Acadia National Park was featured on the “Today” show this week, so any doubts about  blogging our visit to the Asticou Gardens while there in June for my daughter’s college graduation were dashed aside!  If the Today show can do it…so can I!

Last year we looked at pictures from the Thuja Gardens which are located down the road and up the side of the mountain from The Asticou Gardens. A more sheltered spot is down low and tucked against the hillside nearer to the village of Northeast Harbor.  The ocean is across a two lane road just a few hundred feet away.  As you drive around a bend in the road you see the small lake and lots of moss and lawn. When you start your walk you can feel the cool breeze off the water.

Take a break from the 102 degree days we are feeling this summer and walk through these pictures with me.

So much thanks to my creative family members Fred Miller who took the landscape pictures, and Kristin Reed who took the stunning picture of the ferns with the Blue Globe Allium floating above.

About 10 years ago, as the proud new owner of 3 acres in Goochland County, I decided to try my hand at creating a living fence.

I had seen living fences in English and French garden books for years.  The trained trunks were geometrically shape with squares, parallel lines or diagonals.  I couldn’t get enough of pictures with tightly pruned limbs and apricot flowers in spring or dark winter bark with snow resting on the same side of each branch…the pattern upon a pattern.

I decided to try my hand at designing and growing a living fence so I could create the same art in my garden and maybe others.

After kicking around the how’s , where’s and when’s (and some whining), my business partner/husband/better half groaned in agreement and set off  to rural nursery in early spring to pick up the trees.

We decided on white Natchez crape myrtles because in our experience:

• they have the best chance of making it in the hot summers
• their cinnamon bark is a real accent in the winter
• their blooms are fragrant
• they don’t need lot of water after the second year
• they don’t have many pests and,
• the small trees I needed to begin with were cheap.

We bought 22 crape myrtles and drastically pruned them, keeping only 3 main stems to create a W.

We planted them in a curving line, and then sank 8’ rebar one for the center trunk of each tree, and then one where 2 branches crossed. This added up to110 pieces of rebar!  Standing on an 8 foot ladder and hammering them into the ground wasn’t half as hard as pulling the rusted iron out of the clay soil with a tractor 4 years later!

To train the sapling limbs we crossed the branches of the outside limbs, and wrapped them together against the rebar with green arbor webbing. The branches are grafting together. That is how the structure becomes strong and “fence like”.

About 4 times a year we pruned everything off the main three stalks till we had the fence created.  We got a diagonal criss cross going about 5’ off the ground, but after 3 years settled for the trunks to cross only once with the flowers thick above the whole line of trees.

This living fence lies on the perimeter of the lower acre of our meadow.  Our neighbors are it’s biggest fan.  They take their walks by with their dogs, and cheer us on with how it looks.  You can see if from far away.

This picture was taken in the 102 degree heat last week and had had no watering except what Nature had provided all season.   It only took 10 years to get this far.

So what do you think… how about a long term relationship with a fence?

Maintenance is key

Part of the charm of a garden is the illusion that has been around forever with little effort in maintaining it.  Ha!

For most gardens, you have to get a running start and prune, transplant or buy for seasons ahead of time. Timing is everything in gardening. You and Nature work together for optimizing growth habits of plants, getting plants watered when needed by rain, and letting vines and plants take off to look natural rather than hacking away when they are out of control.

A mature garden should look like the garden came first, then the house was built; or that the water feature just bubbled up from a hole in the ground; or that the small boulders built into the terrace retaining wall were pulled out of the nearby stream.

The garden can have clear bed lines and wafts of plantings, but should include an odd ball plant like a Siberian iris or a columbine that has drifted from another area of the garden. A loose somewhat random look can be relaxing but it can’t look weedy.

Take a look at these pictures to see how timely maintenance makes a difference

This three year old clematis was cut to the ground in early March.  Here it is in late May with the help of an almost invisible guide wire.

This red leafed smoke bush can stay close to this pool house. Its height and breadth can be controlled with proper pruning.  In the spring red leaves and the plume of smoke bloom are striking.  In the fall the leaf color is a golden yellow.

What else do you need in the early spring? The yellow Lady Banks rose has a very loose evergreen growth habit which has been supported with thin guide wires.  Right after it blooms we will prune it hard, and again in the summer so it does not get gangly.  Like many climbing plants. You want it to go up narrow and then go wide at the top.

Perennial gardens are everyone’s favorite when they look good.  They need to be reworked every few years as this one was this spring.  Things were split, pulled out, moved and new plants purchased according to their bloom time, growth habit and color.  It will look pretty this year, but explode next spring.

A botanical label

Tis the season for poison ivy to run rampant.  If you are not sure what this weed looks like, take a look at this picture.  Even the National Arboretum in Washington DC has it as a plant specimen.

Poison ivy can be “gotten” from touching the leaf or the vine in the dead of winter.  I leaned against a tree with a vine pre-exam week in December at U of R and looked like a leper for 2 weeks.  You can also get a nasty case of it   by getting downwind when it is burned with leaves. I remember my beautiful sister looking like something out of Star Trek one autumn after standing downwind of an open fire. Don’t underestimate its reach!

The growth habit of poison ivy is tricky.  Here are the highlights.

• It spreads by tenacious runners underground.
• If you try to pull it, you usually leave a tendril or two so it comes back with more vigor.
• Spraying it with round up repeatedly is the best solution.
• In an evolutionary jump for a plant’s reproduction, poison ivy flowers then fruits.
• Birds eat the fruit ingesting the seeds.
• Birds poop out the seed.
• New plants are borne by the bird droppings, instead of on wind like maple trees.

Poison ivy in flower - for the birds?

When you repeatedly get poison ivy, the rash seems to lessen with each incident.  For me after the third day it is usually drying up. Of course that is after the first 2 days of itch and ooze.  In severe cases, the doctor has recommended steroids and prescription cream. Many of our legal Hispanic workers can go in and pull it with their bare hands with no repercussions.   Go figure.

If you think you have touched some poison ivy, wash the area immediately with soap and water.  Throw your clothes that you have been wearing in the laundry, and cross yourself.

When we meet new clients they often invariably say,”Oh yes, and we want lots of color.”

Last February, I attended the Virginia Society of Landscape Designers Winter Meeting. where 2 brilliant and renowned landscape designers reviewed the making of four of their spectacular gardens.

I was so moved that I bought a book each of them had authored. Joe Eck’s, “Elements of Garden Design” (North Point Press, 2005), and Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd’s “Our Life in Gardens” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.)  I was so enthralled by both of them that I found myself reading one at lunch and one before bed. They would be so pleased.

The aspect of Eck’s garden design book which really resonated with me was how he recognized color as lovely, but that key features of gardens that are often overlooked are:

·        Intention
·        Site
·        Frame
·        Style
·        Structure
·        Rooms
·        Access
·        Harmony
·        Contrast
·        Scale
·        Mass
·        Symmetry
·        Shape
·        Repose and
·        Time

These points are vital to the powerful feeling one gets in strolling through a garden. To look at it in another way you can look at a garden as a palette for a painting.  Eck states that “Of all the arts…painting and gardening are the most closely allied  …”

I have tried to pull together illustrations from our garden design and execution in demonstrating his points.  All but one is ours. None have any flowers in bloom.

Check out these pictures for an example and you’ll see.

Mass

Structure

Contrast

Harmony

Shape

Access

Framing

Repose

Style

Scale

Symmetry

Get the idea?

Proper PH balanced lawn

Sometimes when explaining to people the needs of their gardens, I say, “Well how would you feel if …”

Attributing human qualities to your plants can give you a refreshing understanding of your garden needs. Let’s try that with explaining the importance of proper pH in your garden.

For plants and lawn- Proper liming and pH is an integral part of the plants’ ability to absorb nutrients.

For you- Sitting down at the table with a beautiful spread of chicken, potatoes and broccoli is really great after a long hard day.

For plants and Lawn- Without correct pH (around 7) the plant and lawn cannot achieve its optimum growth and or bloom no matter how much fertilizer you put on it.

A person with correct pH!

For you instead of a nutritious meal you, you get watery pudding, frozen lettuce, and cotton candy and you are still hungry.

For plants and lawn- If any stressors or going on like low sunlight, muggy summers and too much rain.

For You- If someone  turns off the lights, cranks up the heat,  locks the doors, and the center of the room fills up with 2 “ of water…

For plants and lawn- Everything is more vulnerable and weakened as to the harm that pests, root rot, and drainage problems can do.

You get angry, hungry, tired and catch a terrible cold.

Get the idea?

So go out now, buy a bag of pelletized lime and broadcast it on your lawn and beds.  It takes 6 months to raise your pH one half of a point.

When you finish, go inside and have a nice turkey, lettuce, and tomato and cheese sandwich with a smidge of mayonnaise, potato chips and a pickle. Give a collective sigh of relief for you and your yard.

Flowers anyone?

All gardeners, no matter where we live or what we grow, have a universal problem. There is some living creature that attacks or eats our favorite plant.

You know what I mean…that peach colored rose with its early tender bloom; that row of lettuce you were just ready to harvest for your lunch salad; or how about the rhododendron bush that is at a cockeyed angle and in horror you realize when touching it, that the whole root system has been gnawed away.  Then there is the lovely cherry tree, right before it blooms that has webbing and caterpillars massed between 2 branches.

According to the Gardeners Supply Company out of Vermont their top 10 varmints include in order of damage:

• Deer
• Rabbit
• Slug
• Mole
• Beetles
• Woodchuck
• Jap beetles
• Aphids
• Squirrel
• Caterpillar

Are you gnashing your teeth and growling yet?

It is important to remember that any products you use stand little chance of being effective if you have droves of any one thing (10 deer, 6 rabbits, 100 caterpillar webs), and if you don’t keep at it.  The numbers just work against you.  The goal should be to interrupt or make unpleasant their feeding habits and steer them somewhere else for lunch (hopefully not your neighbor’s azaleas).

Here’s what we have tried or seen for deer and rabbits. To get a full run down of their suggestions and products go to gardeners.com/10 least wanted.  It’s a fun spot on the web.

Deer and Rabbits

• We found that whittled pieces of Irish spring soap around each plant deter deer for a while until it rains and reduces the size of the soap and scent.
• We have also used Scram a granular product (which is $60.00 a bucket full). You spread that around the perimeter about 2 feet away from any plant you don’t want eaten. The two feet perimeter is for the reaching factor a deer has with its long neck.
• We tried battery operated zappers near tasty treats, but the batteries kept needing to be checked and replaced.
• (Deer only)Deer netting is pretty good.  It virtually disappears if you are more that 5 feet away. The idea is that when the deer feed they get a mouthful of nylon. With their favorite “candy” of annuals in a pot, I have seen them pull away the netting and clips that are used to stake them down.
• (Deer and Rabbits)We have had success with sprays around the perimeter of the garden beds.  The problem there is that each time it rains you have to reapply the spray.  If you miss an application of just a day or two, it could be an overnight blitz.
• ( Deer only) I have seen, but not done human hair.  You take a handful of hair from your brush or a beauty salon and put it in a mesh bag.  The person I saw using it said it worked, but I had a hard time with the look of it- disembodied hair hanging as bait- I just couldn’t handle it .
• (Rabbits only)- We have tried steel traps with vegetables in them so that they are caught and relocated to the country …not killed.  After a 3 week attempt in west end Richmond off Cary Street, we caught 3 juvenile very upset possums. Never have caught a rabbit.  (Bugs bunny was really that smart after all!)
• Our most recent attempt is garlic clips!  They are made with concentrated garlic oil.  They come 25 to a pack for 20 bucks from Gardeners Supply.  We took them out of the bag and were knocked back by the smell.  (If vampires hate them we figure it might work for deer and rabbits.) Some of my clients are in such dire need of a repellent, that we have already used them. As soon as it stops snowing, I am going to buy a full pot of pansies, put a garlic clip in it and leave it out as a sacrificial plant in the middle of my meadow.  That should be the test! I’ll let you know how it goes next month.

I look out my front window in December just as the first big snow is falling.  The fog is suspended above the snow covered ground with cold air and warm earth mixing.  I suddenly see movement at the base of our tree, then a spot of red. It is a Pileated Woodpecker hammering away! My husband, daughter home from college, and I stare out the window. We frantically whisper to each other at once,  “Get the camera…get the camera!” Meg clicked this picture (right).  It is a dream scene.

I spot these terrific birds about 5 times a year. They fly ahead of you from tree to tree in the woods.  Half the time, I see them low near the ground pecking away for grubs in trunks of trees.

Here are a few fun points about the bird.

• They are the cartoon Woody Woodpecker type of bird (unlike the Downy or Flicker woodpecker).
• The Pleated woodpeckers are about the size of a crow.
• They dig rectangular holes in trees looking for ants.
• They stay in pairs all year.
• Their feeding is so extensive that they attract other woodpeckers and wrens to the area.
• Their excavating can be so deep that they break smaller trees and in half.
• They had declined with the clearing of Eastern forests, but have been steadily coming back since the 1950’s.

Keep your eyes peeled for the red mop top and a moving black and white wing.  It’s not a dream…but a cute little buddy from Nature.

As we all struggle to recover from the negative speculations of some of our financial institutions, I thought it might be fun in an ironic way to look at a similar situation that occurred in Europe in the 17th century.

Tulipomania was the name attached to the period of time early 1600’s in northern Europe.  The Dutch were one of the first to go nuts over the tulip which came from Turkey.  (The Ottoman Empire in later years will be so enthralled by the flower, that the period from 1718-1730 will be called the Tulip Era.) What one has to realize with Tulipomania is that tulips were so different from every other flower know to horticulturalist. The colors were more intense and concentrated than other blooming plants up to then.

In the Netherlands, the development of the range of tulips was reflected in the number of books produced on the subject. Prospective clients and country estate owners decided on what to buy from watercolors bound together in catalogue form, and often times painted by well-known artists.  This paralleled the great American pastime of window shopping. The prices for these tulip books were sometimes exorbitant.  The most expensive book sold for an equivalent of 1.5 million US dollars of today.

Around 1630, lured by big profits, the market grew quickly while the number of tulips to be harvested did not.  It takes 7 years to grow 1 bulb from seed. Bulb prices rose, and the futures market in bulbs began.  Some bulbs were changing hands 10 times a day. Tulip trader were found doing business in across the Netherlands in many of the Dutch taverns.

Speculation in the years 1634 to 1637 grew to the extent that bulbs were sold faster than they could grow.  Consequently they were sold in advance, on paper (sound familiar?). These papers were re-sold before harvesting making prices higher and at a ridiculous level. Sometimes neither the seller nor the buyer had seen the flower.  This tulip mania got out of hand so badly that bulb growers asked the government to ban the trade, but not before the market crashed.  A compromised was agreed upon with brokers, where most traders were able to settle their debts for a small portion of their liability. The overall harm out to the Dutch economy however was negligible.

I hope we can make the same statement in a few years for our predicament to date.

Karen Watkins called me last spring to talk about building a park to celebrate the legacy of 4 generations that had created and run Watkins and Son’s Funeral Home.  I knew she was really serious about having something designed, built and maintained.  She used the words “inspiring” and “amazing”, which is right up our alley.

We met on a piece of property adjacent to her business, which had been left empty after a building on the site had been razed. The soil was dry, uneven and strewn with cement chunks.  Karen and her aunt, Valerie, talked about how they wanted the site to be a spot where their clientele could sit and be uplifted after the death of a loved one. A place to celebrate their lives on earth, instead of being saddened by their physical loss.   What better place to do that, than a garden filled with Nature?

There was also to be an area in the garden for people to install a memorial stone.  The stones were to be engraved with a loved ones name, and a phrase fitting their spiritual selves.   We chose 2’ by 2’ bluestone pieces 2” thick, and lay them in the gravel walkway in a checkerboard pattern.

Karen Watkins devotion to the project was monumental.  With Kevin Barry’s help, co-owner of Christie’s, weeds were kept down in the new beds at minimal cost by spraying them judiciously. Kevin worked closely with an employee on the watering needs of each plant.  Their employee, Ben,  did a fabulous job in the heat of July and August keeping everything alive and lovely… looking after his “babies” in the garden.  One of Christie’s client’s in hearing about the project, was so moved that she donated 4 lovely Japanese maples to be planted at the 2 openings of the stone walkway.

Last week it all culminated at a Legacy Reception where there as an  unveiling of the exciting plans that Watkin’s has for the metropolitan area.  Karen’s interests lie not only in running a caring and professional business, but also in  helping a range of students from All Saints High School. These students include orphans,  children from foster families,  from underprivileged families and  from caring loving families.  She has also reached out with Global projects of developing a teaching curriculum for dance and art in Guatemala.  She has also done research on how to be a  part of the “greener industry “for funeral businesses.

So if you drive by 2700 North Ave on Richmond’s North side and come upon a clearing of blue sky and green grass…slow down.  Take in the locust trees, roses, limelight hydrangeas, lilacs, smoke bushes and meandering path with stone benches. You can’t miss. It is a healing place… a private park to be inspiring to the public at large through the generosity and love of the Watkins family.