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Sunday Opinion: Guaranteed

A garden comes with no real guarantee of success-just like everything else in life.  Gardeners buy plants-some work and take hold, some fail.  Some succumb to poor placement.  Some lack for water too long, and die.  Some rot and keel over from too much water.  Some cannot handle that once in ten years and especially vicious winter.  Some languish on for years, and finally give up.  Some plants die for no reason that you or I, or any other good gardener can figure out.  Some relationships just do not work. 

 A tree that is planted too deep will never grow out of that insult.  A maple in the right of way might take 35 years to die from girdling roots, but die it will.  A black walnut in a neighboring yard, 80 feet away from your spruce, is an unseen threat to your spruce.  Japanese beetles can defoliate your roses and lindens.  Anthracnose is a disease that kills dogwoods, and London Plane trees.  Impatiens downy mildew killed thousands of plants in my area this summer.  More than likely, this fungus will live over the soil where those impatiens were planted.

Late spring frosts, high winds, ice, drought-there are no end of natural conditions that conspire to kill your plants.  A kid rides a bike over your prize lilies.  A tree drops a huge rotten limb on your house-who knew it was rotted?  Disaster can happen in the blink of an eye.  The life of a garden is a big fluid situation for which there is no insurance policy available. 

 The salesperson who sold me my Chevy Suburban in 2004 wanted to go over the warranty agreement-line by line.  I was patient about that time I spent with her, but in my heart I knew it was my responsibility to maintain that truck.  I knew the vehicle would run a long time, provided that I provided the care it needed.  Parts wear out.  Fuses blow.  Electric windows quit working.  Oil leaks out onto the driveway.  All of this mayhem is to be expected.    

Nurseries, garden centers, and landscape professionals all have their individual version of a warranty on plants.  I warranty, and guarantee that I have placed plants properly.  I guarantee the health of the plants at the time of planting.  I guarantee that I have placed plants properly.   I go on to guarantee any situation in which is is impossible to determine what went wrong.  My clients are really great people.  Honoring a guarantee can be a way of saying thank you.  It is a way of saying I am in this with you-through thick and thin.  

I can guarantee that if you plant new trees or shrubs, and do not water them by hand, regularly, no doubt you will have problems.  I can guarantee that the smallest annual and perennial plants require the most attention.  A newly planted perennial lacking one moment too long for water can die.  A big tree, with an appropriately big rootball, might outlast and take hold in spite of intermittent care.    I can guarantee that any garden reads as the sum total of the care given to it.  I can guarantee that if you take on more than you are able to maintain, problems will arise.  I can guarantee that if you run your sprinkler system 2 times a day, and every day, plants will die.  A tree that sheds all of its leaves, or fails to leaf out-you need to call the doctor.   

Guarantees apply primarily to washers, garbage disposals, roofs, bed springs, phones and Chevies-mechanical devices.  Not living things.  Even so, I marvel that any manufacturer guarantees a device that they have no way of tracking.  Your doctor should be a great scientist, and an inspired diagnostitian.  Even if she is all of the above, she cannot guarantee a happy and care free outcome for your health.  No one will ever care about your health, your chevy, your washing machine or your myrtle topiary as much as you do.  Take care of all of the above.  At the first sign of trouble, ask for help.

 As for the garden, I would advise that you take charge.  From the day that landscape or garden is planted.  Clients hire me to design and plant. Beyond that,  I go the extra mile.  I coordinate with the irrigation contractor.  I swing by frequently for a few weeks.  I stay in touch.  I am happy to be a backstop.  Some clients contract for 6 months of supervision.  This says more about their sense of responsibility than their lack of attention to that landscape.  Lots of my clients are very busy people-should they ask for help, I give it.  In the end, most every gardener owns their own problems.  That includes me.  I have many times in hindsight kicked myself for the loss of a plant that I could have easily provided for.       

My advice? Be presidential.  Run your landscape as it should be run.  Self insure-it will free up your energy to do what you love best.  The time it takes to establish blame for a struggling garden is wasted time.  That negative energy-who wants to be stained by that?   Admit your failures, and move on.  Gripe all you want, and apply what you have learned to the next step.  

For sure, no one else will treasure your garden like you do.  Your garden is first and foremost your garden.  Take ownership.  Guarantee your committment.  Guarantee to learn from your failures.  This is what gardeners do.         

 

Posted on: September 16, 2012 5 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Design, Strictly Opinion

At A Glance: Light On A Slant

The 2012 fall equinox falls of September 22 this year.  At that time, the sun is crossing the celestial equator, and the days will start to get shorter.  As the sun igoes lower in the sky in the northern hemisphere, it illuminates everything it touches on a slant.  Beautiful light, this. 

grass amphitheatre

next to the last of the Sally Holmes

Little Ollie olive

lemon grass

Honorine Jobert beginning to bloom

tree geranium

hydrangeas

garden terrace

stone staircase

 

Posted on: September 16, 2012 1 Comment
Filed Under: Fall, Picture This Tagged With: ,

Breaking Ground


Theodore Roethke is one of America’s most respected poets.  He was born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1908, to German immigrant parents-Otto Roethke and Helen Heubner.  His parents were market gardeners, and owned and operated 25 acres of greenhouses with Theodore’s uncle.  Much of his childhood was spent in those greenhouses.  His second book, “The Lost Son”, contains several of what are known as his greenhouse poems. 

Images and metaphors derived from the natural world are much a part of his writing.  Long before I ever had the conscious idea to design gardens, I treasured his work. I studied early twentieth century poetry in some detail in college.  For whatever reason, many of the lines from his poems have stayed with me.

One phrase I have always liked- “The time comes when the vague life of the mouth no longer suffices…”  I am taking this phrase completely out of the contextural meaning of the poem, but it perfectly expresses that moment when the time for the designing, the discussion, the redesigning, and the additional discussion, comes to an end.  Enough decisions have been made in order for a project to proceed.   

A landscape plan is just so many marks on a page-a drawing.  That drawing has only two dimensions.  It does not really describe the sculpture that will be.  But drawings are critical in a project such as this.  Preceeding the landscape, a pool and poolhouse will be built.  Though my drawing described the physical location, shape and size of the pool, and the location of the poolhouse, that drawing needed lots of details-what materials would be used?  What would the poolhouse look like?  What features would be incorporated?  How many months of the year did the client foresee using it?  Building a pool and poolhouse is a complicated and considerable undertaking, but even the smallest landscape project needs to be thought through.

The integral spa on axis with the rear terrace was agreed upon, but the client wanted a slightly longer and slightly narrower pool.  The architect took my idea for a pair of poolhouses linked by a conservatory structure, and designed the poolhouse.  The general contractor decided with the client how the interior space would be handled.  He needed the poolhouse to be longer, so as to have inside space for the pool equipment.  He favored solar panels to warm the poolhouse early and late in the season.  I integrated these and every other good idea into what became the final landscape plan.  Ideas are one thing.  Building a project requires ideas that work. 


The pool contractor sorted out all of the many details needed to build the pool.  The depths of the water, the steps, the filtration system.  The general contractor oversees the entire project, so construction goes smoothly, and things happen in the right order.  This GC is very low key, and equally good at problem solving-just the person to handle a project like this. 

Once a coherent design emerged from the client and all of the design and build people, finish plans were drawn, and submitted for review to the planning board. Once the permit was issued, the pool was dug, and lined with a steel mesh that would reinforce the concrete.  The giant and deep hole you see here, encompassing the steep change of depth of the pool, will be filled with concrete.  This will stabilize the entire underwater structure. A pool needs to stay put.  Any action from the frost that might heave the pool upwards, and crack it-every effort is taken to avoid that. 

Of primary concern in the initial design-a gorgeous oak of considerable stature.  My clients love this tree.  The pool was sited to avoid any damage to it.  I was relieved to see no roots exposed in the excavation necessary to provide level ground for the pool.  This oak sits on a hill that slopes dramatically down to the house.  Eventually, a stone retaining wall between 3 and 4 feet tall will be built to hold the soil on the oak side.  The pool and surround will be built at the grade of an existing rear terrace.  A drainage plan for both the ground and the wall-a subject of much discussion and planning.  

A decision was made to integrate the soil unearthed from the excavation of the pool into the existing property.  Hauling away soil is a time consuming and expensive process.    This is a large property, and I have ideas about where this soil can go.  The drainage work, and grading of this soil is part of the landscape project. 

No one could like a gigantic pile of dirt awaiting a sculptural disposition better than I.  I have walked the property at least 5 times, imagining what might be come of it.  I am inclined to leave most of it on this north end of the pool.  The natural grade of the land at the north end of what will be a pool slopes down precipitously.   A large area of level ground there would be ground they can use, enjoy, and garden.  More than likely I will be able to stablilize the soil with a gradual slope down.  Perhaps we will need some retaining on the east side.

As for Thoedore Roethke,  I was thinking about him the past Friday.  He died in 1963 at the age of 55, at the home of a friend on Baimbridge Island in Washington- a heart attack while he was in the pool.   That pool was subsequently filled in, and today is the rock and sand Zen garden at the Bloedel Reserve.  No where is there any mention of Mr. Roethke, but I would imagine he would approve of a garden in this spot.  There does indeed come a time when the vague life of the mouth no longer suffices.  We broke ground.

 

Posted on: September 16, 2012 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Garden Design Tagged With: , ,

Growing Topiary Plants

topiary evergreens
I had so many calls, emails and comments about the topiary nursery in my previous post- wow!  I could thank you for that attention, but it wasn’t me who grew those plants.  It is a very special person with an extraordinary and singular vision.  People with vision-there is always something worthwhile to take from their efforts.  His palette of plants is quite spare.  His patience with the process I call growing is unlimited.  And his ability to prune is superb.  These boxwoods of his in 3 gallon pots are plants that have been given a very good start.  Any gardener could take this pot home, and resolve to grow that boxwood on.       

Another grower we buy from makes a point growing this particular form.  These boxwood with tufted top knots are charming and distinctive.  Anyone willing to take one on, and commit to growing and pruning would in just a few years have a boxwood topiary worth talking about.  To get to this stage, the nursery spends 10 years.  They are happy to hand what they grow off to you.  Are you game?

Most of my boxwoods are 21 years old.  7 years old at purchase, and 14 years in the ground.  I water and feed them.  But I would not dream of touching them with a pair of shears.  I am a serviceable pruner-not an inspired one. I am fortunate to have someone in my community who makes a specialty of pruning.  Mindy and her group of 7 takes an entire day to prune my evergreens.  The day they come-the best day of my gardening year.     

boxwood topiary

Gorgeous topiary trees and shrubs are first and foremost about the years, and the good care.  The years devoted to growing them on.  Transplanting large topiary material comes with no end of peril.  Transplant shock is routine.  They are very expensive, given how long it has taken to grow them to a subtantial maturity.   Once the plant is in place, the work begins.

It was many many years ago that I planted this topiary garden.  The first year was no cause to throw a party.  But a client with vision was determined to take relatively small plants, and grow them into plants of note.  She saw to the water, the feeding, and the pruning.  In my zone, in a good year,  boxwood flushes on an average of 6 inches.  Six inches seems like not much, but 6 inches times 10 years-a big flush.  Years later, her plants are gorgeous-gorgeous enough to make any gardener blush. 

Mindy prunes with a forest of stout stakes, and a network of level lines.  Her group clips with hand shears.  I cannot imagine how many times in the course of a day those shears open and close.  The sound of that work-I cannot describe in words how beautiful this is.  They take the time it takes to do the work properly.    

pruning boxwood

To the last, her crew is entirely modest about their skills.  They focus on the plants.  Any gardener could make it their business to learn how to do this.  Though in my heart I believe she is gifted, I would try to replicate her care, if I needed to.  Great topiary plants are about the relationship between the stalwart start of a plant, and a gardener.  Buy a plant.  Resolve to train it-just how you envision it.       

pruning carpinus

I was young, when I planted this tree.  It bore no resemblance to this, the day it went in the ground.  It is as grand and gorgeous a topiary carpinus that has ever been my pleasure to see. It is as beautiful as any topiary tree anyone might see anywhere.  The form of this tree was many years in the making.  The pruning is amazingly precise.  The company who prunes this not only has skilled people, it has big equipment.  What an extraordinary job they do of the pruning.

Mindy looks after this property.  Every hedge is perfectly pruned.  The topiary evergreens not shown in this pictuire are in excess of 20 feet tall.  Did we move plants in to this landscape, full grown?  No.  Beautifully grown, hefty specimens got planted.  Every year she works on establishing the forms.  Every year, they are bigger, and better.

My yew topiaries in these pots are but 3 years old.  The boxwood surround is but 3 years old.  Given another 10 years, we will have something to talk about.  In the meantime, I see to the day to day. I can safely say that the process of growing enriches my gardening life.  I like the dailies perhaps more than the finish.  

The hedge maples on standard in the back right cewnter side of this landscape-they have been growing on for years.  Every year, that pleached hedge of trees looks better.  One day they will fill in completely from side to side, and front to back.   The land drops from the house to the lake.  The trees nearest the water are much taller than the trees on the near side.  A lvel pleached hedge on sloping ground-years in the making.  The day they fully pass muster-a day to celebrate.  Great gestures in the landscape take time.

This beech arbor is but a few years along.  It will take another 5 years for it to fill out.  My advice to you?  Buy two small beech.  Plant them opposite each other, far enough apart,  where they will be perfect, 15 years from now.  Today is the best day to start to grow a topiary.  Planting small plants does not mean your vision is small.  Planting small plants with an eye to the future-a big vision.

Level with the horizon-is this not beautiful?  It took more than a few years to get here.  I can attest to that, as this is my yard.  Visit your local nursery.  Scrutinize what trees and shrubs might grow into something extraordinary, given your care and some time.  Take the time to source a great pruning company-or make it your business to learn how to prune.  For my clients-I source the best plant material that I can find.  I have no trouble placing those extraordinary plants.  At the same time, I buy those smaller plants that I imagine, given a few years and a lot of care, will prove to be garden makers.  I hold and grow those small plants-waiting for the right and so sparkly client to come along.  Those extraordinary large and full grown plants moved to a new home, I love this process.  Placing those smaller plants- with such a great future ahead of them-even better.

Posted on: September 14, 2012 10 Comments
Filed Under: garden maintenance, Plants, Woody Plants, Landscape Design Tagged With: , ,