IT'S ONLY A WEED IF YOU CALL IT THAT.....

People are weird..... or, to be more specific, gardener's are weird people. We demand certain ellusive qualities of plants, that, when you think about it, would make it completly impossible for the them to persist and thrive in any type of natural setting outside of a highly manicured garden. Vigourous, but not so vigorous that the plant ever exceeds some set of contrived dimensions..... flowers continuously, but never sets enough seed to become a nuisance, evergreen, but non-toxic, and (overall) benign in almost every way imaginable.... in a word, plastic. And to find these plants we seem to look everywhere but our own backyards. After all why would you ever look for a plant that does well in your area.... in your area? Completely counter-intuitive I know (this is me being sarcastic).

Overtime I've come to realize that the most compelling places and plants, are those that happen without much input from people, or any input at all. And these accidental "designs" are usually composed of plants that posses nearly all the opposite qualities that I listed previously. Overly vigorous, prolific reseeders, rambling and wide spreading, and sometimes toxic, in a word WEEDS. I've come to hate the word, mainly because it can be used by any joe-shmoe to negatively paint an undeserving plant, usually based on some tempermental whim. This isn't to say that there aren't plants that don't deserve the label, especially when they're exotics that invade endemic habitats. However, when these plants only thrive in places that are a direct result of human disturbance, happy to fill the gap until natives can re-establish, to me, these plants are anything but weeds. Usually beautiful, adaptable, and (one of the qualities that I appreciate most), persistent. Why so many of these plants continue to go untilized by designers is far more than my little mind can comprehend. Over the past few weeks I have taken pictures of these ignored and underappreciated plants on my way to work. A route that in many ways is no different than most peoples, but still has a plethra of wonderful happy accidental spaces, and amazing plants.


Catalpa speciosa (Northern Catalpa)


Robinia psuedoacacia (Black Locust)


Berberis ?vulgaris? (Common Barberry) - Invasive, but still pretty


Asclepias syriaca (Common Milkweed)


Asclepias syriaca (Common Milkweed) and Echium vulgare (Viper's Bugloss, Blueweed)


Asclepias syriaca (Common Milkweed) and Echium vulgare (Viper's Bugloss, Blueweed)


Echium vulgare (Viper's Bugloss, Blueweed)


Echium vulgare (Viper's Bugloss, Blueweed)


Echium vulgare (Viper's Bugloss, Blueweed)



Tragopogon dubius (Wild Oysterplant, Yellow Salsify, Common Salsify)


Silene vulgaris (Bladder Campion)


Galium mollugo or album (Smooth Bedstraw or Hedge Bedstraw)
Definitely going to try to divide this guy for fall.


Vicia cracca (Cow Vetch)


Amorpha fruticosa (False Indigo Bush)



Cichorium intybus (Common Chicory)


Achillea millefolium (Common Yarrow)


Tradescantia virginiana (Virginia Spiderwort)


Spergularia rubra (Red Sand Spurrey)

BYE BYE HEMLOCKS

I'm not gonna pretend to be a climate scientist or any kind of scientist for that matter, but unless you think global warming is the biggest conspiracy in the history of the world, you should probably trust the people who study this crap for a living... all of whom are pretty much in unanimous agreement. Things are getting hotter.... fast!!!! Faster than most plants have the ability to adapt. And if we fail to acknowledge that things are changing and consider how are designs in the long term can be more resilient, or at least better prepared for a hotter, more extreme climate, get ready for lots of crispy, brown, and pathetic looking parks, gardens, and all landscapes in-between.

If you don't believe me (and why should you) just look at the work of any noted plantsman and you'll see that most of them have jumped aboard the climate change boat a while ago. Case and point: William Cullina. In my humble opinion, one of the most knowledgeable plantsman on native fauna of the northeast and mid-atlantic states, his books should be on every gardener/designer's bookshelf.... or kindle....or nook, or whatever the hell people store books on these days. In Wildflowers: A Guide to Growing and Propagating Native Flowers of North Americas, published in 2000, long before Al Gore thought global warming was cool, Cullina addresses how our steadily increasing temperatures will impact our native flora, but more importantly what horticulturalists and landscape professionals can do to help our green friends cope. But, the most interesting and scariest part of this portion of the book is a map showing future projected USDA zones in the year 2075. If you live in Boston and are lucky enough (or not so lucky) to be around in the year 2075, hope you like the weather in Atlanta, GA, cause (at least according to the his extrapolated map) were gonna be solid zone 8 (we're currently zone 6). I've included the current USDA plant hardiness zone map for comparison.



While these extrapolations may seem extreme, and granted they were done over a decade ago, they simply illustrate the point that whatever changes happen over the next century, they’re going to be extreme. Aside from the fact that I hate hot weather, a big downside to this is that the New England I grew up in will no longer exist in as little as 2 generations. And with the emergence of a New New England a lot of our native plants that I have come to know and love, the plants that make home feel like home, will simply not be able survive (or at least persist sustainably) in zone 8 heat. And for those that don't succumb to the heat directly, will probably end up victims of pests that would otherwise be kept at bay by the cold. A perfect example of such a plant, that unfortunately will no longer be a part of our natural heritage by the middle of the century is the Eastern or Canadian Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis). Ubiquitous in central and nothern New England, it’s hard to walk through a hemlock forest and not fall in love with these graceful conifers. But unfortunately, while these plants are fairly indifferent to the cold, they languish in the heat and drought, and will simply not tolerate summers where days above 90 degrees F are common-place. And for those few genetic anomalies that somehow mange to survive the heat, they will most likely fall victim to the (fairly) new exotic pest (Wooly Adelgid) that feeds exclusively on hemlocks, slowly killing all trees it infests (see below).


Wooly Adelgid on Tsuga canadensis (Eastern Hemlock) in my backyard

The one thing preventing the Adelgids from wiping out all hemlocks across their entire range is the cold, (-10 degrees F usually kills off most of the bastards), but unfortunately winters where we reach -10, at least in the Boston area, will become increasingly rare. Ultimately, there are a large group of plants across a large portion of New England that are exclusively adapted to our cold winters, and thrive much further north, but generally can not be found south of zone 7 (rarely zone 8), simply because they can not tolerate the heat. These include plants like Cornus Canadensis (Bunchberry), Gaultheria procumbens (Wintergreen), Cyperpedium acaule (Pink Lady Slipper), Linnaeus borealis (Twinflower), and the list goes on.

For those of you who haven't been following the news (and to be honest it wasn't really covered as much as it should have been) we have recently passed a global milestone (as of May 10, 2013), where CO2 concentration has reached levels it hasn't been at in around 3 MILLION years. Obviously that's way before modern day humans were in the picture, so we really have no idea what were in for. What this means practically is that even if we stop all CO2 production tomorrow, there still will be a marked increase in earths global temperature that is now, for all intensive purposes, set in stone (see article). So….. while we should still do all we can to prevent further global CO2 rise, at this point we must prepare for the inevitable. Both designers and plantsman should work together to begin to ferry native plants northward (and perhaps eastward as well), pulling from ecotypes that are better able to withstand heat and temperature extremes. While some may argue that this may jeopardize the genetic integrity of local populations, the reality is that many of these populations may simply not have the genetic diversity or necessary mutation rate to adapt quickly enough to withstand the unprecedented change that lies ahead of us.

AMERICA!, THE LAND OF THE FREE..... AND F***ING LAZY!!!

BREAKING NEWS!!!!
Scientist have conclusively determined that unnecessarily and ridiculously huge lawn mowers destroy both your youth and diginity. This young man bought his massively clunky mower just last week.



Now look at him.



Unfortunately, the only cure for D.U.M.B.A.S.S. (Douchebags Unnecessarily Mowing With Artillary Sized Setups) sydrome is common sense and maybe a little bit of reading, which for most of these poor unfortunate individuals does not make for a very good prognosis. In most instances they sadly and inevitably end up looking something like an albino version of Jaba the Hut (see below):




.....Ok ok, so I might have an oddly strong dislike of ride-on mowers, but in reality it's not the mowers themselves but what they represent.... no, actually, on second thought I hate the mowers too. Anyway, for most people when you say "pollution" the first image that comes to mind is something like this:



But the reality is more something like this:



The main source of my disdain when it comes to these types of mowers is they simply don't make sense on any level. Lawn grasses (and almost every cultivated plant out there) like freely draining soils with lots of pore space. As you can imagine, repeatedly driving a machine over soil that weighs as much as a rhino, plus the added weight of a (usually more than slightly over-sized) person is not good. It's similar to what happens when you push down hard on a sponge with the palm of your hand, except, unlike a sponge, soil does not spring back after its squished. Once the poor space is gone, its gone. Compacted soils have a greatly reduced capacity to hold and retain water as well as the ability to support the microbial communities necessary for healthy plant growth, resulting in weaker, less vigorous plants that are more susceptible to drought and disease.

And then of course, to compensate for the damage done by compacted soils people apply a vast array of chemicals that (surpise, suprise!) end up running off and contaminating our waterways. And even if no chemicals are applied, excess runoff caused by overly compacted soil is still very damaging to natural systems.

And I won't even get started on all the other types of pollution and damage caused by these pointless behemoths. I'll just let this article speak for me (yes I know its from 2010, but its still very much relevant). While I realize that they generalize for all gas powered mowers, I think we can safely assume that ride-ons would be worse, not better than their push counterparts. And just in case you don't read it, here are the highlights:

For mowers sold pre-2012 (and I'm going to assume here that this would be the best one could hope for, if you have an older mower, assume that its worse than this):
"...in an hour a push mower will produce the same HC+NOx as a car driven 257 miles, and the same CO as one driven 401 miles. To put it another way, assuming a car averages 40 miles per hour, a push mower produces more HC+NOx than six cars and the same CO as ten."

For mowers sold during and after 2012:
"....a push mower may produce as much HC+NOx as a car driven 160 miles — in other words, one lawn mower would equal four cars."

And just to bring it home here's another fun fact: In 2007 the EPA estimated that lawn mowers contribute 5 percent (5 freaken percent!!!!) to our country's greenhouse gas emissions.

The truth is I prefer we get rid of lawns wherever possible, but I know that's not gonna happen anytime soon. So here are a few tips to for a healthier lawn, healthier environment, and healthier you.

1. You should be able to easily move the mower without the engine running. The lighter the better, so if the mower weighs more than you do, find another mower.

2. Ask about emission standards. If the person selling you the mower doesn't know, or doesn't directly answer the question, find another mower.

3. Push reel?, Electric?, Robotic?,..... The mower that's right for your neighbor may not be right for you. Here's an article that helps weigh the pros and cons. I'm going to try out one of the robotic mowers myself this summer.

It may look like it might kill you in your sleep, but at least it has zero emissions!


4. Always keep your mower properly maintained and take extra precautions when refilling if it runs on gasoline. Accidents are bound to happen, so always spread out a thick rag or other absorbent material below to catch any spillage that might occur. Store these rags properly.

5. If your soil profile is lacking (less than 6" deep) or its extremely clayey, or very acidic, just accept the fact that you will never have the type of lawn you see on a golf course (and no ones lawn should really look like that anyway).

6. I can't really get into depth about this without writing a whole other post, but (in addition to soil) the foundation of a lush, green lawn begins with properly selected grasses for your specific location and climate. There are always newer, better grass varieties that have been breed for increased drought tolerance as well as dwarf characteristics (which means less mowing for you). High Country Gardens always seems to have a good offering of the newest and the best, but if you have no idea where to begin just start googling (try "turfgrass selection" + your state). Also If your lawn is ten years or older, you may want to consider interplanting or replacing it with newer varieties.

7. Weeds are a part of life. Accept them and get over it.

I could go on, but I'm sure most of you have already stopped reading (and I don't really feel like writing anymore). Just rememeber, a little less of this:



and a lot more this!
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