Camellias At Dusk In A Chinese Garden

If it isn't already on your radar for the trip you will inevitably take to my fair city, Portland, OR. (enough about theirs), do not choose between this and fill-in-the-blank: Powell's, Multnomah Falls, Forest Park, your sister-in-law's. The name of the game here in any weather is the Classical Chinese Garden.

The light was fading, the rain was falling and the leaves played like fish beneath one of the many pavillions that provide respite in the garden. Not a great many maples were still holding their leaves on this 1st day of December, but this little poser kindly obliged. Need sound? Give a listen to this story.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I am no indiscriminate city booster. And never mind that my voice is on the audio tour (snore). I have watched this garden grow and mature since its opening in 2000 and I now consider a good many of its plants my personal friends. As such, I can think of no other garden open to the public where it's absolutely always a good time to visit (OK, so skip it when it's crowded). Of course there are richer moments than others -- particularly when fragrances float on the air -- but the garden is simply too complex to reveal itself in any single day.

The last fruit on a persimmon tree as shown off by a shower of weeping willow and the peaked roofs that take wing throughout the garden. I like to think of them as directionals to more celestial planes.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I fear you're going to want to know the name of the persimmon tree above. The number of Diospyros species is frightening so as of this writing I can't say for sure, except that because it's in the Chinese garden, it ain't going to be one of our native trees.

It was probably 4:15pm when I stopped by to grab a few pictures, almost too late for natural light but high time for a tripod. Alas, none to be had. This low-growing camellia's blossoms were spread out in such a way that its flowers seemed to float along the ground.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

9:51 AM ET | 12- 2-2008 | permalink

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What Happened to November?

I know it's amusing when death takes a holiday (see: movies, books, musicals, The Sopranos, etc), but infinitely less popular when a blogger does the same. And I didn't even go anywhere, at least not physically, though I do remember enjoying myself with Florence Of Arabia. And unless it was a nightmare, I'm pretty certain I was burgled; certainly, all my jewelry's gone.

As for the garden, it too seemed to have missed November having opted to stay October an extra couple of weeks. That's over now. The gold, pink, orange and red that's been flying like confetti now looks as celebratory as moldy cardboard -- though the bite-size birch leaves do seem scattered like golden coins.

Hang on, something's just come back to me: a trip to the Chinese Garden here in Portland with my mom. Alas, though, I was without my camera, so I didn't think you'd want to hear about the sweet scent of small-flowered osmanthus or the delicate petals of fall-blooming camellia without
being able to see for yourself.

Forgive me if I was wrong and allow me to make amends. If there's still any light left after work today, I'll revisit the delicate camellia and ask her to pose...

2:32 PM ET | 12- 1-2008 | permalink

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WHO? White House Organics, That's W.H.O.

Eat the view! Buy virtual pieces of the White House lawn! Roger the Gardener vs. Joe the Plumber! And now The Who Farm!

Introducing Daniel Bowman Simon and Casey Gustowarow, primary "WhoFarmers", two guys who are joining others in petitioning the White House to use some of its vast waste of a lawn to grow organic food.

Their petition is full of heartfelt recommendations to the Farmer In Chief-elect:

We, the people, respectfully request that an organic farm be planted on the grounds of The White House, at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC.

The White House Organic Farm (aka TheWhoFarm) will be a model for healthy, economical and sustainable living everywhere. It will serve as an educational tool and economic aid, and as a means to provide food security in the Nation's Capitol. It will reconnect the Office of the Presidency to the self-sufficient agricultural roots of America's Founding Fathers.

The White House Organic Farm Recipe

Article I: The Farmers
Public school children and Americans with disabilities will work The White House Organic Farm, to set an example for the world of hands-on learning and will foster an independent, do-it-yourself work ethic.

Article II: The Eaters
The White House Organic Farm's harvest will provide fresh food for the President, the President's family, and the President's distinguished guests. Just as importantly, it will also supply healthy food to public school lunch programs and food pantries in Washington, DC.

Article III: The Delivery
Food from The White House Organic Farm will be delivered to local public schools and food pantries by volunteers on foot and by bicycle, at a net-zero cost to U.S. taxpayers.

Article IV: The Seeds
The White House organic farmers will plant a diverse mix of heirloom seeds passed down from Thomas Jefferson's farm at Monticello and seeds donated by American farmers and gardeners, to celebrate both the rich agricultural traditions of the Office of the President and the passions of everyday Americans for working her fertile and bountiful land.

Article V: The Soil
The White House Organic Farm will use healthy topsoil, nourished by compost supplements from yard and food waste from all three branches of the federal government; from The White House, from The United States Capitol, and from The United States Supreme Court.

11:12 AM ET | 11-20-2008 | permalink

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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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Wonder What To Do With Your Fab Fall Photos?

If you're new to Talking Plants you may not know about our photo community. Given some of the stunning shots showing up there today, I wanted to be sure you take a look and consider delighting us with some of your own stolen moments from this 2008 fall.

Given what else this season has brought us, I suspect you'll find our photo album a very safe haven -- and there can never been too many of them.

"Ready to fly" was taken by TP regular Aleth Matrone who tell me she moonlights as a professional skydiver "and/or" an insurance claims specialist. And you thought you were interesting?

photo credit: Aleth Matrone

 

The majority of our group is enamoured with macro shots, and having tried a number of my own I know there's more to it than hitting the old "macro" button and hoping for the best. I find I have better luck with the big picture, which of late has been fairly mindblowing as I continue to hike my favorite (nearby) places on the planet.

I've been spending way too much time talking about the Wallowa Mountains and the nearby towns of Joseph and Enterprise, but now I can brag all I want without incurring the wrath of locals because the mountain passes involved in getting there have become quite formidable.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine

 

I'm going to give the last word to Aleth for capturing a moment we've all stumbled into but perhaps have never fully seen.

Aleth spied this moment on her 17 acre farm spread in Kutztown, PA. A little light, a hint of red barn, and suddenly I'm no longer in front of the computer but smelling the sun on hay. Thanks, Aleth.

photo credit: Aleth Matrone

 

10:42 AM ET | 10-20-2008 | permalink

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Look What's Rocking At Versailles

I was driving through the slate gray gloom of fall this morning tuned -- bien sur (accent aigu, oui?) -- to Morning Edition, when I heard Eleanor Beardsley's story, King of Kitsch Takes Over Versailles.

Hearing the outspoken French thrash and gnaw at the current Jeff Koons retrospective was plenty amusing, just the kind of audacious controversy the Sun King Louis XIV might have enjoyed. As he also might have delighted in Koons' whacko floral fantasy, Split Rocker.

Not an easy work to capture with one photo, Koons' fantastical creation is a 40' high stainless steel statue weighing 11 tons and covered in 90,000 flowers and plants.

photo credit: jean-marc

 

Split Rocker in its original form was first unveiled in 2000 at the Palais des Papes cloister in Avignon, France. As described in Art in America, it represents "the head of a child's rocking toy--half pony, half dinosaur--with large yellow "handles" protruding from each side".

As described by Koons, "I thought this is the type of work that Louix XIV would wake up and have a fantasy that he'd want to see. And he'd tell his staff and Voila! he'd come home and there would be Split Rocker".

Which explains why no one's been tending my autumnal garden. I forgot to tell the staff...

1:21 PM ET | 10- 8-2008 | permalink

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Flower Phobia Cured By Fall Color

Back in June, while visiting the romantic garden of my friends Len Porter and and Peter Goldblatt, I confronted a chronic weakness I would have to overcome. Call it Fear Of Flowers.

I've justified it for years despite abuse from esteemed colleagues (just ask Nina Totenberg). I've even gone to great lengths to intellectualize it; consider this excerpt from my book, Plant This! :

As for choosing plants by their flower -- well, given the fickle nature of beauty, I trust this ornamental feature least of all...Which is not to say I'm perverse enough to covet a garden without bloom. But when you balance their capacity for transcendence with their utter unpredictability, flowers can break your heart. Obsessing over them is much like throwing yourself into an unstable relationship that has no real substance only dizzying sex.

Fine, so grow plants for their flowers...

On the whole, I still stand firmly by the idea that flowers are the icing, not the cake. But that's still no excuse for a plant lover like myself to cop out when it comes to choreographing color. On this first day of October, with nary a leaf turning crimson or yellow, I'm more grateful than I've been all year for the flowers now in bloom.

My hands down late season favorite is Leonotis leonuris. Other than its color (the same as my house), I also love the different stages of flowering on any given stalk. I spent a small fortune on a large Monrovia plant several months back; time will tell whether it'll be as robust next year.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

For my favorite color, orange, I've got the tender perennial lion's tail (above) and the low-growing, self-seeding annual Begonia sutherlandii. I'm also trying a variety of unusual, orange-tinged dahlias from Cistus Nursery here in Portland.

For magenta, I rely on that ever-blooming, always-scrambling, black-eyed Geranium 'Ann Folkard'.

And for blue, I vote with the hummingbirds: hardy salvias including S. patens, surely the truest bluest of flowers, and that towering giant for the back of the border, S. guaranitica.

Don't hold the composition and light against me as you behold this little confection I threw together for Rosh Hashana dinner (which was complete with kasha varnishkes). Along with the Leonotis, I added a one-two punch of a plant, Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue'.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

1:06 PM ET | 10- 1-2008 | permalink

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300 Downed Trees And Counting

The good news is that all of the Houston Arboretum's staff is safe and sound after Hurricane Ike. The inspiring news is that volunteers armed with gloves, tools and tons of good will are helping clean up debris.

Which leaves us with the somewhat sad news that lots and lots of big oaks have bit the dust along the Houston Arboretum's Alice Brown Trail.

Post oaks and willow oaks are the big losers at the Houston Arboretum. Invasive species will likely be the winners. With so much shade lost and ground disturbed, it's inevitable that the problem plants the Arboretum always faces -- particularly Chinese privet -- will take advantage of the lincreased sunlight and the chaos.

photo credit: Lori Hutson, Houston Arboretum

 

The Arboretum is a 155 acre sanctuary native forest where hummingbirds are feeding and birds once again singing after the storm. But the hiking trails are still unpassable. If you're in the neighborhood and would like to help out, contact Lori Hutson.

9:55 AM ET | 09-18-2008 | permalink

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Cat, Roof, Neighbor, Ladder, Labor Day

It's 5:30 am Labor Day morning and I hear Lulah crying. Which is odd, because I let her out at 4:30am and left the door open for her return. The crying continues so I get out of bed and check all exits/entrances. No Lulah, more crying. It takes me a few minutes, but finally I find her.

Lulah against a morning sky with the delicate silhouette of Sophora microphylla, but we're not talking plants this morning, we're talking Lulah's inexplicable trip to the roof in what is the first time in our four years together.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Now it's 6:00 am and I take out my only ladder. It's completely inadequate, i.e., total crap. I briefly consider getting out on the ledge below the roof to keep Lulah company, but having recently fallen down my own back stairs only to land on the basement concrete floor, I reluctantly forgo the risk.

I decide to e-mail my neighbor Paul, an early-waking walker who, like me, is often online. Never have I been more grateful for the invention of the Blackberry. Paul gets my message and goes into action.

Paul Anthony, generous neighbor and dependable early riser; elapsed time between distress call and response, 10 minutes.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Lulah, bless her, stays put while we prepare for her rescue. For a moment I think she looks amused, but she's not that cerebral. Certainly she's stopped mewing and is no longer pacing in distress.

And so I ascend to her rescue on this well-named labor day. No doubt you'd like to see a better picture of our happy protagonists, but one of them had seriously bad bedhead.

photo credit: Paul Anthony

 

9:28 AM ET | 09- 1-2008 | permalink

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Xeriscaping Still Gets Bad Rap

Yet again, the art of landscaping with minimal watering takes a hit. In a lushly photographed New York Times article with the yummy title, A Sustainability That Aims To Seduce, author Stephen Orr paraphrases (note emphasis) a few landscape architects as suggesting that xeriscaping can result in "dusty summer yards full of scrappy native species".

I'm not bashing the landscape architects or Orr, per se. The article's thesis is that even people who can afford hiring landscape architects are increasingly environmentally sensitive, and even landscape architects (long-maligned for their lack of expertise/imagination in using plants) are integrating xeric principles and celebration of place into their designs.

What gets me is the lack of acknowledgement that the days of "scrappy native species" are also over. These days, people who love plants and live in hot, dry areas now have unbelievable choices. It's a revolution in gardenworthy species that began in New Mexico with David Salman's High Country Gardeners, and continues around the country and the world.

It's a solid-enough article for the NYT, but if you're not among the privileged and the monied -- who often seem to lack the great, good sense that they have to share the planet -- this last quote may stick in your throat.

... the message of conservation and environmental responsibility cannot be couched in punitive terms if it is to succeed. "People shouldn't have to make a choice between beauty and sustainability," Ms. Cochran said. "Our work is designed so that I am able to say to our clients during a presentation, 'Oh, and by the way, its also sustainable.' "

11:25 AM ET | 08-21-2008 | 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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Order in the Courtyard

What Would Eve Do, Part Three

No matter how many books you read of the GARDEN DESIGN MADE SIMPLE! variety, no matter how many measurements you take or design principles you follow, there is nothing and I mean nothing easy about designing a space, let alone one that will be constantly changing every month of the year.

Perhaps I should clarify: there is nothing easy about designing an outdoor space alone. If How-To books work for you (they make me rigid and stupid), so much the better, you don't need to rope a lot of people into your process. But ask what Eve would do, and she'd answer, Brainstorm.

Legions escorted me along the design road: thank you designer friends Michael Schultz, John Forsgren and shvester Susan Levine). Above, the folks that helped me nail it: meet Nani Waddoups (left) and Roy Oudinot. Roy is a landscape contractor who gave me quotes and graciously handed me over to another contractor who specialized in what I finally chose. Nani (she picked my house colors two years ago) is an all-around, class-act designer with great taste who I happily paid by the hour. In the middle of the picture is a trompe l'oeil by an artist named Simple. This piece has lived everywhere I have for the last 14 years.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

You don't have to brainstorm with experts. All it takes is a few imaginative and generous friends. But if what you want seems beyond the scope of casual converstaion, scout around for a local garden that wows you and contact either its contractor or designer.

I don't suggest you lure a whole lot of professionals over to your house and pick their brains without paying them for their time; what goes around comes around and you'll end up on the Avoid This Client list (word travels fast in the trade).

But I do think it's perfectly kosher to tell a designer you're soliciting different ideas and would like to buy an hour's consultation. (You could even ask if your payment might be deducted when you finally commit to that designer.)

After 90 minutes with Nani and Roy (pictured above), a lot of great ideas were proposed and rejected. Among the many things I have come away with are three questions worth answering when you take on a re-design:

1. What's your budget? Mine was $5K. And it was unrealistic.

2. What's driving your design? Could be the budget, could be a fantasy. Mine was the fountain and the narrow lot; it said to me, courtyard. You may need a playground for both kids and adults ... a formal vegetable garden instead of lawn ... a way to make a small space look larger, or a large space feel more intimate.

3. What do you want/don't want? I wanted tidy, easy to walk on, and dog-resistant. I didn't want to weed between pavers, I didn't want anything tracked into the house, and I wanted more hardscape than plants (my plant playground is the front yard). Also, I wanted the color of the hardscape to wed the house and fountain. Not much, right? But it helped me focus. Keep in mind that knowing what you don't want is an excellent place to begin.

And so begins Eve -- with grids, rebar and the ever-present beagle, curled into a construction frame that will soon be home to a tree. Can you see where I'm going here? At least what my hardscape choice turned out to be?

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

After meeting with Nani and Roy and getting Roy's flagstone estimate ($8K-9K, too pricey and conservative for me), I began leafing through courtyard/small garden books and exploring the online work of well-known landscape designers. Let me say loud and clear I owe a great deal to a woman whose work I've never actually seen but have heard about, Bay Area designer Shirley Alexandra.

A few weeks later, I had finally envisioned my courtyard. The question now, did I have the guts to trust what I saw?

In our next installment of What Would Eve Do: tackling the "C" word. Commitment.

12:54 PM ET | 06-15-2008 | permalink

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The Fountain: Hear Me Roar

What Would Eve Do, Part II

Creating ambient sound is a terrific solution to environmental noise. In my case, the noise was so loud -- 40 young human beings embibing at picnic tables on the other side of my fence -- I didn't know what to do. So I called the City of Portland's Noise Noise Control Dept and got the name of its Go-To guy Paul Van Orden, then arranged for him to vist my garden one balmy, noisy night. The results were as follows:

Idea #1: Build a wall. in this case, one that would have to be at least half the width of the lot, @25'. That seemed like a lot of money for a very un-aesthetic result.

Idea #2: Outdoor speakers. To be effective, my own music would have to be uncomfortably loud. Of course I could point the speakers towards the revelers, but that seemed, shall we say, hostile. (Note: that was not Paul's idea, it belonged to my trouble-making friend Mar who didn't understand why I wouldn't just aim my hose at the fence and play Douse the Diners).

#3: Water features. How many, how big, what kind? Paul Van Orden's opinion was that in order for my ambient sound to have an impact, I'd need to make the loudest noise possible, meaning a BIG fountain with HIGH downspouts falling into a DEEP basin. Never mind that the entire space in question is barely 360 sq ft. The only kind of fountain that would make a difference would have to dominate -- audibly and visibly.

Meet co-collaborators Kelly Adams and David Leach of Shadow Land, who built a lovely concrete/stucco wall for friends of mine and seemed to have a nice, soft touch. I'd never seen any of their fountains, but I liked the guys immediately (David turned out to be passionate about plants) and we shared a definite aesthetic: simple and bold.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I'll tell you right up front that the cost of a fountain seemed a pittance compared with the trauma and expense of moving, the only other solution I could think of to mitigate living cheek by jowel with an outdoor cafe. I committed $5K to the project, Shadow Land accepted the challenge, and we let the budget and the desired effect (big and noisy) drive the fountain design.

The easiest decision was that the fountain be made of cinder block. We then decided that the scuppers (a.k.a., downspouts) would be recessed, an easy enough thing to do by arranging the blocks. We took our fountain size measurements off of the house, from the window I'd be looking at the fountain from. That immediately dictated a height of 8' and a width of 11'. Let me tell you, that was one scary commitment.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Somewhere along the line, I decided I wanted the scuppers to be both at different heights and separated from one another by setting them in long rectangles of ceramic glass tiles. I found the brand and colors I wanted locally, then had to special order two of the colors online. It wasn't cheap but the payoff has been enormous, particularly at night when the lights on the fountain's bottom shine up through concentric cirles of raindrops and cast their shadows on the sparkling tiles.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're still in the building process. The guys showed me some scupper choices, I chose very basic ones in a powdered rust finish, and after looking at concrete color samples, we all decided that the fountain should be dark charcoal (knowing it would ultimately fade. That's the deal with sun-bleached concrete).

As for the basin, well, I knew that water had to fall a long way and into a deep receptacle. So that's what I've got: at 9.5' long and 2' deep, it's a watery tomb. And oh baby, does she sound.

Turns out my documentation of the process last year is missing a number of perspectives, but you can get a closer look at the scuppers and tiles if not the basin. At the far end is a banana; if you don't wrap their trunks here in Z8, they die back to the ground each year. But with enough heat, they're back up to 10' by end of August.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

As this mother of all blog items comes down the home stretch, I have just a few things left for you to consider if you want to try this at home.

In order to be able to turn the fountain on and off from the house -- a wonderful convenience, particularly with so much NW rain -- I had to cough up another $1K for the electrical work. What a shocker, not to mention an unbudgeted expense. Secondly, the surrounding garden was trashed in the process, and no one I mean no one was to blame. Creating a fountain like this turns the garden into a construction site. So in answer to the burning question, What Would Eve Do? She'd do the soundblaster first.

And so we have come to the present, and the reason why this garden now needs reviving. Behind all the greenery at the far end is the fence, on the other side of which is dining. You can also see the depth of my watery tomb.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Was it worth it? Did it do the trick? The answer: YES! I am nuts about my fountain, it makes a massive yet evocative sound, and this year I'll put in aquatic plants to fill up its considerable bulk. It doesn't drown out the really high-pitched laughter nor the occasional screeching and screaming, but it fills in all the middle sound and erases at least 85% of the hubbub.

Tomorrow's installment of What Would Eve Do: taking an awkward narrow space dominated by a giant fountain and an orange house and figuring out how to pull it together into a garden.

1:26 PM ET | 06-11-2008 | permalink

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What Would Eve Do: Reviving A Neglected Garden

Tidy. How's that for a design principle? Not what you'd call imaginative or inspired. But after seven years of delicious chaos in my cramscaped (vs landscaped) front garden -- a 25'x50' space where spikey, fragrant, towering and flowering species continue to duke it out -- all I wanted from the side yard was an absence, not a presence. I wanted as few plants in the ground as possible and a hardscape the dogs could neither upset nor track into the house.

A brief June moment in a corner of my front garden, a bonafide sanctuary yards away from a boisterous, energetic and commercially "complicated" street (drugs, prostitution and a wholesome family-style brew pub). I know it's all out there on the other side of the fence, but in here, the only reality is color, texture and movement. Plus occasional energetic bouts of whacking it all back.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Every piece of property has its challenges, whether it's the soil, the neighbor's barking beagle or water-sucking, shallow-rooted trees. Mine is urban density, which has only gotten more intense since I moved in. A few years ago, my peace of mind went right out the window when a cafe opened round the block, its big draw a lot of outdoor seating which instantly put drinking, smoking strangers inches away from my back door.

Come 5pm weekdays and all day Sat & Sun, as many as 40 people with endlessly cloying good cheer would drive me to distraction. (In truth, to tears). I found myself becoming a disgruntled old biddy who scowled, unobserved on the other side of a 10' fence, wishing misery on their good time. Gardening out there was limited to weekend mornings before noon; once the Young People arrived, the noise was such I could no longer keep the windows open in the house.

By last spring, I had to do something: move, or throw money at a solution. I decided to stay put and create thundering, ambient sound.

Proving, yet again, that necessity really is the mother of invention, behold a whole lotta "taking back my space" nearly deafening noise.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Tomorrow's installment of What Would Eve Do: creating a 12' wide, 7' tall fountain without even a sketch of a plan...AND...the leftover ruined yard.

9:48 PM ET | 06-10-2008 | 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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Behold, Sumptuous Snapshots

A recent walk through the Talking Plants photo garden reveals that your eyes are keen and your imaginations fired. How I treasure you roving troubadours of spring.

Guillermo Meraz, aka Guissimo, went for a recent hike near the Merced River in Mariposa County, CA., home to the Sierra National Forest. So you've got to be wondering about those blue wildflowers, huh? Guillermo has the answer:Nemophila menziesii var. menziesii, or baby blue-eyes.

photo credit: Guillermo Meraz

 

Another TP regular didn't have to go very far to find stunning spring ephemerals. The prolific and talented Aleth11 just had to wander into the woods behind her house to behold the sparkle of the truly wondrous Sanguinaria canadensis (that link will take you to the bloodroot profile from my book).

I have this note from our photographer: "These flowers ooze an orange/red color when a leaf or stem is "damaged" so I imagine that's where they got the name. Sounds like a horrible name for such a pretty flower, no? The sap is apparently toxic and has been used in salves and such on warts and skin cancer.

photo credit: Aleth11

 

Finally, though there's not a whole lot new to be said about tulips (after moving to the NW, I'm pretty much ready to give them up, except for the unimproved smallest species), TP friend Troye captured a few lovely shots that pretty much tell the story of why they'll always be a market for tulips.

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Troye's shown us his, time for you to show us yours. The Talking Plants Flickr Group has more than 300 members who've posted almost a year's worth of gorgeous, memorable and classy pix. To join, all you need is a camera and a love of the natural world. We want you!

photo credit: troye

 

2:17 PM ET | 04-25-2008 | 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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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.

Meet Scoliopus bigelovii, an early-flowering member of the lily family that makes its home in northern California, where -- I'm happy to report -- it's too widespread to be classified as rare, sensitive or threatened. Yippee! For that, we might thank native slugs, who are reported to play a role in seed dispersal by eating pod walls.

photo credit: Ed Guerrant, 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

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Gloom Or Bloom?

You may think you know what this is, but I wouldn't jump to any easy conclusions. Wanna guess again?

photo credit: Coburn Dukehart, NPR

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.

photo credit: Blathanna

 

10:38 AM ET | 02-19-2008 | permalink

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It's a Jungle Out There

I'm just back from the Amazon and I'll never be the same.

True!

I had the best of intentions of sending dispatches while there, but man was that presumptuous. The phone connection was dodgy enough, and after one storm, we lost electricity for a blissful night and day.

It may look like a toy in a bathtub full of houseplants, but I assure you, this is the true scale of foliage and fact in the Brazilian Amazon.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

So I've got pictures for the WOW factor and a story I can't wait to tell. It's about an indomitable farmer who experiments with crops people others say can't grow there: fruit trees and palms that must survive under water twice a day. Words can't describe her accomplishments; that's why there's radio! The piece will air on Morning Edition this month.

6:02 PM ET | 01-17-2008 | 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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A Jewel in Dublin's Crown

If you're headed to Ireland anytime soon (weather be damned!), might as well indulge yourself in some seriously luscious flora. In which case, do I know a place for you: the Dublin haunt of one of the world's most celebrated gardeners, Helen Dillon.

If you time your visit right, you may get a chance to sample some of the irrepressible Dillon charm and wit.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

The Dillon Garden is just a bus ride from downtown Dublin, one brief block and a world away from the teeming masses on Sandford Road. The summer I was there (two, three four years ago? who can remember?), one of my favorite plant combinations was this percussive arrangement of masculine plants (yes, I jest).

Euphorbia, allium and two forms of eryngium at peak perfection in Helen Dillon's front garden.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

So how do you get in? Simple! All you gotta do is pay. The Dillon Garden is open Mon-Sat, 2-6pm during the summer, with more limited hours on Sunday. No guarantees you'll see what I did, she's too restless a gardener to just leave things alone, but I would imagine no matter how soggy the weather, you'll find yourself awash in color.

The ultimate use of a see-through Stipa gigantea dripping over a perennial jungle

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

And if it makes you feel any more comfortable about going, by all means tell Helen I sent you.

4:52 PM ET | 07-30-2007 | permalink

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