Reopening Rhinebeck

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.  

  

Rhinebeck Reopens

 

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 LawnChairUSA -- 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. 

 

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.

 

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.

 

Solomon Seal     

 

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.  

 

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. 

 

Diphylleia 

 

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.  

 

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.  

Potentilla

         

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.

 

After Memorial Day

     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.

Rhinebeck Memorial Day Parade 2019

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. 

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.

Curbside Garden In Rhinebeck 

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. 

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.   

Wintered-over Flowering Plants 2019

I’ve heard the nurseries are packed, some operating safely and efficiently, while others are careless, crowded and unmasked.   Caveat emptor.  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.  

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.

Another Curbside Garden in Rhinebeck 

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. 

Curbside Garden in Jerusalem

Early May, 2020

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.

The Apple Tree

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.

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.

Scilla siberica

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.

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. 

Blue Phlox

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. 

Tender Plants, Outdoors

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.

Curbside Garden

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.

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.

Weathering the Storm

     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.

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.  

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.

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.  

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

The Garden

Historic District Streetscapes

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.  

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.  

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. 

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.  

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.    

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.  

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. 

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.  

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.

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.

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.  

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.   

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.  

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.