Bouquets and Backyard Diversity

I had an unexpected insight on Mother's Day about the advantages of having a wide variety of flowering plants growing in one's yard. It began with a few preparatory texts in rapid succession from my older daughter the day before:

"Mother's Day tomorrow"

"!"

"If you want to get flowers or something"

Responding to this imperative, my first thought was to go to the store and buy a bouquet. Then I thought again. I value the local store, and store-bought flowers can be pretty, but a little predictable, and do I really want to be supporting the transport of flowers flown all the way from Colombia, Equador, and Kenya? 

So, my thoughts turned to the yard, which thus far this spring had provided a fine progression of daffodils, tulips, and lilacs. But now, with Mother's Day upon us, all those easy ornaments for the indoors had faded away. A cynical thought came to mind, that the creators of Mother's Day had timed it to coincide with a gap in local blooms, the better to spur sales of flowers. 

But no, climate change has been altering the timing of blooms for a long time now. And looking back at a post I wrote entitled "Mother's Day's Complicated History With Flowers," I found that Anna Jarvis founded Mother's Day to correspond to when her mother had died, on the second Sunday of May. She campaigned for nine years to make Mother's Day official, then spent the rest of her life fighting against the commercialization of it by the florist, card, and candy industries. 

My instincts were right, then, to head to the backyard for a bouquet, but what to use? 

There, blooming in brilliant, lacy white along the fenceline, was a native fringe tree. That got me started. Add some Lenten Rose, daisy fleabane, and some leaves of sensitive fern, and ... Voila! 

The usual plug for planting flowers in the yard is to feed the pollinators. Since different species bloom at different times, adding more species better insures there will be a steady progression of blooms to sustain pollinators throughout the growing season. 

On Mother's Day, our fringetree saved the day, showing how backyard biodiversity can also feed human relationships and indoor ornament.

Various family members have brought the outdoors inside to make bouquets over the years. Most of the flowers are native, but not all. This one, from June, adds sprays of Virginia sweetspire and the yellow of sundrops and yarrow to roses. 

Lenten rose mixes well with iris.

Those floppy peonies in the yard can thrive indoors in a vase, perfuming the house.

This one from early September combines boneset, purple coneflower, obedient plant, "Autumn Joy" sedum, and Indian grass with a few sunflowers.

October brings goldenrod, New England aster, frost aster, and the deepening burgundy of sedum. Some of the wildflowers drop pollen on the table, but that seems a small price to pay.

Sometimes it's good to rock out with the sheer joy of sunflowers, given some subtlety by the goldenrod. Perennial sunflowers spread like crazy in a garden, so try your best to grow them in big containers rather than letting them loose in the flower beds. 

Even in November there's beauty to bring indoors. A botanist friend, Cynthie Kulstad, brought forest and prairie together for this bouquet at the 20th anniversary of a watershed association I started in Durham, NC. 

For many people, perhaps most, nature's diversity seems intimidating. Thus the countless static yards simplified down to turf and nondescript shrubs. 

You can see, though, that the intimidation of nature's endless creativity outdoors can be overcome, and ultimately inspire human creativity indoors. It all begins with planting that first flower.

My First Public Planting--a Prairie Circle in Ann Arbor, MI

Each time I travel to Ann Arbor, where I lived off and on for 20 years, I make a pilgrimage to several special spots. 

One of them is a small demonstration prairie I planted just a few years before leaving. It was my first public planting and, incredibly, it continues to flourish. I say incredibly because I've seen many idealistic native meadow plantings degrade over time, overrun by any number of aggressive plants, be they trees, shrubs, and native blackberry, or a host of nonnative weeds like mugwort and Canada thistle. 

One reason it has survived is the native plants themselves, growing densely together, leaving no room for incursion. A tallgrass prairie is a robust plant community. In sunny conditions, flowers like rosinweed and purple coneflower can hold their own.

The gray-headed coneflowers--a species much like the cutleaf coneflowers we have in Princeton--have hung in there with the big bluestem and Indian grasses. There are also some wonderful goldenrods--"showy" and "stiff-leaved"--that stay in one place and don't encroach like many other kinds of goldenrod do. Even the nonnative queen Anne's lace, which you'll see taking over along midwestern roadsides, is somehow remaining limited in its aggressiveness. It's possible that a well established planting like this could need little more tending than a late winter mowing to keep the woodies at bay, but there may be some low-key TLC going on to keep things in balance.

I planted it in the early 1990s. The county naturalist at the time, Matt Heumann, helped with seed and design. His successor, Shawn Severance, sent me a very nice note about the prairie:

"That prairie planting has gone on in time to spread seed into the surrounding 4 acres and has enriched the diversity of the park far beyond the original footprint. It’s a continual reminder of the power of small actions. Since you did that planting, we have restored several acres of prairie habitat nearby and so what you set in motion has expanded."

Heartening to think that focusing attention on one small planting could ultimately have a ripple effect on its surroundings. The prairie even made it onto the preserve's map, as the "Prairie Circle." There's another advantage this prairie has. Ann Arbor is a progressive town that has invested in the management of its open space. In addition to the county staff, the city has a Natural Areas Preservation Manager who oversees restoration of diverse habitats, controlling uber-invasives like buckthorn and conducting prescribed burns to bring back bur oak savannas and other historically prevalent habitats.

Having absorbed that culture and brand of wild horticulture, I was able to take what I learned in Ann Arbor and apply it in subsequent migrations to Durham, NC and then here in Princeton. It wasn't a matter of taking favorite plants along on the trip, but rather getting to know the species indigenous to any locale, and finding public places where they could be encountered by people otherwise surrounded by generic, nonnative landscaping. 

There's a bench nearby that faces the Prairie Circle. I don't know who Omry Ronen was, but his loved ones must have thought he'd like an enduring view of tall grasses and wildflowers flowing with the breeze.

9/11 Memorial Plantings

Stymied from reaching our intended destination of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden by various closed subways on a Sunday afternoon, we found ourselves close by the World Trade Center site, and decided to take a look. The footprints of the twin towers have each been turned into chasms where curtains of water fall from one depth down into a still deeper abyss. The symbolism is powerful--ascension transformed into endless descent. The curtains of water, played with by the wind, can sometimes appear to be pulling apart, as if something were about to be revealed, but the moment passes and the water returns to a uniform downward motion.

There is so much to grieve there, the lives lost on the site and on that day--their names etched into the frame of metal--and all the lives lost in distant lands due to the nation's skewed response in the years that followed. There is so much that I wish I could pull back up from the darkness at the center of the sunken pools.

But this post was to be about the plantings we saw, which were hundreds of swamp white oaks planted in rows. Swamp white oaks can be found occasionally planted along Princeton's streets, and growing naturally in low-lying forests. Strange that a species found naturally in water-logged lowlands would grow well in the dry, compacted soils of city streets, but the tree is adapted to the low oxygen levels that both soils share. Some of the 9/11 trees came from a NJ nursery that specializes in memorial plantings.

Water used to sustain the trees comes from underground cisterns that capture runoff.

Nearby is St. Paul's Cathedral, which improbably survived the crash of the towers. The cemetery behind the church is filled with headstones grown faceless with time.

Along the fringe of the cemetery grows a pure stand of what looks like a native sedge (on the right in the photo)--the sort that gets only a foot or so high and can form expansive, parklike sedge meadows in local woodlands.

NY City now grows many other unexpected echoes of native habitats, the most recent discovery being Brooklyn Bridge Park, where one of the trails runs along a beautifully maintained stream habitat packed with native species.

But that joy of diversity might be out of place at the 9/11 memorial and St. Paul's Cathedral, where the monocultures of swamp white oak and sedge seem intended instead to reinforce a uniform response of grief.

Weeding a Rain Garden in June

The curb at the Westminster Choir College parking lot looks like a serpent, dipping low to allow runoff to enter a constructed raingarden where pollutants and trash are filtered out, and the water feeds the plants. The raingarden does a lot of environmental work, so maybe someone could do some work to take care of it? Care of installed raingardens is not something most landscape companies do, and so the task falls to a local volunteer with the required knowledge, or the raingarden fills with weeds and gets mowed down and becomes yet more boring lawn.

In this scene, blue vervain grows in the spaces left by the expanding redbud and tupelo trees.

Switchgrass makes billowy mounds.

The raingarden is doing better than it was a couple years ago when I adopted it, but there are still weeds to easily undercut with a shovel, like wild lettuce and curly dock.

And bindweed to pull that would otherwise grow over everything.

The mugwort was proactively dug out last year, but a few are still popping up. The pink in the photo is red clover, a non-invasive exotic that gets left in the mix.

A bedstraw species smothered an area ten feet across before being pulled up. This may be the native stickywilly (Galium aparine), but was being way too aggressive for the setting.

Here's the bindweed growing up and over a late-flowering thoroughwort that's worth protecting from aggression for its late summer flowers.

Not shown here is the crown vetch, another aggressive grow-over-everything weed.

White clover and dandelions would require more time to weed than this volunteer has.

One nice discovery, not remembered from previous years, is a swamp milkweed, which would have little chance of growing if the aggressive weeds weren't controlled.

Whither Romance? Wisteria Meets Horse Chestnut

 It was just one of those things.
Just one of those crazy flings.

A trip to the moon on gossamer wings.
Just one of those things.

If they'd thought a bit about the end of it,
When they let the wisteria start climbin' round,
They'd have been aware that this love affair
Was too hot not

to fall down. (Stay tuned.)

--Lyrics mostly by Cole Porter

Planting the Shore

If St. Patrick's Day is the traditional day for planting peas, then March 8th must be the traditional date when rushes are planted next to a pond. The dredging of the upper Mountain Lake in Princeton left the shoreline bare. A fence effectively kept the geese from congregating, but didn't quite do the trick appearance-wise.

FOPOS board member Tim Patrick-Miller at some point realized that the solution was growing just downstream, where thousands of native rushes and sedges had sprouted in the drained lakebed of the lower lake. Clark Lennon and Tim are working with new FOPOS natural resources manager AeLin Compton to transplant the natives along the shoreline.

Soft rush (Juncas effusus) is a very tough native plant whose evergreen stems and vaselike shape give it an ornamental appearance once it's established.

Which Witch Hazel?

A witch hazel of Asian origin (probably a cross between Japanese and Chinese species) has been making its customary pitch on campus over the past couple weeks,

in varying shades of orange and red.

Here's the overall effect.

The native witch hazel, which typically grows on slopes near streams in Herrontown Woods, Mountain Lakes, Woodfield Reservation and elsewhere around Princeton, blooms in the fall. Last year's post on the subject can be found at http://princetonnaturenotes.blogspot.com/2011/03/witch-hazel-in-bloom.html.

No Toil Backyard Composting

These photos are from several weeks ago, when Princeton was in the depths of winter, buried in one inch of snow. The brief episode of winterish weather was useful for visualizing the regular nature walks we take back to ye ol' compost pile,

which happens to be a repurposed rabbit hutch from the 1960s. Our neighbors bring their foodscraps over to add to decompositional festivities.

It's really pretty simple. Toss the vegetable scraps in a pile, allow lots of air in to keep the decomposition anaerobic and therefore odorless, don't bother to stir. A fence along the front keeps the dog out. I haven't seen anything visiting it other than crows now and then. Shrubs planted along the front screen it from view.

The enclosure is wide enough to have two piles--older and newer--so that mature compost can be accessed without having to dig through the undecomposed vegetables.

Great soil, no toil. Ruth Stout, who back in the 1950s wrote one of, or perhaps the, foundational text on minimal work gardening, "How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back", would be pleased.

Woodpile Slumber Party

Sometimes, bringing firewood in can get complicated. Nature has taken what was intended as a simple backyard woodpile and turned it into sleeping quarters and storage barn. This wooly bear caterpillar, having a fine winter's snooze amongst the squirrels' stored acorns, must not have been pleased when I inadvertently liberated its roof to heat our home. Hopefully it liked the alternative accommodations I hastily prepared for it.

The next log removed exposed this tent village of spiders. They too were relocated, log and all, so as not to suffer any further disturbance to their slumbers.

Woodpiles are the highrise apartments of backyard habitat, packed with nooks and crannies to serve a diverse clientele. Looks like the best compromise is to have more woodpiles than one will use in a given winter, so that at least some of the backyard residents will have their sleeping quarters left undisturbed.

Raingarden Installed at Mountain Lakes House

 One project I was able to get implemented at Mountain Lakes House in Princeton is the construction of a raingarden. I designed and located it so that it would capture runoff from the lawn, driveway and a portion of the roof. Township staff did the contouring, and planting was done by Polly Burlingham of Sigmund Garden fame, financed by a private donor.

It was particularly important to redirect runoff from the driveway down this contoured swale to the raingarden. Before, water flowed towards the foundation, which led to flooding in the basement.

Now, the runoff will have a positive effect, helping to keep the raingarden wet. A typical raingarden is designed to collect about 6 inches of water, which then infiltrates into the soil over a day or two, creating an underground reservoir of water that the wildflowers, sedges and shrubs can tap into during droughts.

Since it was installed last fall, it's still awaiting its first growing season. Plants have been labeled (cardinal flower, joe-pye-weed, winterberry, buttonbush, etc). You can reach this site by parking at the Community Park North parking lot off of Mountain Ave at 206, and walking down the long driveway through the woods to Mountain Lakes House. In the distance in the photo is the recently restored upper Mountain Lake.

Integrating Leaves Into the Landscape

There, can't you see it, the massive pile of leaves? One of my cause celebres, in case it wasn't obvious from all the previous leaf-related posts, is to get people to keep their leaves in their yards. Nutrients, reduced runoff, habitat, less dependence on municipal services--what's not to like? Obviously something, since so many people dump their leaves in the street regardless of yard size.

This residence, located out towards Terhune Orchards at the intersection with Cold Soil Road, shows how leaves can easily be integrated into a neatly maintained yard.

Rather than blow the leaves out to where they'll be a hazard next to the road, the owners have a nice cluster of trees halfway between road and house where they pile the leaves. Despite the adding of leaves to the same pile year after year, the pile won't get very high due to decomposition and raiding of nutrients by the tree roots. And anytime the owners want rich compost for the garden, they need only dig into the interior of this pile to find it waiting.

A Visit From the Claw

A Visit From The Claw

'Twas the month before Christmas, when all through the town,

The streets were chocked full of great mounds of brown--

Yardwaste and tree limbs, dumped without care,

In hopes that the street crew soon would be there.

The kids, how they wished they could jump in a pile

Of leaves dry and crisp, where they'd linger awhile.

But all dreams were dashed! Their dad called a halt

To such thoughts of venturing near the asphalt.

The streets had become so exceedingly narrow,

That bicyclists mixed with the cars at their peril.

The street drains were clogged, the rains made a river.

I watched this insane spectacle with a shiver.

When just down the way there arose such a clatter.

I sprang to the door to see what was the matter.

From round the next corner at once there appeared

A caravan that was demonstrably weird.

With dump truck and pickup and street crew I saw

A giant contraption with grappling claw

That groaned as it scooped up the leaves in great gobs.

One thing that was clear was they wouldn't lose their jobs.

For no sooner did they the street cleaner make,

Than neighbors dumped even more leaves in their wake.

The mounds they grew higher than ever before.

I guessed that our town had gone nuts at the core.

How could such a state of affairs come to pass?

What sense underlies this self-made morass?

Is decomposition a thing to be purged

From yards prim and proper that so blandly merge?

The leaves, they have value, it's clear, don't you see?

To earthworms and robins and flowers and trees.

Let's make room between the back fenceline and shrubs,

And there place the leaves as good food for the grubs.

Hidden from view they will quietly mellow.

As Jefferson did at beloved Monticello.

To ground they return; no need for more work.

As they flatten and fade, no varmints will lurk.

Let humus and nutrients there feed your soil.

The mulch will kill weeds, and save you some toil.

The leaf-softened ground will soak up the rain

And lessen the floods that now seem to gain.

Or, grind up the leaves as you last mow the grass.

Okay, so it might take just one extra pass.

But saved be our streets from a public display

Of all that in nature is meant to decay.

I know that I'm fighting a dominant force,

That flouts local law as a matter of course.

No bureaucrat dares to deliver a fine,

Risking taxpayer wrath of a virulent kind.

But speak up I must, and speak up I will

As long as the streets continue to fill.

This dumping is wrong. It's an ongoing blight.

To all who love sense: Let's fight the good fight!

Background: Yesterday, a man overheard me talking to a friend at the Arts Council about all the leaves clogging the streets. He came over and said that West Windsor has the same problem, and that their town council had just thrown its hands up in exasperation, for lack of a solution to the annual deluge of leaves. The thought of towns all over New Jersey struggling with the same intractable problem, mixed perhaps with the flush of vitamins from eating swiss chard from the backyard garden, had the unexpected effect of later moving me to verse, which I read yesterday night at the Princeton borough council meeting. When faced with adversity, write a poem. By coincidence, The Claw came by our house as I was writing it. My apologies to Clement Clarke Moore for rerouting his 1822 "A Visit From St. Nicholas" down a very messy street.

The Annual Purging of Leaves

One of this blog's "pages" (listed in the right column as Leaves) contains my annual letter to the editor calling for clean streets and backyard composting, and each year the dumping of leaves, dirt, grassclippings, branches and garden trimmings on the pavement becomes more emphatic and non-stop. The power of the pen is overrated.

What does a tidy yard gain the homeowner if the street in front of it is clogged with debris? It's as if we've disowned the public space. Dumping on the streets has become a year-round, essentially unregulated activity.

True, the leaves, etc. eventually end up getting composted outside of town, but collecting leaves is a highly mechanized, gas-gulping process that makes municipal workers unavailable for other tasks.

And leaves the streets strewn with organic debris that then adds a nutrient load to local waterways.

Streets function essentially as ephemeral creeks, connected directly to local streams, so that the dumping of organic matter in the streets is akin to dumping directly into a waterway--an urge society was supposed to have cured itself of decades ago.

There was a time when leaves were appreciated, not only for their rich fertilizer value but for their beauty and the joy a pile of dry, crisp leaves can bring to kids.

Many homeowners have abundant space in back, yet make a point of raking all leaves to the street. Seeking to comprehend, I came up with two new possible reasons this year: 1) the frenetic pace of life has caused people to reject the relatively slow pace of decomposition, and 2) since homeowners often take their cues from neighbors, the highly visible practice of dumping leaves on the streets is more readily imitated than the comparatively hidden practice of piling leaves in a corner of the backyard.