Doing the Garden, Digging the Weeds

A question for the day:  does gardening keep you young?

Me, in May 1967

I was seventeen years old in June 1967 when the Beatles released their masterpiece, ‘Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’.  I had just graduated from high school and was on my way to college in September.  That summer, I had a job working for the town of Miami Springs, Florida, riding on the back of a trash truck.  It was, without question, the most physically demanding work I’ve ever done for pay.

To maintain my sanity, I kept a transistor radio strapped to a belt loop of my sweat-drenched shorts, and ‘Sgt. Peppers’ was the soundtrack to that summer.  I had no favorite track; they were all stunning, from ‘A Little Help From My Friends’ to ‘Sgt. Peppers Reprise/A Day in the Life’.  AM radio stations, though, preferred the shorter selections, and that meant I heard a lot of ‘Lovely Rita’ and ‘When I’m 64’.

I mention all this because I will turn 64 this month and that song has been much on my mind of late.  According to Steve Turner’s A Hard Day’s Write, Paul McCartney wrote the melody when he was ‘about fifteen’ and a version of it was being played by the Quarreymen as early as 1960.  McCartney refined the tune over the years (John Lennon dismissed the song as ‘twaddle’ and would have nothing to do with it) before it appeared as track two on side two of ‘Sgt. Peppers’. 

The gist of the song is that a somewhat socially inept young man ardently wants to win the affection of a young lady.  To do so, he poses questions about what their life will be like “when I get older, losing my hair, many years from now”.  And that life, at least as it sounded to my seventeen-years-old ears, was pretty dull.  “We shall scrimp and save” in order to rent a cottage on the Isle of Wight, and going for a ride on a Sunday morning would be the highlight of the week. Huh?  Knitting a sweater by the fireside?  Please!

But here’s the problem:  I’m about to turn that magical number, and my life is nothing like that.  Betty and I think nothing of popping down to New York for the day, where we’ll cram in shopping, museums and a stop at a garden or two.  If we haven’t been on an extended vacation of late, the reason has to do with our respective schedules.  I’m trying to finish my seventh book while juggling a speaking schedule that I couldn’t have imagined a few years ago; and Betty has a three-year calendar with a full slate of talks, demonstrations and garden club federation events blocked out through 2016.

And here’s the further problem:  I don’t feel like I’m 64.  I don’t even feel like I’m 54.  Maybe 44.  Perhaps it is all a matter of luck:  I have not suffered a major disease or accident and my business career was one that utilized my mind rather than my back (that stint on the trash truck was an eye-opener).  On the other hand, my life has been anything but sedentary.  We have traveled the world and had our share of ‘interesting’ experiences out there.  This weekend, we’ll be kayaking the DeerfieldRiver.  Yeah, it’s only Class 2 rapids, but still…

I’m willing to go out on a limb and credit gardening for keeping me young, or at least young at heart.  In McCartney’s words, “doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more?”

Digging out the stump of a
birch in, I think, 2006

Gardening is, by definition, largely an outdoor activity.  Active gardening is physical.  We maintain a two-acre property that comprises lots of individual gardens plus an off-site 1,000 square foot vegetable garden.  In creating the garden around our home I have dug out 500-pound boulders and I routinely move fifty-pound containers.  I take down and cut up small trees, dig out stumps and, twice a year, spend one or two days hauling multiple truckloads of brush to the town dump.  I dig trenches and excavate for new beds.  I mow my own lawn.  While I give myself the right to come in during the worst parts of the afternoon heat, I am no stranger to coming in from a gardening session with my clothes soaked through.

I keep up this activity eight months of the year (and, during the winter months, I dig out my own driveway, albeit with the aid of a snow blower).  Unless it is a physical danger to do so (we leave the tall trees to arborists), Betty and I do all the heavy work around the yard.

So, send me a postcard, drop me a line, stating point of view.  I’m turning 64 and, despite everything my seventeen-year-old self sneered at, it feels terrific.

Long Summer Days

This has been an awful summer for New England gardeners.  It wouldn’t stop raining in June and three weeks of July were blisteringly hot and dry.  Much of what we first planted in our vegetable garden never germinated and the blooms of many of our perennials were dramatically truncated first by rain, then by heat.  Only the weeds flourished.

It has taken until now for some semblance of horticultural equilibrium to be restored.  Only a third of our first square of corn broke the earth’s surface but our second square has ripened nicely and the third is already tasseling.  Our green bean harvest was awful and our lettuce bolted too quickly (leaving us the humiliating necessity of making our July salads with store-bought lettuce) but our beets are luscious, our zucchini is firm and sweet, and hundreds of tomatoes are growing plump.  There will be chard until the first frost.

This is the inner and outer sidewalk beds as they
looked on August 1.  Double-click for a full-screen image.

Around our home, the Orienpet and rubrum lilies as well as the rudbeckia and helleniums have exploded.  The clethra shrubs are heavy with their bottle-brush flowers and the phlox stands tall and proud.  White and purple Stoke’s asters and yellow coreopsis and corydalis are spreading into every empty space.  The hydrangeas are voluptuous.  Ferns have run amok.

Gardening is about being patient and rolling with what nature gives you.  We replanted our corn not once but twice and kept our green beans under row covers until what was underneath bulged against the fabric (the bulge turned out to be mostly weeds and the bean beetles managed to sneak their way into the crop despite our best efforts).  But we are now enjoying four ears of corn a day; a pace that seemed destined to last into September.

Nature has also held some surprises in reserve.  Our astilbe is usually a June and early July event.  This week, there are still an abundance of purple plumes.  An unusually large number of hostas in their glory at the beginning of August.  With all these blooms, the bees and butterflies are having a field day. 

Tomatoes are ripening
daily.  These are about
two weeks from picking.

After two lean months, this August appears to be shaping up as one of excess. It is almost too much, really.  The late crop of lettuce and spinach has already sprouted and will be pickable by mid-month.  We will soon have more tomatoes than we can possibly eat or process and so our local food cupboard will be the beneficiary of our excess. The flowers in bloom today are built to last through both heat and heavy rains that define this month. 

Most of our annuals are in containers. They were planted in May and early June and, through the incessant rains of June they suffered; stunted and sullen.  Then came July and they grew rangy.  In the past two weeks they have been trimmed and shaped and now, finally, they are fulfilling their promise.

Finally, there are the ‘winter’ crops – winter squash, principally, but spinach, kale, carrots, turnips and beets as well. The winter squash vines are still relatively modest – a product of too much rainfall and too little sun, but they have taken off in the last two weeks.  As quickly as we pull out spent corn stalks, the squash vines claim the empty space.   Last September, we picked dozens of huge Butternut squash that filled several wheelbarrows. Stored in our cool, dry basement, they were a tasty reminder of summer until April.

All this bounty will all be over too soon. The New England flower gardening season is effectively over shortly after Labor Day because, here at 45 degrees north latitude, the daylight starts to shrink at an alarming rate.  Perennials turn their attention to putting food into their roots to provide the 2014 season’s display.  Because frosts appear with impunity in September, any evening could be the final one for tender annuals.

So, I intend to enjoy this excess of August.  It’s the payoff month for New England gardeners. 

The Berkshires Seemed Dreamlike....

If you are a member of a garden club or other civic organization, and you have ever thought, ‘Hey, we could raise some money by putting on a garden tour,’ here is my advice:  if you’ve never organized a tour before, don’t do anything until July 11, 2015.  Then, get yourself to Lenox, Massachusetts, and buy a ticket to the Lenox Garden Club’s ‘Hidden Treasures of the Berkshires’ garden and house tour.  After you’ve been on that tour, go home and replicate their efforts.

I know a thing or two about garden tours.  Five years ago, I watched as my wife, Betty, organized and ran an exceptionally innovative (and extremely successful) two-weekend tour for the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts.  Our own home has been part of the Garden Conservancy Open Days program and a stop on other garden tours. 

In short, I know what kind of work goes into a successful tour and this past weekend’s ‘Hidden Treasures’ tour was a class act.  Here’s why:

The weir and rapids at this property
were created as part of the
landscape design  Double-click
for a full-screen image.

Start with the tour ticket.  It’s a 34-page effort; a description of the homes and gardens on display, a map of how to get from garden to garden, plus a whole lot of full-color ads.  The first rule of a successful garden tour is to never, ever give short shrift to sponsors and the Lenox Garden Club brought in lots of them.  People go on tours because they’re looking for garden or home ideas.  The ads say, ‘Why not start with us?’  A sponsor-heavy tour also means an organization doesn’t need to depend on ideal weather (with lots of ‘walk-in’ tour-goers) to meet its financial goals.

Continue with the signage.  We sort of know our way around Berkshire County but the byways on which the gardens were located were unfamiliar to us.  No problem:  we got off the Mass Pike and were immediately presented with yellow signs point us to the appropriate gardens.  There was even a ticket sale and information table set up right across the road from a fast food restaurant within sight of the exit. When there was a fork in the road, those yellow signs kept us headed in the right direction. The tour recognized that not everyone has GPS.

An enclosed garden space at
one property provided an
opportunity to get close to plants

Remember that docents are the ‘special sauce’ in a tour and that a smiling, helpful docent can make the difference between an ‘OK’ tour and a memorable one.  The dozens of docents we met were uniformly friendly and ready to assist or answer questions.  (As an aside, one of the first docents we ran into was Jacqueline Connell who, when she isn’t in the Berkshires, is president of the Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut.  Which goes to prove that being a docent is a noble calling.)

Make it easy to get to the gardens.  One of the outstanding features of the Lenox tour was that shuttle buses took us from parking areas to remote gardens.  One such garden was in the middle of a 500-acre estate and the only available parking was in a field by the main road.  A pair of 14-passenger buses made a continuous loop from the parking area.  Such transportation is not cheap, but it is a necessity if you want to ensure that everyone can enjoy the event.  Three of the gardens had such shuttles.

Keep the homeowners happy.  Four of the five properties encouraged visitors to take a look inside the house.  At three of those homes, docents were handing out booties to slip over shoes.  The ladies who gently but adamantly insisted that everyone who entered the homes don those booties deserve a round of applause and, possibly, a stiff drink.

Garden tours are about more than
horticulture.  The 'hardscape' at
this property included a covered
bridge built to a walking scale.

Make the gardens instructive.  A garden tour should offer a range of ideas.  Some gardens should be over the top, some should offer ideas accessible to even the most modest garden.  The Lenox tour offered a range of gardens but, if I can offer a single quibble, it is that they all appeared to have been professionally designed and maintained.  On the other hand, at the most luxurious garden (created by one of the region’s top designers), the homeowners were on hand to answer visitor questions.

Use the proceeds wisely.  The Lenox Garden Club has been around for more than a century and this tour was their 22^nd edition of what is now a biennial event.  The tour book makes clear where the proceeds of the fund-raiser go.  In an excellent essay by club member Michelle Gillett, the beneficiaries are enumerated:  the Berkshire Botanical Garden, MassAudubon, Berkshire Natural Resource Council, the Nature Conservancy, Housatonic Valley Association, Trustees of Reservation/Naumkeag, and the Edith Wharton home, The Mount.  That’s an impressive list.

I tip my hat to the club for a job well done.

Hit the Road, Jack!

One of my cherished memories of a July morning is this:  I am standing in cool grass surrounded by a seaside garden in its full summer glory; a symphony of color and form.  Beyond the garden is the ocean or, more specifically, Little Narragansett Bay.  The breeze from the water is delicious; the sight of sailboats bobbing in the water makes the contrast with the garden all the more vivid…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that gardeners love to show off their handiwork, especially for a worthy cause.  And, July is the heart of the garden tour season here in New England.

A garden in Windham, NH to be
open July 13 and 14

Perhaps your July will be spent in a distant vacation spot but, if you live in New England and are staying local for some part of the month, or visiting this part of the country from elsewhere, consider taking a day (or many days) and going on a garden tour.  You may be benefitting a local garden club’s civic development programs or a national garden preservation organization but, mostly, you will be benefitting yourself.  Seeing someone else’s garden opens our eyes to the possibilities in our own back yard.

You could start on Tuesday, July 9^th when the Falmouth Garden Club hosts ‘Falmouth Blooms’, a look at nine private in-town gardens.  The tour runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and tickets will be available the day of the tour at the Falmouth Historical Society Education Center, 65 Palmer Avenue.

A Japanese-inspired garden to be
open in Canterbury, NH July 13-14

The next day, you can tour a series of private gardens in East Sandwich from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  The tour benefits the environmental education programs of the Thornton W. Burgess Society and its Green Briar Nature Center.  Tickets are available at the Nature Center, 6 Discovery Hill Rd. in East Sandwich.

The garden tour floodgates open on Saturday, July 13 as the Garden Conservancy Open Days Program spotlights five gardens in Westport, Dartmouth, and South Dartmouth; two gardens in Stonington, Connecticut; and six gardens in Nashua, Londonderry, Canterbury, Goffstown, Chichester and Windham, New Hampshire.  The Merrimack Valley gardens will also be open on Sunday, as will one in Rockville, Connecticut.  You can get capsule descriptions and locations of all of the Open Days gardens, which are open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., here. 

A seaside garden to be open July 13
in South Dartmouth, MA

That same day, one of the ‘grand dames’ of garden tours will be held as the Lenox Garden Club hosts the ‘Hidden Treasures of the Berkshires’ in Lee and Tyringham.  The five gardens include a thousand-acre estate with the remains of a ‘Marble Palace’ and two Gilded Age estates remodeled for contemporary living.  You can get more information here.

Also on July 13, The Private Gardens of the Kennebunks tour will be held in Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, Maine.  You can get details about the tour here.  The 19th annual edition of the event benefits the region's child abuse prevention organization.  The hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

On Sunday, July 14, the Provincetown Art Association will host a Secret Garden tour through P’town’s East End between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.  A fleet of shuttles will make continuous stops among the gardens and you can get additional information about the tour here.  Also on Sunday, the Georges River Land Trust in Rockland, Maine, hosts its immensely popular ‘Gardens in the Watershed’ tour.  This tour is more than just pretty flowers. Among the seven gardens are a working farm, a nursery and a sunflower business, and the price of a tour ticket includes short talks on gardening-related topics.  You can get more information here.

The Pergola at the Farm House
in Bar Harbor, ME, open July 28

Saturday, July 20, will be a very busy day for garden tours.  If you’re in the Berkshires, you can be part of the Gardens of Pittsfield tour either Saturday or Sunday.  Just to the south, the New Marlborough Cultural Council hosts a garden tour in that community on Saturday.

Also on July 20, Bedrock Garden in Lee, NH opens for the one day per month that Jill Nooney welcomes drop-in guests.  The 36-acre garden is rich in both horticulture and sculpture.

In the Worcester area, the Garden Conservancy will open two gardens in Stow and one each in Sterling, North Grafton, and Boylston on July 20. Those gardens are open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  In Vermont’s Equinox Valley, The Garden Conservancy offers two gardens in Manchester and one each in East Arlington and South Londonderry.  If you’d like to see gardens in nearby Connecticut, two gardens in Meriden will be open on Saturday and, on Sunday, four gardens in Farmington, Canton and New Hartford.

Finally, on July 28, there are Open Days in Bar Harbor, Maine.  Three properties, two of them inextricably linked to Beatrix Farrand, are among them. Garland Farm was Ms. Farrand’s last home and garden; The Farm House is the only surviving Farrand-designed garden (1928) in its original state in Bar Harbor and has been owned by the same family for the past century. The third property, Kenarden, is notable for its Italianate garden and lush, romantic flower gardens.  The three properties are open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. only.

Going Strong at 90

When Betty and I first came to New England in 1980, we purchased a still-being-built home for which landscaping did not rise even to the level of an afterthought.  We needed to learn about what kinds of trees and shrubs could survive in the deep pine forest out of which our new homestead had been carved.   In our first weeks, we heard about and visited a place called Weston Nurseries in Hopkinton. 

Weston turned out to be the answer to our needs.  It was – and still is – a source of freely offered and sound, professional advice about plants provided by a dedicated and long-serving staff.  We populated our three acres with Weston plant material and it thrived.  We stayed in that home ten years, then decamped for corporate opportunities, first in Connecticut and then in Virginia.  When we returned to New England in 1999, we again gravitated to Weston Nurseries for our landscaping needs, sometimes one or two plants at a time and sometimes in bulk.

A jazz band played at a
1920s-themed party

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure to help Weston Nurseries celebrate its 90^th birthday.  It is a remarkable achievement for any business to endure ninety years, much less to thrive.  It is all the more remarkable for a family business to reach that milestone. 

Last month, I wrote about Blanchette Garden’s announcement that it will close its doors after 32 years.  Weston Nurseries, by contrast, appears positioned to thrive over the long run.  It has not been easy, though, and it has not been without wrenching change.

Weston Nurseries Chairman Wayne
Mezitt with family memorabilia

Weston’s story begins with Peter John Mezitt, who was born into a family of Latvian farmers in 1885 and studied agriculture before emigrating to America in 1911.  Mezitt found his way to Massachusetts where he would become superintendent of a vegetable farm.  By the early 1920s, he had set his mind to becoming a nurseryman and, in 1923, he and his wife Olga purchased 80 acres in Weston (then a country town far outside of Boston) and began Weston Nurseries.

Their children became part of the business, which grew steadily while establishing a reputation for growing New England-hardy plants.  By 1941, Weston Nurseries encompassed 200 acres.  After World War II, urban development began encroaching on Weston and the family began looking for new land.  They found 300 acres of hilly, rocky abandoned farmland in Hopkinton that had the advantages of having a microclimate of a more southerly region (thus extending the growing season) and being firmly beyond Boston’s urban sphere.  The land was cleared, terraces were built, ponds were dug and roads were created.

Weston's Hopkinton Garden Center
offers a lot more than plants

The course of Weston Nurseries’ history changed in 1945.  For several years, Peter Mezitt’s son Ed had worked to crossbreed rhododendron to create stronger colors and more vigorous plants.  In early May of that year, a remarkable hybrid bloomed and, with it, the PJM rhododendron.  Weston Nurseries can be said to have fairly singlehandedly created the rhododendron (and its taxonomical little brother, the azalea) as a must-have ornamental shrub. 

By the 1970s, a third generation of Mezitts had joined the business.  Ed’s sons, Wayne and Roger, became part of Weston Nurseries, which now sprawled across 900 acres in Hopkinton.  The PJM family of rhododendrons became the gold standard of spring blooming ornamentals and Weston’s Hopkinton retail store a destination for anyone serious about quality horticulture.  Those acres yielded not just rhodies, but a full range of trees and shrubs.  The fourth generation of family members joined the company in 1996 (today, Wayne’s son, Peter Mezitt, is president). 

Employees dressed in flapper
costumes were everywhere

The world – and the industry – does not stand still, though.  The high cost of growing plants from seed to finished product in Hopkinton began pressuring margins in the 1990s.  Bringing in trees and shrubs from specialty growers became much more practical.  In the meantime, Boston’s suburbs grew and prospered… and urbanization headed inexorably west.  By 2005, the 900 acres owned by the Mezitt family was more valuable than the nursery business that occupied the site.

Weston Nurseries' 900 acres.  The
land below Route 135 was sold in
2005 and is being developed

Family pressures can both strengthen and divide an enterprise.  After 2000, Roger Mezitt asked to be bought out of the business.  That began a years-long effort that could have – and nearly did – extinguish Weston Nurseries.  It took a voluntary bankruptcy filing in October 2005 to open the way for the $23.7 million sale of 615 acres – two-thirds of the Mezitts’ land - for residential development that provided the liquidity for Roger’s exit.  The new community, called Legacy Farms, is now rising on the south side of Route 135.  Wayne Mezitt continues as Chairman of Weston Nurseries.

Legacy Farms can fairly be called
the price of securing Weston
Nurseries future

Yesterday afternoon, the events of eight years ago seemed remote.  The retail center hummed with activity when I was there even as guests enjoyed a jazz band and flapper-dressed employees greeted long-time customers.  Weston-created cultivars are well represented at the New York Botanical Garden’s new Azalea Garden. Today, you can purchase everything from upscale lawn furniture and pizza ovens to tropical plants at Weston Nurseries.  There is even a two-year-old satellite operation in Chelmsford, twenty miles away. 

I spoke with Wayne Mezitt at the event.  At 71, he is the steward of a legacy of horticultural quality and no mere figurehead.  He recognizes that Weston Nurseries must continue to evolve, and he and son Peter will guide that evolution.  Weston Nurseries still owns several hundred acres, part of it dominated by hoop houses that are no longer needed.  Planning is underway to determine how best to use surplus acreage.

Betty and I have made our decision to ‘downsize’ from our overly large house in Medfield.  We are looking for property on which we can build our ‘final’ home and where Betty can create a new garden.  We know two things about that pending event: that we will stay in the Boston area and, wherever we build that third home, we will make the drive to Hopkinton to find exactly the right trees and shrubs for it.

Company's Coming!

I am told that, in a different era, becoming a member of a garden club was not simply a matter of filling out an application and paying some dues.  There was an "applicants’ review committee" that went out and inspected the prospective member’s garden.  Notes were taken.  Discussions were held.  And, only if the garden showed exceptional dedication was a prospective member approved.  Those days have gone by the boards, of course.  Today, no one inspects your garden.  What a silly idea! 

The xeric garden is the first thing that
visitors see when they come to the
house.  That's baptisia and peonies
blooming in the background.

Then why was I out re-edging our driveway this morning and sweeping it clean? 

The reason is that two garden-club-related groups are coming to our home this week.  And Betty wants the garden to look its best.  Call it a matter of taking pride in your garden and wanting to make certain it reflects what she says when she talks about gardening to other groups.

The right-hand side of the xeric
garden (foreground) and shrub bed.
The deutzia and fothergilla are
in bloom (double-click any image
for a better look)

By way of background, last week Betty was installed as the First Vice President of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts.  In two years, she will become the Federation’s president.  Anyone who thinks that being an officer of a state garden club federation is an honorific with no responsibilities needs to re-think what garden clubs do in the 21^st Century. 

Walking up the driveway, visitors
see the two shade beds on the left.

For the past two years (as Second Vice President) Betty has had responsibility for two ‘big’ issues:  insurance and 501(c)(3) eligibility.  The latter consumed several hundred hours of her time.  The state garden club federation is a registered non-profit.  And, each individual club in the state (192 at last count) can choose to come under the state’s um-

This is the inner and outer sidewalk
beds are they appeared this morning.
It is a riot of peonies, irises, amsonia,
and geraniums.

brella.  Betty’s job was to patiently guide Massachusetts garden clubs through the process and to make certain that her charges did not end up running afoul of the IRS (which sometimes seemed to take delight in making small clubs fill out voluminous paperwork for no particularly good reason).  Betty excelled at her job.  At the state garden club conference last week, I watched several club presidents and treasurers express their appreciation for her efforts.

Detail of the outer sidewalk
bed.  From front to back,
huechera, amsonia, yellow
and blue iris, and a dwarf
Japanese maple.

As First Vice President, Betty’s new responsibilities include overseeing District Directors (‘DD’, to keep things simple).  DDs are the link among clubs in neighboring towns and with the Federation.  It’s hard work but actually a fun job, and Betty's goal is to have them all hit the ground running.  Lunch at our home seemed like a great way to introduce everyone to their new responsibilities.

This afternoon, the new crop of DDs are coming to our home for lunch.  My job, as principal undergardener, has been to make certain the that garden is ship shape and Bristol fashion, with all the beds freshly edged and mulched, and the ‘million dollar edge’ laid down on our 230-foot-long driveway using a tool that is right out of another century but that makes a great first impression as people walk up to the house.

A portion of the rock
garden at the rear of the
property.  

The accompanying photos show the garden as it looks today (June 11).  It has been very wet and cool for the past week, so perennials such as peonies, irises and baptisia are sticking around far longer than usual, while the ‘yellow’ flowers of summer (heleopsis, helianthus) are still budding up.  The containers Betty planted at the beginning of May are not nearly as lush as they would usually be at this point in June, but they’re attractive all the same.

There is no formal tour planned as part of the luncheon, but most of the group has heard about the garden and it is nice to be prepared.

Going Native in the Bronx

The entrance to the new
Native Plant Garden 

It took two false starts but, this past weekend Betty and I finally made it to the new Native Plant Garden at the New York Botanical Garden.  The consensus opinion?  Two very solid thumbs up for a garden that is as intelligent as it is low key.

NYBG has had a ‘native plant garden’ for decades and it was always in the same place, adjoining the Rock Garden.  It was a product of a different era; one that displayed plants in the same way that zoological parks once displayed animals.  Here is a tiger, here is a bear, here is a stand of caryx grasses.  We last visited the ‘old’ native plant garden in probably 2003.  It left no impression despite the fact that Betty has a strong affinity toward using natives in our own garden.

This 230-foot-long pond is central
to the garden's ecosystem

The ‘old’ native plant garden closed in 2009 and a board fence went up around the site.  If memory serves correctly, the original opening date was spring 2012.  Somewhere along the line, that became 2013.  The garden formally opened in early May.

The first impression is that the place is huge.  It is three and a half acres, but it looks even larger by designing out to the full borders of the site and ‘borrowing views’ from adjacent gardens.  It is billed as a ‘cutting-edge’ installation.  That definition is almost an understatement.  To create the garden, its designers went back to a blank slate; reimagining the site as a shaded woodland; a dry, open meadow; and a wetland.

Yellow trillium - a mid-Spring-
blooming native - have been
planted in among grasses

The aspect of the garden that is – at least to me – most jaw-dropping is the underlying, invisible engineering.   A visitor sees a central water feature; a dramatic 230-foot-long pond surrounded by wetlands.  Rising from the pond is a meadow and the woodland.  What is invisible to the eye is a vast system of recirculating pumps that push 600 gallons of water through the garden every minute.  (You may want to re-read that last sentence and think about 600 gallons of water – almost all of it recirculated – flowing every minute). 

The water feature is, in reality, a man-made bit of ecology.  Water is pumped into the wetland where it is pushed up through layers of sand, gravel and plant roots to reach the upper basin, then over a weir to reach the lower basin.  Underground cisterns collect excess rainwater for release as needed.  Natural processes keep the water clean, filtering out excess organics and maintaining oxygen levels. 

Mature oaks provide a canopy for
the garden's shade plantings

There are nearly 100,000 plants in the garden, arranged with intelligence as well as an eye to inspire home gardeners.  There is harmony as groupings of cultivars give way to new groupings, and the groupings promise to change with the seasons.  In late May, we were treated to sweeps of yellow trilliums, rue-anemones and lady slipper orchids.  The meadows were rife with a carpet of Sisyrinchium – blue-eyed grass.  The flow is visually inventive; a delight, and NYBG promises that the plant color palette will change with the seasons.

The choice of plants is also designed to showcase that ‘nativars’ can be as attractive as any exotic import for a home garden.  The perennials we saw featured bright colors (and based on Betty’s acquaintance with them, long bloom periods).  The NYBG Shop in the Garden carried an excellent assortment of the plants we had just seen.

The garden is also about native trees.  Mature oaks were left in place to provide shade to stands of rhododendron and understory trees and shrubs.  We found a stand of amalanchier with an explanatory text to tell why they’re also called ‘shadbush’.  There was also a great specimen of a mature oxydendrum (sourwood) that should be glorious in late summer.

The carpet of sisyrinchium.  By
being at the garden at 10 a.m., we
had the place to ourselves for
much of our visit

What we did not encounter was a crowd.  NYBG opens at 10 a.m. and, when visiting, we make a point of being in line at the main parking area when it opens at 9:45.  As members, we’re waved into the entrance which means we’re in the garden proper at ten.  We made a bee-line for the Native Plant Garden and were its first visitors.  We saw the garden at our leisure, exploring each of the side trails with opportunities to linger over especially interesting vistas or plants. When we departed the garden an hour and a half later, there was a steady flow of visitors entering.

Five days after our visit, the Native Plant Garden is still vivid in memory.  What stands out the most is its tranquility (too-loud music coming from a birthday party at the adjacent ‘Children’s Adventure’ area notwithstanding).  In the rhododendron glade, the paths are very narrow and winding; you can’t walk it briskly.  Gazing out at the dry upland meadow, we saw an unbroken expanse five hundred feet wide and seemingly just as deep (the depth is something of an optical illusion).

In short, it’s a beautiful addition to the New York Botanical Garden.  In the parlance of the Michelin Guide, it’s worth a journey.

Caught In a Bind

Growing up in Florida, I was painfully aware that my home state was – pest-wise – a national laughingstock.  Every week, it seemed, the pages of Time magazine or the evening news had stories about walking catfish; giant African snails that could eat the paint off of your house; and a large toad, bufo marinus that, when licked, produced a hallucinogenic reaction (although exactly how this was discovered remains a mystery I have declined to ponder). 

I learned not to trust
everything I saw on the
cover of the Saturday
Evening Post

My assumption was that the rest of the country was some kind of an agricultural paradise and that New England, with its wholesome Norman Rockwell image, was a place where having a garden was a pleasure.  The growing season would begin on the first day of spring and conclude with a golden-hued harvest at Thanksgiving.

Time has taught me that you shouldn’t believe everything you see on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.  At the end of May, we consolidated the fifteen miserable kernels of corn that had sprouted (a one-third germination rate) into a single square and re-planted, hoping against hope that, perhaps by the middle of June, the soil temperature will warm up to 70 degrees and it will stop raining.  Moreover, we have yet to pick a single leaf of lettuce or spinach off our miniscule plants and entire rows of other crops in our garden are nowhere to be seen.

But these are minor irritants compared to what is growing in my vegetable garden.  What I have is a bumper crop of bindweed.

In April, I took out an entire
wheelbarrow filled with
bindweed roots

Bindweed, or Convolvulus arvensis to give the plant its proper name, is something that the national media chooses not to report on.  It’s a New England specialty, a weed with a ‘particularly aggressive root and rhizome system’, to quote the Cornell University Extension Service.  What that means in plain English is that, once you get bindweed in your garden, you are consigned to pulling it out for all eternity.  The reason you don’t want bindweed in your garden in the first place is that it will climb other plants and kill them by taking their sunlight and water. 

We never had a bindweed problem until this year; it arrived via a neighboring plot.  But here is how bad it is:  a month ago, I systematically turned over the soil in our vegetable garden and took out a wheelbarrow full of bindweed roots.  This morning, I noticed that little green shoots were poking above the surface in unplanted areas of the garden.  And so, I decided to dig out the shoots, roots and all.  I followed one slender, white root down a foot, where it began running horizontally, ending in a two-inch-long piece of ‘old’ root from our neighbor’s garden that had been turned under by the tractor that plowed our garden last fall. 

Bindweed and its root system.
Double-click on the image to see
at full size.

Think about that:  a tractor chops up a piece of bindweed root and buries it a foot down.  That little piece of root survives being frozen over the winter.  Come spring, it has the energy to send out a tendril eighteen inches in search of light.  Now, repeat this concept several thousand times.  I think I know where the idea for The Invasion of the Body Snatchers came from.

You are probably asking yourself, ‘what about herbicides?’  What, indeed.  A friend recommended an organic solution, a product that is primarily clove oil.  Spray it on anything.  A day later, the leaves of the invasive weed or plant look like they’ve been scorched by fire and the root shrivels into nothingness.  I sprayed this product on a patch of bindweed.  Two days later, the leaves were crispy as advertised.  I followed the roots down into the soil.  They were prospering; pumping iron.  A dozen new shoots already headed for the light.

How about one of those ‘kills everything’ kind of herbicides?  I don’t especially care to use them in my vegetable garden, but this was getting serious.  The Royal Horticultural Society (bindweed, like Simon Cowell, is an unwanted European export to America) offered the bad news:  Spraying in the early spring is ‘generally less successful’.  Instead, the RHS recommends that one wait patiently, sprayer in hand, until bindweed produces its morning glory-type flower (by which time it had taken over your garden).  Even then, the Society cautions, because bindweed roots can reach out twenty feet or more, the herbicide may not reach the ‘mother’ root.  In other words, abandon hope all ye who enter here.

I did find one glimmer of hope in my research.  An enterprising gardener reported that she had eradicated bindweed from her garden.  She diligently dug out every root every time a shoot broke the surface.  She did this day after day, depriving the plant of photosynthesis.  I should add, though, that it took eight years.

Florida ultimately capitalized on its exotic pests by creating things like the ‘International Walking Catfish Derby’ in which fish with rudimentary lungs travel several feet on their pectoral fins.  I have sincere doubts that any such fun events are planned by New England gardeners wondering what to do with their bindweed.

Help Me Celebrate the Big 25,000 - Win a 'Principal Undergardener' Polo Shirt

This blog has been in existence since 2009 and now has nearly 200 essay-length posts on it.  I created it as an 'etude' for my fiction writing: a mental finger-stretching exercise to limber up for penning mysteries.  In the beginning, I was lucky to get ten hits a week and I marveled that anyone would take the time to find it.

This year, 'The Principal Undergardener' is averaging a hundred hits a day.  Yesterday (May 15) the visitors came from the United States (57 visitors), Canada (9), the U.K. (7), plus a handful each from France, Australia, Russia, China, Brazil, Indonesia, India and New Zealand.  How broadly is it read?  On one memorable day in March, I had visitors from six continents.

I humbly recognize that, on a blogging readership scale of one to ten, mine barely makes the needle move.  My wife's website, www.BettyOnGardening.com, now routinely draws 300 visits every day and is Google's top-of-the-heap sites for information on topical things like impatiens blight.

But if today is an average day for me, something neat is going to happen:  I'll get my 25,000th visit.  And, to honor that milestone, I'd like to give away a couple of 'Principal Undergardener' polo shirts. I usually let people know via Facebook that there's a new post on the site but, to keep the playing field level, I'm not doing so this time.  Also, I know that most visitors have found the site because they're looking for information on a specific subject or photo ( for some reason I seem to have the world's best photo of a squash borer) and so go directly to an archived post without seeing this top item.  Anyway, if you see this post, drop me an email at n_h_sanders (at) yahoo.com.  I'll get back to you and ask for shirt size and color preference.  As of today (August 12th), only one polo shirt has been claimed - yet there have been 5,000 additional hits!

Thanks for reading,

Neal Sanders

Goodbye, Old Friend

Thirty-two years ago, the Boston metropolitan area was very different than it is today.  With a handful of exceptions, ‘civilization’ ended a few miles outside of Route 128.  Beyond ‘civilization’ was a collection of small towns reached by country roads. Those towns, in turn, dated back to the colonial era. 

Carlisle, Massachusetts
in 1875.  A hundred years
later, it had changed little.

And, land was inexpensive.  Out near Route 495, you could purchase five acres, drill a well for water, put in a septic tank for sewage, and have a home in the country.  Boston was an hour or so away when you needed to go into ‘the city’.

Carlisle, Massachusetts was one of those little towns.  In 1980, it has a population of 3,306 spread out over 15.5 square miles.  Leo Blanchette took five acres and built something much better than a home.  He built a nursery.  And, not your run-of-the-mill garden center kind of nursery; he created a destination.  He specialized in hostas and epimediums and daylilies; and then added things he got interested in: hard-to-grow things and hard-to-find things.

In a few years, Blanchette Gardens had become a ‘destination’ for plant aficionados.  Open from May to October, it was a Holy Place where you went and discovered a plant or cultivar you had never heard of or only read about in an obscure book.  Leo would have found that plant a few years earlier, purchased one, and then started propagating it until he a) had made certain it would grow in New England and b) he had enough of them to sell. 

Blanchette Gardens - thousands of plants from which to
choose, all grown at the nursery

Sell plants he did.  He put up screens to provide shade for the hostas and epimediums, so that Blanchette’s was a great place to be on even the hottest days of summer.  If you picked up an unfamiliar plant or cultivar and brought it to him (he parked himself on a stool next to a small shed by the entrance), he would declaim the plant’s virtues and weaknesses without having to resort to a computer or a book.  Leo made it his business to know every plant in his inventory.

Need information on a plant you've
never heard of?  It's right there.

For a nursery selling the rare and exotic, Blanchette never charged what the market would bear.  There were a few corners of the garden where prices above $25 could be found but most plants were $7.95 and $8.95. 

But times change.  Boston’s technology and financial industries exploded and a new-money elite went in search of quaint, country estates where they could be squires.  Carlisle was ground zero for that demographic shift.  By 2010, the town’s population had risen slightly to 4,852.  But its average household income soared to $244,544, the third highest in the state, behind only Weston and Dover; two other sparsely settled ‘country’ towns bypassed by anything as vulgar as a shopping center or supermarket.

That's Leo on the left.

In April, Blanchette Gardens announced that the 2013 season would be its last.  Leo is approaching 65 and wants to retire.  His kids aren’t interested in the business and he isn’t going to force it on them.  The value of Blanchette Gardens in inextricably linked to the land it occupies.  No one who would want to operate it as a nursery can pay what the land is worth, and no one who can pay what the land is worth is interested in running a nursery.

We were at Blanchette Gardens this past weekend.  The place was crowded and we saw many people we knew; fellow plant lovers.  They were drawn by the 25% discount on everything in stock but also by a need to say goodbye.  Leo will keep the place open until everything is gone.  Based on what I saw this weekend, that could be as early as June.

There are no villains in this story.  A nursery that was a godsend to serious gardeners is closing its doors.  It wasn’t done in by the Big Box Stores or by greed.  An owner aged and elected to retire.  The value of the land under the business makes maintaining it as a nursery uneconomic.  In all likelihood, by this time next year the land will have been sold.  In two years, the site will sport a grand home.

But I will remember Blanchette’s and Leo’s enthusiasm for everything he sold.  The world of horticulture will be a little poorer for the loss of his dedication to the joy of growing the unusual.