Thanks to Conscious Consuming

Posted March 13, 2009 by Andrew

A big thank you is in order from me to Conscious Consuming for the mention on their blog today. I’ve known these folks for a while, and they do terrific work on a number of fronts. Be sure to click one of those links to check them out.

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Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants

Posted March 12, 2009 by Andrew

Brooklyn Botanic Garden publishes some great stuff, and Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants is a standout. Invasive species from foreign lands with no natural predators here continue to overwhelm our native flora and fauna, and this book is an illustrative, accessible reference of better plant options, good for homeowners and pros alike.

When I moved to Topsfield in the winter of 2007, I was itching for spring so I could see what was growing in my new backyard. Well, spring came, and with it came the invasive plants. I found bishop’s weed, European buckthorn, Japanese knotweed, dame’s rocket, Norway maple, burning bush, Japanese barberry. I found a few treasures, but not many, and they were greatly outnumbered by the interlopers.

2009 is the first year Norway maple, sycamore maple, a number of honeysuckles and (most notably) burning bush are no longer for sale in Massachusetts. Some folks won’t be happy about this, and I can relate. The first plant I came across when I opened the BBG book was one of my all-time favorites: butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii).

The first place BBG lists it as an invader is Massachusetts.

I was puzzled. I knew butterfly bush was invasive in the Pacific Northwest and the UK, but here? My beloved buddleias?

Turns out that while butterfly bush can be an aggressive reseeder, it isn’t listed by the Massachusetts Invasive Plant Advisory Group as invasive, likely invasive, or potentially invasive. This means it hasn’t escaped cultivation so much as to land itself on the Massachusetts Prohibited Plant List.

At any rate, I now know firsthand the flood of emotions over learning a favorite plant has been deemed an invasive: heartbreak that it has; irritation because seriously, the government is telling me what I can’t plant in my garden; guilt that my knee-jerk reaction is to prioritize a plant I love over our native ecosystems.

Granted, my butterfly bushes haven’t proven invasive, but to homeowners who love burning bush, for example: I feel your pain. To you I say we will work this out. Burning bush is beautiful, but there are others that are just as much so, if not more, that can do things burning bush never dreamed of. There’s serviceberry (top left), which has great spring flowers and a berry rumored to make an excellent pie. There’s Virginia sweetspire (middle), whose fall color is, in my opinion, even better than burning bush, and which also has an amazing floral display. And then there are blueberries (bottom). Blueberries! I ask you, what’s not to love about blueberries?

Let’s all have a cathartic sigh over the invasives we love and work on moving forward. I can help. Brooklyn Botanic Garden can help. Call us, and read the book.

Photos from MOBOT.

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Meet Bert

Posted February 27, 2009 by Andrew

These days, my garden is mostly dormant, plants under a partial blanket of snow, some leaf litter from the fall, some mulch. One of the few who stands out at this time of year is one of my evergreens. Blogosphere, I’d like to introduce you to Bert.

Bert is my only plant that has a name; indeed, I do not typically assign name, gender, or otherwise anthropamorphize the denizens of my garden, but Bert was one of the first here, and I don’t know… He just kind of said, “Hey. I’m Bert.” Thus he was.

Bert is an austrian pine cultivar called ‘Oregon Green,’ purchased from Nunan’s in Georgetown, Mass. I planted him two years ago in the hot south-facing corner of our front flowerbed where an old pine had been cut not too long before we moved in — I had to have its stump ground before making Bert at home. At the time I didn’t know it, but now I hope the soil around that old pine retained a bit of its conifer-friendly higher fungal ratio in that tree’s absence.

Bert has since settled into his corner, uncomplaining, facing heat and drought without so much as a sniffle. Bert is slow growing and should stay relatively small for a tree, topping out at 12 feet, perhaps hitting 20 feet after as many years. I certainly look forward to having him around that long.

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A Natural History of Trees

Posted February 25, 2009 by Andrew

There are a lot of gardening books out there, and a lot of books on trees. I have a thing for books that are heavier on ideas and photos and lighter on prose, but when I stumbled onto Donald Culross Peattie’s classic A Natural History of Trees: Of Eastern and Central North America, I read it like a novel.

A Russian novel, actually… Weighing in at 606 pages, you’d better be interested in trees and natural history if you’re like me and can’t stand not to finish a book if you start it.

But oh, what writing about trees. And I quote:

The most magnificent display of color in all the kingdom of plants is the autumnal foliage of the trees of North America. Over them all, over the clear light of the Aspens and Mountain Ash, over the leaping flames of Sumac and the hell-fire flickerings of poison ivy, over the war-paint of many Oaks, rise the colors of one tree — the Sugar Maple — in the shout of a great army. Clearest yellow, richest crimson, tumultuous scarlet, or brilliant orange — the yellow pigments shining through the over-painting of the red — the foliage of the Sugar Maple at once outdoes and unifies the rest.

Rarely have I ever read prose about trees so inspired, with such veracity. And yet this is an intensely useful book. Not only does Peattie tell of the folklore of every tree in it, he describes the natural habitat and growing conditions of each, and in the same compulsively readable prose. If you’re not up for digesting it all in one sitting, it’s still a valuable reference.

Be sure to buy the original (pictured) and not the newer abridged version. Woodcut illustrations are also not to be missed.

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A Rain Garden Mnemonic

Posted February 23, 2009 by Andrew

I needed a quick way to tell friends the reasons to reduce stormwater runoff on their property by installing rain gardens, rain barrels and such, so I made up a mnemonic:

Now Stormwater Can Percolate Down In Time.

• Nutrients from fertilizers cause excessive aquatic plant and algae growth, which depletes oxygen in water. It’s been implicated in red tide blooms, and elevated levels in drinking water can be a danger to humans.
• Sediments like eroded soil and sand from roads bury aquatic ecosystems and make water cloudy. Other pollutants often hitch a ride with them as well.
• Chemicals like pesticides and heavy metals threaten life underwater and above, including us, and they’re are resistant to breakdown.
• Pathogens are bacteria associated with fecal matter that cause diseases. Often result in beach closures and shellfishing bans.
• Debris that floats is plain old litter. It’s bad for aquatic life, and it’s ugly, people.
• Invasive species are exotic plants and animals that threaten to take over our native ecosystems. As the presenter at my NOFA course said, they’re the only pollutant that multiplies! More on them later.
• Thermal pollution is water that’s been heated on roads, etc., in the summer, that burns native species while helping aforementioned invasives to spread.

Spread the word to YOUR friends!

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Hortica Obscura: Devil’s Walkingstick

Posted February 21, 2009 by Andrew

If you’ve read About Me, you probably got how some of my fondest memories of childhood are set in the woods, specifically the woods behind my family’s home in Mississippi. Those woods are the source of my fascination with plants, and I daresay where I first botanized. (Yes, I botanized as a child. You’d think I’d have gotten into this line of work before 30.)

Reflecting on those woods, I’m amazed at the communities of unique plants there. I’m sure it’s also where my interest in obscure plants stems from, and it’s those members of the plant world I’ll discuss here: the unique, the underrated but no less useful.

First up, the dramatically named devil’s walkingstick, Aralia spinosa. Grew thick as thieves in the understory immediately behind our house, but it’s native to the whole Eastern U.S.

I never thought I’d miss them, but know what? Devil’s walkingstick is gorgeous. It grows tall in the shade among tree roots. Obviously it’s a native. It takes urban conditions. It’s drought tolerant and pest free. It looks tropical, its flowers are interesting, and there’s nothing like those big drupes when it’s fruiting.

The Asian species analogous to DWS is Aralia elata and its cultivars, like ‘Silver Umbrellas’ and ‘Aureovariegata,’ which gets face time in Tracy DiSabato-Aust’s new book. And how could you not love that face? All perfectly hardy, and I’m hoping great for a variety of uses: screening, tall things for shade, wildlife, and the list goes on.

Join me in saluting the humble, overlooked devil’s walkingstick, and ask your local nursery for them. Supposedly they’re hard to propagate, and that’s one reason they’re less common in the trade.

Photos from MOBOT and Arboretum Zampach.

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Whirlwind

Posted February 20, 2009 by Andrew

It’s been a crazy couple of months, but I think the time has come to welcome the world to my little corner of the web. Sometime in 2008, after years as a lonesome gardener, closet plant geek, and aspiring environmentalist, I made the inevitable decision to surrender my life to the trade.

Last month I started my own business. It’s called Oakleaf Green Landscape Design. Later that month, I attended a five-day course, took a test, and became a NOFA-Accredited Organic Land Care Professional. Then I went to New England Grows.

I got an accountant and an insurance agent. I got an EIN. I wrote a business plan. I built a web site from scratch.

I have two words: *whew* and wow.

In such a short period of time, I’ve learned so much — about the trade, about myself — and I’ve met so many great people. I can’t tell you what 2009 holds, but what I can tell you is it’s going to be fun, and it’s going to be interesting.

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