitchell wrote about his own garden, but also made sure you didn’t miss what was going on in the by-ways; he wrote about the alleys of Georgetown with as much affection as he had for his own garden. The alleys ran between two rows of houses, and were home to both garages and trash. Garages were rare in Georgetown and alleys were few, but Mitchell found them festooned with hollyhocks in the summer and sweet autumn clematis in the fall. It was treated as a weed, but for Mitchell it was a plant without fault, blooming with the last gasp of warm weather when everything else was spent. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><i>“Catherine,” he whispers, “where is your clematis? You have these naked border fences and telephone lines. Plant it. Pay no attention to the invasive plant police.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Mitchell’s garden was only 40 by 100 feet – one-sixth of an acre – but packed with plants. Even if you were a regular reader of his weekly column it was easy to miss the astonishing number of plants he managed to shoehorn into his modest garden. It wasn’t until the columns were collected in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Earthman-Henry-Mitchell-Gardening/dp/0253215854/" target="_blank">The Essential Earthman</a> that I added the numbers and began to wonder how he did it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Handicapped by the presence of four forest trees, he nonetheless managed to greet spring with an assortment of crocus, snowdrops, a double plum, hyacinths, bleeding heart, ceanonthus, wild cyclamen and cyclamineus hybrids. There were 21 different named daffodils. He was also a great admirer of peonies, and managed to squeeze in ten. As you picture this, keep in mind that peonies require three feet each, effectively using up 30 feet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">He included several iris – danfordiae, reticulate, histrioides and tectorum. There were rhododendrons and azaleas, grapes, mockorange and viburnum, stachys, forget-me-nots and jasmines (both winter and Carolina), numberless roses and chrysanthemums, white and yellow primroses, coral bells, Shasta daisies and, of course, around 100 different daylilies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">As all passionate gardeners do, he had his biases. He harbored an intense dislike of zinnias, marigolds, petunias, and bedding begonias. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><i>“Catherine,” he whispers, “I’m so happy you have inherited my biases, I could forgive you the zinnias, but fortunately you don’t have enough sun.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">To give bulk and height to his garden he planted some tall yews and junipers, and provided rounded forms with Russian sage, arborvitae and false cypress. One of Mitchell’s rules was that small gardens require of a plant not only good-looking flowers but good-looking foliage and orderly habits, and so space and attention were given to hostas, yuccas, purple smoke bush and rudbeckia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">He seems to have had a large number of tubs and barrels, unless he was writing about the same barrels in different years. One tub had three or four water lilies, left to fend for themselves over the winter. In a half-whiskey barrel he planted a twisted willow with pansies beneath, or forget-me-nots and one of the more beautiful sedges. Another barrel would hold lavender, rosemary and portulaca. Or maybe it was the same barrel recycled for the seasons. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><i>“Catherine,” he whispers, “I like your idea of using the trash yard as a piazetta for tropical and tender plants, but you will have to drag them all indoors for the winter.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Mitchell provided a wealth of wise but pragmatic advice: don’t let the glories of late spring (the irises, peonies, roses, poppies, forget-me-nots and violas) occupy more than 63 percent of your space. Or 76 percent. Or 94 percent. He was candid about highlighting the disasters that await all gardeners: the storms that lay waste to peonies in full bloom, the late frost that withers the magnolia buds, the dog that settles on the most tender of your emerging plants. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Years after his death in 1993, I sat next to a gentleman at a dinner party who had lived in Washington and knew Mitchell well. “Did he really have all those plants in his 40-by-100-foot garden?” I asked. “And more,” the gentleman replied, “and more.”</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">All Of Mitchell's Books Are Available On Amazon</span></td></tr>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-66569087224719300512018-12-16T16:42:00.001-05:002018-12-16T16:42:05.183-05:00Shared Spaces<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">When you round a corner and turn down a street, it either immediately feels good, or it doesn’t. There is a sense of “rightness” in the space between one house and the next, or there isn’t, and the absence can leave you a bit unmoored.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Harmony is most likely the missing element. When present, you sense it as the underlying explanation for a fine street whose parts fit together in a cohesive whole. When in harmony, no matter the style of the neighborhood, the whole works together and the individual pieces don’t fight with one another. There is a sense of regularity and order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">A Rhinebeck Village House</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">This most often occurs in historic districts, where memorable landscapes occur because multiple properties share basic guiding principles, often without conscious intent. Buildings are about the same height, sidewalk materials start out consistently bluestone until heaved out of place and replaced with concrete. Trees are spaced regularly down the length of the street and remain there until the end of their lifespan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I moved to Livingston Street 150 years after the village pattern was laid out; the street trees and houses were in place. </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Trees were planted along both sides of the street, one for each house. There are now increasing gaps as the aging maples are taken down; on our block we have lost three just this year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">The Demise of a Street Tree</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Municipal maintenance for street trees and sidewalks has disappeared from Rhinebeck. It is a source of constant disgruntlement to residents. The village used to maintain the trees and sidewalks which are on public property, but elected officials changed the law a few years ago and now the homeowner is solely responsible for the repair and maintenance of these village-owned assets. You can imagine the level of contention between the players – homeowners, village officials, the village’s Tree Commission and the power company.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Concrete Replacement of Bluestone Sidewalk</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Our supplier of power, Central Hudson Gas and Electric, has its own set of concerns. It requires a large cleared space to maintain the power lines and prunes accordingly, leaving a battlefield of mutilated trees. Main Street is particularly grotesque. With autumn leaves falling, the horror of injudicious pruning reappears. The Tree Commission, not unreasonably, wants to remove the aging trees and replace them with younger, newer, and much shorter trees virtually starting all over again. Some residents have organized to stop the current pruning practices, while others are pushing for burying all powerlines underground, causing the budget watchers to shudder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">A Street Tree After Pruning</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">We mourn the loss of our old trees. It takes 10 years or longer to produce a reasonably mature tree, and to many of us trees are the best measure of a civilized landscape. A community in which mature trees survive and young trees are planted regularly demonstrates a sense of time, history and continuity, absent in the usual speculative real estate scramble for higher and better use. The streets in which fine old trees survive are the showplaces of a community. These neighborhoods are in large part one of the economic drivers that brings visitors to Rhinebeck. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Winter is coming, and with it everyone seems to disappear indoors. The early morning gardeners are still out in heavy jackets, but not much longer. The first snow arrived on November 15th,</span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> and with it the last of my fall planting – a new witch hazel, climbing hydrangea along the fence, oak-leaf hydrangeas, a few fothergilla, and a flirtation with red-twigged dogwood. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjYNFINpY9-tfFbktid_txvNKczkzuJCcbwqrjGudciBmADTuY0E1LI9wmxies344RcbZhUoFFnJujpZDM3g6IzKlRNYPsi75qc18HtolAyNgVyCEUGotLrW0qev1_LVAkQXeiepLkXoc/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjYNFINpY9-tfFbktid_txvNKczkzuJCcbwqrjGudciBmADTuY0E1LI9wmxies344RcbZhUoFFnJujpZDM3g6IzKlRNYPsi75qc18HtolAyNgVyCEUGotLrW0qev1_LVAkQXeiepLkXoc/s640/5.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">My Garden, the First Snow of the Season</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">A few of us with shared spaces continue to plan through the winter. On Livingston Street </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">we have a few of these, effectively erasing property lines. A back yard linking two families for decades is graced by an ancient oak, unfortunately in questionable health. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I share a semi-sunny/shady property line with my neighbor and co-conspirator Marian, and we confer continually about our successes and failures. Marian is better than I about facing up to the shortcomings of the site, and is more realistic and measured about the selection of plants. I am unwise enough to try almost anything, believing that we have more sun than we actually do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Our successes have been bearded iris (Marian), coneflower (Marian), epimedium (Marian), phlox (Marian), brown eyed Susan (mine). Our failures have been peonies (mine), baptisia (mine), thalictrum (majorly mine). We had a nice display of daffodils this spring (ours). I tried hollyhocks against the fence this year, but I’m not optimistic about their return next spring. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">However, my optimism is not totally dead, and by next spring I should have some decent photos. This troubled zone is my favorite part of the garden; a gift to myself in the sharing of it with a friend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">The Shared Garden, at its First Expansion</span></i></td></tr>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-57680178175212278012018-09-30T11:35:00.000-04:002018-09-30T11:38:28.462-04:00A Brief History of Rhinebeck Gardens<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">When Gail Wittwer-Laird and I finally settled down to design the garden at 71 Livingston Street, we were already deep into the context of Rhinebeck’s historic district. We had done our research and set ourselves a commitment to honor the Hudson River’s landscape past. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In my Rhinebeck neighborhood – the residential streets of the historic district – two-story houses with </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">a basement, attic, small front and large backyard are common. The most important houses often anchor the corners, with the exception of Chestnut Street with its grand houses and very deep setbacks. The largest houses in the village probably sold off surrounding land at one time, the only remaining evidence being the occasional adjacent barn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">A House On Chestnut Street</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Livingston Street is a typical mid-19th century village street. A scattering of houses – some earlier, some later, some modest, some more affluent – line both sides of the street. The houses may differ, but most lots are uniform. They are long rectangular plots, the house set close to the street, perhaps a barn, shed or garage tucked in the rear. Because this pattern was ubiquitous in the mid-to-late 19th century, there is a body of literature both of the period and later to guide our thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">We started with the earliest 19th century designer of houses and landscapes, Andrew Jackson Downing. His books – A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Victorian Cottage Residences, and The Architecture of Country Houses – were enormously influential as the primary texts for the design and landscape of Hudson River country homes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Downing's Victorian Cottage Residences</span></i></td></tr>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/null" name="OLE_LINK6"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/null" name="OLE_LINK5"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">By the late 19th century large landholders of great wealth were building elaborate gardens in the Italian style; gardens planned as outdoor drawing rooms, completely isolated from the natural areas surrounding the estate houses. Balustraded terraces rose four to five feet above the lawns below, which linked the surrounding fields and meadows. <o:p></o:p></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The terraces were accessible only from several rooms of the house, and were to be used solely by family and guests. The remaining large open areas were approached through a gate, past a gatehouse and up a long drive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">A Grand Italian Terrace</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The landowners employed architects and builders, and their craftsmen learned new techniques and styles. Craftsmen and artisans employed in the creation of these gardens soon modified and reproduced them for village houses and began to work for village homeowners of wealth and substance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Downing’s ideas eventually filtered down to owners of the smallest village houses. He would have had an even greater influence had he not died in 1852 at age 36 in a fire on a river steamer, leaving the field clear for Olmsted and Vaux.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Today, Downing is best known (and well loved) for Victorian Cottage Residences, first published in 1842 and succeeded by several editions. It became a guidebook for owners of small village residences, laying out in detail how the properties should be used, down to specific planting plans and maintenance expectations of family members. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">T</span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">he ornamental part of the garden would lie in front of planted trellises, with the working garden discretely in the rear. The vines he recommended for covering the trellis are ones we still use today: several varieties of honeysuckle, clematis, wisteria and roses. </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">His lists of suitable trees, shrubs and flowers would still serve today’s gardener well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><i><span style="font-size: large;">A Downing Plan for a Village Garden</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The kitchen garden was hidden behind the trellis. Downing knew that the more common vegetables could be purchased as cheaply as they could be raised and recommended growing only the earliest and most delicate fruits and vegetables </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">–</span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">strawberries, asparagus, peaches </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">– </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">and devoted less than one-third of the area of a standard lot to the kitchen garden. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In the early 19th century people of means bought their plants from nurseries, but many households depended on traveling salesmen. Flower agents used to canvas country towns from house to house. Sometimes they came with a catalog, but often they had only a single plant. Chinese wisterias and fringetrees were sold this way, as were clematis jackmanii, which could be seen to adorn porches up and down the block. In Concord, Thoreau recalled a certain rhododendron sweeping his village, sold to all by a single agent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Downing was a proponent of bedding masses of low-growing flowers in patterns – a distinctly Victorian preference, now almost completely abandoned. You might still see it at classic racetracks like Belmont, where the bedding concept was in full force as annuals stayed in place for the duration of the racing season. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">My first professional job was at Belmont, where I marked up huge rolls of plans with an X in color for each of the thousands of red, white and blue petunias which would then be grown in vast greenhouses in preparation for the June planting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In the literature of village gardens, nobody superseded Downing until the1920’s when Fletcher Steele started writing about the small garden. As with Downing, this was not Steele’s primary work; he was a designer of very grand gardens with a distinct turn towards modernism. The stunning Blue Staircase at Naumkeag alone is worth a trip to the Berkshires. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Blue Staircase at Naumkeag</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">His wonderful 1924 book Design in the Little Garden positions the home garden as a withdrawal from the outer world. Seclusion is the first and most important of garden qualities; unlike Downing, Steele believed it was not possible to live at ease in a front yard. He could not conceive of anyone bringing a book and a rocking chair to a front porch. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Steele would be puzzled by the uses of front porches today and its public quality. In some Rhinebeck houses the steps of the porch is a like a city stoop; it is an invitation to stop and chat or a place to sit and watch the world go by. The raised porch however implies a degree of privacy; if you see a neighbor reading a book you would not be inclined to disturb her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Gail and I were captivated by Design in the Little Garden; the example Steele uses could have been lifted straight from Livingston Street. He creates a fictional block, Maple Cove Avenue. Three imaginary houses, Numbers 11,13, and 15 are set on uniform lots, 75’ x 125’, but the landscape in each is treated differently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1OHe2GRjrlgYLNJ7ni-xUXJDGYrbwOA3VFFBcv4ssO9-QuO1Qx_7EwtvDYbQCaocG0NhmYTLo8dyNZjHSn8JCB8bVhwwJqhi4d07ecyca8irUNr0n2SGQsaJA1X5kJSmcQFGHugm3wdBZ/s1600/6+-+IMG_2857.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="427" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1OHe2GRjrlgYLNJ7ni-xUXJDGYrbwOA3VFFBcv4ssO9-QuO1Qx_7EwtvDYbQCaocG0NhmYTLo8dyNZjHSn8JCB8bVhwwJqhi4d07ecyca8irUNr0n2SGQsaJA1X5kJSmcQFGHugm3wdBZ/s640/6+-+IMG_2857.JPG" width="446" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Design in the Little </span></i><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Garden</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">They each incorporate the necessities of the time: a garage sometimes in the front, sometimes in the back at the end of a long driveway; privacy; a drying yard; space for vegetables and fruit; an assortment of porches in front and/or back; some lawn with hedges and flower borders. </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">No. 13 has a formal garden, No. 11 an informal garden and No. 15 an example of what not to do – the house set far back and too much of the lot opened widely to public view. </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Each house has its lessons about what works and what doesn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><i><span style="font-size: large;">A Dooryard Garden</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The front dooryard garden, almost an anachronism today, was a staple of early gardens. In colonial times the dooryard garden was always fenced and gated. It was carefully cultivated and enclosed the most prized flowers. Starting with early narcissus there were always a few red and yellow single tulips, followed by phlox, the only native American plant. The most glorious was often the early red ‘piny’ as peonies were then (and sometimes still) called. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">There might be a few shrubs, a lilac and perhaps viburnum. By the 19th century spirea and deutzia had arrived from Japan as had flowering quince and cherries. Almost all these flowers can be seen in gardens today, but the spireas and deutzias have fallen out of fashion. In a dooryard garden like the photograph above, plants were left growing in one spot for a very long time eventually shouldering one another aside like children growing up in the same family. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Small gardens everywhere in the world are almost always hospitable. They are domestic in scale and tailored to the needs and wants of the owners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">This was our goal for 71 Livingston Street. If there was an early garden here, all traces of it were gone. It was a bare plateau with only a few of the easiest of plants to grow </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">– </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">hostas and daylilies. The maples and black walnuts planted at the time the house was built in 1865 remained on the perimeter. This was all we had. We started with a clean slate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-64540626277052149972018-09-02T08:09:00.000-04:002018-09-02T08:09:57.852-04:00Designing The Garden<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"> Over the years my gardens have tended to look alike. I have my favorite plants and use them so often they have become that hated word -- my ‘signature.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">To cast a fresh eye I asked Gail Wittwer-Laird to join me on this garden. An academically-trained landscape architect with a few years in the gardens of Italy, an adventurous eye and endless patience, she is my perfect partner. No detail was too small to fuss over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">To begin, our base map was a standard block and lot plan available from any municipality. Then we did our ground-truthing -– checking to see that the information was accurate. Gail began by measuring, photographing and laying out a plot plan with the major features correctly located.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Side Yard, Before We Started</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The back yard was a blank slate, used in the past only as a dog run, the dogs kept safe and deer kept out by a 5’ tall hog wire fence. It was in deep shade, a row of black walnuts to the west, Norway maples to the east. The most beautiful aspect of the site is the way the light filters through the black walnuts, dappling most of the garden. As with many great beauties, deception lies at her heart. In this case, the black walnuts became an intractable problem, turning the prospective garden into a war zone as the walnuts came crashing down in their late-summer season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">From the beginning I wanted a simple, elegant plan for the garden, somewhat formal in character and in keeping with the flat rectangle we were given. But the longing for simplicity was muddled by my early use of three different areas for sitting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJv38_HwnO1jRBdgq-mmesxeJDhmyW6mSpaA1ODbFIbjb6V7QvPd9kQQmUvpFzxi08IhL3cCzf-rOFgtktIagPiPb3uNLUhyphenhyphenCEi6XkJRyfHsFQ8gqPwsT6IZ5-Ec3-mDwGqHZ_3hPRorhk/s1600/2+-+DSC01266.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJv38_HwnO1jRBdgq-mmesxeJDhmyW6mSpaA1ODbFIbjb6V7QvPd9kQQmUvpFzxi08IhL3cCzf-rOFgtktIagPiPb3uNLUhyphenhyphenCEi6XkJRyfHsFQ8gqPwsT6IZ5-Ec3-mDwGqHZ_3hPRorhk/s640/2+-+DSC01266.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The First Sitting Area</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The first was a sunny spot on the western property line, directly under the walnuts. The second spot, also under walnuts, was at the rear of the property in front of a recovered bed. The third, walnut-free, was under the Norway maples on the eastern property line. The most important sitting area, off the kitchen, did not yet exist. It was a doormat of small concrete slabs, wet with runoff from the roofline, also under walnuts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">As for our program, there were no activities to accommodate, no vegetables to harvest, no sports, no water, no play equipment, no sandbox, no swing set. Visiting children could play hide and seek, find treasure with metal detectors, ride bikes on the street, or hold tea parties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">For terraces, we experimented with a series of pods determined by the need to move around the garden as the walnuts grew and threatened to fall: function over form. But given our predilections we chose form over function and settled on an axial pattern – aesthetics over utility. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUu9zzIFFNm4PPfgj-BwhNR4UJnEl80B83KFM9sL6aFvF0Lhe7hCOFR1v70GjMSQCxBxD8oqaV36TkX-NdYyIFD8RJqv-uu4JvRx5gPCd6ofYJ-db4Aq_ynSXx0KbYveA8wbtP4pYR5Q-B/s1600/3+-+IMG_1809.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUu9zzIFFNm4PPfgj-BwhNR4UJnEl80B83KFM9sL6aFvF0Lhe7hCOFR1v70GjMSQCxBxD8oqaV36TkX-NdYyIFD8RJqv-uu4JvRx5gPCd6ofYJ-db4Aq_ynSXx0KbYveA8wbtP4pYR5Q-B/s1600/3+-+IMG_1809.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>We Start The Terrace</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">We started with a 22’ x 15’ paved rectangle off the rear of the house, and a false perspective created by narrowing the brick-edged beds as they moved towards the back of the garden. A firm horizontal line running from the center of the house straight through to the rear of the garden kept us on course.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">One of the decisions firmly set from the very beginning was the focus on a large lawn. There is nothing quite as calming as a long, cool, green lawn, and in my dreams I saw protective borders, portable chairs and table, arbors and croquet sets, a writer's hut at the bottom of the garden – all very Virginia Woolf. But if a lawn is to invite you to linger, it has to be intimate, to have a sense of enclosure. Unless you are blessed with a river or a lake you will have to build your own enclosures – buildings, walls or shrub borders.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7GVY7earFBLvXqAjdsAbsL9ST9wrSO00W5YBC2L1AM9Iaa-AVJrgKguq-VQSQgJHoSsMhraS_cj4T674wldUb_hfDaiVW4jQJmuvLnP4hP-8TA75IEMZkdjN5wmcw9GYZ0gAaEtin2NPb/s1600/4+-+DSC01408.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7GVY7earFBLvXqAjdsAbsL9ST9wrSO00W5YBC2L1AM9Iaa-AVJrgKguq-VQSQgJHoSsMhraS_cj4T674wldUb_hfDaiVW4jQJmuvLnP4hP-8TA75IEMZkdjN5wmcw9GYZ0gAaEtin2NPb/s640/4+-+DSC01408.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Lawn at Bellefield in Hyde Park</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">This key decision was – to be polite – counterintuitive. Some might even say misbegotten. Most gardens today are planned to remove as much grass as possible minimizing both labor and water consumption, then planted bed by bed, pocket by pocket as the mood strikes. We held onto the idea of a long, wide swath of lawn, and developed the garden as a single encompassing design, visible from the moment you enter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">A large panel of lawn – or a green garden -- is no different than others in the need for privacy and a bit of seclusion. We started at the boundary lines and worked inward. Our borders are generously deep, larger on the east border than the west as our carefully plotted centerline when laid out did not divide the property equally. Nonetheless our borders are generous enough to mask the discrepancy on the east, while opening up the views worth capturing on the west.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Gail and I talked and plotted and planned and sketched for almost a year before we put the plan out to bid. Our goal was to install the woody plants, the trees and shrubs, in the fall of 2015. The herbaceous material would wait for the following spring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Plans flew back and forth courtesy of Autocad and UPS. The design was completed and priced down to the last detail before a shovel hit the ground. This was a process Gail and I were both familiar with, having worked on public parks together. Now the process was scaled down to an average building lot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">After more than two summers daydreaming and a year planning, work began. By the end of 2015 the beds were planted and edged in brick, gates and friendly fences appeared, a terrace was set, an arbor and trellis were added, an old well house shored up, a table and chairs delivered.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A Corner of the Garden Today</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Although I live alone I am not the sole arbiter of this garden. There is large cast of opinionated contributors: Gail Wittwer-Laird, landscape architect and longtime colleague; Natalka Chas, planting designer who had worked for years on my prior garden; Dennis Gendron of Twin Brooks Gardens, our principal contractor; Delfino Martinez, master stonemason; Brian Tamm and Dan Frank, superb carpenters, and Daniel Horne who takes care of the garden as if it were his own. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">As all gardens do, this one ranges back and forth in time through past gardens and considers why we build gardens, the importance of place, why we long for calm green spaces, what we see in them, their poetry and their place in the imagination. And always the season ahead; the conviction that if you plant bulbs in the fall you will be here in the spring to see them bloom.</span></div>
Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-91598238651230713122018-08-19T02:00:00.000-04:002018-08-19T02:18:59.085-04:00From Brooklyn To Rhinebeck<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Last week I worked on two posts at the same time -- one on my first garden in Brooklyn, and the second on the Rhinebeck garden. I was well into both when I realized that the two neighborhoods were almost identical in character, despite being separated by 100 miles and 75 years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">In 1943, the country was deep into the Second World War and our family on East 9th S</span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">treet was no exception. I grew up on this leafy street in Brooklyn with an extended family in a big house with a front yard and a back yard, and from the beginning of the war until the end the back yards were turned into Victory Gardens. We all became gardeners.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">WWII Victory Garden Poster</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">During the war years almost all farm food production went to the armed forces, and so we started to grow our own. Children were fully mobilized for the war effort. We made rubber band balls (for what end we never knew), we made silver balls from the foil in our parents’ cigarette packages (for what use we never knew), we harvested our vegetables and pulled them in wagons to wherever we were supposed to deliver our crops. In our games we became heroes and spies, hiding in the spaces between garages, jumping off roofs to safety, decoding secrets and saving lives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">WWII Era Service Flag</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Every house on our block had a flag in the window with a blue star for each person in the service. We children were The Blue Star Brigade, selling 10cent War Savings Stamps door to door, pulling our wagons behind us. We were sheltered from the worst; there were no gold star families on our block. Everyone came home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">At the war’s end the front and back yards returned to their old patterns. The front yard had the expected azaleas, while the back yard was a square plot of grass bordered by neighboring garages. We had laundry lines and three plant varieties in narrow beds: a red climbing rose on a small arbor, green and white hosta – our school colors -- and the money plant, sporting silver dollar-like seed pods. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Lunaria, The Money Plant</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The back yards were not for sitting. If you sat outside in good weather it was on the walk running from the front steps to the sidewalk, or on the steps themselves. We played board games on the steps or ball games in the street.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Seed-starting and beginning botany occurred in school, where we set seeds in wooden cream cheese boxes discarded by the appetizing stores. In those years cream cheese was sold from the box, by the slice, and everyone started their seeds in these boxes -- a perfect size for deep, schoolroom windowsills<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">My inner garden life, as so much else, started with a book. At age 6 I was given Honey Bunch: Her First Little Garden. I didn’t covet her garden, only her garden apron. It had four pockets – one for a ball of string, one for scissors to cut the string, one for pencil and paper to make note of what she wanted to plant, and the last for a tape measure to lay out her rows. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">"Honey Bunch: Her First Little Garden" - Published in 1924</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">My childhood copy was long gone, but I when I started this blog I tracked down an early edition. No wonder I loved it; I looked like the little girl on the cover – curly blond hair, a navy blue dress with white rickrack, a little red wheelbarrow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The book covered every task a child would need to start a garden, ably assisted by family and neighbors. It had a strong supporting cast: a doting uncle who supplied tools, a devoted father who taught her everything, a mother who kept the household running, a mischievous boy next door, a best friend and, most significantly, an elderly woman in a wheelchair who gave Honey Bunch her late husband’s secret snapdragon seeds, which at book’s end won her First Prize in the garden show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Many years and many gardens later, I’ve fetched up on Livingston Street in Rhinebeck, another quiet street lined with large Norway maples entering their decline.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Livingston Street</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">After years of gardening on top of an isolated mountain on the other side of the river, I wanted to live in a house on a block with neighbors, sidewalks, and streetlights. What I didn’t see then was that without deliberate consideration I had recaptured the street of my childhood, the quiet neighborhood, the familiar faces, the sense of home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">The inescapable difference is that there are no young children on Livingston Street. On East 9th Street most households were, like mine, multi-generational. On Livingston Street there are visiting grandchildren and that’s about it. But one hopes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">I rented #71 for a few years, and when I was finally able to buy the house the garden came first. I was years behind my self-imposed schedule, and so the garden was fully conceived, planned and installed with mature plants in a single year. It would be the last in a long line of gardens I have owned, worked in, and written about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Before We Started</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;">Next Post: The Rhinebeck Garden Begins: Nuts and Bolts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-25979395235974355652018-07-22T09:31:00.002-04:002018-07-23T10:33:18.500-04:00In Praise of Small Pots<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/null" name="OLE_LINK7"></a><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> A garden large enough for even a brief stroll brings more to the eye than I can absorb or record in a single stroke. In my garden, 120 feet deep, a walk with a notebook ends with at least two pages of notes. Six astilbe here, plus a few more ferns filling in nicely there, a crowd of hellebores at the corner, and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I tend to see the Big Picture and overlook the Small. But last year a visit to Pondside Nursery introduced me to the pleasures of tiny plants: thrift, miniature daisies, carpet tulips. Something is always happening in even the tiniest of pots, a single blossom to be removed, a decision between pinching back to encourage fullness or prolonging the life of a single brave cosmos. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Plumbago with Unidentified Companion</span></i></td></tr>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/null" name="OLE_LINK9"></a><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">To keep up with an inventory of small pots my day starts early – up at 6:30, one double espresso with milk, and then the watering starts. I use an elegant watering can, a pleasure to carry, the gift of two gentlemen gardeners. I prefer it to a hose; although it requires walking to and from the kitchen sink it provides marginally more exercise than standing still with a hose on “mist.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I have another system if I must be away for a few days. I water well and leave saucers filled with additional water under every pot, save the biggest. Everyone fusses over root rot, but I’d rather risk that than death by drying out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">The Beginning of the Terrace Pot Garden</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">My terrace inventory so far: One dahlia, one plumbago, 4 oxalis, 2 helichrysum, 1 calocasia, 1 alocasia, 1 nemesia, 2 tiny blue unidentified South African plants. These are augmented by a few larger pots, a mandevilla “Alice DuPont” (soft pink and not garish), and one hefty palm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">“Alice Dupont” was the first mandevilla to appear on the market. Named for the owner of Winterthur, I found it in their gift catalog in the early 1990’s. I bought two, one was left in a sunroom where it climbed to the ceiling, through the roll-up bamboo blinds and was left there, dead, for at least a decade. The other mandevilla went to Saretta Barnet where it was well watered and climbed to her second story deck. This is a photograph of me standing next to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Indoors, I have two myrtle topiaries in the smallest of pots, switching their locations every two weeks. One is in a sunny window; the other on the mantelpiece in a deep interior room. Two weeks in the sun and two in the dark seem to work well enough so that the plants don’t notice the change. At the time of the switch-over they get minimal haircuts to trim their neatly rounded shape.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Every day on my morning walk to the Mobil station to pick up the NY Times, I pass a sunny verge on Beech Street planted with pots of marigolds, cleome, tomatoes and odds and ends that need more sun than the homeowner’s backyard offers. I have no such sunny verge on Livingston Street; my trash yard is the only place bright enough for annuals. It was formerly home to garbage cans, old tools, and broken chairs. It is now a gravel <i>piazzetta, </i>and houses to plants deserving more sun than I can offer elsewhere – zinnia and cosmos (flowers of childhood and my early gardens), pots of kitchen herbs and, the occasional odd experiment, this year nigella.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I’ve always planted pots with a single variety as opposed to elaborate mixed pots. If you pot up one variety to a container you can group them anyway you like, changing heights and relationships by placing a few on inverted pots. </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I have only one mix – a rectangular zinc container at the front door.</span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">It’s always a palette of green and white </span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">–</span><span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> caladium or a variegated-leaf geranium, bacopa and scutellaria.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Complex arrangements of three or more varieties in a pot with a strong architectural presence is fine in a house with a strong architectural presence, or lining restaurants and shops where you need to make a statement that will draw customers in. <a href="https://maps.apple.com/place?address=45%20E%20Market%20St%2C%20Rhinebeck%2C%20NY%20%2012572%2C%20United%20States&auid=12217129482495251066&ll=41.92710030580228%2C-73.91149291759675&q=Bread%20Alone%20Bakery" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bread Alone</a> in Rhinebeck is a fine example of this. Natalka Chas does all the flowers and seasonal pots, inside and out, in Rhinebeck and their other locations. She is a master of the combination of scale, design and variety. It’s worth dropping by.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">If you want to experiment with complex pots, the most deliriously ambitious book on pot gardening is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pots-Garden-Expert-Design-Planting/dp/0881928348" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ray Rogers' "Pots in the Garden"</a>. There is so much you can take from it, even if you only want a sprig or two. (Timber Press, Amazon, $18.90 new.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">In my heavily shaded garden I’m ruthless with colors that don’t work and have even been known to cut back the flowers of hostas. In pots enjoying a bit of sun I’m more forgiving. With my morning coffee I can sit alongside an unidentified blue flower in an old Guy Wolfe pot on an even older lichen-covered stone table and do what I seem to do best -- stare off into the distance, ostensibly thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">An Unidentified Morning Companion</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Correction:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "lucida sans", sans-serif; font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Yesterday's reference to the Winterthur </span><span style="font-family: lucida sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">catalog should have read "early 1990's", not "early 1900's." I would not have been around to see it in the early 1900's. Thanks go to Joseph Kaufman, a careful reader in Jerusalem.</span></span></div>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1550577501143635922.post-74676512440080537172018-07-01T09:00:00.004-04:002018-07-01T09:00:25.752-04:00How Does A Garden Start?<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Ideally, you study a site, consider the exposure, assess the light levels, analyze the soil, and factor in your lifestyle and the needs of your family. In reality, you find a house, indulge your desire for tomatoes (even though you don’t have enough sun, and will not be around to water), satisfy your lust for climbing roses (even though you don’t have enough sun for this either, nor do you have anything for roses to climb on), and then you stumble through a few years of expensive mistakes.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; text-align: start;"><i>A clematis happier than it's companion rose. </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 28px;">In my most recent garden – and I expect my last – I was saved from some mistakes because I was a renter before I became an owner. What I was willing and allowed to undertake was limited. A little tinkering with an existing bed was about it. When I approached my landlady with the desire to make an ambitious garden, she offered to sell me the house instead. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 28px;">From the garden’s standpoint, I had the advantage of having spent several seasons just staring and imagining. An excellent practice if you have a few extra years. The design of the garden evolved slowly with the help of skilled artisans and practitioners, but that is the subject of another post. What is useful to know at this point is that over many years and several gardens I have established a few rules for myself, some honored and others honored only in the breach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 28px;">Rule 1: Respect your neighbors and the neighborhood. You will not have this to consider if you own a large property with no neighbors or are in the middle of a forest. But if you are in a village or on a block with sidewalks and neighbors, whatever you do should be compatible in style and feel with whatever is going on next door and down the block. You may not like it, but deal with it kindly. Don’t build walls and plant dense hedges. Try something soft and seamless; a mixed shrub border works well. Or arbors and trellises will soften something you wish to see less of, without obliterating your neighbor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 28px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Be aware of the effect of your street-side planting, its relationship to the house, passersby, and the rest of the block. I am not happy with my work in this department, and instead of figuring out a good solution I am wandering around the neighborhood looking at front yards that are drearier than mine. Below is an example -– a very grand house surrounded on all side by gloomy, thorny, unkempt crabapples.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; text-align: start;"><i>A screen planting helping neither the house nor the street. </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 28px;">Rule 2: Take your time. Give careful thought not to what you want your garden to look like, but how you want to live in it. Do you want to have your morning coffee outside the kitchen door? Do you want to hide out in a corner of the garden where no one will find you? What do you want to see from your favorite vantage point? I have fought all comers to hold on to a particular view from the kitchen table, through a glass door and up into towering walnuts. All I want is more of the same – larger glass panes, thinner door frames, more to see.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 28px;">Rule 3: You will be gardening in a hostile environment, no matter how benign it seems. Be prepared and stay strong. There will moles or voles, squirrels or rabbits, hail storms or droughts, endless rainfall or none, strange mold and fungus, leaf rollers, mysterious viruses, odd disappearances and occasional resurrections.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 28px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Rule 4: Try and hold on to something of the past, of the gardeners who have been there before you. Whether it’s the flowers they planted or the tools they used, save and continue to use and nurture what you can. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 28px;">When I arrived on Livingston Street my neighbor Marian Faux already had a flower border on the narrow panel dividing our properties. Over these few years we doubled it and then doubled it again, pushing the margins of what will tolerate only partial sun and black walnuts. It has at last, in its fourth year, “come into its own.” By this I mean Marian and I have become more accepting of its limitations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 28px;">Rule 5: No matter how much you are prepared to spend, it will cost more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 28px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Given all this, why do we even start a garden? Why do we persevere? Pick any summer day, and you will have your answer.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Catherine Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05037242541208548087noreply@blogger.com