Category Archives: Sustainable Landscapes

Why Bad Things Happen to Good Plants?: On Root Problems, Root Washing, Nursery Practices and Customers

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“To be, or not to be? That is the question—Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them?”  Hamlet.

Is the question we face as gardeners as simple as, To ‘root wash’ or not to ‘root wash’, before planting?  To some today it has become ‘heretical’ to suggest that it might not be just a necessary corrective, but an unmitigated good…and not doing so dooms a plant to failure.  The practice of ‘root washing’ in its present form, is relatively new to gardeners.  Horticulture, which is a system of techniques, traditions and science, that goes back to our own species’ first intentional involvement growing and selecting plants, has not always included it.  Practices develop over wide spans of time.  Many are retained, others pass away. Root washing has been around as a method to assess damage to root systems, to ease and make more efficient division, to study root growth or cleanse them of particular infestations.  ‘Bare-rooting’, during a plant’s winter dormancy in temperate regions, has historically been done in the field when harvesting or transplanting many deciduous trees and woody plants for shipping and ease of transport.  In some circles today root washing has become an almost literal flash point, pitting proponent against opponent, ‘science’ against ‘tradition’…yet another fracture line to divide society. The road of the absolutist, as with many other human practices, tends to create conflict as evidence of correctness is lobbed back and forth.  My own view is that, like so many other things today, the subject is somewhat ‘grayer’. Science can be on both ‘sides’, or neither, and reality is rarely so simplistic. Continue reading →

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Nature as a Model For Society and the Economy

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Standoff between demonstrators and Federal agents on the streets of Portland, OR…my hometown.
A homeless man in Brooklyn, NYC.gettyimages-1802162571_0

For years now my real interest has been in plants and the life sciences.  This has lead me to better understand the physics and chemistry of life, of the organism, as I attempt to understand the truly awesome and fantastical phenomenon that is life itself.  I find it impossible to ignore the links between all of the sciences and it should not be too surprising that what one might learn in biology can have application for our own human species, including the social aspects of our lives, because whether we talk about art and beauty, economics or the institutions we share as humans, all are an outgrowth of our lives and the forces and cycles that govern us.  Primary among these is the phenomenon of relationship whether between the various ‘nested’ and interlinked cells in our own bodies or the countless organisms we share this world with, with which we in fact evolved, in both competitive and cooperative ways.  John Donne once pronounced in a poem that, ‘No man is an island’ and he meant that quite literally.  Our fate and health are all bound to one another whether we like it our not, in relationships which can be mutually beneficial, or, if we choose to ignore and deny them, in mutually destructive ways.  

Ecology is the study of a shared community of organisms, its description and how it all fits together, its relationships, ‘eco’ arising from the old greek word for household and logos, which speaks to order, purpose and form.  Economy, begins with that same concept of ‘household’ only its suffix comes from the greek word meaning management or distribution and refers to the function of the household, its processes and how it produces, distributes or apportions its resources and products…it refers to the actions whereby the ‘household’ lives, the actions, that characterize its many relationships.  In ancient Greece the economy revolved around the household.  In their world economic actions were not simply those by which a society achieves material ends, the Greeks also constrained it to those activities which resulted in ‘praiseworthy’ outcomes, those which provided a larger benefit to the household.  (Greek society, not perfect, was much like our own, placing women in a subservient role and was dependent upon slavery.  Like American democracy, it was exclusive, but capable of being expanded to include all peoples.) 

The two concepts remain closely linked though today our understanding of economy includes only those parts of the larger community’s operation, the money economy, that produces material benefit and wealth.  Any harm accrued or costs imposed on others is not directly relevant if such costs have been ‘outside’ of the transaction, beyond the responsibility of the buyer and seller’s deal.  Leaders have mutually decided to exclude all else.  We define our economy in a limited way that serves the production of wealth and its accumulation, making profit the purpose and most relevant factor in economic decision making, placing outside it that which we choose to, that which we under value and take for granted.  The two largest examples of this are our exclusion of domestic or women’s work, and the contribution of the environment.  To include them would radically change our economic calculations and the very concept of profit.

Profit is what remains after costs are considered.  To the degree that costs can be excluded then, profit is increased.  This ‘habit’ of exclusion extends throughout society and extends to whole sectors of the human population and beyond, distorting our decision making and the broader social and political structures that govern our lives….Our understanding of economics today exists outside of ethics.  Ethics and ethical behavior, if it is to factor into it, must be imposed.  That is the responsibility of a society through its political processes.  Such decisions lie within the realm of possibility though considerable power is aligned behind our current model and we behave as if they are fixed and unchangeable.   (See this PDF to understand how far our economic ideas have strayed from the thinking and goals of the ancient Greeks.)  The Greeks rightly recognized the economy as the engine of the ‘household’ and society, the system that, through nature’s largesse and human labor, creates that which sustains us.  It is necessary that an economy be regulated through rational decision making.  Such a system ‘freed’ of its responsibility to society to move it in a beneficial direction, is more likely to simultaneously squander its world and resources while failing to meet the needs of its people and the many species that comprise it.  The Greeks understood that by not limiting the pursuit of luxury the capacity of nature to fulfill its demands would be compromised.

This last year has driven this point home for me as the pandemic and our divisive politics, both plagues on this world, work to drive us apart.  These compound the ever increasing gap between the rich and poor, stranding ever more of the middle class on their own as well.  We’ve conflated what we want with what we need and released individual greed to pursue its ends freely.  I have been studying the topics of evolution, natural selection, random mutation and the role of energy in life, acting as a driving, creative, force behind evolution, increasing complexity and the self-organization of organisms, which in the world of physics are recognized as far out of equilibrium, dissipative structures, taking higher quality energy in, utilizing it in their growth and metabolism, before exhausting it outside of their ‘bodies’.  Organisms have the ability to self-catalyze, reproduce and maintain themselves as long as energy flows through them uninterrupted.  These phenomenon lend weight to our understanding that life is not a random occurrence, there is something inevitable about it, the underlying physics and chemistry of the universe pushing the process.  Organisms are living, self-reinforcing, complex ‘nested’ systems, each composed of successful, dynamic patterns, that repeat in innumerable forms, between very narrow limits.  Organisms exist in the ‘moment’ along the energetic cusp between life and death, that sweet spot within which our chemistry and metabolism remain, between sub-critical and supra-critical states, stasis and conflagration.  There are countless lessons for us to learn from biology that we can apply to our own lives, because life is not an accident, nor is it a singular miraculous event…it is rooted within and powered by the forces of nature.

We exist within a complex network of organisms, a network of self-sustaining systems, made possible and animated by the flow of energy as it moves from low to high entropy, from order to randomness, sunlight ‘becoming’ living tissue, feeding successive trophic levels, endlessly cycling.   All of life exists in this singular moment entirely dependent upon the health and vitality of the whole, the process of which each individual is a part, with a role to play, which effects every living thing and of what will follow.  Through our broader economic behavior we have set ourselves outside of this essential process of nature.  We cannot know ultimately where this will take life, but we do know, with some confidence, that if we interrupt or compromise it, we put everything at risk.

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What Do We Do When the Whole World Feels Like its Falling to Pieces?

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In this blog I focus on plants.  Any gardener, botanist or horticulturist knows that plants, all living organisms, live in an incredibly complex, interwoven network of systems, each affecting the others, the health of anyone, in large part determined by the health of the ‘whole’.  Life does not and cannot exist in a vacuum.  We humans are also very much living organisms and subject to the same kind of limits as any species.  What we build and produce, including those more abstract things like our social and economic systems upon which we are very much dependent, are subject to the same natural laws and limits, whether we recognize them or not.  Very much a part of this is how we value other life collectively.  Just because many may say other people and species are of less value, does not make this fact.  The laws and ways of ‘man’ must remain within, and consistent with, the laws of nature.  We are not at liberty to treat other life as expendable.  We owe a debt and responsibility to all life.  Life permits and supports us so it is incumbent upon us to do the same for it.  Such is the natural law of reciprocity. Continue reading →

Spreading the Wealth: Taking Advantage of Monte to Broaden a Teachable Moment

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I’ve been taking advantage of people, striking when they are most sensitive, hungry for anything that is outside of their homes and families…I’ve been hanging informational signage amongst Monte’s floral neighbors as they come into bloom, not all of them.  Some will remain anonymous like my Aristolochia semperivirens, an unassuming Dutchman’s Pipe, that is only noticed by the more discriminating of visitors.  Others issue stronger ‘calls’ and so signage seems appropriate.  Many people are taking the time to read them or take pictures of them for later consumption or to make sure they don’t forget.  Many thank me for them.  Who thought ‘school’ could be so cool!  Anyway here is what I’ve hung out in the garden.  Some will come down as their season ends, like the Pacific Coast Iris, others are waiting in the wings.

Monte on May 17

Agave montana

My Agave is flowering. The ‘spike’ you see growing upwards is the ‘peduncle’, the main flowering stem. As it meets its maximum height ‘branches’ will form near the top, from beneath the ‘bracts’, the tightly adpressed leaves, on which will form the yellow flowers. It will form a panicle, a ‘candelabra’ like structure. Agave are monocarpic, meaning they only flower once and then die, after it produces seed. It is 20 year old. Many Agave produce ‘offsets’ or ‘pups’ that can be grown on into mature plants…not this one!

This is a mountain species from Mexico’s Sierra Madre Orientale, where it is found between 6,000’ and 10,000’…not from the desert. This species is relatively new to the trade and was only formally described in 1996, 24 years ago. I’ve been told that this might be the first one to flower in the NW. Its native range experiences a temperate climate and receives its heaviest rains late summer-early fall during the hurricane season. It can experience freezing temperatures and even some snow there in open Oak-Pine forest. It begins its flowering process in Fall, then ‘stops’ for a period during winter, finishing the process in Spring/Summer. Most Agave are tropical/sub-tropical plants from deserts and are grown here in pots. There are 200 or so species, 3/4 of which are endemic to Mexico, found only there, none are native outside the Americas. Only 22 species are found in the US, from California into Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. 3 are native to Florida.

Portland and the Maritime Pacific Northwest provide challenges to growing any Agave species and hybrid. Agave are native where climates tend to have most of their rainfall in summer. Here we have dry summers and wet cool/cold winters…this is the opposite of what most Agave need and will lead to rot and/or fungal foliar disease that can disfigure or kill most Agave species. Siting considerations are extremely important. They generally require full sun and excellent soil drainage. Here good air circulation helps foliage dry in winter. Sloping sites also help with soil drainage. Tilting the plant when planting is helpful as it helps the crowns stay dry. Some gardeners plant these under their eves or erect shelters over their plants to keep the crowns dry over winter. Agaves will require some summer water to grow well especially if they sit in dry soil all winter and spring….

Many Agave are becoming rare across their natural ranges in Mexico because of development and agriculture, a cause which threatens so much of our own natural flora in the US and around the world.

This species is not used to make Tequila! In its home range Agave are pollinated by hummingbirds, insects and nectarivorous bats, bats which are non-native here.

Beschorneria yuccoides ‘Flamingo Glow’. My plant this year took a year off from flowering. To the lower right is Agave parryii ‘Huachucensis’
Beschorneria septentrionalis on a drippy morning


Beschorneria septentrionalis
(False Red Yucca)
There are seven species of Beschorneria, from forests of the higher mountains of Mexico down into Guatemala. This is the most northerly species occurring in NE Mexico, not far from the range of Agave montana. Unlike their cousins, the Agave, all but one of these are ‘polycarpic’, they can flower year after year. These form a substantial rhizome which spreads gradually when the plant is well sited, forming colonies. This one does so only slowly.
Another Asparagus family member, hardy through our zn8a, down to 10º for short periods, if you can keep the crown dry enough. This one struggles a bit and I have to remove a fair amount of rotting leaves every spring…I should move it and it would do better, but I haven’t…it wants better drainage. This particular site is a little wet close to our house which tends to concentrate rainfall a bit without any eave over hang to catch it.
As an open pine/oak forest dweller these are tolerant of relatively shady sites. Mine get some shade.
It’s inflorescence typically form these bright red stems with its sparse branching and hanging, narrow, bell shaped flowers. Part of their corolla is green.
At the top of my stone steps is a selection of another species, Beshorneria yuccoides ‘Flamingo Glow’, which has a buttery colored mid-rib on each leaf. from forests of the mountains of central/eastern Mexico.

Echium wildpretti, on any other year, this would have been the street side star!



Echium wildpretii
(Tower of Jewels)

There are 70 different species of Echium and several subspecies, in the same family as the commonly grown Borage. 27 species are endemic (occur no where else) to macronesia, the Canary, Madeira, and Cape Verde archipelagos lying in the eastern Atlantic close to Portugal, Morocco and west Africa. While the continental species are all herbaceous, dying to the ground over the winter, all but two of the island species are woody, with permanent stems. Echium wildpretii is one of these two.

Echium wildpretii can grow as high as 10’ in its home territory. It is generally a biennial, flowering in spring here, though sometimes, it can ‘wait’ and bloom the third spring. It is monocarpic, dying after producing seed. This plant is just under 9’ and is the tallest individual I’ve ever had in the 15 years of growing this. The plant grows in the ravines of Mount Teide, 12,198’, a volcano on Tenerife, 28ºN latitude, in the Canary Islands, so it has a very restricted range. It requires full sun and arid/dry conditions. With our much wetter winters it is best that you provide this with very good drainage as growing them in cold winter wet soil will decrease their cold hardiness and could lead to rot. Plant on south facing slopes and retaining walls with good air circulation. It is marginal, said to be hardy down to 23 °F.

The species E. pininana, the other Macronesian herbaceous grower, goes to 13’ having much the same form with blue flowers. E. candicans is a short lived woody shrub, which grows to 6’, both are grown here as well. In California these two and others are common some often escaping into the wild and crowding out native species. Here, these are marginal and survive only in protected areas killed by normal to colder winters.
Check my blog at Garden Riots. Annie’s Annuals sells several of these: https://www.anniesannuals.com/search/?q=echium

Grevillea x ‘Pink Pearl’



Grevillea x ‘Pink Pearl’

Grevillea is a genus of 360 species of flowering plants native to Australia and north and west to the Wallace Line. They vary from ground huggers to a tree over 100’ tall. They belong to the Protea family which includes many bizarre and large cut flowers used in the florist industry. They are pollinated by many Lepidoptera, butterflies and moths as well as by Honeyeaters, a group of nectar feeding birds native to their home range related to South African Sunbirds, but not at all to our Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds and bees visit these here.

Most Grevillea are not hardy here in the NW so choose judiciously. To find reliable plants check out the offerings of Xera Plants on SE 11th and or take the trip out Sauvie Island to Cistus Nursery, they have a section of Australian plants. There is a great review of NW hardy Grevillea at Desert Northewest’s site, https://www.desertnorthwest.com/articles/grevilleas_revisited.html

Grevillea readily hybridize. This is thought to be a hybrid of G. juniperina x G. rosmarinifolia. If you give it what it wants it is hardy down to 20ºF, maybe lower. I planted this one 6 years ago here. One winter, ’16/’17, I lost about 1/3 of the top. That was Portland’s fifth coldest winter ever in terms of number of days with freezing temperatures…so not typical. (https://weather.com/storms/winter/news/portland-oregon-worst-winter-city-2016-2017) I suspect another degree colder or with another day of sustained freezing, I would have lost the entire plant.

These are relatively fast growing and can take a hard pruning. In Australia these are often used as hedge plants causing them to grow densely with their pokey needles, quite a barrier! I prune mine regularly to limit its size while retaining its softer look with drooping branch tips.

These are sun lovers and require well drained soil here. They are drought tolerant in the Pacific NW requiring no water after establishment. It is essential that should you choose to fertilize that it include NO PHOSPHOROUS!!! Phosphorous is plentiful in our soil already and adding anymore can prove deadly to Grevillea and also to most all members of the larger plant family. These come from regions with phosphorous poor soils and are very well adapted to searching it out, so…don’t add any!

x Halimiocistus wintonensis ‘Merrist Wood Cream’



x Halimiocistus wintonensis ‘Merrist Wood Cream’

This Rock Rose is a hybrid between two different genera Halimium and Cistus, a relatively rare even as species from different genera aren’t generally capable of crossing successfully. The parents are both Mediterranean plants and this plant benefits from growing under like conditions, warm to hot, dry summers and cool/mild and relatively wet winters.

This plant has grown here for 10+ years on this south facing slope in unamended soil. It benefits from a light cutting back after flowering to help keep it compact and to keep it from falling/splaying open. All of the Rock Roses have a tendency to splay open with time here as our rich soil tends to push them to produce extensive soft growth. Don’t cut these hard, below healthy growth, if you do you are likely to end up with dead stubs unable to resprout. I’m planning to take cuttings of this, root them and replace this plant as it has gotten rather ‘leggy’ over time.

There are many fine Rock Roses available from these two genera that can be grown here.

Lobelia laxiflora ssp. angustifolia Heavy with bloom this Lobelia began flowering almost a month ago.



Lobelia laxiflora ssp. angustifolia
This Lobelia, with its narrow hot red tubular flowers, from Mexico, is reliably evergreen here except over our coldest winters, which can kill it to the ground, but from which it springs back. It often blooms for 7 months or more in the year. As you might guess it is attractive to hummingbirds. This plant is rhizomatous and in too good of conditions with summer water, has a tendency to spread, though it does so compactly. It is better ‘behaved’ under drier, more spare, conditions.

Lobelia are a large and varied genus with 415 species occurring primarily in tropical to warm temperate regions. I also grow the less commonly grown species type, sometimes called ‘Candy Corn Flower’ with broader leaves which is less robust for me here, but showy in its own way.

I grow Lobelia tupa on the east side of our house. It’s a large growing Lobelia from the Andes of Chile with hooking dark red large flowers. I have others on my list including the large pink flowering species, L. bridgesii, to acquire and am somewhat enamored with the ‘Tree Lobelias’ limited to the Hawaiian Islands.

Mimulus (a.a, Diplacus) aurantiacus ‘Jeff’s Tangerine’



Mimulus aurantiacus ‘Jeff’s Tangerine’

Sometimes known as “Sticky” or “Bush Monkey Flower” this plant is native from SW Oregon down through most of California into Baja. A ‘sub-shrub’ this has a somewhat woody base from which sprouts softer herbaceous stems that carry the leaves and flowers. Found from coastal bluffs east into the Siskiyou and Sierra Nevada mountains, these are ideally suited to our mediterranean climate with its summer dry/winter wet precipitation pattern.

Typically, where I’ve seen it growing in situ it is taller than my plant with a much more substantial woody base. At Point Lobos, on the central California coast, these can be over 4’ tall and form impenetrable thickets. Here with our rich soil it grows more lushly and flops. My plant is ten years old and will bloom all May through September in waves, almost never completely out of flower.
Place it in full sun. Mine receives only sporadic summer water. It grows in unamended soil on a south slope so it has good surface drainage. It benefits from free air movement and good soil drainage. There are several color forms available from specialty nurseries.

One of ten or so varieties I have, Iris x pacifica ‘Pacific Rim’



Pacific Coast Iris
(aka. pacifica)

There are 12 Iris species in the group native to our region stretching from southern California northward into Washington state, in a narrow band between the ocean and the Cascades and into California’s western Sierra Nevada. Most of these are limited to California and southern Oregon to areas that receive enough rain and are often limited to places closer to the coast. The Willamette Valley and Washington is mostly limited to one species, the deciduous, woodland edger, Iris tenax.

Hybridizers have taken advantage of their tendency to cross and are found in a wide range of jewel like colors, white, to yellow, red, russet, blue and purple. The hybrids are evergreen. These must generally be searched out as their production is relatively low because these Irises are difficult or impossible to grow anywhere else in the country because of soil and climate differences too far out of their ability to adapt.

The hybrids are drought tolerant in our western gardens. Plant them with plenty of sun, then water to establish. Don’t plant them anywhere where the soil remains soggy into the summer, they need to dry out. It is important to leave them undisturbed after planting. If you choose to move or divide them, wait until the fail rains, when they are producing new roots. They will likely die if messed with during the summer. See my blog: gardenriots.com.

Sphaeralcea x ‘Newleaze Coral’ The first two little flowers of the long season.



Sphaeralcea x ‘Newleaze Coral’
(Glog

The genus Sphaeralcea is native/endemic to the intermountain west of North America, occurring between the Rocky Mountains and the Cascades and east of the Coastal mountains of California. Some can be found in eastern Washington, Oregon and Idaho on south into northern Mexico. They like sun, heat and thrive in poorer mineral soils and are drought tolerant here once established.

‘Newleaze Coral’ earned its garden pedigree in the UK and is a stellar performer here in xeric beds. Sphaeralcea is a member of the large Mallow family which contains 244 genera with 4,225 known species. Well-known members of economic importance include okra, cotton, cacao and durian. There are also some genera containing familiar ornamentals, such as Alcea, Hibiscus, Malva and Lavatera, as well as the genus of trees, Tilia. Commonly called Globe Mallows, this Sphaeralcea will easily bloom for 5 months bookending the summer months.

Toward a Redefinition of Work

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Several different Panicum, Miscanthus and Pennisetum cultivars were planted in large sweeps across more than an acre of bank above the Willamette River here. For several years, late each winter, we gathered in mass for the ‘Harvest’ cutting them down and removing the debris as we were unable to get permits to burn them. Maintenance on this site was always labor intensive given the manner in which it was planted, large sweeps of clumping grasses with nothing in between as per the design. Over time irrigation was discontinued and a more xeric, complex of other plants were added, changing how the work is done.  Anyone working in the plant world knows how undervalued the work is and the compensation those doing it receive.  No one doing the work is getting rich.  Those who do it are either sustained in part by their passion for plants, their desire to work outside and/or at least some degree of desperation…and Portland is becoming an even more expensive place to live as are all West Coast cities.

In this time of political chaos and environmental threats it is difficult to keep my mind only on plants….Nothing in the living world is easily separable from the whole, its context. The following is reflective of my interest in people. My first degree was in sociology.

Work is what we do with our lives. It is what we ‘spend’ our lives doing, whether we are paid or compensated well or not, whether it is a joy or drudgery. Through our ‘work’ we give our lives purpose and meaning, or we don’t. When we speak of it, it is as an expression of our lives…one’s ‘life’ work.

Work is a reflection of our place in our community and society, our role. It is through ‘work’ that the needs of the community are met. What compensation we receive is in proportion to how our community and society values us as individuals as well as the work that we do. When work is not this, when our work itself is demeaned, so are we who do it. When this happens to us we search for other ways to find value in our own lives…or for distraction. When we receive only monetary remuneration for our work, when even we ourselves, fail to recognize the value of the work that we do, when it isn’t ‘fulfilling’, we have a huge hole to fill in our lives.

It is difficult, but doable, to retain one’s dignity in one’s work when those around us recognize neither the value of our work nor our lives. Sadly, we have fallen into the trap set by the larger economy and owners for us, measuring value by the dollars that they are willing to pay. We are raising a generation who sees little value in the necessity of manual work, of hand labor…even the construction trades, historically valued and well compensated, is attracting fewer of our young people. We are learning not to seek satisfaction in paid work, that pay should be enough and that fulfillment, satisfaction, should be found in our shrinking free time, in recreational pursuits, which are defined very narrowly and separately from work.

Work today is, by and large, not creative. It has been reduced to a narrow Protestant, even Calvinistic definition, as a kind of servitude, even a punishment, something we must do to attain our reward and salvation. We have demeaned not only work, but our own value as human beings in the process. Because we spend so much of our lives doing it, work should be creative, fulfilling and satisfying, in multiple ways. We should pursue it because it is satisfying allowing us to contribute to our communities and the support of our families. We are not interchangeable cogs.
There is nothing ‘fair’ about the vast range of pay, the chasm, between those who ‘labor’ and create the product or service and those who own it and decide who gets what. We are all taught that life is not fair, though we have a base understanding that it should be. We have learned that those in positions of power will take what they can and that we will be left with what remains…and, many of us, were our positions switched, would do the same…and very few of us see how simple and just the solution is. We have been taught that money and wealth is adequate compensation for unfulfilling work and we play and recreate very hard to make up for what we’ve given up. We do not live our lives as we do because we must, we do it out of choice, informed or not. Right or wrong.
How we value work reflects how we value our own lives and those of others, how we structure jobs, our relationship with work, our relationships with one another. We need to redefine our idea of work, set it in proper relationship with our lives, make it mean more than a paycheck. All work, if worth doing, should afford those who do it adequate and just compensation so that they can live healthy and secure lives. Work should be important in and of itself. Work should add value to our own lives while it does the same for the world around us…instead of a disconnected opportunity to take for ourselves. It should emphasize and build the relationships between us instead of set us against one another as it does in today’s world in which we literally consume the Earth while diminishing the lives of others at the same time. Ultimately, the result of our work must make the world a better place, because to set the standard lower is to compromise our lives and the Earth. Our work, in this sense, is our ‘contribution’ to the planet and as is true in all things, our impacts are both individual and accumulative. We build or destroy through our combined efforts. This is something we must understand if the human ‘experiment’ is to continue.

On Ecology, Politics and Climate Change: the Links that Tear us Asunder

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Warning!!! This is a rant! It’s political, economic, ecological and, most definitely, covers all of the connections between with climate change, these things and our future as a species.  I hope you choose to read it, but be forewarned!!

I woke up yesterday at 4:30am, unable to go back to sleep, so I got up and began writing this.  The state of the world, the absolute idiocy, meanness and short sightedness of politics today, the undeniable enormity of climate change and its inevitable impacts for every organism on the planet, drives me from paralyzing frustration, to near rage, to profound sadness and despair.  Most days all I can do is seek escape and I do this through gardening, reading eclectically, trying to follow some kind of routine, going for walks, a swim or a hike, sharing time with friends or delving into research on plants and the everyday miracles within them and their wondrously choreographed lives here on this planet….I spent my entire morning writing and rewriting this (and returned to it the following day, now today).  It is me ‘sharing’.  Yes, it’s a rant, it’s a bit of analysis, it’s a window into the world as I see it and it contains a hope I have…that I have to cling to most days, for this world and all that lives upon it, because what we have done, what we continue to do, is so profoundly destructive and disheartening to me. Continue reading →

A Course Correction: The Wild and the Human, On Repairing the Relationship Between Politics, Economics and the Environment

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“We are the odd ones, with bright eyes, that see the wonder of a bountiful world.  We don’t look through rose colored glasses…we’ve only removed the veil that breaks and blinds….Now, to cut the strings that tie us to the lie. ”  Lance Wright, Jan. 2019

Echinops ritro in front of a Miscanthus gracillimus several years ago at Holladay Park. A series of perennial beds were created with help from a notable local designer. For a variety of reasons related to budget, staffing and vandalism, the beds declined.  Beauty, that necessary elixir, truly abounds, but we must be cognizant of the forms in which we accept it and be committed to what it requires to flourish.

Gardeners are my people…well, actually, so are botanists, horticulturists, entomologists, ecologists, the weekend outdoor adventurers who in regular moments of awe, pause to take in the daily wonder of the world…anyone, really, who works with or has become enamored with the living natural world (and I’m going to include geologists too, at least those not taking their livelihood from resource extraction).  I have a theory, that as our modern world becomes increasingly urbanized, and transformed by our use to that which supports urban living, more of us are becoming consciously aware of what we are losing, of the natural world that has been sacrificed, developed, along the way…and in ways, large and small, many, but still far too few of us, are choosing to make our lives reflect this understanding. We question the ‘stuff’ we have crowded our lives with, that ‘stuff’ we’ve spent our lives to procure while following the dream we’ve all been sold on.  Many of us garden on whatever we have available to us whether it’s a quarter acre, a Juliet balcony or a kitchen counter space.  We plant gardens for food or to support pollinators, to have something green and growing in our homes, we grow small succulents for their simple beauty, flowers for the vase or plants that provide cover and fruit for songbirds, there are many reasons…and we do this for the pleasure that it gives us, for the satisfaction that we are doing something to heal an increasingly ‘broken’ world.  Yet the world continues to spiral down into more ugly chaos, in spite of our increasing awareness…it is not enough.  I find myself drawn even more into the wonder and beauty of a single plant, the ‘miracle’ of life and the amazing complexity, the inter-relatedness of living communities…because, in spite of how our society views this planet and the countless organisms it routinely dismisses as secondary, and unnecessary or of little commercial value…life is in fact the center of meaning and value. Continue reading →

Death and Life in the Garden: Learning in the Garden Classroom

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I never used to think of the East Coast when I thought of North American geology slowly, placidly, sinking in to the Atlantic as the entire continent moves easterly heaved up along the western edge of the Pacific Plate with our spectacular scenery, but the whole of New York was ground down between the ice sheets of successive Ice Ages leaving massive granite bedrock and ‘erratics’ along the way as they retreated north with the warming. Everywhere you go, like here in the Native Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, there is evidence of this with its thin rocky soils and rock scarred and channeled from the moving ice that once buried this place, much as it did our own Puget Sound area and points north, leaving coastal British Columbia a network of gouged out sounds and fjords, with mountains rising abruptly many thousands of feet from the sea. I wonder how the little island of my own father’s birth, a 12 mile long strip of soft sandstone, survived to today.
Here the board walk follows the recently reworked ponds in the NYBG’s native plant garden Lobelia cardinalis sparking the scene in September…so different than anything you would find in the maritime Northwest, our rain patterns and base rock responsible for bearing very different soils, even where the ice sheets scraped it down…the patterns and diversity are amazing.
A view on Manhattan, just west of the NYBG, this one at the Met’s Cloisters, the museum’s home of much of its religious art and artifacts, sits high along the banks of the picturesque Hudson River. Buildings in Jersey City and the George Washington Bridge are in the Background. When Rockefellar built this he also purchased the forested bank on the other side to preserve the natural view which also serves to block the sprawl of urban development to its west. The Hudson River Valley is another creation of advancing ice, running north/south with the advancing ice sheet.

As gardeners our hands are ‘bloodied’ with the chlorophyll of plants…while it may not stain us as ‘murderers’, we are never the less complicit in their deaths…as much as we are necessary for their lives.  Without us, as a group, these garden plants would never would have been propagated and, if not for our ‘selfish’ acts in the garden, choosing, designing and displaying them, many would be passing into obscurity, most of us knowing nothing of them or of their loss, their passages into decline and extinction, even more quiet, unnoticed, as too many already do today.  While we may acquire and attempt to grow them with the ‘best’ of intention, eventually, they will all die, ill fit or not, suddenly or after many years in our gardens, as a result of our ignorance, impatience, simple curiosity, our desire for something ‘different’, or even in spite of our best informed efforts.  Death comes to all things and our gardens are no exception.  Our gardens art artificial after all, creations of our making and they do not comprise a viable population that will out live us, reproducing in place, making the adjustments that they must over time to survive.  To do this would take an unprecedented amount of effort and coordination on our part and that of our neighbors.  The setting of our gardens are unique to us and their purposes are much narrowed and more intentional than are the places their progenitors come from, the ‘gardens’ of their origination.  For many of these plants our relationship with them might best be thought of as student to teacher as nature sacrifices itself in an attempt to teach us of what is being lost, ever since we stepped out of the loop that once put us in daily direct contact with nature and came to embrace this modern world and its expectations of consumption, ‘ease’ and never ceasing growth…so it is not ‘murder’, it is life, an attempt to return and reclaim.  There is purpose to be found in our gardens, well beyond surface amusement and distraction in what is too often becoming an ever uglier world, or for some of us our need to impress in a game of one-upmanship.  Nature demands more of us, that we accept our role as student and become careful observers, willing acolytes…maybe even crusaders….Too much? no, I don’t think so. Continue reading →

Fabiana imbricata: the Andean Un-Tomato, a Non-Heath That Looks a lot Like its Cousin Cestrum

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800px-Fabiana_imbricata_HRM2

Fabiana imbricata has an appearance much like the upright and shrubby Erica arborea…maybe mixed with an upright form of Rosemary…providing a remarkable texture in the garden.

In gardening and botany one of the first things we learn is that not everything looks as we might expect that it should!  Fabiana imbricata, is a member of the Tomato Family, the Solanaceae, yet, if you don’t look too close, it looks like it might belong to the Ericaceae.  At one time I was planning to take advantage of this similarity as I was attempting evoke a South African feel in part of my garden substituting this for one of the many tender South African heaths as the correct Erica species are either too tender, of borderline hardiness for my conditions or are simply difficult to come by.  It was sharing an area in the garden with Restio capensis, Eucomis spp., Melianthus spp. and others to give an impression of South Africa, not a strict species for species duplication of a community.  I didn’t quite pull it off….I’ve done much the same thing when substituting tropical looking temperate plants for the real thing when evoking a tropical feel.  It’s a matter of manipulation…a sleight of the garden hand.

Its Chilean Home and Garden Merit

Fabiana imbricata is not from South Africa, though it shares Gondwanan roots, and is endemic in Chile, occurring very frequently throughout much of its Andean range.  It is in fact identified as a ‘keystone’ species strongly effecting the composition of its local plant communities.  It can be found growing from well into the dry region of Coquimbo in the north, just south of the huge Atacama Desert, south into the wet Aysen region with its many islands and inlets south of the Lake District or Zona Sur.  The vast area stretches along much of Chile’s length which can be driven, on often tortuous mountain roads, for over 1,700 mi., stretching from the arid city La Serena to the small, rainforest town of Tortel, in the south, a distance almost 500 miles further than the drive from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles, CA….There are not that many plant species in the world that span a similar latitudinal range with its accompanying climate differences.  As you look for this plant moving from north to south through Chile, the soils and its particular niches change along with the temperature and rainfall.  You are more likely to find this growing exposed in rocky scree in wetter regions to the south, while it tends to be more commonly found on sites more protected from the sun’s intensity and into better soils as you move into the arid and hotter north, more protected from the sun’s tropical intensity.  No surprise there, but overall this is an adaptable plant succeeding in cool rainforest to arid, desert like, conditions.  As would be expected across the more arid portion of its range fire is an important factor in maintaining the plant communities balance, riding it of other competing woody plants  and even aiding it in germination, when followed by ample winter/spring rainfall, though this is obviously not essential for its continuing survival in rainforest areas where fire is much less frequent.   This is a very adaptable species and as we live near the Pacific Coast in the northern hemisphere, which mirrors much of the range of conditions, we should be able to have success with it, if we pay attention to its cold limits.  Those away from the Pacific Coast, especially those with ‘continental’ climates or strong influences from them, will have to pay closer attention. Continue reading →

Our Gardens as Teachers

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The low angle evening sun really lights the red up in this one!
Impatiens omiense fronting a composition including: Vancouver hexandra, Podophyllum pleianthum, Aspidistra elatior, Dryopteris erythrosora, Hosta ‘Sum and Substance’ and Prosartes hookeri (previously Disporum hokkerig). This is the south bed on the 5th St. side of Portland’s City Hall.
Hibiscus x ‘Snow in Summer’, is one of the Fleming Brothers hybrids. The flowers are 8″ in diameter with deeply lobed bronzed leaves.
I learned this plant as Acidanthera murielae 30 years ago, though now its known as Gladiolus callianthus ‘Murielae’ has an elegant symmetrical 3-parted flower other than the missing ‘red’ blotch on the ‘upper’ tepal.
Agave gentryi ‘Jaws’ and Delosperma cooperii both ‘succulents’ that are well adapted to heat and though they do best with an occasional summer soaking.
Hippeastrum x johnsonii, commonly sold at florist shops as Amaryllis, looking much like a Lily, but in family Amaryllidaceae, characterized by its flowers held in umbels. Seen around it are other Monocots, Bilbergia nutans ‘Variegata’, Hakonechloa macro ‘Aureola’ and Astelia chathmatica ‘Silver Spear’.
Beschorneria septentrionalis, a Mexican native and Agave relative in the Asparagaceae. This is not very often successfully pollinated here in our wet early spring. Maybe a couple of fruits ever form where there were dozens of flowers.
A long shot, from beneath the ‘Pagoda’ towards the house and front gate.
My front, ‘hot garden’ facing Gladstone St. Thank you Josh McCullough.
Photo thanks to Josh McCullough
Iris ensata ‘Cascade Crest’ w/ Arundo donax ‘Variegat’ and friends
Manfreda undulate ‘Chocolate Chips’, another Agave family member showing similar flower structure with the extra long filaments and 6 tepals. This plant flowers annually.
Winter structure. This photo, taken in February ’16, shows evergreen substance of the Trachycarpus wagnerianus, Cordyline and the wispy Rhodocoma capensis solidly above the deciduous Molinia, at least until it is cut down.
Looking north in Spring across the pushing Molinia toward the Butia x Jubea in the center with Penstemon left and Acorus on the right.

Of all the things our gardens do for us, arguably the most important is their role as our teachers, even in winter when a temperate garden ‘rests’, its surface crust or top few feet, frozen, maybe sheltered beneath the cover of snow, or, as ours so often are, simply too cold for active plant growth, the soil wet, the rain too heavy to percolate fast enough down through its layers, without the active aid of either the direct heating of the sun or its effect on plants, through evapotranspiration, pumping water back into the air as the plants grow.  Gardens teach patience.  They encourage us to become more careful observers…to think and plan, to anticipate and prepare, to understand that there is more going on here than we can readily see…and they teach us about faith and trust in the natural world, that there is always more going on than we can see. Continue reading →