Tag: generous nature

Down to earth – sem(pl)antics

krisLeave a comment

Originally published in EastBayRI newspapers July 6, 2016.

I had a friendly debate the other day (weeks ago now) with a fellow professional gardener that might have devolved into a heated argument if I hadn’t capitulated. We were talking about one of my favorite plants, African blue basil, which she described as an annual. I call it tender perennial. To-may-to, To-mah-to? It comes down to semantics.

What is an annual? The definition I use was written by botanists who base it on a plant’s life cycle. An annual is the sort of plant that grows, flowers, sets seed, and dies all in one growing season. My friend’s definition swings a bit wider to include anything that won’t survive winter in our gardens. I yielded the point because she’s not alone. You won’t find African blue basil in the perennial section at any nearby nursery.

bluebasil
African blue basil growing in the Mount Hope Farm cutting garden with nicotiana, feverfew, and snaps

But this is where it gets tricky and why I’m having trouble letting go: I bought mine a whole growing season or two ago. Life-cycle-wise, African blue basil (Ocimum kilimandscharicum ×basilicum) takes after its perennial parent. In its East African home climate, O. kilimandscharicum doesn’t die after flowering and setting seed. (Never mind that the hybrid child is sterile. That tiny detail is beside the point.) It grows on.

I use the term tender perennial where applicable because I rise to the challenge of keeping “annuals” alive inside over the winter and replanting them summer after summer.

Self-sowers add to the confusion. Plenty of botanically true annuals return year after year more reliably than some perfectly hardy perennials. Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) falls into that category along with shiso (Perilla frutescens), and California poppies (Eschscholzia californica). I always think of Verbena bonariensis as an annual because in my garden it grows, flowers, sets seed, and dies. Or does it? In fact, it’s a marginally hardy perennial (to Zone 7) and sometimes only dies back to the ground after frost, coming up fresh as a … well, not a daisy exactly, but as itself all over again the following summer. And whenever winter kills them, seedlings will pop up in the same spots and everywhere else besides.

I know another gardener who would give perennials that aren’t great at spreading from the roots, such as coneflower (Echinacea sp.), sea holly (Eryngium sp.) and heuchera, the qualifier “short-lived.” We might think twice about purchasing a plant with only three or so years to live. Then again, in general, only the sterile hybrid cultivars will poop out completely and need to be replaced (or not); given the chance, straight species self-sow their own succession.

When it comes to buying plants, most of us gardeners simply want to know exactly what to expect. But a lot of factors are involved in ultimate plant happiness and longevity; a certain amount of unpredictability is part of the challenge. If we didn’t enjoy that we wouldn’t bother bothering. I will always be happy to shell out for one-summer wonders because my garden wouldn’t be half as lively without annuals. And with any luck some might just turn out to be perennial.

Down to earth — keep the love alive

kris2 Comments

(Originally published May 13, 2015 in East Bay / South Coast Life newspapers.)

I try not to go out into the garden without my pruners. If I wasn’t vain about over-accessorizing, my holster would remain clipped to my front pocket from daybreak to sundown because, like most gardeners, I’m apt to bolt outside suddenly, mid-sentence and whenever they’re not on my hip I’ll want to remove a dead branch, give nepeta the Chelsea chop (it’s time), or pick a few tulips for the kitchen table. And even though every time I go outside I tell myself it’s “just for a look,” I wish I could also remember to grab an empty tubtrug in case I pull a giant pile of weeds. (Happens every time.) And right now I might never make it back inside to finish this sentence if only I pocketed a trowel too.

I never know how much honesty (a.k.a. money plant; Lunaria annua) I want in my back border until I see it blooming. This spring, like every spring, I have too much of a good thing. A flash mob of purple flowers held on spires above gray-green heart shaped leaves fill the bed, completely surrounded by silvery seedlings that will flower next year. Even though yanking a healthy and/or beautifully blooming plant out of the earth rubs every gardener’s moral fiber the wrong way, a little editing is essential, not only to keep the garden from feeling overwhelmed by certain plants but also to preserve our affection for them. As soon as any plant is allowed to “take over” we’ll diss it as a weed and some of us go so far as to tar benign old favorites with the “invasive” label. (Truly invasive plants warrant streams of invective and banishment by whatever means are necessary.) I never want to feel that way honesty; some of it has to go.

Honesty and equanimity in the back border.
Honesty and equanimity in the back border.

It’s too late to transplant the blooming clumps—that would be psychically so much easier than composting them—but it’s not too late to move next year’s tiny seedlings. This week a few trowel scoops will make the move to my front garden, and I’ll look forward to editing out the blooming extras in those beds this time next year.

Honesty isn’t the only self-sower in my garden willing to fill the lot but most of the others aren’t blooming yet, which makes them much easier to transplant. Feverfew (Tanecetum parthenium) likes to put itself at the sunniest front edges of beds, which would be fine if its insect-repelling June clouds of white daisies didn’t obscure every shorter thing behind them. I tucked most back in mid-border and chucked a few to make way for plants the pollinators are willing to visit. Tall verbena (Verbena bonariensis) seedlings crowd the front row too but I’ll let some stay there because they’ll grow up to make a pretty see-through screen topped with butterfly landing pads.

Clumps of sherbet-orange Atlantic poppy (Papaver atlanticum) are budded all over my garden, front, back, and in between. I’m inclined to leave a few where they landed instead of moving them around because they’re tap-rooted and don’t love being transplanted. I also have more black and brown-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta and R. triloba) in my garden than anyone without several acres should boast. If the memories of their black seedheads poking prettily out of snow banks weren’t still so fresh, I might be tempted to evict them all. Instead, I’ll keep a couple here and there to please me and the goldfinch next winter, pass a few along to friends who claim to not have any yet, and pitch the rest.

I can’t imagine resenting nature’s generosity though I know a lot of gardeners do. I say, “easy come, easy go.” Self-sown seedlings, along with divisions of any perennials that have overgrown their allotted spaces, give me the chance to hone my design skills and change things up—for the better—every year.

What are your favorite self-sowers? Do you keep the love alive by editing and transplanting them?

Down to earth — late-summer spring cleaning

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(Originally published on September 17, 2014 in East Bay RI/South Coast Life.)

I think I have it a bit backwards. Isn’t spring supposed to be the time for cleaning and clearing the clutter? I’m on a tear to create some space now. Within reason, of course. I have no intention of tidying up my desk, and I’m certainly not ready to put the garden “to bed.” There are miles of summer and fall left to go and I prefer to leave seedheads standing through the winter anyway. But right now my garden is at its fullest. It’s tall and it’s buzzingly busy with activity. It’s so full, in fact, that the wildlife and I can afford to let a few plants go here and there. This is a great time to think about changes to make next year and try them on for size.

Pennisetum orientale 'Karley Rose' about to eat a daphne
Pennisetum orientale ‘Karley Rose’ about to eat a daphne

Against my better judgment, last year I plunked a fountain grass, Pennisetum orientale ‘Karley Rose’ into one of my foundation beds alongside a tiny hydrangea cutting and a precious little daphne. This spring I threw a few dahlias and nicotiana into the mix. Even at her best, Karley Rose has a late-summer habit that Great Dixter’s Christopher Lloyd might describe as sleazy. She grew at a prodigious rate, especially considering the lousy soil I planted her in, and has lately taken to lounging around, plumes and foliage flopped all over her more interesting bedfellows. Before I evict this plant for good (anyone have just the spot?) I’m going to whack it back by at least half to give those other plants some breathing room again and make extra-sure I’ll prefer the bed without it.

Late entries -- brachyscome and orange zinnias
Late entries — brachyscome and orange zinnias

There are still swallowtail butterflies in the garden thanks to a healthy crop of fennel (plants in the parsley family are swallowtail caterpillar hosts) growing in the bed closest to my driveway, but I wanted to see what life might be like if we could actually walk down the path to the plantry door, and edited out a good two-thirds. It’s as if that bed’s edges have been sharpened. And the holes I created were just right for tucking in some last-minute color: bright orange zinnias and a companionable blue brachyscome daisy. I know without even looking that I want more of those colors in my garden next year.

I’m in love with the rice paper plant (Tetrapanax paperifer ‘Steroidal Giant’) planted in my backyard border. Its 18-inch wide matte-green pinwheel leaves change the scale of the garden and make me smile. But they also provide a little too much shade for all of the regular-sized plants tucked in nearby. This season, the rice paper plant’s third in my garden, it finally sent out a few suckers that filled some gaps along the back of the border and grew to shade out a bit more of the front. The other day I removed a couple of offshoots to let the daylight back into the bed (they’re shallow-rooted and easy to pull) and just like when my handsome husband finally shaved off his hilarious mustache, I wished them back again as soon as they were out. But I’m learning to enjoy the look of my garden’s upper lip without them.

I’ll start on container plants next. The more I consign to the compost now (such as the enormous angel’s trumpet that never bloomed), the fewer will crowd my plantry, living room and cellar this winter. She says.
I’m itching to move some shrubs around, if not out, and a few perennials too. But we’d all be wise to wait for a good soaking rain before rearranging the furniture. In the meantime we can do some spring cleaning to clear the clutter and create some space to play with ideas for next year’s garden.

What kinds of changes are you thinking of making? Are you trying them on for size now too?

Invasive is a 4-letter word

kris2 Comments

Because Garden Rant’s Susan Harris posted this excellent rant about the word “invasive,” and because my book, which just released(!) happens to be two-thirds full of plants that self-sow and spread with certain amount of abandon and highlights the benefits of taking advantage of nature’s generosity, I feel compelled to throw my two cents in with hers.

I believe the word “invasive” is overused. I also believe that the more arbitrarily the word is used, the faster it loses its meaning. “Invasive” should be reserved exclusively for those species that pose an actual threat to ecosystems. Plant species capable of outcompeting the native flora necessary for supporting native insects and wildlife and providing essential services like water filtration and erosion control. Invasives are scary and we as gardeners bear a responsibility, especially if we live near sensitive wild ecosystems, to remove—or at the very least refrain from planting—anything truly, actually, and potentially invasive. By overusing the word to describe any plant that spreads from the roots or self-sows, we risk losing sight of that. 

Plume poppy rambles among the shrubs in my side yard.
Plume poppy rambles among the shrubs in my side yard.

And it makes it so much harder than it needs to be to determine what to avoid planting. The sad thing, especially for new gardeners who might be relying heavily on the interwebs as their guide, is that a whole lot of awesome plants are apparently off limits.

It shouldn’t be that hard to restrict our usage of the word. Many states, university extensions, and Master Gardener programs have compiled lists of specific local devils and don’t we all know them well? My Z, catching the title of this post, remarked that the bittersweet vine (Celastrus orbiculatus) sending its tell-tale orange roots into our yard, its tentacles to the tops of our junipers, and its seeds far and wide from the neighbor’s untended lot, warrants a string of 4-letter words. You don’t need to be a gardener to be familiar with the most un-wanted on your region’s invasive species lists.

And like Susan said, it’s important to remember that what’s invasive in my neighborhood, might not survive the summer or winter in yours. Just because gardens from California to Cape Cod tend to look a lot alike doesn’t mean that plants exhibit the same vigor everywhere they’re grown. I recently saw crocosmia described as invasive. All but ‘Lucifer’ barely survive here. And just because a plant self-sows or spreads from the roots doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a monster. Not if we are capable of editing and managing its overgrowth. It might simply be rambunctious. Enthusiastic. Generous. I believe those are much better words for a whole range of plants too pretty and/or useful to be dismissed and disparaged as “invasive.” And if you can’t say something nice, “aggressive thug” paints a good enough picture.

My two cents. What’s yours?

Reclaiming the garden

krisLeave a comment

I was only gone for a week.

the sideyard "path" through a wild patch of autumn raspberries, sundry trees and shrubberies

I sometimes worry about what would happen to my garden if I was hit by the bus. I picture butterbur (Petasites japonicus) making a run for it across the sideyard and under the hedge to stomp their elephant-like feet all over the neighbors’ tidy beds of bedding annuals. I see flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus) and the spineful autumn bearing raspberries popping up here, there and everywhere. Not to mention a skyline full of plume poppy (Macleaya cordata). In the backyard I imagine civil war between colonies of rice paper plant (Tetrapanax paperifer) and Tiger Eye sumac. I’m really not sure who would win that one but wouldn’t they look outstanding in a sea of purple perilla?

It’s all a little bit scary so I try not to ponder that particular what-if too much. And I definitely don’t regret inviting these guys (and so many others like them) into my tiny garden. Rather, I appreciate them for being the very plants that get me off my lazy aster and back out there day after day, season after season.

Do you have to reclaim your garden from the plants too?