Landscape Under Glass

I snuck out of NPR the other day long enough to spend an hour in the glassed garden created by landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson at the site of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

(Read this Washington Post article if you need the backstory on this just-opened mega-expensive renovation).

A couple of l.a. friends who are Gustafson fans insisted I check it out. And how! There's just about nothing I love more than a hardscape with "walkable" water (e.g., rills), and a sizeable
part of this courtyard's floor is covered in an inviting liquid veneer.

I was particularly relieved that the plantings, liberated from D.C.'s overwrought Z7 cliches, included not an inch of liriope. Instead, Gustafson used black olive trees, several huge ficus, a few species of temperate ferns, and a smattering of my pittosporum friends from Down Under (I might have spec'd Pittosporum 'Silver Sheen' with its silvery leaves and black stems but she didn't ask).

The big picture - anchored by huge marble planters - is a great success. "For all its scale," says Post writer Adrian Higgins, "it has a real tranquility". To be on the safe side, though, I'd get there before or after school.

Continue reading "Landscape Under Glass" »

10:16 AM ET | 02-26-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

 

Talking Xeric in Albuquerque

One of the biggest water-saving heros in the Southwest these days is Scott Varner, who over the last decade has cultivated quite the crowd for the New Mexico Xeriscape Council annual conference.

The bad news is that you just missed the latest conference; fortunately, 400 of your green-thinking peers took notes.

Thanks to one of them, Susan Tweit, who both captured some of the highlights and linked to the TP blog. Other people you might want to know about are dynamo L. Hunter Lovins (Time Magazine 2000 Hero of the Planet) and landscape architect/ecological restorationist Keith Bowers, founder of Biohabitats, whose inspiring mission is nothing less than "the restoration of the earth".

Which brings me to my own meager participation in the conference, during which I made the observation that Sustainability is a very dicey assumption if we don't soon address issues of Population.

I can assure you, the idea that we need to live in places with more resources and do a lot less breeding did not go over too big. And so I invite you to step into the fray.

Q: If we continue to settle in regions where resources are limited (e.g., water in the desert SW), if we continue to procreate with abandon, and if we continue to believe we are entitled to what we want when we want it without having to sacrifice, compromise or just recycle the bloody newspaper (which is far from second nature here in D.C.), is it realistic to assume assume we can be sustained?

2:43 PM ET | 02-25-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

 

Fetid Adder's Tongue, Yum!

It is with some guilt that I will continue to celebrate spring-flowering shrubs and bulbs, knowing that your ground may be not even be close to thawing. But during my stay in DC, I've been corresponding with colleagues in Portland, and was sent a pix of this intriguing native plant by Ed Guerrant, Conservation Director for the Berry Botanic Garden.

Ed, a terrific native plantsman, was featured in a seed bank story for NPR's Climate Connections series. I asked him to pen a few words on this cool California native.

A plant with flowers like these would be noticeable any time of year, but to find the flowers of this reportedly fungus gnat pollinated plant, it is necessary to wander either into its native habitat in Northern California, or make our February homage to a little patch that has been growing at the Berry Botanic Garden for as long as I can remember here at the Garden (1989). It is sort of our Punxsutawney Phil, but without the predictive powers. Nevertheless, Scoliopus in flower it is a harbinger of the spring to come.

So what's popping your wild or cultivated woods? Got winter aconites, snowdrops, crocus, daffs? How about some bold, blueaceous Chionodoxa? I saw one shimmering blue note of this Glory-in-the-Snow at Dumbarton Oaks yesterday, where the chionodoxa are naturalized in the lawn. If you're in or around DC, check back in two weeks for peak bloom.

10:25 AM ET | 02-24-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

 

Gloom Or Bloom?

Rumor has it the bulbs are poppin' in Portland, OR. after a glorious weekend. And there are thousands of little blossoms like the one on the left now blooming at Dumbarton Oaks. So much for the Z7 and Z8 edges of the country what's up in your front yard?

Seedheads of sweet autumn clematis are about it these days for the floral fantasies of some TP members. If you are in need of chlorophyllic support, join the Talking Plants Flickr Group and let us ooow and aaah over your small triumphs.

10:38 AM ET | 02-19-2008 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post

 

The Genus Beagle

We're not talking plants today, we're talking dogs, on account of Uno -- praise be his name -- the first beagle to win Westminster.

So of course beagle lovers rejoiced coast-to-coast. Then, a pack of them got down to business. Including Denise Sproul of Cascade Beagle Rescue, who leads the Pacific Northwest effort to corral dumped and unwanted strays and get them into beagle-savvy homes.

(Let me say, straight away, that not only am I a member of Cascade Beagle Rescue, but CBR vice-president Susan O'Brien -- with addtional animal wrangling by Denise Sproul -- is looking after my oh-so-low maintenance Starlet for the entire month, while I'm here in D.C.)

"We had a Board of Directors meeting the morning after Westminster," she told me, "and after the first wave of excitement, the question was, how long before we start seeing them show up in beagle rescue? We could hear the puppy mill people popping champagne corks, as people race to pet stores looking for puppy Uno."

I'm going to take it for granted you're hip to the puppy mill crisis in North America. Here's a detached overview from a 2006 piece published in the New York Times Magazine.

But Denise Sproul also saw Uno's win as an opportunity to educate a now-curious public about the right way to go about researching and acquiring a beagle -- or for that matter, any dog. While I imagine you could have written this advice yourself, perhaps you could help her pass it along (and send any beagle-curious people her way):

If you're wanting a beagle, and you're not going to adopt one from a breed-specific rescue organization, at least talk to someone in beagle rescue -- whether in your area, or any region of the country -- and get information about the breed before getting one. Otherwise, you're going to be in for a big surprise!!

I've had lots of surprises over the years with my beagles, and I can only hope my life will continue to be filled with more. What about you? Am curious about your take on beagles, breeding, pet shops, Westminster, and the U.S. as a humane place to be a dog...

12:42 AM ET | 02-14-2008 | permalink | comments (44) | e-mail post

 

Amazon: A Reluctant Goodbye

Well, it's time to move on from our week in the Amazon. At least to the exclusion of the rest of the world. No doubt Rosario Costa Cabral and the planet's other inspirational farmers, gardeners and environmentalists will continue to be our guests on Talking Plants.

A few parting shots, if you will; not a whole lot to say, just some photos I have yet to share.

Admittedly, I didn't spend a great deal of time mastering the names and kinds of of Amazon flora (a good reason to go back). Little, in fact, was blooming but on our canoe trip, we did manage a small breakfast bouquet.

But there was no missing the dollop of green that came floating down the river like an emerald island (below). It was water lettuce, a staple of American water features coast to coast. This is a wonderful annual aquatic; seeing it was like running into an old friend.

Perhaps it's enough to know that the places, people and moments we've been visiting in the Amazon are real and possible.

8:15 AM ET | 02- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

 

Rosario's Jungle: a Brazilian Adventure

If I let go of my Amazon adventure, I might find myself in Washington, D.C. And you wouldn't wish that on anyone, right?

So here's to living in the moment ... just not this one. Instead, I've collected a few of my favorites -- some in sound, some in pictures, some in words -- and buoyed by the stunning skills of my digital media colleagues, I invite you to visit the Rosario family on the Mazagao River in nothern Brazil.

The trip's on me.

...CLICK TO PLAY..CLICK BOTTOM RIGHT SQUARE TO GROW..

4:16 PM ET | 02- 6-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

 

Amazon Q&A

Just to catch you up, this week we're focusing on Rosario Costa Cabral, one of the world's more inspiring farmers.

Talking Plants community member Julian Blackwood recently asked a number of in-depth questions that were beyond the scope of the NPR Amazon story. I thought I'd post his q's (edited for clarity) with answers provided by Columbia U. ecologist Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez, who is an expert in Amazonian biodiversity and has known Rosario for a decade.

Q: Since (Rosario farms on) tidal land, presumably the water is somewhat saline? Or is it backed-up fresh river water that floods her land twice a day?

A: The water is not saline. The fresh water of the Amazon actually extends far into the sea.

Q: If the flood-tolerant pepper plant anecdote was accurate, it raises the interesting question of how that particularly valuable gene combination for flood tolerance (if that's what it is) is maintained in a partly cross-pollinating crop.

A: Well, the flood threat (and natural selection) is constant as is the human selection process. So presumably if cross-pollination does occur, any non-tolerant plants that might result are quickly eliminated. But I also saw that Dona Raimunda (Rosario's mother) seems to do some hand pollination with some vegetables; she shakes the flower of onions onto other onions. She says that way she gets better bulbs. How and where she learned this I don't know.

Q: The reference to distributing cassava "seeds" (of her improved selection) presumably meant the usual stem cuttings used for clonal propagation - as cassava is cross-pollinated. But the really big question is exactly what land was she actually farming when you visited?

A: When Rosario and her family came to Mazagao they could not bring cuttings but rather seeds (although as you point out, reproduction by cuttings is the usual process). The family had been dispossessed from their farm and were not sure when and where they would plant again. Any cuttings would have probably died. She also apparently distributed seeds not cuttings; people try out the seeds on their own land, select on their own. On her own land she plants her own cuttings.

Q: I understand Rosario's farming on logged-over land. She is probably planting gaps in various glades, cropping them until soil fertility or pest build-up drives her to a new plot (similar to traditional "shifting" cultivation). Let's hope she changes plots regularly so that the soil is not exhausted to the point where only tertiary scrub can regenerate (her planting of local tree species was good news).

A: Rosario is indeed planting in gaps and she moves annuals and semi-perennials around every few years to other parts of her landholding. Of course many of her crops are actually perennials and are native trees. The problem with fertility loss in the floodplain is not nearly as great as you might have in an upland site. The twice-daily tides carry and deposit nutrients and the flooding (both tidal and seasonal) probably helps keep down some pests.

11:28 AM ET | 02- 6-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

 

Amazon Animal Farm

I've got good and even better news for those of you expecting a slide show today. (Welcome to the Year of the Spin). The good news is that the slide show is so cool -- with music, birds, river splashing and narration -- that several of us are now up to our elbows in production and it's taking a tad longer than expected.

The even better news is that in hoping to mollify those of you who heard Rosario on the radio and want more, I've got animal pix from the Rosario family farm. Who could resist this face?

Being a lifelong vegetarian, I tried not to get attached to the little piggy (pictured below, and by the way she's going to be sold; the Rosario family wouldn't touch her), but I nearly fainted from cute overload when I first spied her with his little hoofs hooked over the barn door. Her massive mother, however, Boneca (Doll), is a cherished member of the Rosario family; it seems there are enough stories about her to fill a few childrens' books. My favorite is the story about how she collapsed after eating something clearly lethal, and was subsequently revived by several pots of strong black Brazilian coffee.

One of the reasons there are plank walkways around the entire Rosario house is because the ground floor belongs to a bunch of roosters, chickens, and ducks. The ducks and chickens are easy to live with, but those roosters! They start crowing at about 3am and until evening falls, they never seem to stop. Of course, that's only news to those of us who are more accustomed to car horns and pistols going off at night, not farm animals.

The ducks seems to have the most fun, alternating between dry, muddy and aquatic terrains. I particularly loved the way they paraded up and down the pier during low tide; this close to the mouth of the Amazon, the tides came and went twice a day. After spending a week bathing and swimming in this Amazon tributary, I am living proof the river is quite benign.

I wouldn't have guessed that all these free-range farm animals would get along so well -- true, the dog has been known to steal eggs -- but even the cats are (relatively) well-behaved. They're certainly not warm and fuzzy like my own Lulah, but unlike Pao Preto the dog, they're allowed in the kitchen. And I might add they are quite the beggars.

Come back tomorrow for the first Talking Plants slide show, when I will prove there is more to life than Super Tuesday...

3:04 AM ET | 02- 5-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

 

A Not-So Mythic Amazonian

She likes to be called Rosario. Her full family name is nearly a dozen syllables long.

She lives as simply as a human being could hope for and it isn't because she's lazy or unambitious. She is a woman born and bred in the Amazon, and whether it's fish from the river or fruit from the forest, she knows how to coax everything she needs out of the landscape. "The forest likes me," she says. "I look after its young."

Intrigued? You ain't heard nothing yet...

The permanent Rosario household includes her mischievous 82 year-old mother and her two 40-something brothers, but at any given time on any given hammock you'll find one or two of Rosario's stepchildren (the youngest is 20), near and distant relatives, and the odd ecologically-inclined academic.

Bar none (except perhaps his wife, Christine Padoch of the NYBG), the Rosario family favorite has got to be Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez of CERC, who often comes bearing gifts of California pistachio nuts.

The Rosario family has lived on this land now since 1991. Everybody works extremely hard and the results are obvious, including the new house they were able to build out of their own lumber a year ago. The house is very open with high, high ceilings and can accommodate an untold number of hammocks; each room has a door and a single light bulb, but otherwise the house is largely empty, a blessing in such stifling heat.

Not surprisingly, though, the center of life is in the old kitchen, connected to the new house by a covered walkway. The kitchen, for my money, has the best view of any -- into that jungle of a backyard.

So many pictures, so little time...which is why I invite you back tomorrow to enjoy the Amazon slide show we're busily putting together (how many shots of the piglet and the dog can you take?). In the meantime, I will leave you with the one image that's earned pride of place on my piano and I think you'll see why...

Tomorrow, the slide show. And a taste of acai...

9:34 AM ET | 02- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (50) | e-mail post