Gardening in Public: The Duniway Park Experiment

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Portland Parks: horticultural profiles series

I’m almost a little embarrassed to post this article….  Most of my earlier project were much smaller, more like bandaids.  This is the first Park I went through more systematically assessing, horticulturally, and trying to correct landscape ‘problems’ with entirely different plantings. We generally weren’t expected to do more than little fixes and bandaids.  Larger issues were considered beyond our scope and should be addressed by our Planning Division, with master plans and all of that.  The Bureau was, however, neither staffed nor funded to do master plans which is a laborious and time consuming process.  They were few and far between.  So, as I said, this was my first go at it, though I don’t claim to have created a master plan in the process.  My time was even more limited. Continue reading →

The Subterranean Dance: Plants, Nutrients, Water and Their Relationship in Soil Health

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The western coast of North America is home to an amazing array of landscapes each with its particular climate and range of soils. This is in the California coastal range looking southerly towards the distant Bay area across meadow, native Coast Live Oak, Doug Fir and the Coast Redwood of the Armstrong Grove in the lower creek bottom land.

The western coast of North America is home to an amazing array of landscapes each with its particular climate and range of soils. This is in the California coastal range looking southerly towards the distant Bay area across meadow, native Coast Live Oak, Doug Fir and the Coast Redwood of the Armstrong Grove in the lower creek bottom land.

Third in the Water Series

As I seem to keep repeating, water, makes life possible. Plants and animals, with too little, die. Soil, in a very real sense is alive as well, and requires water to animate it. Without water the teeming organisms that occupy and comprise it, die or lie dormant until they are rehydrated. Topsoil, that thin layer upon which all terrestrial plants rely, is a swarming, largely invisible, community. Its effect on all life are essential and intimate. Topsoil is where all of terrestrial life is grounded. It’s health and vitality reflects that of the life on the surface including our own. As humans we are essentially consumers and, if we are to survive, stewards of the life upon which we depend. Plants are the creators. That is perhaps a bit simplistic because the relationship between plant, animal and earth is considerably more complicated. Life has evolved together, each species, each element, and, because of this, is part of an integrated whole. Continue reading →

Turf in Public Parks – a note

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The upper portion of Duniway Park. A Nyssa sylvatica growing at the toe of the slope below OHSU. The turf is completely unirrigated, is very compacted and has poor drainage. In much of it is dominated by a few broad leaf weeds while most of the grasses that survive are weedy as well. The whole Park is built over one of Portland's first dumps.

The upper portion of Duniway Park. A Nyssa sylvatica growing at the toe of the slope below OHSU. The turf is completely unirrigated, is very compacted and has poor drainage. Much of this turf is dominated by a few broad leaf weeds while most of the grasses that survive are weedy as well. The whole Park is built over one of Portland’s first dumps.

I wrote what follows a couple of years ago while still a horticulturist with Portland Parks and Recreation.  It was an addendum to a piece I wrote addressing a different approach for prioritizing work in Park landscapes and is reproduced here, with slight changes, as i originally wrote it.  I thought of it more recently as I’ve watched Portland bake this summer and observed, consequently, the decline of residential and Parks lawns. I am a big proponent of ‘sustainable’ landscapes.  That does not prevent me from seeing the necessity for grass lawns in urban areas especially in cities as they follow the path to increased density for sustainability issues as well.  People ‘need’ open space and as we all ‘suffer’ from our own shrinking of private outdoor space, the need for such public spaces increases.  But turf cannot fill the need if it is poorly maintained.  Dormant, dry, compacted weed dominated lawns are both unattractive and less functional.  Open spaces are not all the same.  Ugliness can degrade them to the point of rendering them almost useless in terms of their human value (We often speak of habitat value for wildlife and in terms of water quality.  We spend less public time discussing what is of basic human value.  What we require to meet our very real and ‘animal’ needs.  Not all of our legitimate needs can be met by buying products and services.)

Vigorous grass based turf is not sustainable. It is a monoculture susceptible to weed invasion that requires regular care, including, irrigation, mowing, fertilization, aeration to reduce compaction, occasional dethatching, control of moles and, for the best stands, the occasional well timed application of an herbicide and insecticide. Having said this, I still see it as a vital component of our Parks.  Portland Parks and Recreation has other priorities making exceptions Park by Park, though select athletic fields for playability and safety reasons are still irrigated. (Other Parks Districts, notably places like Bend, OR, with a desert environment, have prioritized having good quality turf in public areas). No other surface provides the functionality and value of turf grass in an urban environment. It absorbs rainfall; reduces the problems of mud and dust and helps control the erosion that accompanies bare soil; provides a firm, but shock absorbing surface for activities; aids with cooling the urban heat island; provides a restful carpet of green that helps calm a potentially chaotic visual world; and, provides a surface for young children to play on or family and friends to relax or picnic on. As urban density increases, the need for public open space increases. We need lawn. Concrete, pavers and asphalt will never fill all of this need. An argument can easily be made that rich healthy lawns better fill this human need when they are in Parks than scattered thinly through residential neighborhoods in front and backyards where they are individually too small or inaccessible to meet the public need. Continue reading →

Following the Vascular Trail: The Path of Water from Soil to Atmosphere

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Oak Savanna on a dry hilltop in Shiloh Ranch Regional Park, Sonoma County, California.

Oak Savanna on a dry hilltop in Shiloh Ranch Regional Park, Sonoma County, California.

Second in the Water Series

Try to imagine life without water….No matter how dry it may seem to be here, the soil cracked open in supplication, the lawns toasted and tan, Rhododendrons with their leaves curled and burnt along their margins, Vine and Japanese Maples, their leaves crisped blowing down curbs in late summer’s heat, there is water…everywhere, locked deeply in tissues, bound tightly to soil particles. Like most things, there are no absolutes with water. It is not simply here then gone, but on a continuum of availability. Biological scientists and agronomists will often speak of ‘dry weight’ when looking at growth trying to minimize the variability of water weight in living organisms. They bake the subject in autoclaves reducing water weight to zero without igniting and burning the carbon and more ‘solid’ structure to ash. There is water throughout the structure of plants, hydrating their cells, making possible the many processes at work within them. There is water in the atmosphere even on a blistering hot and clear day in the form of vapor effecting everything from the Evapotranspiration Rate, (ET), to how hot or cold we may feel beyond what the thermometer reads; and there is water in the soil though our plants be wilting or dead of desiccation, and it effectively sucks the moisture from our skin when we work bare handed in it. Water is everywhere even in the dry periods within the desert and, nature is okay with that and has in fact adjusted to it. Our gardens, however, are anomalies we’ve created. We are invested in them and as gardeners we do what we can to assure their survival, and more, their success! Continue reading →

Water, Irrigation, Xeric: Related and Essential Garden Vocabulary

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The fountain in the Peninsula Park Rose Garden, a frosty February morning

Water, beautiful and essential.  The fountain in the Peninsula Park Rose Garden, a frosty February morning

First in the Water Series

Water is essential to all life on Earth. It comprises a very significant percentage of the mass of every life form. It is the vehicle without which the various metabolic processes would cease. It dissolves and carries in solution the many elements organisms require to build their tissues. It helps produce the conditions necessary for other supporting life forms.  In it’s heating and cooling it creates the weather that helps define the parameters and limits to life in any given place. It works as an erosive medium breaking down landscapes and helping create new ones upon which life adapts and grows. Water moves across and through the surfaces of the Earth in a dynamic yet stable manner helping create the conditions within which life may evolve. It fills that sweet spot moving readily from gaseous form to liquid to solid where our water/carbon based life forms can take advantage of its transformations.  Without it life as we know it would end.  With our disruption, we have altered the pathways and cycling of water across the landscape and so have altered the conditions under which life must live, cutting down forests, draining wetlands, channelizing streams, grading and paving the Earth’s surface. Our actions have directly impacted every habitat, every landscape, on Earth. We are even changing the weather patterns themselves, changing the conditions within which it operates driven by the sun’s energy.  We are massively altering the Earth’s landscapes and its atmosphere in which all of this happens. It is taking on a ‘life’ of its own as we accelerate the rates of deforestation, desertification, expanding urban heat islands, while we continue the mining and burning of carbon previously sequestered for millions of years pressing us on into massive perturbations in our climate patterns. Everything is connected to water. Continue reading →

Musa basjoo to Musa sikkimensis to Musa s. ‘Red Tiger’: Garden Updates, July 1, ’15

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Musa sikkimense with soft back light

Musa sikkimense with soft back light. That’s Canna ‘Bengal Tiger’ with its pin-stripping in the background and Bowle’s Golden Carex low to the right

I suppose there are gardeners out there who are completely satisfied with their gardens and have no plans for changes, expansions or wholesale overhaul, but not me.  Musa basjoo was my first Banana plant.  I grew it for several years.  It is still widely grown in our region.  There’s nothing wrong with it, but I removed mine and replaced it with Musa sikkimensis, the plant pictured above.  In my opinion the foliage, and the way it is carried on the plant, is superior to M. basjoo.  First, is the more vertical angle that it holds its leaves.  This shows off the underside of the leaves and lets morning or afternoon sun light illuminate the leaves causing them to ‘glow’.  The red mid-rib of the leaves really stand out!  In M. basjoo, this doesn’t happen because they’re held in a nearly flat position.  M. basjoo also lacks the red mid-rib.  Next, and this is my opinion from having watched these plants over a period of years, is that M. sikkimensis allows its leaves to ‘flutter in a breeze lettting it ‘spill’ more wind preventing some of the shredding that can afflict Bananas on windy sites, something like the larger Ensete does.  So, why am I preparing to remove it now and swap it out? Continue reading →

The Day After Our Open Garden for the HPSO Study Weekend

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IMG_2905Ultimately it has been rejuvenating and exhilarating, but for the previous several weeks, especially the last two, there has been much anxiety around my garden.  The usual litany of issues came up…failed plants, replacements that were slow, but realistic, in their efforts to establish and grow in, procrastination, a little trepidation, a vacation in March, in April and early June, I know, no tears for this one, and then throw in the freakishly warm dry spring with most of my soil looking like it was later July rather than June (Those of you who don’t know, the maritime Pacific Northwest, has normally dry summers…they just don’t usually start until July!), stressing new and established mesic plants as well as pushing them rapidly, and too often, through their flowering cycle…, and I was more stressed than my plants.  But all was good after hours of fretting and working while Julie prompted and supported me, showing great patience, and joining in by doing much of the necessary mulching, to help hide the worst scars, general clean up, needed painting, errands and the staging that helps everything look ‘finished’.  The response from Study Weekend visitors, were there really over 400?, was over-whelmingly positive.  We can all be overly critical of our own gardens.  We know their scars and faults intimately.  Friday and Sunday I was able to get to most of the other open gardens, Saturday was just too busy here, and like most garden visitors it is wonderful to see what others are doing, beautiful plants, perfect little vignettes, framing and views, things we have forgotten and others we hadn’t yet imagined, each garden unique with its own style, intent and feeling.  I think most of us are more forgiving of others errors, don’t see them or don’t feel them with such depth that the resident gardener might.  Overall, it has been a powerful and positive experience, one that I had been missing for awhile since I retired.  I highly recommend it to any gardener.  Now, we can kick back enjoy our garden and entertain friends as always intended…as long as it doesn’t fry!!! Continue reading →

On Planting in Drought Conditions: the Relationship of Roots, Water and Soil

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I had a novice gardening friend ask me the other day about planting the dry, xeric, part of her yard.  Many of you know how abnormally dry and warm a spring/June it’s been here.  Those of us with gardens requiring routine irrigation started a few weeks ago and we’re expected to be heading into an extended hot/dry period over the next 8 or 9 days with temps over 90 F. (While it is not unusual to experience 80+ deg. days here in June it is unusual when you look at our overall pattern this spring.  Remember that we can also have Junes where it is common not to get out of the 60’s with our famous Portland drizzle day after day while we wait for July and the ‘beginning’ of summer.)  She was anxious to get her new plants in the ground and was asking me about amendments as the soil was baked and hard…. Continue reading →

On Healing the ‘Broken’ Urban Landscape: Portland’s Holgate Overpass & the Brooklyn Yards

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This is the section south and adjacent to the west approach. It was rough mown in early June down slope to the Blackberries and east to the Box Elder in the background. You can see the blue flowers of the Chickory.

This is the section south and adjacent to the west approach. It was rough mown in early June down slope to the Blackberries and east to the Box Elder in the background. You can see the blue flowers of the Chickory and the Fennel.

Walking the Holgate overpass across the Brooklyn Switching Yard, with its adjacent container operation, is anything but pleasant. Trucks, trains, blasting horns and the four lanes of traffic whizzing by next to the 5′ wide sidewalks wipe away the positives of the views across the river and to downtown.  Most people probably don’t think of places like this as ‘landscapes’, but in the broader sense they are. Landscapes, most simply, are the places that we occupy, whether they are artfully designed, narrowly utilitarian, neglected, forgotten or simply dismissed. They become ‘landscapes’ through our occupying them or merely perceiving them. They are places we are in relationship with. Holgate is a traffic corridor for automobiles. Here is where it crosses the north south railroad line and the region’s major container handling yard. Car and truck traffic are heavy, at times, nearly non-stop. This is the only east-west route between Powell Blvd. and Bybee, and Bybee is intended for, and used by, more local traffic. It is loud. Traffic typically is moving a 35-45 mph although it’s posted 30.  The sidewalk is relatively narrow and this zone of unpleasantness is over a third of a mile long, an expanse from which there is no ‘escape’ for the pedestrian beyond enduring it. Since I retired, and weather permitting, I walk it once or twice a week on my way to the gym for a swim. Continue reading →

My Garden: Behind the Scenes

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Photo thanks to Josh McCullough

Photo thanks to Josh McCullough

Overall, mine is a sunny warm garden.  Like any landscape or garden it is defined or described by its: place, design and plant choices. Where these three all come together, you have a garden. Each one presents itself as, what some might view, a daunting array of options or possibilities.

What exactly do I include under ‘place’?  Certainly climate, exposure, aspect, slope, soils and the ‘history’ of gardening and ‘disturbance’ on the site. It also includes the larger surrounding landscape, the context within which it is located and the physical ‘features’ built and natural with which it will be a part.  The story of a place is important.  Place, is the major limiting factor in a garden. Gardens are also defined by the choices we make. Each choice precludes others. In a very real sense gardening is a process of limitation. ‘If this then not that’.  What we need to be aware of is that these, design and plant choices, these limitations, can either work together or compound each other when not made with awareness.  When design and/or plant choices ignore place, the gardener must overcome all of the ‘conflicts’ this choice has put in to play, or face ‘failure’.
Continue reading →