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Tuesday, July 22. 2008

You can only go so long... Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Plants at 04:42

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You can only go so long...

You know how it is. You get new plants and, flush with the excitement and novelty of their newness, your lust is--however momentarily--sated. For the time being, all is right with the world.

Then it starts...

"Well," you think, "this is nice...."

"I've already bloomed it. It's been photographed...."

"It's growing pretty slowly. It'll be years before it looks like anything...."

"Gee, orchids are great, but I'd really love to try some cacti...."

Once you get to this point it's all over. You have to bring in something new.

I've been through many phases in my plant-growing career. Orchids, cacti, passion flowers, tropicals, clivias, succulents, anything bizarre. Most blaze like a comet for a undetermined length of time...then smolder languidly while a new passion rears its head. This results in a highly diverse collection--with needs that don't suit themselves to consistent, uniform treatment. Hence I create work for myself. That's just what we do.

The last phase, and one that has continued for quite a while, is caudiciform succulents. They are lumpy, bumpy, grotesques that have swollen stems/underground storage organs. They are bizarre, unusual and amazingly attractive for all their ugliness. Having grown them for a while, something else was needed.

Enter Asarum: the temperate, evergreen gingers of North America and Asia. Flipping through "Toki No Hana" a Japanese picture book of cultivated Asarum (they are the acknowledged masters and have selected hundreds of unique cultivars), should be enough to whet any plant lover's appetite, and since mine isn't all that hard to get going, I was hooked.

I knew exactly where to go, and a short time later an order for sixteen or so plants was emailed. The plants ship today and I'll have them by the end of the week. They are each distinct from the other, have fabulous and unusual flowers, and many have mottled or otherwise marked leaves. They are all Japanese or Chinese and will have to be grown in pots and brought in the winter. Luckily, I've grown a couple of similar species and they've done well with an outdoor regime in the season, and a cool windowsill for the winter--so I know I can maintain them.

This ought to hold me for a while. Really.

I might go, oh..., several weeks before needing another fix.
Continue reading "You can only go so long..."

Wednesday, July 16. 2008

Turkey leftovers... Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Critters at 05:43

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Turkey leftovers...

Well, it wasn't a pigment of my imagination...no, I didn't see it again.

The existence of the leucistic turkey was verified as I learned that at least two other people have seen it. It is a HEN, however, and not a tom as suggested in my earlier turkey-latte post.

I'm still traveling with the camera....

Friday, July 11. 2008

Pale Male in Tuxedo Park Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Critters at 07:34

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Pale Male in Tuxedo Park

With all the hullabaloo in recent years about Pale Male, the red-tailed hawk in Central Park, you may not have noticed that Tuxedo Park, just an hour or so away, has its own pale male. One park for another, one bird for another—we’re not talking here about what the young men of the village look
like (pale males) after a bit too much ale.

A week or so ago, while exiting the village’s Sterling Forest entrance, my eye was drawn to a
flock of wild turkeys frequenting the roadside verge. Just lately out with this year’s brood, the young, nearly invisible, but on their own foraging with the adults, disappeared into the grasses and leaf litter. The hens in the group barely seemed to notice the car. Then to the right, I saw him.

In the shadows of the sub-canopy stood a handsome tom; a ghostly apparition as his main body color was a light taupe—a blond amongst brunettes. He was stunning and beautiful. Sleek and dapper, he stretched his neck to survey the scene. Was it a pigment of my imagination?

According to Andrew Block, a wildlife biologist in the Bronx, the bird may be leucistic. This condition results from a reduction in pigment. As opposed to albinism, which is a reduction in melanin, leucism is a reduction in ALL pigment. This would account for his light--but not white--color. My turkey latte.

I haven’t seen him since. Despite taking the same route (with camera) several times and keeping my eyes open, he’s disappeared. Like Sasquatch and Nessie he’s receded into the mists.

Friday, July 11. 2008

Calopogon as cut flower: Who knew? Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Plants at 07:10

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Calopogon as cut flower: Who knew?

Most people don't go through the trouble and expense of putting hardy orchids in their gardens to use them as cut flowers. Just getting them to thrive and bloom is a challenge--taking a scissors to them is unthinkable. Taking advantage of a natural disaster, however, is just putting the resource to its highest and best use.

I grow Calopogon tuberosus (Grass Pinks) in a bog garden. They come up relatively late and begin blooming in late June and early July. Their inverted (well they look that way--I'm sure the plant considers them quite normal) pink or white flowers are fantastic bits of architecture.

The other day, having gone out to photograph them, I noted a broken stem with an open flower and a string of buds. Not wanting it to go to waste, I cut it and brought it into the house to stick in vase. Now I know that many orchids are useful as cut flowers, but I'd never thought of Calopogons--or any of the other hardy orchids--in that way.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that the stem lasted. One by one the buds matured and opened (although the flowers got progressively smaller). At nearly two weeks on now, I still have a fresh Calopogon flower on the kitchen counter.

Don't get me wrong. The success of this little experiement doesn't mean that I'm going to run around next spring cutting Cypripediums and other hardy orchids. I still prefer them in the garden, doing what I originally intended for them to do. It's nice to know, however, that should disaster strike, I can take advantage of the situation to enjoy them in another way.

Why not stop at the mother-site BotanicalGardening.com to explore other ways to take advantage of the things that happen in your garden.

Monday, July 7. 2008

Put food on the table with flowers. Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Check this out! at 12:37

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Put food on the table with flowers.

What’s the line? “You just can’t make this stuff up.”

There was a fascinating article about flowers and fish in the Sports section of the Sunday, July 6 New York Times (if that fact alone isn’t fascinating enough…). It appears that there are some strange goings-on in Costa Rica, where fishermen have taken to tying flies to look like flowers.

Early in the year when the trees are blooming, fish refused to take the usual baits. Keen observation of Machaca by their pursuers has led fishermen to conclude that when the trees on the banks of the river are in bloom, the fish prefer flowers to spinning lures. Moreover, they prefer pink to yellow!
This is all the more amazing since the article describes the fish as “tenacious and sharp-toothed” which would ordinarily lead one to conclude that it is carnivorous. (One just can’t imagine piranha taking flowers, now can one?).

The fish are equal opportunity eaters, taking fruit when the flowers are gone. In this respect they are omnivores like our local black bears, feeding opportunistically. Lures tied to imitate floating fruit do the trick at that time of year.

Take another look at your garden…. Who’d have thunk it?

Thursday, July 3. 2008

Sourland Music Festival: July 19th Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Check this out! at 07:48

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Sourland Music Festival: July 19th

The Sourland Planning Council is advertising its 5th Annual Sourland Music Festival 2008 to be held on July 19th from 2-11pm at the Hillsborough Country Club polo field in Hillsborough, NJ. The event benefits the unique natural areas and fragile ecosystems (including many of the area's finest wildflowers and native plants) of the Sourland Mountain region in west-central NJ, home to a suite of habitats including many plants and animals having a tough go of it in the corridor between New York City and Philadelphia. It's also a major natural island for the many bird species that live their and pass through on their annual migrations.

The Sourland Mountain Region’s natural resources, especially the fragile drinking water supply and its unique ecosystem, need to be properly managed and protection or else they will be destroyed. AND that's what the benefit is all about.

Nine of the area's finest bands will be performing and food and drink will be available on site. Come for the day or come for your favorite band. Just get out and support the effort.

Tickets are $15 for adults; under 13 are $5; 6 and younger are free and I'm sure donations are welcome.

Information is available at: SourLandMusicFest.net which also contains links to the Planning Council's website, which has a wonderful, downloadable natural resource inventory report (unfortunately buried on the site--find it at the bottom of the Planning Initiative page).

See you there....

(But don't forget to come back to BotanicalGardening.com...).

Wednesday, June 18. 2008

Whoopeee! at the A&P... Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Gardening at 06:54

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Whoopeee! at the A&P...

The local A&P is the last place you’d expect to inspire a garden moment. Plantings in parking lots tend to include vegetation that can withstand stresses to which no plant should be subjected, and consequently the palette tends to be thin and uninspiring. Poor, compacted soil, extremes of heat, sun and drought, irregular maintenance, and all the abuses heaped upon them by careless or downright malicious passers-by, contribute the least satisfactory of growing environments.

In such areas Juniperus communis (Common Juniper) ranks high because of its indestructibility. Its spreading nature and dense, impenetrable interlacing of prickly branches commend it to high-stress plantings. As a bonus it forms a barrier few humans would deign to challenge. Here at the A&P it is employed in parking lot island plantings—and people walk AROUND it with their carts.

Juniper is rarely thought of as beautiful. This is a plebian, and purely utilitarian planting. Yet occasionally in such situations you are called upon to sit up and take notice.

Leaving the store the other day with my shrimp and olives, an interesting thing happened. Passing one such planting a large bird flashed past my windshield, wings outspread, feet dangling. It was a female mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and she was coming in way too fast.

Now the surprise. Seemingly without slowing down, she plunged into the juniper and disappeared from sight. Half expecting her to bounce from the impact and the speed at which she had entered the prickly copse, I slowed to watch. Nothing.

Had she been impaled? I had to assume that this bird knew what she was doing. More than likely she was nesting in the protection of the branches. It was probably safer to croak an Anasian “BANZAI!” and plunge into hazardous tangle, than to try landing on hot asphalt amidst oblivious shoppers bent on their rounds.

The event brought to mind once again the transformative power of gardening and its attractiveness to non-human inhabitants of our world. I’d seen it before—most notably in the design and installation of gardens in sterile new subdivisions. Literally the DAY after planting (some of the plants were installed in flower) this formerly barren site was alive with birds, mammals, and insects—including butterflies; that hadn’t been seen on this property since before it was scraped clean for development.

Yet this bird and her action brought the potent allure of the garden home in a new and stronger way. They use and appreciate our gardens for far different reasons, but the impact we have when we plant should not be underestimated.

Skydive back to BotanicalGardening.com but watch that landing...

Wednesday, June 18. 2008

High tension? Not tonight... Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Check this out! at 03:32

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High tension? Not tonight...

No one, not even New Jersey Power and Light, thinks a remotely romantic thought about high-tension power lines; but last night, oh last night--they were enchanting...

The moon was burgeoning full, the meadow straining in its gentle sway. Over the tops of the grasses and forbs legions of ardent male fireflies (actually not flies at all, but

Photuris pennsylvanica, a soft-bodied beetle) were advertising their wares, hoping to attract a female of the species for something more than a cup of coffee.

But this night, their mid-air performance, like twinkling Christmas lights unmoored from their strings, was accompanied by a sound-track. The hissing crackle of electricity surging through the power lines enlivened the gently flashing beacons of these suitors, providing an aural counterpoint to the visual display.

While it may require a little “willing suspension of disbelief,” the effect was magical. And regardless of what you think of them, 99% of us still rely on such delivery systems to provide the juice necessary to flip our lights on at night. Like many other things, power lines are necessary
evils of the modern world, so you may as well wring the wonder out of them wherever you can.

Ensorcelled by the sight, we stood silently…watching and listening; kissed, then turned to go in. The night--and the beetles, we left to their own devices.

Tuesday, May 27. 2008

Thunder and hot peppers... Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Weather at 15:05

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Thunder and hot peppers...

Oh sure.... The first day back from a trip to the Netherlands and England and the weather has to be unruly. A wave of thunderstorms pealed their way through the neighborhood with strange periods of warm sunshine between.

Got me thinking though. You know how you just have this feeling that eating hot peppers MUST being doing something good for your body? (Nothing that spicy could fail to have an associated health benefit...). The violent blasts from Thor's hammer must have some advantage too. Yes...I know about the charging of ions and all that...but I think something more mystical and amazing must be going on.

It was supposed to have rained off and on the entire week I was gone--and a walk around the garden reveals that sun and heat must have also been applied to the equation. The weed growth was phenomenal...and prodigious. We'll be battling it the rest of the season.

SO...spring thunder and lightening must be a plant "call to arms"; a fox-hunt burst from the horns urging the hounds ever onward. They've heard...and have responded. As for me, I'll be throwing cayenne in the red snapper that's being grilled for dinner...

Wednesday, May 14. 2008

The Secret Life of Plants... Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Check this out! at 08:09

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The Secret Life of Plants...

Take a break from the mental carpet-bombing that is the inexorable advance of spring in the garden. Sit and listen to one of Brazil's gifts to the world, Gilberto Gil, sing Stevie Wonder's late 70's tune, "The Secret Life of Plants." With apologies to Wonder, this is the best version of the song I've heard (and if I'm right, the only song in English on Gil's 1994, "Gilberto Gil Acoustic," a great CD released by Atlantic Jazz).

"I can't believe the nucleus of all
Begins inside a tiny seed
And what we see as insignificant
Provides the purest air we breathe."

...is how it begins. Funny how we take things for granted--especially in spring. Overlooking 99% of what is there in favor of the flashiest display of the moment; then quickly forgetting about that 1% when it is eclipsed by a new brilliance. And then there's "plant-blindness": "the inability to see or notice the plants in one's own environment, leading to the inability to recognize the importance of plants in the biosphere and in human affairs." Plant blindness also comprises an "inability to appreciate the aesthetic and unique biological features" of plants and "the misguided, anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to animals, leading to the erroneous conclusion that they are unworthy of human consideration." (Wandersee and Schussler, botanists and plant educators, 1998).

Insignificant or just plain unnoticed (and therefore non-existant), plants get their props in this song:

"And yet we take from it without consent
Our shelter, food, habiliment."

We gardeners can make this more than late 70's sentimentality. But we have to stop and notice ourselves; keep in mind the contributions, beyond our gardens, that plants make to our lives. It's not always an easy concept to wrap a mind around--that these green things make it possible for us to exist: be born, thrive, live to an old age....

"But if you ask yourself where would you be
Without them you will find you would not."

O.K. Back to your shovels...

Then back to BotanicalGardening.com to keep greening going...

Tuesday, April 29. 2008

Word of the day: Biobigotry... Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Check this out! at 05:20

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Word of the day: Biobigotry...

The New York Times online taught me a new word today: biobigotry. It's "the persistent and often irrational desire to be surrounded only by those species of which one approves, and to exclude any animals, plants and other life forms that one finds offensive."

The article , in the Tuesday Science section, is a fascinating look at how we react to likes and dislikes in the natural world. It examines our thoughts and attitudes about various species, particularly birds.

BUT the author, in an ironic twist of her own, displays some biobigotry and a case of plant-blindness when she fails to acknowledge the best example of biobigotry: GARDENING. (Not that I'm proud of being a bigot or anything...). Nowhere in a human's relationship with the natural world around him/her does this "...desire to be surrounded by ONLY those species of which one approves..." occur with more regularity than in those who garden.

While pets are an obvious example of biobigotry (we only pick the ones we want), gardeners create entire environments with plants of their own choosing--and only those with the seal of approval make it into the ground. Rather than slotting a puppy or a kitten into a fully established household, gardeners start from a blank slate, create, and then continue to edit relentlessly, removing anything that fails to make the grade and ceaselessly adding new plants that have gained our favor.

Biobigots. That's what we are--in spades (and with spades, come to think of it...). And you thought gardeners were all nice people...

Friday, April 25. 2008

It's time for early spring containers... Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Gardening at 14:21

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It's time for early spring containers...

It's time! Still before Mother's Day--but because of it--you can put together full, luscious, finished containers in a fraction of the time it used to take. Last year we talked about this technique on BotanicalGardening.com in the "Tips" section. It worked like a charm for us at Turtle Point last year and you can be certain we'll be at it again this year...

Ssshhhhhhh....don't tell anyone!

Friday, April 25. 2008

Urban deer... Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri at 14:03

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Urban deer...

I had the great good fortune to be wandering the streets in Tribeca Wednesday night after taking in a fascinating gallery opening for a Brazilian artist working with downed rainforest trees and creating incredible furniture (more about that in a future post--the show will be there for a while...).

The weather was fantastic, the trees in bloom and spring in New York was...well, spring in New York. My sweetheart and I were in no hurry, but getting hungry. She'd had a long day and took the subway down to the exhibit. There was no time to drive home and cook so we hoofed it to a Soho restaurant (homemade pasta with truffle sauce and wild morels---oh...my...God!)--and on the way, noticed an interesting phenomenon.

People, more correctly women (sorry, that's the fact) were coming at us down the streets with sprigs of flowering Prunus and other trees under their arms and tucked into their bags. I think it's fair to conclude that they, like us, had just concluded their day and were not bringing these specimens FROM home to another spot. Rather, they'd been damaging street trees.

Now, in the countryside we bemoan the natural pruning that deer do in our gardens—particularly when we have an idea of what a tree or shrub should look like. The difficulty encountered when trying to grow anything that a furry quadruped might find attractive for dinner, prompts us to take great pains to prevent or lessen their impact.

In the city, where gardens are relatively rare, every opportunity should be taken to enhance the environment with flowers and chlorophyll, the damage is particularly egregious. It’s not generally acceptable to shoot people. We could fence them out, but the psychological repercussions would offset the benefits.

Oblivious to the fact that these trees were planted for the enjoyment of ALL, these “urban deer”—two-legged, unthinking philistines, put their own individual interests and pleasure ahead of the 11 million other inhabitants of New York, and the countless visitors who marvel that even in THIS city, the streets come alive with flowers in spring—and they destroy public property in the bargain.

The trees may eventually grow out of the damage, branches extending beyond the reach of mere mortals to bloom again in future years. More likely, given that the useful life of a street tree is measured in less years than you have fingers on one hand, they will die—succumbing to the abuse foisted on them by their status as curbside ornaments—surely the hardest job any plant has to do.

Wednesday, April 16. 2008

Poached cactus for American xeriscapes? Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri at 08:27

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Poached cactus for American xeriscapes?

Hot on the heels of a posting on potentially illegal behavior (in the name of horticulture) comes a similar concern--and evidence, perhaps, of unanticipated consequences of good practices.

In a recent BBC Newsarticle on cactus poaching in Mexico, the assertion is made that the illicit trade in pilfered pricklies is being partly fueled by the trend toward xeriscaping in the United States.

Xeriscaping is the practice of planting so that supplemental irrigation is not necessary. In other words, creating "dry" gardens for plants that don't need to be watered. This is, of course, beneficial to the environment--especially in areas with concern for their water supply. Demand for landscape specimens for such gardens is allegedly so high that organized crime in Mexico has seized the opportunity to go into "horticulture."

If there is merit to these claims, the result is the opposite of the recent posting on criminal behavior. There a man was being civilly disobedient to remedy bad horticutural practices. Here good horticultural practices may be encouraging illegal activity.

Widened to the spectrum of "environmental" actions, the analysis is no less perplexing. The ripple effect of the environmentally sensitive planting of plants with low water needs is apparently creating pressure on rare and endangered species in the wild.

Only awareness and keen, ethical purchasing by gardeners and homeowners can remedy the situation. Impact the market by buying ONLY nursery propagated plants and the demand--and profits for the criminals--will go down.

Tuesday, April 15. 2008

Criminal behavior? Posted by Carlo A. Balistrieri in Gardening at 06:45

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Criminal behavior?

I'm a witness. Last night, at the Ramsey train station in New Jersey, I saw a man messing with public property. I watched him, a short older man with dark hair, wearing black, and with a hard brace on one leg, as he manhandled the horticulture being done at the otherwise attractive train station. While untold thousands of people had passed this way before, the plantings had remained relatively untouched and intact until now.

It was guerrilla horticulture of the highest order.

Although many would have shied from altering a municipal display, this man, civilly disobedient though he might be, gamely jumped in to try to save the trees in this ornamental planting. Some years old, the garden was maturing, and the supports used to anchor the trees in place had severely girdled them. The cincture cut deeply into the cambium and large, unsightly bulges protruded from above and below.

This small man, whose first language was not English, wrestled the twisted wire away from the trunks while a small boy with him watched and coached his efforts. Muttering as he worked, he freed tree after tree from their strictures.

The less enlightened among us might consider his actions vandalism since they involved public property. Seeing the trees tugged and pulled and the supports yanked apart, a zealous municipal officer might have ticketed the man. Yet his actions were bold and correct. The real crime was the lack of maintenance at this prominent location. The trees had obviously been left for years without anyone bothering to take the time to examine whether the supports were still necessary...or whether adjustments should be made to prevent them from injuring the tree.

It was left to this unassuming good samaritan to rescue them, providing care they sorely needed long ago. The scars will never heal--the damage is deep and permanent.

No matter. The trees are dead.