Saturday, January 26, 2013

Rethinking Your Garden


FINALLY  - A NEW  GARDEN ZONE MAP

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FIND  YOUR  ZONE
Go to the new USDA Zone Map and you will find a fabulous post-climate change site that shows you the country, the region,
the state, etc. and basically, has officially recognized that Yes! 
Things are getting warmer. 

We East End of Long Islanders are now on the record as Zone 7a.  Those west of us closer to Manhattan are Zone 7B. 
WOW – that’s almost Zone 8, where you can grow Agapanthus and all sorts of other things formerly restricted to California and other perceived warmer places.

Interestingly, note that the data  used to compile this newly sanctioned map was complete as of 2005.  Now, we all know that since 2005 it has become increasingly warmer…so this tidbit of officially compiled information is especially useful when…


 RETHINKING  YOUR  GARDEN

January and February are definitely the most delicious time to rhapsodize about Your Garden’s Immediate Future and to bury yourself in the astonishing array of mail order plant catalogues. 
Now, that it is decreed I am a Zone 7a, at least, garden…I will get riskier with that, i.e. $18 Farfugium ‘Kaimon Dake’ and that $22 woodland ginger
‘Dancing Crane’ (both from Plant Delights).
There are many great catalogues, which is why I was so dismayed to
read in the Southampton Press that
Andrew Messinger, a garden writer colleague and a devoted East End
gardener, was waxing  persuasively and endlessy about
As long ago as my book DIRT was published, I had already decided that the WWF catalogue was classic and nice but  “be wary as they are extremely computer driven and very expensive.”  My view has not changed, but also feel moved to add to my misgivings, that in my experience, they ship rather puny little plants.
Although once in a while, they do have things before anyone else.

The very best catalogues –sad but true – have no color pictures…
but what they offer and what you get are top-notch.
I wholeheartedly recommend :
Forest Farm  of Oregon – extensive list + great descriptions + shipping is expensive, but you get full-fledged plants and small thriving trees.
Broken Arrow Nursery of Connecticut – the crème de la crème of specimen gardening.
Niche Gardens of North Carolina – wonderful selection of mostly American plants and they ship in big pots

While these terrific catalogues are a compendium of
full-color pictures:
Rare Find Nursery of New Jersey – lives up to its name.
Klehm’s Song Sparrow of Wisconsin – they specialize in peonies but have extremely choice offerings otherwise.
And the irrepressible aforementioned Plant Delights,
also of North Carolina.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Thoughts on Keeping Warm....


THOUGHTS ON KEEPING WARM:
( or VAROIUS METHODS for CONQUERING  the  COLD)

The time-honored practice of protecting tenderer trees has been accomplished in several ways around here.
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Remembering how her father wrapped their fig trees in Connecticut, Lys super-wrapped our Fig Tree Ficus carica ’Brown Turkey’ first in hay, surrounded that with burlap , then a tarp; and added a Khmer goddess and a rock for good measure.
This next is my loose approximation of a Christo.
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Notice how the English Garden Twine caresses every curve of the fledgling summer magnolia that I am trying to accustom to the maybe-too-shady spot.
Wrapping a tender plant, here  a prized  big-leaf
Farfugium, like a gift basket is another favorite method to be accomplished with a few squares of burlap (available at most garden centers, but you usually have to ask for it) and more of that fabulous English Garden Twine, which has a million uses.
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The Farfugium came from Plant Delights.  They got it from Marco Polo Stufano, so I feel particularly protective about it because not only is he the retired originator of the great gardens at Wave Hill – he is now conferring with LongHouse via The Garden Conservancy on our new Affiliate status.  And you know how I feel about LongHouse.

LHouse7
LongHouse, East Hampton, NY



Excerpted from Volume 31 of DIRTIER. You can read the entire issue HERE.


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Tuesday, January 15, 2013


And so, dear gardening friends as we continue to ring in 2013
with the garden at its drabbest, instead of
withered leaves and a few
cold looking hellebore buds,
I offer you -

A  NEW  YEAR’S  TREAT

It’s difficult to dream up a delight special enough to charm
my wonderful and loyal readers at the beginning of a new year. 
And might I take this moment to say how much I appreciate those wonderful little splashes of heart warmth when one of you pops up and tells me
that you look forward to opening DIRTIER,
or reminds me of a little insight I might have even forgotten
because you read it here. 
Very encouraging…and what is more important than encouragement…

So, I present to you one special woman’s fabulous fable
of a mythical bird.

 
The woman happens to be my partner, Lys Marigold, and I know that
if you are a fan of DIRTIER, then you will relish this…

 
THE SECOND HOOPOE
A revisited essay by Lys A. Marigold
    We harbor within us an ancient urge to order the world. A mythic impulse, as old as Methuselah, to put names to every little creature and beast. A basic mathematical need to codify and condense, to create harmony. All that is satisfied when you spy a rare bird.
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On one of the first days of the first trip to the red ruins of Petra in Jordan,when walking past a clump of cotton-candy pink oleanders, I heard a loud and repetitious cry, “oop-oop-oop.” Perched on an inside branch was a regal bird,made slightly comical by a coppery head ringed with black-tipped plumes, much like an Indian chieftain’s war bonnet. 
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If my initial reaction to this particular bird was being in awe of something so
beautiful, the second was to use my detective instincts to track down the
identity of this rara avis. Luck was on my side – or ‘gismih o naseeb’ in Arabic, meaning more than just luck…destiny. That night in the hotel lobby I spotted a poster illustrating the birds of Jordan, including one that was said to navigate
by the sun on its annual sojourn.
  
It was a Hoopoe (Upupa epops) or in Arabic, Hudhud – an uncommon bird
of passage which flies with a smallish wingspan (18 inches/45 cm) from England
to Africa and back, seeking warmth and abundant insects.
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With jail-cell black and white stripes on its wings and tail, a smoked-salmon color body and a long, pointy, down-curved bill, the hoopoe’s most distinguishing feature is an erratic flight pattern, zigging and zagging like a butterfly. The hoopoe and all its hues and cries sounds like a silly invention of nonsense poet Edward Lear, similar to the “Dong-with-the Luminous-Nose.” And because it is notoriously hard to photograph by bird watchers, its name is used in British society to describe a precious object as, “O, it’s so-o hoop-ooe,”
   
Legend has it that hoopoes were first given crowns of gold as a reward for sheltering wise old King Solomon from the parching sun. Hunted almost to extinction for their valuable golden diadems, the hoopoes appealed to the King (who, as you may remember, understood the language of all animals) to change the crown to a crest of feathers. Mission accomplished, henceforth hoopoes were known as “the children of Solomon.”
   
These birds belong to the Coraciiformes order of cavity nesters who find homes in the holes of trees or tucked away in the crevices of crumbled antiquities. Whether the result of the close-quartered nesting habits or the fact that a musty odor exudes from the female’s preen gland, hoopoes, whose flesh is edible, are listed as no-no’s on the list of what’s kosher in the Old Testament (Lev. 11:13-19).
    
The hoopoe is a nomad, in the truest sense of the word.
    
Dictionaries are misleading when they suggest random movement or “roving” as the definition of “nomad.” Nomad actually comes from the Latin/ Greek nomas, meaning “to pasture,” or follow a known route of abundance. As the B’dul Bedouins (possible descendants of Petra’s vanished inhabitants, the Nabataeans) did when they moved their flocks at the change of seasons, shifting from hilltop to valley in search of water and tender greenery.  This pastoral routine was the reason I happened to be near the Siq al-Barid one June, using my four-wheel-drive to bring supplies to an old tattooed woman who still pitches her summer tent amidst the cooler rocks.
   
On that fateful day, while creeping slowly over the deep ruts on a “track” cut through the parched white hillocks, I noticed a blur of movement to my right, a definitive flicker of feathers from a bleached terebinth branch -- and froze in place. One close listen to its avian chatter pinpointed the caller: it was oop-pupping away – identifying it instantly as a migratory crown prince, my second Hoopoe.
    
I like to imagine myself as a descendant of the grand tradition of women travelers who came to the Ancient Near East following the footsteps of adventure.

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Intrepid sojourners who left a trace on a primitive Petra, such as Jane, the Marchioness of Ely, lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria who in 1870 wrote under the unisex J. Loftus, as so many women did; and even Agatha Christie put this understated passage in Appointment with Death, 1938, “Have you not been to Petra, M. Poirot?...It has an – how should I say it? – an atmosphere.”
    Although I experienced a few spine-tingling frights – being caught in the crossfire of a rebellion (army roadblocks, burning trucks, food shortages) and being bitten by a scorpion while I bedded overnight miles away from help, in reality, mine was more of a danger du jour. In the isolated ravines, disturbed only by a brilliant blue lizard or soaring Barbary falcon, I explored solo, seeking old carvings and rock art. Finding toeholds to climb up the steep cliffs was relatively easy, but when it came time to go back down, getting myself to dangle over a sharp precipice and search blindly for a cleft in the rock for my foot was heart-pounding.

PETRAVALLEY


And fool-hardy. Especially when everyone had been warned about a young American tourist who had hiked up the 808 steps to the Monastery, gone out on the top of its massive façade and slipped to her death. “Those are the risks,” I said to reassure myself. The lure of the unpredictable sharpens the senses. Like the snap of fingers for someone hypnotized, this adrenaline jolt wakes us up from our civilized trance and puts us on alert.
     
When you stop being complacent, you fall back on instinct. My eyesight “improved” day by day, as features came into sharp focus. Along the ridges of smooth-sided boulders, it was suddenly possible to isolate the many signs of man: feathery hack marks on the rocky walls; loopy Nabataean writing; elemental god-blocks with stylized faces; high altars with humble libation niches; crisply carved rosettes and crescent moons that paid homage to the guardian goddess, Al Uzza, The Mighty One.
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To catch the true light before the scorching sun turns the russet dust into blaring whiteness, you need to go out before dawn. The desert landscape that seems barren and empty, is, in reality, blooming ferociously – with wild dwarf black irises, white-flowered broom, opalescent green sage (shiah), scarlet ranunculuses, masses of maidenhead ferns, entwinements of magenta morning glories and giant dark purple onions. The desert floor is laced with sherds of fragile, finely painted pottery that crunch underfoot as you walk. What appeared in the distance to be a landlocked swan with its long undulating neck turned into a milk-white baby camel on its knees, the perfect size for my warrior-baby, Skye Qi, to ride. And ride she did, holding on to brightly-dyed, woven goat-hair reins.
WhiteCamel
( I interupt this wonderful tale to draw your attention to the sweet little girl Skye
being led by her bedouin 'nanny' to ride the baby white camel...which is not the
usual color of new-born camels...making this an even rarer occassion...DB)
skye
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Being visited by not one, but two hoopoes seemed to be profoundly symbolic that my path was pointed in the right direction: a reverie to the wild spark of travel and a cognitive map to infinite possibilities.
TattooedWomansGoatsb   

Wasn’t that great?
I think Upupa epops is the crowning glory of
all Latin, botanical and otherwise, that I have ever heard.

To Read this entire issue of DIRTIER, CLICK HERE!




Sunday, January 13, 2013

Happy New Year from Dianne B.


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Happy to welcome in another year …

I share with you some my favorite Happy New Year Greetings….
Robert Wilson as Krapp in Beckett’s Krapps Last Tape.
Always have something in the air.



Make yours a spectacular, colorful and variegated year.


Let your imagination run wild,
like these Wild Horses of Sable Island 
photographed by Roberto Dutescu.



Appreciate the beauty in the not so obvious.
Aqueous abstract of LongHouse Reserve Pond 
in Winter by Peter Olsen.



And always be in the right place at the right time.


 And never forget – there’s no place like home.


Skye making gingerbread house.

And here are a few – not so poetic - moments I 
just had to share…

Impossible to get the iconic blue Town Pond Christmas tree with its night look and the swans at the same time…so here are the swans and you can get a glimpse of the blue tree,not so fabulous, in the fading afternoon light.


Do you think there is something for this swan to eat?



This is a spirited Santa type who took the 
New Years Day Polar Bear Plunge 
into the freezing Atlantic..


Long may he wave....or shiver.

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