A Walk in the Pine Forest

Geology is destiny, and geology is a product of time plus luck.  I failed to absorb that lesson back in college, but it was finally made clear when I was recently part of a group taking a hike through the Myles Standish State Forest.

12,000 years ago, Massachusetts was
under a mile's thickness of ice.
Double-click for a full-screen slideshow

It took until the later half of the 19^th Century for scientists to understand the role of ice-age glaciation.  Until that time, ‘Noah’s Flood’ (I promise I am not making this up) was the accepted source for the creation of everything from the Great Lakes to Cape Cod.  The notion that the top half of North America was under more than a mile of ice was something we humans couldn’t wrap our minds around. 

Glaciers, we gradually came to understand, advanced and ebbed over tens of thousands of years, finally retreating to the poles and high mountains about 11,000 years ago.  It was a messy business.  Acting as hundred-mile-wide bulldozers, glaciers pushed debris out in front of them, forming moraines when the sheet of ice reversed course.  Cape Cod is visible evidence of that final push, as is Long Island.  The glaciers’ retreat was quite uneven, with glacial remnants settling into low areas scraped out when the ice advanced hundreds or thousands of years earlier.  We call those pockets ‘kettles.’  If they have water, they’re ‘kettle ponds.’

Myles Standish State Forest  survived
as a native plant habitat because the
land was unsuitable for crops.

The inland part of Southeastern Massachusetts got the fuzzy end of the glacial lollipop.  Instead of dumping rocks and silt to break down into soil to support vegetation, the glaciers retreating from the area that is now Myles Standish State Forest left behind sand dozens of feet deep, plus more than its quota of kettle holes, where frost could be found 11 months of the year.

Which is all to say it was rotten farmland.  Settlers came, planted, saw their crops wither for lack of nutrition (sand is notably lacking in nutrients) and water (which just perked down to the aquifer in minutes), and left for greener pastures.  As a result of this benign neglect, the area is a near-perfect repository of the plants that would have been encountered when the first Europeans arrived.  It was pine forest plus scrubby vegetation in 1616, and so it was when the state forest was created 300 years later.

Bryan Connolly, left, provides
an introduction to the Pine Barrens

That near-pristine provenance is why I was part of a groups of about 15 amateurs and two experts walking fire trails through the forest – technically called the pine barrens – on a Saturday morning.  Our leaders were Bryan Connolly and Meredith Gallogly.  Bryan has many titles.  One of them is Assistant Professor at Framingham State University (sadly, being a full-time native plant naturalist requires multiple part-time gigs).  He is also one of the authors of ‘The Yellow Book’; an exhaustive index by region of plants native to the Commonwealth.  Meredith has the good fortune to be the Manager of Programs for an organization called Grow Native Massachusetts, more about which in a moment.  She is one of the group’s two employees.

This kettle, about seven acres in size, has frost 11 months of the year

We, the amateurs, walked and tried to keep up – physically and intellectually – with our two professionals who spoke largely in Latin binomials.  We started with the overview: Myles Standish State Forest encompasses 12,400 acres (19 square miles) of pine barrens; the third largest such preserve in the world.  Apart from some ill-conceived efforts to plant ‘useful’ (read: commercially harvestable) red pines by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, the land is as it was when the Wampanoag were its residents.  The red pines, incidentally, have almost all vanished, leaving behind the native pitch pine that somehow finds sustenance in the sand.  We learned the pines need to burn periodically to reproduce, and forest managers periodically burn areas of the barrens to ensure the next generation of trees.

The really good stuff, though, was underfoot.  What might appear to the uninitiated as ‘weeds’ and ‘brush’ was instead a Noah’s Ark of native plants plus a few uninvited interlopers.  A few plants were easy to identify, like native blueberries and dewberries (a cousin to blackberries).  Otherwise, we were like a gaggle of kids, pointing to plants and saying ‘What’s this?’

A rest stop along the walk. 
Meredith Gallogy in the red hat,
looks up an unidentified plant

We learned to identify white dogbane (Apocymum cannabinum) by its delicate pink flower, and tiny sickle-leaved golden asters (Pityopsis falcata).  We found lots of miniature Baptisia and even a clutch of mayflower (Epigaea repens), Massachusetts’ state flower. 

And it wasn’t all ground covers.  The forest hosts large stands of Kalmia latifolia, the native rhododendron or mountain laurel, and sweet pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia).  They’re especially lush around the kettle ponds.  Over two hours, we learned a lot of botany.

Which brings me to the real reason for this blog entry.  An old friend, sadly now deceased, accumulated enough money that organizations used to come calling asking for donations. To each one, my friend would ask one question: if your organization did not already exist, why would it be started today?

The question flummoxed many visitors because, truth be told, their missions overlapped those of dozens of other organizations.  Other non-profits had long outlived their purpose and continued on because of they were ‘brand name’ charities.  He gave to those that passed his litmus test of knowing why they were in existence, and why what they were doing was unique.

Grow Native Massachusetts is such an organization.  It is now ten years old and came into being at a time when ‘native plants’ was a marketing phrase used by the landscaping industry to foist off things that stretched the definition of ‘native’ beyond the snapping point.  Grow Native Massachusetts has the most comprehensive website on the subject of any I have seen, puts on seminars (especially Evenings with Experts but also smaller events like the one of which I was a part).  In this season of giving, it is well worth supporting.

Tangible evidence of the past, disguised as garden ornaments

Berkeley the snail is a souvenir of a
visit to London decades ago

Berkeley the snail went away for the winter this morning.  So did the Turtle with the Broken Nose, the World’s Ugliest Frog, and more than a dozen other old friends.  They’ll rest until next April in the safe confines of our basement.  Before consigning them to their fate, though, everyone was first cleaned with a bleach solution and then placed carefully inside a pot or some other protective container.

Berkeley and his brethren are garden ornaments, and each one has a story to tell.  Berkeley, for example, joined our garden menagerie as a result of a trip to London almost 20 years ago.  I was there as part of a financial road show in deepest, darkest February.  Because of its grueling, two-week duration, Betty was invited to join me for its final, transatlantic stop.  The underwriters were responsible for all lodging and they chose for us rather a nice room at The Berkeley, a luxurious Knightsbridge hotel a stone’s throw from Hyde Park.

From spring to fall, Fish swims
 in a dry stream bed in our
front garden

Going to gardens in February was a non-starter so, while I was in meetings, Betty went shopping and to museums.  Just down the street from our hotel was a shop that dealt exclusively in garden ornaments (they have such stores in England).  In its window was a large, metal snail.  She purchased it, promptly named it after our lodgings - pronounced, by the way, “BARK-lee” - and we placed it in the overhead bin on the flight home.  (In that pre-9/11 world, no one in airport security took notice of our carrying onboard a 20-pound cast-iron object.)  Every year since, Berkeley has been positioned in a different perennial bed, waiting to be admired anew by us or a visitor.

The World's Ugliest Frog
is destined to remain
in Medfield

The World’s Ugliest Frog was a parting gift from a friend moving away.  The frog had graced, if that word can be used for such a thing, her garden for at least as many years as we had lived in town.  Its muted, polychrome décor had been the butt of numerous jokes on my part.  On the day that the packers came, our friend brought over the ornament, explained she had been given it when a dear friend moved away.  She was leaving Medfield, but felt the World’s Ugliest Frog must not only remain, but should come live with us.  It has inhabited a rotating list of garden sites for at least 15 years.

I will not bore you with the individual stories for each of our other garden ornaments.  I will tell you only that they all have back stories and that all those stories link us to times, places or people fondly remembered. 

Oh, all right, one more.  An outrageously overpriced concrete turtle at the Winterthur Shop was knocked down to a much more realistic five dollars after we pointed out a chip on its nose.  For 25 gardening seasons now, the turtle’s chipped nose has poked out of the water of a bird bath.  The Turtle with the Broken Nose suffers its imperfection with as much dignity as it can muster.  The butterflies and dragonflies that land on its snout don’t seem to mind in the least.

This frog spends its summer
relaxing amid tiarellas
and leucothoe

Each April, we take out these items much as we take out Christmas tree ornaments in December.  We discover them anew and, with great deliberation, place them around the property, taking into account changes in the landscape.  Our move to our ‘dream retirement home’ four years ago forced a complete rethinking of ornaments: for the first two years, and the new garden got started, ‘hiding places’ were few and far between.

These garden ornaments are links to travels.  They are reminders of old friends.  They are also practical objects that draw the eye to certain plants or that break up expanses of mulch.  Some are put in plain sight while others are deliberately hidden, awaiting someone to part the foliage and find a surprise.  With the 2019 garden season officially over, their careful cleaning and storage are an annual ritual as distinct and ingrained as picking apples or harvesting the butternut squash.

First Frost

Early Saturday morning, probably about 4 a.m., a layer of cold air settled over the one-time farm field that is the home of Medfield’s community garden.  Elsewhere in town, the cold air slipped down hillsides or was chased away by roads that retained warmth.  But, in the valley (‘good bottom land’ in farming parlance) along the country road on the south side of town, the air – probably no colder than 30 degrees – found a pocket where it could stay, unmolested, for a few hours.

That’s all it took to send an irrevocable eviction notice to our vegetable garden.  Water freezes at 32 degrees and most vegetables are little more than columns of water surrounded by thin membranes.  By the time we got to the garden, the zucchini leaves were limp and oily. Green tomatoes had dropped to the ground.  Our glorious crop of basil – our best in years – was tinged with black.  Gone, all gone.

We had already harvested
our winter squash

We had already harvested our winter squash.  Had we not, it would have been reduced to un-salvageable mush.  A few crops are light-frost hardy: the arugula, carrots, and chard will withstand temperatures down into the mid-twenties for a few hours without suffering damage.

But there is no doubt that the summer gardening season is at an end.  Yeah, the beets will get a little bigger, and we’re promised temperatures in the mid-70s early this week, but we’re down to 11 ½ hours of sunlight, and the sun’s angle is such that ‘practical’ daylight is two hours less. 

The fat lady has sung.  Start carving the pumpkins.

Frozen marigolds

It was a glorious year for gardening – though, like all years, one also filled with frustration.  It took forever for our first crops to germinate (it seemed never to stop raining in April and the temperature remained stubbornly in the 40's).  The bean beetles arrived on schedule in mid-July and halved our crop of green beans.  Someone in the garden – either thoughtless or trying to save money – purchased tomatoes infected with the fungus Phytophthora from a Big Box store, and late blight rampaged through everyone’s garden, including ours. (And no, late blight isn’t inevitable.  Three tomato plants in our as-yet-frost-free home garden are still producing fruit.)

The successes far outnumbered the failures.  Betty and I have attempted to grow fennel for years with nothing to show for it but inedible ferns.  This year, every fennel plant thrived and we feasted on it from early August on (there is some in the refrigerator).  Our three squares of corn produced their last, delicious ears just last week; and we even were able to strip, cut and flash freeze the kernels of several ears during peak production days.

A coating of frost on our
'good bottom land'

And, for the first time in a decade, there will be winter squash and even sweet potatoes for the late fall and winter.  We encouraged butternut squash vines to grow beyond their allotted space and colonize the void created as rows of corn were pulled.  The result was 20 large squash that have been cleaned, dipped in a diluted bleach solution, and sequestered in a dark corner of the basement.  A gardening neighbor gave Betty two surplus sweet potato ‘slips’ which we planted in an abandoned plot.  This morning, with another gardener who will share in the bounty, we harvested an impressive number of fat yams.  They’ll be edible in about a month as they sit quietly in the basement converting starch to sugar.

The final cleanup

We will harvest a few more crops over the balance of the month.  A row of leeks came through the frost unscathed, as did our carrots, arugula and chard.  But there’s little to do but cart away out the spent vines and, ultimately, take down the fence. 

We’ll enjoy the fruits (well, the vegetables) of our labor well into the future. Betty put up hot pepper jelly and froze peas, corn and green beans.  We have enough of those crops to last well into the winter.  It’s the squash, though, that is scary.  At one squash per week (they’re that big), we’ll be eating the last of our 2019 crop when we harvest our first spinach next April.  That’s what I call continuity.

This Old Pot

This single-use pot's first use was to
enclose a tree's roots.  It has
stuck around for five seasons

Four years ago this spring, Betty and I began buying trees and shrubs for the garden at our new home.  Many specimens had root balls of a size that required rope wrapped around burlap wrapped around a wire cage.  But six smaller trees came in black, ten-gallon plastic pots; each 19 inches wide and 13 inches deep.

After the first trees went in, we contacted the selling nurseries to recycle the pots, but were informed these were ‘one-use’ containers (on top of which they had likely, themselves, been made from recycled materials).  The reason for declining to take back the tubs was because they were encrusted with soil and/or might contain diseases.  Instead, we were advised to take them to our town’s transfer station.  We asked at the transfer station what would become of the pots.  Because they weren’t ‘clean’, we were told, the containers would be incinerated.

In 2016 the pots were pressed
into service as we planted
our second round of bulbs.

As it turned out, we had an almost immediate, though temporary, need for the pots.  We had covered our newly-spread loam with several inches of mulch.  As we dug holes for arriving shrubs – more that 50 that summer – we had to find a short-term parking spot for the displaced soil other than a pile adjacent to the hole (which would inevitably mix with the mulch).  The pots were perfect.  Also, I was building a stone wall and needed to group like-sized rocks for easy transport.  There were times when there were more uses for the vessels than available tubs.

That autumn, our first 1500 bulbs arrived.  We excavated winding, foot-deep trenches around the property, with those containers serving as a brief way station for displaced soil.  Trenching for pipes to carry rainwater from downspouts to the wetlands behind us provided yet another use.

Season after season, the pots
makes themselves useful

In the spring, we started the next round of planting and, by now, those single-use plastic containers were becoming indispensable friends.  We lost one to necessity: Betty acquired a lovely specimen of Sanguisorba canadensis (American Burnet), a wonderful wildflower that produces magnificent plumes.  Unfortunately, it thrives best in a moist environment, and the ideal visual location on our property was ‘well drained’.  Our solution was to sacrifice one of our containers.  We cut out part of its bottom, sunk it a foot into the ground, and planted our American Burnet in it, pledging to throw a gallon of water into the mini-wetland whenever things were getting dry.  It has thrived, and the black neck of the container is still visible.

When not in use, the pots
have a home next to our
composters

Another year went by and, each spring, the four remaining tubs were roused from their off-season resting place by our compost bins.  All spring and summer they served as either warehouses or transports for the soil/mulch/compost that made our ever-denser garden possible.  In the fall, UPS brought another avalanche of bulbs to be planted. There was hardly a week that went by that our one-use containers weren’t pressed into service. 

This year, they have been in near-continuous use to transport compost, heel in perennials and, of course, to hold topsoil for the plants destined for the final frontiers of our garden.  This past weekend, an Aronia (Chokeberry) and Ilex verticillata (Winterberry) found new homes on our property, as did a tray of native ground covers.

As we planted those most recent shrubs, though, I noticed for the first time our remaining containers are showing their age.  Two have large cracks in their base that make carrying them problematic; they need a wheelbarrow as a ‘crutch’.  One also has a cracked rim.  In short, their life span may be five seasons.

In 2017 the pots allowed me
to move 10 cubic yards of
compost, a few cubic feet
at a time

But they have been five glorious seasons.  They were present at the inception of the garden and proved to be useful as soon as their original purpose was completed.  They started out as walk-ons but have, through steady, uncomplaining work, become stalwarts of the regular garden troupe. If they were sentient beings, their ears would perk up as soon as they heard Betty or me reaching for a trowel or spade, because they knew they would soon, themselves, be called into action.

All right.  Maybe I’m over-romanticizing a bunch of pots.  The thing is, I’m going to be sorry to lose them, albeit to advanced age and general wear and tear.  What I know is this: they were manufactured to contain a single plant on its journey from a nursery to our home. They have stuck around to help build an entire garden.

She Spreads She Sheds Along the South Shore

The She Shed as installed at the
Marshfield Fair.  Double-click for
a full-screen slideshow.

I’ve written several times about the venerable Marshfield Fair.  It’s a wonderful anachronism; a local fair that seamlessly combines agriculture with a midway and farm animals.  It ought not to exist in the 21^st Century and, indeed, most such fairs disappeared long ago.  But those which survive adapt with the times to attract new generations of families.

I live fifty miles from Marshfield, which is on what is called the ‘South Shore’ of Massachusetts, yet every August my life seems to come to a grinding halt because of the fair.  Once upon a time, it was to transport flowers for Betty’s entry in the standard flower show held there each year.  Then, it became themed mantels.  That was followed by helping create conservation or ecology exhibits to explain things like the perils of black swallowwort or the need to encourage using native plants.

The 2018 entry, 'Grandma's Cottage'

Last year, Roni Lehage, who runs all ‘horticulture’ for the fair, roped us in big time.  She asked if we would create what is called a ‘vignette’ – a three-dimensional, full-size display based on a theme.  I had never noticed the vignettes before; perhaps I never got to that part of the Horticulture Building.  The 2018 theme was,‘The Front Porch’.  Betty and I created an entry called ‘Grandma’s Seaside Cottage’ which visually told a story of a young girl’s afternoon on the aforementioned porch.  To goose its verisimilitude, I created and painted a four-foot-by-six-foot scenery flat which was a very good replica of a part of that cottage’s exterior.  We blew away the competition.

It all starts with lumber and props

We also blew away much of the month of August.  Creating and painting the panel was an educational.  We weren’t just creating a clapboard house exterior; it has to have shadows to create that three-dimensional feel – and late afternoon shadows at that.  Plus, everything needed to be transported in a Prius and assembled on site.  When it was over, we agreed our one year created a lifetime of laurels on which to rest.

Last month, Roni called again: the 2019 theme was ‘He Shed/She Shed’ (get it?).  She had the ‘He Shed’ but there was no feminine equivalent.  This was especially heartbreaking because She Sheds were becoming a ‘thing’ – there is even a very funny television commercial on the subject.  Could we come out of retirement to ensure the ‘boys’ (actually, two women) had some competition?  OK, we agreed to enter.

Fabric on the panels.  We had ample
props... for a 4'x6' space

For 2019, the rear height dimension increased from four feet to six feet.  The depth remained four feet and the width six feet.  It was right there in the Horticulture Entry Manual, and I even sent Roni a sketch to make certain we were within spec. 

We went to work.  We built three panels – a back one six feet by six feet, and two side panels, each four feet on a side.  While created from nothing but 1”x3” rough framing strips covered with muslin cloth, we wanted to be able to add things like shelves and a window.  So, supports were added wherever these elements would be placed (have I mentioned we know nothing about carpentry?).  The flats were created, primed, and painted a pleasing yellow.  It was time to visit The Swap.

The Swap - everything we needed!

Medfield has a town Transfer Station.  Almost everyone in town takes their carefully-sorted yard debris, garbage, and recyclables there.  Five years ago, someone noticed an appalling number of useful things were being thrown in with garbage destined to be incinerated to create electricity.  Thus was born The Swap which, in 2019 is a spectacular, volunteer-driven paean to the virtue of recycling no-longer-needed consumer goods. 

Need art? Furniture? It's at The Swap

Over three visits, Betty spotted and collected a feminine-looking desk, a nice chair, two large wine glasses with flowers painted on them, three colonial-themed shelves, a small window with frame and glass intact, picture frames, gardening books, and other bric-a-brac that might be useful.  The window frame was an especially good find; we managed to coax it out of the hands of a young woman who wanted it for a craft project by promising her she would get it back after the fair’s run.

The view out the shed window
(that's part of our garden!)

All these items plus five of our best-looking gardening containers were assembled in our basement – after making certain we could get the six-by-six frame up the stairs.  I took dozens of photos of our garden to find the right one to be blown up to poster size to be the ‘view’ out the window. some items, such as the chair, were painted to create a visual theme. At the last minute I added a ‘shadow’ to the side panels to assure the viewer this was the inside of a shed and not a suite at the Four Seasons.

On the appointed morning we transported everything to Marshfield.  We cajoled a friend with a truck to take the three wall panels and desk.  We got there, expecting to assemble everything in an hour – 90 minutes tops. 

We started by attaching the window to the six-by-six panel and hoisting the scenery flat into its place at the back of the exhibit space… and discovered the flat didn’t fit.  The space was eight feet wide – and five-and-a-half-feet high.  We had been given incorrect dimensions.  Oops.

A gardener always admits 
the truth to herself - one 
of the shed's illustrations

So, we commandeered tools, un-tacked the fabric, took apart the back panel, shortened it to the allotted height (no small feat) and re-stretched the fabric.  Betty opened the side walls to fill the eight-foot width.  We brought in our car-load of props – all designed to fill 24 square feet (or 144 cubic feet) of space.  Except we had 32 square feet (200 cubic feet) of space to fill.  After four hours of work it looked… empty.  Chic, feminine, and spare.  Betty returned to Marshfield the next morning with four large containers, but there was no ignoring the contrast between our whimsical ‘space of her own’ and the overstuffed tribute to veterans that occupied the adjoining ‘he shed’.

We got the Red – second place. 

Yet, I’m damned proud of that shed (on view through August 25).  It is everything we set out to illustrate: a space where a woman can make gardening plans with the comfort of books, wine, a pet, aphorisms – and a marvelous view of her own garden. 

A Groaning Glut of Green Beans

In our 600-square-foot vegetable garden this year we are growing corn, lettuce, chard, dill, carrots, summer squash, winter squash, eight varieties of tomatoes, fennel, cucumbers, peppers, basil, leeks, beets, spinach, amaranth…. and green beans.

The summer zucchini explosion can
be easily addressed by leaving them
on your neighbors' doorsteps

I have no argument with the first 16 items on the list. There is nothing as flavorful as sweet corn eaten minutes after it was picked or a salad topped with tomatoes still warm from the vine. These are the reasons we garden. Even when there is excess (think zucchini), there are neighbors with whom to share the bounty.  And, if your friends begin avoiding you because they know you come bearing suitcases full of the stuff, you can dispose of the surplus on National Sneak Zucchini on Your Neighbors’ Porch Night (which fell on August 8^th this year).

Zucchini, though, is a vegetable that must be eaten fresh. No one would ever think of canning or freezing summer squash, because they’d find nothing but mush when they sampled it in January. Not so green beans. Green beans effectively have the same taste and texture whether they’re eaten fresh or frozen.

One of our two wide rows of beans

For reasons known only to her, this year Betty planted two ‘wide rows’ of green beans with the idea we would freeze what we didn’t immediately eat.  To add color to the garden, one of those plots is planted with a bean that is picked when purple, though it disappointingly reverts to green when cooked.  We picked out first green bean in mid-July and are now picking upwards of a pound of beans from of the garden every other day.

This variety of beans is purple... alas,
it turns green when cooked.

The first week was wonderful. The yield was maybe 20 or 30 long, luscious beans a day, perhaps ten minutes worth of picking in the cool, late afternoon. Once home, we pinched off the ends, threw them in a dish, steamed them for three minutes and we had fresh, delicious green beans; high in vitamins and good for us to boot.

Then the yield bounced up to about 60 green beans a day. Fifteen minutes of picking and ten minutes of snipping ends. OK, we cooked half and froze half (two minutes in boiling water, then rinse under cold water to stop the cooking, arrange the beans on a tray, stick them in the freezer for an hour, then bag them and return them to the freezer until needed). I could cope with that.  One reason is that, in earlier years, our green bean season could last as little as two weeks.  Mexican bean beetles would discover the garden and begin chomping on everything in sight.  We would come out one morning and find leaves reduced to skeletons and the beans are half-eaten by voracious beetles.  

I am doomed to pick beans until
well into September

Then, Betty discovered the virtue of floating row covers.  From planting until picking time, the plants were swathed in white tents that thwarted even the most vigilant bugs.  The beans, which are self-pollinating, thrive under the row covers.  Worse, this year, the second plot is about to come into full production.

Now, we are spending half an hour every other day stooped over picking under a blazing sun with suffocating August humidity, pinching ends for another 45 minutes, and then lining up green beans on trays for half an hour. First, it was one double-decked tray of beans to blanch and freeze and then two double-decked trays. Did I mention we still have green beans from last summer?

Dealing with the excess will require a plan I have not yet devised.  Before we moved, we lived next door to a family of vegetarians that gladly took our excess.  Our local Food Cupboard also takes fresh vegetables on the day of their distribution, but there’s only one in August .  Unless I can come up with something, I’m doomed to eat green beans with every meal, and I do not look forward to a green bean omelet.

If only I could stop them...

There is joy in seeing plants first emerging from the ground in May and flourish in June. Alas, the mind does not contemplate the work that will be involved when, as in the ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’, the green beans keep maturing by the hundreds every day, demanding to be picked. The great gardening guru Roger Swain calls one of the joys of summer the ‘wretched excess’ from the garden. This August, being a grower of green beans makes it easy to understand the ‘wretched’ part of that statement.

"Not Another One of Those F-ing Meadows!"

Here's a 30-second walk-through of the front garden on July 17, 2019

Four years ago this month, Betty and I began planting our new garden in earnest.  It was going to be a monumental undertaking with four goals: attract and be a home to pollinators (birds, bees, butterflies, etc.) by emphasizing natives, respect the wetlands adjoining our property, be attractive, and be low (or at least lower) maintenance than our previous one.

The front, sunniest part of the garden
is at its peak in mid-July.  Double-
click to see a full screen slide show.

One way of achieving all four goals was to skip the lawn.  Go cold turkey; no grass at all.  To make our resolution stick we sold our lawnmower.  And so, as the first trees and shrubs went in, there was a conspicuous absence of either sod or sprayed-on grass seed around our property.

Though we had been in our new home since April, we still had only a nodding acquaintance with one of our next-door neighbors.  We knew he was a Boston police officer and his hours were erratic, as might be expected of such an occupation.  On that early morning as we were working on planting shrubs, he appeared in our driveway.  He surveyed the work done so far.  Then, he grabbed his chin in one of those manly poses and asked, "When does the lawn go in?"

Native perennial border
along the driveway

Betty was quick to say, quite proudly, "There isn't going to be one."

A look of consternation came over his face as the words took root.  He looked around the property, then looked back at his own lawn.  Finally, to us, he said, "Not another one of those f***ing meadows!"

We did our best to assure him we weren't randomly strewing wildflower seed across our property.  He left unconvinced.

Four years later, the jury has come back.  No, it's not a meadow.  Rather, it's a carefully thought out garden that is abundant with life.  Everywhere we turn there's a clutch of interesting and unusual plants or shrubs, or a tree that is under-used and a benefit to wildlife.  The garden transitions seamlessly to the wetlands behind us, and those wetlands are flourishing.

Definitely not a meadow!

Different parts of the garden strut their stuff at different times of the season.  This week, the star of the show is a 'full sun' area with tall perennials- multiple cultivars of Asclepias turberosa (butterfly weed), Agastache (giant hysops), multiple forms of Rudbeckia,  Stachys officinalis (betony); as well as native shrubs; especially Quercifolia (oakleaf hydrangea), but also Spirea and Physocarpus (ninebark).  The 30-second walk through this area at the top of the page, as well as the adjacent photos, were shot this morning to record its full glory.

Struttin' With the Peacocks

The Newport Flower Show

One of the pleasures of being married to a serious gardener who also happens to be a Master floral design judge is that you get to tag along to the darnest things.

The Newport Flower Show is held annually toward the end of June.  It’s a wonderful event, held for a worthy cause (the Preservation Society of Newport County), and held in a jaw-dropping setting (Rosecliff, an oceanfront estate owned and maintained by the aforementioned Preservation Society).  I’ve been to the show several times and even once helped to build an exhibit there. 

Betty, Dave, and Sandy at Crane Beach

This year was special:  Betty was invited to judge its flower show, and two good friends were arriving from the Midwest who were also judging.  Being asked to judge at Newport is a big deal; judges fly in in from all over the country.  Sandy, our friend from Kentucky, and Dave, our friend from Illinois, agreed to come a few days early so we could take them to our favorite beach and clam shack, and otherwise show them a small slice of ‘our’ New England.

I thought my role in all of this ended when we had dinner before we dropped them at their hotel on our third evening together.  Instead, they casually asked Betty (and, politely, included me) if she had a few spare hours the next day to, well, assemble a pair of peacocks.  Betty enthusiastically agreed.  The following afternoon, we were on the magnificent grounds of Rosecliff.

Dave directs Sue Redden, our
fellow volunteer

The project seemed simple: here is a four-foot-wide fountain on a pedestal; part of Rosecliff’s original design and, more or less, the centerpiece of its front lawn.  Here are the wire-frame heads and bodies of two over-sized peacocks, ready to be covered with green moss, plus an assortment of additional wire cages.  Here is a box of Oasis, a water-retaining product used by floral designers to keep their material fresh.  Oh, and here are a dozen buckets filled with roses, orchids, sea holly, hydrangea, eucalyptus, thistle, and other materials whose names I can only guess.

Betty puts the finishing touches
on the first peacock

Dave had been given a vague design of what the finished peacocks were supposed to look like.  The design, unfortunately, ignored some basic laws of gravity and physics.  The peacock perched on the edge of the fountain would never stay upright.  Moreover, the wire cages meant to hold the Oasis didn’t include openings large enough to insert blocks of the stuff.  My first job as ‘helper’ was to canvass the estate to cadge wire cutters.

With monumental bags of sand and rocks, plus enough florist and duct tape to wrap a mummy, the first peacock was made to stand at the lip of the fountain, and an assemblage of Oasis-filled cages were ingeniously joined to anchor the bird to the ground.  The peacock’s tail, five feet long and two feet wide, was created.  Dave and Sandy worked together, calling for floral material prepped by Betty and another volunteer, Sue.  I cleared debris and fetched additional flowers from buckets kept under a tent some distance away (did I mention Newport was encased in fog so thick you couldn’t see Rosecliff a hundred yards away? Or that it periodically rained?)

The second peacock takes
shape, as it rains harder

The first peacock was finished and Dave and Sandy set out to create the second one, thankfully located on the ground at the base of the fountain, but with a five-foot-wide fan of floral ‘feathers’.  Sandy worked from the back; Dave from the front.  Betty was ordered into service placing flowers, and I prepped material while keeping the mounting pile of debris in check. 

Meanwhile, people wandered by and many stopped to stare with a sense of awe at what was being conjured up from sleight-of-hand plus a wealth of design knowledge.  Two teams of landscape judges were disappointed they couldn’t give our work an award (this was ‘sponsored art’ for a Newport bank and, thus, ineligible).  

Sandy does a final
inspection, including a
'fountain' from leftovers

After nearly three hours (including several ‘rain delays’), the peacocks were finished.  Although not in the original design, Dave and Betty used leftover flowers to create a ‘fountain’ from which the first peacock was drinking.  The completed vignette was stunning – for which I take no credit – and free of debris (my proud contribution).

That night at the judges’ dinner, the peacocks were the talk of the room.  Dave and Sandy shared credit freely, but I think everyone knew who were the artists and who were the worker bees.  Emboldened, though, I asked the Chair of Judges if she might be able to use an extra set of hands the following morning when judges assembled to do the work for which they had traveled from afar.  She gave it some thought and tapped her chin.  “You know,” she said, “we could use another runner.”

But that’s a different story.

I Was a Male Flower Show Runner

It all started with the receipt of an email.  My wife, Betty, was cordially invited to judge at the forthcoming Newport Flower Show in Rhode Island.

An invitation to judge at Newport is a genuine honor. Judges are chosen from around the country and the preponderance of those selected are members of clubs affiliated with the Garden Club of America, or GCA. (Betty’s ‘home club’ is affiliated with National Garden Clubs, or NGC. GCA is older, NGC is larger.)  But Betty is a Master flower show judge known to have a good – and fair – eye.  She, of course, accepted, and promptly blocked off June 20 and 21.

The floral peacocks

Fast-forward two months.  Two friends from the Midwest, also chosen to judge at Newport, came to New England early and Betty and I showed them the sights. On the day before judging, they were tasked with creating floral representations of two, larger-than-life-sized peacocks in a fountain on the grounds of Rosecliff, where the show is held. Somehow, Betty (logically) and I (improbably) were asked to pitch in.  It was a great engineering feat and a fine artistic effort, which would have been a lot more fun were it not for the pea-soup fog that encased Rosecliff’s grounds, plus the periodic bouts of rain the Weather Channel said were not happening anywhere in Rhode Island.

Because I was Betty’s designated driver (all right, because I whined for several days), I also attended the Judges’ Dinner, an annual event held on Rosecliff’s back veranda.  The table at which I was seated was a busy one because many judges had seen the peacocks on the front lawn and wanted to congratulate their creators.  Dave Robson and Sandy Robinson freely shared the credit.

Rosecliff, a 'Gilded Age' mansion. 
The Newport Flower Show helps
support the upkeep of this and other
historic properties in Newport.

Somewhere along the way, I built up my courage to ask the show’s Judges’ Chair, Vera Bowen – who, fortunately, is a fan of my books – if she needed any help the following morning.  Vera thought about it for a moment and then asked Vicki Iannuccillo, the show’s Clerks’ Chair, if she still needed another runner.  Vicki didn’t have to think about it.  ‘Yes,’, she said, obviously not knowing it meant she was getting me.

A few words about the world of standard flower shows.  When, as a visitor, you walk into a show, you see the end product of a process that took, at minimum, several months to create; and, in the case of Newport, a full year. Someone wrote a schedule for the show, someone else trolled for entries, and still another group made certain all the right ribbons and banners were printed.  Others pulled together and painted pedestals and tables (‘staging’ in flower show parlance). 

Rosecliff's back lawn, with its
ocean frontage

Some parts of a flower show unfold in a relatively easy timetable but a few are jammed into a few hours – or even minutes – of work.  There are highly visible roles (docents come to mind), and there are low-profile but very necessary ones.  In a crowded kitchen just steps from the Rosecliff ballroom sits the most necessary of unsung heroes: the computer staff.  At 6 a.m. on the morning of judging, four women, including a mother/daughter team, start with nothing other than the titles of the classes and the fact there are four entries.  And so, they type ‘Fork Tailed Flycatcher, Class 8, Entry 1’ into a data file.  Then, as designers make their appearance, they hand in sheets containing the plant materials they are using.  The computer staff goes feverishly to work, adding the information to the file for Class 8, Entry 1 which will appear on the placards everyone sees when the public is admitted.

Judging starts ten minutes late, at 8:40 a.m. and, for more nearly two hours, nothing whatsoever happens inside the computer room.  Then comes the tsunami as judging panels complete their work and choose who gets which award and what to say about each entry.  The information is reviewed for appropriateness and accuracy.  Oh, and fifty or more placards have to be printed out, letter perfect, and posted by 11:30 a.m.

Enter the clerks.  Each judging panel – usually three people – is accompanied by a clerk, whose job it is to write down what the judges are saying about each entry.  Not verbatim, of course, but within those critiques will come the nuggets of thought that convey to the general public (as well as to the designers) what caused Entry 2 to get third and Entry 3 to get Honorable Mention.  Clerks get run ragged for three hours.  They race back and forth between the panel to which they were assigned and the Powers That Be who are allowed to question anything that seems out of place.  Clerking is definitely not a glamor position but, in the flower show world, being a clerk can be necessary to becoming a judge.

Speaking of non-glamorous positions, I was one of two runners.  My job was to do whatever Vicki told me to do.  I twice ran through a driving rainstorm to fetch an extra box of ribbons from a trailer.  I got copies made of something important.  I kept out people who ‘just wanted a peek’.

The placard, in place, for the Fork-
tailed Flycatcher winning entry

And I also helped place those placards.  This is nerve-wracking.  As judges examine designs, they see only a yellow sheet of paper with hand-written information about materials used.  They know only this is Class 8, entry 1.  In the computer room, names and results are attached and, now, there is a placard saying ‘Fork-Tailed Flycatcher, Entry 1, First Place, Janice Gardner and Julie Mather. Green Fingers Garden Club, Greenwich, CT.’ I and my co-runner were handed stacks of placards and we dashed from one end of the room to the other, matching those yellow sheets to the final placard.  When it was done, Vicki went back and checked to verify we did it right. 

At one point, one of the judges on Betty’s panel apparently noticed me on one of my missions, wearing a blue apron.  “Who is he and why is he here?” she asked, apparently miffed that a man was wearing the cherished blue apron.

“Well,” Betty explained with a smile, “he’s my husband and he knows something about flower shows. He ran the Boston Flower and Garden Show for three years. Oh, and one of his books is called, A Murder at the Flower Show.”

The woman gave Betty an odd look.  Maybe she believed Betty, maybe she didn’t.  But she didn’t ask again.