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Air Apparent

Nor’easter, or the Santa Ana,

Chinook, or the Elephanta.

So much is determined by wind.

Airport flights grounded,

children’s kites confounded.

We fret the moment they begin.

Consider the breeze,

pray, if you please.

Its nature so fleeting and brief.

On a hot summer’s day,

keeping discomfort at bay.

A gentle and welcome relief.

Tho, at what speed,

does the wind pick up greed.

Ceasing by us to be hailed.

It depends, I suppose,

on the damage it blows.

Bad manners, it heretofore had veiled.

Come January’s freeze,

gusts rattle the trees.

Howling in constant refrain.

Icy blasts from the north,

with snow drifts, of course.

All the subtlety of a runaway train.

Each winter we spec’ in awe,

which Spring day we’ll finally thaw.

It’s the winds the seasons obey.

The fickle March winds,

decide when gardening begins.

Please, let it be blooming before May.

Of elements in the world natural,

wind’s power is a concern quite rational.

With tragic potential not oft-spoken.

Wind’s force we conclude,

(and never misconstrued).

Must be heeded, not broken.

Puff the Magic Mushroom

We've been deluged with rain lately, and more is on the way. For naturalists, rain = opportunity. What we call mushrooms are actually the fruiting bodies of thread-like (called mycelia) plants that live underground, known as fungi.

Mushrooms will burst out of the ground when enough moisture within the mycelia allows the plant to produce them.

Arriving home this afternoon, I was surprised by the sight you see to the left: a group of Giant Puffball Mushrooms, known botanically as Calvatia gigantea.

Amazing sight. The picture below gives more of a perspective of its size.

G. bi-WHATTTT?

The garden design/build company I founded is named for one of my favorite living things, the Ginkgo Tree.

In Latin, it is known as Ginkgo biloba - the species name 'bi-loba' refers to the leave's 2-lobed shape.

The Ginkgo tree is an ancient tree, with fossil records showing its relatives as far back as the Jurassic-era - some 200 million years ago. The photo below shows an actual fossil of a ginkgo leaf.

Ginkgo trees are Dioecious (dye-e-shuss), meaning male and female sex parts are in separate trees . (another dioecious example are Holly trees).

In contrast, nearly all trees found in today's forests are monoecious- meaning both sexes are contained on the same tree.

Ginkgos are widely planted in cities because of their resistance to pollutants. The fruits of the female trees ripen in fall and create a terribly foul odor when crushed underfoot. The nut inside the fruit is prized for its culinary, health and aphrodisiac qualities.

Ginkgo leaf.

Colorful Autumn Gardens

Late summer, and into autumn, many plants with tongue-twisting names take prominence in our garden. The likes of Callicarpa, Caryopteris and Perovskia set the stage for the final flowering act of the season.

At the time when flower-bursting plants of spring and summer have long exhausted their energies, these latent linguistic shrubs are breaking their dormancy with vibrant blooms to entertain us until Thanksgiving.

You can easily incorporate these into your garden and extend the flowering season significantly.

The following photos show some of my favorites.

Enjoy.

Caryopteris (Kar-ee-op-tor-iss)

Callicarpa (Kal-ah-kar-pah)

Gaura (Gore-ah)

Japanese Anenome (ah-nen-oh-mee)

Crape Myrtle

The Stone Man Cometh

My wife calls me ‘The Stone Man’. Take that anyway you want to, but I know she’s speaking of my love of natural stone for my landscape projects. She found this out the first time we met. You see, she’d just purchased her first house and wanted to create her dream backyard. Finding an advertisement for my company in our local paper, I was one of the contractors she interviewed to take on the project. Luckily for me I got the job, and as it turned out, the girl too.

We collaborated, very closely at times, to create a contemporary garden using classic materials. Her West Coast experiences guided her taste as we set about planning this East Coast urban space.

The gardens included a bluestone patio made from old city-sidewalk slabs, accented with freshly cut squares of a purple stone, locally-known as ‘Lilac’ bluestone. Simple and colorful shrubs (clematis, butterfly bush, grasses and red twig dogwoods), lots of room for annuals (zinnias and herbs) softened the city buildings that loomed beyond her fences. Landscape lighting enhanced her evening get-togethers.

Our running joke is that ‘she answered my ad’. No eHarmony for us – ours was business, pure and simple...at least until the final check cleared.

Nearly 10 years of marriage and a few houses later, we’re still making beautiful gardens together. How Lucky am I?

Rolling (and Tumbling) Stones

I'm always on the look out for new and exciting products to include in my garden designs.

So, when I got an invitation to tour a new manufacturing facility at one of my stone supplier's quarry, I didn't think twice about making the 6 hour roundtrip journey. It isn't often something new comes from out of the earth, especially when the products are made from eons-old stone. What I found at the site was incredible. Here, among the rolling Pennsylvania hills, was a massive operation of quarrying and creating stone products, with inventiveness that went far beyond the typical patio slabs sold in every local stone yard and home center. I was lead through a series of five buildings involved in the process of turning chunks of rock into delicate patio, wall, curbing, benches and veneer products. The last building of the tour contained two machines. The first was a tumbler that rivaled the size of a subway car. Within it, large and small pieces of rock were tumbled with water and stone grit to soften their edges and surfaces - creating stone that resembled broken pieces of well-worn beach glass. (see photos)

The size of the second machine was insane. a stone-cutter, larger than anything I'd seen in my years hanging around such places. Had the magnitude of the operation somehow been lost on me thus far, this close encounter with the colossal stone cutting blade, suspended from an immense hydraulic carriage, erased any such possible ignorance. I was, at first, almost afraid to approach the eleven and a half foot diameter disc, with its hundreds of ear-sized diamond blades. Once I got comfortable being the David to this Goliath, fascination and admiration washed through me. I began imagining the potential for including its products in my designs. We finally made friends as I posed with it to fully reveal its magnitude. (see photo)

I am accustomed to being around large and loud machines but I wasn't prepared for the massive scale of equipment this company used to make their unique natural stone products. If you've ever wondered why buying rocks is so expensive, consider the multi-million dollars of equipment a business has to invest in order to make the stones for your projects.

Look at the different colors of these beautiful bluestone slabs.

Now that was a tree!

The intense rain and wind storms of mid-March left staggering damage to trees and property throughout the Hudson Valley. Our house lost power for the second time in as many weeks, though we were spared the structural devastation so many others experienced.

The giant Oak tree that belonged to the stump in the attached photo crashed down on a client's house, taking with it siding, roofing, decking, patio and other smaller trees.

I measured the diameter of the tree at over six feet. My friend Matt (shown inside the tree) is no shrimp himself. This was one of the largest trees I've ever seen in the Northeast, certainly the largest I've ever been able to crawl into.

Opening Day

What marks the arrival of Spring for you? Is it one thing in particular, like the classic sighting of the first robin? Or seeing bags of grass seed stacked outside the hardware store? Or maybe, like me, it is simply something in the air. For those of us who garden in the Northeast, our personal Rites of Spring are usually tied to events happening in our own backyards.

Gardening has become a national pastime of huge proportions. And, partly because we have become a nation of gardeners, Spring is perhaps the longest-awaited time of the year. It seems that no matter how closely we watch for the signs, the annual rebirth of plants begins long before we realize it--bulbs and perennials popping through the ground, tree buds swelling in readiness to leaf, a hint of color on the Forsythias and a sudden awareness that the remnant debris of Winter on our property needs to be dealt with.

Of course, it isn't just plants that point the way to Spring. Starting in early March, young turkeys descend on our lawn, the goldfinches flying around our birdfeeders turn yellow again and swarms of tiny insects appear out of nowhere, buzzing by for brief moments, only to be gone with the wind. The neighborhood cats overcome their cold weather phobias to, once again, maraud the birds that were fortunate enough to survive the harshness of winter.

Spring is also the beginning of that other national pastime, baseball. Opening day is another of the most-anticipated events in our country. We follow the teams and players for weeks beforehand, watching them stretch, run and throw, working out the kinks in their bodies and games.

Unfortunately, gardeners don't get a Spring Training to ease them into the season. Our opening days count, and are typically followed by stints on the disabled list with calluses, sore muscles and pulled backs.

These two national obsessions are similar in many ways. Like baseball players, gardeners get to work outside and roll around on the grass and we don't work in the rain. Our seasons last only during warm weather, and, like baseball teams, gardeners will travel during the season to other gardens near and far. We even trade plants between gardens--sometimes scandalously in mid-season.

I love visiting other gardener's gardens. I learn a lot when I'm listening to someone describe the thought processes behind their creations. I enjoy having people walk through my gardens, too, but as much as I enjoy visiting new gardens, being surrounded by my own plants, rocks and thoughts definitely qualifies as my own home field advantage.

The 'Paranoid' Gardener

“Now is the winter of our discontent.”
- William Shakespeare, Richard III

As I set fingers to keyboard, mid way through the month of March, a blanket of snow still covers the ground outside my studio. When, in a normal season, I would be following the progressive emergence of bulbs and greening tips of perennials, my current garden view is of the messy flower spikes from last year’s perennials I’ve neglected to cut back.

“Yes! There will be growth in the spring!” - Chance the Gardener (Jerzy Kosinski - Being There)

Needing to justify last seasons’ lack of initiative, I cultivated a back up plan to get out early this year - before new growth starts in earnest. That would be right about now. With the snow and inevitable rain and mud we’ll get in March/April, my already delayed timetable seems in jeopardy.

"Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart."
- Victor Hugo

Even before the weather interfered, my lapse of resolve for mundane gardening tasks led to self-doubt towards getting the work done at all. Aside from last year’s leftovers, there is storm-related damage to trees and shrubs to deal with, lugging the debris to a truck and schlepping it all to the dump. My knees hurt at the mere thought of it all. Besides, it’s warm and dry in the house.

"A little Madness in the spring is wholesome." - Emily Dickinson

I’ll need some serious inspiration to accomplish my goals in a timely manner. Confronting failure and potential public contempt should get me out the door. I awake startled at night, imagining the specter of ever-spreading ridicule for my unkempt gardens. I would be exposed as a fraud. Sponsorships revoked. The backlash would be disastrous to my family’s reputation. Surely these likely consequences would be enough to arm me with the energy I’ll need to get the pruning shears out and go at it. Or will it?

“I like to watch.” - Chance the Gardener (Jerzy Kosinski - Being There)

At long last facing its magnitude, I realize I can’t do the work alone. Deflated and terrified, I suddenly remember my cadre of gardeners lying in wait for the season to begin. With renewed stimulus, I enlist the hoard for the pruning, sawing and disposal needed to maintain the family’s good name. So bolstered by the dozen extra hands, I take the role of overseer, directing and critiquing at a shovel’s length.

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."
- Margaret Atwood

Knowing all will be right by day’s end, I become the ‘gentleman farmer’, digging and pruning only as I please. My neuroses were for naught. As it turned out, there was a solution for my gardening problems. I wonder, however, if anyone on my crew can help with my irrational issues, as well.