Waterfront Parks: Success and a Question of Purpose

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Okay, this is not Vancouver. It is Victoria Harbor, looking at their Fisherman’s Wharf across from where we stayed. I haven’t been back to Vancouver for a few years and as a result of an accident and poor back up, I lost all of those pictures. Right country, almost the same latitude, with a gorgeous natural harbor you would have to try hard to screw up!

Vancouver, B.C., has a beautiful waterfront south of downtown along False Creek merging urban development with pedestrian scale Park.  This is a busy international city, Canada’s major west coast port and a major center of the arts.  Granville Island pokes up out of the inlet housing the ‘Emily Carr University of Art and Design’ among other centers.  BC Place, the site of last summer’s Women’s World Cup Championship, resides a little more inland still close to the water.  Here the city is built  to advantage along its waterfront.  Of course on the north side is the famous and beautiful Stanley Park and a more urban edge snugging up to Vancouver Harbor, with an amazing view across it and on to the snow covered mountains including Grouse and Whistler not far to the north.  Pedestrians abound. while commercial shipping on a large scale moves in the middle distance, along with the many float planes private, tourist and small commuters.  It is around False Creek where the City has more recently redefined its relationship with the water.  It is a gorgeous setting.  All combined Vancouver’s, new and old, waterfront is my favorite along the West Coast, ahead of Seattle and San Francisco. Continue reading →

Chilling, Freezing & Surviving: Understanding Hardiness & Preparing Your Plants for Winter

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Parrotia persica, Persian Ironwood, has long been among my favorite trees, for its leaf shape, substance, fall color, the overall plant form and for its exfoliating puzzled bark. Hardy to zn4 this plant is tough as nails here requiring no protective effort at all.

[A note to the reader. This is not a scholarly treatment of all of the peer reviewed material on this topic.  There are no footnotes or listed sources.  This is a product of my more than 35 years of horticultural field experience and gardening along with what I’ve gleaned from reading several technical peer reviewed articles on the subject.  Such material is difficult to read and can be off putting and intimidating to even the educated layperson.  This posting is my attempt at interpreting the research and reviews that I read in a way I think is understandable without overwhelming the reader with bi0-chemistry and the technical esoterica scientists must consider in their pursuit of understanding.  Any faults are mine.]

I’ve been thinking about plants and their response to cold having watched the deciduous trees drop their leaves, dug tender plants out of the garden and moved pots around to where they would be adequately protected from freezing temperatures.  We all know what happens to water when it freezes, going from a liquid state to a solid one, its molecules forming crystalline structures, expanded and rigid, responsible for burst water pipes and snowflakes.  Water possesses some amazing qualities, as a solid, kind of counter-intuitively, it becomes less dense floating rather than sinking even taking on some insulative qualities and stopping the convective flow of heat that is normal in liquid water.  At the instant of freezing water releases a small but measurable amount of heat. What happens inside plants when temperatures drop below freezing? How does the plant keep from bursting its own cell walls like the water in pipes within an unheated crawl space or wall cavity of a building?  You’ve seen what happens to plants like Coleus and the sodden black heaps they become upon thawing out. Continue reading →

TriMet’s Orange Line Landscapes: SW Lincoln & 4th to SE Milwaukie Ave

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[I had been delaying the posting of this entry as I was waiting to meet the project manager with TriMet.  As I’ve heard nothing back from him, I’m going ahead and posting.  It would seem that my earlier posts concerned him, but I suspect now that time has passed and the sky has not fallen…he has moved on to more pressing matters.  It is a common tactic not to engage ‘critics’ so as not to give them any energy.  Ignoring critics can be effective, albeit, a very frustrating treatment to the one who is being ignored.]

Part 3 of the Series

This is an introductory note.  Yes, I realize I started the series in the middle, in a linear thinking world this would have been the first posting, but I live nearest the middle portion of the Line…and I have my own motives. Those of you who don’t know me, I do not mean this to be overly critical in spirit.  I’m a person who is always thinking what next? How can I do this better?  I have similar high expectations of the organizations around me.  Organizations all tend to be conservative in action.  There is a reason mature bureaucracies have a reputation for mediocrity.  It is not my intent to question the intent of TriMet or of its hired contractors.  I am a big supporter of transforming our City into a more livable place and the Orange Line is part of that.  There is nothing to be gained through polarizing a situation or setting someone up as ‘the bad guy’ and putting them unnecessarily on the defensive…having said that, sometimes a ‘push’ is in order.  We live in times of rapid change, many of them destructive, and it does no one any good to not work toward the changes that they see as positive.  That is my intent here.

I began this series with a discussion of scale and how it acts as a magnifier.  I spent some time talking about the problems caused by compacted, heavily disturbed, soils and I emphasized the issues created by a history of bad weed management…this first section of the Orange Line landscapes, from SE 11th to its beginning at SW Lincoln and 4th is heavily impacted by these factors.  Built on heavily graded and or imported fill, often on abandoned industrial sites, on or adjacent to sites that have been out of control weed generators for decades, this section may pose the biggest problem for landscape maintenance of all.

It is dangerous to assume that a new urban landscape is created on a ‘blank slate’.  Merely scraping a landscape off and beginning anew does not return it magically to its ‘pristine’ condition prior to the arrival of ‘modern’ white American culture and all of our accumulative impacts.  To be successful some effort must be expended to ameliorate at least the worst of these conditions.  Even if we make our ‘best’ effort to do this, landscapes such as these with their ‘heavy’ impact histories will present a powerful challenge to those charged with maintenance.  It is easy to underestimate the severity of this problem.  We have developed an ‘alien’ aesthetic that really doesn’t belong anywhere and as such is outside the bounds of the function of the normal cycling of energy and resources common to nature.  We impose this aesthetic and our designs on our landscapes and then expend a great deal of energy, in the form of labor and chemistry, to maintain them, or they quickly degenerate.  In some ways it would have made maintenance much simpler to have buried all of the surface beneath concrete sealing the problems beneath it.  But then the priorities of urban tree canopy, the capture and ‘treatment’ onsite  of stormwater would have been negated, the possibility of groundwater recharge further reduced and the ‘softening’ of a very hard edged urban ‘landscape’ stymied. Continue reading →

Selecting Trees: Surviving in Hell(Strips)!

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This Liriodendron tulipifera, a heritage tree in my neighborhood, has a canopy over 90' across. It is a beautiful and dominating tree dropping tons of drain clogging leaves and negating any need for actual street trees in the vicinity.

This Liriodendron tulipifera, a heritage tree in my neighborhood, has a canopy 90′ across. It is a beautiful and dominating tree dropping tons of drain clogging leaves and negating any need for actual street trees in the vicinity.  Little can grow in the dry shade beneath it.

I’m a horticulturist, a person trained and practiced in the ‘art and science of growing plants’…a classification to which trees belong. I’m not a ‘tree expert’ though I like to think I’ve learned a few things having spent most of my last 35+ years out working in the landscape, planting, caring for, diagnosing and designing, the bulk of which was maintenance, trouble shooting and tweaking landscapes so that they work ‘better’. Trees were always part of it…so I have opinions.

            [One of the lessons most of us learn on our journey to adulthood is to avoid the topics of religion and politics in casual conversation. These can be very divisive. In Portland the topic of trees can also elicit strong feelings amongst their advocates. The City of Portland has worked toward the protection of its trees. Here we have, in many cases, codified the planting, pruning and removal of trees in an attempt to stop the most egregious offenses and to expand the urban tree canopy. The City, through its Forestry Division, also works to help educate a public that too often has little to no connection to the green growing world. It is a huge task especially when so many other public institutions, like public schools, play almost no role. I spent the biggest part of my professional work life in Portland Parks and Recreation and I know that most Park’s staff have a passion for the work as well, even after years of working in a very political atmosphere with inadequate support. It would wear on anybody. So when I criticize aspects of the City’s tree program I want to be very clear that I am not criticizing the people or their intent.]

Portland loves its trees, except for the malcontents who view each leaf that falls on their property as an affront not to be tolerated, oh, and those developers looking to build and cash in on ever square foot of space that they can appropriate. Yes, these people are out there, just as are there opposite. Continue reading →

Choosing Trees for Larger Public Landscapes (and your yard!)

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Still one of my favorite Oak photos. This one take in the late afternoon beneath a canopy of Interior Live Oak (I think) at Shiloh Ranch Park, last March.

Still one of my favorite Oak photos. This one take in the late afternoon beneath a canopy of Interior Live Oak (I think) at Shiloh Ranch RegionalPark, near Windsor, CA, last March.

A friend recently asked me if I had some favorite trees that I would recommend for planting on school landscapes, that would be like asking if I had favorite park trees, no I don’t…and I don’t have a list of proven performers either. A planting site being located at a school, only tells me something about the uses/abuses one can likely expect on a site, and nothing more. When we choose plants we need to be paying attention to a lot more than that. Many people are intimidated when it comes to choosing trees, there are so many and potentially, they live so long, growing from year to year…all of this tends to magnify the ‘weight’ of our decision.  People often look for short cuts because there are so many things to keep in mind when choosing. There are two major questions that need consideration first, the site conditions and design, what will the tree have to put up with and what do you expect? Continue reading →

Tri-Met’s Orange Line Landscapes: Bybee Stop to Oak Grove

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Part 2 of the Orange Line series

Looking south from the top of the stairs at the Bybee Stop. This is pretty much the same view as looking north with respect to the landscape.

Looking south from the top of the stairs at the Bybee Stop. This is pretty much the same view as looking north with respect to the landscape.  BNSF’s tracks lie to the left, the east.  The railroads have their own ‘landscape’ maintenance standards set primarily for safety reasons.  Within so many feet of their tracks they have a zero tolerance for plant growth and use sterilants.  There is also a zone within which the will ‘brush back’ trees and shrubs to keep site lines open.  Metro will have its own standard.  The two side by side show their combined effect.  Also, typically railroads do not fence off their tracks making clear sight lines a more pressing safety concern.  Trimet has fenced off the tracks from casual pedestrian ‘conflicts’.  Fencelines are problematic for maintenance unless ‘dead zones’ are expanded to include both sides.

Heading south of the Harold St. overpass the Orange Line leaves the most urbanized portion of its route, or at least its most densely populated stretch.  Traveling south to the Bybee, the Tacoma/Sellwood and then the Milwaukie stops, the line run alongside the BNSF tracks and there is very little ‘landscaping’ of the corridor.  The railroads contract out maintenance of their thousands of miles of tracks. (For a brief look into their approach check this link.) Continue reading →

Tri-Met’s Orange Line Landscapes: Clinton & SE 12th to Harold St.

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This shows the banded pattern common today in long mass plantings each swath a single species.

This shows the banded pattern common today in long mass plantings each swath a single species going for a kind of landscape scale ‘graphic’ pattern that is less concerned with ‘fit’.  This is near the Clinton/ SE 12th stop.

Size matters.  In horticulture it changes everything.  Things that are inconsequential, or maybe even enjoyable in the backyard garden, can quickly become daunting or onerous when the scale is ramped up.  Working at a commercial or institutional scale has to change your entire approach to the landscape.  In a small garden it is easier to accommodate mistakes, the conflicted combinations and those issues of horticultural ‘fit’ that we missed when we design or install.  Scale, however, rubs our faces in it everyday, makes us pay with aching backs as unintended consequences play out across the thousands of sq.ft. and acres.  It becomes a matter of physical survival and undermines your professionalism.  You become perforce part laborer, part diagnostician, designer, plantsman and critic….Out of necessity you sharpen your critical thinking skills and the last thing you ever wanted, your sales skills, as you work to sell your ideas to management who are absurdly ignorant of the problems you face everyday in the field.  And, then, eventually, you retire, but you don’t turn it off…you can’t.

Which brings me to the MAX Orange Line and its landscapes.  When I did horticultural design review for large capital Parks projects, it often felt like a dueling match.  I would pour over the design, whatever the stage it was in, match that with my particular knowledge of site conditions and my maintenance experience within Parks.  I would state my concerns on paper and in meetings with the Project Managers and Architects.  I was stubborn and consistently found myself up against a process that undervalued horticulture and my input.  Good horticultural practice was regularly placed in a losing position opposite not just that of the Landscape Architects but of a very political process that tried to give the public what it wanted as long as it fit within the Architect’s vision.  Horticulture always came out a poor third, even though good horticulture always saves money in the mid and long runs.  It was exasperating.  The public, by and large is ignorant of horticultural practice and no effort is made to educate them at any level. Continue reading →

Political Paralysis, Direct Democracy and Personal Action: If the People Lead the Leaders will Follow

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This is off topic, so If you’re looking for a horticultural twist here, there isn’t one.  Those of you who don’t know me should understand that my first degree was in Sociology, that I had intended a career in urban planning.  Things happened.  The fit was wrong.  But, the function of our social institutions, like our political system, has always fascinated and exasperated me.  I am not a man of faith as a rule and I expect those above me to demonstrate their competence and hearts in their work.  Words are too often used as a smoke screen.  I think we are way beyond the point where words can substitute for action.  So, here we go.

What’s on my mind? Lots lately. The growing crisis in affordable housing here. The yawning chasm between the super wealthy and the rest of us and their spending of money to buy legislation and Congress, climate change which apparently has been banned from some states…the solution should be so simple….
The letter below is what I’ve been thinking of most recently, a letter to Americans of all political affiliations and stripes. The future is upon us friends. We have not been invited to the party!!!

Letter to America

I am a bit obsessive in the way that I look at the world. I can’t let it go though I’m regularly told that I would be happier if I did. Global warming, the looming Cascadian Subduction Zone Quake, the yawning chasm between the super wealthy and the rest of us, the violence and war that has become common place, a growing human population that is putting every resource under increasing pressure from arable land, to fresh water, building materials and petroleum to wildlife habitat and the wild places that can replenish our spirits and restore us; Congress and governments at every level that seem incapable of ‘correcting’ anything, mired in juvenile squabbles, the mind numbing loss of species worldwide and in our own country that we seem resigned to, oh well, what can be done? There is a blasé sense of resignation that takes the place of a meaningful public dialogue…that and finger pointing. And our leaders seem okay with it. Continue reading →

Revisiting Holgate Overpass: A Mistake Repeated

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Holgate Overpass - the northeast approach. This was taken Aug. 28 of the landscape cut down in April showing regrowth in a hot drought year.

Holgate Overpass – the northeast approach. This was taken Aug. 28 of the landscape cut down in April showing regrowth in a hot drought year.

Holgate Overpass Update:

It finally rained this last weekend!  Somewhere around .3″.  Woohoo!  It will be the most rain that we’ve received since March.  It’s been dry!  In April the City cut down the ‘weedscape’ on the northeast approach of the Holgate Overpass.  It’s rained very little since and we’ve had record warm temperatures all summer.  No one has come back to spray, plant or do anything.  No one’s even picked up the trash.  If you compare the four ‘weedscapes’ on the two approaches they are very similar.  The NE, by volume has had the most regrowth.  This is for two different reasons: first, this site was cut earlier in the season when there was more moisture still in the soil to enable regrowth, and secondly, because the site is dominated by Blackberry and Tree of Heaven, both perennials, well established and of larger stature than the plants dominating the other approach landscapes. Continue reading →

The Plaza Blocks – Practicing Horticulture at Lownsdale and Chapman Squares

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The Spanish American War Memorial the the Federal Courthouse behind. A recent Elm stump in the left foreground and another behind and right of the Memorial. Ringing the memorial is Pachysandra, Hosta and Clethra alnifolia. These take a lot of abuse from playing kids and posing tourists crossing back and forth.

The Spanish American War Memorial with the Federal Courthouse behind. A recent Elm stump in the left foreground and another behind and right of the Memorial, the further had a cavity for several years housing raccoons, but the tree began to split. Ringing the memorial is Pachysandra, Hosta and Clethra alnifolia ;Hummingbird’. These take a lot of abuse from playing kids and posing tourists crossing back and forth.

Chapman and Lownsdale Squares sit aside each other on SW Main with the ‘Elk Fountain’ (the anatomically incorrect Elk, or at least disproportionate)holding the neutral ground in between, the street splitting traffic that flows around it like a boulder in a stream. These are among the City’s oldest Parks. Laid out formally they are nearly mirror images of one another, sidewalks hugging the streets without parking strips to shield them, a crossing pattern of concrete marking them boldly with an ‘X’, lined with metal benches, a center axis and each with a restroom building on opposite sides…the north, on Lownsdale serving as the men’s restroom with the more machismo memorials to the Spanish American War and the south, on Chapman, the women’s with its sculptural tribute to pioneer families Bible in hand. This is a carry over from the early days when each Park served as a respite for the opposite sex where one could publically relax without being ‘bothered’. As were most western territorial towns, Portland’s population was dominated by men and women were often brought here as wives or as part of commercial ventures. Somewhere here was the site of the gallows, erected as need be, up until 1870 or so when the state banned public executions. More recently it has served as a respite for government workers, lawyers, officers and staff of our courts and jail, or visitors to either, taking their breaks, having lunch or getting a few minutes of air as they cross on their way to an appointment. Walking tours and school groups wander through pausing at the monuments. Others congregate here too, sometimes for rallys or protests within earshot of government offices. There are almost always a few members of Portland’s homeless community about taking a few moments or more in the shade of the large Elms and Gingkos. It was also the site of Portland’s own ‘Occupy’ movement in the Fall of ’11. Continue reading →