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Sunday Opinion: Looking After One’s Own

A recent article in my local newspaper warned readers about how garden centers can offer bad advice to their customers.  He referred in particular to a reader who had written in regarding 30 boxwood that she and her husband had purchased from a garden center, and planted themselves.  On the advice of the nursery person, they did not remove the burlap from the rootball, and they planted the shrubs such that part of the rootball was above grade. They furthermore had installed drip irrigation.  Some time later, she realized her plants were not thriving; the leaves had started to turn yellow, and/or red.  What was the problem, and what should she do?  Though the writer did answer with the obvious –  that it is very difficult to diagnose plant problems without observing them and the environment in which they were planted – a diagnosis he did make. His conclusion?  Watch out for what garden center people tell you. From the fact they were watering with drip irrigation, he deduced she might be overwatering as our area had had more than enough rainfall this year. She should water less.  He went on to state that given the rules regarding proper planting practices, which have not changed over the past 25 years, she had planted the shrubs improperly.  She had been given very bad  advice from the nursery staff person.  For starters, the burlap should have been completely removed from each shrub.  For finishers, each shrub should have been planted with the top of the rootball just below the surface of the existing soil.  The soil should then be tamped down, and a “a ridge of soil a foot or so” should ring each plant so as to capture rain.  Lastly, he states that as there are no exceptions to these rules, they should give consideration to digging up and replanting all thirty boxwood.

My first reaction to this article was to look at the science.  I checked out the rainfall history for past 90 days in our area via the National Weather Service.  Unless I am reading the table wrong, our area is four to six inches below the average rainfall normal for this time period.  We certainly have not had the relentless rain that other parts of the country have experienced this year.  We have had an unusually cool summer, which could perhaps account for a slower water evaporation rate from the reader’s soil.   Yellow leaves on boxwood can be a result of other things besides too much water-as in too little water, root rot, winter damage, fungal infections etc.  I am of the opinion that the proper diagnosis of a plant problem cannot be made without a visual inspection and assessment of the environment.  I also think diagnosing the problems of plants is as much an art, as a science.  The diagnostician will give weight to this factor more than that one, based on his experience and judgment.

In the nursery industry, a “B and B” shrub refers to the fact that it is balled and burlapped.  Successful tranplanting of a shrub from one place to another has much to do with maintaining an intact rootball.   The burlap on a small shrub, and a wire cage over burlap on a large tree is a means by which to protect the integrity of the rootball.  Evergreen shrubs in particular need fairly large rootballs to weather the insult of transplanting. Broken rootballs can kill plants. The plastic burlap common years ago has given way to fibrous burlap which does rot, given enough time.  I myself have planted many thousands of boxwood over the past 25 years; I have never removed the burlap entirely from the ball. I only cut the burlap away from the trunk and shoulders of the ball for two reasons.  I do not want burlap exposed to the air to wick water away from the rootball. More importantly,  I need to visually inspect the top of the ball.  Sometimes in the process of burlapping, a rootball goes soft, and soil from below gets accidentally mounded up around the trunk of the plant. The point at which a trunk becomes roots tells you what goes above ground, and what goes below, and seeing is believing.  One cannot assume that the soil you see on top accurately represents the true top of the rootball. Likewise, the top of the burlap tells you nothing about the juncture of trunk and rootball. Planting any plant too deep is a sure recipe for failure; roots drown if water cannot drain away from them.  I would never plant a shrub slightly below grade for this reason. I routinely plant shrubs slightly above grade; there is plenty of support for this practice in the literature.  I furthermore have a hedge of arborvitae whose mulched rootballs have been sitting on top of my gravel driveway for the past 3 years; they are thriving on this mini-mountain berm. It is my opinion that there is no one set of rules for planting- any deviance from which will result in failure.  I have seen many successful plantings over many years that do not play by the aforementioned rules. 

My point with all of this?  Horticultural practice has changed plenty in degree, if not substance, over the past 25 years.  The body of scientific information changes and grows regularly.  Anything you read and absorb from university cooperative extension agencies, garden centers, the internet, the RHS dictionary, and other gardeners can help you be a better gardener – provided you realize there will be no substitute for your own trial and error, your own experience and good judgment.  I am a landscape professional whose planting practices have worked successfully a great majority of the time over the past 25 years.  This does not lead me to suggest that how I do things is the right or the only way to do things. What works for me could be of interest to you, or not. Any gardener is free to subscribe or not to an idea; it is their decision.  This is precisely why people consult with others, and get second opinions.

When I make decisions, the responsibility for that decision becomes mine.  In many years of garden making I have had plenty that has not worked.  By and large, my failures belong to me, and not someone else. Anyone who purchases plants at a garden center and plants them, assumes the responsibility for what happens as a result of their selection, placement, planting, watering, winter care, pruning, feeding-and so on.  Though many garden centers have free replacement policies, that does not apply to plants that are alive, but in poor health.  Protect your investment of time and money by becoming educated. If you have the idea to plant, learn about how to do so before you invest your money time and effort.   If you don’t educate yourself, the plants will educate you; they do not always give out second chances.   If you still are uncertain as to how to proceed,  get a consultation from someone whose knowledge and experience makes their opinion a good bet. Though garden centers do plenty to educate their staff people, not everyone’s knowledge and aptitude for  planting or diagnosing problems is equal.  It is a simple matter to ask a salesperson if they have a shade garden at home, and for how long, before taking their recommendation on the merits of various shade perennials. The surgeon who will replace my failing knee this winter has replaced thousands of knees successfully.  This is an excellent reason to have consulted him, and trust his judgment.  Were I having problems with shrubs I had spent a lot of money time and effort to plant, I would consult someone who diagnoses these problems professionally.  As I would want to claim ownership of my successes, I need be willing to own my own failures.     

 Though I design and plant for my clients, I explain that the responsibility for the health and well-being of that landscape is theirs, once I have finished and gone home. Though I check in once in a while at the beginning, I need them to keep up with what I have begun-water, watch, and call me at the first hint of trouble.  Though I have made a career of planting plants, I have asked for help plenty of times.  I know all I have at my disposal to help people is my experience, integrity, and reasonably good judgment.  I am not the keeper of the keys. Though I try very hard to ensure success for my clients, this does preclude things from going awry. The best reason for taking on responsibility?  No one will ever care as much about your landscape as you do.   Taking responsibility is as rewarding as it is scary;  seeing one’s committment to keeping a landscape alive and thriving come to an ongoing and evolving fruition?  So very satisfying.

Posted on: September 20, 2009 3 Comments
Filed Under: Strictly Opinion

Sunday Opinion: The Power of Observation

I have great admiration for the skills of others.  The degree of my admiration increases exponentially if the skill in question is beyond my ability.  I marvel at the fact that Buck cooks, restores vintage motorcycles, and fixes all manner of broken things.  He can take an idea for a stadium, a bridge or an obelisk, and produce drawings one could build from. He has incredible patience with me, when I design, though he has no patience for those who would design things that cannot be built-including me. He builds models with wood 1/32 of an inch thick; he will spot any detail not accounted for. He is very skilled at that human activity known as “determining the order of events”. Should I ever be so lucky in my lifetime to acquire 100 skills, none of the aforementioned will be on that list.  Perhaps even more fortunate is that I do not need to be skilled at everything.  Presumably this is why we have partnerships, organizations, companies, teams, universities, hospitals, communities and Google. Groups of people lend their particular skills to  a problem, or issue, or effort. 

Though my skills are very different than Buck’s, there is something our respective skills share. We apply our ability to observe to whatever might interest us.  I do subscribe to the notion that people learn skills based on their interests. And that most people come with  the power of observation, standard. However, the fact that I am able to spot a plant that needs water from a block away does not fund an ability to observe that one of my tires is low, or that my socks that don’t match.  Socks that don’t match come under the heading of harmless eccentricity, but a tire gone flat miles from home is a nuisance.  A college age employee I had working at the store this summer would routinely leave power tools outside on rainy nights, and walk past plant tags dropped in the driveway until he was asked to pick them up.  Being asked to pick this up did not extend to picking up that, unasked. He had to have walked by a fountain he was filling gone to overflowing at least 10 times before he went home one day.  The next morning I spotted from 150 feet away the glimmering surface of the lake that had been created at the rear of my property; I was not amused.  I was never able to teach him to be more observant, as he had no interest in what was there to observe. 

However, my gardening clients both from the store, and the landscape business, are very committed to their landscapes and gardens; were it otherwise, I doubt I would know them.   I field lots of questions, many of which have to do with plant culture.  What is wrong with my lindens, my petunias, my roses?  Though I am by no means an expert diagnostician in regards to plant problems, I am able to observe the symptoms, should I have a mind to.  There are the little things.  “You know my method.  It is founded upon the observation of trifles”; this from Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Watson.  If the inner leaves on your lindens are going brown and dropping, look up premature leaf drop in your source of choice.  Sources can’t see, but they can help you interpret what you see. You’ll read that when trees are stressed from lack of water, they will shed interior leaves in order to conserve moisture for new leaves. A drought stricken tree will shed all of its leaves to preserve moisture in the branches. Most trees can endure shedding all of their leaves out of season a number of times, before they die.  If the dining table under your lindens is coated in a sticky residue, look up into the tree.  Then research sticky residue on tree leaves-or some other more succinct and apt phrase.  If there is something crawling on your plants (be sure you are looking with glasses adequate to the task of observing very small things),  then looking up tiny spiders on my dahlias might get you an answer. 

There are those issues which are too big to see.  I have a row of trees at home; the three closest to a giant maple are several feet shorter than the others.  I didn’t figure out the cause until I stopped looking at the three, and concentrated on the appearance of the whole row. Those furthest from the thirsty roots of the big maples were doing fine.  I successfully located a leak in my reflecting pool once I saw the herniaria surrounding it had one distinctively off color yellow patch of an equally distinct size.  I did not see this, until I had emptied all 1500 gallons of water from it, and searched the pool joints with a magnifying glass. A linden at my store has a trunk which I notice has gone from round to flat-what does this mean?  A plant with yellowing shriveling leaves might just as easily be too dry as too wet; put a finger in the soil-what does that tell you?  Your plants can’t tell you where it hurts; you have to look; when you are sure you have seen, then interpret.

Every gardener understands that it is infinitely easier and better for the health of a plant to squish a few bugs than battle an infestation. A hose trickling water on a newly planted tree is a small thoughtful gesture; bringing back that tree from the dead, not likely.  I have nothing remotely resembling the power of life and death, but I do have a keen ability to observe. I keep that in good shape with frequent use, and practice.

I asked Buck to do some drawings for me for two fire bowls I designed, sold to clients, obtained deposits, and contracted for.  However, I did not observe the manufacturers drawing properly.  It has a manual ignition, underneath, and on the side of the bowl.  As my design calls for the firebowl to be dropped into a round stone column, tall enough and wide enough to sit on-just like a rimmed sink in a countertop, how will my clients fire the thing up?  Buck gently pointed out I had buried the manual ignition in a stone wall. Would they not prefer a remote ignition system? My order of events is out of order.  The time to see this detail is before the client decides you have a good thing in mind for them, and posts a deposit.  Hear me sighing?  Though I am a designer with a strong visual bent, I too forget to observe what I should.  This is a skill that needs frequent practice to keep sharp. It is also a skill that will save you time money and grief, keeping that beloved garden of yours looking good.

Posted on: September 13, 2009 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Strictly Opinion, Uncategorized

Sunday Opinion: Sowing the Seed

The dense fog this morning has me thinking. To my mind, what characterizes gardeners first and foremost is not that they garden, but how they keep on gardening. Fog, storms, wind, poor soil, drought, floods, bugs, disease, failure-no matter; they keep on gardening.  I am thinking about this, as I live in a community, like most other communities in this country, under economic siege.  The heavy wet white fog I drove through at 6 am this morning is as good a description as any of what I see and live with right now; eyes wide open, I couldn’t see a thing.    Without much exception, the people I come in contact with are afraid, or uneasy- unsure about how to navigate.  A fogged-in atmosphere like this touches everything, and everyone. 

I have lived in the greater Detroit area my whole life.  I grew up thinking the most fabulous sculpture imaginable was a well designed automobile. That idea is alive and well; more thousands of people than ever attended the yearly Dream Cruise down Woodward Avenue in August.  A festival honoring the beauty and diversity of the automobile was an idea that took root, and grew.  The serious economic and environmental problems currently affecting Detroit defy description, much less solutions.  I so strongly support the Greening of Detroit, as it seems to me it will take people who have that tenacity that describes gardeners to make Detroit thrive again-even if that involves reinventing its landscape. There needs to be some seeds sown that root, and take hold.

I am in the thick of two substantial projects right now.  One is ready to begin construction;  the other is is midway through the design phase.  Both projects involve interesting and committed clients.  Multiple design issues making lots of noise; this is my idea of a good time.  Designing makes me wake up and see; I cannot decribe that process any better than this. Once I am in the “wake up and see” mode, I see everything differently.  How a vignette could be arranged in a more striking way.  How I might use a material creatively. This is about the imagination, in gear. My imagination in gear over these projects that energize me made me step back and see what it is to be fogged in and not know it.

Some weeks ago I had a front door, and a rear door replaced at the store.  I ordered a door with a window for the front, and a solid door for the back.  When my contractor arrived to install the doors, we explained that the salesperson had ordered both doors with windows, by mistake.  Though the door with a window costs more, he would charge me the same as for the door with no window.  It crossed my mind that for security reasons, a rear door with a window into the garage not visible from the street might not be a good idea.  However, as the door that no longer closed properly was a bigger security issue; I said ok.  At 6:10 this morning I went into the garage-a space some 4000 square feet with no windows.  I am accustomed to going everywhere in the store without turning on the lights; I know the space well enough to confidently navigate in the dark.  Though the light switch next to the back door is a long way from the entrance to the garage, I always got there.  The one exception-a low, heavy and close to immoveable  black iron planter inadvertently got left in the path to the light switch.  I was in a heap on that concrete floor before my brain got the message. I have been very cautious, and tentative ever since, negotiating my way to the light. I remembered this today, seeing the light from the window at the far end of the room.  From the inside, that window provided security to me. Providing security from the inside suddenly seemed like a very important seed that deserved to be planted in, and kept watered.  There’s a chance that something might grow. There’s nothing that breaks up a white fog better than some sunshine.

This all may seem painfully obvious, and hardly worth mentioning.  But routinely I have to tell clients who want their new landscapes to look old and established  that the time this takes cannot be circumvented.   I tell them the crummy spring weather applies equally to everyone-one’s love and devotion to gardening doesn’t get you a pass on the frost sure to come. How fiercely you want cosmos in that dark corner of your garden does not make your chances of success better.  Likewise, the fog of tough times falls on me too-not just other people. 

The clients and projects that engage me help to burn off the fog.  Those relationships are like seeds.  Not every seed germinates, but enough do to keep things going and growing.  Another favorite thing about gardeners is their hope.  The winter will end, the weather will warm, and the garden will grow again.  If it grows slowly or poorly, they tend it with special care until the weather gets better.  Should that special care not help, they do differently, or even start over.  They stake up the delphiniums that have gone over, and they replant when things die.  This seems like a good way to live, does it not?

Posted on: September 6, 2009 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Upon Reflection, Strictly Opinion, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With:

A Belated Sunday Opinion: The Dinner Table

Mariana Sneideraitis is one of those clients who over the years, has become a friend.   Buck and I were invited last night for the first time to a dinner party at her house. As I had spent a long Sunday designing and drawing for a presentation I will make today, I was so looking forward to it.  She has an incredible enthusiasm for her life;  her family, her friends, her garden, travel-and for cooking. 

The menu was not just about the food.  It was about the food she had grown up with, and learned to cook from her parents, and grandparents.   She explained how at a certain point she would watch her Baboo  prepare a dish, with measuring cups and spoons in hand, so she could write down the recipe he put together by eye and instinct.   She explained that the Armenian cooking she grew up with was much influenced by Greek, and Middle Eastern cooking.  Thus she shops different markets for what specialty ingredients they carry;  it took five stops before she bought just exactly the size eggplant she wanted for last night.  When I asked at what point she would have given up looking , she replied, “probably never”; I admire that kind of determination in a person.  Her family life revolved around the dinner table, in a way not so different than my own. You learned about your roots, about how to carry on a conversation, you discussed school, friends, and important decisions.  At one point she made a toast about how pleased she was for the company of her friends, sharing a dinner, friendship, and conversation, around her dining room table; clearly her expression was sincere and intense.

So why would I, who thinks about gardening and more gardening, be writing about her cooking and this dinner?  Guernica Magazine published an article recently by Mark Dowie, entitled “Food Among the Ruins”; the opening sentence – “Were I an aspiring farmer in search of fertile land to buy and plow, I would seriously consider moving to Detroit.”  What an astonishing statement.  He explains that Detroit has no grocery stores whatsoever.  No Krogers or Meijers. Not a WalMart, or a Costco.  Some 80% of all people in Detroit buy their groceries from party stores, gas stations, convenience stores, and the like.  As Detroit was originally built on farm land,  he goes on to suggest that Detroit might remake itself into an agricultural city, that could feed its own.   Urban farming-the stuff that the Greening of Detroit has devoted itself to for the past 20 years. It is an astonishing and provocative proposal; read it if you like at www.guernicamag.com/spotlight/1182/food_among_the_ruins/ 

If what Mariana so genuinely believes, about the importance of the dinner table in providing an essential  forum for the development of  sound families, and lasting friendships,  then perhaps Mr. Dowie’s proposal has more than just a little merit.  Marianna has absorbed and continues to live with her version of what her parents and grandparents taught her.  She has passed that on to her children.  Her kids, now 25 and 27, were disappointed that they would not be having Sunday night dinner with her last night.  That sense of loss they felt, came from her.   I myself was an appreciative beneficiary of the truly fabulous food, the story of how and what she cooks, the lively conversation and exchange between friends.  I could no more cook a Pavlova for dessert than I could fly to the moon, but I can cook up good dirt, water in new trees, and improvise on my design recipes in search of a satisfying visual feast.  Mariana sent me home with the notion that what I do might actually make a difference in the big scheme of things.   Thanks a million for feeding me, Sneideraitis.

Posted on: August 10, 2009 7 Comments
Filed Under: Strictly Opinion, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With: , ,