Click here to view a slideshow.

Welcome to City Dirt, a new blog about urban gardens and their unique needs and challenges. Traditional garden publications often feature large estates in Northern California or New England that make a gardener's pulse race, but alas, many city dwellers have to make due with a fire escape--and hope that no graffiti tagging takes place near their herbs.

This blog will cover topics that impact gardeners living in a city and their unique needs and interests, whether creating wildlife habitat on small terrace gardens, finding the right plants for windswept rooftops or renovating gardens in brownstones and townhouses. We'll also be looking at civic gardening projects that shape cities and new eco-designs that are part of the "green" movement, such as green-roofs, planting with natives and using plants to clean up lead and other metals from the soil.

For discussions on keeping squirrels out of your bulbs, finding the best planters or announcing various garden club events, you can post on our NYC Forum Page. For those of you facing the illness of a beloved plant--indoors or outside-- you can write our Plant Doctor for advice.

Please sign up for our mailing list so that we can send you updates.

Originally from Montana, Schjanna is a fashion designer. On the night of the New York City black out, she missed her flight to Greece, but instead of being upset, she was thrilled to see stars in the city. When she bought her co-op in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, we knew her terrace garden needed to be like her--chic and a little wild. According to the National Wildlife Federation, there are four main elements for wildlife habitat: Food, Shelter, Water, and Sustainability.

We went to the Catskills Native Nursery to purchase plants that provide food for birds, bees and butterflies. Showing no restraint, we bought lots of flowers in bloom right then. Black-eyed Susans, Purple Cone Flowers, Bee Balm and Coreopsis. We'll deal with spring and fall when they happen.

For the water element, Tiffany designed and created the fountain out of aluminum, which operates on a solar pump, but has an electric one for back-up at night. She also researched and built a bat box. Schjanna's boyfriend was doubtful about this until she explained that a bat eats up to 600 mosquitoes a night.

As for sustainability, we mulched with marble chips to give it a clean, modern look, and to retain moisture and keep the weeds down. Then Schjanna bought a tiny kitchen compost bin. She takes her organic waste to the Ft. Greene Park Greenmarket and exchanges it for fertile compost.

Finally, we applied for the certificate. NWF Garden for Wildlife

Click here to view a slideshow.

Indigenous wildlife, particularly birds, bees and butterflies need native plants for food and shelter, and in return they cross-pollinate them. The wild strawberry secretes its nectar in a thin layer over the flower and is avidly sought by bees; the ripe fruits feed birds. When penetrated by a hummingbird, a jewelweed bloom glides back and forth along the bird's bill, and at the end of each gentle stroke rams into the bird's forehead. In his book "Bumble Bee Economics", Bernd Heinrich (1979) reports observing a bumblebee that visited 800 jewelweed flowers in two hours. Monarch butterflies in migration will forage almost anywhere during their journey, fluttering from wild iris to violets.

To aid these natural acts you can plant native gardens in yards, on small terraces and even in window boxes.

For planting ideas consult the City of New York Parks and Recreation at NYC Parks and Recreation.

In New York City, The Gowanus Nursery Gowanus Nursery usually has a great supply of native perennials and woodland plants.

For day trips visit:

The Catskills Native Nursery in Kerhonkson NY
Catskill Native Nursery

Project Native in Housatonic, MA
Project Native

Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve in New Hope, Pennsylvania
Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve

Feel free to send in your suggestions for using and finding natives.

Behind my apartment is a big mulberry tree, its branches arching over the warped tar rooftop of a factory that shreds cabbage for egg rolls. Believe or not, this unsightly combination is a sort of wildlife habitat. Flocks of starlings, morning doves, rock doves (pigeons) and English sparrows feed on the mulberries and bathe in frenzied flocks. There are a few problems with this arrangement-- mainly that the puddles dry up on the birds, but seem to be there long enough for lots of mosquitoes to hatch.

To keep water from puddling and hatching mosquitoes, for the terrace wildlife habitat we made a fountain. It has a solar pump, but this requires direct sunlight, so there's also a back-up pump for nighttime electricity. We decided to make this fountain out of a material that matches the planters so Tiffany search for aluminum scraps to recycle, (though for the next project, she's hoping for copper to work with, as the aluminum was tough to bend.) Small white marble chips weigh down the base of the fountain and create a shallow, rough surface for birds to walk on. Finally, she attached a driftwood perch for birds just above the wading area.

Next to it we planted two serviceberry shrubs--the flowers for the bees, the fruits for the birds. It's a smaller, prettier, and more sustainable version of the free-for-all I've got going on next door--which is slated to be torn down any day and rebuilt as a luxury condo.

Tiffany researched bat boxes and learned that the box should have six hours of direct sunlight hit it. As well, in northern climates, it needs to be painted dark shades to hold the heat. They also like chambers set close together so they can squeeze into them. The interior surface can't be smooth. They need little ridges so they can move up and down it. Tiffany finished it off with a piece of decorative copper--they don't like anything shiny on their houses, so we couldn't use pressed aluminum to match the boxes. So now we just need some bats to come by next spring...

Sonal's advice, "Urine. Soak the box in bat urine."

To learn how to make a box, or buy one, go to

Build your own bat box
Bat Conservation International
Bat Conservation International

Purchase One:
Gaiam
Gaiam

(but remember, in colder climates, they must be a dark color to hold heat)

Some plants can create shelter along with food. When consulting with Gabriel Willow of Prospect Park Audubon Society, he suggested using a juniper for the double duty. Birds can hide under the cascading branches, and robins in particular like the seeds they produce. We also used a dwarf pine tree for winter duty, but felt that a bird box of some sort was still needed.

Tiffany researched a kestrel box, but we wondered about the ethics of trying to attract a bird of prey along with smaller birds, or, er, the prey. It might get little too wild west out there, and Schjanna would wake to death screams and feathers flying.

Gabriel had also suggested a bat box, since they are pretty flat and would fit nicely on a small terrace. Few people would agree to have a bat box on their balcony, but fortunately, Schjanna was one of them. Her boyfriend balked a little, until she assured him that each bat eats around 600 mosquitoes in one night.

I spoke with Sonal Bhatt, the Assistant Director of Interpretation for the Wildlife Conservation Society, who worked in a bat lab at Boston University as an undergraduate student. She passed along some reasons why she came to like bats:

They are studied for their energy efficiency. She explained that between feeding and flying, they stay right on the edge of all limits. "They are well oiled machines."

Bats are cute. "Not all, like the Least-Nosed bat, but the Brown bat has a cute little face."

The Brown bat eats 600 insects an hour--the pests that destroy gardens.

In the state of New York there are nine species of bats.

Bats everywhere in the world are critical to the eco-system. In some tropical climates, they are the sole pollinators of certain flowers. If they die off, that species of plant does as well.

When I asked her why people were scared of bats, she thought it was because we can't see them very well, and because of their association with darkness. Now many bats are becoming endangered in different parts of the world because there aren't enough trees and caves for them to roost in. So the more bat boxes, the better.

In his wonderful book "Dirt" William Bryant Logon wrote about soil, "A fertile soil transmits forces. Originally it was the only material on the Earth that could hold water. It therefore became the theater when water, earth, and air could interact, where the earth could express itself in the endless variety of organic life." Compost makes the soil fertile so the magic can happen.

Even people with small terraces or indoor plants can compost. Schjanna's compost pail sits on her kitchen counter. Any organic matter--from fruit rinds to coffee grounds get put into her compost pail. (Avoiding meat, fish and fats.) It has charcoal filters in a vented lid to minimize odors.

Once a week she takes her organic matter to the Fort Greene Green Market and can exchange it for processed compost to add to the plants.

Composting seems so simple, so necessary, it's amazing we haven't perfected it. Most of us know about it, think in concept it's a good idea and maybe even tinkered with it and then we drift back to wasteful ways.

In New York City, you can get a large compost barrel for your backyard for $20.00 at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It isn't always as easy as it sounds--instead of rich fertilizer, many people find themselves with a big plastic bucket of garbage, and so attending a seminar isn't always a bad idea.

I was speaking with a British war reporter the other evening, and he told me about being in Kabul when the U.S. were going after the Taliban after 9/11. Amidst the smoke, dust and chaos, he made his way to the British Embassy. Once inside the gates, in contrast to his surroundings, he found a large green lawn. All the British employees had fled the country, leaving three natives to stay and maintain the lawn. Holding tight to this job in a country in turmoil it was perfectly trimmed and verdant green. They offered him a spot of tea.

The lawn is the widespread legacy of the English empire; they make more sense in a cool, temperate climate with plenty of rainfall, like England. In dry regions they are a drain on water supplies and in more tropical areas they require a lot of chemicals to beat back indigenous plants. In places with harsh summers and winters they need fertilizer so to grow, then must be cut frequently to stay green. Despite all the anti-ecological properties, there's something so familiar about the lawn that makes it comfortable, like at the British Embassy, it sometimes reminds one of easier times and places. While many people are loath to part with it, many others just don't know what to do instead.

btw: this is not a picture of the British Embassy in Kabul, it's the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

Alrie Middlebrook, owner of Middlebrook Gardens in Northern California and co-author of the recently released book "Designing California Native Gardens" has started a Lose the Lawn campaign. In a recent phone conversation, she told me "If you choose to plant and maintain turf grass, you are essentially eliminating diversity in your home garden. Phosphate based fertilizers, garden pesticides and herbicides have been showing up increasingly in our streams and bays, carried there by over watering and storm run off."

If you're not feeling guilty about your lawn yet, she added "For me the lawn is a symbol of the oil culture because it's a symbol of waste, cheap energy and extravagance."

To read more about why she's fighting the lawn, go to
Lose the Lawn

Alrie has developed five alternatives to the lawn that we'll look at this week.

Middlebrook Gardens used natural grasses that go to seed. These feed birds, butterflies and bees. According to Alrie Middlebrook, "Everything in life, including our food sources, is tied to flowering plants."

She has instructed that it's best to keep heavy traffic off the area for about a year while the grasses develop. Once this "alternative" lawn is established it requires a lot less mowing.

Meanwhile Back East...

Project Native in Housatonic, MA
sells a flat with 25 plugs of native grasses and wildflowers. Here's what it includes:

Big Bluestem, Andropogon gerardii
Cardinal Flower, Lobelia cardinalis
Culver's Root, Veronicastrum viriginicum
Foxglove Beardtongue, Penstemon digitalis
Great Blue Lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica
Indian Grass, Sorghastrum nutans
Little Bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium
Mountain Mint, Pycanthemum muticum
New England Aster, Aster novae-angliae
New York Ironweed, Vernonia noveboracensis
Ox-eye Sunflower, Heliopsis helianthoides
Purple Joe-Pye, Eupatorium fistulosa
Wild Bee Balm, Monarda fistulosa

You can contact Prospect and
Refuge for an estimate to have a native meadow installed in the New York City area.

The lawn can be replaced with native plants and ground covers, which are easy to care for and don't require a lot of water.

In the Northeast try:

Kinnickinnick, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

Bunchberry, Cornus canadensis

Golden Alexanders, Zizia aurea

Partridgeberry, Mitchella repens

Twinflower, Linnaea borealis

Wild Ginger, Asarum canadense

Wild Stonecrop, Sedum ternatum

Wild Strawberry, Fragraria virginiana

Wintergreen, Gaultheria procumbens

Wood Anemone, Anemone canadensis

Turf is made with recycled plastics like shredded tires and old tennis shoe soles. Carpet companies have been developing newer varieties, to make it look more authentic but these blades, forever green and upright, are definitely artificial. They are set in a porous backing that allows water to go through. The benefits include no watering or pesticides, and it's easy to clean up after dogs.

Cities, professional sports teams, high schools and colleges are starting to use artificial turf in public spaces. This heavily trafficked soccer field at McCarren Park in Brooklyn was a dustbowl--the grass stomped to oblivion--so instead of trying to keep people off, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation used turf that can take all the soccer playing and it has a springy feel to it. (Northside Car Service was playing the Metro Line Car Service this afternoon on the main field.)

Visit this post on the web at Brooklyn Based A Space for Urban Gardners

A Space for Urban Gardeners

As the owner of the urban garden design firm Prospect & Refuge, Maria Finn hears a lot of funny stories about people and plants coexisting in NYC -- like the woman who brought in a lawyer to stop her neighbor's ivy from growing on her brownstone.

As a writer, however, she knows there are few places to relay urban gardening tales, or concerns -- like trying to grow plants in a shoebox apartment.

"What do you do when you only have a fire escape? What do you do when you just have a window box? That just isn't addressed in other gardening publications," says Finn.

So, this month, she launched her own. Called City Dirt, her blog is reminiscent of an Apartment Therapy or Design Sponge for green thumbs -- the perfect marriage of her two careers. Already, she's covered they whys and hows of installing a bat box (that's right, bats -- they're incredible mosquito eaters); creating a wildlife habitat on a terrace; indoor composting; and alternatives to that big fat energy suck: the lawn.

There's also a place for people to pose questions to the "Plant Doctor" -- Carmen DeVito, co-owner of the Williamsburg urban garden center Outside NY.

The blog, while national in scope, is rich in local coverage. Coming soon will be a slideshow of an elevated garden she designed for a Clinton Hill couple whose dog loved to eat their plants, along with late summer recipes for the fruits of their fig tree, herbs, and veggies; the best restaurant gardens for outdoor dining in NYC; and a story about a green-roof project by Sustainable South Bronx.

As Finn explains, much of her writing focuses "on the ways in which the natural world gets translated in urban environments" -- like her own. Unlike her clients, the only outdoor space Finn has for plants is a window box in her Williamsburg apartment. "It's like being tortured," says Finn. But she's found a great way to compensate.

Photo: Heiko Prigge

Arlie Middlebrook isn't the only one waging war on the lawn. Artist Fritz Haeg has been traversing the U.S. (and he's going international, the project pictured is in London and was comissioned by The Tate Modern) transforming front lawns into vegetable gardens. He's started the foundation Edible Estates

His manifesto--and yes, he calls it a manifesto, states:

"Edible Estates is an attack on the American front lawn and everything it has come to represent.

Edible Estates reconciles issues of global food production and urbanized land use with the modest gesture of a domestic garden.

Edible Estates is an ongoing series of projects to replace the American front lawn with edible garden landscapes responsive to culture, climate, context and people.

Edible Estates is a practical food producing initiative, a place-responsive landscape design proposal, a scientific horticultural experiment, a conceptual land-art project, a defiant political statement, a community out-reach program and an act of radical gardening."

"An act of radical gardening"...Don't know about you, but a phrase like that kind of makes me weak in knees.

Port-Roasted Figs with Whipped Ricotta and Honey
Serves 6

The figs can be made up to one week ahead of time. Warm them gently before serving. This is lovely over a slice of pound cake or olive oil-semolina cake.

For the figs
1 vanilla bean
1 1/2 cups port
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Pinch salt
1 pound figs, small figs halved, larger figs quartered

For the whipped cream
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup super fresh whole milk ricotta (mascarpone works too)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon honey

Heat your oven to 400°F.

Using a paring knife, slice the vanilla pod open and scrape out the vanilla beans. Place the beans and the pod in a 9-inch by 11-inch baking dish. Add the port, honey, balsamic vinegar and salt and whisk to combine. Lay figs in baking dish cut side down. Roast for 30 minutes and then set aside to cool.

Whip the cream with the ricotta, sugar, and honey until it can hold medium-stiff peaks.

Divide the cream between dessert bowls. Place the figs on top, drizzle with some of the roasting liquid, and serve.

--Raquel Pelzel

Raquel co-wrote the book American Masala with chef Suvir Saran, forthcoming Oct. 2nd. It has lots of great recipes that call for vegetables and fresh herbs.

Click here to view it on Amazon.com: American Masala

Apartment Therapy Flower Box Awards

Flower Box Awards: Doggie-proof Vegetable Loft

Our 13th award of 2007!
Designer: Maria Finn (Prospect & Refuge)
Owner: Mookie's parents (Josh and Lisa)
Location: Brooklyn, NY

Dear Mookie,
You sound like you get into everything - even conventional planters? You have very thoughtful owners! Besides the dog-proof aspect, which also means the back yard is kept open for Mookie to play freely, the individual planters on the loft area make the garden more manageable. The eggplant color of the loft coordinates nicely with the nasturtiums and sweet potato vine. We hope you are having a good harvest - and thanks for sharing the idea with us.
We have a little gift in the mail to Mookie, Josh and Lisa: a pot from Ecoforms and seed packets from SelectSeeds.com to help make your gardens grow. Enjoy!
Best,
matt at apartmenttherapy dot com

My grandmother was a prolific gardener of flowers and vegetables; at her house in Kansas purple iris would spread in circles, she trained raspberries onto fences and the trees--redbud, apple, dogwood, cherry--were free to grow into their own personalities. Inside her house tropical plants cascaded from hanging baskets and she created tiny landscapes in moist terrariums.

Gardening seemed to skip a generation; my mother lives in Kansas City, Missouri and does terrible things to plants. They have withered and died from lack of water and they have been drowned from being planted where gutters drain. Flowers have been decapitated by lawn mowers and the prize rose garden that came with the house is now just a single, scrappy, thorn bush. Her Japanese maple is a stump with one, lone sloping branch--it looks like a miniature slide with leaves. Once, the local evening news showed a close-up of the front of my parent's house as an example of what not to do with shrubs. Social services should intervene if she ever attempts indoor plants again.

On a recent visit, I told my mother that I needed fresh basil for a salad and she told me to go and grab it from "the herb garden". This I had to see. I went outside to find a feral patch of mint flourishing. It had spread to cover the entire side of the house, it's robust scent filling the air. Finally, in the struggle for survival that most plants eventually succumb to in my parent's yard, a survivor had emerged. The basil had not faired so well. I finally located an anemic stem of it buried in the mint and just snapped the whole thing off to put it out of its misery.

Here are a few suggestions for mint bumper crops by food and word maven Raquel Prezel, co-author of the book American Masala with chef Suvir Saran, forthcoming Oct. 2nd.

Click here to view it on Amazon.com: American Masala

Add to a pitcher of iced tea

Chop and mix with finely chopped lemon peel and finely chopped garlic
for a lovely, fresh take on gremolata. Eat with lamb, grilled steak or
chicken.

Chopped with parsley and added along with chopped tomatoes and
scallions to cooked bulgur for tabbouleh.

Pureed with toasted pine nuts, Parmesan, and olive oil for a mint pesto.

Pulsed in a food processor with sugar and sprinkled over ice cream.

I love this.

The people at Sustainable Pets

are making doghouses with greenroofs. I wonder if it keeps the pooches cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter like with people green roofs...

Why she likes Cafe La Palette :

"There's a very mellow and lovely nighttime atmosphere. It's rarely too crowded or noisy and you never feel rushed. The prices are reasonable." (My caveat--for Manhattan).

It's French and Brazlian influenced food-- tough to go wrong with that.

She recommends:

Brazilian stroganoff, crepes filled with dulce de leche and the caprihinias

Now out in paperback!

The $64.00 Tomato
How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden.

By William Alexander

..."It wasn't perfect, it wasn't exactly what we'd dreamed o, but as Anne and I stood overlooking it, champagne in hand, it appeared magnificent, enticing, beckoning. It seemed to say, "Come, bring me your seeds and water, and I will reward you." And it would. And also humble me, and teach me, and become a place of solace, a battleground, a source of pride, a source of frustration, a time sink, a respite."

I was recently in Havana, Cuba to write about urban vegetable farm movement for Saveur Magazine.

The Cuban government estimates the urban-area harvest of vegetables, herbs and spices in 2005 including urban farms, intensive gardens, plots of land and family gardens, totaled 4.1 million tons. Raul Castro, before Fidel got sick, spearheaded the push to increase urban farms. When the Cuban government decides to mobilize, it does so in a big way. Their goal is to have every vacant lot in Havana cultivated.

At the age of 75, Nestor Suarez works seven days a week at an organoponico, or urban vegetable garden in the neighborhood of Vedado. I asked him if this was punishment for a misspent youth, and he laughed, then shrugged and said, "It's my work. I like it."

He gestured to the rows of vegetables--beets, spinach, chives, planted in neat beds. As we made our way through the herb garden, he then started explaining the benefits of the herbs to me: siempre viva is for headaches, chamomile helps with skin problems, anise is to give you a strong stomach. Or, as Nestor put it, "Le da animo." It gives you spirit.

We stopped under the shade of fruit trees, where he showed me a passionfruit, still green on the tree, and then a noni fruit, pale yellow and naturally pocked. He picked a few small ripe bananas for me to try.

"If this wasn't a garden, it would be filled with garbage. Instead, all year long we have food for the people," Nestor said, then added the distinctly Cuban phrase, "Tiene que resolver."

"Resolver" has been Cuban's battle cry, chant, groan since the Special Period. It means to find a way to survive, to make the impossible, possible. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, Cuba lost 80 percent of its imports. Known as the "The Special Period," government food rations were cut in half, public buses didn't run, and blackouts rolled through the cities. Hoping to crush the government, the United States tightened the embargo by passing the Cuban Democracy Act (1992) that prevents the docking at a U.S. port of any ship that has docked in Cuba six months prior or that plans to visit Cuba within six months after. This further reduced food and medicine reaching the island.

The scarcity of both imported food and fuel made urban vegetable gardens the most practical solution. Cuba didn't have chemicals to use as insecticides, so they had to use organic methods of pest control.

Corn had been planted around the perimeter of the area. He pulled back a leaf from the plant to show me the blush of aphids gathered. "These keep the aphids off the other vegetables, and then we use ladybugs to control these insects."

I'd love to get this gardening crew up here on a work visa. Senate, Congress? Please

On a block shaded by flamboyant trees with brilliant orange flowers in full bloom, loud music boomed out of a house and many vendors shook their hips to the recordings of Los Van Van as they weighed onions and beets, or counted pesos spent on papaya and yucca. Not all the food sold here was grown at the organiponicas, but a fair amount had been, saving the cost of trucking it into the city. Most of the vendors worked for the government, but some, those who had fruit trees or their own vegetable gardens, or cultivated ornamental plants and could sell their excess.

The clients recently bought a ground level loft co-op in a building that had once manufactured ping-pongs. Their courtyard had been a brick patio with a planter running the length of the back wall. The previous owners, in a moment of do-it-yourself zest, ripped out the bricks and tore down the planter, exposing a ridge of crumbling cement a bare ground.

They decided to lay sod. A little research would have served them well here and they may have refrained from this folly. The backyard is partial sun to full shade and has very poor drainage--bad conditions for a lawn. As well, a drain pipe that handles rain off from a large part of the building was positioned to send a small river of water off the roof, over the sod and to the drain--then covered by sod and dirt.

We found remnants of the sod, which resembled carpet swaths from a sunken ship.

We worried about taking out the cement ridge running along the back wall, as it might have impacted the structural integrity of the wall. So we built up a new planter, then a bench to run the length of it, that ends in an area that can be used as a storage space and chaise lounge, or can have potted herbs and vegetables.

After putting in the bench, Arturo rerouted the drain-pipe, burying it underground.

The clients wanted to use pea gravel. This is much more practical than grass, far less expensive than bluestone, and more aesthetically appropriate to the modern interior of their loft than bricks or pavers. As well, they like shade plants with varied tints of green and blue and evergreens with architectural shapes; the look is clean and modern as well as practical for the space and their budget.

Crest True Value Hardware , on Metropolitan Avenue has a new garden center. Joe, who runs it, ordered the pea gravel, landscaper's cloth and pins for me. The price was similar to what the wholesalers on Long Island charge and save me the trip. Home Depot sometimes carries inexpensive pea gravel, but you pay in all sorts of ways--if I call to see if they have something, they frequently put me on hold indefinitely. If there's nobody working the garden center, I'd have to figure out a way for 80 bags of pea gravel to get rung up, and then there's having the receipt checked and loading them into the truck. And for some reason, many of the Home Depots in the city have landscaper's cloth, but no pins.

Joe at Crest had the order waiting and a crew helped load it. It took minutes to pay the bill.

In one corner we used shade plants such as ferns, Solomon Seal and Brunnera. The cement ridge took up a lot of space, so we lined it with pots clients had purchased at Dig, on Atlantic Avenue. In these we planted a cherry laurel and an oak-leafed hydrangea.

The windows in front of the master bedroom are a little higher off the ground so we wanted to use a plant taller than the cotoneaster, but that would still not block the light. In these we planted barberry, Japanese black mondo grass and chartreuse moss. The barberry, which can be seen from the master bedroom, also compliments the interior.

The tree is a pom-pom cut blue cypress. I love poodle and pom-pom cut evergreens as accent trees, but for some reason, they are a hard sell in New York (and Long Island). I wonder if it's the name. Maybe they'd be more appealing to guys if they were Porsche-cut junipers, or mano-a-mano cypress. These clients have just relocated from San Francisco, where these are popular, and they loved them as well.

Note: The Adirondack style chairs made of recycled materials are from loll designs.

This summer I visited the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City to see the paintings and drawings by Maria Sibylla Merian, a botanical illustrator who was fascinated with metamorphosis.

She left Amsterdam and visited Suriname with her daughter in 1699. Merian not only illustrated the relationship between the caterpillar and the butterfly, but each of her paintings was a like a small narrative, showing the relationships--generous, violent, necessary-- between tropical plants and insects. The local natives and slave women found out about her interests, and started to teach her the local lore the magical and medicinal properties of the plants. She returned to Europe and published the book, "Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam". In this she recorded life histories of beetles and moths that were previously unknown to science.

In her book "Chrysalis, Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis", Kim Todd writes, "In this environment, her painting shifted, absorbing the technique she'd learned in Amsterdam, as well as the vibrant tropical colors, the eeriness that got under the skin. It was as if a ribbon, knotted in a tight bow, had been released. The pictures almost pour over the sides of the page, and show their subjects, glimpsed from strange angles: a view from beneath a banana branch, the underground life of a cassava root."

Just as I was starting to really dislike Chrysanthemums in all the country-style wicker baskets, I came across this lovely cut-flower bouquet by Stella Goodall Flowers (info@stemsbystella.com). She mixes chartreuse Chrysanthemums with Sea Holly.

While I'm still maintaining that I'm not a big fan of mums, I received this announcement for the show at The New York Botanical Garden for Kiku, the Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum, and I'm really excited for the opening in October.

The image on the invitation looks too perfect to be a plant. It's possibly the most anal retentive living thing, ever. How do they discipline them so?

At a friend's birthday gathering at a bar in the East Village, when trying to order a drink, I got caught behind two guys taste testing beer. Their dork-fest was seemingly endless as they insisted on samples of each beer on draft and then made comments to each other like, "I smell caramel" "the head is too flat", "grassy flavor", "the bubble are too big."

New York City is a place where people want their chocolate made from beans grown in a single valley in Venezuela, where a critical mass can identify an Eames chair, and many are willing to buy tiny dogs as fashion accessories. Why then, when it comes to gardens, are so many New Yorkers--these discerning, fashionable, trend and image conscious people perfectly happy buying a nasty looking plastic window box, plunking in a few annuals and then torturing them over the course of the summer?

Here are a few...

You'd need a forensic team to identify these plants.

Something wistful here...

At least the kitty is making good use...

A melange of plastic...

Friends of the High Line have produced a film with luminaries talking about this park planned to run above ground on defunct train tracks through the Meat Packing District, West Chelsea and the Hudson Yards.

Visit: Film

But even more interesting are the actual plans themselves.
Visit: Images

Though I made fun of New York City window boxes just a few days ago, there is one neighborhood that is a pleasure to stroll around because of the wonderful window boxes. Brooklyn Heights was once a working class neighborhood. The low rent prices, beauty of the area and colorful co-habitants attracted the likes of Arthur Miller, Truman Capote, W.E.B. Dubois, and W.H. Auden. Norman Mailer still lives there in a house over looking the East River that's shaped slightly like a the pilot house of a ship.

Everyone knows what happens to neighborhoods after the artists move in. Brooklyn Heights is no longer a community of dock workers and writers. Due to its proximity to Wall Street and the high, high prices of the historic brownstones in this area, its every bit as tony as Manhattan. This makes me suspect that the window boxes are done by professionals. Which is a good thing, as it keeps the gardeners and garden designers off the streets and out of trouble.

I love these ferns. They aren't going to make it through the winter, but they're so robust right now that they remind me of tropical places, old world glamour, even children's books characters, like they could get up and sing and dance like Muppets at any moment.

These planters have an elegant, classic look to them.

A monochromatic planting. It's not modern looking, due to the flowers choices and perhaps the color pink. But modern wouldn't be appropriate here and these colors are a great contrast with the black boxes.

My friend S., a talented but struggling artist has become a real estate investor. She recently bought an apartment building in Staten Island and has spent some time gardening over there. I found this kind of sweet, as S. is one the least domestic women I know. She never cooks, and if I ever suggest going to visit a botanical garden, she just gives me a look, that essentially means, "Why would anyone want to do that?" We end up at an art gallery or book reading.

As a fledgling landlord, she soon learned that while there were six units in the building, it had only been zoned for four. One woman in the building knew this, and had never paid rent. She hung this threat over the old and new landlord's head.

Despite this unpleasantry, S. liked the rest of the tenants, particularly "Trixie" a professional dominatrix who worked out of her Staten Island home. S. spent a lot of time over there, fixing up the place and trying to negotiate with the woman who refused to pay rent. S. hired a lawyer and started the court battle to get her out. Weeks of this tenant dodging her, not showing up to court, or not moving her things out were a constant strain on S. Through it, she became better friends with "Trixie" and even rented out another unit to a friend and co-worker of Trixie's, another dominatrix.

She finally got the tenant who would not pay out, but her resources were drained from legal fees and renovations. Through this all, after each visit to Staten Island, she'd been returning to Brooklyn with buckets of tomatoes from "her garden".

When I asked how she had such a bumper crop, she just shrugged, "Iggy helped me." Iggy is a brown miniature cock-a-poo. It was like the old television program, Green Acres, when the star would throw some eggs into a cake mix box, put the whole thing in the oven and then pull a cake out minute later.

We kept it simple with the tomatoes, just sliced them and added salt and pepper
, maybe drizzle some olive oil and balsamic on them. We'd make gazpacho if she had a blender. S. fretted about money problems, especially since some of the units needed to have their pipes fixed, and she was broke from the eviction. Then "Trixie" proposed a solution. One of her client's was a plumber. Perhaps if the two of them spanked him in the bathroom, then he might be inclined to fix the pipes at no cost.

So being a dutiful landlord, S. did it! She and "Trixie" gave him a good-old fashion Catholic bad-boy spanking and he fixed the pipes in return. As he left, he told them to call if they needed the boiler repaired.

This weekend is Open House New York. You can go into those bell towers and basements you've frequently walked by, but never entered. There's going to be lots of gardens and urban nature to explore, like The High Line, the elevated rail viaduct in West Chelsea, the New York Restoration Project - The Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse at Swindler Cove Park on the Harlem River, Wave Hill Gardens in Riverdale and several historic cemeteries. Visit Open House New York for details.

There's a debate in Oregon whether or not you can garden in the nude. I once had a friend in Portland Oregon who gardened in fishing boots and thong. But she was 24 back then and there were no complaints. Seems like it's different for a 56 year old guy...

Here's the article:

Neighbors are upset over nude gardener

Happy Valley - The city considers a ban on such behavior, but it might be his right
Monday, October 01, 2007
DENNIS MCCARTHY

The Oregonian Staff
HAPPY VALLEY -- Steven J. Howatt, 56, prefers gardening in the nude, and his neighbors consider that rude.

After several complaints, the Happy Valley City Council has scheduled a public meeting Tuesday night on a proposal to outlaw nudity visible from public locations. Violators would be subject to a $1,000 fine.

But City Attorney Tom Sponsler, who drafted the ordinance, said it might not be that simple.
As offensive as Howatt's behavior may seem to some people, Sponsler said, the ordinance could face legal challenge because Oregon law does not prohibit nudity on private property unless the exposure is sexual. There have been no such complaints against Howatt.

Howatt, who has lived in Happy Valley for 17 years, told councilors at their Sept. 18 meeting that he considered some comments made by neighbors at a previous meeting as defamatory and that he would explore his legal options.

Neighbors told the City Council they asked Howatt to put on some clothes while working in his garden, mowing his lawn or walking around his property, but he has declined their requests.
"He's taken the position it's his God-given right to do that," neighbor Mike McIrvin said.
Repeated efforts to reach Howatt at his Happy Valley home have been unsuccessful.

The council will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Happy Valley City Hall Annex, 12915 S.E. King Road.
Dennis McCarthy: 503-294-5914; dennismccarthy@ news.oregonian.com

Flora Grubb, owner of Flora Grubb Gardens in the Bayview section of San Francisco has been designated "California's horticultural fashionista" by Garden Design Magazine . The space feels as much like a garden to wander through as a store. There's a coffee shop and you can browse through eco and design books while you have your latte. The arrangements of chaise lounges and contemporary pots filled with succulents and palms make you want to recline and just sort of hang out.

To here a podcast interview with the owner, Flora Grubb by Dwell Magazine, visit:
Dwell Podcast

Living Green is located behind the Galleria at the San Francisco Design Center. This is not an eco-trend place, as the name might imply, but rather a high-end garden chotsky shop. It's a fun place to stroll around and get ideas. This store has a museum-like feel to it due to all the international icons; these overlap elements of Italy with Tibet, Greek Revival with nautical. Here you can purchase holy icons, or buffed male torsos to use as garden ornaments.

There's a new gallery in Sausalito that sells fountains by McCloud Designs along with planters and bird baths by other designers. The space is lovely and very new. The gallery is still untitled and they don't seem to have a website yet. Their address is 1201 Bridgeway Street, Sausalito, CA 94965.

I missed a few days on the blog...in case you were wondering. I was down on the beautiful island of Barbados for a food festival. This was lots of fun, but I really loved the gardens and hope to get back soon to see more of them. This island, 166 square miles, is about the size of Rhode Island. Its colonial history can be seen through the architecture, particularly the brightly colored Chattel Houses. Newly freed slaves had no land and so they designed a mobile home that could be folded up and moved in a day. These are frequently brightly painted and have wood shutters known as "jealousy shutters" to keep envious neighbors from seeing their stuff. Some of them still have "ghost chasers" which are white spirals on the tops. Most now have foundations and small gardens surrounding them that are also very colorful.

In contrast to these tiny homes, there are a few plantation manors or homes still on the island. Some of these have been transformed into restaurants, but one amazing place, the St. Nicholas Abbey was recently purchased by a local Bajan architect, Larry Warren, who has refinished and refurbished it so that this Jacobean manor, built between 1650-1660 is intact, down to its English herb garden. This structured garden, replete with a bay laurel tree in the center, is surrounded by thickets of mahogany trees and cabbage palms. These had been planted around plantations so slaves could find their ways home. (Awfully thoughtful.)

The latest issue of House & Garden is New York City focused. There's lots of peeking into the homes of the rich and shameless, which is always fun. In fact, the cover story features Gwyneth Paltrow and her new home in the Hamptons. The hook--she picked out much of her furniture ALL BY HERSELF.

Though this is easy to poke fun at, if I had that kind of money, I'd hire my very talented friend Renee Turman to be my interior decorator. Even though I design gardens, I love the collaborative process and the ways ideas collide and coalesce between the designer and the client to shape spaces. As well, the benefit of working with a garden designer and an interior designer is that you create an entire plan rather than make impulse purchases and keep plunking stuff down with no rhyme or reason. (Last summer I had to remove over 40 rose bushes from the backyard of a brownstone so that the new owners could even walk through it. We left about 20 bushes for a border. These were impulse buys that turned into an obsession and finally a form of insanity.)

While paging through Home & Garden I stopped and looked at some beautiful room dividers. The Quantum Screen byRalph Pucci International cost $29,700.00. Now there certainly are people who can afford this, but most of us cannot. Unless we blow our savings, dip into our retirement, and max out our credit cards. But if you do cash in your 401K because you have to have a walnut, lacquer and gold leaf room divider, what happens when you plunk it down in the middle of your old stuff? Things that seemed very nice before will look shabby and old. You'll wonder who you are--the owner of junk or of a $29,700.00 screen. The crisis could turn existential, unless you get rid of all your old stuff and only have the screen or replace your shabby stuff with newer things, going into deep financial trouble. This is the new you. The one that might hang in the Hamptons with Gwyneth Paltrow, only well, she'll probably never invite you. So you're really just facing a bleak old age. And then one day, you're bored with the room divider (you thought this could never happen, but it does) and you've seen a newer, better one. You buy it, and all your old stuff once again looks old and shabby and like someone else once lived there. You wonder who you truly are and realize it would have been much cheaper at the get-go to hire a designer.

From October 15-21 House & Garden has put together a Design Week in New York City. There will be tours and lectures of the food, art, interior design and lots of garden-related events. Melissa Ozawa created a list of garden spots. As well, local eco-celebrity Majora Carter will be speaking about Sustainable South Bronx and there will be a tour of the Chinese Scholar Garden at Staten Island. For more information go to: Design Happening

Garden Spots

1. Wave Hill
West 249th Street and Independence Ave
Bronx, NY
718.549.3200

2. The Garden at St. Luke in the Field
487 Hudson Street (corner of Grove Street)
212.924.0562

3. The Conservatory Garden in Central Park
5th avenue at 105th Street

4. GRDN
103 Hoyt Street (btw Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street)
Boerum Hill, Brooklyn . 718.797.3628

5. Sprout Home
44 Grand Street (btw Kent and Wythe Streets)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn . 718.388.4440

Swing by the Red Hook Community Farm for the harvest festival Saturday Oct. 20th from 9am to 5pm. Bring the kids for food, music, and pumpkin carving. (590 Columbia St. at Beard St., Added Value

The Battery Conservancy Fall Plant Sale
Sunday, Oct 21, 2007
12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

In partnership with House & Garden's Design Week, The Battery Conservancy will hold its first Fall Plant Sale.

Many of the perennials for sale were hybridized at Piet Oudolf's nursery in the Netherlands and are not available commercially.

House & Garden garden editor, Charlotte Frieze, and The Battery Conservancy's director of horticulture, Sigrid Gray, will lead tours of the Gardens of Remembrance and the Battery Bosque.

Location: Enter the park across from 17 State Street. Plant sale will take place adjacent to Battery Gardens restaurant.

More Information:
Phone number: (212) 344-3491 x21

While in Barbados, I attended seminar in Orchid World. This included a walking tour of the local herbs and their use as remedies, which was led by Chantel Selman. She was referred to as The Village Doctor, but she actually left Barbados to study the medicinal use of herbs in Canada. But she's back now and is waging an honorable battle--to teach, coax, and cajole the people of Barbados to eat more raw foods. This is no small feat in a country that loves their fried flying fish fritters. Like many other places, there's been an upswing in obesity and related health problems, so she is determined. She opened a restaurant called Organic Earth located at #24 Pelican Village, Bridgetown, Barbados 246-426-7521, where she peddles mango pie with guava sauce and pizza in the raw. Visit her website at Organic Live It to learn more.

The day of the cooking demonstration two of my favorite dishes she made both included pumpkin, and now is the perfect season for it. So if you didn't gut yours and burn a candle inside of it, (and you're wondering what the heck to do with it), give these recipes a try.

(I tried both of these recipes and they are really good, despite the lack of cooking and animal fats).

Chantel's Pumpkin Soup:

2 cups of raw, chopped pumpkin flesh
½ cup of bell pepper
2 small red onions
1 ½ cup of peanuts
1 ½ teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice
½ teaspoon of sea salt
1 tbsp. of coconut oil (olive oil works as well)
4 cups of warm water (but not boiling, as you don't want to kill the enzymes in the raw food.)

Put all of this into a food processor, blend until smooth. Garnish with pumpkin seeds.

Pumpkin Pasta (Yes, that's raw pasta)

Put chunks of raw pumpkin through a Saladacco to make angel hair pasta

Sauce:
Puree the following in a food processor:
two large tomatoes (quartered)
2 dates (soaked)
½ cup of sun dried tomatoes (soaked)
3 sprigs of fresh basil
2 tablespoons of coconut or olive oil
dash of sea salt

Don't Cook It!
Blend it to be as smooth or chunky as you like, then pour it over the pasta.

At the first meeting I had with a potential client in Harlem, she told me that she was just starting to function again since her mother's death. This had thrown her into such a shock and sadness, that even though she had just bought a new townhouse, she hadn't done anything with the backyard. I told her about my mother's struggle with breast cancer and how it had recently taken a turn for the worse. We sat at her table and cried. Then she hired me to install a garden and I undercharged her.

My client is a native New Yorker who grew up in an apartment, so she didn't have much experience with plants. Her mother's favorite color had been yellow, so that became our guiding principal. I planted yellow perennials that included coreopsis, lilies, roses and black-eyed susans. These I mixed with soft lavenders and blues like purple coneflowers, phlox, Russian sage, salvia, and butterfly bushes.

I gave her instructions on how to care for the garden and told her that many people found gardening good for grief. (Though she, like many New Yorkers new to the gardening process, thought that each time a flower stopped blooming, the plant was dead. I had to talk her through this process a few times and hoped it didn't cause her anxiety.)

She now seems to enjoy taking care of her yard. People tend to start gardening the same way they began writing poetry--in response to grief. Divorces, deaths, loneliness, and displacement are frequently the catalyst. People recover, remarry, and heal but they continued to garden out of habit, or to maintain what they invested in.

Over time you come to realize that plants are not just a source of regeneration, life and beauty. There's a lesson about illness and death to be learned in the process. Into the ground we plant seeds and we place bones and both processes are essentially, inherently, mysteries that are constantly unraveling.

Now that it's time to plant bulbs, I figured we'd plant a big mix of daffodils, or narcissus, so that in early, mid and late spring for years to come, she'll have a cheerful, fragrant memorial to her mother. Around these we're going to cluster lots of little grape hyacinth, or muscari to keep our color combination and add a little contrast.

The bulbs have arrived at Outside New York . Carmen DeVito, co-owner and bulb aficionada, names the Thalia (mid-spring bloomers) and Cheerfulness (late spring bloomers) as her favorite daffodils, mainly because they're so fragrant. For people worried about squirrels getting into them, she told me that Roman soldiers used to carry Narcissus bulbs into battle with them and when injured on the battlefield, they could eat the bulbs to hasten their death. If a little bulb can finish off a big Roman soldier, you'd think that gray squirrels would stay away from them. (But there are some mutant squirrels in this city.)

For shady areas she recommends scilla, or bluebells, and for small, fragrant pops of color, she likes muscari latifolium that are two-toned blue and purple.

As for specialty bulbs, the fritillaria, or checkerboard lilies made you do a double take, and those who like darkness in their garden try the species of dark fritillaria. As for combinations, she plants a crocus under a daffodil, so the daffodil foliage covers the spent crocus.

She also likes allium mixed with summer blooming perennials like phlox and grasses. And one of the most eye catching flowers from a bulb is the hearty Amaryllis that has no leaves--just pink flowers and black stems.

Paul Gilmartin, a gardener trained both in England and at The New York Botanical Gardens, is spending a lot of time on his knees these days. He also likes the Thalia for an early bloom and he says that the Jonquilla is a good mid spring daffodil that is also sweetly scented.

Here's a list of other bulbs he's going to be planting this spring.

The fritillaria - all types, especially pallidiflora and persica species; pallidiflora has several pale yellow flowers to a stem (mid Spring);

Galanthus - one of the earliest flowering bulbs and a great naturalizer;

Trilliums - beautiful woodland treasures (mid spring);

Camassia- blue flowers with a turquoise cast; works well in a meadow-like setting or even in a structured modern environment (late spring);

Alliums - an amazing array of variety, shapes and sizes and can be contrasted off perennials and grasses (mid/late spring);

To purchase bulbs go to Outside New York at 99 North 10th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and to have them installed by a gardener with an English accent, write Paul at paul.gilmartin at yahoo.com

In his book Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused, Mike Dash wrote about the tulip craze sweeping the Netherlands in the 17th century "...The business of these rich Dutch merchants was not grain or spices, timber or fish. They dealt, rather, in tulip bulbs--drab and anonymous brown packages of no intrinsic worth, which resembled nothing so much as onions. Yet as unpromising as they might at first appear, flowers at this time were far more precious than the richest commodities that could be found piled up on the wharves of Amsterdam. Some tulips were so scarce and so greatly coveted that they were worth more than a hundred times their weight in gold and successful bulb dealers could make huge profits. At this time the richest man in the whole of the United Provinces was worth 400,000 guilders--a sum amassed over several generations. But some tulip traders were buying and selling flowers for hundreds, even thousands of guilders...

Once a status symbol by nature of its exclusivity, the tulip bulb is now readily available to the common folk. However, there is still a touch of decadence to them. They should really be considered an annual, as they usually just have one good year. So you have to plant them and then dig out the bulb once they're done blooming. But come springtime, some people find all the fuss worth it. For great tulip blends, check out Color Blends

An article this week in the San Luis Obispo.com Website of the Central Coast has an article, Design Notebook: A Garden of Laughs... about a store, All That Stuff Behind the Barn in Atascadero, that sells recycled and reclaimed garden ornaments. The owners give suggestions like using an old bed as a planting area, and placing anything from antique farm equipment to metal mariachi bands in your yard for decoration.

There are many ways this can go really wrong. People in Prospect Heights might be familiar with the homeowner who uses old toilets as planters in front of his or her brownstone. There's nothing you can plant in a toilet that makes it look like it's not a toilet.

Here's another example from Brooklyn of garden ornamentation gone awry. Whenever I pass by this place, I think I'd like to have drinks with the owners--but just once.

I really want to know how the plastic dogs (and fox and seal water bowl, presumably left out for all the plastic dogs) got blended with the Greco-Roman figures.

They also blend a few living plants with lots of plastic ones and a tidy, very green artificial turf.

This dog butt is supposed to be humorous and whimsical, but I find it a little disturbing.

Cultivator and collector of heirloom melons and squashes, Amy Goldman has collaborated with photographer Victor Schrager on two books Melons for the Passionate Grower and The Compleat Squash. His photographs are on display at The New York Botanical Gardens

A Passionate Grower Heirloom Melons and Squashes From the Gardens of Amy Goldman
An Exhibition of Photographs by Victor Schrager
September 29, 2007 - September 1, 2008
In the Arthur and Janet Ross Gallery

This Tribeca rooftop was decorated for a Holloween party by Robert Eardley and Candra Cantrell. They used crotons, mums, corn stalks, montauk daisies, pumpkins, gourds, pansies, peppers, cyclamen, millet, and hay bales around the the existing boxwoods.

Unfortunately, we don't get to do much of this in the city...

You Tube-Redneck Gardening (Their title, not mine)

Last Friday night I attended the performance Butoh America at the Japan Society. It was choreographed by Akira Kasai, one of the founding members of Butoh in Japan. While Butoh means "Modern" dance, it's a very particular art form that people either seem to love or hate. The dancers bodies are painted white and they move in slow motion--painfully slow. Their faces are frequently in a grimace and the music is often discordant and alarming.

For this piece, Akira Kasai was asked to choreograph his experience of America. I was expecting a Butoh performance, as I knew one of the dancers and she, along with the other four were hand picked because of their backgrounds in Butoh, and then trained intensively by the master. However, his choreography was modern. The performance was interesting due to the layering. American dancers trained in Butoh interpreting America through a Japanese man's eyes. It was pretty great. But the most riveting moment came when Akira Kasai appeared on stage. He unwrapped himself and moved in excruciatingly slow gestures, as if he was hatching from an egg. There was both stillness and motion, a sense of beginning and end, birth and death in his performance. Subtle, graceful movements accompanied by facial expressions of torment had a profound affect. He eventually climbed in to a bathtub where the American dancers ate him--metaphorically of course. The audience, of course a self-selected group of Butoh lovers, went wild.

Butoh was in part a response to the atom bombs that the United States dropped on Japan. There is a sense of rising from the ashes, of surviving horror--and experiencing a rebirth, but one that brings the knowledge of destruction with it. It is a type of ugly beauty.

In Japanese landscaping, this idea of "ugly beauty", which is essentially accepting the inevitable, comes to mind this time of year. Plants are not only appreciated for their peak, but for their fading away as well. There is a Japanese philosophy that encompasses this, Wabi Sabi. It was first explained to me as "the art of the imperfect." In the book, "Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers" the author Leonard Koren states: Wabi-sabi is ambivalent about separating beauty from non-beauty or ugliness. The beauty of wabi-sabi is, in one respect, the condition of coming to terms with what you consider ugly. Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment, given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace."

This is a wonderful time to visit gardens with this philosophy in mind.

While Wabi-Sabi could be termed the art of the imperfect, Japanese design sense is most often associated with perfectionism. Those tall, regal pines shaped like bonsai in Tokyo? They pull needles with tweezers to shape them over time. The exhibition Kiku is at The New York Botanical Garden until November 18th. The humble chrysanthemum has been trained into marvelous shapes. The flowers are so perfect that visitors were sticking their heads under and over the displays to see if they were real. "Is that really one flower with over two hundred blooms?" It was a marvel to behold.

Most principles of Japanese garden design come from the Chinese. The chrysanthemum represented humility and respectability in Chinese art and landscaping. It was cultivated as a flowering herb since about 15 BC, and made into teas. It made its way to Japan, about the 8th century AD, and the emperor made it his official seal. Since then, Kiku, or the chrysanthemum, has been the crest for the Japanese royalty.

The traditional techniques for growing and displaying Kiku have been developed at one of Japans most important public gardens, Shinjuku Gyoen, since the 1880's. For the past five years, horticulturists at the Botanical Gardens have been involved in a cultural exchange and the exhibition now up is considered that most extensive display of chrysanthemums grown in the Imperial style outside of Japan.

Even if it's chilly outside, just go.

Ozukuri or "thousand bloom" are named for a single plant that has been trained to produce up to 300 perfect flowers on a wire frame.

Ogiku is a single blossom on a narrow, tall stem. Horticulturalists pinch back blossoms until the biggest, best remains. T

They need 180 flowers, with petals going in uniform directions, in bloom at the same time. The traditional style recalls the color and pattern of the bridle of the emperors horse.

Kengai means cascades and small flowers, similar to uncultivated varieties are trained into a fountain shape. They are displayed on bamboo and wire framework that stretches the branches six-and-a-half feet away from the plants roots.

Karesansui means dry mountain water. Stone and Kiku is an example of dry landscaping. These displays are meant to give a feeling of autumn and winter in the Japanese mountains.

House and Garden is folding. There have been many articles in newspapers and lots of buzz in blogs. In case you missed it all, here's the article by the L.A. Times:

THE SCOUT: HOME PAGES
A 'grande dame' takes her leave
House & Garden magazine will stop publishing
November 8, 2007

House & Garden, the magazine launched in 1901 and acquired by Conde Nast publications in 1911, was shut down Monday.

"It was the grande dame, all fantasy and not enough service," says Samir Husni, chairman of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi. "It lost touch with its readers."

It has now died twice. In 1993, Conde Nast purchased Architectural Digest, killing House & Garden -- renamed HG (see below) by Anna Wintour, who revived the title before moving to Vogue. Re-launched in 1996, House & Garden ran about $100 million in the red over the last decade, Women's Wear Daily reported.

Last month's lavish "House & Garden Design Happening" "must've been a huge flop," Husni surmises. In its wake, the sudden defection of publisher Joe Lagani to Glam.com was the coup de grace. Two likely beneficiaries: Conde Nast's magalog Domino and the Wintour-overseen Vogue Living.

I'm working on a proposal to spruce up a Medieval Garden for a Brooklyn Based monastery. The garden exists, but it really needs some structure and year-round interest. Musk roses are thematically appropriate, but their beauty is short lived.

I've been having fun researching the plants and designs used in Medieval times. I want to bulk up the herb beds. It was believed that some herbs provided divine protection. The monks of this time planted them in rows of small rectangular beds with pathways between them so that the devil can pass.

We're not so much concerned about the devil passing in Brooklyn Heights, but there is a problem. Something is living in the soil of in a large planter by the front door. From the size of the holes, it's either really large mice, or rats. Most likely the latter. How do we get these out of there when replacing the soil and plants? Poison them first, then dump the dead bodies into a garbage bag? Try to scare them out, then put lots of drainage and far less soil in so they won't return? How do we know if they're all out? I really, really hate rats. I'm fine with snakes and bugs, but rats scare me. Do I charge for this in the proposal? How much for rat removal? Then someone might recommend me for it--"I hear Prospect & Refuge removes rats--give them a call." No thanks.

Once I was passing Hunter College on 68th and Lexington, when rats starting spilling off a garbage truck. They scattered--the elderly ladies walking their little dogs shrieked. The dogs, most from breeds that once caught rats on ships, went wild, lunging on their springy leashes. Some of the rats were trapped against the college's cement building. Two maintenance workers from Hunter came out with brooms and started beating them to death. It was a real New York moment.

Do I make my gardeners beat the rats to death with brooms? They'd quit and I wouldn't blame them. Ideally, I'd like to wait until the next person exclaims, "You're a gardener! I love gardening. Isn't it great working with the soil?" I'd like to take them over and let them have their way with this Brooklyn dirt.

Smoke them out? Any suggestions?

These fashionable houses are all for the small birds. But keep in mind how great it would be to have kestrels or owls in your backyard--Although owls do regurgitate their prey. Still, they're great for discouraging squirrels and pigeons to nest nearby.

I'm wondering if my nephews--who normally want Pokeman cards and potato launchers, would be angry at me for buying them ceramic bird houses for Christmas gifts...

Available at Sprout Home.

A very contemporary and macho Modern Birdhouses named JR, RICHARD, and RALPH. Were those the brothers on Dynasty?

These are also available for retail purchase at Outside New York at 99 North 10th St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I wonder if the birds know that the door is actually a cut out of them in relief? Check for these stylish houses at Dutch by Design.

These are sleek, but I'm really curious to see if any birds will actually live in them. Kind of Bauhaus for the tree and grass set. Learn more about them
Tom Dukich

Find these homes with touches of the traditional and contemporary at Find these traditional and contemporary houses at Arcamita.

I like this cottage look. Check for these at J and M Garden Art Shop.

The New York Times

November 13, 2007
A Toast to Tuscany, With a Staten Island Red
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

CRESPINA, Italy, Nov. 7 -- The visit to this picturesque corner of Tuscany probably will not spawn a best-selling sequel with a title like "Under the Staten Island Sun." But in the not-too-distant future, Staten Island will bring a little bit of Tuscany to New York, in the form of a vineyard being developed at the Staten Island Botanical Garden.

A group of businessmen from the borough spent a few days this month rambling through lush vineyards, Renaissance villas and an Etruscan tomb, seeking the essence of the Tuscan experience to transplant back home. They hope the vineyard, which they said would be the first large-scale venture of its kind in the city, will entice more visitors to the oft-forgotten borough.

"We were looking for something to draw tourists off the ferry and see what Staten Island has to offer," said Henry Arlin Salmon, a Staten Island real estate appraiser and one of the members of the Tuscan Gardens Vineyard Founders Group, which is behind the planned winery.

The Tuscan angle seemed natural, considering that nearly 38 percent of Staten Island residents are of Italian ancestry, according to the 2000 Census, more than any other county in the United States, said Joseph J. LiBassi, a promoter of the vineyard project and a member of the botanical garden's board. "The vineyard encapsulates what Italians brought to Staten Island: agriculture, wine, culture."

Of course, he added, the vineyard should appeal to non-Italians, too. "There are a lot of wine aficionados," he said.

Work on the vineyard should start in the spring on about two acres of botanical garden land next to the Tuscan Villa and the Tuscan Garden exhibitions under construction. (The Tuscan Garden is based on the Villa Gamberaia, at Settignano, near Florence.)

Experts in viticulture and enology at Cornell University are helping determine which Italian grape varieties will have the best chance of thriving on Staten Island, "which can get pretty damp," Mr. Salmon said. Because it is illegal to import vine cuttings into the United States, the plants will most likely come from vineyards in upstate New York or, perhaps, California.

Eventually, the idea is to make red wine -- and someday maybe white -- from the 2,000 vines that organizers of the vineyard figure will be planted at the botanical garden. It will be years, however, before anyone can get a tasting of Staten Island red.

As for potential names for the winery? Mr. LiBassi proposed "Crespina Staten Wine."

R. Randy Lee, a real estate developer and the chairman of the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation, suggested "Vespucci" or "Verrazano."

The wine is also expected to incorporate the kind of heritage grape varieties that would have been known in colonial times.

"After all, George Washington wasn't importing wines from Tuscany," Mr. Lee said. "I'm not sure how it will taste, but we want to reproduce it."

The interest in heritage grape varieties is one reason the Staten Island delegation came to this part of Tuscany, to meet with Piergiorgio Castellani, a winemaker trying to save indigenous local grape varieties from extinction.

Mr. Castellani plans to travel to Staten Island in February to provide technical assistance on the vineyard. The borough, he said, "is not the best microclimate in the world; it's close to a large city, there's pollution. So they have to find a compromise solution that will mix resistant, adaptable vines with the right Tuscan varieties."

Mr. Castellani, who escorted the Staten Island group to the University of Pisa to meet with viticulture experts, added: "The principal aim of the project is didactic. We've given them a broad basis of knowledge so they can go forward."

Once the vineyard is up and running, visitors will be able to follow winemaking from the vine to the bottle.

"It's basically chemistry; you mash grapes, and there's a chemical reaction," Mr. Salmon said. "Let's face it, wine is exciting."

The visit from the Staten Island delegation caused a major buzz in this small town roughly 21 miles south of Pisa that is known for its hoot owls. Officials in Crespina were thrilled when Staten Island officials accepted their invitation to be a sister city. "For a town of 4,000, it was like entering a skyscraper," said Thomas D'Addona, Crespina's mayor.

In addition to a small parade down the town's main street (serenaded by the Walking Sharks Street Band) and a crossbow demonstration, the town's celebrations included a photo session with Giancarlo Giannini, an Italian movie star who has a home in the area.

A previous sister city partnership with the French town of Penchard some time ago was kept alive for a few years and then passed into oblivion, local officials said. But the vineyard at the botanical garden, everyone involved agreed, will be one tangible link across the ocean.

"If they want us for the grape harvest, we'll be ready to go with our boots and tools," Mr. D'Addona said.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

The other night the news showed the governor of Georgia leading a public prayer for rain. They seem to like public prayer in the south and pray over football games and such, but still, it seemed pretty sad. Georgia has had their driest year since rainfall levels were established 130 years ago. The water reservoirs were down and watering gardens and lawns was prohibited. On November 14th, 2007, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported that the nurseries in Atlanta are really suffering.

Homeowners are not buying fall perennials because they're afraid they'll succumb to the drought and die. Some nurseries have filed bankruptcy petitions, and others have seen retail sales fall 75 percent.

Atlanta is also getting hard hit by the sub prime mortgage catastrophe that's sweeping the country. In a different article in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, reports that "in metro Atlanta, about one in four home buyers in recent years has turned to a "sub prime" loan." Foreclosure actions for metro Atlanta hit an all-time high in October of this year, with 6,809 properties in 13 counties threatened with public auction in November.

This can't be good for the landscaping industry either. But maybe there's opportunity here for landscapers. Hopefully the drought will end, but might it might be a good time for a lose the lawn campaign and to encourage planting with natives and drought tolerant plants. Also, with it being a buyer's market, then staging a home a condo with landscaping increases the value and makes it more attractive. This was the case during the boom in selling houses, I wonder if it helps in a bad market.

Up here in the north, it's raining and rather than people losing their homes, there is a construction explosion going on in Brooklyn. The image posted was taken from my kitchen window. The building flush up against the old tenement building I live in is being demolished so luxury condos can be built. Come to think of it, I might be losing my home. My building is shaking as I write this, yesterday a backhoe knocked out all the telephone and cable wires in our building. A mentally off-kilter neighbor went outside to investigate and grabbed the live wires in his hands, and inspected them while grounded in a puddle of water. Other people in our building called the fire department to come investigate, and since New York Fire Fighters tend to be attractive, I went outside to talk with them. Basically, we all shook our heads at the rapid rate of development here. Within a one-block radius around me, there are five major construction sites. I've developed allergies and bronchitis like cough. My little pick-up truck is coated with dust or splattered with concrete every day. I'm thinking about going out with my gardening soil testing kit to see what toxins are being stirred up, but I don't know if a soil testing kit can pick up all the possibilities. I'm going to try to send samples to Cornell Extension. I called the city to see who we can contact about the possibility of our walls or ceiling caving in, and they told me "nobody". Only after the fact should we write to the Department of Housing.

I contacted the Cornell Extension
(http://www.css.cornell.edu/soiltest/soil%5Ftesting/index.asp) and learned that they have two tests for metals in the soil. The first R2070 just tests only for lead and costs $20.00. The second, R2020, tests for 16 different heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, cadmium, nickel, zinc and nitrate and costs $35.00.

In New York City, a "lead belt" runs from Williamsburg-Bushwick, through Bedford-Stuyvesant and East Flatbush, and into West Queens. Bushwick is considered to be the most contaminated. I've had clients in Crown Heights, Ft. Greene and Prospect Park concerned about their children playing in their yards because of high levels of lead. One of the surest ways to get the lead out is to remove layers of topsoil and add new soil; however, this is labor intensive and costly. If the toxins run deep, it's best to combine taking off a layer of dirt, and then using phytoremediation, or plants that naturally clean toxins from the soil

Some plants have evolved to be able to process metals from the soil. Plants that grow in metal rich soils are known as metal-hyperaccumulators. Most of them are in the mustard and broccoli family, but scientists are trying to find bigger, heartier plants to study. In South Africa, botanist are working with sunflowers, as their size allows them to absorb large amounts of metals from the soil. After the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the former Soviet Union, sunflowers grown on floating Styrofoam were used to clean up contaminated water. The roots of the sunflower plants remove 95% of the radioactivity by pulling contaminants out of the water. Now scientists are looking into the commercial potential of these plants to clean up polluted mining areas; it's hoped that one-day they could be harvested and processed for metals themselves.

Other plants also clean toxic metals; ferns remove arsenic from the soil. Poplar trees suck out dry cleaning solvent. Alpine pennycress, a wild European herb, takes care of zinc. Reed Canary grass, switch grass, tall fescue, alfalfa and sweet clover also process metals.

This coming spring, I'll come up with a plan for cleaning metals out of yards in New York City, for now, I'm trying to figure out how to get on the construction sites to get my 1.5 cups of soil to send Cornell.

Drosera, an organization started by Mariellé Anzelone, has conceived and designed the Native Plant Display Garden at Union Square Park at East 15th Street and Union Square West.

This woodland garden features plants native to the New York City area, including: Virginia bluebells, large-leaved trillium, wild columbine, witch hazel, and maidenhair fern. Mariellé claims that it's the only garden of its kind in the Big Apple, and "it has become a tiny woodland retreat in the heart of Manhattan."

Thursday, November 29th, I'm going to volunteer and help her plant the area. If other gardeners are interested, send an email to her at info {AT} drosera-x {DOT} com. If you can't make it but want to support the project, she could use money to buy plants. Each $8.00 donated buys a wildflower. For more information go to Donate Union Square Native Plant Garden.

Here's an interesting blog entry from The David Report.

With our prisons bursting at the seams here in the U.S., re-entry is going to be a very big issue. This seems like a start in the right direction.

"IOU is a producer selling garden furniture by well-known Swedish designers. The production is in cooperation with C.R.I.S (criminals return into society) where former criminals and drug-users will get a second chance to get back to normal society life through work and education. The complete profit from goes to charity. The new collection is designed by Gabriella Gustafson and Mattias Ståhlbom from TAF Arkitektkontor in Stockholm. It contains tables, chairs and benches in larch wood. One interesting detail is the different widths of chosen planks which avoids unnecessary wastage of material. The IOU garden furniture were also part of the Designboost exhibition which took place in Malmö during Oktober-November this year. The collection will be for sale from 2008."

I always think that the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino couldn't be any more spectacular, and then the Chinese workman came in and created the "Garden of Flowering Fragrance."

Here's a quote from an article about it in the Los Angeles Times:

"... the Garden of Flowing Fragrance -- is springing up like some fantasy film set at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. But it is authentic in all respects. Its design re-creates botanical havens built by scholars who were the social elite during the Ming Dynasty, when the art of classical gardens reached its zenith in the city of Suzhou. When the new garden opens in February, visitors will find handmade bricks, tiles and wood structures, all with elaborate decorative details, all crafted by artisans brought here by the Huntington because their skills are as ancient and rare as the garden design itself. Like its predecessors, the garden sits within undulating white walls, its 1 1/2 -acre lake dotted with hand-carved stone bridges, swooping-roofed pavilions and pebbled paths."

I really enjoy visiting botanical gardens this time of year. At the Brooklyn Botanic Garden springtime weekends can be shoulder to shoulder crowds and the cherry trees and lilacs so beautiful, you miss the subtle, nuanced beauty of the place. This time of year, visitors strolling the grounds experience a mix of tightly sculpted and arranged evergreens and perennial gardens on their last gasp. It is serene and beautiful in a wistful way. It's free to visit the gardens during weekdays from November. Also, you can do some of your holiday shopping in the their store and if you're a member, you get a discount. A membership would be a great gift. The cost is $40.00 for individual and $75.00 for families. Brooklyn Botanic Garden Gifts

I'm going to be on the ABC News Now program Exclusiva this Thursday, December 6th at 1:00 in the afternoon talking about Mexican wine. You can read an article that I wrote about it on their website here: Exclusiva

I reported some of this from the Yucatan Peninsula last year when I was on vacation with my family. We rented three condos on the beach--they were run by hippies whose 4 large dogs ran wild and pooped all over the place. But it was perfect for my nieces and nephews who ran from the ocean to the pool-- the pool to the ocean, leaving streams of water and sand on the condo floor.

I broke away from the herd and visited the Maroma Resort and Spa for a night to learn about Mexican wines from the chef, Guillermo Gomez and food and beverage manager Rodrigo Rodrigo Ofner. (That's where I took these pictures.)

I fell in love with Maroma Resort and Spa. Originally a coconut plantation, Jose Luis Moreno, an architect from Mexico City purchased the property in 1976. Moreno designed the resort in accordance with Mayan astronomy, so the setting would have a natural flow. He hired Mayan masons to build the first resort out of local quarried stone; it took 20 years. Located on 500 acres of jungle that border a white sand beach, this resort is situated only 100 yards from the second largest barrier reef in the world. Only one-tenth of the Maroma's property will be developed in order to preserve the ecological balance.

Garden lovers. Beach lovers. This is really where you want to go this winter.

The Cultural Landscape Foundation now has an online photography exhibition titled: Heroes of Horticulture (2007) . They describe it as "Highlighting significant horticultural features that have stood steadfast in the face of almost insurmountable natural and cultural odds; having born witness to the heritage of our nation."
Or, more simply put: plant porn.

While Christmas shopping in the ever shrinking flower district, on 28th St., I came across these terribly cute Christmas topiaries.

Erin Combs, principal at Jardinière ~ Garden Services is decorating Brooklyn Heights for the holidays. She clipped bunches of balsam, blue spruce, white pine & scotch pine. These she has mixed with have natural birch branches and red twig dogwood - along with a lot of pine cones and other "whosies and whatsits for color".

The windowboxes will last throughout most of the winter.

Have a hard time remembering when to water your plants? The the Thirsty Light blinks when plants are parched.

The Sagaform herb pot is a Scandinavian designed ceramic pot for keeping fresh herbs, well, fresh. (It's not for growing them, as I thought at first glance.) Rather, there's a hole in the base for adding water to keep the roots wet, and, as they claim, "air circulating."

If you got an urge for indoor gardening, check out this cute black olive bonsai at Red Envelope.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make olives, but this species is originally from the Florida Keys, so in this tiny tree southern tropical meets Chinese style. (do bonsai's seem fetishitic to anyone else?) Regardless, I love them.

Williams-Sonoma had a charming little Cabernet Sauvignon grape bonsai, that does grow fruit. They seem to be out of them right now. These would make great window box plants in California.

You know who you are...

Image by Katherine Durham Oldmixon

The November/December issue of online literary journal qarrtsiluni is featuring a bug issue. Visit it for great poems, prose and photos featuring Yucca Moths, Beekeepers, and the Nymph Prowl...

The Architectural Review Awards for Emerging Architects were recently announced and two of the winners had designed ideas based on urban green space.

Ecoboulevard by ECOSISTEMA URBANO ARQUITECTOS

These are "easily dismantled and energetically self-sufficient" mini-forests that provide temporary respite. The ideas is that these temporary installations are set up in suburban Madrid to create a cooling climate and meeting place for people. This attempts to counter-balance the effects of air conditioning, which heats the environment and tends to isolate people.

TAKETO SHIMOHIGOSHI/AAE

"Mid-air nature is as unexpected as it is effective."

This sky garden of moss covered beams is in Tokyo, very densely populated city. Here is what the judges had to say about it. "Vegetation handling in mid-air, where nature is not in its natural place, stirs up imagination and sensuality. This vegetation becomes a buffer where ground is connected to the sky."

Outside New York
is having a Spring Cleaning event of outdoor furniture & site furnishings at their shop through December 24th.

They have pottery and plants as well. Everything in the shop is 50-70% off.

During the past 19 years the number of wintering bald eagles on the lower Hudson River has steadily increased. These birds are sometimes viewable in impressive numbers, and are often to be seen fishing, feeding and interacting. No guarantees for sightings, but we can guide you to the best viewing areas in the lower Hudson and discuss eagle life in New York during all seasons. High-powered spotting scopes and running commentary made available. No charge.

These programs all meet at the lower parking lot in Georges Island Park in Montrose. The entrance is off the Old Post Road (Route 9A), just to the north of the FDR Veterans Hospital. Turn at the County Park sign and proceed 1 mile to the park and waterfront.

At Georges Island Park, Montrose, NY

January 1, 2008 2:00 PM
January 13, 2008 2:00 PM
January 19, 2008 2:00 PM
February 10, 2008 3:00 PM

As an extra treat, on New Years' Day Chris will serve his special spiced hot cider, guaranteed to warm your heart!

I've been away for the holidays--visiting family in El Paso, Texas and taking a road trip through West Texas and Hill Country. Although the desert wasn't in bloom and many of the botanical gardens and nurseries were closed for the holidays, I still went out looking at plants--I love winter in the desert: the blue-sky, dry chill, and cactus, yucca, and dried grasses look even more architectural and minimal this time of year. Morning doves and quail coo in the evening, and the mountains in the distance change shades of purple at sunset. And at night the stars are a marvel.

This week I'll be posting some pictures and notes from Texas.

The Home and Garden sectionof the New York Times recently published an article on nearby greenhouses to visit for a dose of the tropical. It's accompanied by a slide show of some of the green houses at Wave Hill in The Bronx and the Tower Hill Botanical Gardens in Boylston, Massachusetts.

The January/February issue of Veranda Magazine has a stunning photo essay of the country estate of Chauncey Devereux Stillman in the Taconic Hills of Dutchess County, New York. Unfortunately, it's not published online. It's really inspiring in the use of globes, cones and rectangular plants to create deep winter interest.

In Texas hill country, just outside of the lovely town of Fredericksburg is Wildseed Farms
This is a destination in itself that can take the better part of an afternoon. They not only cultivate wildflower seeds, but you can also stroll the native butterfly garden and sit near a fired-up chimenea and try local beers and wines. As well, they sell the usual garden shop fare, like ornaments, birdhouses, planters, pots and grills.

Some xeriscaping...a word that came in very handy during holiday Scrabble games.

I love these stone planters for this kind of landscape--very organic.

And if you were wondering, yes, you can get a Virgin of Guadalupe fountain here.

These little bird houses are great for cottage style gardens.

In the event you might forget you're in Texas while bar-b-queing, you can get a grill with a state-shaped cut out, or a lone star. These are not for dabblers.

Not sure why this one is mounted, except maybe too many wine and beer tasters nudged into it and burned themselves.

Again, these benches resemble rocky outcrops; they're very natural in this setting.

The seed selection here will make you swoon. They not only have wildflowers, but lots of seeds for lawns that use native and drought tolerant grasses.

In this same area there are lots of wineries--the best is Becker Vineyards and it's surrounded by fields of lavender, which they make chotskies out of. (For whites try the Viognier and the best red is the '05 Merlot) unless you like really sweet wines; you can find lots of these along this wine route; and if you're up for encountering a French vintner who kisses one cheek, the other, then swoops in for a slobbering open mouth one right on the lips, one local vineyard is known for this. I won't tell you which one that goes on at--think of it as a Texas Hill Country surprise.

I was in Austin for New Year's Eve, and unfortunately lots of stuff was closed for the holidays, though I did poke around the outside of the LadyBird Johnson Wildflower Center, and even this time of year and from the periphery, it was beautiful. Mrs. Johnson founded the National Wildflower Research Center as an organization dedicated to the preservation and re-establishment of native plants. Now it's a seed bank, and has several native gardens. Along the highways through Texas Hill Country wildflowers have been planted, and springtime is supposed to be just amazing. Locals predict the splendor of the blossoms by rainfall, etc., but I imagine if you've never seen them, you'd be impressed regardless. I'd like to go back to this area in the springtime, when the flowers are in bloom

This picture is from the path along Town Lake. Not only are the flowers in bloom in the springtime, but the bats return to their roost near Town Lake. Every night people gather to watch the 1.5 million bats head out into the nighttime. These critters not only chose one of the trendiest spots in the country--as they hang under Congress Avenue Bridge--but Austin is also home to Bat Conservation International, so they chose a safe spot as well.

Here are some airplants that are ubiquitous in this area, but not free in NYC. I found a few clinging to branches scattered on the ground and gathered them for gifts.

So we had no wildflowers or bat viewing, but there was still B-B-Q and Tex-Mex, not to mention music, dancing, bike routes and friendly, attractive men in Austin.

We stayed a night at the Gage Hotel
in Marathon, Texas. There's not much going on in Marathon, but this is the nicest place in the area and a good hopping off point for Big Bend National Park.

The cattle skulls might be a little macabre for most city gardens...but I kind of liked them here in ranch country.

The hotel is rustic Texas and Southwestern style; many of the rooms are located off the central patio.

These rams' heads are nice touches for the pool.

There's a border yuccas of differing sizes surrounding the perimeter of one area, which gives a has big impact for little maintenance.

These simple plantings in earth toned pottery have a subdued charm.

We took a day hike in Big Bend. It was sunny but a cold wind was blowing. Once again, I'd love to come back when the desert is in bloom, but even this time of year it was beautiful. Later, we visited the McDonald Observatory near Ft. Davis and the astronomer went around the room and asked us the first thought we had when we heard the word "nature". I answered "patterns" and he seemed impressed. But he also seemed impressed when my 2-year-old niece answered "monkeys".

These views were pretty constant along the Old Mine Trail.

I just love these agaves. Here they're called "century plants".

They're called century plants because they bloom once every 15 to 25 years (not quite a century), and then die. They're sort of like the salmon of the plant world.

See what I mean about those planters at Wildseed being so natural?

This project, the Ann Demeulemeester Shop in the Gangham district of Seoul is by Korean architect Minsuk Cho of Mass Studies: A pull quote from her description is "This proposal is an attempt to incorporate as much nature as possible into the building within the constraints of a low-elevation, high-density urban environment of limited space (378?). The building defines its relationship between natural/artificial and interior/exterior as an amalgamation, rather than a confrontation." For full text go to Mass Studies

Gowanus Canal

I recently met with Andrew Faust, permaculture expert and founder of the
Center for Bioregional Living
for an informal chat about developing garden designs in New York City. Initially we met to discuss the use of plants to clean leads and other metals from the soil. Our conversation veered into discussions on drain water management, composting, planting to keep mosquitoes at bay, and even the art of fruit tree pruning. Andrew is a wealth of knowledge on practical ecological practices and sustainable living so I held an impromptu interview for City Dirt. He's going to be conducting a workshop on Permaculture Design here in New York City that will be held over the course of 11 Fridays and 2 Saturdays from 9am-4pm. For more information on the course go to:andrew@ homebiome

This spring Prospect and
Refuge will be working with Andrew to create city specific designs for using rainwater run-off, helping home owners set up their composting systems, and combining dwarf fruit trees and other edibles with native and perennial plants for beautiful, tasty, bird and butterfly friendly gardens.

City Dirt: What is one of the most important sustainable issues for dense urban areas?

Andrew: Rain water run-off control is probably one of the simplest ways to keep raw sewage from draining into the waterways and city infrastructure. You can create wetlands in the back or side yard of your brownstone, and put that water to good use.

City Dirt: Like a cistern system that traps rainwater?

Andrew: Cisterns are good except for when there's a high flow rain event. Then you want a system to channel and harvest it.

City Dirt: But if you have it draining right into your yard, won't you have a bog that attracts mosquitoes?

Andrew: Absolutely not. You just use plants that have a high water uptake. Bullrushes, wild iris, red maple, red osier dogwood, elderberry and blueberries will all use the run off. Mussolini was known to dry swamps with plantings of elms and eucalyptus. These plants can literally suck up thousands of gallons of water a day. By doing this, you keep sewage from running into places like the Gowanus. It's estimated that 160 million gallons of raw sewage goes directly into the canal a year from rainfall.

City Dirt: Is there any hope for the lavender lake, aka Gowanus?

Andrew: I want to design floating pond remediators. These are rafts will host plants that clean the toxins out of the water. In China they created floating walkways to clean up the open sewage canals. Not only are the plants removing the toxins from the water, but you have a beautiful area for people to stroll through and enjoy the waterways.

City Dirt: If it could work for the Gowanus, then it could work for Newton Creek, right?

Andrew: I don't see why not. What exactly is Newton Creek? Is that a natural waterway or a canal?

City Dirt: I'm not sure, but it dead-ends into industrial wasteland and people are pretty scared of it. So what else can city dwellers do that's relatively simple?

Andrew: Compost. It has been figured that 30% of our waste is actually table scraps. So if you have either access to a community garden or your own backyard, then it's simple to cut your waste being trucked to landfills by a third. And I'm seeing biodegradable cups at places like coffee shops. These you can toss in with your garden clippings and table scraps.

City Dirt: What about rats getting into the outdoor recycling bins. They're kind of our staple wildlife here. And they're savvy.

Andrew: Make them rat proof. Really, really rat proof.

An article in today's Los Angeles Times, Imagine: Rain, Rain Stored Away
discusses gardens in Santa Monica that catch rain water before it can run over cement, washing over oil, gasoline and general filth before spilling into the ocean. The water is collected in the garden design and used by plant or stored for during dry spells. Traditional lawns have been replaces with ground covers and ornamentals grasses.

• Bulbs should be planted about 2/3 way down in soil, with top third showing above the soil (or 1/3 of the way down if you're planting in small rocks).
• Don't overwater paperwhites or bulbs can rot.
• Never let the water rise above the bottom of the bulbs.
• Water amaryllis very infrequently until they start to grow.
• Pack soil firmly at the surface to prevent bulbs from lifting out of the container.
• If bulbs start to fall over, either loosely tie a string around all of them--about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom--or place sticks around them and tie a string around the sticks.
• Don't worry about crowding bulbs--they like to be smooshed closely together.

Instructional Video

You just need some starting materials and a dark and clammy place in your home to grow your own batches of shitake and portabella mushrooms. Gardens Alive sells kits that include containers and pre-inoculated spawn. (doesn't sound so gourment, really). The kits cost almost as much as buying these from a store, but this could be more fun.

In the prologue of her book, Otherwise Normal People, Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening, Aurelia C. Scott writes: I knew the subject of this book would be the people of the rose world. These are gardeners for whom "Butterscotch is a large flowered light orange climbers, not an ice cream topping: 'Mr. Chips' is not Robert Donat, or even Peter O'Toole, but a hybrid tea that flowers repeatedly in a Tequila Sunrise like blend of yellow, orange, and pink."

If you happen to know and love one of those people, a gift they might enjoy would be to have a
rose hybrid named after them. Each year Select Roses offers 3 roses to be named. This rose is then propagated at the nursery and then sold to suppliers under this name.

But this price for this sort of immortality isn't cheap. The prices for 2007 range from $4000.00 for the miniature apricot-orange bloom (as pictured above), and $8,500.00 for a salmon hybrid tea rose.

FYI: There are less expensive gifts along these lines. One year I adopted a bat for my father through the program at Carlsbad Cavern for $5.00. My father named him Little Willie, and he gets the pleasure of knowing that he's is out in the night sky, keeping the mosquito population at bay.

My spider plants and some bamboo palms. (The figures on the wall are folk art from Cuba depicting the Santeria goddesses Yemeya and Oshun.)

I was having brunch last weekend with some friends, and we started talking about indoor plants. C. had recently moved into an apartment on the Upper West Side that has very little natural light. While not in the basement, the only windows open onto the brick walls of neighboring buildings. She was hoping a plant might cheer things up. I suggested a philodendron because of the low light and they are known to clean the air, but she pointed out that she has a cat, and philodendrons are toxic to cats.

"What about a spider plant?" she suggested. "I hear they also clean the indoor air."

"I have generations of spider plants growing--grandparents, offspring of offspring, cousins," I said. "I'll put some offshoots to root for you."

Another friend, H. chimed in that I in fact had a veritable trailer park of spider plants. She's from the south and has a fondness for trailer parks, so I took it as an endearing comment about my spider plants.

She added, "The one you gave me died in the move, could you start me a new one?"

I have so many little offshoots, that I give these plants away as housewarming gifts and even as party favors. But as I eyed a bunch of little shoots soaking in a bowl of water, I realized that I really wanted a terrarium. During the cold weather, the idea of a tiny, tropical eco-system cheering up the darker corners of my apartment became more and more appealing.


The spider plant nursery.

by Paula Hayes

Years ago I saw an art installation by Kiki Smith called "Reconstructing the Moon" that was just stunning. She had created a natural environment in a gallery--etches of moonscapes, a video of deer running, birds' nests woven from strands glass and large glass balls filled with living plants.

Whenever I see terrariums, I think of that exhibition. I loved it in part because it was fragmented and so each element was self contained. It was also transporting--to a fairy tale or to a forest. That's part of the terrarium's appeal. It's a mysterious little microclimate that makes you think of jungles or deserts. Another appeal is that they are very self-sustaining. The moisture creates it's own "rain cycle" so they rarely need to be watered and many do well in low light.

The earliest versions of the terrarium were known as Wardian cases, as they were created by Nathaniel Ward, an English physician and botanist. They were used to transport rare plants across continents and climate zones.

A contemporary artist who is well known for making the terrarium her medium is Paula Hayes. Using glass with interesting, organic shapes she layers colors and textures to create much sought after tiny landscapes that fetch $8,000.00 to $22,000.00.

But anyone can take artistic license. First, you need to find the right glass container. While an old mayonnaise jar will work, technically, I decided to purchase a few. If I lived around estate sales, I'd hit them. But here are a few options that are out there.

Planted Terrarium at Sprout Home

Cloches at Sprout Home

Wardian Terrarium at Shop at the New York Botanical Garden

Terrariums and Cloches at Shop at the New York Botanical Garden

Covered Terrariums at Smith and Hawken.

We're working on a gardening book/cookbook and are interested in talking to anyone who bucks the notion of a traditional gardener. The only pre-requisites are that you grow legal edibles in an urban environment. We're looking for urban gardeners with an interesting story to tell--either about how you garden, what you garden, or why you garden--the more unusual the better. (Also, think gardens of newly arrived immigrants, prison projects, monasteries, brothels, halfway houses, backyard vineyards, beekeepers, etc.) Tips on edible gardens at schools and restaurants would be appreciated as well.

Contact citydirt(at)gmail.com

Please include your name, city of residence, email, and a summary of what you garden and why, and what makes you unique. If you feel so inclined, please also list any favorite dishes you cook with the veg/herbs/fruits/berries you grow. Feel free to pass this along to anyone who you think fits the bill.

Thanks!

Senior citizen gardeners might start thinking, "What the hell, I'm planting tropicals this year. Life is short, summer is short--I'm going for tulips bulbs and annuals." But you might want to choose some of your favorite perennials or even trees, as you could very well beat the average life span.

To encourage my clients to spend time tending their gardens, I have argued both the therapeutic and the health benefits, as I tell them, "For anyone over 30, gardening counts as exercise."

A book coming out in April 2008, Gardening Your Way to Health and Fitness by Bunny Guinness and Jacqueline Knox claims that you can burn over 300 an hour by gardening. That's about a third more than an hour of pilates or yoga. But you don't have to forego these favorites, as the book gives pilates exercises for gardeners. (I do love pilates. In Buenos Aires, they've developed tango-lates, or pilates for tango dancers. Could there be a garden-lates? A core strength course developed specifically for gardeners?) The Timber Press website states: "Step-by-step sequences based on the Pilates method illustrate the safe way to push wheelbarrows, lift heavy pots, pick low-lying fruit, and much more in a way that boosts fitness benefits while avoiding stresses and strains.

Another recently published book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John Ratey, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, makes the claim that exercise is the single best thing you can do for your brain. Exercise stimulates the production of proteins that are known as growth factors, and these promote the growth of brain cells and synapses. As well, deterioration in the brain is often caused by disruptions to the cardiovascular system by microstrokes. Exercise may help prevent these. To read more on this go to US News. US News

So while a case of carpel tunnel might by unavoidable as you hit triple digits, gardening may keep Alzheimer's at bay.

So Sweet Pink Tulips by Organic Bouquet

Valentine's Day is coming up on us quickly. While there's nothing more wonderful than getting flowers in February, you really don't want to give the person you love a bunch of roses from Colombia or Ecuador--and chances are higher than 50% that most of the cut flowers you find here are. According to the World Health Organization many of the chemicals used on farms in Colombia were classified as toxic "extremely" or "highly" toxic. So not only do you not want your loved one inhaling those toxins, but there's a big toll on the workers on these farms and the surrounding environment.

Fortunately, there are lots of other options.

Go to Fair Trade Certified Flowers to find local vendors who sell flowers that are grown with guidelines for worker safety and environmental standards.

You can always go Local
Check out your closest flower farm here and if you're feeling very certain about your relationship, you can even sign up for a fresh flower share of a CSA for the gift that keeps on giving...

For organic options try:

California Organic Flowers

Manic Organic Flowers

Diamond Organics

Organic Bouquet

Horse Stables at Rancho Santa Emilia near San Miguel de Allende

Luis Barragàn cited Mexican provinces as his inspiration, stating in his Pritzker Architecture Prize acceptance speech, "For me the lessons contained in the traditional architecture of the Mexican provinces have been my permanent source of inspiration: their white-washed walls; the tranquility of their courtyards and kitchen gardens; the color of their streets and the humble majesty of their squares surrounded by shady porches."

It was his use of color that made Luis Barragàn an internationally known architect. He adapted the colors of the pueblo, or the people- pinatas, their streamers all hot colors- fuchsia, sapphire blue, carnival reds; fruit and vegetable markets, the sweet and musky scents of fruits emanate from the mounds of purple, red, green, orange and yellow.

In his acceptance of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1980, Luis Barragàn called it "alarming" that publications devoted to architecture seemed to have banished the words, "Beauty, Inspiration, Magic, Spellbound, Enchantment, as well as the concepts of Serenity, Silence, Intimacy and Amazement."

Plaza, San Miguel

In her poem, "Evening Plaza, San Miguel" Muriel Rukeyser writes:

"Like the birds falling among the trees, like music
As the trees close, and the cathedral closes.
No one will know who in a stranger land
Has never stood while night came down
In shadows of roses, a cloud of tree-drawn birds,
And said, "I must go home."

The courtyard at PS1 is famous for hosting weekend dance parties for the post art-school crowds. The museum has recently announce the winning firm, Work Architecture, who will design the courtyard for this summer. They are going to be installing a working vegetable farm in cardboard tubes that will rise above the party area. They hope to even sell crops at a farmer's market.

According to wine maker Robert Herald, who will be teaching a class in backyard and rooftop winemaking at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden says that twelve 5 gallon pots makes 5 gallons of wine. Maybe PS1 should start their own label.

Mizue Sawano
February 14 - March 15, 2008

Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
24 East 78th Street New York, NY 10021
TEL 212 628-9760 FAX 212.628.9635
Hours: Monday- Saturday 10am - 5pm

First, I purchased glass containers. The small globe is from Sprout Home, the square bowl is from Jamali Garden Supplies and the darker glass is hand blown by artisans in San Miguel de Allende.

I purchased some of the smallest plants I could find, including Oxalis, Maiden Hair Fern, Evergemiensis Fern, a Red Vein Fittonia, and some moss. (At this point you might be noting that my plants are a little big for my glass containers. I wasn't yet aware of this.)

Here, I've added way too many pebbles. I then added to much charcoal, and by the time I added the soil mixed with a little sphagnum moss, it was too deep. So I had to go back and take out the soil, remove some charcoal, and some pebbles.

Almost all the plants I bought were too big to fit into the globe, so I ended up filling it with moss and a few oxalis.

The ferns, moss, Fittonia, and Oxalis are essentially crammed into these. They aren't the tropical landscapes I was hoping for. Though, I kind of like them; I felt a Victorian Era-type fetish of wanting to cram all of my plants into glass jars...

But next time I make a terrarium, it will be with little plants and big containers.

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

While some people are rifling through garden catalogues in anticipation of spring, others are planting indoors to satisfy their need to feel dirt. But this is a great time to travel and there are lots of botanical gardens that offer gardening internships that include housing.

New York City based garden designer Paula de la Cruz, principal of Allscape Design
traveled to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in South Africa.

She wrote: "I am now someone who knows how to pollinate birds of paradise with a porcupine quill. It's something I learned during a three-month internship at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, in Cape Town, South Africa, last fall. But while I'd traveled halfway around the world from New York to learn technique, I'm also fascinated by a good story. This is the legend that goes with the local birds of paradise: Sunbirds used to eat the Zulu people's crops, so an angry god transformed them into flowers. Now, when the birds of paradise look at the sun, tears of nectar run down their stalks from where their eyes would be--and new sunbirds flock to them, making meals of their sorrow." Visit her website Allscape Design
, and click on "Publications" to see the full article.

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

Here's Paula's list of places to get your gardening fix:

The Eden Project
Cornwall, United Kingdom
Little tells you that this haven of sustainable ecology started as a china clay pit. Interns and volunteers learn the codes for ecologically correct practices while working with 100,000 plants in the largest conservatory garden on Earth. Just don't try to prune the stately pomegranate tree that Prince Charles planted in 2001, or the bobbies might come for you.
Telephone: +44 (0)1726 811911

Hillwood Museum and Gardens
Washington D.C., US
Improve your civic education while grooming the "outdoor rooms" of this pleasure garden. Marjorie Merriweather Post purchased the estate in 1955 and used it mostly to entertain. There is a putting green that is still maintained to perfection where Mrs. Post allowed her guests to putt, but she mostly used to exercise. This beautiful Washington D.C. oasis gives it a new meaning to power mini golf.

Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens
Fort Bragg, California, U.S.
This is the only botanical garden in the continental US where you can tend to the plants while gazing at the ocean. The 43-acre cliffside garden welcomes volunteers and, offers housing to unpaid interns from around the world, from three months to a year. The unique foggy, cool summers, allow the gardens to grow the rare Rhododendron macabeanum from the Indian Himalayas, but alas no chardonnay vines.

Le Jardin Exotique de Monaco Montecarlo, Monaco
Just a moped's ride away from Cannes, this vertical rock garden lets experienced horticultural interns work its three-acre rock walls of cactus, in a micro-microclimate created by the Mediterranean sun heating up the rock. Here, the exotica is a dragon tree and a prehistoric calcareous cave, while regular fare is a good bouillabaisse after a hard day of gardening.
Telephone: +377 93 15 29 80

Ayrlies, Auckland, New Zealand
This privately owned garden is open to the public by appointment only. The renowned garden photographer Alain Le Toquin has called it "the most beautiful private garden in the world." The estate was designed by Beverley McConnell to follow the contours of the land. If its 30 acres prove too constraining for your horticultural curiosity, botanize through New Zealand's 26,000 square miles of natural forest.
Telephone: +64 9 530 8706

Weed Eater

The latest issue of Saveur
features their 10th annual Top 100 list of their favorite foods, restaurants, drinks, people, places and things. One great selection that caught my eye is a short article on Edible Weeds by Mei Chin. She learned how to forage edible weeds as a child, and now as an adult she steams and sautés young dandelion leaves with bacon to "temper their astringency". She writes "I infuse pickle brines with the licorice-like perfume of wild fennel flowers and add the plant's wispy leaves to my Chinese dumplings. Chickweed, whose flavor is reminiscent of beet greens', makes an excellent addition to salad, as does lemony sorrel. The topmost sprouts of the stinging nettles, which as the plant's name suggests, are tricky to collect, reward the diligent forager with a velvety texture when they're pureed into soups. Lacy-leafed yarrow makes a fragrant, soothing tea..."

Unfortunately, the full article isn't up on the web, but the issue should be out on the newsstands.

Mother Earth News has recently reprinted an article from 1971, where editors from Home Garden's grew a 10 x 20 foot garden with seeds that cost less than $10.00. They figure that a person or family can eat fresh produce for six months with this. It's fun to read, but their vegetable list shows how far we've come. They grew two types of tomatoes: Burpee's VF and cherry tomato-Basket Pak. They also had zucchini, cucumbers, beets, radishes, endive, onions, lettuce and for seasoning cress and parsley. These vegetables seem so modest and earnest compared to what people are doing now.

In contrast, a week or so ago the Los Angeles Times ran an article, Yellow Strawberries and Pink Pumpkins about produce grown in small or urban spaces. The Los Angeles area urban farmers they mentioned were growing large-leaf mâché, Italian wild arugula, yellow alpine strawberry, not to mention the herb mentuccia, and the Italian vegetable agretti; and it's not longer just cucumbers, but rather Green Fingers Persian baby cucumber.

I imagine the seeds cost more than $10.00, but it's a great trajectory that we're on...

There's a great article and slideshow in theL.A. Times
about a hidden garden that sounds like it's being disassembled. Here's a pull quote on one of the men who installed it:

Saturday morning I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens to take a course with Robert Herold on planting a backyard vineyard. When I arrived, I was terribly disappointed to find out that the class had been canceled. The security guard suggested that I assuage my disappointment by checking out the gardens. (He probably used different words and he had a charming West Indies accent, but I can't remember how he phrased it now.)
If I had cross-country skis, and if they allowed it, this would have been the perfect activity. The snow-covered grounds were so open and flawless. They were also inspiring for spring plantings. When the garden fever hits, everyone visits the gardens and then wants lilacs, cherry trees and quince bushes. But this time of year, when plump thrushes are feeding in the winterberry trees, and the evergreens and witchhazels are really shining, a person has to rethink their planting.
At one point, a young hawk flew right over my head. It reminded me of when I tried to teach myself how to cross country ski one early spring in Alaska. I found some old skis in the shed of the cabin I was renting and headed to a hillside. The snow had a slick, icy coating and I fell over and over. At one point, while sprawled out, I looked up and saw two bald eagles and two hawks circling above me. At first I considered it majestic, until I realized that they thought I was an injured mammal and were waiting for me to go down for good.

Master Gardeners hotline ready to open

The Examiner

On Saturday, the Master Gardeners of Greater Kansas City will open its gardening Hotline at 816-833-TREE (8733). The Hotline, staffed by volunteer Master Gardeners, is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday through Oct. 31.

Master Gardeners are available to answer your gardening questions. In 2007, the Hotline fielded 2,324 gardening calls from area residents.

For more information on the Master Gardener Program, contact the Jackson County Extension Office at 816-252-5051.

From staff reports

Manhattan Users Guide

Herbs

February 27, 2008

As the Dar Williams lyric goes: "February was so long that it lasted into March." This morning, an herbal tonic.

Angelica is among the 130 herbs, plants, and flowers said to be in the secret formula of Chartreuse, the liqueur made by Carthusian monks. It may not be fashionable, but we'd never face winter without a bottle nearby.

Basil is the basis of The Nibble's quest to find perfect pesto from among 100 brands tasted.

Borage seeds are available from Nichols Garden Nursery. Leaves can be used in salads, sauteed, and they make the perfect gin and tonic garnish.

Calendula is the herb of the year, so give it up for calendula! The honor is bestowed by the International Herb Association. Calendula is often used in a cream to soothe skin; Neal's Yard makes our favorite.

Chamomile Lip Balm from Bigelow does yeoman's anti-chap service.

Chervil, as well as dill and cilantro, are the spring herbs discussed during a cooking demonstration at Wave Hill on May 9th, 11am.

Dill and Coriander are the two stars of one of Aquavit's aquavits. The restaurant's version has it with Crown Dill, which is dill harvested after blossoming.

Epazote, sometimes called Indian Tea, is much used in Latin cooking. The strong herb, compared often to cilantro, is available dried from Penzeys in Grand Central. The Perfect Pantry says, "I'm not a cilantro person but I love epazote, which to me tastes a bit like citrus and mint (I've also heard the taste described as petroleum or turpentine)" and notes that it grows wild in Central Park.

Fennel oil is applied to grilled whole fish at that jewel Prune, 54 E. 1st St. [1/2] 212.677.6221.

Lavender and honey make up one of the excellent gelatos from il Laboratorio del Gelato, 95 Orchard [Broome/Delancey] 212.343.9922.

Lemon basil is one of the scented candles by Voluspa at Adrien Linford, 927 Mad [73rd/74th] 212.628.4500, and many other retailers.

Lemon verbena, aka verveine, makes a sprightly tea, especially from Harney & Sons.

Oregano is used to ideal effect in the Pollo Scarpariello at Via Oreto, 1121 1st [61st/62nd] 212.308.0828, prepared by the Sicilian mother-and-son team here. It's a half chicken cut into pieces, baked with olive oil, oregano, lemon, and garlic.

Rosemary essential oil is available from Kalustyans, 123 Lex [28th/29th] 212.685.3451.

Sage, combined with potato, garlic, brussels sprouts, and fontina, are the ingredients in the pizzocheri pasta (buckwheat tagliatelle) found at dell'anima, 38 8th [Jane/W. 12th] 212.366.6633.

Thyme, combined with orange peels, is infused into a dark chocolate ganache by masterful chocolate-maker Pierre Marcolini, 485 Park [58th] 212.755.5150.

The Orchid Show at The New York Botanical Garden has opened and will run until April 6th.

If you like colorful flowers, it's a good show. But if you're really into orchids, it's not so exciting. The ones in the show are pretty, but that's about it. They don't evoke the seductive nature of these flowers. Out in the wild, the wood orchid quivers for motion-sensitive nocturnal creatures. The devious dragon orchid of Australia mimics the shape and scent of a female thynnid wasp so that the male wasp, attempting to mate, pollinates it. The orchids at the NYBG show are pretty standard Cattleyas and Phalaenopsis. There's not much cross-species hanky panky going on here. To get to the main installation, you walk through a series of arches adorned with orchids that look like huppas at Jewish weddings. Also, not so evocative.

By contrast, in the past the Orchid Show held at the Rockefeller Center showcased work by orchid breeders, an obsessed crowd who cultivate the strange, the smelly and the unique. I loved my first glimpse of the Bulbophyllum phalaenopsis, a large plant with huge leaves drooping to the floor. Its blooms are hairy, have a muddy red color, and curve like claws. They also smell like hot, dirty garbage. Imagine all the pollinators they have out in the wild.

Unfortunately, the Rockefeller Center show won't be taking place this year. Out at the NYBG, you can always veer off from the orchid show and wander through the marvelous moss room and stop and check out the man-eating plants.

Apartment Therapy has a great piece on really creative birdhouses auctioned off for a good cause--affordable housing in Los Angeles. (for people, not just birds)

Here's a pull quote:

"Birdhouses for the Birdhouse Auction, an event hosted by Princeton Community Housing, invited architects, artists and other creatives to fashion their own vision of the common birdhouse. With 124 different built from the likes of architects Michael Graves [top] and the Princeton Design Guild/Wilkes Architect [bottom left], the results were anything but common."

I've installed indoor plants for clients, but it didn't usually entail much more than choosing the best-shaped plant for the space, the right plant in concerns to light, and the planter that complemented the interior décor. This client is a principal at Deep Green Living, a consulting business that helps homes and businesses go green. She's originally from the sweaty, beautiful tropical chaos of fruit, flowers and foilage that is Coconut Grove in Miami, was feeling a little homesick. She didn't want an accent plant--she wanted a mini-jungle.

So when recently at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, I wandered through their greenhouses; while looking at the tropical and desert micro-climates, I realized this would be a lot like creating a perennial border. Start with a tall center, and work down in a triangle, and try to have different textures and hues of foliage.

We made our way up and down 28th street, the final gasp of the plant district, comparing the health and sizes of different plants. My advice to the client when choosing--follow your heart. She did, and didn't get any bonsai or succulents, but really went for the tropicals.

We then headed through the outer boroughs for the perfect planters. These Eco Pots are made from rice and biodegradable. After about 5 years, you just plant them in the ground, and they become organic matter. They are available at:
The New York Botanical Garden
GRDN
and coming soon to Sprout Home.

We purchased these for the smaller plants to sit in the windowsills.

For the larger, we ended up finally purchasing black zinc planters on 28th Street (hint, the earlier you go to Planter Resource, the less cranky and more helpful the people are), but here are a few that we also liked:

Dig has nice ceramic pots, but they were too heavy and not quite modern enough for this space:

New York Botanic Gardens Carries these pretty, light weight resin planters, and they're very inexpensive. They just didn't have the variety of sizes that we needed.

Sprout Home had a nice selection, but to buy as many as we needed from them would have meant a wait of two weeks. We did get our castors from them. As well, we bought worm casings (poop!) for composting the tropicals.

And finally, the watering can from
Smith and Hawken.

Before

After
(Keep in mind, houseplants clean formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide from the air, so this is a very simple and effective way to improve the air quality in your home.)

Here's a close up of the variegated leaves and different colored foliage available with tropicals.

Here's the Eco Pot, en vivo.

We are now working on indoor edible plants. We're going to find some kumquat and Mandarin orange trees that will fruit indoors. As well, we're purchasing herbs, and starting lettuce leaves for indoor window boxes.

I just got leafy green seeds in from Thomson & Morgan Thompson & Morgan
that include:

The blend consists of Leaf Radish, Leaf Carrot, Wrinkled Cress, Kale Red Russian, Red Amaranth, Golden Purslane, Salad Burnet, Spinach, Red Chard, Red Cos, Lambs Lettuce,
Watercress, Lollo Rossa, Baby Cos, Rocket, Coriander, Continental Parsley

Almost every day I pass by the new Night and Day Condos, a massive structure that runs 18 stories high and towers over McCarren Park. This is known as one of the "finger" buildings, as it sticks up like a finger in a neighborhood of low buildings, and symbolically, they are giving the rest of the neighborhood the finger. The developers recently installed a garden in the back of the building, which gave me pause. There was something so odd and out of place about it.

The garden looked like it should be at a convalescent home in the suburbs.

The rows of Arborvitaes, also known as contractor specials, as they are the cheapest evergreens available, are crammed into soil that's still filled with chunks of cement that will leak toxins into their roots. They have a tendency to turn brown, so this will hurry that process along; the bright red mulch looks neither organic nor modern, just tacky.

The accent tree is a shapeless Spruce--the second cheapest evergreen you can find; and then mono-planting of boxwoods and grass make sure a bird or butterfly will never alight anywhere near the property. They do have a little seating area with benches, though they are so exposed and uninviting, I can't imagine anyone would actually sit there.

The condos aren't cheap, running just a little under $100.00 a square foot. So with 18 floors of condos, each costing around a million dollars, why wouldn't you spend a couple hundred dollars on a dogwood tree or a few perennials? The accent tree should be a gorgeous hinoki cypress or Korean White Pine.

Here's a description of the building from a
Real Estate Agent selling a $950,000 2-bedroom apartment in this building.

"Rising 18 stories, Number Twenty Bayard is the new high point of McCarren Park. As the tallest building on the parks perimeter, this defining addition to the Williamsburg landscape has the most enviable views of Manhattan. With interior designs by Andres Escobar, Number Twenty Bayard suggests a boutique hotel with superior finishes and thoughtful accents."

As I snapped a few photographs of some of the exterior "thoughtful accents", a construction worker started to yell at me to "stop taking photographs of the garden." I yelled back, "Why?" He never answered me, but I really wanted to know. Was I going to steal some of their ideas?

Like their row of Arborvitae:

A place I do go for ideas and inspiration, the Green Dome Community Garden is less than a block away from from the finger Night and Day. It's a tiny space, but one of the nicest small gardens in the city. The dwarf evergreens are varied colors and textures which include Hinoki cypress, blue spruce, white pine, and cascading juniper. Ornamental grasses provide shelter for birds, and you can hear birdsong year round here.

Yuccas and rose hips also provide year round interest. The curving stone paths lead through raised beds of perennials-- in the spring poppies come in at the same time as the iris, butterflies love the Echinacea and purple aster in late summer. There are a few benches tucked between big clusters of lavender and artemisia where you can sit and read a book.

Crocus are in bloom now, and come springtime, it's just a marvel.

Clearly, this has been planted by people understand the poetry of a garden; the other by real estate developers who want to spend the least amount of time and money possible. But making money isn't a bad thing, and in reality, actually creating a beautiful landscape with plants that support bio-diversity, having a variety of ornamental trees, and good design enhances the value of property. Herein lies the difference between Value Added and Staging in landscaping.

Staging is to make your property look good to people shopping for homes. When you look up staging ideas on the Internet, tips generally include terms like, "tricks" and "fluffing".(Isn't fluffing a term from pornography sets?) Tips include: Place flowers in two large pots flanking entryway" or "Hang flowers or ferns." So while these might improve the moment of entry for buyers, they don't in fact add value to the property. When the frenzied real estate market was at its peak in New York City, landscaping wasn't necessary. But as things cooled off, real estate agents started contacting gardeners to help them fix up a place. A friend of mine, a gardener in Brooklyn Heights, was repeatedly contacted by agents. At first she was excited by the prospect, but quickly learned that many of them were paying for the plantings themselves and didn't really want an installation that would last for years and improve over time, but rather a few plants that looked good while showing the place. Since payment for the landscaping came out of the agent's pocket, they wanted to spend as little as possible.

In contrast to this, real estate appraisers estimate that good landscape design increases property value 15 percent. As far as plants go, large trees are the slowest to establish but add the greatest value to property. In a city, large trees might cast so much shade that a smaller, ornamental variety is more desirable. Try a native dogwood, cascading cherry tree, birches are always nice, or go for a fruiting tree such an apricot or pear, which have beautiful flowers in the springtime and fruit in the fall. Keep shrubs healthy and pruned so they don't look too wild and have a nice array that are blooming or have structural interest throughout the four seasons. As far as perennials go, it's suggested that you photograph them when they are at their showiest, and then present these pictures to prospective buyers. Other features such as irrigation systems and bluestone patios drastically increase your property value. Also keep in mind that when garden designers install hardscape and trees, shrubs, and perennials, these are considered capital improvements, frequently they are tax deductible. Annuals and bulbs, like tulips that don't return year after year are not deductible. (I had a rather humorous conversation with a New York State Tax man about this. He told me that bulbs are not considered Capital Improvement as they are annuals, and I said, 'what about daffodils, they come back year after year," to which I got a "look lady, just read the tax book."

Empty terraces used for storage are wasting precious space in cities. When we planted this native terrace, the client's boyfriend was skeptical about the whole endeavor. It was only 16 feet by 9 feet--how could we install everything we said we would--fountain, bat boxes, bird, butterfly, bee friendly plants, and have space for a little table and chairs. Subsequently, he had his coffee every morning, and beer at night in this terrace garden. As a cynical economist, he wasn't just won over, but also told his girlfriend that the installed terrace added about $10,000.00 worth of value to her apartment, as we essentially created an additional room.

Nicely designed gardens do not need to be expensive. They however do need to be well thought out. Gardens installed in the Curran House, an AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECT in San Francisco's Tenderloin District, are an example of excellent design that build a sense of community. This was designed by Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture.

This is the "decompression" garden through which residents and visitors enter the building and leave behind the harsh urban neighborhood surrounding it. This sanctuary was planted with tree ferns, baby tears, flax, calla lilies and mondo grass.

A low fountain made of black concrete was placed at the center of the courtyard. The water runs in a thin layer over and flowing over the top through stainless steel grating into a re-circulating vault. This is mask the noises of the Tenderloin pulsing outside and it needed to be child-safe, so it is shallow.

The sunny rooftop garden has galvanized troughs so that residents can grow their own plants and vegetables. As well, the beds are raised for elderly and handicapped people. As the building reached 100 percent occupancy, demand for space out-weighed the number of available plots so citrus trees, pomegranates and kiwi vines were added.

The sustainability show that's opening at Eyebeam Gallery
tomorrow night could not be more timely, particularly the installation by Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray, two artists and collaborators who also have a company called Submersible Design.

Their installation, DrinkPeeDrinkPeeDrinkPee is a project about our bodies as part of larger ecosystems. The project includes an installation and a DIY kit that allows you to turn your pee into fertilizer. The installation will be on view and the DIY kits will be available at Eyebeam for the FEEDBACK exhibition from March 13 - April 19.

Their Artist Statement:
What happens when we think of our bodies as their own ecosystems? Are they open or closed ecosystems? Where do we draw the boundaries? Before we take medication, do we ask ourselves how it will affect our internal organs, our friendly bacteria? What is our medication's future, beyond our bodies, in the sewage system and out in the waterways we swim in and eventually drink? What are the possible futures of our personal waste? What do sentient ecosystems eat and drink?

In this work we can see our urine become a source of overfeeding, mutation, and disease or a fertilizer in a new lifecycle economy.

Just this week, the Associate Press released a report that has me filtering my water twice. We're drinking the drugs from each other's pee. Two days ago, AP published the story Traces of Sedatives in NYC Water By Jeff Donn. It states, "Research studies have turned up minute amounts of more than 15 drugs or their byproducts in several pristine-looking rivers, a reservoir, and aqueducts feeding the country's biggest water system.

Though barely measurable, these pharmaceuticals are present in a variety worthy of a medicine cabinet: drugs for aches, infections, seizures and high blood pressure; hormones for menopause; the active ingredient in a popular sedative; and caffeine -- all bound for the city that never sleeps."

But it's not just New York City that's all hopped up on their neighbors anti-depressants and estrogen. In fact, ABC.com released an article that says The AP's investigative team found traces of drugs in 24 of the 62 major metropolitan water systems it checked.

Rebecca and Britta studied the work of the Swiss scientists at EAWAG Aquatic Research who found:

Although urine makes up only 1% of the total volume of wastewater, it accounts for 50-80% of the nutrient content. Nutrients have to be removed by resource-intensive processes at wastewater treatment plants. In the absence of these processes, nutrient discharges pose a risk of eutrophication - threatening in particular coastal waters and fish stocks. Many problematic substances, such as residues of medicines or endocrine disrupters, also enter wastewater via urine and may subsequently be released into the environment. The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) has now shown that separate collection and treatment of urine could make significant contributions to water pollution control and nutrient recycling worldwide . . .

Novaquatis tested various methods of processing urine. Ideally, treatment should permit recycling of nutrients as fertilizers and, at the same time, removal of problematic micropollutants. For example, 98% of the phosphorus in urine can be recovered by precipitation with magnesium. The product - struvite - is an attractive fertilizer, free of pharmaceuticals and hormones. In Switzerland, nutrients from human urine could serve as substitutes for at least 37% of the nitrogen and 20% of the phosphorus demand that is currently met by imported artificial fertilizers.

What's the problem with urine in wastewater?

While urine accounts for less than 1% of total wastewater volume, it contains 50-80% of all the nutrients in wastewater. Many micropollutants, i.e. residues of pharmaceuticals and hormones from human metabolism, also enter wastewater via urine. On average, for all medicines and hormones ingested, 60-70% of the active ingredient is excreted in the urine.

85-90% of the nitrogen and 50-80% of the phosphorus are concentrated in the urine. These nutrients are desirable in agriculture, but not in waterbodies. It may therefore make sense to separate urine from wastewater and use it for fertilizer production."

So I'm going to Eyebeam on Thursday night. I'll purify my pee before flushing it if you purify yours. FYI: The fertilizer that comes from urine is supposed to be good for fruit trees.

Animals in the News

Ohio's coyote comeback good news for gardeners - Donna Miller's Animals in the News
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Donna Miller
Plain Dealer Reporter

Ohio's coyote population is growing. That's good news for many of you.
Coyotes prowling your yard will eat the rabbits and rodents that munched your garden. They will scare away trash-raiding raccoons and the deer eyeing your favorite bushes. They also eat the eggs of those messy Canada geese so many of you loathe.

"I call coyotes nature's animal-control officers, because they control the populations of every kind of urban wildlife people complain about, and do it so neatly, quietly and efficiently that most of the time most folks have no idea that coyotes are among them," said Merritt Clifton, editor of the international Animal People newspaper.

Coyotes rarely bite people, but they can make meals of cats and small dogs.

Madonna's new Africa awareness documentary was directed and filmed by her personal gardener.
Thursday, March 13, 2008

Copyright World Entertainment News Network 2008

Madonna's new Africa awareness documentary was directed and filmed by her personal gardener.The pop superstar rewarded green-fingered multi-tasker Nathan Rissman by asking him to take charge of her new movie I Am Because We Are.

She explains, "He used to be my gardener... He's a brilliant, lovely guy - one of those guys who came into my life and did every job. He was a runner, an intern, a gardener.

"He took care of my kids. He did everything and he did it with humility. And everyone just grew to love him. And then he started doing these little movies of my children and sending them to me, and making films out of photographs and just being really creative.

"One day I said, 'I need somebody to document this,' and then looked at him and said, 'And that person is you.' He really stepped up to the plate."

Rissman took off to Malawi, Africa to document Madonna's film, which she wanted to release to show that famine, poverty and AIDS in the developing world are problems that can be solved.
The singer adds, "He spent a lot of time in Malawi, literally sleeping on the floors of people's huts and waking up with chickens on his head.

"He really lived it and approached it with an open heart and so much gratitude.
"People opened their hearts to him. I couldn't have done that."

For two weeks this March, hundreds of students and young professionals will converge on New Orleans - bringing their energy and ideas to help the people of the Lower 9 revitalize their community. They are architects, engineers, planners, landscape architects, interior designers and contractors who'll work hand in hand with neighborhood residents on their historic houses, parks, playgrounds and community centers. Visit the Historic Green website to donate or volunteer: Historic Green

Historic Green is an unprecedented opportunity to integrate sustainable practices with preservation of a place. To increase energy efficiency. To enhance its quality of life, housing and transportation. To protect the wetlands. To help create the nation's first carbon-neutral community.

GREEN SPACES
1. Volunteers will work with Holy Cross residents to protect and restore a community playground's play equipment, grounds, and access.
2. Garden construction and raingarden demonstrations in cooperation with Common Ground, Replant New Orleans, and others.
3. Design-Build services for a neighborhood community garden including compost bins, raised planters, walkways, tool-storage, and more.
4. Bayou restoration & access projects in cooperation with the Sierra Club and several university groups. Volunteers will work to improve a bayou access path, seal a viewing platform, and complete the construction of the viewing platform's designed railing.

This entry by Edina Tokodi was posted on the blog IInhabit

Pull Quote:
"One of our favorite green public artists, Edina Tokodi, is at it once again with her shape-shifting moss graffiti and urban guerrilla tactics. Tokodi was recently commissioned by SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) to encourage Philadelphia's commuters to 'Go Green' with her navigable moss icons and green walls in the Market East Station's passenger service area, ticketing area, and on the exterior of the station building and Transportation Museum. The initiative is part of SEPTA's mission to help commuters become more aware of the positive environmental impact of using mass transit regularly."

Shelving for small balconies
Christian Lessing

I found this on Yanko Design

Here's a pull quote:

"Modern times being what they are, with sky high real estate prices and space in most larger cities running out quickly, designers are constantly put to task and have made "Necessity the Mother of Invention" yet again. Apartment living can be both practical and convenient for urban centric lifestyles, but the limited space available in most squares-of-air is usually enough to drive us to prescription drugs. I'm not really sure Tyler Durden would approve, but creating your little utopia in the sky just got a easier. Introducing the "Summer at the Balcony" by Christian Lessing. This multi-piece balcony wall unit looks inspired by retail store shelves and displays. By allowing for the easy adjustment of any number of surfaces, from a stool, to a bistro table, to even a flower pot holder, designing your perfect balcony space is easy as finding a Gap in mid-town Manhattan."

My friend Hayley sent me this great picture from the Macy's Flower Show

I just published in ABC.com about Sazon, a cooking school in the lovely town of San Miguel de Allende.

Click Here to see the full text:
Learning About San Miguel de Allende Through Shopping, Chopping and Tasting

Pull Quote:

Culinary travel is about more than merely tasting adventurers want to understand cultivation, explore marketplaces and learn to cook the dishes that once seemed exotic and mysterious.
Mexico, a food lovers' wonderland, is ahead of the curve with culinary schools throughout the country, offering packages that run from one-day to weeklong certificate programs.

The history and cultural evolution of Mexico can be traced through its culinary tradition. Yucatan-style food is marked by Mayan influence, and today pits are still dug to slow-roast meats with orange juice and achiote (annatto) seed. The Zapotecs of Oaxaca still brew mezcal as they did more than 2,000 years ago when priests used the ceremonial drink to heighten their senses, and gave it to sacrificial victims to lessen theirs.

As seeds are arriving in the mail and gardeners around the country are sharping their tools, spreading compost, and laying out their beds, keep in mind that many local food banks can use any extra produce you grow.

In Bloomington Indiana, there's a program that brings together community gardeners, back yard gardeners parks and recreation and Mother Hubbard's Cupboard the largest food pantry in Monroe County. Last year, the Plant a Row program collected more than 20,000 pounds of fresh produce. Full Article

In Seattle, there are about 70 community gardens (or P-Patches) as they call them, which have dedicated "giving gardens". Every year the Interbay P-Patch Food Bank Garden grows about 2 tons of fresh organic produce, which goes to a local food bank, meals-on-wheels programs and shelters for women and children.

To get you in the gardening mood: The Acoustics of Vegetables

Here's a YouTube link of the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra in concert and a description:

"Welcome. The Vegetable Orchestra performs music solely on instruments made of vegetables. Using carrot flutes, pumpkin basses, leek violins, leek-zucchini-vibrators, cucumberophones and celery bongos, the orchestra creates its own extraordinary and vegetabile sound universe. The ensemble overcomes preserved and marinated sound conceptions or tirelessly re-stewed listening habits, putting its focus on expanding the variety of vegetable instruments, developing novel musical ideas and exploring fresh vegetable sound gardens."

From the Vertical Farm Website

The Problem

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?

As part of Etsy's DIY Wedding Series here are some eco-tips from Meghan Yudes Meyers from Portovert.com
on how to greenify your Handmade Wedding

These postings include tips by the likes of Design*Sponge and Indie Fixx among many other blogs. And soon the series will feature an article by City Dirt on buying Fair Trade and local wedding flowers, along with how to make DIY bridal bouquets and center pieces for the reception.

This is really bad. What sort of infidel steals flowers from a Veterans Memorial? And on Good Friday?

Click Here for Video: Click Here for the Video

SHERMAN, Tex. -- Police are investigating another theft in Sherman. This time it's plants stolen from a public park. What makes the crime even worse--those plants are part of a veteran's memorial garden.

The Grayson Master Gardeners planned the Veteran's Memorial garden with red, white, and blue flowers. Now there are just holes in the ground where those plants used to be.

Trampled pansies and dirt on the sidewalks are scattered among ground cover where flowers and shrubs to honor Grayson county veterans were stolen.

"It's disheartening that someone would come in and disrespects it this way and takes the plants," says Richard Green, Master Gardener's director.

Green says someone uprooted about $100 worth of perennials planted solely by volunteers.

"I actually brought my grandchildren out for Easter and I wanted to show them the site and there were holes where there should have been roses, salvias, and perennial plants," says Lacy Price, site coordinator who has logged more than 50 hours at the garden.

The Grayson County Master Gardeners maintain the site and were preparing the area to look especially nice for Memorial Day. The garden honors Grayson County veterans killed in our nation's wars. They don't know exactly when these thefts occurred, until Price saw the plants were missing.

"That's when we discovered it on Friday, Good Friday of all days," Green says.

They say it's not about the money, but about the time, effort, and purpose of the garden. They have one request for the community:

"Please don't steal our plants!!" Price says.

The Gardeners buy plants from donations. If you would like to help, contact the Master Gardeners at 903-813-4204

A mailing address is:

Grayson Co. Extension Office
Attn: Master Gardeners
100 W. Houston St., Courthouse
Sherman, TX 75090

First the loss of the South Central Farm in Los Angeles, and now this, the closing of a community vegetable garden. The city of Santa Cruz has decided that the $4,400.00 dollars a year they spend on water for this garden is too expensive. Why is it that counties have endless funds when it comes to incarcerating poor people but can't afford much that's positive for these communities? Also, why not just install rain barrels for irrigation? It's eco-friendly and cheaper in the long run.

Beach Flats garden moved to smaller plots
TOM RAGAN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Article Launched:03/27/2008 01:31:08 AM PDT

SANTA CRUZ -- After nearly two decades of planting cactus, cauliflower and other edible vegetables on 2 acres in the Beach Flats, gardeners are being asked by the city to stop planting, turn in their gate keys and prepare to move to a quarter-acre garden a half a block away.

They have until Monday.

Although the gardeners say they plan to follow the orders, they're wondering what the rush is -- especially since spring has just arrived and there are no immediate plans by the garden's owners, the Santa Cruz Seaside Co., to use the property on Raymond Street.

The community garden, which is used by about a dozen gardeners, is special to the surrounding Latino community, many of whom work in construction, the fields of the Pajaro Valley or at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk a few blocks away.

The vegetables grown there are a commodity. They're peddled in the streets, shared among neighbors and eaten. The harvest each year is a big event.

"We were hoping for a big harvest, but now it looks like the land is just going to sit here empty," said Spanish-speaking Domingo Mendoza, a 74-year-old Mexican immigrant who's been growing vegetables on the patch of dirt for more than a decade. "And have you seen the new garden? There's just no way we're going to be able to grow the same amount of vegetables over there." Click here for full text: Full Article

Bird Watchers Urgently Needed to Track Rusty Blackbirds
Citizen scientists use eBird to monitor alarming drop in numbers. Populations of Rusty Blackbirds are crashing! Their numbers have plummeted by as much as 88-98% over the last few decades, according to data gathered between 1966 and 2006 for the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Christmas Bird Count. A species that was once considered to be abundant is rapidly disappearing before our eyes. Your observations can help save this species by arming scientists with critical information about this species' ecology during migration. Bird watchers across North America are being asked to help scientists track spring migrant Rusty Blackbirds from April 1-7 using the eBird online checklist program. Your observations of this species can help fill in the important missing pieces of this conservation puzzle!

Scientists at Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology are appealing
to bird watchers to help fill this information gap by looking for Rusty
Blackbirds migrating north April 1-7. The data collected and reported
through eBird will help identify important migration stopover locations
and habitats for conservation. It will help researchers examine whether
long-term changes to key migration habitats are responsible for the
species' decline. If you are interested in participating, please
collect the following information, then visit eBird to send your observations, taking note of:

Date, time, and location of the observations

Rusty Blackbird flock size, including an estimate of number of males
vs. females.

General behavior: flying, feeding, loafing (day), roosting (dawn, dusk,
night).

Habitat: agricultural field, scrub-shrub wetland, forested wetland,
shores of rivers or creeks, shores of lakes or ponds.

Comments: Please include "Rusty Blackbird Survey" in the comments
section so scientists can determine whether you were specifically
looking for Rusty Blackbirds during your birding expedition.

Read about identifying Rusty Blackbirds at
eBird News

We're losing our pollinators. First honeybees were struck with a devastating disease, and now bats. Here's a pull quote:

Wildlife biologists fear a significant die-off in about 15 caves and mines in New York, as well as at sites in Massachusetts and Vermont. Whatever is killing the bats leaves them unusually thin and, in some cases, dotted with a white fungus. Bat experts fear that what they call White Nose Syndrome may spell doom for several species that keep insect pests under control.

Read Here for the full article: Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why

if you're thinking about getting a bat box, do it now as bats start looking for nests to have their young in the springtime. According to Bat Conservation International , adding bat guano or urine to your box doesn't help attract them. In rural areas, 60% of bat boxes are inhabited the first year, and in urban areas the number is 50%. By the second year, 90% of bat boxes are inhabited. (Though with this disease devastating the population in New York, who knows.) If you don't have any after two years, you may need to adjust your box.

The most important aspect is the box being warm enough. They need six hours of direct sunlight and if in the northern part of the country, paint it a dark color to absorb and retain heat.

I have two morning doves going at it on my fire escape. Their cooing is a constant and I often catch glimpses of their the feathers ruffling as they mount one another. Sometimes when I sit down at my kitchen table for morning coffee, it can result in a case of coitus interruptus for the birds.

Lately, one of them as been spending a lot of time in my windowbox, making herself at home; I suspect, that she's making a nest. While I would love to have morning dove chicks in my window box and see them learn to fly, but every time I go to use my sink, I scare her off. Birds have tiny brains and hardwired flight responses so they won't get used to me, and these morning doves are particularly skittish. English sparrows probably wouldn't care. When they're eating my herb box, I bang on the window and it still barely dissuades them.

So I'm worried that if I let them nest, I won't be able to use my kitchen sink for fear of scaring the parents away from the chicks. But with all the leveling of city blocks for condos in this neighborhood, they might not have many other places to go. I might need to make a kitchen bird blind.

St. Francis College will be showcasing a photography exhibition of Meredith Davenport's photographs of children who were born with birth defects because their parents worked on banana plantations that used the highly toxic chemicals that had been known to create sterility and other health problems, so they were outlawed in the United States, but were still sold for export.

The opening reception will be held on Tuesday April 1, in the Callahan Center from 5:30 - 7:30. All are welcome!

On April 21, between 12:30 and 1:30, SFC will host a panel discussion regarding the pesticide issue and what people can do to stop this epidemic from affecting more innocent children's lives.

Speaking of Bananas

There's an excellent Op-Ed in today's New York Times, Did Your Shopping List Kill a Songbird? Did Your Shopping List Kill a Songbird? by Bridget Stutchbury about how migrating songbirds are being poisoned while wintering in Latin America. This is mostly due to heavy use of pesticides, which while manufactured in the United States, are used in levels that are illegal here. These toxins are making out-of-season fruit available to use, but poisoning the environment.

Her Suggestions:

"What should you put on your bird-friendly grocery list? Organic coffee, for one thing. Most mass-produced coffee is grown in open fields heavily treated with fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. In contrast, traditional small coffee farmers grow their beans under a canopy of tropical trees, which provide shade and essential nitrogen, and fertilize their soil naturally with leaf litter. Their organic, fair-trade coffee is now available in many coffee shops and supermarkets, and it is recommended by the Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservancy and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

Organic bananas should also be on your list. Bananas are typically grown with one of the highest pesticide loads of any tropical crop. Although bananas present little risk of pesticide ingestion to the consumer, the environment where they are grown is heavily contaminated.

When it comes to nontraditional Latin American crops like melons, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers and strawberries, it can be difficult to find any that are organically grown. We should buy these foods only if they are not imported from Latin America."