George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

The Four Life Stages of a Landscape

July 3rd, 2023

   Like most gardeners who have moved, I’ve had to deal with starting all over in a new landscape after spending years parenting an old one.

Much of my revamped landscape is now in the Stage 2 “fledgling” phase.

   My case was probably a bit more extreme than most. My wife and I spent 32 years at our previous home – a third-of-an-acre yard in suburban Cumberland County – before moving to the Pittsburgh suburbs four years ago to be closer to the grandkids.

   The new half-acre yard was more jungle than landscape. It was largely ignored for 10 years before we moved there.

   I spent the first year yanking weeds, pulling 40-foot vines out of trees, and fixing drainage problems before even getting to the planting part.

See before and after photos of George’s landscape makeover

   Now that I have most of the areas that I plan to tackle planted, it occurred to me that I’ve crossed a sort of boundary.

   It’s almost as if the yard has gone from death to birth to some sort of toddler phase. In that sense, landscapes are like people. They go through life stages.

   Each one presents its own challenges, its own rewards, and its own level and lineup of work demands. Here’s how I see it shaking out.

Stage 1

   Stage 1 is birth – that time of digging grass or turning a bare or neglected space into something new.

   Although there’s nothing much to show at this point, I like it a lot because it’s a time of creativity.

   Budget withstanding, you can go in whatever direction you like. Gardens are especially beautiful at the vision stage before the real world of bad soil, not enough rain, and deer attacks show up.

   There’s a lot of work and a lot of expense involved at the birth stage, but the hope and potential more than make up for it.

   After all, more than most ventures, gardening is about the future.

A “Hobby Gone Awry”

June 20th, 2023

   Dr. Ronald Stanley was a fledgling dermatologist when he and his new wife, Cheryl, built a house in 1979 on five acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina.

The first view of Arborcrest Gardens from above.

   At first, Stanley focused on a rather large and innovative vegetable garden that was good enough to be featured on PBS’ Victory Garden show.

   Then he graduated into landscaping with trees, shrubs, conifers, and flowers while adding another 45 steeply sloping adjoining acres in 1985.

   Things started to get out of control in 2009 when Stanley cut his first trail through the new land.

   Fourteen years later, the Stanleys’ property has grown into a 26-acre botanical garden with two-and-a-half miles of trails. It’s planted with a staggering five million plants of 15,000 different varieties – essentially a home garden with more plants than most public gardens.

   The place is called Arborcrest Gardens, and it’s open on a limited basis to the public – only on Fridays during the growing season and only by reservation.

   I got to see this “High Country hidden gem” on a Lowee’s Group Tour earlier this month of North Carolina gardens.

See a photo gallery of Arborcrest, Duke University’s Sarah Duke Gardens, North Carolina State’s Raulston Arboretum, and more.

   This is a garden worth putting on your radar if you’re ever near Boone, N.C., which is a small mountain city that’s home to Appalachian State University.

   What’s especially mind-blowing is that this vast creation is primarily the work of one man.

   Stanley will tell you that Arborcrest is a “hobby gone awry” and that it’s what happens when a plant-obsessed gardener isn’t limited by space.

Composting in Place

June 6th, 2023

   Weeds rank high on most gardeners’ list of landscape vexations, but that’s one problem that’s never bothered me too much.

George on weed patrol with five-gallon bucket at his side.

   For one thing, my strategy of planting real plants wall-to-wall and mulching the limited or temporary openings doesn’t leave much room for weeds to get started.

   Plus, I’ve never minded going on regular weed patrols with my trowel and five-gallon bucket. I look at it as “harvesting compost.” Adding those young yanked weeds to the compost bin turns the enemy into an asset – plus it gives me an excuse to enjoy up-close-and-personal looks at the developing shrubs, flowers, and vegetables.

   The key is getting on top of the weed issue and staying on top. It’s so much easier to do regular but light cleanups than to try and corral an outbreak after it’s gone out of control.

   I know about that first-hand, too, after taking over a landscape that was completely ignored for 10 years.

See before and after photos of George’s landscape makeover

   Now is an important waypoint in the weed journey since June is a peak month both for the germination of summer weeds and the maturation of weeds that sprouted in spring. Allowing any of those weeds to go to seed will magnify your future troubles.

   It may seem overwhelming now as those weeds keep coming and coming. But the good news is that if you do a thorough cleanup now, the germination rate goes down from here on out.

   Some people turn to weed-killers for help. That’s a viable option if you’re careful how and where you spray and follow the label instructions.

   Not everyone has the back acumen and energy to get down there and pull, so herbicides become the only viable alternative to hiring out the weed-control work. (Landscapers usually lean to herbicides anyway and generally charge top dollar even if they’re willing to go the pull/dig route.)

   Kill-everything herbicides also can make sense as a one-time solution to bring a total mess back under control, essentially leveling the playing field for a fresh start.

   I’ve occasionally used spot-sprays but mostly avoid herbicides for a few reasons.

   One is that I’d rather garden with as limited risk to beneficial organisms, myself, and the environment in general as possible.

   Another is that I don’t like the look of the browned-out weeds left behind, which can take weeks to break down… unless I remove them after they’re dead (which is counter-productive if the point is to save work).

   And a third reason is that I like the idea of using the nutrients and organic matter in weeds as a compost ingredient. (I avoid composting toxic weeds like poison ivy or the few weeds that have gone to seed before I could yank them.)

   As I’m aging, I’m always on the lookout for ways to minimize work, especially the bend-over kind.

   One technique I’ve been using more and more is the idea of “composting in place,” or in other words, hiding pulled weeds under nearby plants instead of lugging them by the bucket full to the compost bin.

   I’m apparently not the only aging gardener embracing the idea.

Gardener’s Heaven

May 23rd, 2023

   There’s a place on this planet where the soil is rich and well-drained, where temperatures sit in the pleasant 70s all year, where the sun shines day after day, and best of all, where deer don’t tread.

My favorite garden view on Madeira… the quilt garden in Funchal’s Madeira Botanical Garden.

   This gardener’s heaven is the Portuguese island of Madeira, a volcanic blip in the Atlantic Ocean located 320 miles off of the west coast of Morocco.

   Its southerly location (about the same latitude as Charleston, S.C.) ensures year-round warmth, while its surrounding water keeps it in that stable and plant-perfect 70s range. It’s like eternal spring.

   Unlike in our deer-infested yards of root-blocking clay and extreme, erratic weather, plants in Madeira show their gratitude with incredibly lush, diverse, and healthy growth.

   I got to see what a difference prime conditions breed on a visit earlier this month to Portugal and its Azore and Madeira islands. (See pictures in a new collection I’ve posted on my Photo Gallery pages.)

   Given the trifecta of great soil, ideal weather, and few bug, disease, and animal attackers (a side benefit of ocean isolation), it’s easy to see why Madeira is sometimes called a “floating garden” and the “pearl of the Atlantic.”

How One of the Warmest Winters Ever Caused Some of My Worst Plant Damage Ever

May 16th, 2023

   How could this be?

This is what winter did to my planting of sweetboxes.

   After one of our warmest winters ever – including a January that was nearly 9 degrees warmer than average and a February that averaged 7.3 degrees above normal – my landscape looked like it had been to Alaska and back.

   Most of my variegated boxwoods were the color of toast by the end of March.

   A dwarf nandina, a leucothoe, an aucuba, a band of sweetbox, a trio of gold-variegated box honeysuckles, and a pair of Red Beauty hollies were in various states of brown with rings of fallen leaves at their feet.

   A dwarf ‘Hedgehog’ cedar – an elegant new specimen going into winter – came out the back end completely brown and brittle. Ditto for that little osmanthus I got as a freebie at last year’s Philadelphia Flower Show.

   The ‘Tonto’ crape myrtle I planted two seasons ago had nothing but brown, brittle branches and has died back to the roots.

   Even my plenty-hardy roses suffered noticeably more branch dieback than usual.

   You’d expect this kind of damage in a cold winter, like the kind of sub-zero ones we used to get… or that year the low went down to minus-22 degrees.

   But when winter days are primarily in the 40s and 50s, plants should be safe and happy, right?

   Not necessarily.

   The explanation here is twofold.