Great American Garden Survives Santa Barbara Fires

When the Santa Barbara fire began last week in the community of Montecito, I thought of two people: T.C.Boyle and Ganna Walska.

I haven't contacted the author to see if his Wright-designed home suffered damage-- if it has, the last thing he needs is unsolicited e-mail -- but I do know he's spent the last decade not only churning out literature but pulling out weeds and establishing natives in his meandering woodland garden.

Eight years and a few lifetimes ago, I spent some seriously eye-opening time with Boyle. Step right up for a private radio tour of his place as heard on Morning Edition.

The Montecito garden I was really worried about is nothing less than my favorite private garden in the country, Lotusland, once the home and still the work of the flamboyant Ganna Walska, a woman whose greatest creation was undoubtedly her very self. I'm delighted and relieved to report that Lotusland was untouched by the fire.

This otherwise quirky, fantastical and over the top garden is balanced by a (very) few tame and romantic spaces, including the Japanese Garden (pictured above) and the huge, former swimming pool Madam Walska turned into a lascivious water garden.

photo credit: brewbooks

 

Lotusland doesn't actually get its name from the plant but from an evocative piece of music Madam Walska was particularly fond of written by the English composer, Cyril Scott (WRONG! See correction at end of story). You gotta hear it. Here it is as originally intended for piano (can anyone figure out who's performing?) and again as played by the great Fritz Kreisler who transcribed it for violin and piano. Shoot me but I like it best for solo piano.

A peek at the magical Aloe Garden at Lotusland, a place stuffed not only with eye candy but with a world-famous plant collection of cycads, endangered prehistoric plants.

photo credit: Van Swearingen

 

With all due modesty, I'd be delighted if you'd give a listen to this story about Ganna Walska. Not only was she quite a character, but her dramatic flair and idiosyncratic tastes have resulted in one of the most magical gardens I expect I'll ever know.

CORRECTION! Had I gone back and listened to my own story, rather than conjur it up from memory, I would have heard this:

Lotusland, one women's botanical fantasy, may be the most exotic public garden in the country. There's a chance you might even get to see it, should you make a reservation a year or two in advance. The place will leave you breathless--writhing aloes, ferns like fountains, valleys of prehistoric plants. Lotusland's Virginia Hayes likes to linger in the garden that gives the place its name.

Thanks to Virginia Hayes for alerting me that the Lotusland community was about to bust a pod and revoke my open invitation to heaven...

1:41 PM ET | 11-17-2008 | permalink

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Welcome To Candyland: Portland's Platt Garden

Maples, rhododendron, stewartia and fall crocus; tree bark backlit by warm, benevolent light. When last we visited the Platt Garden, my favorite of the plant meccas in this gardenesque town, even its often modest vine maple was feeling very fall.

Go ahead, pinch yourself. It won't change a thing. Life in this landscape is merrily but a dream.

In this ever-changing corner of the garden, the centerpiece is the four-season Stewartia, a tree with great bark, late spring flowers, and delicious foliage. The purple flowers in the forefront are from the so-called obedient plant Physostegia virginiana a long-blooming East Coast native, and a bit behind and to the right are the naked red legs of a shrubby dogwood.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Among the genera championed by the late Jane Platt -- a tradition continued by the very present David Platt -- is the misunderstood rhododendron, a plant that is so much more than the average American landscape would lead you to believe. Admittedly, we're able to grow a huge variety of the shrubs in the PNW that might not thrive elsewhere, but my guess is there are still quite a number of the straight species rhodies worth a shot. (Straight species refers to plants as they appear in the wild, before they've been hybridized and "improved".)

What all the Platt gardeners know -- there are three generations plus a Buddha-like one year old -- is that leaves can be just as astonishing as flowers. And while the garden does have ample rhodie flowers each spring, the best rhododendron foliage holds its ornamental own year-round.

These silvery blue leaves are covered in what's known in rhodie language as "indumentum", a soft and thin layer that can be rubbed off (not a suggestion, just a description of its texture). This particular species is R. pachysanthum (I think; I'm awaiting confirmation), a showy sophisticated shrub which has matured to a 3.5' x 3.5' size.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Many of us gardeners are collectors; I've got a couple of nice species rhodies myself. But the genius of the Platt Garden is the placement of its specimens with an eye towards the combination of texture, color and size.

Sounds like a simple formula but if you're a gardener you know how easy it is to get it not quite right (I don't believe any attempt in your own garden is wrong). If you're like me, you just let the plants do the talking and hope the conversation's interesting but in a garden this large you're talking cacophony if the leafy choir isn't in synch.

In this tapestry, the explosion of stewartia color (there are several in the garden) is now off to the left; the rich purple and plums of a mophead hydrangea dominate the bottom right. This is one small corner of the rock garden (see rock) which is loaded with miniature treasures in spring and lots of year-round evergreen muscle.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Speaking of tapestries, you don't need a whole lot of material to create one. Not if you know how to play with plants.

Here's the tableau up by the front of the house, featuring a spectacular weeping cedar (Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca Pendula' ) spilling over and around the golden foliage of the royal azalea (in truth a rhododendron), R. schlippenbachii. For scale, see that 6'2" Hunk'O'Man, my irresistible friend Kevin Teller.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine

 

With any luck, we'll hear from one of the Platts shortly, if only to tell me that I've gotten a plant i.d. wrong. Kailla, Buddha-mother? David, slave to Flora? Hope you guys'll stop by!

11:41 AM ET | 11- 7-2008 | permalink

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An Autumnal Peek At A Great American Garden

The campaign promises are over; now to deliver the sublime, as we throw open the gates of a private Portland garden on the headiest day of American democracy we are ever likely to know.

Welcome to the Platt Garden, the realized vision of one of the city's late great gardeners, Jane Platt. This three-acre specimen-rich paradise passed from wife to husband (the gentlemanly John Platt is now 96) and then to son. David Platt has been tending the landscape's botanical treasures for almost a decade, often collaborating with his daughter, Kailla Platt. Full disclosure: all three generations of Platts are dear and cherished friends.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

The Platt Garden owes a great deal of its design beauty and plant palette to another of Portland's best places for plant nerds, The Gardens of Elk Rock at Bishop's Close. The plant passions of that garden's founder, Peter Kerr -- who scored plants regularly from the East Coast and England -- have resulted in a number of tree and shrub species that are the oldest of their kind in the PNW. Kerr had two daughters, both of whom gardened. The younger one was named Jane.

Fall-blooming crocus come in dozens of species and rarely do I see them with the same punch and presence as their chubbier spring-blooming cousins. For that reason, I found this small stand in the Platt rock garden a stand-out; I'll have to get back to you whether it's C. medius, C. cartwrightianus or for all I know C. spp. (the last of which translates as 'some species but who the hell knows which one').

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

One more teaser pix before the tour continues tomorrow. It's an image you've likely seen in one form or another before, because when it comes to pure sensuality, few things can beat a stewartia shedding its bark.

Behold the exfoliating surface of Stewartia monadelpha.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine

 

11:14 PM ET | 11- 5-2008 | permalink

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Violet Gage Plums and Wrens Egg Beans

I'm the first to admit this is the last place edible gardeners are going to find great ideas. Hell, any ideas. But at least I can turn you on to one of the more innovative and accessible organic farmers in the country should you ever find yourself within shouting distance of the Portland, OR. area.

Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm is happy to market everything but himself. Fortunately, his extroverted and activist wife Carol -- full partner in grime -- kicks over any bushel that might be hiding his light. Dynamic duos don't come more powerfully suited than these two.

photo credit: Anthony Boutard

 

The Boutards have no website -- I was lucky to find their online article on winter greens -- and they don't do any shipping unless you're their daughter, Caroline, in which case you get fresh produce all year. They have been known to ship their astonishing berry preserves to people they like; I suggest courting favor. But if it's depth of knowledge you're after regarding the cultivated history of fruits, nuts and vegetables, Anthony Boutard is your go-to man.

The best way to get to know him is to get your name on his weekly e-mail, ostensibly a list of the produce he and Carol will be bringing next day to the Hillsboro Farmers Market, but more often than not an invitation into a world of agricultural insights and ideas.

Last week's e-mail was all seed patents and copyrights, all in all a subject way beyond the casual produce shopper, but one of urgent interest to those who grow and collect seeds.

Until the 1930s, plant varieties were not covered by patents or copyrights, and were in the public domain. We don't think we suffered any setback in the field of plant breeding up to that point. For example, crack open Hedrick's Small Fruits of New York (1928) and you will see a much greater diversity in every single type of small fruit than is available today. The utility patent is particularly pernicious, as it strikes at the very essence of traditional farming, saving and selecting seeds, as well as scouting out sports and interesting seedlings.

Later, he continues:

As growers, we do not begrudge paying a premium for good quality material, and we believe buying good quality planting stock is a bargain... We also know the most expensive seeds and plants we plant are those which we have selected and saved ourselves...That said, we think the granting of utility patents to plant traits and the Plant Variety Protection Act were both bad public policy, Faustian bargains benefiting lawyers and clerks, and have done nothing to advance plant breeding in this country.

Do his interests and priorities resonate with yours? Excellent. Oh I'm sorry, did you say you're only in it for the food? Then take a look at what Anthony and Carol have been harvesting these days and you'll either eat your heart out, live vicariously through his mailing list, or, Move!

Plums: A pile of plums are beginning to ripe. We should have violet gages, golden transparent gages, mirabelles, and several different prune plums. Table Grapes: Good selection. Price and Swenson's Red on the fecund side, and Interlaken, Sweet Seduction and Canadice for fans of the celibate. Berries: Chester & Triple Crown . . .we promise. The warm weather has done wonders for the berries. They are sweet. The Triple Crown is back in good form, surprising the Eyores among us. Fresh Shell Beans: Vermont Cranberry, Cannellini, Flageolet and Wrens Egg. We will try to have enough for even the late risers. Cucumbers: Biet Alpha and Boothby's Blonde. Pole beans: Preacher, and some Fortex and Garden of Eden. Spuds nuevas: Charlotte and Red Thumb. Shallots: French red and grisselle

I'm not sure I'd know a Biet Alpha cuke from a Boothby's Blonde, but I feel better knowing there are people like the Boutards on the planet who are making sure that when I'm smart enough to care, both varieties will be amply available.

8:02 PM ET | 09-14-2008 | permalink

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Mr. American Horticulture Redux

Before I overwhelm you with the deep purple and mandarin orange of the promised bromeliad in Dan Hinkley's garden, let me show you how he uses more accessible plants in show-stopping ways.

To pull off a composition like this, you do need to be in a temperate zone where phormium (New Zealand flax) and hardy fuschia winter over most of the time. Sorry to tease if that's not the case. But look how DJH uses the two different phormium species to electrify thess fans of foliage, then picks up the pink-edged swords with a jewel-encrusted fuschia. In the background, right, you can see the feathers of that nasty California invasive, pampas grass (Dan is unapologetic about using it in his colder climate). As for that dash of baby blue in the background, well, you're going to need to garden on a bluff with a limitless expanse of sky.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

While we're looking at spikey foliage, get a gander of this seemingly simple moment, which in fact is a complex combo of color, size and shape. And genera, of course, but in any DJH garden, that is the name of the game. His plants are far from merely decorative; each tells a story from his incredibly rich and adventurous life (despite the fact that he claims he'd rather be home with Robert and the dogs. Ha!).

From left to right, you're looking at Trachycarpus takil, the Kumaon fan palm; Butia capitata, the pindo palm; and a young specimen of the Texas native, Yucca thompsoniana. That's just what's jumping out at us, who knows what lies beneath, above and beyond.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

ALRIGHT! No more dawdling. Here is the plant that stole my heart during my unreasonably brief visit to the maestro's garden in Indianola, Wash.: Dyckia 'Cherry Coke'.

You're going to have to ignore the succulent and the moss not to mention the boulder they're growing on in order to focus on this "hardy" bromeliad (that is, to 20 degrees Fahrenheit). Look down at its feet and behold blades of deep dark black/burgundy foliage; almost like black mondo grass in this pix. Dan acquired his seed from Yucca Do Nursery but who knows if they've still got this particular hybrid. To learn more about the genus dyckia, check out the Bromeliad Society of Houston.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I better get this thing posted so all I've left to say is thank you, Mr. Hinkley, for setting the bar so ridiculously high, that I need never worry about being worthy. I am but a humble worm.

It took me about twenty shots to get "Cherry Coke" in focus, but I do believe this photograph does her justice. I just may risk growing her -- or one of the other dark-foliage dyckia hybrids -- in my new hotspot of a courtyard, if only to experience one season's pleasure of seeing her bloom against my orange house. I'd be obliged if any of you could tell me how to keep her happy.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

2:19 PM ET | 08-12-2008 | permalink

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Mr. American Horticulture

No doubt there are a whole lot of crowns he'd rather wear -- a whole lot of sequined costumes, too -- but once you've won most of the awards in your field plus won over all the people, not one of whom (damn it all) has an unadoring thing to say about you, it's time to ascend the throne and wave to all the little people.

Meet Dan Hinkley, as he's never been seen before.

Lest you think I jest, be assured, I most certainly do. Not about the man's talents or achievements, just about his fame. Dan himself is easily the most uncomfortable about it -- he is, after all, just a gardener in ugly pajamas who stoops to weed -- yet it's his very modesty that is an enormous part of his charm. In the foreground, flowers from the infinitely more graceful South African bulb, Dierama.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I have no intention of being "fair and balanced" about DJH. Not after a dozen years of seriously irreverent friendship. It's hard enough having a friend who is absurdly talented and internationally feted; imagine how it pains me to have to share him with Martha.

Anyway, the reason for this post (the same reason as hers, alas) is that I'm just back from a 12-hour overnight stay at Dan and partner Bob's home in Indianola, Wash. (From Portland, figure a round trip drive of 10 hours.) Why a 12-hour stay, you ask? Why not 18 or 24? Well, you see, being such a good friend, I am simply grateful for the few waking hours we had together, before I was bodily removed from the house and chauffeured to the ferry before the arrival of the higher-ranking, European, 48-hour guests.

But hey, look what I saw:

Dan's full sun, windswept garden has a lot of DJH signature moments, such as this "blueaceous" combination of the South African genus, Agapanthus (left; no idea which cultivar) and a selection of the so-called Chilean potato tree, Solanum crispum 'Glesnevin' .

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

There's just no end to the list of different species Dan's introduced to horticulture in his nearly two decades as a force in the plant world (not counting his years before that teaching). Thousands have been grown from the seeds he's collected on plant-hunting expeditions in the temperate world; thousands more were existing but little-known plants he popularized during his years as a nurseryman. I still have notebooks filled with the Latin names of plants I first encountered and fell in love with at his previous home with its vast, magical woodland garden.

Now he's worshipping the sun.

Mid-summer in the garden is total exuberance. In the foreground is a species gladiolus (that means it's unimproved, looking just as it does in its South African home). The upright red panicles behind it belong to the perennial, Lobelia tupa. More blue agapanthus in the background and behind that, well, I forgot to ask.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I'm looking forward to blowing your mind with tomorrow's entry about Dan's purple-leaved, tangerine-flowered HARDY bromeliad ... and I've got the pictures to prove it.

11:00 PM ET | 08-11-2008 | permalink

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Get 'Em While They Last

Three years ago, a formidable nonegenarian named Hortense Miller -- vegetarian, environmentalist and early feminist -- discussed her longevity with a reporter: "Well, there's an end to everything. Good God, I'm 96 years old. I ought to die. And I don't do it. I don't know what's wrong with me."

Alas, Hortense Miller was merely human. The gardener who spent 40 years creating what is now the Hortense Miller Garden in Laguna Beach, CA -- plus a few decades writing about plants -- died last week at the age of 99.

Many thanks to blogger Cindy McNatt at Homebody; otherwise I would have missed the woman's passing.

Now you may very well take issue with my headline, but you cannot argue that as elderly gardeners die, they leave the planet both richer (for all their hard work) and poorer (all that sagacity, gone). And since only the smallest percentage of them end up famous enough -- or rich enough -- to be written about and feted, I'd like to suggest that there may very likely be an uncelebrated Hortense Miller living somewhere near you.

Here's my pitch: If there is a senior gardener in your neighborhood, maybe this is the summer to make a little time for her. Or him. Or them. Maybe rather than just nodding or waving, this is the summer to stop and chat. Ask about her trees, his secrets, their memories; offer to dig something out of your garden for them to try. More than likely, you'll end up with something lasting and perennial from them.

I say this because life goes so ridiculously fast and death, well, any gardener knows it comes with the territory. But at least we gardeners get to pass around our passions, like burst pods scattering seeds.

1:40 AM ET | 08- 6-2008 | permalink

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In The Garden Of Sampson And Beasley

What you can't see in this little pix is the flagstone stage on the left, designed for -- and featuring this very night -- Portland's own Pink Martini.

photo credit: Phil Miller

Nothing like a mega-party in a mega-garden to put stressful issues like entertaining in perspective. This past weekend, a mere 350 of us went to a fundraiser at Bella Madrona, five crafted acres almost solely maintained by my extraordinary friend Geof Beasley with no interference -- quite literally -- from his gracious partner, Jim Sampson.

With all the socializing, the dinner and the dancing (alas, not me), by the time we strolled the garden it was too dark for pix. But if you'd like to see a few colorful snaps of this magical place, check out the Digital Diary entry from my pre-blog days on the now deceased Web site, Talking Plants.

So many distinct garden rooms, too numerous to mention, including highly cultivated and wonderfully wild spaces. This is a shot at dusk looking down into the conifer garden. In typical Geof Beasley style, conifers are just a part of the picture; sprawled on the ground and in delicious fat mounds are hebes, heather, grasses and always a dash or six of perennial color.

photo credit: Phil Miller

 

11:00 AM ET | 08- 4-2008 | permalink

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Eve's is Open for Business

In another attempt to answer Talking Plant's most popular query, What Would Eve Do?, the answer is...

Party!

Who knew that all it would take to get this relatively reclusive woman to socialize was to revamp her neglected side yard. Behold the evidence:

Is this an ad for bourgeois living or what? Yes, my futon/backpack days are indeed over. Above and below, gaggles of wonderful guests too numerous to mention chow down during a three-course pot luck (were you dreaming?). In-between, the space in which I recover after they leave.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Naturally there is no Eve; I'm the relative recluse (big duh). But now that my courtyard's doing the talking for me, the genetic sting is gone from keeping visitors amused (see: Roz Levine). Mind you, it does take me a few days to recover each time I socialize, but I've been assured it will get easier.

It's taking me much longer to recover from the cash spent on my urban hideaway, and I've only just begun to put in plants (an enviable state, isn't it?). You've already met my new Aechmea (which, alas, has not yet been potted) but this is my first opportunity to discuss the plant that's one of my key architectural elements, Firmiana simplex, the Chinese parasol tree.

Behold the slightly stressed leaves of a newly planted parasol tree as it adjusts to a summer in the sun (believe me, it looks much worse in real life). The tree is one of four I planted directly in the courtyard hardscape which was designed with 2'x2' planting holes.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Here's what firmiana offered me beyond all other runners-up: strong vertical lines, good winter color (the trunks are bright green all year), tropical foliage and in a few years, a luscious shade canopy. And let's face it, the courtyard needs a lot more cover now because of all the concrete which has made the mid-day sunshine all the more brighter and hotter.

Despite considerable warnings of its invasiveness in the U.S. (e.g., Texas and the Southeast) I am not concerned about them spreading here in Portland's inner city. One bad winter anyway and they're likely to get cut back to the ground. While they'll small enough, I also have the option of pruning their flowers before they set seed.

But enough politically correct apologizing, I doubt there are a dozen mature parasol trees in the entire state.

Whadya think?

4:43 PM ET | 08- 1-2008 | permalink

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Radical Front Yard Gardener Throws in the Towel

Lest you think all do-good gardeners suffer from eco-hubris, don't miss the latest entry by D.C. gardener Susan Harris over at our friends' place, Garden Rant.

Having removed her front lawn with valiant determination, intent on growing her own food, Susan quickly realized "that my front yard - that most visible of spaces - would look like crap for most of the year, and I suddenly lost heart".

She then switched to a savvy hodge-podge of low-growing ornamentals.

No doubt I particularly love her blog post because I'm constantly having to defend my decision to have an ornamental-only garden. Never mind that I don't cook; people just seem so disappointed that I don't graze in my own garden and grow my own food.

Morally disappointed, that is.

But I do graze! For the two weeks it's in flower, I eat the sugary sweet petals off my pineapple guava. I also steal into my beloved neighbors' lawn-dominated garden and gobble down the raspberries growing along their fence.

Then I stuff my pockets full of cash, head to any number of Portland's farmer's markets, and like a great humanitarian lavish my wages on our hard-working local growers.

The market economy welcomes you back, Susan!

9:26 AM ET | 07- 9-2008 | permalink

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A Plant Nerd Worthy of the Name

Ever so slowly here at TP, strangers are becoming regulars, and regulars are becoming friends. So as I continue dodging your most-asked question, What Would Eve Do? (she'd chew her nails to the bone worrying about how much angst to reveal; I promise an update, soon...) I thought I'd introduce you to one of the many sensational photographers in the TP Flickr pool, an anything but garden variety acolyte of the Goddess Flora.

His name is Rob Illingworth, he says the "real"gardener in the family is his wife Sharon (I guess that makes him, what, chopped liver?), and the couple lives 7 miles north of the MN border in Oh! Canada. Judging by their Flickr page, her passion is woodland and rock garden plants and his is everything she grows.

If it takes a family to create a portrait like the one below -- the plant is Hepatica -- consider this union blessed.

Hepatica clearly thrives in Ontario, at least in the Illingsworth garden, where the couple grow -- and he photographs -- a variety of colors and forms, mostly from seed. The Mr.'s photographs blew me away. In answer to my sheepish question, Um, you didn't color-correct this, did you Rob?, he answered quite earnestly, "I went out and picked two flowers from the plants. I have always intended to do this just to satisfy myself as to colour accuracy. I am pleased to say that the flower colours are very close to what I see on my monitor, which is colour balanced."

photo credit: Rob Illingworth

 

A self-described "plant nerd with a bias to growing rather than plant classification" (aha! he does garden!), this serious amateur recently visited one of the country's more imaginative and certainly better-endowed public gardens, Chanticleer in Wayne, PA. Its website does not do it justice, but Rob's photographs do.

Surprisingly, it wasn't his destination. He had, shall we say, less romantic plans. Rob was visiting the mid-Atlantic region because of a trillum symposium he'd signed up for at a nearby native plant mecca, Mt Cuba. Now that is one serious plantfest of a place. "I went to the symposium not as an expert, but as a keen grower," Rob wrote, "feeling that we could grow many more trilliums here despite our climate."

I can only imagine the notes he took; something tells me this is the guy who'd you'd most want to cheat off during a final. Anyway, among the many pix he's posted from Chanticleer, this one is Rob's favorite:

"Here's a low circular mound of fine gravel very carefully raked into an artful pattern," writes Rob. "The fallen flower petals from the adjacent trees had collected in the ridges making for me a perfect garden memory. While I was there the light was right and I was very happy even though I only had three hours for my visit. Not nearly enough time to see all the garden, but leaving me reason to return".

photo credit: Rob Illingworth

 

So many Illingworth pix, so little time. Be sure to take your own tour through his photos.

And who, might I ask, are you?

2:46 PM ET | 05-22-2008 | permalink

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Pissing Rain and Standing Water

Having just heard NPR's Melissa Block report on the desperation after the quake in Chengdu, and the continuing absurdity of foreign aid not getting into Myanmar, I'm torn as always between talking plants and talking real life.

Right now I've decided they're not mutually exclusive.

Even as eyewitnesses text, phone and e-mail in accounts from China, native lewisias in the Columbia Gorge are pushing from bud to flower absorbing whatever sun's rays are available (all told, not much); the first ruellia and acanthus flowers have been spotted by an Austin blogger; and a U.K. gardener mourns the absence of bad weather as he heads into the region's biggest flower show of the year.

Thanks for the much-needed visits to Zanthan Gardens and Blackpitts Garden; your blog recommendations enabled me to pick today's small if desperately-needed bouquet.

2:00 PM ET | 05-12-2008 | permalink

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Tips from an Amazon Gardener

As heard on radio, as seen in the Amazon, and now, on the TP blog, here are Dona Raimunda's chives protected against jealousy and evil by sentinel eggs.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

Dona Raimunda is a rock star. A meteor shower. A force of nature. It's amazing to me how that much personality can be contained in such a diminutive body.

She is the mother of farmer Rosario Costa Cabral, the Amazon farmer featured in these pages a few months back. Rosario has made a name for herself growing crops never before tried in her region of the Amazon flood plain, where she's encouraged other farmers to branch out.

However...
Whereas Rosario relies on observation and experimentation, her mother channels ancestral know-how.

Dona Raimunda regularly wanders past her seedlings in the course of the day and blows a bit of her tobacco smoke from her pipe to keep away the crickets and discourage butterflies from depositing their eggs.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Dona Raimunda is who-knows-what-generation caboclo, the Brazilian word for the ethnically mixed people who live in the Amazon. In my Weekend Edition Sunda radio piece about Dona Raimunda, I listed six tongue-in-cheek gardening tips I'd observed watching this caboclo gardener at work. My hunch is they'll make a whole lot more sense if you care to join me in her Amazon garden but in any case, here they are:

#1 Mind how you talk to your plants
#2 Cucumbers and cabbage are sworn enemies and cannot be grown together
#3 Chili peppers are stubbornly reluctantly to let go of their fruit
#4 Plants are no co-dependent; they don't care if you garden in a bad mood
#5 Ugly chives save lives (a reference to putting anti-evil eggs in the vegetable garden)
#6 Smokers are welcome in the garden

She is a rare beauty, the dona, but this isn't a very typical pose. She's usually up to something: telling stories, making acai, and of course, talking to her plants.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine

 

3:31 PM ET | 03-22-2008 | permalink

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For Love of a Sinkhole

Q: How many paleoecologists does it take to excavate a sinkhole, find seven previously undescribed bird species and reintroduce native plant species to a place they haven't grown in for a thousand years?

A: Depends on the paleoecologists.

Fact is, some aren't mortal. In particular, keep an eye out for the pair shown below. They were recently featured in an NPR radio report that mistakenly assumed they were human, based on their oh! so convincing paleoecologist clothing.

Closer scrutiny has determined it simply isn't possible for this couple to do as much as they do in as many places as they do it and not be in league with He Who Cannot Be Named. Consequently, approach with extreme caution should the pair be spotted one fine Sunday morning within the nether reaches of Kauai's Makauwahi Cave.

Meet the happy sorcerers Lida Pigott and David A. Burney, whose life work in the field of paleoecology has culminated in a picturesque sinkhole where they're bringing an ancient piece of Hawaii back to life. While the couple may or may not be in league with the supernatural, they do have a lease on the cave property courtesy of Grove Farm.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

We'll post more photos shortly plus details as we gather them. Until then, be very afraid.

11:10 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink

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The World According to Elspeth Bobbs

Introducing one of the country's most enchanting -- and disarming -- gardeners.

After a few hours in Elspeth Bobb's company, amidst so many accounts of the joys and bores in her garden ("Wretched catmint." You don't like it? "I'm not a cat!"), I keep coming back to something her husband once said to her who knows how many decades ago.

"If you weren't deaf, you'd be a menace!"

Indeed, this is a woman who likes to take things on and stir them up. And yes, she's pretty darn deaf.

Even if you listened to NPR's Morning Edition story today featuring Mrs. Bobbs, you'd know nothing of her hearing loss. Somehow, it just didn't seem relevant, given her penchant for turning adversity to advantage. But the fact is, she hasn't heard a human sentence for the last 49 years.

"I can hear birds now, and dogs barking, and people talking," she says, one year after having a cochlear implant, "but I can't hear what they say". Instead, she uses her high tech lip-reading skills for conversation, and draws from memory the colors and nuance of sound.

Not unlike the woman herself, there's more in this photo than first meets the eye. Elspeth Bobb's is only one of two faces shown here. Can you find the other, say, George Washington's?

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

One of Mrs. Bobbs' greatest gifts as a gardener is her perspective: Aim high and enjoy whatever happens. It's a set-up of the cleverest kind; she simply cannot fail.

"Exactly, exactly!" she says. "I don't feel disappointed. For instance, this was all lawn," she says, pointing out a huge area now dominated by art installations, islands of plants and mulch. "After the drought in the 70's, the lawn was an absolute disaster. So we just covered it with plastic and put bark on top. Then I said, well we can't have this, so I thought up something that didn't need water and put in a labyrinth. I like to have a project."

Once the labyrinth was in -- an inviting construction made of wood and lined with fine gravel -- Mrs. Bobbs was persuaded to dabble in the altogether unfamiliar. She now has a vibrant and colorful undulating sculpture created by Santa Fe artist Hillary Riggs, in the shape of a logarithmic spiral.

"It's all done by mathematical principles," says Mrs. Bobbs. "It's all about patterns. I've had a lovely time with it ".

"To be perfectly candid, I simply loathe geometry," says the gardener, "but it is very fascinating." This installation, as well as a labyrinth, have taken the place of lawn.

photo credit: Eloise Colocho

 

A quick word about Elspeth Bobb's water use: All her planting beds are under drip irrigation, and she draws from her own well. Several xeric experiments are underway at the garden; working with her gardener and her daughter, she's currently evaluating plants that need no water. Hands down winner to date? Sunflowers.

One last anecdote from my time with Elspeth Bobbs...

While I was taking her picture, she wondered if she should put on her favorite button. Something told me she didn't mean a nice old lady decorative broach. Before I left, she brought it out, a small round campaign-like button. It featured a large scissor cutting through the slogan, "If You Cut Off My Reproductive Choice, Can I Cut Off Yours?"

"I'm sorry to say," this 87-year old spitfire says anyway, "I'd prefer less people, and more gardens".

While you're not likely to spot them coast to coast, a few of these bumper stickers are currently riding around the country. Not the most likely cult figure, our Mrs. Bobbs, the politically active xeric gardener.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Check out the slideshow from Mrs. Bobb's garden, La Querencia, courtesy of Scott Varner at the Xeriscape Council of New Mexico.

3:00 AM ET | 09- 3-2007 | permalink

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